Fathers

Ephesians 5

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Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance. But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not appropriate, but rather giving of thanks. Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. Therefore don’t be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is well pleasing to the Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things, when they are reproved, are revealed by the light, for everything that reveals is light. Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Therefore watch carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Don’t be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always concerning all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father; subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body. But as the assembly is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without defect. Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly; because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh.” This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and of the assembly. Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

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What the Fathers say

Ephesians 5:31

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the twain shall become one flesh." Behold again a third ground of obligation; for he shows that a man leaving them that begat him, and from whom he was born, is knit to his wife; and that then the one flesh is, father, and mother, and the child, from the substance of the two commingled. For indeed by the commingling of their seeds is the child produced, so that the three are one flesh. …

Homily on Ephesians 20 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

Here is yet another example, namely: when someone, having left his parents, is united with her. And he did not say: will live together with her, but: "shall cleave," indicating an inseparable union. And the words "one flesh" are understood also simply, as the great John Chrysostom says: shall be one flesh; but they can also mean something else, namely: the two shall be for the production of one flesh, that is, a child.

Commentary on Ephesians ↗

Theodoret of Cyrus

You are to respect the first law [of creation], he says in effect, which was laid down along with the fashioning of the woman and implanted in human nature.… This is the fruit of marriage: One child comes of two partners. The apostle, having recalled the holy requirement of marriage [that the two shall become one flesh], shows that this is illustrated also in the spiritual marriage. He not only demonstrates it but virtually shouts it out.

Interpretation of the Epistle to the Ephesians 5.31 ↗

Western Saints

Jerome

The same allegorical interpretation applies both to Christ and to the church, that Adam is to prefigure Christ and Eve the church. For "the last Adam was made a lifegiving spirit." Just as the whole human race is born from Adam and his wife, so the whole multitude of believers has been born of Christ and the church.

Commentary on Ephesians 5:31 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

The Apostle exhorted the Ephesians above to love their wives. He did this in two ways: both by offering the example of Christ's love for the Church, and by the love a man has for himself (5:25), now he gives a third encouragement drawn from the authority of Scripture. The authoritative text is Genesis 2 (24); words spoken by Adam when he saw his wife who had been formed from his rib. Yet does not this contradict Matthew 19 (4-5) which states that God himself spoke these words? …

Commentary on Ephesians ↗

Bonaventure

Since each of the spiritual unions signified in the Sacrament of matrimony is a union of one as agent and infuser, and of the other as patient and receiver; and this by the bond of love, which proceeds from pure will: hence it is that matrimony must be a joining of two persons, differing according to the relation of agent and patient, namely of the male sex and the female, and this from the pure consent of the will. …

Breviloquium, Part 6 ↗