Ephesians 3:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It refers to the submission of the spirit, the obedience of the heart, and the humility of the soul, which bows down to the earth. The Psalmist himself sings of this: "My soul cleaves to the earth" (Ps 118:25).

For how can a spiritual and bodiless being, the soul, cleave to the earth? On the other hand, let every knee on earth bow at the name of Jesus.

Yet can we assert that angels and the other powers abiding in the heavenly dwellings have bodily form, so that they too may bend their knees at His name?

Or can we assert that souls in Hades, freed from bodily bonds, bend knees which they do not have? Thus, just as one who submits to the Savior is said to have bowed the knees to Him, so also the slave of sin is written as having bowed the knees before sin.

He who has the spirit of bondage in fear is likewise described in this way. "I have left for Myself," says the Lord, "seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee before Baal" (3 Kgs 19:18), that is, before an idol and sin.

Whoever fornicates and runs about to houses of shame bows the knees before lust. Whoever is given to anger reveres anger with bended knee. Whoever is devoted to mammon, and whose belly is his god, bows the knees before greed and luxury.

Why need I list each case separately? We bow the knees before the devil as often as we sin.

Yet while setting this forth in the spiritual sense, we do not abandon the custom of prayer according to the literal meaning of these words. Thus, with bended knee and fallen upon the earth, we humbly beseech God and receive from Him more than we ask.

Indeed, we read that Paul prayed in this way on the shore, and he commanded kneeling in prayer. But while he teaches simple people, we know, conversely, that true kneeling is in the spirit.

Many bend the bodily knee, yet do not bend the knees of the soul. Conversely, many pray to God with the body unbent, yet fall down far more deeply in spirit.

Next follows: "To the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." Here one should not add, as in the Latin collections of the holy books: "to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

One should read simply: "to the Father," so that the name of God the Father is applied not to our Lord Jesus Christ, but to all rational creatures.

Therefore one must ask: In what way has every fatherhood on earth and in heaven received its name from God the Father? Before anything is decided, one must note that Paul did not say: "from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth has been begotten," or "created."

Rather, he said: "from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." For it is one thing to merit the name of fatherhood, and another to have its lot by nature.

The word fatherhood, which in Greek is expressed by patria, and in Hebrew by mesphafh (משפהת), that is, kinship or family, we read in the book of Numbers.

"Take a census of all the congregation of Israel by their clans and peoples, by the houses of their families, according to the number of their names" (Num 1:2).

Then a little later: "These are the chosen men of the congregation, leaders of the tribes, leaders of Israel according to their families" (Num 1:16).

And again concerning the tribe of Levi: "And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying: Number the sons of Levi by the houses of their kinship, by their people, by their families.

Number every male infant from one month old and upward" (Num 3:14-15). This is said of the people of Israel and of the priestly tribe of Levi.

Yet when I review within myself the passages in which I have read the word fatherhood with reference to other nations, I now find nothing except the testimony of the twenty-first psalm.

There it is written: "All the families of the nations shall worship before His face" (Ps 21:30). And in the twenty-eighth: "Bring to the Lord, families of the nations; bring rams" (Ps 28:1).

Thus, just as God communicates the name of His being and His essence even to other things, elementis, so that they are called what they are not by nature, so also He has given the name of fatherhood to all from Himself.

For there was a time when all things were not. If He wills, all things will again return to nothing. Yet they are called by this name as something bestowed by the grace of God.

To make this clearer, I shall present a testimony from Holy Scripture. In the book of Exodus the Lord says: "I am He Who Is." And again: "Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel: He Who Is has sent me to you" (Ex 3:14).

But is He alone, while nothing else existed, non erant? Certainly angels existed, heaven, earth, the seas, Moses himself who spoke with the Lord, Israel, and the Egyptians.

To them and against them Moses was sent as leader and champion. How, then, does God assign to Himself alone the name common to all essence?

The reason, as we have said, is that everything else received the divine gift for its being. But God, always [...], has no other source.

He is for Himself the beginning and cause of His own essence. He cannot be conceived as having any other foundation of His being.

In fire, one thing is that which heats, and another thing is that which is heated. Fire cannot be conceived without heat.

But whatever else is heated by fire borrows heat from it. If the fire gradually weakens, then with the lessening of heat the thing returns to its natural state and is no longer called hot.

Correspondingly, in the Gospel, to the man who regards the Savior not as the Son of God, but as a kind of good teacher, it is said: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone" (Lk 18:19).

Although we call the earth good (Lk 8), and a man good (Mt 12), and the shepherd good (Jn 10), no one is good by nature except God alone. The rest inherit goodness from Him in order to be called good.

Thus, as the One Good makes others good, and the One Immortal gives immortality, and the One True communicates the name of truth, so the One Father, as Creator of all and Cause of the essence of all, grants to others that they are called fathers.

From earthly things let us turn to the contemplation of heavenly things. Adam, whom God first formed, and for whom He was Creator and Father, surely knows that he owes to God the Father that which constitutes his subsistence, quod substitit.

Then those born from Adam see a father in him from whom they came. Therefore, in the Gospel according to Luke, when David and Abraham are presented successively in reverse order in the genealogy from Christ, Scripture finally says: "the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God" (Lk 3:38).

This shows that the name of fatherhood on earth first came from God. But one asks for what reason every fatherhood in heaven also receives its name from Him.

Just as we, though not descended from the race of Abraham, are called sons of Abraham, and call the patriarchs and prophets our fathers, if only sins do not separate us from them, so, in my opinion, the angels and other heavenly powers have certain principalities of their own.

These they gladly call fathers. For an Archangel, leader of angels, and a Dominion, a Principality, and a Power can be so called only as leader of angels, and only if they have lower powers subject to them.

Therefore one may also say this: since God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is Father by essence, the Only-begotten is such by nature and not by adoption.

The rest, being created beings, have merited the name of fatherhood by adoption. But what we say of the Father and the Son, we know is said also of the Holy Spirit.

For our Savior also acknowledged Himself as Father, saying: "Son, your sins are forgiven you" (Mk 2:5), and "Daughter, your faith has saved you" (Mt 9:22), and "My children, yet a little while I am with you" (Jn 13:33).

Through the Holy Spirit the righteous also become sons by adoption. Valentinus thinks that the generations and conjunctions of his aeons receive an especially strong proof from this very passage.

He does not understand at all that, as we said above, both in heaven and on earth fatherhood does not exist in likeness to the Father, but is only so named.

Before anything is decided, one should note that Paul did not say: "from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth has been begotten or created."

He said: "from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." For it is one thing to merit the name of fatherhood, and another to merit its lot by nature.

As God communicates the name of His being and His essence even to other things, so that they are called what they are not by nature, so also He gave the name of fatherhood to all from Himself.

For there was a time when all things were not. If He wills, all things will again return to nothing. Yet they are called by this name because they have received the name as a gift by the grace of God.

As we, though not descended from the race of Abraham, are called sons of Abraham, and call the patriarchs and prophets our fathers, if only sins do not separate us from them, so, in my opinion, the angels and other heavenly powers have certain principalities of their own.

These they gladly call fathers. One may also say that, since God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is Father by essence, the Only-begotten Son is such by nature, and not by adoption.

"Bowing his knees" for the Ephesians "before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," Saint Paul says, among other things, that "from Him every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." This means that the heavenly Father is the source of every paternal authority and power. It also means that with Him all creatures who bear His image, both angels and man, make up one great house or family.

' not simply, 'I prayed,' thereby expressing his intense supplication for them and showing that he asks blessings for them with persistence." According to blessed Theodoret's explanation, "God is Father in the proper and true sense. He was not first Son and then became Father. He is always Father, and Father by nature. Other fathers, both bodily and spiritual, have borrowed this name from above. He did not borrow fatherhood from another, but Himself imparted it to others." "When the Apostle prays that God would grant the Ephesians to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit in the inner man, he desires their spirit to become so firm that attacks from former influences would be to it like a speck of dust against a granite wall. He desires the spirit to abide inwardly without departing, standing before God and ruling itself by the power of God with unshaken firmness" (Bishop Theophan). According to blessed Theophylact, "the Apostle desires two blessings for the Ephesians: to be strengthened by the Spirit, and for Christ to dwell in their hearts. Or he desires them to be strengthened so that they may become capable of having Christ dwell in their inner man." For "Christ the Lord dwells only in the hearts of believers who are established and do not waver in love for Him" (Chrysostom).

He says rather that whenever he performs prayer, he makes special prostrations for them. Or he means that he does not forget to insert into his prayer for all a prayer for them also. He said, "I bow my knees," not simply "I pray," "thereby expressing his intense supplication for them and showing that he asks blessings for them with persistence" (Saint Chrysostom). "With compunction and contrition" (Theophylact). Or by saying, "I bow my knees," he says the same as: I always pray earnestly, always lifting up to merciful God a warm and reverent prayer. Kneeling is a symbol of reverent fear and humble confession of mercies. "To the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Since he prays for blessings, he uses the sweetest name of God the Father, which is the sign of every provident care. He adds to it the sweetest name of Jesus Christ our Lord, for whose sake the Father is ready to give whatever anyone asks in His name. He prays to God the Father, who did not spare His own Son, and who will surely with Him give us all things.