Ephesians 3:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

This means that although the love of Christ is above all human knowledge, you will nevertheless know it if Christ dwells in you. And you will not only know it, but "be filled with all the fullness of God." By the fullness of God he either means the knowledge that God is worshiped in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Or he urges them toward those struggles through which one may be filled with the virtues with which God is filled.

The Apostle does not ask everything from God, but requires faith and love from them as well. And not merely love, but love rooted in us and firm, love which neither winds can shake nor anything else destroy.

Gregory of Nyssa says that breadth, length, depth, and height signify the Cross. Therefore the Apostle prayed for the Ephesians, that they might be able to comprehend the mystery of the Cross. For the whole divine economy is embraced by it, and the chief thing in it is the Cross. In the Cross the love of God is especially manifested, as the Lord also says (Jn 14:12). Therefore Paul too points to this love.

That is, we may understand the Cross of the Lord. Its breadth is the transverse wood on which the hands are stretched out. Its length is the wood rising from the earth to the breadth of the crosspiece, on which the whole body is nailed, beginning from the hands and below them. Its height is the wood extending upward from the crosspiece to the top, where the head is fastened. Its depth is the lower end planted in the earth and hidden there.

By this sign of the Cross the whole activity of the Christian is described. It is the duty to act piously in Christ and abide constantly in Him, to hope for heavenly things, and not to reveal the mysteries of the faith idly before the uninitiated.

Through this, as it seems to me, the following is clearly signified: there is nothing among existing things that is not encompassed by the divine nature. This includes the heavenly, the things beneath the earth, and all that stretches between them to the limits of being. Height signifies the things above. Depth signifies the things beneath the earth. Length and breadth signify everything contained between them and held by the power that governs all.

Let the proof of what has been said be what takes place in your soul when you think of God. Look up to heaven, conceive in your mind the depths below, stretch your thought to the breadth and limits of all that exists, and consider what power contains all this, serving as a kind of bond of all things. You will see how the thought of divine power of itself traces the figure of the Cross in the mind, descending from above into the abyss and extending crosswise to the furthest limits.

Therefore, he says, I bow my knees before the Father, after whose likeness every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named. I ask and beseech Him to grant you the power of His glory, that is, the power to receive the lot of His majesty. I ask Him to strengthen and establish you through the Holy Spirit, because without the Holy Spirit there is no strength.

He strengthens and establishes according to the inner man, because we seek not bodily powers, but the powers of the spirit. We wish to strengthen not the outer man, but the inner man. After Christ lives in the inner man, He dwells in the chief inward part of man, that is, in your hearts.

He does not spread Himself through all his members, but lives in his rational part and establishes there His dwelling and throne. All this happens through faith, when we believe in Him. Therefore the Apostle also says that Christ dwells in your hearts through faith.

This indwelling, arising through faith, has its roots and its foundation in love. Thus all things grow and are built upon love, because we are God's planting and God's building (1 Cor 3). Since we are rooted and grounded in love, we know with full confidence of mind that Christ dwells in the inner man.

Then, together with the other saints, we begin to strive to comprehend with a receptive mind what breadth, length, depth, and height are. Not only this, but we shall desire to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. When all this exists in us reasonably and harmoniously, we shall be filled in all things with the fullness of God.

First let us consider the meaning of breadth, length, depth, and height in a bodily sense, so that through this we may pass to the spiritual. Let the breadth of this heaven and earth, that is, of the whole world, be from east to west. Let the length be from south to north, the depth in the abysses and Hades, and the height what rises above the heavens.

Some, on the basis of the words of Ecclesiastes, assert that heaven is round and moves like a sphere. But what is spherical has neither breadth, nor length, nor depth, nor height. It is equal, coaequalis, in all its parts. Necessity therefore compels us to understand by height the Angels and higher powers, and by depth Hades and what lies below it.

By length and breadth we understand the middle region between the higher and the lower. Since from this it follows that one may be near either to the higher or to the lower, those who begin to move toward what is better and heavenly, and to ascend toward the high, are called length.

What is very near the lower part and inclines toward vices is given the name breadth: "For broad and spacious is the way that leads to death" (Mt 7:13). All this can be understood perfectly in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ascending on high, He led captivity captive (Ps 67:19), and He descended into the lower parts of the earth. After height and depth, the preaching of the Cross went out into all the earth. Thus it embraces height, depth, breadth, and length.

It is no wonder if the Cross of Christ possesses all things without exception, because even he who is crucified with Christ has the same authority. Indeed, let him first know breadth, beginning from the lower and knowing the lesser. Then let him know length, that is, those who are set upon the earth and hasten toward what is exalted and higher.

After this, let him know depth, that is, the opposing and hostile powers that wage war against us in this world. Finally, let him know height. We shall be able to ascend to the higher things only when, having knowledge of those powers, we compel them to be under our feet.

We must not think that this is the end of our labor. It is not enough that, grounded and rooted in love, we are able, possimus, to understand with all the saints what breadth, length, height, and depth are. We must also desire with all diligence to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. Then not only the simple love of Christ, but His surpassing love, will be known to us.

The end is still not attained by merely having knowledge of the surpassing love of Christ, unless we add another thing: to follow the love that surpasses knowledge. Therefore it must be noted that Christ has a great and surpassing love for knowledge, that is, for those who desire to know themselves.

These are those who meditate on His law day and night, who turn words into deeds, and who fulfill in action, manu, what they think. Whoever is such as to be worthy of possessing, through his knowledge, the surpassing love of Christ, must think of nothing except knowledge.

Thus he will be filled with every fullness of God, not only in the present age, but also in the age to come. Whoever now begins to be full in diligence through reading will afterward be more perfectly filled by God, who, by filling Himself, is the fullness of all.

Paul says that he prays for the Ephesians to understand. For whoever understands the love that surpasses knowledge will be filled with love in Christ. Therefore he does not pray that they act as they ought, for that is already the consequence. Rather, he prays that they may understand, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

So much significance does the holy Apostle give to understanding in the work of Christianity that he directed the whole epistle toward unfolding it and indicating the true path to it.

And so it is. For one who does not understand is like a blind man. He does not know where or how to go.

But one must distinguish degrees of understanding. Even in the first catechesis by the Gospel, when it is still received only by hearing, an understanding of it is given.

Whoever believes and is baptized enters a higher degree of understanding. Whoever walks the path of faith in good works and ascetic struggle has this understanding grow more and more.

When, after the purification of the heart, Christ dwells in it, understanding is raised to the very highest degree. The holy Fathers call this degree contemplation.

They prescribe the path to it as the very one depicted above: the path of labor in fulfilling the commandments and in the struggle to overcome the passions, with a view to purifying the heart and establishing love in it.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes about this in detail in Homily 55, or the letter to Symeon the Wonderworker, in its final sections. We shall later cite several of his propositions on this matter.

The words "with all the saints" must not be passed over without attention. Perhaps the Apostle wished only to say "with all Christians," since it is his custom to call Christians saints.

Yet, by the very nature of the matter, Christians are only called to holiness, are zealous for it, and are supplied with powers for it.

They become saints properly after progress in the life in Christ Jesus, when Christ Himself, the source of every holiness, dwells in them.

Therefore nothing prevents us from understanding "saints" here as Christians who have progressed and become perfect. The Apostle desires that the Ephesians, who entered the society of Christians by faith, not lag behind others in understanding.

He desires that they be counted worthy to reach the degree of understanding possessed by the most perfect among Christians. He speaks as though saying: may you be able to understand, together with all the saints, as the saints and the perfect understand.

At the same time he suggests that, among Christians, both life and understanding do not ripen separately, apart from others. Understanding too matures and appears perfect under the condition of communion with all.

Communion in life is love. Communion in understanding is common understanding, so that each understands as all understand, and does not go outside the circle of common understanding.

Private, original views are foreign to the Spirit of Christ. The Apostle speaks as though saying: I desire for you the highest understanding, but not so that you may soar off somewhere, having been torn away from the saints.

Rather, even with all the height of understanding, stand on one level with all the saints. Enter the power and circle of their understanding, for there is no understanding higher or fuller than this, nor can there be.

The Apostle does not specify the object of understanding. But from the course of the discourse it is clear that he speaks here of the mystery of the divine economy of our salvation in Christ Jesus.

All our interpreters understand it this way. Chrysostom writes: "That you may be able to understand what is the breadth. That is, that you may be able to know precisely the mystery of the divine economy of our salvation."

Everyone knows the general outline of the work of salvation without special labor, for it is clearly described. But one who has reached the point where Christ dwells in him, or where Christ clearly manifests His indwelling in him, feels his salvation in deed.

Therefore he understands it perfectly, as one who has recovered understands health more perfectly than one who still hopes for health while lying sick and undergoing treatment.

In such persons the divine economy of salvation is itself seen more clearly. All its connections are defined more exactly, because it enters all realms of being and by its power extends through the whole span of time.

It also embraces eternity. Consequently, in it lies the solution to all that exists and all that happens, to all creatures and to the course of all events.

All this is disclosed in the mind of those who have most sincerely communed with the Lord, although it cannot be contained in words or ordinary turns of speech. It is only clearly perceived.

As the Apostle, who heard words in heaven and saw things there, could not convey them in speech, so it is with all Christian contemplatives.

In the mystery of salvation, much is seen by their mind that they do not have the power to express in words. This is what the Apostle shows here by the words: breadth, length, height, depth.

By this is signified either the greatness of the work of salvation and the fullness of God’s love for us manifested in it, or the various aspects of this divine economy.

Blessed Theodoret writes: "By faith and love we can attain spiritual grace, that is, its action and evident manifestation. Through it we can come to know the greatness of the divine economy that has taken place.

For by breadth, length, depth, and height the Apostle depicted greatness, since magnitude is signified by these dimensions."

Chrysostom says: "By breadth and length, depth and height, he names the knowledge of the riches of God’s love, that is, how it has spread everywhere.

He describes it by bodily features, adapting himself to human conceptions. For this reason he says that it has embraced what is above, what is below, and what is on either side.

We have said, he says, that not our word, but the Holy Spirit, can teach this."

Blessed Theophylact mentions that St. Gregory of Nyssa sees in these features a depiction of the mystery of the Lord’s Cross, which is the center in the divine economy of salvation.

Oecumenius gives an extensive explanation of these features made by Patriarch Photius. "Of what are these the breadth and length, the depth and height? Either of the mystery of salvation, or of the very understanding of Christ.

The understanding of Christ is the clear representation of the divine economy accomplished by Him. The understanding of Christ is the knowledge of how and why this most wondrous work of salvation was accomplished by Him, and not by another.

It is also the recognition that He Himself is the giver of this understanding. Only by this path do we truly know Christ. In this consists the understanding of Christ.

Its length is the knowledge that the divine economy of salvation was predestined before the ages. Its breadth is that its benefit extends to all.

It extends to those before the Law, those under the Law, and those after the Law. It extends to the living and the dead, to Jews and Greeks, to barbarians and all nations, to the heavenly and the earthly.

For Christ made peace for all of them, whereas before angels and men were in discord with one another. The Apostle prays that they may understand all this.

And not this only, but also its depth and height. Its depth is that its ineffable power and benefit descended even to the depths of Hades, destroying and taking Hades captive, and redeeming and freeing those held captive by it.

Its height is that He who descended is the same who ascended, and raised our firstfruits above the heavens, above every Principality and Authority, Power and Dominion.

Do you see the ineffable height of the divine economy of Christ and of the understanding of it? The Apostle prays that they may grasp and understand all this."