Ephesians 5:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore it is necessary to say to them also: “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” It is fitting to say to them also: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mt 22:32).

Therefore, if He is not God of the dead, let us live.

Some say that the expression “the covetous man is an idolater” is exaggerated. But it is not exaggerated. On the contrary, it is entirely true.

How and in what manner? In this way: the covetous man withdraws from God, just as an idolater does.

So that you may not think this is said without foundation, here is Christ’s saying, which declares: “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt 6:24).

Those who serve mammon have removed themselves from the service of God. Those who have rejected His dominion and serve soulless gold are manifestly idolaters.

But, says the lover of gain, I did not make an idol. I did not set up an altar. I did not sacrifice sheep. I did not pour out wine.

I went to church, raised my hands to the Only-begotten Son of God, took part in the mysteries, and have communion in prayer and in everything else proper to a Christian.

How then, he says, do I worship idols? This is precisely the astonishing thing: after testing and tasting God’s love for mankind, and seeing that the Lord is good, you abandoned the Good One and took upon yourself the rule of a cruel tyrant.

You say that you do not serve him, but in fact you have subjected yourself to the cruel and unbearable yoke of love of money.

You have not told me about any good deed of yours, but only about the Master’s gifts.

Tell me, I ask, on what basis do we judge a soldier? Is it because he serves as the king’s bodyguard, receives his support from him, and is adorned with his name?

Or is it because he does not care for the king’s affairs, but merely shows the appearance of taking his side and caring for his concerns, while he himself helps his enemies succeed?

Clearly, the latter, though he is the king’s bodyguard. For this reason he is worthy of harsher punishment than if he had openly rejected service to the king and gone over to the enemies.

Therefore you too rise boldly against God, like an idolater, not only with your mouth, but by wronging countless people.

But, they say, the covetous man is not an idolater. Yet when the Hellenes say, “A Christian is covetous,” then he does not disgrace himself by his deeds alone. He often forces those who have been wronged to say this as well.

If they do not say it, this must be counted as the result of their caution. Do we not see that the matter happens precisely in this way?

What is an idolater? Is he not one who worships passions instead of ruling the passion? For example, when we say that someone worships idols, he says: no, not them, but Aphrodite and Ares.

If we say, “Who is Aphrodite herself?” the more learned among them say: pleasure. And who is Ares? Anger.

So it is also with you concerning mammon. If we say, “What is mammon?” it is covetousness, and you worship it.

“I do not worship it,” you say. Why? Because you do not bend your body? But you offer much greater worship by deeds and actions, because this worship is more important.

So that you may be convinced of this, consider who worships God more worthily: those who simply stand at prayer, or those who do His will? Clearly, the latter.

So also with mammon. Those who do its will worship it more.

Moreover, those who worship personified passions are often free from their own passions. Look at a worshiper of Ares. He often rules his anger.

But it is not so with you. You make yourself a slave of the passion. But you do not slaughter sheep? Instead you slaughter men and rational souls, some by hunger, others by slander.

Nothing is more frenzied than such a sacrifice. Who has ever seen souls being slaughtered? Accursed is the altar of covetousness.

If you approach the altar of idols, you will smell from it the blood of goats and bulls. But if you approach the altar of covetousness, you will smell the heavy odor of human blood.

If you stand here, you will not notice the burning wings of birds, nor the smell and smoke rising from them, but human bodies put to death.

Some have thrown themselves from heights. Others have put a noose around themselves. Others have cut their throats with a knife.

Have you seen the sacrifices, brutal and inhuman? Do you wish to see sacrifices still more cruel than these? I will show you not only human bodies, but also human souls slaughtered there.

For the soul too can be slaughtered with a slaughter corresponding to the soul. Just as there is death for the body, so there is also death for the soul.

“The soul that sins,” Scripture says, “shall die” (Ezek 18:4). The death of the soul is not like the death of the body, but far heavier.

Bodily death separates soul and body from each other. It delivers the one from many cares and labors, and conducts the other to a known place.

Then the body, separated for a time and set aside, is again joined to incorruption and receives its soul once more. Such is this death.

But the death of the soul is fearful and dreadful. It does not transfer the soul to a known place, as happens with the body after its separation from it.

Instead, when the soul is again bound to an incorruptible body, this death casts it into unquenchable fire. Such is the death of the soul.

Therefore, just as there is death of the soul, so there is also slaughter of the soul.

What is the slaughter of the body? It is the killing of it and the removal of the soul’s power. What is the slaughter of the soul? It too is a killing.

In what does the killing of the soul consist? As the body dies when the soul leaves it deprived of its power, so the soul is slain when the Holy Spirit leaves it without His power.

These slaughters especially are accomplished on the altar of covetousness. They are not satisfied and do not stop with human blood.

Unless you bring the soul itself, the altar of covetousness is not sated. It must receive the souls of both, the soul of the one sacrificing and the soul of the one sacrificed.

For the one who sacrifices must first be offered in sacrifice himself. Thus he performs the sacrifice, and being dead, he sacrifices the living.

If you slander, insult, and are indignant, are these not incurable wounds of the soul? Do you see that the expression is not exaggerated?

Do you wish to hear further and learn how covetousness is idolatry, and more grievous than idolatry?

Idolaters worship God’s creation. “They worshiped,” the Apostle says, “and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25). But you worship your own creation.

God did not create covetousness. Your boundless insatiability invented it. See how mad and laughable this is.

Those who worship idols honor those whom they worship. If anyone speaks evil of these idols or laughs at them, they defend them.

But you, as though in drunkenness, worship a thing that is not merely not free from blame, but full of impiety.

Therefore you are far worse than they are, because you cannot say in your defense that this is not evil.

If they are greatly without excuse, you are still more so, since countless times you condemn covetousness and laugh at those who serve it, grovel before it, and surrender themselves to it.

But would you like us to examine where idolatry came from? A wise man says (Wis 14:15) that a certain rich man was consumed by the premature loss of his son.

Having no consolation in his grief, he wanted to soothe his suffering by making a lifeless image of the dead man. Then, looking at it, he thought he was receiving the image as the dead man himself.

Certain flattering men, whose god is their belly, served in its honor before the image and introduced the custom of idolatry.

Thus idolatry was introduced by weakness of soul, irrational custom, and lack of self-control.

Covetousness is not like this. It too comes from a weak soul, but from a worse one. No one has lost a son. No one is seeking consolation in grief. No one is compelled by flatterers.

But how did it arise? I will tell you. Cain deceived God, because what he should have given Him he kept for himself, and what he should have kept for himself he brought to Him.

He began evil with God. If we ourselves belong to God, how much more do the firstfruits of our possessions belong to Him.

From covetousness, in turn, came desire for women. They saw the daughters of men and gave themselves to desire (Gen 6:3).

From them again came the desire for money. The desire to have more means for life than one’s neighbor comes from nothing else but the cooling of love.

The desire to have more comes from nothing but madness, hatred of mankind, and arrogance.

Do you not see how vast the earth is? How incomparably greater than what is needed are the air and the sky? God ordered creation in such magnitude in order to quench your covetousness.

Yet despite all this you rob. When you hear that covetousness is idolatry, are you not terrified even by this?

Do you wish to possess the earth? But is there not an inheritance in heaven, from which you thereby deprive yourself?

Tell me, if someone gave you the right to take everything, would you not wish to do so? And it is possible, if you wish.

Some say that they grieve if their inheritance is transferred to others. They would rather destroy it than see others possessing it.

I do not excuse you even in this weakness, because this too belongs to an infirm soul. But let it be so. Appoint Christ as heir in your will.

An heir must be living. This will also testify to a well-directed will, and besides this, though by necessity, you will become more generous.

Christ commanded us to give to the poor in order to make us practice philosophy while we are alive. He wished to persuade us to despise money and to teach us not to value earthly things.

Contempt for money does not consist in leaving it now to one person and now to another, when you are dying and no longer master of it.

You do not voluntarily give what remains, but from absolute necessity. Thanks belong to death, not to you. This is not the work of tender love, but of necessity.

Yet let even this be so. At least then free yourself from the passion. Think how much you have stolen and how much you acquired by deceit.

Restore everything fourfold, and in this way justify yourself before God.

But some have reached such madness and corruption that even then, at death, they do not understand what they ought to do. They act as if striving to make God’s judgment heavier for themselves.

For this reason that blessed one says in the Epistle: “Walk as children of light.” But the covetous man lives especially in darkness and spreads great darkness over everyone.

“Have no fellowship,” he says, “with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for everything that is made manifest is light.”

Others both do evil and justify it. They may be called dead, since it is harder to summon them to the good. Yet the word calls even them to arise, for one must not despair of the possibility that nature can change.

Yet by this he did not testify that everything they wrote is holy, although he affirmed that they said something correctly.

Another perhaps will think that the Apostle here presented, as it were, a personification of the Holy Spirit. He will say that this is an exhortation to repentance.

But I, in my poverty, after carefully reviewing all editions of the ancient Scriptures and even the Hebrew scrolls themselves, have nowhere found this saying.

Perhaps we should say this. As in ancient times the prophets spoke in the assembly, "Thus says the Lord," and, "Because the Lord says this," so now the Apostle was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Suddenly he took up and uttered words which Christ was speaking in him: "Thus says the Lord."

Besides this, it is necessary to consider how one and the same person is addressed both as living, "Awake, O sleeper," and as dead, "and arise from the dead."

This is because in man there is also a spirit, which, as we have said, is always taken in a good sense.

There is also the soul, to which, as we read, the infirmities and death of sinners are ascribed.

Thus the present words, "Awake, O sleeper," should be referred to the spirit. The following words, "Arise from the dead," must be assigned to the soul.

For "the soul that sins shall die" (Ezek 18:4). But we have certainly never read of the death of the spirit.

Therefore Christ, the true light, will rise over the one who has awakened from sleep and risen from the dead.

I heard someone disputing about this passage of Scripture. To astonish the spectators in the manner of theatrical spectacles, he cast off his covering before the people, something no one had seen before.

He asserted that these words of the Apostle refer to Adam, buried at the place of the Skull, where the Lord was nailed to the Cross.

It was called the place of the Skull because the head of the first man was hidden there.

Thus, at the time the Lord was nailed to the Cross, He hung over the tomb of Adam. The prophecy was fulfilled which says: "Awake, Adam, sleeper, and arise from the dead."

And not as we read, επιφαύσει σοι Χριστός, that is, "Christ will shine upon you," but επιψαύσει, that is, "Christ will touch you."

This is because, by the touch of the very blood and body of the One hanging there, Adam would be brought to life and rise.

Then that figure was truly fulfilled in which the dead Elisha raised a dead man (4 Kgs 13:21).

I leave it to the reader's free choice to decide whether this is true or not. It is certain that at the time this tale pleased the people and was received with applause and dancing.

I know only this: such a meaning agrees neither with the interpretation of this passage nor with the connection of the discourse.

God pointed to this when He gave the commandment in Paradise and said to Adam: "In the day that you eat of the forbidden tree, you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17). For then his soul died, being separated from God through transgression.

In the body, however, he continued to live from that hour onward until nine hundred and thirty years. Yet the death that came through transgression did not make only the soul useless and man liable to the curse. It also made the body subject to many diseases and many passions, and finally handed it over to death.

For immediately after the inner man was slain through transgression, the earthly Adam heard: "Cursed is the ground in your works. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken. For you are earth, and to earth you shall return" (Gen 3:17-19).

In that future regeneration, at the resurrection of the righteous, the bodies of the lawless and sinners will also rise. Yet this will be only so that they may be handed over to the second death, that eternal torment, the undying worm, the gnashing of teeth, the outer darkness, and the gloomy Gehenna of unquenchable fire.

This accords with the word of the Prophet, who says: "The lawless and sinners shall be burned together, and there shall be none to quench them" (Isa 1:31). For this is the second death, as Saint John taught us through the Revelation.

Listen also to the great Paul, who says: "If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Rom 8:13).

He speaks of the life and death of those who will be in the age to come. By life he means the enjoyment of the eternal kingdom. By death he means that everlasting torment.

Thus transgression of the commandment of God is the cause of every death, both for soul and body. It causes the death that occurs in this age and that death which will consist in that endless torment.

This is the present death: when the soul is separated from divine grace and joined to sin. Those who have understanding must flee and fear such a death. For those who think rightly, it is more terrible than the torment of Gehenna itself.

Let us also flee it with all our strength. Let us cast away everything, abandon everything, and renounce everything in our relations, deeds, and desires that draws us away from God, separates us from Him, and causes such death.

Whoever fears this death and guards himself from it will not fear the approach of bodily death. He has the true life dwelling within him, and by death especially this life becomes inalienable.

As the death of the soul is death in the true sense, so the life of the soul is life in the true sense. The life of the soul is union with God, just as the life of the body is its union with the soul.

Through transgression of the commandment the soul was separated from God and slain. So through obedience to the commandment it is again joined to God and made alive. For this reason the Lord says in the Gospel: "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (Jn 6:63).

Having learned this by experience, Saint Peter said to Him: "You have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6:68). Yet they become words of life for those who obey them. For those who disobey, the commandment of life becomes death.

So too the Apostles, being the fragrance of Christ, were for some a fragrance from death to death, and for others a fragrance from life to life (2 Cor 2:15-16).

This life is again the life not only of the soul, but also of the body. For through the resurrection it makes the body immortal. It frees it not only from mortality, but also from never-ending death, that future torment of Hades.

It also gives the body eternal life in Christ, free from toil, disease, and sorrow, and truly immortal.

Death of the body followed after the death of the soul, that is, after transgression and sin. With it came departure into the earth and transformation into dust. After bodily death there again follows the soul's second death, its condemnation in Hades.

So also, after the resurrection of the soul, which is its return to God through the fulfillment of the divine commandments, there follows the resurrection of the body, when it is again united to the soul.

After this resurrection there follows true immortality and eternal life with God for those who are worthy of it. Having become spiritual instead of fleshly, they become like the angels of God, able to live in heaven.

"We shall be caught up," says the Apostle, "in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thess 4:17).

The Son of God, who for love of mankind became man, died in the flesh through the separation of His soul from His body. Yet His Godhead was not separated from Him. Therefore He raised His body and took it up into heaven in glory.

In the same way, those who have lived here according to God and are not separated from God when they are separated from the body, will also take the body to God in the resurrection.

They will enter with Him, in ineffable joy, there where "Jesus has entered as a forerunner on our behalf" (Heb 6:20). They will enjoy with Him the glory that is to be revealed in Christ.

They will share not only in the Lord's resurrection, but also in His ascension and in His whole divine life. But those who lived here according to the flesh will not share in these things.

At the time of their departure they will be found to have no communion with God. For although all will rise, each one, as the Apostle says, will rise in his own order.

He who here put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit will live there with Christ by a divine and truly eternal life.

But he who here slew the spirit through fleshly desires and passions will there, alas, be condemned with the craftsman and author of every evil. He will be handed over to unbearable and unceasing torment. This is the second death, which has no successor.

Where did true death begin, the mother and cause of temporal and eternal death for soul and body? Did it not begin in the region of life? For this reason, alas, man was immediately driven out beyond the bounds of God's Paradise.

He had acquired a death-bearing life, one unsuited to the divine Paradise. In the same way, true life, the cause of true and eternal life for soul and body, must receive its beginning in this region of death.

Whoever is not zealous to acquire it here in the soul must not deceive himself with empty hopes of obtaining it there, or of somehow being counted worthy of God's love for mankind at that time.

For then it will be the time of righteous recompense, not of mercy and sparing. It will be the time of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom 2:5).

It will be the time of the manifestation of the strong and uplifted hand, which casts the disobedient into torment in Hades (Ps 135:12). Woe to him who is to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31).

Woe to him who will experience the wrath of the Lord there, and who did not here learn the power of His wrath through the fear of God (Ps 89:11). Woe to him who did not gain God's love for mankind by his works.

This is the work of the present time. For this reason God arranged this life for us, to give room for repentance. If this were not so, then a man who sinned would immediately be deprived of this life as well.

What profit would there be in it, or what need of it? Therefore there is absolutely no place for despair among men, although the evil one tries in many ways to cast into it not only those who live carelessly, but also those who struggle well.

Since the time of life is the time of repentance, the very fact that a sinner is still alive serves as a pledge for him, if he wishes to turn to God, that he will be mercifully received by Him.

For in the present life self-mastery is always in force. The path of life and death described above lies before self-mastery as its object. A man may choose or reject whichever he wishes, as something attainable.

Where, then, can there be room for despair, when always and for all people there is the possibility, if they wish, to acquire eternal life?

He calls the sinner sleeping because he is idle and inactive in the doing of good works. He ranks him among the dead because his soul has been deadened by sin.

This word awakens the sinner to repentance. Awake, he says, you who sleep the sleep of sin, and arise from the dead works of sin. This is the reproof of sin.

But see how, after reproof and after the presumed contrition of heart, he promises the light of grace: "And Christ shall give you light," he says.

Behold, then, how through reproof the one who was formerly sinful and dark becomes righteous and radiant through the light of the grace of Jesus Christ.

But it is best to rest in the opinion that these words are a free rendering of what is said in Isaiah (Isa 60:1; 26:9, 19): "Shine, shine, O Jerusalem, for your light has come"; "the dead shall rise and those in the tombs shall arise."

In relation to the Apostle's discourse, these words serve as an exhortation to spiritual activity and to resurrection from dead works, that is, from sins.

For, as Chrysostom observes, one may speak of a sinner as both sleeping and dead. He gives off a foul odor like a corpse, is motionless like one asleep, sees nothing like him, and yet raves and dreams.

That this occurred is witnessed by St. Paul himself in the Epistle to the Corinthians: "Each of you has a psalm" (1 Cor 14:26). Perhaps one of those converted in an extraordinary way heard such words in a moment of supernatural exaltation, perhaps among the Ephesians themselves.

Since this saying was known and circulated among the Ephesians as a word from above, the Apostle expresses himself thus: "Therefore He says." He means someone from above, or a voice from above, as you know.

Our other interpreters pay no attention to the indication of who spoke. They begin directly to explain what was said.

What, then, was said? It is a summons for the sinner, in repentance, to turn to the Lord and Savior. By the word and life of perfected Christians, the sinner's conscience has been awakened. He clearly sees his own worthlessness and is ready to seek salvation. What is he to do?

Rise from the sleep of sin, draw near to the Lord, and He will illumine you. In general, by their way of life and confession of faith, what else did Christians say to those among whom they shone as lights?

They said this: Let everyone arise from the sleep of sin and from sinful death, and draw near to Christ the Savior.

Natural sleep and death serve as images of sinful sleep and death. One who is asleep, like one who is dead, does not hear, see, feel, or move. So also the sinner is stricken spiritually with heedlessness, insensibility, and blindness.

He has no movement toward the salvation of the soul or the attainment of eternal blessedness by pleasing God. Yet there is spirit in him, only it is stricken with a lethargic sleep.

When the ray of grace, through the anointed word of Christians or through their radiant life, reaches the spirit, it immediately opens its eyes. It begins to reveal its proper movements: fear of God, disturbance of conscience, condemnation of all its former life, and a demand for its change.

Then the sinner hears within himself: Awake, shine! But conscience alone will torment him and will not give peace. The word concerning the Savior comes to it, and then conscience compels the sinner to take hold of faith in Him as the only means of salvation.

The sinner believes, is reconciled to God, and is enlightened by Christ the Lord. Then everything becomes clear to him: how things should be in his life, and what he is to expect in the future.

Thereafter he walks in the light of His countenance and rejoices only in His name. Glory to the boundless mercy of God toward us sinners.

So also one who is spiritually asleep may easily become prey for the devil, the murderer from the beginning, and food for the fire of Gehenna. He does not hear the voice of conscience, its reproofs and corrections.

He does not attend to the word of God. It is as though it were not written for him. Its reminders concerning repentance, the Savior, and salvation do not seem to concern him.

He does not heed the counsels and exhortations of the pastors of the Church, nor of those who wish him well. He sees around him examples of true piety and virtue, yet seeing he does not see. He feels no need to imitate them.

One sleeping a dead sleep is motionless, like wood or stone. The spiritually sleeping man is like him. He is moved neither by God's mercies and longsuffering toward him, nor by the troubles and calamities sent from above for his correction, nor by fear of God's judgment beyond the grave.

Awake, sleeping soul. Cast off from yourself the stone of spiritual insensibility. Arise from the dead. Understand how ruinous your condition is.

God forbid that death should overtake you in this state, or that you should pass into eternal life without awakening from the sleep of sin. Where then will you find yourself? From the darkness of sin you will pass into the darkness of Hades.

Arouse within yourself fear of this danger. Hasten to awaken, as people awaken from deep sleep because of a terrifying dream.

"And Christ shall give you light." The light of Christ's grace illumines every sinner, just as the sun shines on all, both good and evil. The rays of Christ's grace, calling to repentance by secret promptings, touch even you, O soul sunk in the sleep of spiritual insensibility.

The merciful Lord, who pours His light even upon you, waits to see whether you will open your eyes to receive this light. Do not make Him wait for you long. Do not exhaust His longsuffering.

Hasten to answer the call of grace. Hasten to open the eyes of your mind, and Christ will illumine you. Then you will feel an ineffable joy, like the joy felt by people awakened from a terrible dream.

Opening their eyes and seeing daylight, they become convinced that what so frightened them in sleep was only a phantom. They say: Glory to God, it was in a dream and not in reality. Daylight scattered their anxiety, and consolation poured into their soul.

You too, sleeping soul, produce such alarm within yourself. Imagine that you have fallen into the outer darkness that threatens every sinner who remains careless until death.

Give thanks to the Lord, who grants you the possibility of escaping this danger merely by imagining it. The more vivid this imagining is, the sweeter it is to be convinced that it has not yet come, and that it can be averted by repentance and by a life proper to the sons of light.