Ephesians 5:33Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Truly, this is a mystery, and a great mystery. A man leaves the one who begot him, the one who bore him, and the one who raised him. He leaves her who conceived him and bore him in travail. He leaves those who bestowed so many benefits on him, and to whom he had grown accustomed. Then he is joined to one whom he had not seen before, who had nothing in common with him. He prefers her to all.

Truly, this is a mystery. Parents do not grieve when this happens. On the contrary, they grieve when it does not happen. As a sign of joy, they do not spare expense or outlay. Truly, this is a great mystery, containing some hidden wisdom.

The ancient prophet Moses also showed this. Paul now cries out concerning it, saying: 'with respect to Christ and the Church.' Yet this is said not only with respect to the husband, but also to the wife. He is to cherish her as his own flesh, as Christ also cherishes the Church. The wife is to fear her husband.

He does not speak only of love. What then does he say? 'Let the wife fear her husband.' The wife is a secondary authority. Therefore she must not demand equality with her husband, since she stands under the head. Yet he must not look down on her arrogantly as one subordinate to him. She is his body. If the head despises the body, it will perish with it. In return for obedience, he must contribute love.

So it is with the head and the body. The body places hands, feet, and all the other members at the service of the head. The head cares for the body and devotes all its understanding to it. Nothing is better than such a marriage.

But someone may say, what love can exist where there is fear? Precisely there it will exist. The woman who fears also loves. Loving, she fears him as her head, and she loves him as a member. For the head itself is a member of the whole body.

For this reason he subjects her, and raises the husband above her, so that there may be peace. Where there is equality, there can be no peace. Whether it is popular rule, or whether all give commands, there must be one authority.

This is always so among bodily beings. If men were spiritual, then there would be peace. Once there were five thousand souls, and 'no one said that any of the things he possessed was his own.' Rather, they shared all things with one another (Acts 4:32). This is the sign of wisdom and the fear of God.

Thus the Apostle showed the form of love, but not the form of fear. Do you see how he enlarges upon love? He sets Christ as the example, mentions one's own flesh, and says: 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother.' Yet he does not enlarge upon fear.

Why is this? Because he wants love to prevail. If love exists, everything else will follow it. If fear exists, this is not fully so. A man who loves his wife will bear everything, even if she is not very obedient. But if husband and wife are not bound by the power of love, concord between them is hard and difficult. Fear does not produce this effect at all.

Therefore the Apostle dwells chiefly on what is stronger. The wife, though she seems to suffer loss because fear is prescribed to her, loses nothing. For the husband is commanded what is especially important, namely love.

But someone will say, what if the wife does not fear her husband? You must love. You must fulfill your duty. Even if others do not fulfill what they ought, we must fulfill it.

I will give an example. It is said: 'submitting to one another in the fear of Christ' (Eph 5:21). What then? Let others fail to submit. You must obey the law of God.

So also here. Even if the husband does not love his wife, she must fear him, so that she may not be in debt to him. Likewise, if the wife does not fear her husband, he must love her, so that he may not be in debt to her. Each has his own obligations.

Such is marriage in Christ, a spiritual marriage and a spiritual birth, not of blood, and not of the pains of birth. Such also was the birth of Isaac. Hear what Scripture says: 'Sarah had ceased to have the way of women' (Gen 18:11).

This marriage is not from passion or bodily impulse, but is wholly spiritual. In it the soul is united to God by an ineffable union, as He alone knows. Therefore it is said: 'He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord' (1 Cor 6:17).

Do you see with what care he speaks both of bodily union and of spiritual union? Where are the heretics after this? If marriage were an unclean thing, he would not have called those who marry bridegroom and bride. He would not have used for exhortation the words: 'A man shall leave his father and mother.' Nor would he have added that this is said 'with respect to Christ and the Church.'

The Psalmist also speaks of her: 'Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father's house, and the King will desire your beauty' (Ps 44:11-12). Therefore Christ also said: 'I came forth from the Father and have come into the world' (Jn 16:28).

But when I say that He left the Father, do not imagine a change of place in human fashion. He is said to have come forth not because He departed, but because He was incarnate. In the same way understand the words that He left the Father.

Why is it not said of the wife as well, that she shall cleave to her husband? Why is this? Because he had already spoken of love, and had spoken of it to the husband. To the wife the Apostle teaches fear. He says: 'the husband is the head of the wife,' and again: 'Christ is the head of the Church.'

With the husband he reasons about love and entrusts to him what pertains to it. He speaks to him about love, joining and uniting him to his wife. Indeed, if a man leaves his father for his wife, and then abandons her and sends her away, can he deserve any indulgence?

Do you see what honor she ought to enjoy by God's will? God draws you away from your father and unites you to her.

But someone will say, what if we fulfill everything that is required, and she does not? 'If the unbelieving partner wishes to separate, let it be so' (1 Cor 7:15). In such matters the brother or the sister is not enslaved.

When you hear of fear, require the fear fitting for a free woman, not the fear of a slave. For she is your body. If you act otherwise, you disgrace yourself by dishonoring your own body.

What kind of fear is this? That she not contradict, that she not withdraw from obedience to you, and that she not strive for primacy. It is enough to awaken only this kind of fear.

But if you love as you have been instructed, you will achieve far more. You will achieve it not so much by threats as by love itself. The female sex is very weak. It needs great help and special condescension.

What, then, will those say who enter a second marriage? I do not say this in condemnation. May it not be so, for the Apostle allows this. But in condescension to her weakness, provide everything for her. Do everything and endure everything for her sake. This is necessary for you.

In this case the Apostle does not choose to give counsel from external examples, as he often does. The great and powerful example of Christ was enough, especially to prove the necessity of submission. 'He shall leave,' he says, 'his father and mother.' This is an external indication.

Yet he did not say, 'and he shall live together with his wife,' but 'he shall cleave.' By this he indicates the closest union and the strongest love. Nor was he satisfied with this. Through his inference he explains the wife's subjection in such a way that the two no longer appear as two.

He did not say that they become one spirit. He said what is evident and fully possible. They are joined in such a way that they become 'one flesh.'

The wife also has authority in the house, though it is second authority. She has rule and is equal in honor to her husband. Yet with all this, the husband has something greater, namely the chief care of the house.

In correspondence to Christ, he has received this also: not only to love his wife as he ought, but also to order her life well. 'That she may be,' he says, 'holy and without blemish.' When 'flesh' is mentioned, love is understood. Likewise, when 'he shall cleave' is mentioned, love is also understood.

If you make her holy and without blemish, everything else will follow. Seek what belongs to God, and human things will follow very easily. Govern your wife, and your house will be well ordered.

Hear what Paul says: 'If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home' (1 Cor 14:35). If we govern our houses in this way, we shall also be capable of governing the Church. For the house is a little church.

Thus, if husbands and wives are good, everything will be excellent. Remember Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and the three hundred and eighteen members of the household. How well ordered their whole house was. How full it all was of piety.

Sarah fulfilled the apostolic commandment and feared her husband. Hear what she said: 'After I have grown old, shall I have this pleasure? And my lord is old' (Gen 18:12). And Abraham loved her so much that he listened to her in everything she commanded.

Their son was virtuous. The members of the household themselves were worthy of admiration. They did not hesitate to go into danger with their master. They did not waver or demand an explanation.

One of them, who had charge over the others, was such a wondrous man that the marriage of the only-begotten son was entrusted to him. So also was the journey into a foreign land.

If a commander has ordered his army well, no enemy will break in from anywhere. So it is here. When husband, wife, children, and servants care for one and the same thing, great concord exists in such a house.

But if the opposite is so, then often everything is overturned and ruined by one bad servant. Often one person destroys and spoils everything. Therefore let us take special care for wives, children, and slaves.

Let us know that by this we shall make authority over them easy for ourselves. A merciful and favorable account will be required of us for this authority. Then we shall say: 'Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me' (Is 8:18).

If the husband is good, and the head is good, there will be no disorder in the whole body. The Apostle has precisely expressed what good relations between wife and husband should be. He exhorts her to fear her husband as the head, and him to love her as his wife.

But how, you ask, can this be? He has shown that it must be. I will tell you how it can be. It will happen if we despise money, if we look to one thing only, the virtue of the soul, and if we keep the fear of God before our eyes.

What he said when speaking about slaves also applies here: 'that each may receive from the Lord according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil' (2 Cor 5:10). One must love her not so much for her own sake as for Christ's sake.

Having this in mind, the Apostle said: 'as also the Lord.' Therefore do everything in obedience to the Lord, as though you did everything for Him. This is enough to move and persuade, and to prevent every scandal and disorder.

No believer should slander wives to a husband. Yet a husband must not believe accusations against his wife. Likewise, a wife must not idly watch her husband's comings and goings. Still, the husband must never give any occasion for suspicion against himself.

Tell me, why do you spend the whole day with friends, and only the evening with your wife? In this way you cannot satisfy her or remove suspicion. If your wife reproaches you, do not be grieved. This comes from affection, not boldness.

Reproaches are the fruit of ardent love, passionate attachment, and fear. She fears that someone may steal her marriage bed, or harm her in her chief good. She fears that someone may take away her head, or ruin the marriage bed.

There is still another cause of discord. No one should attach himself excessively to servants. The husband should not attach himself to a maidservant, nor the wife to a male servant. This is enough to give rise to suspicions.

“So let each one of you love his wife as himself.” Yet, he says, although I have expounded this allegorically, it was also spoken for the sake of the wife.

The allegory does not destroy the indication contained in the letter concerning the husband’s relation to his wife. For each man must love his wife and cherish her as himself.

Do not tell me that the wife has this or that defect. Your own body also has many defects: a dislocated hand, a lame foot, a damaged eye. Yet you do not cut them off, but deem them worthy of even greater care.

“And let the wife fear her husband.” Since equality produces disorder, he introduces fear, so that there may be one ruler, the husband.

"In any case, let each one of you in particular love his own wife as himself." Let each one keep in mind that the Apostle commands the husband to have the same love for his wife as for his neighbor. For it is written: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18), and now it is said: "Let each one love his own wife as himself."

Therefore let love for neighbor and love for wife be one and the same. If, according to the Savior's interpretation, the neighbor is found in every person, then there would be no difference in love between a wife and any other person. But to speak this way would be very unreasonable.

The Apostle says: I do not apply the marital law to Christ and the Church in every respect. For you too are subject to the law. The husband must love his wife as his own body, and the wife must both love and fear her husband. The divine law also commanded this: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16).

Although Paul had earlier already given general instructions on how the husband should treat the wife, and the wife the husband, he now addresses particular instructions to the Ephesians. He adds, “So each one of you also,” implying that as Christ and the Church are two in one flesh, so you too must follow and imitate this, so that each may love his own wife.

“Let the wife fear her husband.” The Apostle has sufficiently unfolded the teaching on the relation of spouses and on their mutual love; see the commentary on 1 Cor 13:4.

Therefore this expression serves only as a repetition or conclusion of the words connected at the beginning with wives’ obedience to husbands.

A wife must obey her husband and love him, for love is also expressed in joyful and harmonious obedience. She must fear him as children fear parents, though they also love them and are loved by them.

She must fear violating her love and fidelity toward her husband. It is clear that this does not speak of servile fear and subjection, such as was observed among various peoples in pre-Christian times; compare 1 Pet 3:2.

“Thus,” that is, according to the image of Christ’s union with the Church, “let each one of you love his wife as himself; and let the wife fear her husband.”

With these words the Apostle makes, as it were, a summary or general conclusion concerning the marital relations described above. The most characteristic features of these relations are love on the part of the husband who heads the household, and obedience and fear on the part of the wife.

One may ask: should husbands in any measure obey their wives? If the holy Apostle commands all people generally, not only spouses, “submitting to one another in the fear of God” (Eph 5:21), then reasonable counsels and desires of the wife certainly must be binding for loving husbands.

In concluding his discourse on the relation of Christian spouses, the Apostle speaks of it as a great sacred mystery. It is blessed by the Church precisely in the image of Christ’s union with the Church.

Its purpose is the realization of holy love and Christian obedience in the name of God. From spouses and children, these feelings of love and subordination are to be established in the family, and through it in the whole world.

Saint John Chrysostom says: “It is truly a mystery that a man leaves the one who produced him, begot him, and raised him, and the one who suffered for him and bore him in travail.

“Nevertheless” (πλην), says the Apostle in conclusion, leaving the exposition of the mystery he has indicated and returning to the chief subject of his discourse. Nevertheless, you also, Ephesians, love your wives as yourselves. And let the wife feel the same fear before her husband that the Church feels before the Lord (ινα φοβήται, v. 33).

It seems that the Apostle had this thought in mind: someone might misuse his word about believers cleaving to the Lord so as to become one with Him, and begin to teach that for Christians marital love for wives is wholly out of place, and therefore marriage itself as well.

For this reason he adds the qualification: nevertheless. Yet this does not prevent each of you from loving his wife. Let each one love his own wife as himself, and let the wife fear her husband. One must add: only all in the Lord, so as not to allow such love to become an obstacle to cleaving to the Lord.