HKB
the Kingdom transcendental. By making it cosmic he undermines its Jewish particularism. He avoids the superstition by holding firmly to Jesus' doctrine of Son ship by moral affinity with God.
In the Christological Epistles accordingly it is apparent that the Pauline churches are learning to think of the coming Kingdom in a widely different way from the 'apostolic.' The Greek doctrine of mystic union, not the rabbinic of a "share in the world to come," is the basis. In due time we shall see how difficult the process of reconciliation became between Greek and Semitic thought in this field also. For the present we can only note how in the great theme of the Unity of the Spirit in Eph. iv. 1--vi. 9 it is not the 'apostolic' ideal of a restoration of the kingdom to Israel according to the oath sworn to Abraham (Luke i. 68-75; cf. Acts i. 6) that dominates, but an enlargement of the figure of the body and members, a figure commonly employed by Stoic writers, to apply to the unity of the church in Corinthians and Romans. In the Epistles of the Captivity the doctrine of the Kingdom is a social organism permeated and vitalized by Christ's spirit of service. Personal immortality is union with the life of God.
In view of the notoriety of Ephesus as the very centre of the trade in magic (so much so that spells and incantations were technically known as "Ephesian letters") and of what Acts tells us of the enormous destruction there of "books of magic" effected by Paul's preaching, it is not surprising that Asia and Phrygia should appear a few years after Paul's departure as the hot-bed of a "philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the 'elements' of the world, and not after Christ." Acts xx. 29 makes Paul predict the heresy.
Such was especially the case at Colossæ, a little town long after notorious for its superstition, where Epaphras, now Paul's fellow-prisoner, had founded the church. Epaphras himself at the time of Paul's writing was in great anxiety both for this church and for the adjoining churches at Hierapolis and Laodicea. Colossians is written to meet this danger, and was sent by the same bearers as the note to Philemon. It was to be exchanged, after being read at Colossæ, for another epistle sent simultaneously to Laodicea. Whether our Ephesians is this companion letter or only a deutero-Pauline production framed on the basis of some genuine letter written on this occasion, is a disputed point among critics. In Marcion's canon our Ephesians was called "Laodiceans," and in our own oldest textual authorities it has no address. We may assume that Ephesians is really the companion letter, whose original address was for some reason cancelled;[15] or that it is but partially from Paul's own hand. Neither view will materially alter our conception of his teaching, or the special application of it to the circumstances of the churches of the Lycus Valley. The important thing to observe is that whereas the application in Colossians is specific, in Ephesians it is systematic and general. Colossians wages a direct polemic against those who are making believers the spoil of mere 'Elements' by introducing distinctions of "meats and drinks" (a step beyond Mosaism), with observance of "feast days, new moons and sabbaths." In Ephesians we have, either altogether at first hand, or to a greater or less extent at second, a general, affirmative presentation of Paul's doctrine of Lordship in Christ. It has only incidental allusion to being "deceived with empty words" (v. 6), and a warning not to be "children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men in craftiness, after the wiles of error" (iv. 14).