Homily 22 — Ephesians 6, verses 5 to 13

“Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in simplicity of your heart, as to Christ; not in the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; rendering service with goodwill, as to the Lord and not to men; knowing that whatever good thing each one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is slave or free.” [a]

So it is not only husband and wife and children, but good slaves as well, who help to order and protect a household. That is why the blessed Paul has not passed over even this part of it. But he comes to it last, because it is last in dignity and rank. Still, he speaks to them at length, and no longer in the tone he used with the children but in a far more advanced way, since the promise he holds out to them is not in this world but in the world to come. “Knowing,” he says, “that whatever good or evil thing each one does, he will receive the same from the Lord.” And so he trains them at once to love wisdom. For though they are below the children in dignity, in mind they are above them.

“Slaves,” he says, “be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh.” [d]

At one stroke he lifts up the wounded soul and soothes it. It is as if he said: Do not be grieved that you rank below the wife and the children. Slavery is nothing but a name. The mastery is “according to the flesh,” brief and temporary, for whatever belongs to the flesh passes away.

“With fear,” he adds, “and trembling.”

You see that he does not ask the same fear from slaves as from wives. There he simply said, “and let the wife see that she fears her husband.” Here he strengthens the expression: “with fear,” he says, “and trembling, in simplicity of your heart, as to Christ.” This is what he says all the time.

What do you mean, blessed Paul? The slave is a brother — or rather, he has become a brother. He enjoys the same privileges; he belongs to the same body. More than that, he is the brother not only of his own master but of the Son of God; he shares in all the same privileges. And yet you say, “Obey your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling”? “Yes, for this very reason I say it. If I charge free men to submit to one another in the fear of God, and if besides I charge the wife to fear and respect her husband, although she is his equal, much more must I speak this way to the slave.” He had said as much above: “submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.” It is no sign of low birth — no, it is the truest nobility — to know how to lower ourselves, to be modest and unassuming, and to give way to our neighbor. And free men have served free men with great fear and trembling.

“In simplicity of heart,” he says. [e]

And that is well said. For it is possible to serve with fear and trembling and yet not with goodwill, but in whatever way one can manage. In many cases, many slaves secretly cheat their masters. So he does away with this cheating by saying, “in simplicity of your heart, as to Christ; not in the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; rendering service with goodwill, as to the Lord and not to men.” Do you see how many words he needs to plant this good principle — the “with goodwill,” I mean, and the “from the heart”? The other kind of service, the one “with fear and trembling,” we see many giving their masters, and the master’s threats go a long way toward securing it. But show, he says, that you serve as “the servant of Christ,” not of man. Make the right action your own, not a thing done under compulsion.

It is the same as in the words that follow, where he persuades and teaches the man who is mistreated by another to make the right action his own, the work of his own free choice. The man who strikes the cheek is not thought to come to that act because of any intention in the man he strikes, but only out of his own malice. So what does He say? “Turn the other to him as well” (Matthew 5, verse 39), to show him that you were not unwilling when you submitted to the first. For the one who is lavish in suffering wrong makes his own what was not his own act, by letting himself be struck on the other cheek too, and not merely by enduring the first blow. The first might even look like cowardice; the second looks like a lofty philosophy. In this way you will show that it was for wisdom’s sake that you bore the first blow as well.

So in the present case too, show that you bear this slavery also willingly. The people-pleaser, then, is no servant of Christ, and the servant of Christ is no people-pleaser (Galatians 1, verse 10). For who, being a servant of God, makes it his aim to please people? And who, while pleasing people, can be a servant of God?

“From the heart,” he says, “rendering service with goodwill.” For it is possible to serve even with simplicity of heart and without wrongdoing, and yet not with all one’s might, but only so far as to fulfill one’s bound duty. So he says: do it eagerly, not from necessity; from conviction, not under constraint. If you serve like this, you are no slave — if you do it from conviction, with goodwill, from the heart, and for Christ’s sake. For this is the service that even Paul, the free man, gives, and he cries out, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (Second Corinthians 4, verse 5).

Look how he strips your slavery of its meanness. Think of the man who has been robbed. If he gives still more to the one who took from him, he is not counted among the robbed but among generous givers; not among those who suffer evil but among those who do good. By his generosity he covers the other with disgrace, rather than being covered with disgrace by the robbery. In the same way, I say, in this case the slave by his generosity will show himself the more high-minded, and by showing that he does not feel the wrong, he will put the other to shame.

So let us serve our masters for Christ’s sake, “knowing,” he continues, “that whatever good thing each one does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is slave or free.” Many masters, being unbelievers, were likely to feel no shame and to make their slaves no return for their obedience. So notice how he has encouraged the slaves, so that they may have no misgivings about being repaid, but full confidence about the reward. For just as those who receive a kindness and make no return make God a debtor to their benefactors, so, I say, masters also — if you treat them well and they fail to repay you — repay you all the more, by making God your debtor.

Verse 9: “And you masters,” he continues, “do the same things to them.” The same things — what are they? “Rendering service with goodwill.” He does not actually say “render service,” but by saying “the same things” he plainly shows that this is what he means. For the master himself is a servant. “Not as people-pleasers,” he means, “and with fear and trembling” — that is, toward God, fearing that he will one day accuse you for your neglect of your slaves.

“And give up threatening” — do not be provoking, he means, or oppressive. [f]

“Knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven.”

Ah, how mighty a Master he hints at here! How startling the thought! It is this: “With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7, verse 2) — so that you may not hear the sentence, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt” (Matthew 18, verse 32).

“And there is no partiality,” he says, “with him.”

Do not think, he would say, that he will forgive what is done to a slave just because it was done to a slave. The laws of the pagans, being the laws of men, do recognize a difference between these kinds of offenses. But the law of the common Lord and Master of all, who does good to all alike and gives the same rights to all, knows no such difference.

But suppose someone asks where slavery comes from, and why it has found its way into human life — and many, I know, are glad to ask such questions and want to be told. I will tell you. Slavery is the fruit of greed, of degradation, of savagery. For Noah, we know, had no slave, nor did Abel, nor Seth, nor those who came after them. The thing was the fruit of sin, of rebellion against parents. Let children listen to this: whenever they are undutiful to their parents, they deserve to be slaves. Such a child strips himself of his noble birth. For the one who rebels against his father is no longer a son; and if the one who rebels against his father is not a son, how will the one who rebels against our true Father be a son? He has fallen from his noble birth; he has done violence to nature. Then come wars and battles as well, and they take their captives. “Well, but Abraham had slaves.” Yes, but he did not treat them as slaves.

Notice how he makes everything depend on the head of the house: in the case of the wife, by telling him “to love her”; the children, by telling him “to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”; the slaves, by the words, “knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven.” So, he says, you too, since you are servants yourselves, must be kind and forbearing in the same way. [h]

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” But before we consider this next part, if you are willing to listen, I will make the same remarks about slaves that I made before about children. Teach them to be devout, and everything else will necessarily follow. But as things are, when a man is going to the theater, or off to the baths, he drags all his slaves along after him; but when he goes to church, not for a moment, nor does he make them come and listen. How will your slave listen, when you, his master, are busy with other things? Did you buy your slave? Did you pay for him? Before everything else, tell him what God wants him to do: to be gentle toward his fellow slaves, and to make much of virtue.

Everyone’s house is a city, and every man is a ruler in his own house. That this is true of the rich man’s house is plain enough: there are lands, and stewards, and officials over officials. But I say that the poor man’s house is a city too. For here too there are offices of authority. For instance, the husband has authority over the wife, the wife over the slaves, the slaves in turn over their own wives, and again the wives and the husbands over the children. Does he not seem to you to be a kind of king, with so many authorities under his own authority? And ought he not to be more skilled than all the rest in government, both of a household and in general? For the one who knows how to manage these, each in its own relation, will know how to choose the fittest men for office — yes, and will choose excellent ones. So the wife will be a second king in the house, lacking only the diadem; and the man who knows how to choose this king will order all the rest excellently.

Verse 10: “Finally,” he says, “be strong in the Lord.” [i]

Whenever his discourse is about to close, he always uses this turn. Did I not say rightly from the start that every man’s house is a camp in itself? For look: having set the several offices in order, he goes on to arm them and lead them out to war. If no one takes over another’s office, but everyone stays at his post, all will be in good order.

“Be strong,” he says, “in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.” That is, in the hope we have in him, by means of his help. He had given many commands that had to be carried out, so he seems to say: Do not be afraid; throw your hope on the Lord, and he will make it all easy.

Verse 11: “Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”

He does not say “against the fighting,” or “against the hostilities,” but “against the schemes.” For this enemy wages war on us not simply or openly, but by “schemes.” What is meant by schemes? To use “schemes” is to deceive, and to capture by craft or contrivance. This happens both in the arts and through words, actions and stratagems, in the case of those who lead us astray. I mean something like this. The devil never sets sins before us in their true colors. He does not speak of idolatry; he dresses it up in other clothes, using “schemes” — that is, making his talk plausible and using disguises.

So by this the apostle is both rousing the soldiers and making them watchful, persuading and teaching them that our fight is with someone skilled in the arts of war, who fights not simply or straightforwardly but with great cunning. First, then, he rouses the disciples by pointing to the devil’s skill; second, by pointing to his nature and the number of his forces. It is not from any wish to dishearten the soldiers under him that he mentions these stratagems, but to rouse them and wake them up, and he prepares them to be watchful. Had he only set out the enemies’ power and stopped there, he would have disheartened them. But as it is, since both before and after this he shows that such an enemy can be overcome, he raises their courage instead. For the more clearly the strength of our adversaries is stated to our own people, the more earnest it makes our soldiers.

Verse 12: “For our wrestling is not,” he says, “against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” [j]

Having stirred them up by the nature of the fight, he goes on to rouse them also by the prizes set before them. What is his argument? Having said that the enemies are fierce, he adds that they are robbing us of vast blessings. What are these? The fight takes place “in the heavenly places.” The struggle is not over riches, not over glory, but over our being made slaves. And so the hostility cannot be reconciled. The strife and the fight are fiercer when vast interests are at stake. For the words “in the heavenly places” are the same as saying “for the heavenly things.” It is not that they may gain anything by winning, but that they may rob us. It is as if someone were to ask, “What does the contract consist in?” — “In gold.” The word “in” means “on behalf of”; the word “in” also means “on account of.” See how the enemy’s power startles us, and how it puts us fully on our guard, to know that the danger concerns vast interests and the victory brings great rewards. For he is doing his utmost to throw us out of heaven.

He speaks of certain “rulers, and authorities, and world rulers of this darkness.” What darkness? The darkness of night? No, the darkness of wickedness. “For you were once darkness,” he says (Ephesians 5, verse 8), naming in this way the wickedness that belongs to this present life; for beyond it, it will have no place — not in heaven, not in the world to come. [l]

He calls them “world rulers,” not because they are masters of the world, but because Scripture usually calls wicked practices “the world.” For example, Christ says, “They are not of this world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17, verse 16). What then? Were they not of the world? Were they not clothed in flesh? Were they not among those who are in the world? And again: “The world hates me, but it cannot hate you” (John 7, verse 7). There again he calls wicked practices by this name. So here the apostle means by “the world” wicked people, and the evil spirits have a more particular power over them. “Against the spiritual forces of wickedness,” he says, “in the heavenly places.” He speaks of “rulers and authorities,” just as in the heavenly places there are “thrones and lordships, rulers and authorities” (Colossians 1, verse 16).

Verse 13: “Therefore,” he says, “take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand firm in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.” By “the evil day” he means the present life, and he also calls it “this present evil world” (Galatians 1, verse 4), because of the evils done in it. It is as much as to say: Always be armed. And again, “having done all,” he says — that is, having dealt with the passions, and shameful cravings, and everything else that troubles us. He speaks not merely of doing the deed but of completing it, so as not only to slay, but also to stand after we have slain. For many who have won this victory have fallen again. “Having done all,” he says — not having done one thing and not the other. For even after the victory we must stand. An enemy may be struck down, but what has been struck comes to life again if we do not stand. But if, after falling, they get up again, as long as we stand they are fallen. As long as we do not waver, the adversary does not rise again.

“Let us put on the whole armor of God.” Do you see how he banishes all fear? For if it is possible “to do all and to stand,” his detailed account of the enemy’s power does not produce cowardice and fear; it shakes off laziness. “So that you may be able,” he says, “to stand firm in the evil day.” He also encourages them from the time. The time, he seems to say, is short, so you must stand; do not lose heart once the slaughter is done. [m]

So if this is a war, if such forces are drawn up against us, if “the rulers” are bodiless, if they are “world rulers,” if they are “the spiritual forces of wickedness,” how, tell me, can you live in self-indulgence? How can you live a loose life? If we are unarmed, how will we be able to win? Let everyone repeat these words to himself every day, whenever he is under the sway of anger or of craving, whenever he is reaching, to no profit at all, after this slack life. Let him listen to the blessed Paul saying to him, “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities.” This is a harder war than one the senses can perceive, a fiercer fight. Think how long this enemy has been wrestling, and what he is fighting for, and be more on your guard than ever. “No,” someone will say, “since he is the devil, he ought to have been taken out of the way, and then everyone would have been saved.” These are the excuses some of your lazy ones offer in their own defense. When you ought to be thankful, my friend, that if you wish you can win the victory over such a foe, you are instead discontented, and you speak the words of some sluggish, sleepy soldier. You know the points of attack, if you choose to. Scout out every side; fortify yourself. The fight is not against the devil alone, but against his powers as well. “How, then, are we to wrestle with the darkness?” By becoming light. How with “the spiritual forces of wickedness”? By becoming good. For wickedness is the opposite of good, and light drives away darkness. But if we ourselves are darkness too, we will surely be taken captive. How, then, will we overcome them? If we become by choice what they are by nature — free from flesh and blood — that is how we will overcome them.

Since it was likely that the disciples would have many persecutors, he says, in effect: “Do not imagine that it is they who are at war with you. The ones really at war with you are the spirits at work in them. Our fight is against them.” By these thoughts he provides for two things: he makes them braver in themselves, and he turns their anger loose on those who are at war with them. And why is our fight against these? Because we also have an invincible ally, the grace of the Spirit. We have been taught an art that enables us to wrestle not against men but against spirits. No, if we are willing, we will not even wrestle at all. For it is because we choose it that there is a struggle, since so great is the power of him who lives in us that he said, “Look, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10, verse 19). He has given us every power, both to wrestle and not to wrestle.

It is because we are lazy that we have to wrestle with them. For that Paul did not wrestle, hear what he says himself: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will distress, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (Romans 8, verse 35). And again, hear his words: “God will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16, verse 20). For he had him under his control; that is why he also said, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her” (Acts 16, verse 18). This is not the language of a man wrestling. For the one who wrestles has not yet conquered, and the one who has conquered no longer wrestles: he has subdued him, he has taken his captive. So Peter too did not wrestle with the devil; he did something better than wrestling. And in the case of the faithful, the obedient, and the catechumens, they overcame him and his powers to vast advantage.

That is why the blessed Paul said, “For we are not ignorant of his designs” (Second Corinthians 2, verse 11), and this was the chief way he overcame him. And again, hear his words: “And no wonder — if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (Second Corinthians 11, verses 14 and 15). So well did he know every part of the fight; nothing escaped him. Again he says, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work” (Second Thessalonians 2, verse 7).

But the struggle is against it. For listen to him again: “I am persuaded that neither angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of Christ” (Romans 8, verse 38). He does not say simply “from Christ,” but “from the love of Christ.” For there are many who are united to Christ, so they suppose, and yet do not love him. Not only, he says, will you not persuade me to deny him; you will not even make me love him less. And if the powers above had no strength to do this, who else could move him? Yet he does not say this as though they were actually attempting it, but as a supposition; that is why he said, “I am persuaded.” So he did not wrestle; and yet he fears the devil’s tricks. Listen to what he says: “I fear that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ” (Second Corinthians 11, verse 3). “True, but he uses this word about himself too, where he says, ‘For I fear that somehow, after preaching to others, I myself may be rejected.’ How, then, are you ‘persuaded that no one will separate’ you?” Do you see that the expression is one of lowliness and humility? For he was already living in heaven. That is also why he said, “For I am not aware of anything against myself” (First Corinthians 4, verse 4), and again, “I have finished the course” (Second Timothy 4, verse 7). [q]

So it was not in these matters that the devil put obstacles in his way, but in what concerned the disciples. And why, exactly? Because in these matters he was not sole master; their own will was too. There the devil won in some cases — or rather, not even there was it over Paul that he won, but over the laziness of people who paid no attention. If Paul, from laziness or anything of the kind, had failed to do his own duty, then the devil would have won over him. But if on his part he did all he could, and they did not obey, it was not over him that the devil won, but over their disobedience. The disease did not win over the physician, but over the unruliness of the patient. For when the physician takes every precaution and the patient undoes it all, it is the patient who is defeated, not the physician. So in no case did the devil win over Paul.

But in our own case, we should be content if we are even able to wrestle. For the Romans, indeed, this is not what he asks. What, then? “He will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16, verse 20). And for these Ephesians he calls on “him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3, verse 20). The one who wrestles is still held fast, but it is enough for him that he has not fallen. When we depart from here — then, and not before — the glorious victory will be won.

Take, for instance, some evil craving. The remarkable thing would be not even to give it room, but to smother it. But if this is not possible, then even though we have to wrestle with it and keep it to the very end, if we depart still wrestling, we are conquerors. For it is not the same here as it is with wrestlers. There, if you do not throw your opponent, you have not won. But here, if you are not thrown, you have won; if you are not thrown, you have thrown him. And rightly so. For there both strive for the victory, and when one is thrown, the other is crowned. Here it is not so: the devil is striving for our defeat. So when I strip him of what he is bent on, I am the conqueror. For what he is eager for is not to throw us, but to make us share his own fall. So I am a conqueror already, for he is already cast down and ruined; and his victory lies not in being crowned himself, but in bringing about my ruin. So even if I do not throw him, as long as I am not thrown, I have won.

What, then, is a glorious victory? It is, beyond all this, to trample him underfoot, as Paul did, by counting the things of this present world as nothing. Let us too imitate him, and strive to rise above them, and nowhere give him a hold on us. Wealth, possessions and empty glory give him a hold. And often this has roused him, and often provoked him. But what need is there to wrestle? What need to engage him at all? The one in the act of wrestling cannot be sure of the outcome — whether he himself may not be defeated and captured. But the one who tramples him underfoot has a certain victory.

Oh, then, let us trample the devil’s power underfoot. Let us trample our sins underfoot — I mean everything that belongs to this life: anger, craving, empty glory, every passion — so that when we depart to that world we may not be convicted of betraying the power God has given us. For in this way we will also attain the blessings to come. But if we are unfaithful in this, who will trust us with things that are greater? If we could not trample down one who had fallen, who had been disgraced, who had been despised, who lay under our feet, how will the Father give us a Father’s rewards? If we do not subdue one who has been placed so far beneath us, what confidence will we have to enter our Father’s house? [r]

For tell me: suppose you had a son, and he ignored the loyal part of your household and kept company with those who had caused you grief, with those who had been thrown out of his father’s house, with those who spend their time at the gaming table, and kept on doing so to the very end — would he not be disinherited? Plainly he would. And so will we. If we ignore the angels, who have pleased our Father well and whom he has set over us, and keep company with the devil, we will certainly be disinherited — may that never happen! Instead, let us take up the war we have to wage with him.

If anyone has an enemy, if anyone has been wronged by him, if anyone is provoked, let him gather up all that anger, all that fierceness, and pour it out on the devil’s head. Here wrath is a good thing, here anger is useful, here revenge deserves praise. For just as among the pagans revenge is a vice, so here, truly, revenge is a virtue. So if you have any failings, get rid of them here. And if you are not able to put them away by yourself, do it, even with your members as well. Has someone struck you? Bear a grudge against the devil, and never let go of your hatred toward him. Or again, has no one struck you? Bear him a grudge all the same, because he insulted, because he offended your Lord and Master, because he harms and makes war on your brothers and sisters. Be always at enmity with him, always implacable, always merciless. So he will be humbled, so he will be despised, so he will be easy prey. If we are fierce toward him, he will never be fierce toward us. If we give way, then he will be fierce; it is not with him as it is with our brothers and sisters. He is the foe and enemy of life and of salvation, both ours and his own. If he does not love himself, how will he be able to love us?

So let us draw up for battle and wound him, with the Lord Jesus Christ as our mighty ally, who can make us proof against his snares and worthy of the good things to come. May God grant that we all attain them, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, and honor to the Father, now and always, and to all the ages. Amen.