Introduction
Should we speak of a Ą°letterĄ± from Paul? The letter to the Romans was
already for the most part, a theme on faith and salvation. Here it is even
more so: no news, no personal message for a particular community, but once
more a lengthy dwelling on world salvation. It was, doubtless, destined for
the Churches of the Ephesus area.
Why the world, what is happening to humanity? Every day the same question
confronts us with more insistence, in the measure that recent years have
seen mass movements on the part of very diverse peoples. Even those eager to
dominate know they can no longer do so unless they speak for the majority.
Where is salvation for humanity? What is its future? Paul answers from his
prison in Rome. As we know from Acts (28:16 and 30), Paul was prisoner in
Rome during the sixties. In this capital of the only world known to the
West, he had ample leisure to evaluate the doctrines then circulating
throughout the Roman Empire. They came from the Middle East where they were
of special concern for the Christians in the region of Ephesus. Just as
other religions claimed to offer a universal way of salvation, they offered
Christ, as the only savior of the one humanity.
This letter to the Ephesians seems to have been written after the one to the
Colossians. Paul again takes up and develops GodĄŻs plan that he must have
understood through a revelation. The world was created for humankind to
enable it to emerge as the New Human, one family in Christ. All will find
themselves, each one in place, around a person capable of welcoming all,
each in his own fullness.
Some people think the letter to the Ephesians is not PaulĄŻs: how could he
speak in an impersonal way to a community where he had worked for more than
two years, approximately from 55 to 57 AD? As we have said, the letter must
have been addressed, not only to the Christians of Ephesus, but more widely
to the communities of the valley of Lycus: Hierapolis, Laodicea (Col 4:13
and 16) and Colossus which had been evangelized by PaulĄŻs companions, in
particular by Epaphras (Col 1:7).
Others think that the questions raised are more suited to a time later than
PaulĄŻs: like the letters of Titus and Timothy, this would be his only in a
very broad sense. When one is aware of the very low level of Christian
literature, immediately after the death of the apostles, it is difficult to
accept that a letter of such theological certitude and of such doctrinal
worth could have matured in someone other than Paul, even if he had left the
writing of it to one of his disciples, Tychicus (Eph 6:21) or Timothy (Col
1:1).