Homilies on Ephesians — Homily 10

St. John Chrysostom

1. 0. Greeting

[[Ephesians 4.4]]

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling.

When the blessed Paul exhorts us to anything of special importance, so truly wise and spiritual as he is, he grounds his exhortation upon things in Heaven: this itself being a lesson he had learned from the Lord. Thus he says also elsewhere, Walk in love, even as Christ also has loved us. [[Ephesians 5.2]] And again, Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God. [[Philippians 2.5]]-6 This is what he is doing here also, for whenever the examples he is setting before us are great, he is intense in his zeal and feeling. What then does he say, now he is inciting us to unity? There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling:

Ver. 5. One Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Now what is this one body? The faithful throughout the whole world, both which are, and which have been, and which shall be. And again, they that before Christ's coming pleased God, are one body. How so? Because they also knew Christ. Whence does this appear? Your father Abraham, says He, rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad. [[John 8.56]] And again, If you had believed Moses, He says, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. [[John 5.46]] And the prophets too would not have written of One, of whom they knew not what they said; whereas they both knew Him, and worshipped Him. Thus then were they also one body.

The body is not disjoined from the spirit, for then would it not be a body. Thus it is customary also with us, touching things which are united, and which have any great consistency or coherence, to say, they are one body. And thus again, touching union, we take that to be a body which is under one head. If there be one head, then is there one body. The body is composed of members both honorable and dishonorable. Only the greater is not to rise up even against the meanest, nor this latter to envy the other. They do not all indeed contribute the same share, but severally according to the proportion of need. And forasmuch as all are formed for necessary and for different purposes, all are of equal honor. Some indeed there are, which are more especially principal members, others less so: for example, the head is more a principal member than all the rest of the body, as containing within itself all the senses, and the governing principle of the soul. And to live without the head is impossible; whereas many persons have lived for a long time with their feet cut off. So that it is better than they, not only by its position, but also by its very vital energy and its function.

Now why am I saying this? There are great numbers in the Church; there are those who, like the head, are raised up to a height; who, like the eyes that are in the head, survey heavenly things, who stand far aloof from the earth, and have nothing in common with it