[64] This is the emphatic =epignôsis=, so frequent in the later epistles. See Lightfoot's _note_ on Col. i. 9; or Cremer's _Lexicon to N.T. Greek_.
[65] See ch. iii. 3-5, iv. 11; and comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 26-40, etc.
[66] Adolphe Monod: _Explication de l'épître de S. Paul aux Éphésiens_. A deeply spiritual and suggestive Commentary.
[67] In this amplitude of expression there is no idle heaping up of words. The four synonyms for _power_ have each a distinct force in the sentence. =Dynamis= is _power_ in general, as that which is able to effect some purpose; =energeia= is _energy_, power in effective action and operation; =kratos= is _might_, _mastery_, sovereign power,--in the New Testament used chiefly of the power of God; =ischys= is _force_, _strength_, power resident in some person and belonging to him. This is the order in which the words follow each other. Compare vi. 10 in the Greek.
=Hypsêlôn sphodra gemei tôn noêmatôn kai hyperonkôn. Ha gar mêdamou schedon ephthenxato, tauta entautha phêsin.=
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: _In epistolam ad Ephesios._
"He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly _places_, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and Him He gave--the head over all things--to the Church which is His body,--the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."--EPH. i. 20-23.
The division that we make at verse 20, marking off at this point the commencement of the Doctrine of the epistle, may appear somewhat forced. The great doxology of the first half of the chapter is intensely theological; and the prayer which follows it, like that of the letter to the Colossians, melts into doctrine imperceptibly. The apostle teaches upon his knees. The things he has to tell his readers, and the things he has asked on their behalf from God, are to a great extent the same. Still the writer's attitude in the second chapter is manifestly that of teaching; and his doctrine there is so directly based upon the concluding sentences of his prayer, that it is necessary for logical arrangement to place these verses within the doctrinal section of the epistle.