Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Ephesians 4:7

ἑνὶ δὲ ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν ἐδόθη ἡ χάρις : but unto each one of us was given the grace. For ἡμῶν some few authorities (including, however, B) read ὑμῶν. After ἡ χάρις some few insert αὕτη ([367] 2, 31, etc.). The article before χάρις is omitted in [368] [369] 1 [370] [371], etc., but inserted in [372] [373] [374] [375] 3 [376], etc. The evidence is pretty evenly balanced. Hence WH bracket ἡ; TRV retain it; LTr omit it. The article defines χάρις as the grace of which the writer and his fellow-believers had experience, which they knew to have been given them (ἐδόθη), and by which God worked in them. What is given is not the χάρισμα but the χάρις, the subjective grace that works within and shows itself in its result the charism, the gracious faculty or quality. The emphasis is on the ἑκάστῳ, and the δέ is rather the adversative particle than the transitional. It does not merely mark a change from one subject to another, but sets the each over against the all, and this in connection with the injunction to keep the unity of the Spirit. God's gracious relation to all is a relation also to each individual. Not one of them was left unregarded by Him who is the God and Father of all, but each was made partaker of Christ's gift of grace, and each, therefore, is able and stands pledged to do his part toward the maintenance of unity and peace. (Cf. Romans 12:6.) κατὰ τὸ μέτρον τῆς δωρεᾶς τοῦ Χριστοῦ : according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Statement of the law of the bestowal of grace. Each gets the grace which Christ has to give, and each gets it in the proportion in which the Giver is pleased to bestow it; one having it in larger measure and another in smaller, but each getting it from the same Hand and with the same purpose. The δωρεᾶς is the gen. of the subject or agent the gift which Christ gives, as is shown by the following ἔδωκε δόματα.

[367] Codex Ephraemi (sæc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

[368] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[369] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[370] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[371] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[372] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[373] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[374] Codex Ephraemi (sæc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

[375] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[376] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Ephesians 4:7

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