“According to the good pleasure,”
[Paul] says, “of His will,” that is, because of His earnestly willing it. This
is as if one were to say, “His earnest desire.” The term “good pleasure”
everywhere means the antecedent will (το
θελημα . . . το
προηγουμενον; for there is also another will. The first
will, for example, is that those who have sinned should not perish; but the
second will is that those who have become wicked shall perish. Certainly there
is no necessity that He punish them; but He does will it. This same thing is to
be seen in Paul where he says, “I would that all men were even as myself”; and
again, “I would that the younger [widows] marry, bear children.” By “god
pleasure,” therefore, he means the first will, the earnest will, the will in company
with earnest desire, persuasion. . . . What he is saying is this “He earnestly
longs for, He earnestly desires our salvation.” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on
the Epistle to the Ephesians 1.2, c. A.D. 392-97, The Faith of the Early
Fathers, 3 vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The
Liturgical Press, 1979], 2:120)
He that praises and marvels, at the grace tendered himself will be more
attentive and the more earnest. “With which He had made us full of grace,”
[Paul] says. He does not say, “With which he has favored” (εχαρισατο, which is a form of
the verb χαριζομαι) us, but “With which He has made us full of grace.” That is to say, he
has not only delivered us from sins, but had made us lovable. (επεραστους) Just as if someone
were to take a leper consumed by illness and disease, and by age and poverty
and hunger, and were to turn him suddenly into a comely youth, surpassing all
mean by is beauty, shedding a bright sunbeam from his cheeks, yes, shaming the
dazzling beams of the sun with the sparkle of his eyes; and then were to set him
down in the flower of his age, and on top of that, array him in purple and a
diadem and all the royal regalia. That is how God has decked out our soul, how
beautiful and desirable and lovable He has made it. (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to
the Ephesians 1.3, c. A.D. 392-97, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3
vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press,
1979], 2:120)
εχαριτωσεν ημας. This is usually translated he has favored
us, and certainly that is a correct translation; but Chrysostom chooses
another possible meaning for his exegesis, and so must we: He has made us
graceful or has made us full of grace. A participle form (κεχαριτωμενη) from the same verb (χαριτοω) as εχαριτωσεν
is found in the Hail, full of grace or Hail, highly favored one
of Luke 1:28, and our familiar prayer which incorporates that passage: Hail,
Mary, [thou that hast been made] full of grace! (Ibid., 121
n. 5)
