Lecture 6 — Darkness of sinners’ minds

^4:17^ This then I say and testify in the Lord: that henceforward you walk not as also the gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind: [n. 231]

^4:18^ Having their understanding darkened: being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts. [n. 233]

^4:19^ Who despairing have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness. [n. 235]

230. The Apostle previously admonished the Ephesians to persevere in ecclesial unity by describing to them its quality and pattern. In the part that follows he teaches them the way to remain within the Church’s unity.

Regarding this he does two things:

first, he gives them precepts by which they can remain in ecclesial unity;

second, near the end of the letter, at **finally, brethren, be strengthened **(Eph 6:10), he shows them the strength by which they can fulfill these commands.

The first section has two parts:

first, he sets down precepts for everyone;

second, he adds certain ones pertaining to particular classes within the Church, at so also let wives be (Eph 5:24).

The first contains two divisions:

first, he expresses certain general precepts to which all the others can be reduced;

second, he treats of particular ones, at wherefore, putting away lying (Eph 4:25).

Again, the first section has two parts. Since the Apostle’s intention is to draw them away from their old customs to embrace Christ’s new teaching:

first, he demonstrates how the doctrine of Christ is just the opposite of the old pagan perversity;

second, he offers them incentives to leave it behind and adopt the way of Christ, at put off according to former (Eph 4:22).

The first of these has two sections: first, he describes the pagans’ way of life;

second, he shows that Christ’s teaching is contrary to it, at you have not so learned Christ (Eph 4:20).

The first part has three divisions:

first, he exhorts them to reject the pagan way of life;

second, he describes it in reference to the pagan’s inner mind, at having their understanding darkened;

third, he does so in reference to his external way of acting, at who despairing.

231. That you will be able to carry out, he says, what I have spoken of above, I say, not beseeching you as previously, rather I say and testify to what I have asserted. I testify again to every man circumcising himself that he is a debtor to the whole law (Gal 5:3). I charge you, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead (2 Tim 4:1).

And what does he bear witness to here? That henceforward, from the moment you believed and were converted to Christ, since you are now clean (John 13:10), you walk not as also the gentiles walk. To walk here means to live: if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:25). This should not be as the gentiles walk: you know that, when you were heathens, you went to dumb idols according as you were led (1 Cor 12:2). You must not walk in such a manner: my son, walk not with them: restrain your foot from their paths (Prov 1:15).

232. Then, in saying in the vanity of their mind, he gives the reason for his prohibition.

Note that to walk spiritually is to make progress. The path of the just is right to walk in (Isa 26:27), and to Abraham it was said: walk before me, and be perfect (Gen 17:1). There are three norms immanent in man by which he must be guided and regulated if he is to walk justly and make spiritual progress.

In man, one of these is the reason which judges about what is to be done in particular circumstances. Another is the understanding of universal principles, called synderesis; and third, there is the divine law or God. Actions are good and meritorious when the person is guided by these three in their proper interrelations; namely, when the action is in accord with the judgment of reason, and this reason judges according to true understanding, or synderesis; and this synderesis is, in turn, directed by the divine law.

The life of the gentiles did not resemble this, but rather was lacking these three. First of all, rational judgment was missing since they walked in the vanity of their mind. Mind here is the power to apprehend, through which we judge about individual objects. Hence, a man is called upright when he judges correctly about what should be done.

But this mind is sometimes upright, and at other times vain. It is termed upright when, guided by appropriate norms, it attains to the proper end; it is vain when, led by the wrong norms, it does not achieve the proper end. All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God (Wis 13:1), because they became vain in their thoughts (Rom 1:21) and walked after vanity and are become vain (Jer 2:5).

233. Why? Obviously because in performing such acts their reason is not guided by an enlightened understanding, but an erroneous one. This is what he says about them **having their understanding darkened. Their foolish heart was darkened (Rom 1:21), and they have not known nor understood: they walk on in darkness (Ps 82:5).

This is traceable to their not sharing in the divine light, or not being enlightened and directed by the divine law. Thus he adds alienated from the life of God, from God who is the life of the soul. I am the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

Or, from the life of God may mean from charity and spiritual grace by which the soul lives formally. The grace of God is life everlasting (Rom 6:23). Existing without an expectation of eternal life, they held for a mortality of the soul contrary to faith and hope. And they knew not the secrets of God, nor hoped for the wages of justice, nor esteemed the honor of holy souls (Wis 2:22).

Or again, from the life of God might indicate an existence estranged from that holy living which comes through faith: I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). The just man lives by faith (Rom 1:17). Or, the life which comes through charity: we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren (1 John 3:14). The pagans were not like this; instead, they were alienated.

234. He briefly discusses the quality of this alienation; it is through the ignorance that is in them, not of stars or the movement of the constellations, but of the divine nature. Some have not the knowledge of God (1 Cor 15:34), since in former times God was known only among the Jews. But God, indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declares unto men that all should everywhere do penance (Acts 17:30).

God, insofar as he himself was concerned, was not the cause of this ignorance since that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God has manifested it unto them (Rom 1:19). Certainly the cause was themselves due to the blindness of their hearts. He describes it well as blindness since from created reality they could not attain to a knowledge of the Creator. For their own malice blinded them. And they knew not the secrets of God, nor hoped for the wages of justice (Wis 2:21–22).

235. Then the Apostle goes on, at who despairing, to portray how their exterior manner of life was once they lost hope, a loss due to their alienation from life. I have done with hope. I shall now live no longer (Job 7:16). And they said: we have no hopes; for we will go after our own thoughts and we will do everyone according to the perverseness of his evil heart (Jer 18:12).

236. This is what follows in that they have given themselves up to lasciviousness unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness. The text can be read in two ways. Unto covetousness may be taken as a separate vice meaning they were avaricious: being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice (Rom 1:29). Let your manners be without covetousness, contented with such things as you have (Heb 13:5). For nothing is more wicked than the covetous man (Sir 10:9). Thus, woe to him that gathers together an evil covetousness to his house that his nest may be on high, and thinks he may be delivered out of the hand of evil (Hab 2:9).

Unto covetousness might also be joined with what goes before, meaning covetously and modifying the preceding. In that case their life was weighted down with a triple burden. First, they did not sin from passion but by choice, thus he says they have given themselves up to lasciviousness. As though he had said: instead of sinning through passion or weakness they just sold themselves over to it: assemble all you that are in the city, that we may of our own accord yield ourselves all up to the people of Holofernes (Jdt 7:15). They have not done penance for the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness, that they have committed (2 Cor 12:21).

Second, their sins were aggravated from the complete lack of restraint; they walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government (2 Pet 2:10). Therefore, he adds **unto the working of all uncleanness; these men have placed their uncleannesses in their hearts, and have set up before their face the stumbling-block of their iniquity (Ezek 14:3).

Third, their sin was greater from its continuance, for they sinned incessantly. They have committed fornication and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not observing his law (Hos 4:10). Whence he states unto covetousness, that is, they sinned ardently, with a constant and insatiable appetite for more. Having eyes full of adultery and of sin that ceases not, alluring unstable souls, having their heart exercised with covetousness, children of malediction. Leaving the right way they have gone astray (2 Pet 2:14–15).