The letters we are certain are by Paul have the shape of theology followed ethics.  In this letter we find theology and practice interwoven almost seamlessly throughout. It is probably a circular letter – an encyclical for many churches to digest and read. But there have been other suggestions which at least bear thinking about. It contains so many Pauline ideas, whilst not bearing the marks of his authorship, that some have thought it was a kind of covering letter that went with a collected edition of Paul’s real letters – possibly written by Onesimus, the ex-slave and later Bishop of Ephesus, who had been his amanuensis. Others have seen in it a written version of a baptism sermon. There is certainly liturgy in it. If you look at 1.3-14, which incidentally is all one long sentence in the Greek, it is in the form of a Jewish Blessing, or Berakah. In fact some scholars think that extends right through to the Chapter 3. So even if it is not a baptismal sermon or liturgy, it may well incorporate something of that kind in itself.

Erasmus was the first to doubt it, way back in 1519, and these days the majority of scholars lean in that direction. If we take just a few of the bits of evidence. There are some words that are used here in a quite different way from the way Paul uses them in other letters – the words mysterion (mystery) and ekklesia (church) for example. There are ninety words which occur here but nowhere else in Paul’s writing. And since the subject matter inevitably is not very different, it seems odd in the extreme that we have all those new usages.

But not only are there those linguistic clues, but we also have a kind of ‘second generation’ feel to much of it. Whereas Paul tends to be writing to people who see the church as a local phenomenon – the church at someone house, or in a particular city, and he writes to them in those terms, in Ephesians, the church is seen in a much grander and universal way – as an institution with a cosmic destiny, and with a far greater degree of structure in his organisation and clergy than we find in the rest of Paul. The Church community is settled enough to be able to look back to its founding fathers. It all points to a later date, when these things had come about. It assumes for example, that the Gentile Christians (for whom it appears to have been written) were totally accepted into the Christian community. We know from the other letters of Paul that that integration did not happen very quickly. Another argument for a later date is that there is no mention of the return of Jesus – which we know was very much at the front of people’s minds in earlier days.

Well,  that would be an argument if it were not for the letter to the Colossians, which people generally feel certain is by Paul. You might like, if you have time, to read Colossians again after you have read Ephesians. Some of it will seem incredibly familiar, because large chunks of it are regurgitated in Ephesians. Now if Paul was writing both at the same time, you would expect the same theology, and you don’t find it. And if he was writing it later, as his maturer reflections on the same topics, you wouldn’t expect so much overlap. So the likelihood is that it is Pauline rather than Paul, written in his name (you will recall that pseudipigrapha, as it is called, was perfectly acceptable and a proper way of showing respect). So it dates from not earlier than the 70s or 80s, and maybe a bit later.