Translated by Qwen who notes: Here is a complete English translation of the commentary by Cornelius a Lapide (1567–1637) on Ephesians 5:8–14, based on the Latin text you provided. Lapide's commentary is known for its thoroughness, reliance on the Church Fathers, and attention to textual variants.
Cornelius a Lapide: Commentary on Ephesians 5:8–14
Eph 5:8: "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light."
"For you were once darkness."
That is, you were darkened ones. It is a metonymy with emphasis. Just as we call a wicked man a "wickedness" (scelestum), so here he calls the darkened ones "darkness" (tenebras), and "darklings" (tenebriones), due to their infidelity and ignorance—both of God and of things to be done. For you did not know that fornication, uncleanness, and similar things were such great and grave sins.
Note: Eusebius (Book 6, Preparation for the Gospel) and Theodoret (Cure of Greek Affections) demonstrate at length how great was the blindness and perverse judgment of the Gentiles in paganism, even regarding those things which natural reason and the law of nature dictate. For, they say:
The Persians joined sisters, mothers, and daughters to themselves in nefarious unions.
They fed on human flesh.
The Scythians sacrificed their own sons.
The Massagetae ate their elderly relatives.
The Hyrcani exposed their elderly to birds.
The Caspians exposed them to dogs to be devoured.
The Lacedaemonians (Spartans) praised theft as something clever and skillful.
Others granted their wives to guests to be polluted in adultery as part of a symbolic pact.
That these were the crimes of the Canaanites is clear from Leviticus 18, Deuteronomy 10, and 16. Consider how improper the divine laws are [in the eyes of the pagans] regarding not aiding the sick, lying freely, killing infants, and the community of wives. Lycurgus commands by his laws that guests be driven from the borders, boys be prostituted with impunity, and females be freely exposed. Eusebius and Theodoret record these things.
"But now you are light in the Lord."
What does this mean? Now, having become Christians, you are luminous; you are enlightened by the faith, grace, and doctrine of Christ, so that you may know both the true God, Trinity and Unity, and those things which are to be done, so that you may please that true God.
"Therefore, walk as children of light."
That is, live in the manner befitting those who have attained such great light—that is, the knowledge of God, of the divine will, and of things to be done. Make sure this knowledge is not idle nor hidden asleep in the soul, but flows forth into the will and into works, so that the works of faith, like offspring, correspond to their mother.
Note: Sins are called darkness for five reasons:
Because sinners hate the light and seek darkness. For they are ashamed to do and sin such shameful things openly in the light before men.
Because sins blind the judgment of reason. Hence Proverbs 14:22 says: "They err who work evil." For sin always arises either from error or from some imprudence, inconsideration, and inadvertence of reason and intellect; and again, while it is being committed, it increases and obscures the right dictate of prudence and conscience through the inclination to repeat the same sin, which it generates in the mind.
Contrarily, Virtue and good works are Light for five reasons:
Because they love the light and the sight of God.
Because they flow from light—that is, from the dictate of faith and prudence.
Because they increase that same light.
Because they illuminate others, and like a light of holy example, they shine before others.
Because they originate from God, who is the first uncreated Light, transcending all, illuminating, warming, strengthening, vivifying, containing, and converting all to Himself as the Sun. (See St. Dionysius, On Divine Names, c. 4). See also Romans 13:12.
Eph 5:9: "For the fruit of the light is in all goodness and justice and truth."
"For the fruit of the light is..."
That is, is situated.
Textual Note: Corruptly, some Greeks now read karpos tou pneumatos ("fruit of the Spirit"). For it should be read fructus tou photos ("fruit of the light"), as Our [Vulgate] Latin reads, the Syriac, and the ancients generally. For concerning light he spoke previously, not concerning the Spirit.
"The fruit of the light"—that is, of faith, prudence, and Christian virtue—"is situated in all goodness."
Agathosyne means benignity and beneficence, concerning which I spoke on Galatians 5:22. He opposes this to irascibility, harshness, and malignity.
"And justice." He opposes this to frauds.
"And truth." He opposes this to lying and hypocrisy.
So Chrysostom: As if to say, "From the fruits of light you will show yourselves to be children of light, if indeed you show yourselves not irascible, harsh, malignant, or slow, but just; not liars and hypocrites, but sincere and truthful; but benign and beneficent, not fraudulent."
Eph 5:10: "Proving what is well-pleasing to God."
"Proving" (Probantes / Dokimazontes): Exploring, inquiring what is well-pleasing to God.
Namely, this ought to be the first study of a Christian: to inquire what God demands of him, in what thing he can please God most, how he can know and fulfill His holy will and good pleasure. This is the sum, this the apex of Christian perfection: that with St. Paul, not only in choosing a state of life but in any matter whatever, he says: "Lord, what do you want me to do?" And with Christ: "Thy will be done," concerning me, in me, through me, around me, both in life and in death, both in time and in eternity.
Eph 5:11: "And do not communicate with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."
"And do not communicate..."
Do not have commerce with, or mix yourselves with, the works of sinners and those who sin, who, like darklings, flee the light. For these works bring forth no fruit except late and useless repentance and remorse of conscience.
"But rather reprove them."
What does this mean? Reprove them both by word and by the example of a pure and holy life. [Reprove] their darkness—that is, their shameful lusts and sins.
Eph 5:12: "For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret."
"By them"—namely, by the children of disobedience and darkness, concerning whom he spoke in verses 6, 7, and 11. So Jerome.
Note: This refers to the obscenity both of the pagans, but rather of Simon Magus and the Gnostics, concerning whom Epiphanius narrates abominable things regarding this passage of the Apostle.
Eph 5:13: "But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light. For whatever makes manifest is light."
"But all things that are reproved..."
He looks back to what he said in verse 11: "But rather reprove them"—namely, the lusts and virtues already mentioned in verse 3. For the Greeks indicate that the Apostle is referring to this in verse 13. For they do not have ta panta ("all things") but ta de panta (or tauta panta), that is, "these all"—namely, fornication, uncleanness, scurrility, which I have already mentioned and [said] must be reproved. And as Jerome reads: "Which are reproved by me ought to be reproved and manifested by the light."
"While I say that you ought to reprove the crimes already mentioned, I simultaneously warn that you ought to bring the light of holy doctrine and life to rightly reprove the darklings and the darkness of the crimes already mentioned."
"For all things that are reproved by the light are made manifest."
For light ought to manifest the darksome sins which we reprove. Just as the night and darkness of infidelity or impiety hide and conceal their sins from the sinners themselves, so the light of holy doctrine and life, brought by the children of light—that is, Christians—reveals, opens, and manifests these same sins to them.
Textual Note: Hence, for what follows, "For whatever makes manifest is light," it can be translated from the Greek with the Syriac, Erasmus, Vatablus: "For whatever manifests the darkness of the sins already mentioned is light." For the Greek phaneroumenon is a middle voice and signifies both that which manifests and that which is manifested. Our [Vulgate] translator, however, significantly translates "that which is manifested."
For the Apostle proves that what is reproved ought to be manifested by light, because, he says, that which is reproved and by reproving is manifested, and by manifesting is corrected through repentance. For this signifies by metalepsis the word "is made manifest": it becomes light, that is, luminous, and casts away the darkness of sins. Hence it rightly follows: therefore that same thing ought to be manifested by light. For nothing becomes luminous and casts away darkness unless it is illuminated and manifested by light.
"See therefore, O Christians, how you ought to walk as children of light, how much light you ought to bring: namely, so much that it not only reveals the darkness of paganism and impiety but illuminates them, makes them lucid, indeed transmutes them into the light of Christianity.
"Again, lest you think your reproof and illumination will be in vain: 'Whatever is manifested is light.' Whatever, namely, is manifested, reproved, and corrected by you, children of light, is light—that is, it receives the light of faith and holy life and becomes luminous. Thus you will make the darksome into the lucid, pagans into Christians, the obscene into chaste, when they, seeing your pure and holy life and doctrine, abandon their errors and lusts to emulate you and your faith and sanctity." (So Theophylact).
Eph 5:14: "Therefore He says: 'Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.'"
"Therefore He says..."
Namely, so that He may manifest and illuminate the darklings and the darkness already mentioned.
Some say Isaiah says this (c. 60, v. 1): "Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for your light has come..." But this sentence of Paul, "Awake, you who sleep..." differs much from that of Isaiah. Therefore, with St. Jerome, I say this sentence of Paul is not found in Scripture [as a direct quote]; nevertheless, it alludes to the already mentioned place of Isaiah. Hence St. Thomas says the Apostle did not take these words from any apocryphal book, nor did he utter them as a prophet, but as if expounding the already mentioned sentence of Isaiah, "Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem..." with some additions of his own.
"Therefore what Paul says, 'He says'..."
That is, cries out (supply: the Holy Spirit and our God), both interiorly in the soul of each sinner through holy inspirations and excitations to penance, and exteriorly through me, Paul, in this place, and through other preachers, addressing each one existing in sin. He says, I say, and cries out that which follows:
"Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead."
You, namely, O sinner, who are asleep and dead by the death of vice and evil habit, awaken from this, arise.
Note 1: The sinner, as was said before, is versed as if in darkness and night; he sleeps, and sin is like sleep. It is vacant and lacks honest action, nor does he understand those things which are of salvation, just as a sleeping man. Again, he sees dreams and imagines pleasures and things which do not subsist, just as a sleeping man. The Psalmist says (Ps 75:6): "They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands." For, says Chrysostom and Theophylact...
Note 2: Sin is the death of the soul, and the sinner is dead because he lacks all sense and motion of vital grace, and the soul itself spiritually—that is, by grace—stinks before God and is of virulent odor, says Theophylact, just like a dead corpse.
Note 3: Hence appears the necessity of preventing and exciting grace (gratia praeveniens et excitantis), so that it may excite man from this sleep and death of the soul. Just as a sleeping man cannot awaken himself from sleep, nor a dead man from death, so neither can a sinner awaken himself from sin, but he must be excited by God and the grace of God. Of this, Christ raising Lazarus, who bore the figure of a sinner, was a type and symbol, crying out to him with a loud voice: "Lazarus, come forth!" This ought to be the voice of all preachers equally as of Paul: "Awake, you who sleep..." This ought to be their one study: not to scratch ears, not to conciliate a fame for doctrine, not so that they may be heard "How well, how eloquently he preached," but so that, like hammers crushing rocks and hard human hearts, with vehement spirit and zeal, they may excite sinners from the sleep and death of sin and recall them to the light and life of grace.
Moral Note: St. Augustine on Psalm 131 ("If I give sleep to my eyes"): "All those felicities which are seen are the dreams of sleepers. And just as he who sees treasures in dreams is rich while sleeping, but will awaken and be poor, so all those vain things of this world about which men rejoice, they rejoice in sleep; they will awaken when they do not wish, if they do not awaken now when it is useful, and they will find those dreams to have been and to have passed, just as Scripture says: "Like a dream of one awakening." And in another place: "They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands." Therefore he who wishes to find a place with the Lord said also: "If I give sleep to my eyes..." But there are some who do not sleep but slumber; they withdraw themselves a little from the love of temporal things and again roll themselves into it, as if slumbering, nodding the head frequently. Awake, shake off the sleep; you will fall by slumbering. The Psalm does not wish him who wants to find a place with the Lord to give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids."
"And Christ will give you light."
He alludes to a sleeper in much light. For to this one the awakener is accustomed to say: "Arise, it is now day, awaken, behold the sun shining." In like manner, Paul, and any preacher, excites sinners from the sleep of sin, saying: "Arise, it is day; the sun of justice, Christ, has already shone forth, and He has illuminated all those who, awakening from the sleep of sins, have opened their eyes and have arisen, with the light of His grace and justice. Arise, awaken, and you also open your eyes, and He will likewise illuminate you." So says Romans 13:11: "It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. The night is passed, and the day has approached. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."
Textual Note: Note that for "will give you light" (illuminabit te), the Greek is epiphanei soi, that is, "He will shine upon you," or "He will rise for you," so that Christ may communicate His light of grace to you, just as the sun [communicates light] to the moon, so that, having become a mirror of divine light, you may also illuminate others and, having snatched them from the darkness of sins, manifest [them], bring light, and make them lucid.
Variant Reading: Jerome notes that for epiphanei some read ephapsetai se ho Christos, that is, "Christ will touch you." And so read Ambrose, Augustine (Psalm 3). Indeed, Chrysostom adduces this reading as well as the former.
The Legend of Adam: This discourse is addressed to Adam and to us, the sons of Adam, who are contained in Adam and in whom we died when he sinned. [It refers to] Him buried on Mount Calvary, whom Christ, crucified there, touching with His blood distilling from the cross, redeemed and led back to light and divine life.
"I know," says Jerome, "I have heard someone disputing about this place in church, who exhibited to the people a theatrical miracle of a form never before seen, so that he might please, saying this testimony is spoken to Adam in the place of Calvary, where the Lord was crucified. Which [place] was called Calvary because the head of the ancient man was buried there. Therefore, at that time when the crucified Lord hung over his sepulcher, this prophecy was fulfilled, saying: 'Awake, Adam, you sleep, and arise from the dead,' and not as 'Christ will rise for you' but 'Christ will touch you,' because videlicet by the touch of His blood and body depending [from the cross] he is vivified and rises up. And then that type also is fulfilled in truth, by which a dead man raised a dead man."
"I leave this, whether true or not, to the judgment of the reader."
Note: Although Jerome here and elsewhere seems to ridicule this sentence concerning Adam buried on Mount Calvary and there resurrected by Christ's blood, nevertheless the Fathers teach and hand it down generally. Hence St. Augustine (Sermon 71 de tempore): "And truly, brothers," he says, "it is not incongruously believed that the Physician was erected where the sick man lay, and it was worthy that where human pride had killed, there mercy should incline itself, and that precious blood, even physically touching the dust of the ancient sinner while distilling, is believed to have redeemed."
So Tertullian (Book 2, Carmen contra Marcionem):
"Here we believe the first man was buried,
Here Christ suffers, the earth is wet with pious blood,
That the dust of Adam, mixed with the blood of the Old One,
May be washed by the virtue of the distilling water."
The same teach Origen, Epiphanius, Cyprian, and the Fathers generally, with one exception, Jerome, as I said. Matthew 27:33 seems [to support this], and it is a common tradition. For this cause also, painters paint Adam's skull under the cross of Christ, as Molanus noted from Albert the Great (c. 78 de imaginibus).
Lapide's Conclusion: "But regarding the present place, the common and true reading is epiphanei, that is, 'He will shine upon,' not ephapsetai, that is, 'He will touch you.' For so reads Our [Vulgate] Latin, the Syriac, and the Greeks generally. Therefore it is patent it should be read from the preceding things. For hitherto he has treated of light and illumination in verse 8, not of contact. Finally, it is most aptly said to the sleeper and the dead: 'Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light,' so that you may behold the Sun of Justice; but less rightly is it said: 'And Christ will touch you.' Add to this that the Apostle is not speaking about Adam, but about any sinners whatever; to each sinner He cries out: 'Awake, you who sleep...'"
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