Letter to the Ephesians

By Adrienne von Speyr

The contemporary mystic and spiritual writer Von Speyr gives a verse by verse commentary on St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians that is the fruit of her own contemplative meditation and prayerful reflection. As with her other volumes of New Testament meditations, this one bears two distinctive features. First, her method of expressing the theological meaning of an enunciation is not merely to state the universal Christian truth, but also to characterize the particular angle of vision from which the sacred writer (St. Paul) sees it. Thus Paul's way of conceiving the content and life of faith, and the self-conscious role of the apostle in the economy of salvation accordingly stands out in bold relief. Secondly, Von Speyr always retraces the content of the words back to the source of revelation, which is the Trinity-she has an unremitting regress to the Triune God who occupies the central position in the whole of scriptural revelation, and is its one viewpoint and theme that must be heard for its own sake.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0898705703
• ISBN13: 9780898705706
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Length: 269 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent edition and fine translation from Ignatius Press for an original German text

This book is an excellent edition with a fine translation from the original German text from this Swiss visionary, a precious gem from the mystics of the XX century. Greetings for Ignatius Press for the edition! Dr. Luis Escalante, JCD

Christ recapitulates all things

The Letter to the Ephesians is one of the many excellent Scripture commentaries written by Adrienne von Speyr (1902-1967), a Swiss doctor and mystic. This inspired commentary is filled with God's glory. For her, a major theme in this letter is that Christ recapitulates all things in himself in a unity that he gives in obedient love to the Father. The Holy Spirit has been sent as a seal on us that we may be taken into the glorious inheritance stored up for us in the love of God. I like Speyr's commentaries because they focus in strictest objectivity on the Word being revealed in each word of each verse immediately under consideration. This style helps her see Christology gathering up every anthropological statement and the Trinity gathering up every christological statement. Speyr is unrelenting in bringing everything back into the triune God. All is unified in the unity of the Trinity: "that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph 3:19). This particular book is the translation of the second revised edition called Der Epheserbrief published by Johannes Verlag in 1983. It contains minor stylistic revisions of the first edition which was called Kinder des Lichtes published by Johannes Verlag in 1950. The commentary was dictated to Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) while Speyr was in meditative contemplation, which easily takes the reader into the sphere of prayer.