Writer: Paul

1. When and under what circumstances did Paul write the letter to the Ephesians?

IMAGINE that you are in prison. You are there because of being persecuted for your zealous activity as a Christian missionary. Now that you can no longer travel and visit the congregations to strengthen them, what are you going to do? Can you not write letters to those who have become Christians through your preaching work? Are they not probably wondering how you are, and are they not perhaps in need of encouragement? Of course they are! So you begin to write. You are now doing exactly what the apostle Paul did when he was imprisoned in Rome the first time, about 59-61 C.E. He had appealed to Caesar, and although awaiting trial and under guard, he had freedom for some activity. Paul wrote his letter “To the Ephesians” from Rome, probably 60 or 61 C.E., and sent it by Tychicus, who was accompanied by Onesimus.​—Eph. 6:21; Col. 4:7-9.

2, 3. What conclusively proves Paul’s writership and, at the same time, the canonicity of Ephesians?

² Paul identifies himself as the writer in the very first word and four times refers or alludes to himself as “the prisoner in the Lord.” (Eph. 1:1; 3:1, 13; 4:1; 6:20) Arguments against Paul’s writership have come to nothing. The Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 2 (P⁴⁶), believed to be from about 200 C.E., has 86 leaves out of a codex containing Paul’s epistles. Among them is the epistle to the Ephesians, thus showing that it was grouped among his letters at that time.

³ Early ecclesiastical writers confirm that Paul wrote the letter and that it was “To the Ephesians.” For example, Irenaeus, of the second century C.E., quoted Ephesians 5:30 as follows: “As the blessed Paul says in the epistle to the Ephesians, that we are members of his body.” Clement of Alexandria, of the same period, quoted Ephesians 5:21 in reporting: “Wherefore, also, in the epistle to the Ephesians he writes, Be subject one to another in the fear of God.” Origen, writing in the first half of the third century C.E., quoted Ephesians 1:4 in saying: “But also the apostle in the epistle to the Ephesians, uses the same language when he says, Who chose us before the foundation of the world.”a Eusebius, another authority on early Christian history (c. 260-342 C.E.), includes Ephesians in the Bible canon, and most other early ecclesiastical writers make references to Ephesians as part of the inspired Scriptures.b