Letter to the Ephesians

a manifesto for the unity

Abstract

The letter to the Ephesians is a manifesto for the unity of Christians who are called to form a single ecclesial body. The wall of division that existed between Jewish-Christians and ethnic-Christians and between them and God has already been broken down. It is not a question of a unity that erases differences and singularities, but of a communion that is rooted in divine filiation and participation in the heavenly reality of Christ Jesus. This article seeks to present the state of research on the letter to the Ephesians, underlining the challenges of its reading and its theological beauty. Issues such as authorship, addressees, epistolary and/or discursive elements will be evaluated in the light of current criticism. The methodology used is bibliographical exploration and confrontation of hypotheses for the letter's problems. The article reaches the conclusion of the permanent validity of the canonical text of the letter to the Ephesians, despite its numerous historical problems, as a possibility of reconstruction/consolidation of unity in the ecclesial body.