In which in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience:
All Commentaries on Ephesians 2:2 Go To Ephesians 2
John Chrysostom
AD 407
* According to the power, says he, of the air, of the spirit.
Here again he means, that Satan occupies the space under Heaven, and that the incorporeal powers are spirits of the air, under his operation. For that his kingdom is of this age, i.e., will cease with the present age, hear what he says at the end of the Epistle; Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against powers, against the world rulers of this darkness; Ephesians 6:12 where, lest when you hear of world rulers you should therefore say that the Devil is uncreated, he elsewhere Galatians 1:4 calls a perverse time, an evil world, not of the creatures. For he seems to me, having had dominion beneath the sky, not to have fallen from his dominion, even after his transgression.
* That now works, he says, in the sons of disobedience.
You observe that it is not by force, nor by compulsion, but by persuasion, he wins us over; disobedience or untractableness is his word, as though one were to say, by guile and persuasion he draws all his votaries to himself. And not only does he give them a word of encouragement by telling them they have an associate, but also by ranking himself with them,
