Giuseppe wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 11:45 pmIn my view the sentence is saying that, since who is descending is the same entity who is ascending, then he has to fill the entire universe (in order to return to the his original status of filling-universe giant - just as the Elchasaites believed).
I finally at least see what you are trying to say. You are saying that the equation
itself is the reason for his filling up the universe. But that is surely not the best reading:
Ephesians 4.10: Ὁ καταβὰς αὐτός ἐστιν καὶ ὁ ἀναβὰς ὑπεράνω πάντων τῶν οὐρανῶν ἵνα πληρώσῃ τὰ πάντα.
"In order that he might fill
all things" surely responds to "above
all the heavens," making the ascent itself the reason for the filling.
In other terms, the filling of the universe is a mere collateral effect of the identity between the descending and the ascending one. So the filling of the universe by Jesus occurred both before and after the death.
No, it is the collateral effect of the ascent above all the heavens. The equation is between (A) one who descended and (B) one who ascended and filled all things.
Now that I think I understand what you are saying, at any rate, I would not call your reading completely impossible, but it strikes me as extremely forced. Christ filling up all things is surely the same thing as the "summing up of all things in Christ" (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῶ Χριστῶ, 1.10), which has taken place in "the fullness of the seasons" (τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν). Christ's current position of power applies to the present and to the future ("not only in this age but also in the one to come," 1.21), but nothing is said about it having been something in the past (at the foundation of the world), too.