St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A...

ἐν αὐτῇ κ.τ.λ.] The same ending occurs in iv. 2. Thanksgiving is the end of all human conduct, whether exhibited in words or in works. For the stress laid on thanksgiving in St Paul’s epistles generally, see the note on Phil. iv. 6. The words εὐχάριστος, εὐχαριστεῖν, εὐχαριστία, occur in St Paul’s writings alone of the Apostolic epistles. In this epistle especially the duty of thanksgiving assumes a peculiar prominence by being made a refrain, as here and in iii. 15, 17, iv. 2: see also i. 12.

8–15. ‘Be on your guard; do not suffer yourselves to fall a prey to certain persons who would lead you captive by a hollow and deceitful system, which they call philosophy. They substitute the traditions of men for the truth of God. They enforce an elementary discipline of mundane ordinances fit only for children. Theirs is not the Gospel of Christ. In Christ the entire fulness of the Godhead abides for ever, having united itself with man by taking a human body. And so in Him—not in any inferior mediators—ye have your life, your being, for ye are filled from His fulness. He, I say, is the Head over all spiritual beings—call them principalities or powers or what you will. In Him too ye have the true circumcision—the circumcision which is not made with hands but wrought by the Spirit—the circumcision which divests not of a part only but of the whole carnal body—the circumcision which is not of Moses but of Christ. This circumcision ye have, because ye were buried with Christ to your old selves beneath the baptismal waters, and were raised with Him from those same waters to a new and regenerate life, through your faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead. Yes, you—you Gentiles who before were dead, when ye walked in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your unchastened carnal heathen heart—even you did

God quicken into life together with Christ; then and there freely forgiving all of us—Jews and Gentiles alike—all our transgressions; then and there cancelling the bond which stood valid against us (for it bore our own signature), the bond which engaged us to fulfil all the law of ordinances, which was our stern pitiless tyrant. Ay, this very bond hath Christ put out of sight for ever, nailing it to His cross and rending it with His body and killing it in His death. Taking upon Him our human nature, He stripped off and cast aside all the powers of evil which clung to it like a poisonous garment. As a mighty conqueror He displayed these His fallen enemies to an astonished world, leading them in triumph on His cross.’

8. Βλέπετε κ.τ.λ.] The form of the sentence is a measure of the imminence of the peril. The usual construction with βλέπειν μὴ is a conjunctive; e.g. in Luke xxi. 8 βλέπετε μὴ πλανηθῆτε. Here the substitution of an indicative shows that the danger is real; comp. Heb. iii. 12 βλέπετε μήποτε ἔσται ἕν τινι ὑμῶν καρδία πονηρὰ ἀπιστίας. For other instances of μὴ with a future indicative comp. Mark xiv. 2 μήποτε ἔσται θόρυβος, Rom. xi. 21 μήπως οὐδὲ σοῦ φείσεται; and see Winer § lvi. p. 631 sq.

τις] This indefinite τις is frequently used by St Paul, when speaking of opponents whom he knows well enough but does not care to name: see the note on Gal. i. 7. Comp. Ign. Smyrn. 5 ὅν τινες ἀγνοοῦντες ἀρνοῦνται ... τὰ δὲ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν, ὄντα ἄπιστα, οὐκ ἔδοξέ μοι ἐγγράψαι.

συλαγωγῶν] ‘makes you his prey, carries you off body and soul’. The word appears not to occur before St Paul, nor after him, independently of this passage, till a late date: e.g. Heliod. Aeth. x. 35 οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τὴν ἐμὴν θυγάτερα συλαγωγήσας. In Tatian ad Græc. 22 ὑμεῖς δὲ ὑπὸ τούτων συλαγωγεῖσθε it seems to be a reminiscence of St Paul. Its full and proper meaning, as appears from the passages quoted, is not ‘to despoil,’ but ‘to carry off as spoil’, in accordance with the analogous compounds, δουλαγωγεῖν, σκευαγωγεῖν. So too the closely allied word λαφυραγωγεῖν in Plut. Mor. p. 5 πόλεμος γὰρ οὐ λαφυραγωγεῖ ἀρετήν, Vit. Galb. 5 τὰ μὲν Γαλατῶν, ὅταν ὑποχείριοι γένωνται, λαφυραγωγήσεσθαι. The Colossians had been rescued from the bondage of darkness; they had been transferred to the kingdom of light; they had been settled there as free citizens (i. 12, 13); and now there was danger that they should fall into a state worse than their former slavery, that they should be carried off as so much booty. Comp. 2 Tim. iii. 6 αἰχμαλωτίζοντες γυναικάρια.

For the construction ἔσται ὁ συλαγωγῶν see the notes on Gal. i. 7, iii. 21. The former passage is a close parallel to the words here, εἰ μή τινές εἰσιν οἱ ταράσσοντες ὑμᾶς κ.τ.λ. The expression ὁ συλαγωγῶν gives a directness and individuality to the reference, which would have been wanting to the more natural construction ὃς συλαγωγήσει.

διὰ τῆς φιλοσοφίας κ.τ.λ.] ‘through his philosophy which is an empty deceit’. The absence of both preposition and article in the second clause shows that κενῆς ἀπάτης describes and qualifies φιλοσοφίας. Clement therefore (Strom. vi. 8, p. 771) had a right to contend that St Paul does not here condemn ‘philosophy’ absolutely. The φιλοσοφία καὶ κενὴ ἀπάτη of this passage corresponds to the ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις of 1 Tim. vi. 20.

But though ‘philosophy’ is not condemned, it is disparaged by the connexion in which it is placed. St Chrysostom’s comment is not altogether wrong, ἐπειδὴ δοκεῖ σεμνὸν εἶναι τὸ τῆς φιλοσοφίας, προσέθηκε καὶ κενῆς ἀπάτης. The term was doubtless used by the false teachers themselves to describe their system. Though essentially Greek as a name and as an idea, it had found its way into Jewish circles. Philo speaks of the Hebrew religion and Mosaic law as ἡ πάτριος φιλοσοφία (Leg. ad Cai. 23, II. p. 568, de Somn. ii. 18, I. p. 675) or ἡ Ἰουδαϊκὴ φιλοσοφία (Leg. ad Cai. 33, II. p. 582) or ἡ κατὰ Μω"υσῆν φιλοσοφία (de Mut. Nom. 39, I. p. 612). The system of the Essenes, the probable progenitors of the false teachers at Colossæ, he describes as ἡ δίχα περιεργείας Ἑλληνικῶν ὀνομάτων φιλοσοφία (Omn. prob. lib. 13, II. p. 459). So too Josephus speaks of the three Jewish sects as τρεῖς φιλοσοφίαι (Ant. xviii. 1. 2, comp. B.J. ii. 8. 2). It should be remembered also, that in this later age, owing to Roman influence, the term was used to describe practical not less than speculative systems, so that it would cover the ascetic life as well as the mystic theosophy of these Colossian heretics. Hence the Apostle is here flinging back at these false teachers a favourite term of their own, ‘their vaunted philosophy, which is hollow and misleading’.

The word indeed could claim a truly noble origin; for it is said to have arisen out of the humility of Pythagoras, who called himself ‘a lover of wisdom’, μηδένα γὰρ εἶναι σοφὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀλλ’ ἢ Θεόν (Diog. Laert. Proœm. § 12; comp. Cic. Tusc. v. 3). In such a sense the term would entirely accord with the spirit and teaching of St Paul; for it bore testimony to the insufficiency of the human intellect and the need of a revelation. But in his age it had come to be associated generally with the idea of subtle dialectics and profitless speculation; while in this particular instance it was combined with a mystic cosmogony and angelology which contributed a fresh element of danger. As contrasted with the power and fulness and certainty of revelation, all such philosophy was ‘foolishness’ (1 Cor. i. 20). It is worth observing that this word, which to the Greeks denoted the highest effort of the intellect, occurs here alone in St Paul, just as he uses ἀρετή, which was their term to express the highest moral excellence, in a single passage only (Phil. iv. 8; see the note there). The reason is much the same in both cases. The Gospel had deposed the terms as inadequate to the higher standard, whether of knowledge or of practice, which it had introduced.

On the attitude of the fathers towards philosophy, while philosophy was a living thing, see Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible s.v. Clement, who was followed in the main by the earlier Alexandrian fathers, regards Greek philosophy not only as a preliminary training (προπαιδεία) for the Gospel, but even as in some sense a covenant (διαθήκη) given by God to the Greeks (Strom. i. 5, p. 331, vi. 5, p. 761, ib. § 8, p. 771 sq.). Others, who were the great majority and of whom Tertullian may be taken as an extreme type, set their faces directly against it, seeing in it only the parent of all heretical teaching: e.g. de Anim. 2, 3, Apol. 46, 47. In the first passage, referring to this text, he says, ‘Ab apostolo jam tunc philosophia concussio veritatis providebatur’; in the second he asks, ‘Quid simile philosophus et Christianus?’ St Paul’s speech at Athens, on the only occasion when he is known to have been brought into direct personal contact with Greek philosophers (Acts xvii. 18), shows that his sympathies would have been at least as strong with Clement’s representations as with Tertullian’s.

τὴν παράδοσιν κ.τ.λ.] Other systems, as for instance the ceremonial mishna of the Pharisees, might fitly be described in this way (Matt. xv. 2 sq., Mark vii. 3 sq.): but such a description was peculiarly appropriate to a mystic theosophy like this of the Colossian false teachers. The teaching might be oral or written, but it was essentially esoteric, essentially traditional. It could not appeal to sacred books which had been before all the world for centuries. The Essenes, the immediate spiritual progenitors of these Colossian heretics, distinctly claimed to possess such a source of knowledge, which they carefully guarded from divulgence; B.J. ii. 8. 7 συντηρήσειν ὁμοίως τά τε τῆς αἱρέσεως αυτῶν βιβλία καὶ τὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων ὀνόματα (see above pp. 89, 90 sq., 95). The various Gnostic sects, their direct or collateral spiritual descendants, almost without exception traced their doctrines to a similar source: e.g. Hippol. Hær. v. 7 ἃ φησὶ παραδεδωκέναι Μαριάμνῃ τὸν Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Κυρίου τὸν ἀδελφόν, vii. 20 φασὶν εἰρηκέναι Ματθίαν αὐτοῖς λόγους ἀποκρύφους οὓς ἤκουσε παρὰ τοῦ σωτῆρος, Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. 17 (p. 898) καθάπερ ὁ Βασιλείδης, κἂν Γλαυκίαν ἐπιγράφηται διδάσκαλον, ὡς αὐχοῦσιν αὐτοί, τὸν Πέτρου ἑρμηνέα· ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ Οὐαλεντῖνον Θεοδᾶ διακηκοέναι φέρουσιν, γνώριμος δὲ οὗτος ἐγεγόνει Παύλου. So too a later mystic theology of the Jews, which had many affinities with the teaching of the Christianized Essenes at Colossæ, was self-designated Kabbala or ‘tradition’, professing to have been handed down orally from the patriarchs. See the note on ἀπόκρυφοι, ii. 3.

τὰ στοιχεῖα] ‘the rudiments, the elementary teaching’; comp. ver. 20. The same phrase occurs again Gal. iv. 3 (comp. ver. 9). As στοιχεῖα signifies primarily ‘the letters of the alphabet’, so as a secondary meaning it denotes ‘rudimentary instruction’. Accordingly it is correctly interpreted by Clement Strom. vi. 8 (p. 771) Παῦλος ... οὐκ ἔτι παλινδρομεῖν ἀξιοῖ ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν φιλοσοφίαν, στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου τάυτην ἀλληγορῶν, στοιχειωτικήν τινα οὖσαν (i.e. elementary) καὶ προπαιδείαν τῆς ἀληθείας (comp. ib. vi. 15, p. 799), and by Tertullian adv. Marc. v. 19 ‘secundum elementa mundi, non secundum cælum et terram dicens, sed secundum literas seculares’. A large number of the fathers however explained the expression to refer to the heavenly bodies (called στοιχεῖα), as marking the seasons, so that the observance of ‘festivals and new-moons and sabbaths’ was a sort of bondage to them. It would appear from Tertullian’s language that Marcion also had so interpreted the words. On this false interpretation see the note on Gal. iv.

(2) The keeping of days and seasons is quite subordinate to other external observances. The rite of circumcision (ver. 11), and the distinction of meats (ver. 21) respectively, are placed in close and immediate connexion with τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου in the two places where it occurs, whereas the observance of days and seasons (ver. 16) stands apart from either.

‘In Christ’, so the Apostle seems to say, ‘you have attained the liberty and the intelligence of manhood; do not submit yourselves again to a rudimentary discipline fit only for children (τὰ στοιχεῖα). In Christ you have been exalted into the sphere of the Spirit: do not plunge yourselves again into the atmosphere of material and sensuous things (τοῦ κόσμου).’

οὐ κατὰ Χριστόν] ‘not after Christ’. This expression is wide in itself, and should be interpreted so as to supply the negative to both the preceding clauses; ‘Christ is neither the author nor the substance of their teaching: not the author, for they listen to human traditions (κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν ἀνθρώπων); not the substance, for they replace Him by formal ordinances (κατὰ τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου) and by angelic mediators‘.

9 sq. In explaining the true doctrine which is ‘after Christ’, St Paul condemns the two false principles, which lay at the root of this heretical teaching; (1) The theological error of substituting inferior and created beings angelic mediators for the divine Head Himself (vv. 9, 10); and (2) The practical error of insisting upon ritual and ascetic observances, as the foundation of their moral teaching (vv. 11–14). Their theological speculations and their ethical code alike were at fault. On the intimate connexion between these two errors, as springing out of a common root, the Gnostic dualism of these false teachers, see the introduction, pp. 33 sq., 79, 87, 180 sq.

ὅτι κ.τ.λ.] The Apostle justifies the foregoing charge that this doctrine was not κατὰ Χριστόν; ‘In Christ dwells the whole pleroma, the entire fulness of the Godhead, whereas they represent it to you as dispersed among several spiritual agencies. Christ is the one fountain-head of all spiritual life, whereas they teach you to seek it in communion with inferior creatures.’ The same truths have been stated before (i. 14 sq.) more generally and they are now restated with direct and immediate reference to the heretical teaching.

τῆς θεότητος] ‘of the Godhead’. ‘Non modo divinæ virtutes, sed ipsa divina natura’, writes Bengel. For the difference between θέοτης ‘deitas’, the essence, and θειότης ‘divinitas’, the quality, see Trench N. T. Syn. § ii. p. 6. The different force of the two words may be seen by a comparison of two passages in Plutarch, Mor. p. 857 A πᾶσιν Αἰγυπτίοις θειότητα πολλὴν καὶ δικαιοσύνην μαρτυρήσας (where it means a divine inspiration or faculty, and where no one would have used θεότητα), and Mor. 415 C ἐκ δὲ ἡρώων εἰς δαίμονας αἱ βελτίονες ψυχαὶ τὴν μεταβολὴν λαμβάνουσιν, ἐκ δὲ δαιμόνων ὀλίγαι μὲν ἔτι χρόνῳ πολλῷ δι’ ἀρετῆς καθαρθεῖσαι παντάπασι θεότητος μετέσχον (where θειότητος would be quite out of place, because all δαίμονες without exception were θεῖοι, though they only became θεοί in rare instances and after long probation and discipline). In the New Testament the one word occurs here alone, the other in Rom. i. 20 alone. So also τὸ θεῖον, a very favourite expression in Greek philosophy, is found once only, in Acts xvii. 29, where it is used with singular propriety; for the Apostle is there meeting the heathen philosophers on their own ground and arguing with them in their own language. Elsewhere he instinctively avoids a term which tends to obscure the idea of a personal God. In the Latin versions, owing to the poverty of the language, both θέοτης and θείοτης are translated by the same term divinitas; but this was felt to be inadequate, and the word deitas was coined at a later date to represent θέοτης: August. de Civ.

σωματικῶς] ‘bodily-wise’, ‘corporeally’, i.e. ‘assuming a bodily form, becoming incarnate’. This is an addition to the previous statement in i. 19 ἐν αυτῷ εὐδόκησεν πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι. The indwelling of the pleroma refers to the Eternal Word, and not to the Incarnate Christ; but σωματικῶς is added to show that the Word, in whom the pleroma thus had its abode from all eternity, crowned His work by the Incarnation. Thus while the main statement κατοικεῖ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος of St Paul corresponds to the opening sentence ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θὲον καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος of St John, the subsidiary adverb σωματικῶς of St Paul has its counterpart in the additional statement καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο of St John. All other meanings which have been assigned to σωματικῶς here, as ‘wholly’ (Hieron. in Is. xi. 1 sq., IV. p. 156, ‘nequaquam per partes, ut in ceteris sanctis’), or ‘really’ (Aug. Epist. cxlix, II. p. 513 ‘Ideo corporaliter dixit, quia illi umbratiliter seducebant’), or ‘essentially’ (Hilar. de Trin. viii. 54, II. p. 252 ‘Dei ex Deo significat veritatem etc.’, Cyril. Alex. in Theodoret. Op. V. p. 34 τουτέστιν, οὐ σχετικῶς, Isid. Pelus. Ep. iv. 166 ἀντὶ τοῦ οὐσιωδῶς), are unsupported by usage. Nor again can the body be understood of anything else but Christ’s human body; as for instance of the created World (Theod. Mops. in Rab. Op. VI. p. 522) or of the Church (Anon. in Chrysost. ad loc.).

According to these two last interpretations τὸ πλήρομα τῆς θεότητος is taken to mean the Universe (‘universam naturam repletam ab eo’) and the Church (τὴν ἐκκλησίαν πεπληρωμένην ὑπὸ τῆς θεότητος αὐτοῦ, see Ephes. i. 23) respectively, because either of these may be said to reside in Him, as the source of its life, and to stand to Him in the relation of the body to the head (σωματικῶς). But these forced interpretations have nothing to recommend them.

St Paul’s language is carefully guarded. He does not say ἐν σώματι, for the Godhead cannot be confined to any limits of space; nor σωματοειδῶς, for this might suggest the unreality of Christ’s human body; but σωματικῶς, ‘in bodily wise’, ‘with a bodily manifestation’. The relation of σωματικῶς to the clause which it qualifies will depend on the circumstances of the case: comp. e.g. Plut. Mor. p. 424 E λέιπεται τοίνυν τὸ μέσον οὐ τοπικῶς ἀλλὰ σωματικῶς λέγεσθαι, i.e. ‘ratione corporis habita’, Athan. Exp. Fid. 4 (I. p. 81) ἑκάτερα τοίνυν τὰ περὶ τὸ κτίσμα ῥητὰ σωματικῶς εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν γέγραπται, i.e. ‘secundum corpus’, Ptolem. in Epiphan. Hær. xxxiii. 5 κατὰ μὲν τὸ φαινόμενον καὶ σωματικῶς ἐκτελεῖσθαι ἀνῃρέθη.

10. καὶ ἐστὲ ἐν αὐτῷ] ‘and ye are in Him’, where ἐστὲ should be separated from the following πεπληρωμένοι; comp. John xvii. 21, Acts xvii. 28. True life consists in union with Him, and not in dependence on any inferior being; comp. ver. 19 οὐ κρατῶν τὴν κεφαλήν, ἐξ ὁῦ κ.τ.λ.