Epistle to the Colossians
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The Epistle to the Colossians is a book of the Bible New Testament. Although its authorship is disputed, the book takes the form of a letter from Paul to the church in Colossae.
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[edit] Authorship
While traditionally attributed to Paul, disagreements exist among scholars because of issues such as language (48 words appear in Colossians that appear nowhere else in the Pauline corpus, 33 of these occur nowhere else in the N.T.)[1], style (This letter has a strong use of liturgical-hyminic style which is used nowhere else in Paul's work as extensively)[2], and the presence or absence of characteristic Pauline concepts. However, the differences between these elements in this letter and one commonly considered the genuine work of Paul (e.g. 1 Thessalonians) are explained by advocates of pauline authorship by human variability, and the apparent use of an amanuensis in composition. Paul's authorship is also confirmed by many of the church's early key figures such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius, though most of these references are much later than Paul, and several of them have proved unreliable for other identifications.[3] It has also been suggested that the epistle was co-authored by Paul's "apprentice," Timothy (Colossians 1:1). This might be one of the causes for so much controversy over authorship. For more details, see the article Authorship of the Pauline epistles.
“The earliest evidence for Pauline authorship, aside from the letter itself ... is from the mid to late 2d cent. (Marcionite canon; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3.14.1; Muratorian canon). This traditional view stood unquestioned until 1838, when E. T. Mayerhoff denied the authenticity of Col [Colossians], claiming that it was full of non-Pauline ideas and dependent on Eph [Ephesians]. Thereafter others have found additional arguments against Pauline authorship. ... “The theological areas usually singled out for comparison are christology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. The christology of Col is built on the traditional hymn in 1:15-20, according to which Christ is the image of the invisible God... These themes are developed throughout the letter, and other christological statements that have no parallel in the undisputed Pauline writings are added: that Christ is the mystery of God... that believers have been raised with Christ ... that Christ forgives sins... that Christ is victorious over the principalities and powers...
“The eschatology of Col is described as realized. There is a lessening of eschatological expectation in Col, whereas Paul expected the parousia in the near future (I Thes [Thessalonians] 4:15; 5:23; I Cor [Corinthians] 7:26)... The congregation has already been raised from the dead with Christ ... whereas in the undisputed letters resurrection is a future expectation... The difference in eschatological orientation between Col and the undisputed letters results in a different theology of baptism... Whereas in Rom [Romans] 6:1-4 baptism looks forward to the future, in Col baptism looks back to a completed salvation. In baptism believers have not only died with Christ but also been raised with him.” [TNJBC p. 876]
“All commentators recognize the peculiarities of style in this epistle. The features which help to cast doubt upon the authenticity of Ephesians are present here also, though less pronounced – the long and involved sentences; the concatenation of genitives; the measured liturgical cadences; the absence of the quick and eager dialectic. The characteristic differences will be perceived in a moment [!] by anyone who takes the trouble to read in Greek such a passage as I Cor. 2:6-16, and to compare it with the treatment of substantially the same theme in Col. 1:25-27. The nervous vigor of I Corinthians has entirely disappeared in a cumbrous, overweighted sentence in which it is hard to recognize the working of the same mind.” TIB XI p. 144
“The cumulative weight of the many differences from the undisputed Pauline epistles has persuaded most modern scholars that Paul did not write Col ... Those who defend the authenticity of the letter include Martin, Caird, Houlden, Cannon, and Moule. Some... describe the letter as Pauline but say that it was heavily interpolated or edited. Schweizer suggests that Col was jointly written by Paul and Timothy. The position taken here is that Col is Deutero-Pauline; it was composed after Paul’s lifetime, between AD 70 (Gnilka) and AD 80 (Lohse) by someone who knew the Pauline tradition. Lohse regards Col as the product of a Pauline school tradition, probably located in Ephesus.” [TNJBC p. 877]
“The epistles to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, and to Philemon form a little group of their own within the Pauline corpus. In this group Colossians holds the central position: it is linked to Philemon by the long series of personal references which are common to the two epistles; and to Ephesians by the remarkable parallelisms in language and in ruling ideas which are not represented, or at the most are barely shadowed forth, in the other epistles which are commonly ascribed to the apostle
“There is unfortunately no general agreement among scholars touching the authenticity of these epistles. The Tübingen school ... took the position that all three were pseudonymous writings of the second century. Among the great critical scholars of the present century, on the other hand, a fair number ... have found themselves inclined to accept all three as genuine works of the apostle whose name they bear. It may be said, however, that the opinion now most prevalent among the few who are competent to judge of such matters is that Philemon and Colossians are from the hand of Paul, but that Ephesians is the work of a disciple of the second generation. ... Philemon, which is really unassailable in spite of the perverse attacks of the Tübingen critics, is the chief support of the authenticity of Colossians...
“Curiously enough, the authenticity of Philemon was assailed in some quarters during the fourth century; it is defended by Jerome, Chysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, in terms which suggest that the attack came from theologians of the orthodox party, not from Arians. ... “The Pastorals [I and II Timothy, and Titus], once reckoned among the ‘imprisonment epistles,’ do not enter into any consideration of interrelationships among the Pauline letters, for they are no longer regarded as authentic. Even if it can be shown that they contain some genuine fragments of Paul’s writings...” TIB XI pp. 133-134
“An excellent review by William Sanday [1893] of the course of German criticism is still the best defense of the authenticity of the epistle available in English. Since the publication of Sanday’s article, the majority of New Testament scholars have accepted Colossians as authentic, whatever view they have taken of Ephesians. Nevertheless the verdict of scholarship is not unanimous, and the question must be regarded as open....
“Authentic or not, the substantial integrity of the epistle is almost beyond dispute; the various theories of interpolation have proved convincing to few but their own creators. It is impossible to imagine an editor capable of such ingenious dovetailing as Holzmann’s elaborate theory requires...
“It may be said that the center of interest has shifted from the work of Christ to the person of Christ. The doctrine of the saving, life-giving effects of his death and resurrection is still brought forward, but it is now subordinated to a doctrine of his place in relation to a system of transcendental reality; the soteriological interest is subordinated to the cosmological. For those who seek to defend the Pauline authorship of the epistle this particular difficulty is sufficiently met by the reflection that Paul is compelled to enter the field of cosmological speculation because the debate has been carried there by his opponents.” TIB XI p. 144-145
[edit] Context
“Colossae was not an important city in itself. It was situated on the Lycus River, a tributary of the Meander, ten or twelve miles above the twin cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis and some hundred-odd miles from the famous city of Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia... It lay just within the western border of the ancient region of Phrygia...
“Paul himself had not visited the Lycus region; Colossae and its neighboring cities appear to have been evangelized by his colleague Epaphras.
“It is interesting to speculate that the famous Stoic teacher Epictetus may have met Epaphras or heard his preaching of the gospel in his native city of Hierapolis. When the Christian missionary first came into that region, Epictetus, a slave, was just coming into young manhood; and the gospel of freedom must have run like wildfire through the slave population of all these cities, and can hardly have failed to stir the blood and quicken the imagination, especially of the younger slaves. Though his fundamental doctrine is founded upon Stoic tenets, the writings of Epictetus show some remarkable coincidences in language with the epistles of the New Testament; and it is tempting to think that he had some personal acquaintance with the teaching of the Christians, which was certainly accessible to him in his formative period.”
“... the thought of Colossians, especially in Christology, marks an advance far beyond anything that we find in the other Pauline letters, apart from Ephesians; foreshadowing indeed, as is recognized by critics of all schools, the Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Johannine writings. Even if we grant that there are passing indication of this ‘cosmic’ Christology in some other epistles – though no one has been able to find it suggested except in I Cor. 8:6 – and that Paul was compelled to bring this always latent thought into the foreground in order to meet the specific problems of the Colossian heresy, it is still hard to imagine that once he had developed and elaborated his thinking along these lines it would again recede to the back of his mind, to leave no trace in such a masterwork as Romans. We have, therefore, a good deal of justification for feeling that this is the latest of the extant epistles.
“The assumption that Colossians and its companion letters were written from Rome was not seriously challenged until the nineteenth century, when it was attacked in 1829 by D. Schulz, who appears to have been the first to favor Caesarea. ... [But]... Theodor Zahn has pointed out [that] Paul had been entertained in the home of Philip the Evangelist in Caesarea not many months earlier, on his way to Jerusalem ... and it is scarcely conceivable that this tried and approved preacher of the gospel, the first man to break the barriers of Jewish exclusiveness by preaching the word in Samaria, should not be reckoned among the few who were ‘a comfort’ to Paul [Col. 4:11].
... “The hypothesis that the ‘imprisonment epistles’ were written at Ephesus is a ‘novelty of twentieth-century criticism.’ It has little to commend it.
... “There is, in short, no cogent reason for abandoning the traditional hypothesis that Colossians was written in Rome. Indeed, a demonstration, if it were possible, that the external circumstances envisaged in the letter are incompatible with a Roman origin, would at the same time end all hope of defending its authenticity..." TIB XI pp. 134-140
[edit] Occasion of writing
The letter is supposed (or intend) to be written by Paul at Rome during his first imprisonment there (Acts 28:16, 30), probably in the spring of AD 57, or, as some scholars think, 62, soon after he had written his Epistle to Ephesians. If the letter is not considered to be an authentic part of the Pauline corpus it might be dated during the late first century, possible as late as the 80's[4]
Like some of his other epistles (e.g., those to Corinth), this seems to have been written in consequence of information which had been conveyed to him of the internal state of the church there by Epaphras(1:4-8). Its object was to counteract false teaching. A large part of it is directed against certain speculatists who attempted to combine the doctrines of Eastern mysticism and asceticism with Christianity, thereby promising believers enjoyment of a higher spiritual life and a deeper insight into the world of spirits. Paul argues against such teaching, showing that in Christ they had all things. He sets forth the majesty of his redemption. The mention of the "new moon" and "sabbath days" (2:16) shows that Gnostic ascetics were judging the body of Christ for "eating and drinking" and observing the "feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths." In response, Paul commands the saints to "let no one judge you...but the body of Christ," i.e. the Church itself, which was observing these biblical holy days (Matt. 5:17-19; Rom. 3:31). Paul focuses much of his epistle to the Colossians in combating the teachings of the early Gnostic sects, particularly ascetics (see Col. 2:4-23).
“The whole discussion is relevant only if the Pauline authorship of the epistle is admitted. If Paul did not write it, we shall of course have to date it some years after his death; and it will then be conjectured that it originated in Pauline circles in Asia, possibly in one of the cities of the Lycus Valley, where the type of teaching represented by the ‘Colossian heresy’ was first perceived to be a really dangerous threat to the sound doctrine of the gospel.
“The system of religious teaching which is combated in Colossians is usually called a ‘heresy,’ but this is not altogether a proper description. At this period the word could be used only by a kind of prolepsis, for until something in the way of formal standards of orthodoxy have been established, there is no basis for defining any particular variety of teaching as heretical. Even the great Gnostic schools of the second century are called heretical only in relation to the standards of orthodoxy which were established in the very effort to discredit them. In the apostolic age no such standards existed; Christianity was characterized by an extraordinary freedom of spirit and variety of activity and thought; and as new interpretations of the gospel were offered by different teachers, they had to be judged on their merits, not dismissed out of hand as ‘heretical.’
... “The teaching was described by its proponents as a ‘philosophy’; Paul suggests that it would be better styled ‘vain deceit’... They made appeal in some sense to ‘tradition’ – probably claiming for their system the support of a secret tradition handed down from remote antiquity, giving it the glamour of an immemorial wisdom stemming from some ancient seer. The system itself seems to have rested upon a doctrine of angelic beings, called the elemental sprits of the universe’... who were to be worshiped... These spirits were held to be organized in a celestial hierarchy, with titles to denote their several ranks – ‘thrones... dominions... principalities ... authorities’... They are taken to have important functions as mediators between man and the highest divinity, which is, as it were, unfolded in them; in their totality they constitute the pleroma (‘fullness’...) – the full complement of divine activities and attributes. They offer men redemption, but in some sense not compatible with the Christian gospel – neither consisting in the forgiveness of sins.... nor mediated through Christ in his passion and resurrection.
“On the practical side this transcendental doctrine issued in an artificial asceticism, coupled with the bondage of a Pharisaic legalism. Here we meet with traces of Jewish influence. The leaders of the new cult judged men ‘in respect of eating and drinking, and in the matter of festival, new moon, and sabbath’... It imposed dietary obligations which went beyond the requirements of the Jewish code, since they applied not only to food but to drink; and it prescribed ritual observance of the sacred seasons of the Jewish calendar. Further it had codified some of its legal requirements in a set of taboos... which again go far beyond any of the prohibitions of the Jewish law...
... “The place of the individual in the cosmos, rather than the place of the person in the social order, was the fundamental problem of the contemporary [mystery cult] schools. The explanation of this emphasis lies in the fact that the meteoric career of Alexander the Great had destroyed all the old focuses of social order – the city-states of the Greek world and the empire-states of the ancient Orient alike – and nothing had yet been devised to replace them. With this disintegration of ancient society the old gods, the divine guardians of the historic communities, fell from their place of reverence and esteem which derived from the society in which they were worshiped... In the philosophical schools the same tendencies led inevitably to a nature pantheism, with the feeling that the cosmos was instinct with divinity and that this same divine principle was likewise latent in the individual human soul
“But the individual, thinking of himself as an individual in the cosmos, with no significant relation other than that which he bears to the cosmos, is a lonely figure... A few strong souls made the vain attempt to satisfy themselves with the resources of philosophy – to learn the Stoic autarkei (‘self-sufficiency’) or the Epicurean ataraxia (impassivity’); just as the ideal Buddhist sage ‘wanders lonely as a rhinoceros.’ But though these philosophies have elements of nobility, they are ultimately the outcome of an effort to seek in the mind itself a refuge from deep-seated despair. They brought men neither joy nor hope, but only a certain power to endure... They sought and welcomed a doctrine which brought divinity near to them in a more accessible form than in the vast unity of the cosmos; and this they found in the various ‘Gnostic’ schools which flourished all through this period. In them the physical speculations of philosophy were interwoven in an incredibly complex amalgam with odds and ends of cult practices borrowed without discrimination from many sources, compounded with large elements of magic and astrology; and the whole fabric was commended by the pretense of a secret tradition going back to immemorial antiquity. For the ‘knowledge’ of which the gnostic boasted was invariably a revealed knowledge; not the accumulated results of observation and reflection upon the data of experience, but a revealed doctrine of God, man, and the world, and of the means by which man is to achieve his destiny or – more accurately – to realize his potentialities.
“It might seem that all this sort of thing would have little appeal for Jews, who possessed in their scriptures and in their national tradition a knowledge of the living God and a conception of his rule over the world, beside which all these Hellenistic myths and speculations would seem but feeble and distorted reflections of divine truth. But in fact we know that even in Palestine, Judaism was not immune to this Hellenistic syncretism; and in the Diaspora, less restrained by the conservative power of the temple cult, by the constant discipline exercised by official classes, and by the jealous watchfulness of scribes and Pharisees, it found itself powerfully moved by these trends. On the philosophical side we see the Old Testament and the whole system of observances of Judaism reinterpreted in terms of Platonism by such men as Philo of Alexandria; all over the Roman Empire there were to be found Jews addicted to the practice of magic (Acts 13:6; 19:13ff); and in several of the mystery cults – notably that of Sabazios, who was identified with Yahweh-Sabaoth, ‘the Lord of Hosts’ – there are clear evidences of Jewish influence, with a reciprocal influence of the mysteries upon Jewish circles. Now it happens that in Phrygia there were thousands of Jews; their settlement in the area contiguous to Colossae dates from at least as early as the second century B.C. Moreover, this colony was transported there in the first instance from Mesopotamia, where its ancestors had been in touch with Iranian religion for centuries and could hardly have maintained their Judaism unimpaired; in fact, they could never have been directly subjected to the rigorous Judaism of the second temple at all. Such a group would be particularly amenable to the prevailing syncretism of Hellenistic times, and we can hardly go wrong in attributing to them at least a share in the peculiar Judeo-pagan fusion which threatened to seduce the converts of Epaphras at Colossae
“The doctrine of ‘elemental spirits’ (2:8, στοιχεια [stoikheia])... has a double background in philosophy and astrology. In the language of the Ionian hylozoists and the early physical philosophers in general, stoicheia was used of the ultimate components of matter, in the sense in which modern chemistry speaks of ‘elements.’... The word maintained itself in this sense throughout the history of Greek philosophy and is one of the technical terms of the post-Aristotelian schools, particularly of the Stoics and the neo-Pythagoreans. The type of teaching which was in evidence at Colossae is several stages removed form the great systems of the Hellenistic masters, and stands on a far lower level of thought, but it is a product of the same mental climate....
“In astrology stoicheia was used of the heavenly bodies; and these were taken to be the abodes, or more literally the bodies, of celestial spirits as the human frame is the body which clothes the human spirit...
“The worship of these spirits (2:18) suggests the intermingling of a third strand in the conception of their nature – that is, their identification with the Amesha Spentas (“Immortal Beneficent Ones”) of Iranian religion, who are hypostatizations of the attributes of the supreme deity Ormazd. In the long interpenetration of Iranian and Babylonia cultures the Amesha Spentas came to be identified with the great astral deities of the Semites, as the masters of events and of individual destiny. It should be kept in mind that the whole doctrine of angels in later Judaism, at least as regards the conception of an angelic hierarchy with defined classes and categories, each with its proper sphere and functions, also stems from the Iranian religion.
... “The teaching of the epistle is governed by the necessity of exposing the errors and weaknesses of the so-called philosophy ... which threatened to make inroads on the ranks of the Colossian Christians... the apostle is compelled in his counterattack to bring out the implications of the gospel in respect of the person of Christ in such wise as to show that Christ alone embraces in himself all the functions that are falsely ascribed to these lesser beings, and that he freely bestows all the blessings of redemption which men vainly seek to win through cultic rites and by ascetic observances. The depth and power of the thought will begin to appear only as we study the epistle itself, verse by verse and almost word by word; for ‘every sentence is instinct with life and meaning’ (Lightfoot) and does not yield its treasures to a cursory glance.” TIB XI pp. 134-140
[edit] Content of the letter
Like most of Paul's epistles, this consists of two parts: a doctrinal part and a practical part.
The doctrinal part comprises the first two chapters. His main theme is developed in chapter 2. He warns them against being drawn away from Him in whom dwelt all the fullness of the deity (2:9), and who was the head of all spiritual powers. Christ was the head of the body of which they were members; and if they were truly united to him, what needed they more?
Paul could see that they had grown spiritually because of their love for all the set-apart ones in Christ (1:4 & 8). He knowing this wanted them to grow in wisdom and knowledge that their love might be principled love and not sentimentality (1:9-11). "Christ in you is your hope of glory!" (1:27)
The practical part of the epistle (3-4) enforces various duties naturally flowing from the doctrines expounded. They are exhorted to mind things that are above (3:1-4), to mortify every evil principle of their nature, and to put on the new man (3:5-14). Many special duties of the Christian life are also insisted upon as the fitting evidence of the Christian character.
Tychicus was the bearer of the letter, as he was also of that to the Ephesians and to Philemon, and he would tell them of the state of the apostle (4:7-9). After friendly greetings (10-14), he bids them interchange this letter with that he had sent to the neighbouring Laodicean Church. (The apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans is almost universally believed to be a forgery based on this instruction.) He then closes this brief but striking epistle with his usual autograph salutation. There is a remarkable resemblance between this epistle and that to the Ephesians.
Chapter One
“1. From Saul, emissary, by God’s will, of the anointed one Jesus, and from Timothy our brother 2. to the saints that are in Colossi, the faithful brothers in Anointed: grace and peace to you from our father the God, and the lord Jesus the anointed one.”
“[the greeting is] not represented in the best MSS [manuscripts] ... it is usually found in the Pauline greetings (Rom... I Cor... II Cor) ... and it has been introduced here by later scribes to bring it into uniformity with the more Pauline phrasing.” TIB XI p. 147
“3. We are grateful to God, the father of our lord Jesus the anointed one...”
“Our Lord: Kyrios – ‘Lord’ – is the primary title applied to Christ among the Gentile churches. For them the word ‘Christ’ (Hebrew, ‘Messiah’) had no significance as a title. ‘The Anointed One’ meant a great deal to Jews, but had not such weighty associations for Gentiles.” TIB XI p. 150
“4. for we heard about your faithfulness to the anointed Jesus... 6. and as the tidings made fruit and grew in all the world, so also among you since the day that you heard and recognized truly the grace of God”
“Here for the first time we have introduced into Christian apologetic the fateful theory that catholicity is a warrant of truth, the seed of the canon enunciated by Vincent of Lérins , quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus [‘what (has been held) always, everywhere, by everybody’]’” - www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary
“7. as you learned it from the beloved Epaphras... 8. who also told us about your spiritual love.”
“... the Spirit of God is never mentioned in this epistle.” TIB p. 155
“11. and be hardened with all strength by the might of his glory, and patience and endurance be with you in everything, and in joy”
“There is a redundancy about the language here which seems liturgical, like the act of adoration which open the Epistle to the Ephesians; the prayer takes on the roll and rhythm of music as the mind is swept up in contemplation of the wonders of divine grace.” TIB XI p. 158
“12. Give thanks to our Father who trained you to participate in the inheritance of the saints in light.”
“Chysostom draws a comparison with the action of a king who can give high office to whomever he will, but cannot make a man fit for the office which he is to hold: ‘The honor makes such a man a laughingstock’; but God ‘not only bestowed the honor, but made us fit to receive it.’
“Κληρος [Kleros], here translated ‘inheritance,’ properly means ‘lot’. ... Κληρος was also used of the holdings assigned to veteran soldiers who were settled on the land after their fighting days were done. In this sense also it might appropriately be used of the abode of those whose spiritual warfare is accomplished. The whole phrase brings forward in a new figure the thought of ‘the hope which is laid up for you in heaven’ (vs. 5).” TIB XI p. 159
“13. Thus the Father rescued us from the rule of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, 14. in whom is our redemption, the forgiveness of sins,”
“Behind all this language there lies a kind of ‘popular science’ which is now as dead as the gods of ancient Egypt, but which was a part of the general outlook of people in the first century and was shared inevitably by the Christians of the time. Today we do not speak of ‘the realm where darkness holds sway,’ or of ‘the world rulers of the present darkness’ (Eph. 6:12); or of ‘thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers,’ in the sense of mighty spirit-beings who control our destinies. But we have a popular science of our own which gives us the same sense of enslavement to forces which we cannot control and against which it is vain to strive. Catchwords like ‘economic determinism,’ ‘dialectical materialism,’ ‘behavior patterns’ ‘complexes’ of all descriptions, and the like – these are the dark tyrants which hold our spirits in thrall...” TIB XI p. 161
“15. and who is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation.”
“In the earlier Pauline epistles only one passage can be cited (I Cor. 8:6 – ‘one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things’)... which even faintly suggests that the apostle ever indulged in speculation about the cosmic significance of Christ. True parallels to this Colossian passage are to be found only in Hebrews and the Fourth Gospel, i.e., in works of the second Christian generation. This fact has led some critics to regard the section ... sufficient ground for denying the Pauline authorship of the whole epistle... certainly the passage is sufficiently strange in Paul to compel us to raise the question of authenticity. But it is not sufficient of itself to settle the matter. Scholars who defend the authenticity of the epistle point out ... that Paul is compelled to enter the field of cosmic speculation because the Colossian teaching which he is refuting has based itself upon a false cosmic theory..." TIB XI pp.162 - 164
“16. For in him was created everything that is in the skies and that is in the land, that which is seen and that which is unseen, thrones and powers, and governments and rulers.”
“In Christian thought the universe is not self-contained or self-existent it, does not include God, but is dependent on him for life and order and motion. In the Timaeus – the most difficult, perhaps the least valuable, but by far the most influential of the dialogues – Plato speaks of the universe as a ‘second god,’ ‘son of God,’ ‘this one only-begotten universe,’ ‘a perceptible image of the God is apprehended only by thought’... There is a relation, though it is not immediate, between these words and the language of Colossians; in cosmology, as in many other respects, Plato provided materials which were subsequently built into the lasting edifice of Christian thought...
“The comprehensive phrase all things is now elaborated in a series of classification. This serves two purposes. First, it tacitly repudiates the notions of a fundamental division between the spiritual and the material – the pernicious dualism which lay at the root of all the ‘Gnostic’ systems. It asserts that matter and spirit are alike of divine origin and have part alike in the divine economy. Second, it leads up to the particular insistence that spiritual existences of every order, no matter how exalted, are included in the totality of things that ‘were created in Christ.’... The details of the classification are not significant in themselves: ‘in the heavens and upon the earth’ is the familiar Jewish division of the universe (Gen. I; etc.); things ... visible and invisible is Platonic in origin. These terms represent different modes of thinking about the universe, the one naïve, the other intellectual; but they are not used with philosophical exactitude.... The classification of the angelic orders – thrones... dominions... principalities... powers – need not be regarded as expressing Paul’s own notion; more likely he takes them over from the language of the heretical teachers. Similar classifications are found here and there in the literature of later Judaism; however, they are not a Jewish invention but a borrowing from Oriental astrological theosophy of Iranian and Babylonian origin.” TIB XI pp. 165-166
“19. For this was the will [of God], to settle all the fullness [παν το πληρωμα – pan to pleroma] in him.”
“In the great Gnostic schools of the second century the pleroma is the whole body of emanations. It would seem that the Colossian teachers used it of the whole array of the στοιχεια [stoikheia], the ‘elemental spirits of the cosmos,’ and imagined the various attributes of God to be distributed among them; or they may have conceived the στοιχεια as the attributes themselves, hypostatically existent. It is scarcely worth while to inquire into the particulars of such a fanciful system.
... “We find ourselves moving in a world of ideas that is utterly strange to us, in which we can never feel entirely at home; but we can at least recognize the fundamental conclusion: that ‘God was in Christ.’ Not in a limited or partial manifestation (that might be claimed of all the great teachers of mankind), but in his plenitude.
“In all pagan thinking the physical cosmos is a lower form of being, inherently and irredeemably contrary to the spiritual; association with it degrades and defiles the soul, which can rise to its high estate only by shaking off the bonds of matter and penetrating through the planetary spheres, purging its defilements as it passes, until it rises to a purely spiritual existence, removed far above all the stages of its descent through the material realm... In Christian thinking, as this epistle makes clear, man is not saved from, but with the material creation; there is no fundamental dualism...” TIB XI pp. 171-173
Chapter Two
“1. I want you to know how great is the struggle with which I struggle on your behalf, and on behalf of the people of Laodocia, and on behalf those who did not see me face to face, 2. so that their hearts are comforted, and they are bound together in love, and will attain to all the treasure that is in complete understanding, unto knowledge of the secret of God, the Anointed one,”
“We are now confronted with a textual difficulty of the first magnitude. [A] multiplicity of variants is the result of the extreme difficulty which the Greek scribes and scholars of the early centuries themselves found in the phrase του μυστηριου του θεου Χριστου [tou musteriou tou Theou Khristou]. This is the form of the text as printed in all modern critical editions (except von Soden) and as rendered by the RSV . The authority for this reading is very slender; it rests upon only two Greeks MSS (B and p46 )... there is, however, no doubt that this is the reading which has given rise to all the others...
“It still remains doubtful whether this is the true text; the difficulties which baffled the Greek scribes and scholars and led them to attempt so many emendations still defy solution. As the text stands, the only natural interpretation which it can bear is that given by Hilary – Deus Christus sacramentum est (‘The God Christ [or ‘God the Christ’] is the mystery’); i.e., Χριστου is construed in apposition to θεου, and this genitive defines μυστηριου. Such an exegesis would not trouble a theologian who had been through the fires of the Arian controversy ; but it is utterly unthinkable in the first century...
“Von Soden, regarding it as impossible to take Χριστου in apposition with either θεου or μυστεριου, proposes to treat it as a dependent genitive – ‘the God of Christ.’ The genitive could be either a simple possessive, ‘Christ’s God’; or better, subjective, ‘the God whom Christ reveals.’ This is grammatically possible, but again it seems to make an unbearable demand on the ingenuity of the reader.
“The difficulty of interpretation is greatly lessened if we adopt Lohmeyer’s conjecture that Χριστου is an early gloss. (As it appears in the text in p46 it must go back to the second century.) ... It would seem, therefore, that we must reconcile ourselves to admit that the text as it lies before us is corrupt, and that we are unable to recover the true text of the passage.” TIB XI p. 185
... “8. Beware that no man leads you astray in philosophy ”
“It is not to be supposed that Paul is here showing himself hostile to all philosophy, but only to the fantastic angelology which is dignifying itself by that name at Colossae. In one of the Hermetic writings ‘philosophy’ and ‘magic’ are paired together as twin means of nourishing the soul. It is this lower kind of ‘philosophy’ which calls forth Paul’s scorn – not the kind of truth that has been apprehended by the severe discipline of investigation, but the mysterious lore which claims the sanction of ancient revelation.” TIB XI p. 191
“and in vain arguments according to the traditions of men, according to the principles of the world, and not according to the Anointed one.”
“... the elementary substances of which the physical world is formed (earth, air, fire, and water; perhaps with the Empedoclean addition of love and strife), which are likewise the constituents of the human frame (a microcosmos in relation to the macrocosmos); and they are related at the same time to the great constellations, and conceived as astral divinities which control the spheres and are thus masters of human fate. The doctrine which Paul combats, then, appears to involve (a) an exposition of the nature of the physical world and man’s place within it in terms of astrological determinism; and (b) instruction in the cult practices (asceticism, taboos, angel worship) which will propitiate these astral spirits and enable the devotee to attain fullness of life.” TIB XI p. 192-193
“11. In him you are also circumcised with a circumcision that is not the work of hands, and this is the flaying of the body of flesh in the circumcision of the Anointed one.”
“The demand for circumcision, however, has not the same basis as in the Galatian dispute. There it involved the relation of Christianity to Judaism and arose out of the attempt to keep Christianity permanently a Jewish sect, to compel all Christians to become members of the national community. At Colossae there is no suggestion of nationalism. Circumcision is required as an act of dedication; as the rite, or part of the rite, of initiation into the ‘mystery’ of the στοιχεια [stoikheia- elements] cult. ... “The spiritual circumcision is now contrasted with the literal in respect of its effect, which consists in putting off the body of flesh. Σαρξ [Sarx] (flesh) is used here in the peculiar ethical sense which it frequently has in Paul’s writings; it means not the physical nature as such, nor yet the carnal passions, but the corrupt personality as a whole – what man is in himself apart from the regenerating grace of God.... There is no suggestion in the N.T. that the physical in itself is depreciated or regarded as a source of defilement (see I Cor. 6:13-20).” TIB XI pp. 196-197
“12. You were buried with him [Jesus] in immersion [baptism] and with him you were also raised to life by your belief in the power of God that raised him from the dead, 13. and when you were dead in your sins and in the foreskin of your flesh, He [God] raised you with him [Jesus].”
“It should be observed... that while in Rom. 6 the Christian’s participation in the resurrection of Christ lies in the realm of eschatological expectation (note the futures in vss. 6, 8), here it is regarded as already realized. If we are convinced of the authenticity of the letter, we shall be obliged to see an indication here of a trend in Paul’s thinking – a lessening of his absorption in the future consummation and a deepening of his appreciation of the benefits which Christians have already realized in Christ.” TIB XI p. 197
“14. He completely nullified the note of indebtedness held against us, and removed it by staking it to a cross.”
“[KJV: ‘Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross”] Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances] By the hand-writing of ordinances, the apostle most evidently means the ceremonial law... blotting out the hand-writing, is probably an allusion to Numb. [Numbers] v. 23 where the curses written in the book, in the case of the woman suspected of adultery, are directed to be blotted out with the bitter waters. And there can be little doubt of a farther allusion; viz. to the custom of discharging the writing form parchment, by the application of such a fluid as the muriatic acid, which immediately dissolves those ferruginous calces, which constitute the blackening principle of most inks. But the East-India inks, being formed only of simple black, such as burnt ivory or cork, and gum water, may be wiped clean off from the surface of the paper or parchment, by the application of a wet sponge, and leave no one legible vestige remaining: this I have often proved.” A.C. VI pp. 498 & 500
Chapter Three
“3. ... you died and were resurrected, hidden with the Anointed one in God. 4. When the Anointed one appears, then also you will appear with him in glorious honor.”
“These verses reflect the remarkable modification, amounting to a transformation, in the Pauline eschatology... The Jewish conception of a succession of ages has substantially given way to the Hellenic conception of realms or orders of being, for which succession in time is irrelevant. The parousia of Christ is now conceived not in terms of the inauguration of a new age, but in terms of the manifestation of the invisible. The beginning of a conflation of these two essentially incompatible modes of thinking... [are] to be found wherever we meet with the idea that the powers of the Kingdom of God are already effective in our midst... [but] for true parallels we must turn not to the earlier epistles but to the Johannine writings (I John [and]... John 14:6).” TIB XI pp. 211-212
“5. Thus we mortify our members that relate to earth: fornication and filth and licentiousness and evil passion and covetousness (which is nothing but worship of idols).”
“Paul here adopts a literary form which is not found elsewhere in his letters; in place of a general catalogue of pagan vices such as he gives in Rom. 1:26-31 and Gal. 5:19-21, he uses here an artificial schema of pentads – two of vices and one of virtues. This is hardly likely to be his own invention; it has no necessary connection with anything in his own thought. Possibly his opponents at Colossae had drawn up similar schemata, based on a correspondence with the five senses as constituting the appetitive nature of man. However, as we find the same form used in I Peter (note the pentad of vices in I Pet. 2:1 and of virtues in I Pet. 3:8), it is probably a convention of Hellenistic moralists.” TIB XI p. 212
... “11. ... there is no Greek and Jew, no circumcised and uncircumcised, no foreigner and Scythian, and there is no slave and free, rather the Anointed one; he is everything and he is in everything.”
“... when the Greeks called Persians and Egyptians βαρβαροι [barbaroi], they were by no means scorning them as uncivilized peoples. The notion of the raw barbarian is really conveyed by Scythians; the inroads of these savage nomads from the northern steppes had left an ineffaceable memory of horror on the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean.” TIB XI p. 216
“12. Therefore you, as the chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on compassion and mercies, and generosity of heart, humbleness of spirit, and humility and patience.”
“... chosen ... holy ... beloved. All three terms are titles given to the community of Israel in the O.T. scriptures, transferred now to the heirs of Israel’s spiritual prerogatives. ...The pentad of virtues here given is the counterpart to the second pentad of vices.” TIB XI p. 217
“13. Conduct yourselves in patience, each with his neighbor, and forgive one another when one quarrels with his neighbor; just as the lord forgives you, so you also forgive.”
“This expression occurs only here in the N.T.; elsewhere it is God who is said to forgive for Christ’s sake.” TIB XI p. 219
“16. May the word of the Anointed one dwell bountifully among you.
“Knox suggests that it may be ‘a conflation of the Gospel expressing itself in utterance ... with the thought of Christ as dwelling in the Christian.’ ... It is perhaps better to see in it an influence of the widespread notion – originating with Heraclitus , adopted by the Stoics as a fundamental dogma, and through them passing into the general mind of the times – of the logos as the divine essence immanent in the universe, and present in each individual soul. In the place of this impersonal essence Paul sets the Logos of Christ ... thus giving to this floating philosophical notion a concrete personal significance. In a measure he anticipates the thought of the Fourth Gospel, that ‘the Word [Logos] was made flesh, and dwelt among us ... full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14).” TIB XI p. 221
“22. Slaves, attend to everything for your lords who are in this world, not in show, as men pleasers, but whole heartedly and in the sight of YHVH. 23. All that you do, do with all your spirit, as you do for YHVH, not for the sake of men. 24. For you know that you will receive from YHVH the wage of inheritance; you serve the Anointed lord! 25. But the evil doer will receive the recompense of his evil, for [YHVH] is no respecter [of persons].”
“The greatest emphasis is laid on the exhortation to slaves... This emphasis may be due to the fact that slaves constituted a great part - perhaps the majority - of the early Christian communities, even more, it is occasioned by the need to check the tendency to rebellion which the Christian gospel of freedom was bound to quicken in the mind of the slaves. Here again, the fading of the eschatological expectations weakened the force of the appeal to endure a situation which was in any case fleeting; some other ground of patience had to be found when men could no longer be confident that the time was short.” TIB XI p. 227
“This passage [3:18-4:1] is unique among the epistles of Paul, though the same literary form is employed in several of the deutero-Pualine epistles (Eph. 5:21-6:9, I Pet. 2:13-3:7; and less directly Tit. [Titus] 2:1-10; I Tim. [Timothy] 2:8-12 and 6:1-2) and in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. The form itself is a creation of Hellenistic oral philosophy, devised as a medium of systematic instruction in the duties for life in specific relationships. ‘There were philosophers who held that the function of philosophy was not to reveal the mysteries of the universe, but to advise mankind as to their conduct in the relations of domestic life. Paul himself may have felt no little sympathy with this point of view’ (Knox, St. Paul and Church of the Gentiles, p. 177) Knox cites Seneca (Epistles 15. 2 [94]. 1) who tells us that ‘some have allowed only that part of philosophy which ... tells the husband how to behave toward his wife, the father how to bring up his children, the master how to govern his slaves.’ ...
“This awakening of concern for mutual relationships within the Christian household has a significance which does not appear on the surface. It is in part a reflection of the decline in the emphasis on eschatology which we have noticed elsewhere in the epistle (see on 3:3-4); in part, also, of the more settled conditions of church life at the end of a generation of evangelism. As the thought of the apostle ceases to be dominated by the expectation of the imminent end of history and of human society as it has been known, the settled life of the Christian family gains in importance for religion; the fundamental social institutions are no longer viewed as belonging to the conditions of an era which is swiftly to pass away, but as the enduring sphere of Christian living. The earlier attitude of Paul, as reflected in this discussion of marriage in I Cor. 7, offers a striking contrast to the passage with which we are now dealing.
“In this connection we are bound to recall the subordination of family loyalty to the allegiance of the individual to Christ and to God which is forcibly expressed in the teaching of Jesus. He rejects the family tie as supreme or decisive for himself (Mark 3:31-35, with it final ‘Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother’); and he demands that his followers also shall subordinate it to loyalty to himself: ‘If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14:26). It is clear that the coming of the gospel frequently brought strife into the household, as some believed and other rejected the message; and the believer was frequently obliged to make the harrowing decision between obedience to Christ and loyalty to his family. All too often a man’s enemies were those of his own household, as brother delivered up brother to death, and the father his child, and children rose against their parents and had them put to death (Matt. 10:21m 34-39).
“The introduction into Christian literature of the table of household duties reflects a time when these family divisions were no longer so general, and when the Christian community tended more to consist of entire households, with parents, children, and slaves...
“We cannot fail to be struck by the meagerness of the instruction given to the different family groups ... It cannot be claimed that any great advance is made toward the formulation of a Christian ideal of family life here. It is impossible to draw any sweeping contrast with the family ethic of the contemporary paganism ...” TIB XI pp. 224 - 227
Chapter Four
“5. Conduct yourselves wisely with those who are outside, and redeem the opportunity.”
“The church of Christ was considered an enclosure, a field, or vineyard, well hedged or walled. Those who were not members of it, were considered without; i.e. not under that especial protection and defence which the true followers of Christ had. This has been since called ‘The pale of the church;’ from palus, a stake; or, as Dr. Johnson defines it, ‘A narrow piece of wood, joined above and below to a rail, to enclose grounds.’... Now this is true in all places where the doctrines of Christianity are preached; but when one description of people, professing Christianity, with their own peculiar mode of worship and creed, arrogate to themselves, exclusive of all others, the title of THE church; and then on the ground of a maxim which is true in itself, but falsely understood and applied by them, assert that, as they are THE church, and there is no church besides, then you must be one of them; believe as they believe, and worship as they worship, or you will be infallibly damned: I say, when this is asserted, every man who feels he has an immortal spirit, is called on to examine the pretensions of such spiritual monopolists... The church which has been so hasty to condemn all others, and, by its own soi-disant [‘so-called’], or self-constituted, authority, to make itself the determiner of the fates of men, dealing out the mansions of glory to its partisans, and the abodes of endless misery to all those who are out of its antichristian and inhuman pale; this church, I say has been brought to this standard, and proved, by the Scriptures, to be fallen from the faith of God’s elect, and to be most awfully and dangerously corrupt; and that, to be within its pale, of all others professing Christianity, would be the most likely means of endangering the final salvation of the soul. Yet, even in it, many sincere and upright persons may be found, who, in spirit and practice, belong to the true church of Christ. Such persons are to be found in all religious persuasions, and in all sorts of Christian societies.” A.C. VI p. 505-506
“10. Aristarkhos, my friend in prison, asks after your well being, as does Markos, son of Barnaba’s sister, of whom you received teaching (who, if he comes to you, receive him) 11. and also Jesus, who is known as Justus. Of the circumcised, only they are my friends in the work on behalf of the kingdom of God, and truly a comfort to me.”
“There is a pathetic note in Paul’s remark that ‘these are the only comrades in the work of God’s realm belonging to the circumcised, who have been any comfort to me’ (Moffatt). Paul felt deeply his alienation from the great body of his own people (c.f. Rom. 9:3), and still more the lack of sympathy, often passing into open hostility, shown toward him by most of the Jewish Christians.” TIB XI p. 237
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.
- ^ Koester, Helmut. History and Literature of Early Christianity, Introduction to the New Testament Vol 2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 1982,1987.
- ^ Kummel, Georg Werner. Introduction To The New Testament, Revised English Edition, Translated by Howard Kee. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1973,1975
- ^ MacArthur, John. The MacArthur Bible Handbook. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003.
- ^ Mack, Burton L. Who Wrote the New Testament? San Francisco:Harper Collins, 1996.
[edit] Bibliography
- N.T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon, Tyndale IVP 1986 (ISBN 0-8028-0309-1)
- (Karissa), "The World we cannot see"
- TIB = The Interpreter’s Bible, The Holy Scriptures in the King James and Revised Standard versions with general articles and introduction, exegesis, [and] exposition for each book of the Bible in twelve volumes, George Arthur Buttrick, Commentary Editor, Walter Russell Bowie, Associate Editor of Exposition, Paul Scherer, Associate Editor of Exposition, John Knox Associate Editor of New Testament Introduction and Exegesis, Samuel Terrien, Associate Editor of Old Testament Introduction and Exegesis, Nolan B. Harmon Editor, Abingdon Press, copyright 1955 by Pierce and Washabaugh, set up printed, and bound by the Parthenon Press, at Nashville, Tennessee, Volume XI, Philippians, Colossians [Introduction and Exegesis by Francis W. Beare, Exposition by G. Preston MacLeod], Thessalonians, Pastoral Epistles [The Fist and Second Epistles to Timothy, and the Epistle to Titus] , Philemon, Hebrews
- TNJBC = The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Edited by Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Union Theological Seminary, New York; NY, Maurya P. Horgan [Colossians]; Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm. (emeritus) The Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, NC, with a foreword by His Eminence Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, S.J.; Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1990
- A.C.= The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The text carefully printed from the most correct copies of the present Authorized Version. Including the marginal readings and parallel texts. With a Commentary and Critical Notes. Designed as a help to a better understanding of the sacred writings. By Adam Clarke, LL.D. F.S.A. M.R.I.A. With a complete alphabetical index. Royal Octavo Stereotype Edition. Vol. II. [Vol. VI together with the O.T.] New York, Published by J. Emory and B. Waugh, for the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the conference office, 13 Crosby-Street. J. Collord, Printer. 1831.
[edit] External links
Online translations of the Epistle to the Colossians:
- Online Bible at GospelHall.org
- World English Bible version online at WikiChristian
- Collection of translations and commentary on Colossians
Related articles:
| Preceded by Philippians |
Books of the Bible | Succeeded by 1 Thessalonians |
