plena, mascula (1. c. page 160).
INTRODUCTION. 161
dertaken here. But by whomsoever it may be instituted, it will
never leave behind it a satisfactory impression in all points, since it
is certainly true that, as we have already seen in the Introduction to the
Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, this epistle is at once closely allied
to that, and more brief ; and the assertion that this shorter epistle
was made by an officious person by means of an unskilful abridge-
ment of the longer one will ever be scarcely refutable in the eyes of
those who see or choose to see poverty of intellect in abundance of
intellect, and a want of connexion in the strictest order.
There remains, then, but the fourth and last section, in which
Mayerhoff treats of the false doctrine in the Epistle to the Colos-
sians. Here he seeks to shew that this false doctrine is that of Ce-
rinthus, and, as that heretic did not live till after the apostle's time,
therefore the Epistle to the Colossians cannot be by Paul. Now,
that would certainly be a just conclusion if the premises were capa-
ble of proof ; we should then have an historical point which we could
oppose to the uninterrupted tradition ascribing the origin of this
epistle to Paul. We should thus come out of the airy regions of so-
called internal arguments (*. e. } of merely subjective opinion) to the
firm ground of history. But, as Mayerhoff himself confesses (p. 5)
that Baur's attack on the authenticity of the pastoral epistles, on
the ground that the doctrine of the Marcionites is combated in
them, fails when the inadmissibility of that single assumption is
pointed out, which, as Mayerhoff owns, has been already done by
Baumgarten ; so too will his arguments against Paul's authorship of
the Epistle to the Colossians fail, on the single proof being brought
that the false doctrine designated in it has no necessary connexion
with Cerinthus' gnosis. That demonstration we attempt in what
follows, after we have more accurately weighed the characteristics
which the Epistle to the Colossians gives of the false doctrine spread
among its first readers, as also the different hypotheses which have
been advanced on the subject.
2. OF THE FALSE DOCTRINE SPREAD IN COLOSSI.
The circumstance which caused the Apostle Paul to write to the
Christians in Colossae, who were not personally known to him, was
the spread of serious errors in doctrine among them, as also in the
neighbouring church in Laodicea (Col. iv. 16), to whom Paul had
also written, and, it is extremely probable, with the same design of
warning them, as he commands that both epistles, which might be
complements of each other, should be read at both places. Paul
had, no doubt, received information of those false doctrines through
Epaphras, who, as has been already observed, was then with Paul,
VOL. V. 11
162 INTRODUCTION.
and, as founder of the Colossian church, stood in the nearest rela-
tion to it. In Col. iv. 12 Paul remarks, in delivering salutations
to the Colossians from Epaphras, that Epaphras is earnest in prayer
for them, that they, grounded in God's will, may stand firm against
all temptations. It does not appear from this epistle in what man-
ner this false doctrine may have been spread in Colossse. Paul does
not say that persons from without had brought it thither, nor does
he name any individuals who defended it ; he does not even strictly
separate the heterodox from the orthodox believers, but speaks to the
whole body of the Colossian church, as if both the heretics and those
that remained faithful were still in church-fellowship. This is espe-
cially shewn by Col. ii. 20 : d d-rreddvere avv XQHJT& dnb r&v aroi^eiuv
TOV Koafiov, ri (05- Ztivreg KV Koaf-u,) doynari&oOe ; We cannot here sup-
pose that the false teachers merely are addressed, with an exclusion
of the rest of the church ; for such a separation of two elements is
nowhere indicated. The exhortations go on without interruption,
and always refer to the whole church. A later writer would certainly
not have selected this form of representation ; he would have made
the heretics appear rigorously separated from the orthodox believers,
and combated them as standing out of communion with the church.
Paul writes here perfectly in accordance with the first beginnings of
the Christian life. The first symptoms only of heretical doctrine
shewed themselves in Colossae. Paul hastened to suppress them in
the bud and to bring back the misguided to the right way. He had
no grounds for deducing those errors from an evil intention ; he saw
their origin in inexperience and weakness ; therefore he does not di-
rectly apply severe measures, exclusion from communion with the
church, and the like, but he proceeds forbearingly. He views and
treats the misguided as still members of the church, and seeks to bring
them back to the truth by a gentle exposure of their errors. The
matter had assumed a totally different aspect some years later when
Paul wrote his pastoral letters at the end of his life. Then the evil
intention of the false teachers had been brought clearly to light, and
Paul dared therefore no longer permit unseasonable gentleness to
sway him. The diseased members were now obliged to be removed
in order to keep the whole frame sound.
From this position of the Colossian false teachers towards the
church it may now be already inferred that no elaborate system can
be supposed in them. The enthusiastic element which existed in
the character of the Phrygian people, and which had found vent for
itself under heathenism in the fanatical worship of Cybele, produced
similar phenomena on the reception of Christianity, as the Mon tan-
ism which arose in Phrygia in the second century shews. The
Phrygians had received Christianity as a religion endowed with
mighty spiritual powers, but without entirely renouncing with true
INTRODUCTION. 163
self-denial their previous predilections ; by which means there after-
wards arose mixtures of truth and falsehood, such as meet our view
in Paul's sketch of the errors there. Moreover, in this part of Asia
Minor the oriental and occidental elements were blended ; numerous
Jews, with their different sects, were settled there ;* a propensity to
speculations on the world of spirits was generally diffused, and that
not only in the form of Greek philosophy, but also in that of the
Oriental theosophy. Nothing was therefore more natural than that
Christianity, entering that fermented mass, should be eagerly re-
ceived by the excited populace, but also capriciously disfigured.
Before we, however, look closer into the character of the Colossian
false teachers, we must answer the preliminary question, " Are all
the traits mentioned by Paul to be supposed united in the same
persons, or are they men of totally different tendencies of mind,
whom he combats ?" By far the most of the later critics suppose
the former; Heinrichs alone insists that there were in Colossas not
merely false teachers of one class, but Judaists, Gnostics, and other
heretics, side by side. We must allow that the representation in
our epistle by no means justifies the confidence with which the mod-
erns suppose but one sect in Colossae. If our epistle were addressed
to a numerous church, as was that of Borne, it would be even more
natural to suppose that Paul wished to warn them against various
erroneous opinions. For he nowhere says that the same persons
teach all that he blames ; since he, as we have seen, always writes
to the church as such, not to individuals in it, it appears absolutely
grounded in the nature of the case that he ranges the errors to be
avoided side by side, without its thence following that the same per-
sons entertain them. We might even fancy that at ii. 16, 17 two
tendencies, the Judaizing and the Gnostic, are distinguished, as
Paul, after the fir) ovv TI<; } begins anew, firjdelg fyza?, K. r. A , and inti-
mates by that means that he makes a transition to something fresh.
However, neither that passage, nor any other in the Epistle to the
Colossians, decidedly disproves the assumption that all the traits
mentioned by Paul were combined in the same persons ; and if we
consider that Colossas was a small place, in which many opinions
can scarcely have been propagated, and that the pastoral epistles
introduce us to perfectly similar false teachers in Ephesus and Crete,
in whom kindred heretical elements appear combined as in the Co-
lossians, it certainly becomes probable that the same persons taught
all that Paul reprehends ; but we cannot go beyond the probability.
If we, after this, consider the separate features of the portrait
* According to Josephus (Arch. xii. 3) Antiochus the Great had brought 2,000 Jew-
ish families from Babylon and Mesopotamia to Phrygia, and made them settle there ; he
expected of them protection against the unruly native population.
164 INTRODUCTION.
drawn by Paul of the Colossian false teachers,* we find, first, that
they had a tendency to Judaism. Ttey laid a stress on external
circumcision and the outward observance of the law (ii. 11, 16, 21,
iii. 10), required the keeping of the ordinances of the Old Testa-
ment as to meats, the solemnization of feasts, new moons, Sabbaths.
In opposition to them, Paul exalts spiritual circumcision in regen-
eration, and urges that through Christ the distinctions in the Old
Testament between Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircum-
cised, are abolished, that the mystery of Christ is to be made known
to all men, even to the Gentiles. But, besides this, Paul also warns
against a $i"koao$ia, adl Kevrj d-ndrt] Kara rfjv napddomv rc5v dvflpiijTrwi',
Kara rd oroi%ela rov Koopov, not ov Kara Xpterrov, a philosophy and
vain deceit, etc. (ii. 8). In what that false speculation discovered it-
self is particularly shewn by ii. 18, seq. Instead of keeping to Christ,
the one and only head, those heretics occupied themselves with in-
quiries into the world of spirits, and even dedicated worship to the
angels. Paul therefore strives above all to put the Divine dignity
of Jesus in a clear light, and to shew that not merely all earthly,
but also all heavenly powers are subject to the eternal Son of God.
On the pretended insight into the spiritual world, which the Colos-
sian false teachers recommended, and which, as usually happens,
produced conceit and haughtiness along with apparent humility (ii.
18, 23), the epistle gives us no more detailed information ; but it
may be deduced from the pastoral epistles that they were occupied
with genealogies of the angels, therefore, we may suppose, assumed
wedlock among the angels, after the manner of the later Gnostics.
Finally, as to the practical tendencies of these heretics, a strict ascet-
icism was cultivated among them, which induces us to suppose that
they assumed a Hyle, or substance of evil, although it is nowhere
openly expressed. In like manner it is nowhere declared by Paul
that the ascetic principles of the false teachers in Colossse had
extended to the rejection of marriage, and to docetic views of
Christ. (See the Comm. on ii. 21.) Now, if these features are con-
ceived as referring to the same persons, the difficulty arises that they
seem in a measure contradictory. That is to say, the stiffer Juda-
ists used to be strongly averse from Gnostic speculation and false
ascetism ; the Gnostic ascetics, on the other hand, were in common
opposed to the tendency to strict external legalism. Thus it is ex-
plained how the views of the learned as to the nature of these false
* More extended remarks on the heretics of the apostolic ago are found in the Intro-
duction to the three pastoral epistles, in which particularly the false teachers of the
Epistle to the Colossians are compared with the false teachers of the pastoral epistles as
regards the affinity and the difference between them. We therefore refer to the more
detailed discussion in the Introduction to the pastoral epistles, in respect of all points
which are here either not at all, or but briefly, touched on.
INTKODUCTION. 165
teachers could prove so different. However, the majority of these
hypotheses sufficiently refute themselves. (See Bohmer's Isagoge,
p. 56, seq., and Bertholdt's Introd. vol. 6, p. 3448, seq.) The no-
tions of Eichhorn, Schneckenburger (contributions to the Introduc-
tion, p. 146, seq., and on the antiquity of the baptism of proselytes,
App. p. 189, seq.), and others, that no Christians at all are meant
here, but Jews, which is deduced particularly from ii. 19, needs no
further consideration, for the ov Kparelv TTJV </>a/l?p, not holding the
head, does not mean " not to believe in Christ at all," but only " not to
hold fast to Christ as one ought." Had these persons not been Christ-
ians, Paul's arguments would surely have been totally without aim ; it
was matter of course that in non-Christians there was much to blame.
In like manner the views of Wolf, Junker, and others, who recog-
nized Christian Platonists, or Alexandrian supporters of the doctrines
of the Logos, in the heretics at Colossse, can make no pretension to
recognition, because this view leaves unexplained the inflexible legal
tendency of the Colossian false teachers, from which the Platonists
and Platonizing Judaists were free. Again, the assertion of Grotius,
that the false doctrine is to be deduced from Pythagorean elements,
or those of Kleuker and Hug, that it proceeds from the influence of
the Magi or Chaldees, are not merely indemonstrable, but improb-
able. The same holds good too of J. D. Michaelis' hypothesis, that
they are disciples of Apollos, to which the friendly relation of that
man to Paul is entirely opposed. Thus, then, there only remains
as tenable the single supposition that they were Jewish Gnostics,
or Theosophists, who had endeavoured to harmonize their particular
views with those of the gospel. To suppose exactly Essenes or
Therapeutse to be meant here, as Zachariee, Storr, and others, is cer-
tainly less advisable, because they formed exclusive societies, and it
is hardly probable that they would before the destruction of Jerusa-
lem have spread themselves out of Judea and Egypt into the other
provinces of the Roman empire. But neither do we need any union
with such existing sects in order to explain the mixing up of Jewish
Theosophy with Christianity. Theosophical and ascetic opinions of
many kinds, shapeless, and without having as yet assumed a decided
character, were in the apostolical times diffused among Gentiles and
Jews. (See what Josephus [Vita, cap. 2] relates of a certain Banus.)
Those ascetics in Rome of whom Paul writes (Rom. xiv.), and in later
times the appearance of Cerinthus and of the Gnostic Ebionites, of
whose opinions a remarkable monument has been preserved in the fol-
lowers of Clement, sufficiently prove how a theosophico-ascetic ten-
dency, as it appeared in the system of the Cabbala, could associate itself
with a strictly legal tendency in Judaism, and, on these grounds,
such a coalition of those different tendencies was then also possible
in Christianity. The later inquirers, namely, Neander and Bohmer,
166 INTRODUCTION.
coincide in this conception of the character of the Colossian false
teachers, and Mayerhoff too, in fact, joins them. The latter scholar
only concludes, as we have already observed, from the affinity of the
heretics in Colossee with the doctrines of Cerinthus, that the au-
thor of this epistle combated him and his disciples, and that, as
Cerinthus lived after Paul, the Epistle to the Colossians must be
considered spurious. Against this, however, it is to be observed,
that the circumstances of Cerinthus' life are by no means accurately
enough known to us to enable us to say with certainty that he was
not living so early as Paul's times. That he was along with John
the Evangelist in Ephesus is reported to us by such safe witnesses
that only the extreme of caprice can throw doubts on their declara-
tions. (See Neander's Church History, vol. ii. p. 672.) It is true
we know nothing certain of any relation between Cerinthus and
Paul, for the uncritical Eplphanius, who supposes Paul in all his
epistles to combat Cerinthus, cannot, of course, come under consider-
ation here. But, in spite of that, Cerinthus might even at that
time have been active ; at least we have no decisive evidence that
would preclude the assumption ; therefore an argument against a
composition which is founded on the most irrefragable testimonies
cannot possibly be based on so uncertain a matter. But again, no-
thing obliges us to assume that it is particularly Cerinthus and his
adherents who are combated in the Epistle to the Colossians. That
false teacher certainly did not originate the speculative tendencies
which declare themselves in his system. They were, on the contrary,
before him diffused in wide circles already. Cerinthus only adopted
them for his own, worked them up in his own fashion, and succeeded
in gaining over a good many to them. The very general manner in
which the false doctrines are set forth in this epistle, as we have
seen, speaks clearly for the opinion that there had not yet risen up
any individual who had adopted independently for his own the ten-
dency of mind which they suppose, and given it a characteristic and
definite form. Cerinthus may, therefore, when Paul wrote, have
already been in Colossa3 and committed himself to those views, but
he had hardly as yet exercised influence and made himself the inde-
pendent master of the sect.
In its main purport, therefore, the Epistle to the Colossians is
directed against errors which have long since vanished, while the
Word of Truth which dissipated them has remained to us inviolate.
That Word also exercises even yet its power of destruction and edi-
fication. For, if the form of error is changed, yet its essence con-
tinues the same in all ages of the church, because it is ever gener-
ated anew out of the sinful heart ; it therefore also needs incessant
refutation through the Word of God. The pith, however, of the
error which began to entangle the Colossians consists in seekin" a
INTRODUCTION. 167
wisdom and a holiness apart from Christ, in capricious images of the
fancy or of contemplation, in works of the law, of chastening, of
mortification ; a striving, along with which, in whatever form it
may present itself, the poisonous plant of conceit and haughtiness
always grows up in the heart. Against these the word of Paul, " In
Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. ii.
3), holds good for all times, and especially even for ours, so rich in
its own wisdom. He that digs them out wins the greatest treasure
at the same time with them, viz., humility, which is never found
along with the conceited wisdom of man.
3. THE COURSE OF THOUGHT IN* THE EPISTLE.
The Epistle to the Colossians falls, like the rest of Paul's epis-
tles, into two parts : in the first of which (from i. 1 to ii. 23) the
doctrinal element predominates, in the second (from iii. 1 to iv. 18),
the ethical.
We further divide the first part into two paragraphs, the first of
which (i. 1 to 23) after the salutation expresses thanks to God for
the faith of the readers, and contains the prayer of Paul for their
growth in knowledge and in every good work. Paul represents
the fulfilment of that prayer as guaranteed hy Christ and his re-
demption, who is personally described in his eternal Godhead as
he through whom all is created and in whom everything consists, as
head of the church and first-born from the dead. As Lord over all,
Christ has reconciled all through his blood. Also them, the readers
of the epistle, he has reconciled, that they might be holy and un-
spotted instead of their previous state of estrangement from God, if
they stood fast in the faith and in the hope of the gospel whereof
he (Paul) is a minister. In the second paragraph (i. 24 to ii. 23)
Paul declares his joy at his call to be an apostle in spite of all the
distresses attending it, as those very sufferings must serve the wel-
fare of the church of Christ. He says he has the calling, as minister
of the gospel, to fill everything with the gospel, and to teach all
men (Gentiles as well as Jews), and to present them perfect in
Christ ; whereunto, therefore, he labours with all his might, and is
accordingly particularly anxious for them, the Christians in Colossas
as also in Laodicea, while he strives to bring them to the knowledge
of God and of Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge are hid. He says this, he tells them, in order to warn
them against false human wisdom, which is sought for apart from
Christ, in whom, nevertheless, the fulness of the Godhead dwells
bodily, and whose redeeming power they themselves had experienced
in their hearts. They should not, he says, let themselves be again
168 INTRODUCTION.
subjected to the yoke of the law, and be seduced from Christ by a
puffed-up wisdom ; for he that is dead with Christ to the elements
of the spiritual life must not again let himself be brought back to a
self-chosen worship of God which seeks salvation by works.
In the second part, the third paragraph (iii. 1 to 17) contains the
general ethical precepts to the readers, as those who are risen with
Christ, to seek also what is above, and to renounce all that is earthly
and sinful. Paul says they ought for that end to put on the new
man, created after the image of God, with all his virtues, to let,
above all, love and peace reign in them, and in reciprocal teaching
and edification thank God and the Father for the salvation which
had become theirs. The fourth and last paragraph (iii. 18 to iv. 18),
finally, is taken up with exhortations for the special relations of
family life, to which is subjoined at the end of the epistle a reference
to Tychicus, the bearer of this epistle, for more detailed news as to
the apostle personally. Salutations, and the charge to communicate
this epistle to the Christians in Laodicea, and, on the other hand,
to read publicly in Colossae also that addressed to the Laodiceans,
fill up the last verses of the epistle, on which Paul further stamps
the seal of authenticity by a salutation written with his own hand.
4. LITERATURE.
Besides several works especially devoted to the Introduction to the
Epistle to the Colossians, such as C. G. Hoffman (Leips., 1749, 4to),
Bohmer (Isagoge in Ep. ad CoL theol. hist, critica, Berol., 1829,
8), Kheinwald (de pseudodoctoribus Colossensibus, Bonnie, 1834,
4to), Osiander on the Colossian false teachers in the Tubingen
Journal for 1834, part 4, we have to cite the following special Com-
mentaries : By Davenant (expositio Ep. ad Col., Genevae, 1655, 4to),
George Calixtus (expositio literalis, Brunsvice, 1654, 4), Solomon
van Till (Amstelod. 1726, 4to), Storr (in his opusc. acad., vol. ii., p.
120-241), Junker (Mannheim, 1828), Flatt (edited by Kling, Tu-
bingen, 1829), Biihr (Basle, 1833), Bohmer (Breslau, 1835), Steiger
(Erlangen, 1835).
EXPOSITION
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS.
i.
PART FIRST,
I. 1. II. 23.
1. THANKSGIVING FOR THE FAITH OF THE EEADERS AND FOE
SALVATION IN CHRIST.
(i. 1-23.)
THE salutation (i. 1, 2) presents nothing particular, since what
was necessary as to the form of the name of the city of Colossee and
the various readings in ver. 2 has already been remarked in the In-
troduction to this epistle ( 1). At the end of ver. 2 the usual /cat
Kvpiov 'Irjoov Xpiorov in the blessing is wanting in the MSS. B.D.E.
and several minuscules. Considering the constant occurrence of
this formula in the beginnings of Paul's epistles, the omission of
the words is certainly not so easily explained as the addition of
them ; however, Lachinann has not, for all that, ventured to strike
them out altogether ; they might have been left out in some MSS.
by accident.
Vers. 3, 4. Exactly as in Eph. i. 15, seq., here too Paul begins
with thanksgiving to God and mentioning his intercession for the
Colossian Christians for the sake of their faith and their love, thus
for the sake of their Christian state of mind, of which Paul, how-
ever, had information (aKovaav-e^ only through the communications
of others (especially of Epaphras, ver. 8), not through beholding it
himself, for he had neither founded the church in Colossae, nor ever
visited it (see Introd. 1). As to the connexion of the words, it is
more correct to join -ndvrore with what follows than with what pre-
cedes, for the incessant prayer for the readers appears as the more
important point here. In e&xppi&rovpev is expressed the thanks-