Colossian Problems - F. F. Brooks
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Galatian Problems
By Frederick Fyvie Bruce
Chapter 1 - Jews and Christians in the Lycus Valley
In antiquity several rivers in Asia Minor were called the Lycus River.1 The Lycus River pertaining to Colossians watered part of southwestern Phrygia and flowed into the Maeander River. When one speaks of the cities of the Lycus Valley, he usually means the three which are mentioned in the Book of Colossians: Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis (Col. 2:1; 4:13). Of these three, Colossae was by far the oldest; it was a city when Xerxes and his army passed that way in 480 B.C.2 Laodicea was founded by the Seleucid King Antiochus II (261-246 B.C.); Hierapolis received the constitution of a city from Eumenes II, king of Pergamum (197-160 B.C.).
The region formed part of the Persian Empire from Cyrus’ overthrow of Croesus, king of Lydia, in 546 B.C. to Alexander the Great’s conquest of Asia Minor in 334 B.C. For the next century and a half the Lycus Valley was ruled by Alexander and his successors, but by the Peace of Apamea, imposed by the Romans on Antiochus III in 188 B.C., it was taken from the Seleucids and added to the kingdom of Pergamum, which was in alliance with Rome. In 133 B.C. the last king of Pergamum bequeathed his realm to the Romans, who four years later reorganized it as the province of Asia. The Lycus Valley was then incorporated in the Roman Empire, and remained so for many centuries.
The cities of the Lycus Valley enjoyed economic prosperity in spite of the severe damage they suffered from time to time because of earthquakes. Their prosperity was based on their principal industry the manufacture and preparation of woolen fabrics, which were carried by river to the Aegean coast and exported to various parts of the ancient world.
Jewish Settlers in Phrygia
Some Jewish settlement in western Asia Minor can be traced back to the sixth century B.C.; apparently Jewish exiles were in the Lydian capital, Sardis, at the time of the Prophet Obadiah.3 Josephus said Seleucus I (312-281 B.C.) granted Jews full civic rights in all the cities he founded.4 (It is wise to consider carefully what is meant by “full civic rights” when their enjoyment by Jews in a Hellenistic city is mentioned by Josephus or other Jewish writers.) Antiochus II is said to have planted Jewish colonies in the cities of Ionia.5 But Jewish settlement in Phrygia on any significant scale is to be dated late in the third century B.C., when Antiochus III, having recovered Lydia and Phrygia from his rebellious uncle Achaeus (214 B.C.), ordered his satrap Zeuxis to send 2,000 Jewish families with their property from Babylonia as military settlers in the garrisons and other vital centers of those two regions. Houses and cultivable lands were to be provided for them, they were to be exempt from taxation for 10 years, and they were to have the right to live under their own laws.6
The essential credibility of this report by Josephus, and of the royal decree which it embodies, may be confidently accepted. The king’s letter to Zeuxis, says Rostovtzeff, “undoubtedly gives us exactly the normal procedure when the Seleucids founded a colony.”7 One Zeuxis was satrap of Babylonia about 220 B.C.;8 he may be identical with the Zeuxis who was satrap of Lydia between 201 and 190 B.C.9
An explanation of Antiochus III’s belief that Babylonian Jews were the kind of settlers who would help stabilize disaffected areas of his empire may perhaps be provided in an enigmatic allusion in 2 Maccabees 8:20. There Judas Maccabaeus is said to have encouraged his troops on one occasion, when they were threatened by a much superior army, by reminding them of “the battle with the Galatians that took place in Babylonia, when 8,000 in all went into the affair, with 4,000 Macedonians; and when the Macedonians were hard pressed, the 8,000, by the help that came to them from heaven, destroyed 120,000 and took much booty.” This tradition, which has doubtless lost nothing in the telling (particularly with regard to the numbers on the opposing side), probably refers to the earlier part of the reign of Antiochus III. The Galatians habitually hired out their services as mercenaries; presumably on this occasion Galatian mercenaries were engaged on the side of some of Antiochus’ enemies. The help then given him by Babylonian Jews could well have moved him to settle a number of them in Phrygia and Lydia to safeguard his interests in those territories.
The political changes by which the Lycus Valley passed successively under the rule of Pergamum and Rome made little difference to the Jews who resided there. Even the overrunning of proconsular Asia by Mithridates in 88 B.C., and the ensuing 25 years’ war, did not seriously disturb them. Almost immediately after the end of the Mithridatic war evidence points to a large and prosperous Jewish population in the Lycus Valley and the neighboring parts of Phrygia.
In 62 B.C. Lucius Valerius Flaccus, proconsul of Asia, impounded the proceeds of the annual half-shekel tax which the Jews of his province, in common with male Jews 20 years of age and older throughout the world, contributed for the maintenance of the temple in Jerusalem. His action was in line with the official ban on the export of gold and silver from the Roman Empire to foreign countries. But it may well be that by use and custom, if not by senatorial decree, an exception was made in respect to the Jewish temple tax; and in any case it could be argued that from 63 B.C. Judea itself was part of the empire and no longer counted as a foreign country. Flaccus was brought to court in 59 B.C. on a charge of acting illegally in the matter; he was defended by Cicero, whose speech for the defense has been preserved.10 Cicero claimed that the province was being impoverished by the export of so much wealth year by year; therefore he may have exaggerated in his estimate of the sums of money involved.
However that may be, he stated that at Apamea gold amounting to just under 100 Roman pounds had been impounded: at Laodicea, just over 20 pounds. At that time the Pompeian standard of 36 aurei (gold denarii) to the gold pound (libra) was in force, and the aureus was reckoned to be equivalent to 25 drachmae or denarii. Therefore it has been calculated that nearly 45,000 half-shekels (didrachma) were collected at Apamea, and over 9,000 at Laodicea.11 This does not mean that there were ‘respectively 45,000 and 9,000 male Jews of the appropriate age resident at Apamea and Laodicea; these cities were centers to which the money collected in the surrounding districts was brought for conversion into more manageable form and eventual dispatch to Judea. But even when allowance is made for some exaggeration, the Jewish population of Phrygia was considerable.
Later in the same century the collection and export of the half-shekel were expressly authorized in successive decrees of Julius Caesar and Augustus.12 Augustus’ right-hand man Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa took specific measures in 14 B.C. (at the request of Herod the Great) to protect the Jews of Asia Minor against interference with this privilege (and also against being compelled to appear in law courts on the Sabbath day).13
Josephus quotes a letter sent by the magistrates of Laodicea about 45 B.C. to a Roman official, probably the proconsul of Asia, confirming that, in accordance with his directions, they would not impede Jewish residents in the observance and other practices of their religion.14 In A.D. 2/3 Augustus issued a full statement of Jewish rights in that part of the empire; it was posted up in Ancyra, capital of the province of Galatia.15
After the end of the second Jewish commonwealth in A.D. 70 the Jews of the dispersion continued to enjoy their privileges, apart from the diversion of the half-shekel tax to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. There is documentary evidence for the maintenance of their privileges in Alexandria16 and Syrian Antioch;17 the situation was probably no different elsewhere in the eastern provinces. Ramsay thought that evidence for a specific provision safeguarding Jewish privileges at Apamea was to be found in a tomb inscription of the third century A.D. directing that no one was to be buried in the tomb except its owner and his wife. “If any one acts [contrary to this direction],” the inscription concludes, “he knows the law of the Jews.”18 Ramsay inferred at one time that “the law of the Jews” here invoked could not be the Mosaic Law but was a local regulation registered with the city authorities, protecting the burial privileges of the Jewish community.19 This is possible; but two Jewish tomb inscriptions of the mid-third century, from Blaundos and Akmonia, in westcentral Phrygia, threaten the violator with “the curses written in Deuteronomy” (presumably in Deut. 28:15-68),20 so “the law of the Jews” in the Apamea inscription could very well be the Mosaic Law. (A similar inscription from Hierapolis, dated around A.D. 200, stipulates that for any unauthorized burial in the tomb a fine must be paid to the Jewish community in that city.21)
From a comparative study of Greek inscriptions in Phrygia, Ramsay deduced that the Jewish communities of that region were marked by a degree of religious laxity exceptional in the diaspora — that members of Jewish families could combine the office (or at least the title) of avvrcisuna,gwgoj with responsible participation in pagan cults.22 The evidence is not unambiguous; his deductions depended at times on his identification of the bearers of certain family names as Jews just because they bore those names. From an inscription in Akmonia, Ramsay quoted a reference to one Julia Severa who was honored by the local synagogue23 and was mentioned on local coins of Nero, Agrippina (the younger), and Poppaea as having held municipal office together with her husband Servenius Capito (say, between A.D. 54 and 65).24 It was difficult to hold such office without at least some involvement in local cults, not to mention the imperial cult. But Julia Severa appears to have been a descendant of Herod,25 and members of the Herod family were not typical Jews.
On the inscription which mentions Julia Severa reference is made to one Gaius Tyrronius Cladus as a life-long avvrcisuna,gwgoj. Ramsay judged that “the strange name Tyrronius . . . may in all cases be taken as Jewish, “26 and went on to draw inferences of doubtful cogency from its other inscriptional occurrences — a course which he himself admitted to be one “of speculation and uncertainty, where each step is more slippery than the preceding one.”27 Some outward conformity with pagan customs on the part of influential Jews in Phrygia may be taken as established; but it would be precarious to draw conclusions from this about forms of syncretism that might be reflected in the beliefs and practices deprecated in Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians.
The influence of the Jewish settlements in Phrygia on the folklore of the region is well illustrated at Apamea, where the story of Noah was taken over as a local cult legend, to the point where the Septuagint word for “ark” (Kibwto,j) appears as an alternative name for the city. Probably a local flood legend was there already, before Jewish settlement in the area began, but under Jewish influence it was merged with the Flood narrative of Genesis. On Apamean coins of the third century A.D. there appears an ark with the inscription Nw/e (the Septuagintal form of Noah’s name), floating on water; in it are two human figures, while two others, a man and a woman, stand beside it; on top is a raven and above it a dove with an olive branch in its beak. Two phases of the story are thus represented: in one, Noah and his wife are in the ark; in the other, they are on dry land beside the ark, thanking God for their preservation.28
This Phrygian setting for the story of Noah is recorded in the Sibylline Oracles (1. 261-65): “In the land of Phrygia is the steep tapering mountain of Kelaine, called Ararat, from which springs of the great Marsyas well forth. The ark remained on the peak of that height when the waters abated.” The River Marsyas or Catarrhactes (modern Dinar-su) rises in a recess under the acropolis of ancient Celaenae; it flows through Apamea (modern Dinar), on the outskirts of which it falls into the Maeander. Evidently the Sibylline author identified Ararat with the acropolis of Celaenae.
Christianity in Phrygia
PHRYGIA IN THE APOSTOLIC ERA
The inclusion of Phrygia among the places from which pilgrims came to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost after Jesus’ death and resurrection (Acts 2:10) may be designed to prepare the reader for the eventual evangelization of that region.29 Whether that is so or not, the gospel came to Phrygia within a quarter of a century from that date. In Phrygia Galatica (“the Phrygian and Galatian region” of Acts 16:6) the cities of Pisidian Antioch and Iconium — “the last (easternmost) city of Phrygia,” as Xenophon calls it30 — were evangelized by Barnabas and Paul in A.D. 47 or 48 (Acts 13:14-14:4). Phrygia Asiana farther west, including the Lycus Valley, was evangelized a few years later, during Paul’s Ephesian ministry, when “all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10).
The Lycus Valley was not evangelized by Paul himself; it is plain from Colossians 2:1 that he was not personally acquainted with the churches there. He had certainly met individual members of those churches such as Philemon, who indeed appears to have been one of his converts (that is the natural sense of his reminder to him in Phile. 19, “you owe to me even your own self”). The preaching of the gospel and planting of churches in the Lycus Valley were evidently the work of Epaphras, whom Paul calls his “fellow bond-servant” (Col. 1:7) and “fellow-prisoner” (Phile. 23).
Possibly when Paul journeyed overland from the east to Ephesus to embark on his ministry there in A.D. 52 he went by way of the Lycus Valley. When Luke wrote that Paul arrived at Ephesus after passing through “the upper country” (lit., “the upper parts,” a]nwterika> me<rh; Acts 19:1), Luke may have meant the Lycus route. Any district up country could be called “the upper parts” from the standpoint of Ephesus and the Aegean shore. But it has commonly been thought more probable that he went by a higher road farther north, which left the Lycus route at Apamea and approached Ephesus on the north of Mount Messogis, not on the south of it (as the Lycus road did).31
A reasonable inference from Luke’s account is that, while Paul’s personal headquarters were in Ephesus during the years of the evangelizing of proconsular Asia, his fellow workers were active in other parts of the province (such as Epaphras in the Lycus Valley). Probably all seven of the “churches of Asia” to which the Johannine Apocalypse was addressed, as well as other Asian churches, were planted during that fertile period.32
The only direct information in the New Testament about Christianity in the Lycus Valley is contained in Paul’s letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, and in the letter to the Laodicean church (Rev. 3:14-22). The passage in Revelation 3 suggests that the churches of the Lycus Valley shared the general prosperity of their environment; the cutting edge of their distinctive Christian witness was accordingly blunted. Among various touches of local color in the letter to Laodicea maybe included the lukewarmness for which the church is rebuked. By contrast with the medicinal hot springs of Hierapolis or the refreshing supply of cold water available at Colossae, Laodicea had to fetch its water through high-pressure stone pipes from Denizli, some five miles distant, and by the time it reached Laodicea it was lukewarm. Perhaps, like the water which the villagers of Ecirli are reported as drawing today from the hot springs of Pamukkale (Hierapolis), it had to be left standing in stone jars until it cooled.33
The churches of Laodicea and Colossae evidently had free communication; the cities stood 10 miles apart, on opposite banks of the Lycus. Paul directed the Colossian Christians to send on his letter to the Laodicean church when they themselves had read it, and to make sure that in exchange they received and read the “letter from Laodicea” (Col. 4:16). This “letter from Laodicea” may be said to constitute a “Colossian problem” in itself, but no solution to it is to be offered here. The letter has been identified with one or another of the letters to the Ephesians, to Philemon, and to the Hebrews. One of these identifications may be right, or all may be wrong. It is not even certain that the letter in question was written by Paul. If he had sent a letter to the Laodicean church about that time, why should he have used the Epistle to the Colossians to send greetings to “the brethren who are in Laodicea” (Col. 4:15), including the members of a named house church?34
Again, why is Paul’s message to Archippus given immediately after the apostle referred to Laodicea? Is it because Archippus’ ministry was to be exercised in the Laodicean church? Perhaps it was; if so, has this any bearing on the mention of his name in Philemon 2, where Paul calls him “our fellow-soldier”? To put flesh on these bare bones calls for a measure of creative imagination with which this writer has not been endowed.35 This at least may be said: the churches of the Lycus Valley were full of vitality, involved in one another’s life and witness.
The later references in the New Testament to the churches of Asia leave them under a cloud. In Paul’s address at Miletus to the elders of the Ephesian church he warned them of times of trouble ahead, trouble caused not only by hostile assaults from outside but also by false teachers within (Acts 20:29-30). That these forebodings were well founded is evident from 2 Timothy 1:15, where “all who are in Asia” are said to have turned away from Paul, that is, presumably, from the purity of the gospel. One need not suppose that the churches of the Lycus Valley were exempt from this unfavorable report. The apocalyptic letter to the church of Laodicea suggests that they were not.
PHRYGIA IN THE POST-APOSTOLIC ERA
Happily the faith of the Asian churches, including the Lycus churches, was revived in the latter part of the first century by the immigration of some Palestinian believers whose association with the Christian movement went back to early days. Among these were Philip and at least some of his four prophesying daughters, whose tombs were pointed out at Hierapolis toward the end of the second century.36 There is some confusion in Eusebius or his sources between Philip the apostle and Philip the evangelist. The reference is probably to Philip the evangelist, with whom Paul and his companions spent several days at Caesarea in A.D. 57 before completing their journey to Jerusalem to hand over the Gentile churches’ gifts to the mother church (Acts 21:8-14). Not surprisingly in due course a church was dedicated in Philip’s honor at Hierapolis.37 Of later date (the fifth century) is the octagonal Martyrion of Philip, substantial ruins of which still stand above the city, outside the walls.
In the first half of the second century the bishop of Hierapolis was Papias,38 contemporary with Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna) and one who, like Polycarp, heard in his younger days of “John the disciple of the Lord.”39 Even if Papias’ intelligence was as small as Eusebius reckoned is to be (probably quoting Papias’ depreciation of himself),40 the loss of his volumes of Exegesis of the Dominical Oracles is to be greatly regretted. Whatever might be the historical value of the remnants of oral tradition which he scraped together in these volumes, it would be interesting to know what they were.
Another bishop of Hierapolis, in the latter half of the second century, was Claudius Apollinaris, who about A.D. 172 presented a treatise in defense of the Christian faith to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. This treatise is lost, as are also other works of his including five volumes of Against the Greeks, two volumes of Against the Jews, two volumes of On the Truth, and one or more treatises against the Montanists.41
The Montanists arose in Phrygia soon after the middle of the second century. Their leader, Montanus, prophesied that the new Jerusalem would soon descend from heaven and take up its location near Pepouza, a city about 30 miles north of the Lycus Valley, between the Maeander and the Senaros.42 From its place of origin Montanism was known in other parts of the Christian world as the Phrygian heresy. But despite the vigor of Montanism, orthodoxy was far from dying out in Phrygia.
As for Colossae, it apparently retained its importance into the second and third centuries. The city itself stood on the south bank of the Lycus, but its necropolis was situated on the north bank. On the north bank, too, was later erected the Byzantine church of Saint Michael the Archistrategos, fated to be destroyed by Turkish raiders in 1189. According to Ramsay, its ruins were still “plainly visible in 1881.”43 It remained the religious center of the district even after the population of Colossae moved to Chonai, the modern village of Honaz, two or three miles farther south, at the foot of Mount Cadmus. (Since the site of Colossae remains unoccupied, it presents an inviting prospect to archaeologists.)
It has been suggested that the angel worship, which, according to Colossians 2:18, was one aspect of the “Colossian heresy,” reflected a local tendency which persisted for centuries. Ramsay quoted from the commentary of Theodoretus on that verse and from Canon 35 of the Synod of Laodicea words which indicate that the practice of praying to angels was maintained for some centuries by Phrygian and Pisidian Christians in face of official ecclesiastical prohibition.44 At a still later date this practice, which had once been condemned as idolatrous, came to be reckoned as piety in the form of the veneration of the archangel Michael, who was credited from the ninth century onward with being the author of a natural phenomenon in the vicinity of Colossae, “the miracle at Khonai,” as Ramsay called it.45 But it is most improbable that the practices which incurred the disapproval of the Synod of Laodicea and of Theodoretus bore any direct relationship to those deplored by Paul in his Letter to the Colossians.
Laodicea probably profited by John’s severe words addressed to the resident Christians (Rev. 3:14-22). Evidence of spiritual life was there for several centuries to come. Similarly, according to the testimony of Ignatius, the church of Ephesus had recovered a good measure of its first love by the time he passed through proconsular Asia on his way to martyrdom in Rome about A.D. 110.46 (It is not clear whether Ignatius’ military escort took the road through the Lycus Valley or the higher road which forked right at Apamea and ran north of Mount Messogis. If they went through the Lycus Valley, they would have turned north at Laodicea, passing through Hierapolis and going on to Philadelphia and Smyrna by the road taken by Xerxes and his army nearly six centuries earlier. Ignatius made no mention in his letters of any city through which he passed before his arrival at Philadelphia.)
In the centuries immediately following, the secular prominence of Laodicea increased; it was the principal city of Western Phrygia and had metropolitan status. Its ecclesiastical status matched its secular importance; its bishop ranked highest among the bishops of Phrygia. A church synod was held there about A.D. 363, but hardly anything is known of its proceedings apart from the 60 “Canons of Laodicea” which it promulgated. (The 60th of these, a list of the canonical books of Scripture, may be of later date.) Several of these rules were probably restatements of decisions reached at earlier church councils, but they were acknowledged by later councils as a basis of canon law.
The excavations carried out on the site of Laodicea between 1961 and 1963, under the sponsorship of Laval University, Quebec, uncovered some relics of early Christianity in the city. The most impressive discovery was of a Nymphaeum, a shrine of the nymphs, with public fountains. After its destruction by an earthquake late in the fifth century this building was repaired for use as a Christian meeting place, as is evident from the Christian symbols which now decorated it.47
The site was abandoned in the wake of Turkish invasions of the 13th century; its place as the political center of the region was taken by Denizli. But Christianity survived in the Lycus Valley, as in many other parts of Asia Minor, until 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne, which ended the Greco-Turkish war of 1922-23, made provision for the wholesale exchange of the Greek residents in Turkey (apart from Constantinople) and the Turkish residents in Greece. When the exchange of populations took place, it was carried through effectively on a religious basis. Greek-speaking Muslims in Greece were counted as Turks and transferred to Turkey; Turkish-speaking Christians in Turkey were counted as Greeks and transferred to Greece. A removal of ancient lampstands on this scale, however intelligible it may be in terms of international politics, must be deplored as a tragedy by anyone with a sense of Christian history.
Editor’s Note
This is the first in a series of four articles delivered by the author as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, November 1-4, 1983.
Notes
1 In addition to the Phrygian Lycus (modern Curuk-su) there was one in Lydia (modern Kum Cayi) and one in Pontus (modern Kelkit Cayi).
2 Herodotus Histories 7.30.
3 “Sepharad” in Ob. 20, like Akkadian Sapardu and Old Persian Sfarda, is probably an approximation to the Lydian name of the city.
4 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 12.119.
5 Ibid., 12.125.
6 Ibid., 12.149.
7 M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951), 1:492. See also, to the same effect, A. Schalit, The Letter of Antiochus III to Zeuxis regarding the Establishment of Jewish Military Colonies in Phrygia and Lydia,” Jewish Quarterly Review 50 (1959—60): 289-318. (He dates the letter between 212 and 205 B.C.)
8 Polybius History 5.45ff.
9 Ibid., 12.1, 24; 21.16, 24.
10 Cicero Pro Flacco. (Flaccus seems to have been acquitted.)
11 Pro Flacco 68. See A. J. Marshall, “Flaccus and the Jews of Asia (Pro Flacco 28.67-69),” Phoenix 29 (1975): 139-54.
12 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 16.162-63; Philo, Legation to Gaius 155-57.
13 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 16.27-65.
14 Ibid., 14.241-43.
15 Ibid., 16.162-65. On this whole matter see E. M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), pp. 120-43.
16 Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 12.121.
17 Josephus The Jewish Wars 7.100-111. Also see Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, pp. 358-68.
18 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, vol. 2, ed. J. B. Frey (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1952), no. 774.
19 William M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1897), 2:538, 669.
20 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, no. 760; Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, vol. 6, eds. W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1939), nos. 335, 335a.
21 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, no. 775.
22 But there is evidence that the title of avvrcisuna,gwgoj could be held by a Gentile, the president of a non-Jewish assembly (see New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity. ed. G. H. R. Horsley [North Ryde, New South Wales: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, 1981 ], No 5).
23 Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, no. 766.
24 Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 2:649-50.
25 Cf. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, p. 479. In Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, vol. 3, ed. A. Boeckh (Berlin: Reimer, 1853), no. 4033, one member of the family from Upper Phrygia, Tiberius Severus, is called “descendant of kings and tetrarchs.”
26 Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 2:650.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., 2:669-72.
29 Luke’s list of places differs sufficiently from similar lists which have been compared to his to suggest that he did not take it over as such from some literary source (astrological or otherwise) but was himself responsible for the selection (see Bruce M. Metzger, “Ancient Astrological Geography and Acts 2:9-11,” New Testament Studies [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980], pp. 46-56).
30 Xenophon Anabasis 1.2.19.
31 See William M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897), p. 94. It is less likely that “the upper parts” should be taken as resumptive of “the Galatian region and Phrygia” through which Paul is said to have passed on his westward journey in Acts 18:23.
32 It has sometimes been inferred from Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians (11:3) that the gospel first came to Smyrna after Paul had written Philippians 4:15. But more probably, when Polycarp said, “we [the Smyrnaeans] had not yet known God,” he referred not to the time when Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians was written but to the time when Philippi was first evangelized. “We need have no hesitation in dating the origin of the Christian church in Smyrna. at some point within the period 53-56” (C. J. Cadoux, Ancient Smyrna [Oxford: Blackwell, 1938], p. 310.
33 Cf. G. Weber. “Die Hochdruck-Wasserleitung von Laodicea ad Lycum,” Jahrbuch des kaiserlich-deutschen archaologischen Institute 13 (1898): 1-13; 19 (1904):95-96; M. J. S. Rudwick and E. M. B. Green, “The Laodicean Lukewarmness,” Expository Times 69 (1957-58):176-78.
34 C. P. Anderson suggested that Epaphras was the author (“Who Wrote ‘The Epistle from Laodicea’?” Journal of Biblical Literature 85 [1966]: 436-40). Later, Anderson suggested its identification with Hebrews (“Hebrews among the Letters of Paul,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 5 [1975–761: 258-66).
35 It is no disparagement of a scholarly work to remark that John Knox’s Philemon among the Letters of Paul (London: Collins, 1960) gives evidence of such endowment.
36 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 3.31.2-5; 3.39.9; 5.24.2, quoting Polycrates of Ephesus and Proclus the Montanist.
37 An inscription of Hierapolis commemorates one “Eugenius the little, archdeacon and president of the holy and glorious apostle and divine, Philip” (E. A. Gardner, “Inscriptions Copied by [C. R.1 Cockerell in Greece, II,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 6 [ 18851: 346; Ramsay. Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 2:552).
38 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 2.15.2; 3.36.2; 3.39.1-17.
39 John migrated to Asia Minor presumably about the same time as Philip and his family; his residence at Ephesus and his death and burial there are attested by Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies 3.1.2) and Polycrates (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 3.31.3; 5.24.2). In the so-called anti-Marcionite prologue to the Gospel of John, Papias appears to be called “John’s dear disciple.” Irenaeus affirms that Papias was a disciple of John (Against Heresies 5.33.4); Eusebius virtually denies it (Ecclesiastical History 3.39.2).
40 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 3.39.13; but see J. R. Harris, Testimonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916), 1:119-20.
41 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 4.26.1; 4.27.1; 5.5.4; 5.16.1; 5.19.1-2.
42 Ibid., 5.3.4; 5.16.1–5.18.13.
43 Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1895)), 1 :215. Michael is called archistrategos in both Greek versions of Daniel 8:11 and in several Greek apocrypha.
44 The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170, p. 477.
45 Ibid., 465-80.
46 Ignatius, To the Ephesians 1:3 et passim.
47 J. des Gagniers et al., Laodicee du Lycos, Le Nymphee, Campagnes 1961– 1963, Universite Laval Recherches Archeologiques, Serie I (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Universite Laval, 1969).
Chapter 2 - The "Christ Hymn" of Colossians 1:15-20
Perhaps in Paul’s mind there was not the same measure of urgency in the theological situation of the Colossian church as there had been some years before in that of the Galatian churches. At any rate, in Colossians he does not launch an attack on the false teaching immediately after the prescript, as he does in Galatians. The fact that the church of Colossae had not been directly planted by him, as the churches of Galatia had been, and that he was personally unacquainted with most of its members may also have something to do with his procedure. However that may be, before he undertakes a refutation of the false teaching which was being urged on the Colossian Christians, he presents them with a positive statement of the truth which was being challenged by the false teaching. Hengel has recently drawn attention to the important part that hymns or Spirit-inspired songs played in formulating the doctrine of Christ in the primitive church, even before the start of the Pauline mission.1 The doctrine of Christ was the principal truth threatened by the false teaching at Colossae, and this is the doctrine Paul presents to his readers before dealing specifically with the false teaching. His presentation of the doctrine of Christ takes the form of the “Christ hymn” in Colossians 1:15-20. Do these six verses really contain a hymn? Certainly one cannot recognize here the established forms of either Hebrew or Greek poetry. What is here is rhythmical prose, but it is rhythmical prose with a strophic arrangement such as is found in much early Christian hymnody. As with the “Christ hymn” in Philippians 2:6-11, it is not of the first importance to decide whether Paul is composing the words de novo or reproducing an inspired composition already known to him (and possibly to his readers) and stamping it with his apostolic authority. The strophic arrangement is indicated by the repetition of key words or phrases. There appear to be two strophes — verses 15-16 and verses 18b-20 — with verses 17-18a supplying a transitional link between them. Each strophe begins with o’j evstin (“He who is”) and exhibits the key words prwto,tokoj (“firstborn”), o’t evn auvtw/ (“because in Him”), div auvtou/ (“through Him”), ta. pa,nta (“all things”). The first and last clauses of the transitional link begin with kai. auvto,j evstin (“He indeed is”), the first summing up the preceding strophe and the last introducing the following strophe.2
The First Strophe (1:15-16)
He who is the image of the invisible God,
Firstborn before all creation,
because in Him all things were created —
things in heaven and things on earth,
things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions,
whether principalities or powers —
they have all been created through Him and for Him (author’s translation).
This first strophe celebrates the role of Christ in creation, most probably in His character as the Wisdom of God. This early Christian theme, which exercised a major influence on the church’s Christological thought, was not confined to the Pauline circle and probably did not originate in it. It finds expression in the prelude of Hebrews (Heb. 1:2b-3a), in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1-5), and in the Apocalypse (Rev. 3:14).
Christ, then, is introduced as “the image of the invisible God.” That He is “the image of God” has been affirmed already by Paul (2 Cor. 4:4), in a context which appears to reflect Paul’s conversion experience. Paul recognized the One revealed to him on the Damascus Road as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Did he, in that same moment, recognize Him also as the image of God?3 When Ezekiel received his vision of God, he saw enthroned at the heart of the rainbow-like brightness “a likeness as it were of a human form” (Ezek. 1:26). Paul had a similar experience when he recognized “the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). He is not merely echoing someone else’s form of words here; he is expressing what his own experience confirmed as true.
To call Christ the image of God is to say that in Him the being and nature of God have been perfectly manifested — that in Him the invisible has become visible. In another letter Paul had declared that since the creation of the world the “everlasting power and divinity”4 of the unseen Creator may be “clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). But now an allsurpassing disclosure of His “everlasting power and divinity” has been granted. “The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” has shone into His people’s hearts through the same creative Word that first called light to shine forth out of darkness (2 Cor. 4:4-6).
In addition to being the image of God, Christ is said to be the “Firstborn before all creation.” This rendering is designed to clarify the force of the genitive phrase “of all creation.” To construe the wording as though He Himself were the first of all created beings is to run counter to the context, which insists that He is the One by whom the whole creation came into existence. The construction prwto,tokoj pa,shj kti,sewj is similar to that in John 1:15, 30, where John the Baptist says of Jesus prw/to,j mou h=n, He was first in respect to me.”5 In Colossians 1:15 prwto,tokoj with the genitive has the same force that prw/to,j with the genitive has in John 1:15, 30; it denotes not only priority but primacy.
The title “Firstborn” perhaps echoes the language of Psalm 89:27, where God says of the Davidic king, “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” But it belongs to Christ not only as the Son of David but also as the Wisdom of God. In the wisdom literature of the Old Testament wisdom is at best the personification of a divine attribute or of the holy law, but when the New Testament writers speak of Wisdom in personal terms, they consciously refer to One who is alive, one whose ministry on earth was still remembered by many. To all those writers, as to Paul, Christ was the personal (not personified) and incarnate Wisdom of God. They were not so much arguing that the personified wisdom of the Old Testament is actually Christ as they were testifying that Christ (who lived on earth as Man, who died and rose again, “whom God made our wisdom” [1 Cor. 1:30]) is the One who was before all creation, the preexistent Christ.
The idea of preexistence is not unknown in Jewish thought. It is seen, for example, in later discussions about the Messiah6 and in the preexistent Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch.7 But such preexistent beings were, to the minds of those who discussed them, largely ideal. Here preexistence is predicated of Jesus who had lived and died in Palestine within the preceding half-century. This is not the only place in the Pauline letters where the preexistence of Christ is stated or implied, and Paul is not the only New Testament writer to teach such a truth.
Paul speaks of Christ not only as preexistent, but also as cosmic, that is, he finds in Christ “the key to creation, declaring that it is all there with Christ in view.”8 Whatever other figures in Jewish literature may have preexistence ascribed to them, none of them is credited with such cosmic activity and significance as are here predicated of the preexistent Christ. Paul had already used language of this kind; in 1 Corinthians 8:6 he said that Christians acknowledge “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” And in Romans 8:19-21 he showed how the redemption secured by Christ works not only to the advantage of its immediate beneficiaries, “the sons of God,” but through them to the whole creation.
Not only is Christ’s primacy with regard to creation asserted; it is “in Him” that all things were created. When the Revised Version appeared in 1881 with this rendering in place of the King James Version’s “by Him,” some critics, like B. W. Newton, charged the revisers with encouraging the “deadly” error of the immanence of the Word in the world by thus “reversing the translation of their Protestant predecessors.”9 But if Newton and others had studied the matter a little further, they might have discovered why Paul wrote evn auvtw/ here, and why the revisers translated the phrase “in Him.” The reason is that Christ is identified with the beginning “in” which, according to Genesis 1:1, “God created the heavens and the earth.”10 This is not mere surmise; He is expressly called “the beginning” in Colossians 1:18. Perhaps one could say that here He is viewed as the sphere within which the work of creation takes place, as in Ephesians 1:4 the people of God are said to have been chosen “in Him” even earlier, before the world’s foundation. God’s creation, like His election, is accomplished “in Christ” and not apart from Him.
When the preposition is changed, and creation is said to have taken place “through him” (di v auvtou/), as it is at the end of verse 16, He is denoted as the Agent by whom God brought the universe into being. This is in line with the testimony of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which affirms that through the Son (di v ou-) God made the worlds (Heb. 1:2), and of the Fourth Gospel which states that “all things came into being through him [through the Logos, who is identified with the Son), and apart from him none of the things that exist came into being” (John 1:3).
This is to be distinguished from Philo’s doctrine of the function of the logos in creation. It is easy to see affinities between Pauline language and Stoic terminology, but Paul’s thought is derived not from Stoicism but from Genesis and the Old Testament wisdom literature, where wisdom is personified as the Creator’s assessor and master-workman. However, for Paul, “master-workman” is no longer a figure of speech but a description of the actual role of the personal, preexistent Christ.
Thus Christ through whom the divine work of redemption has been accomplished (Col. 1:14) is the One through whom the divine act of creation ‘was effected in the beginning. His mediatorial relation to the created universe provides a setting to the plan of salvation which helps his people appreciate the gospel all the more. For those who have been redeemed by Christ the universe has no ultimate terrors; they know that their Redeemer is also Creator — the Origin and Goal of all.
Probably with special reference to the “Colossian heresy” Paul then emphasized that if all things were created by Christ, then those powers for which such high claims were made in that heresy must have been created by Him. “Thrones, principalities, authorities, powers, and dominions” probably represent the highest orders of the spirit world, but the variety of ways in which the terms are combined in the New Testament warns against attempting to construct a fixed hierarchy from them. The point is that the most powerful angel princes, like the rest of creation, are subject to Christ as the One in whom, through whom, and for whom they were created.
The concept of Christ as the Goal of creation plays an essential part in Pauline Christology and soteriology. To this concept Jewish parallels have been adduced; for example, the third-century Rabbi Yohanan offered the opinion that the world was created with a view to Messiah.11 But for Paul, Messiah had come; He is identical with Jesus who, not more than 30 years earlier, had been crucified in Jerusalem and who had appeared to Paul himself on the Damascus Road as the risen Lord. Any understanding of Paul’s Christology which fails to reckon with his personal commitment to Jesus, crucified and exalted, would be the kind of understanding that is dismissed in this letter as being “according to the elemental forces of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8).
The Transitional Link (1:17-18a)
He indeed is before all things,
and they all cohere in Him;
He is also the head of the body, the church (author’s translation).
The teaching of the first strophe is recapitulated in a twofold reaffirmation of the preexistence and cosmic significance of Christ: “He indeed is before all things, and they all cohere in Him.” The phrase “before all things” sums up the essence of His designation as “Firstborn before all creation” and excludes any possibility of interpreting that designation to mean that He Himself is part of the created order (albeit the first and chief part). Since the phrase pro. pa,ntwn occurs elsewhere in the New Testament to denote priority in importance, this denotation, as well as the idea of priority in time, may well be present here.
The statement “all things cohere in Him” adds something to what has been said about His agency in creation. What has been brought into being by Christ is maintained by being in Him. The best known parallel to this comes, as stated earlier, in the prelude of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the Son is not only the One through whom the worlds were made but also the One who upholds all things by His almighty and enabling Word (Heb. 1:2b-3a). The Greek verb suni,sthmi is found as a Platonic and Stoic term. According to Philo, the material of the human body “coheres (sune,sthken) and is quickened as into flame by the providence of God.”12 The Greek translator of Ben Sira, using a synonymous verb, says that by the Word of God “all things hold together (su,gkeitai)” (Sir. 43:26). But to Paul the living Christ, who died to redeem His people, is the Sustainer of the universe and the unifying Principle of its life.
Thus far the doctrine of Christ has been set forth in terms that Paul shares with other New Testament writers -terms which indeed may have belonged to a widely used Christian catechesis or confession, even if Paul stamped them here with the imprint of his own experience and thought. But now he went on to make a contribution to apostolic Christology which is distinctively his own. Christ, he wrote, is also “the Head of the body, the church.”
Those who believe that verses 15-20 constitute an already existing hymn incorporated into the argument of this letter conclude that “the church” is a gloss added by Paul to make plain the sense in which “the body” is to be understood. This may be so. But it is also widely supposed that in the original form of the hymn the body was the ko,smoj.13 Christ is certainly presented in this letter as Ruler of the ko,smoj— as Head, in particular, “of every principality and power” (2:10). But when “Head” and “body” are used as correlative terms, as they are here in 1:18a, the physiological analogy is to the fore, and it is not established that the physiological analogy ever figured in Christ’s headship over the ko,smoj.
Where the ko,smoj was viewed as a body, as in Stoicism, it is animated by the divine world-soul and not by a power functioning as head of the body. And if it be maintained that the original hymn was not only pre-Pauline but pre-Christian, and that it was the kosmokra,twr, or the Gnostic redeemer, and not Christ, who was originally presented as head of the body (the ko,smoj),14 one would still ask for evidence that the head-body relationship was current in that realm of thought.
But if the identity of the church with the body of which Christ is the Head is implied or expressed in the original hymn, is Paul then dependent on an existing composition (viz., this supposedly pre-Pauline hymn) for this insight? Whereas the portrayal of the church as the body of Christ appears in his earlier letters (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Rom. 12:4-5), the portrayal of Christ as Head of the body is found first in Colossians and Ephesians. It seems unlikely to this author that this development of Paul’s earlier thought first took shape in someone else’s mind. More probably the hymn was composed within the circle of the Pauline churches, under the influence of Paul’s own teaching.
Another possibility has been ventilated, however. Benoit suggests that it was only the first strophe celebrating Christ’s role as the creative Wisdom, that circulated independently before it was incorporated in this letter, and that the second strophe was constructed (by Paul himself?) on the model of the first.15 Since the transitional link, which leads from the first strophe into the second, would have no point apart from second strophe it would have been constructed at the same time as the second strophe. This writer does not know if this consideration has any bearing on the presentation of these verses in the 26th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, where verses 15-18a (the first strophe plus the transitional link) are set as poetry, but verses 18b-20 (the second strophe) as prose.
This, however, is not the occasion for entering further into Paul’s doctrine of the church as the body of which Christ is the Head, apart from repeating what has been suggested from Patristic times, that the seed may have been sown in his mind when the risen Lord addressed him on the Damascus Road, crying out from heaven about the injuries being inflicted on His body on earth.16
The Second Strophe (1:18b-20)
He is the beginning,
Firstborn from the dead,
that He might be preeminent in all things,
because in Him it was decreed that all the fullness should
take up residence
and that through Him, [God] should reconcile all things
to Himself,
having made peace through the blood of His cross — [through
Him], whether those on earth or those in heaven (author’s
translation).
As the first strophe celebrates Christ’s role in the old creation, the second strophe celebrates His role in the new creation, especially with regard to His work of reconciliation. In relation to the old creation and the new He holds the rank of “Firstborn.” The new creation is the resurrection order; over it, as over the old order, He is “the Beginning.” He is not only “the Beginning” in whom heaven and earth were first created, but also by His rising from the dead He is proclaimed the One in whom men and women who died in the first Adam are “made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).
The risen Christ is Head of the body, which is the church. His resurrection marked His victory over all the forces that held men and women in bondage. On that first Easter morning He brought new hope for humanity. Now Christ is “the Firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29); He is “the First-fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20); His own resurrection is the harbinger of the great forthcoming resurrection harvest of His people. He who has been “designated Son of God in power . . . by the resurrection of the dead” (Rom.1:4) exercises universal primacy; the divine purpose is thus fulfilled “that He should be preeminent in all things” (Col. 1:18).
The fact that the designation “Firstborn from the dead” appears independently in Revelation 1:5 (expanding the title “Firstborn” in a quotation from F’s. 89:27)17 suggests that it may have had a wider currency in first-century Christianity. The same consideration applies to the title “the Beginning,” which is given to Christ at the beginning; of the letter to the Laodicean church in Revelation 3:14, in the fuller form “the Beginning of God’s creation” (probably by way of an allusion to wisdom’s self-introduction as “the beginning of His way” in Prov. 8:22). Is there further significance in the fact that the church to which these words were addressed was situated, like the Colossian church, in the Lycus Valley? The question must be left unanswered, but at least it may be asked.
In the following words of the hymn the statement that God has decreed the preeminence of Christ over every order of being, both in this age and in the coming age, is repeated in different terms. These terms may have been calculated to appeal with peculiar force to the Colossian Christians in their present situation. “In Him it was decreed that all the fullness should take up residence.” The impersonal rendering “it was decreed” has been adopted provisionally. But the verb is not impersonal: euvdo,khsen means “decreed,” “decided,” “was well pleased,” and implies a subject. Who or what was well pleased? When the good pleasure is God’s, there are analogies for the omission of His name. For example, “He was well pleased” could mean “God was well pleased” (as in the KJV: “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell”). On the other hand, an explicit subject for the verb is offered in the clause itself; “the fullness was well pleased to take up residence in Him” (as in the RSV: “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell”). It cannot be decided with certainty whether o` qeo.j (understood) or pa/n to. plh,rwma (expressed) is the more probable subject. Benoit, for example, prefers o` qeo.j;18 on the other hand Kasemann declares this construction to be “not permissible19 (but on exegetical and theological, not on grammatical, grounds).
Before which of the two constructions can be considered the more probable, the meaning of plh,rwma in this sentence must be examined and determined. So far as Paul’s intention is concerned, its sense is scarcely in doubt; it is repeated more fully in Colossians 2:9: “It is in Him [i.e., Christ] that all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” If, then, Colossians 1:19 is construed to mean that “in Him all fullness of deity was well pleased to take up residence” (the double aorist, euvdo,khsen and katoikh/sai perhaps pointing to the time of His resurrection or exaltation),20 this is tantamount to saying that God Himself, in all His fullness, was pleased to dwell in Him. No substantial difference exists, then, in meaning between the two constructions.
This is so, as has been stated earlier, “so far as Paul’s intention is concerned.” This leaves open the possibility that in the original hymn, if it were an independently existing composition, the sentence had a different meaning from what has been placed on it by its being incorporated into the argument of this letter. But one should ask for evidence that the original meaning was different, before accepting that it was so; and such evidence is hard to obtain.
No doubt the word plh,rwma had a special sense (or senses) in Gnostic terminology, but it does not follow that the present occurrence originally bore that special sense (or senses). The word is used by Paul and other New Testament writers in a variety of senses. Conceivably it may have been used in a technical sense by the false teachers at Colossae, and there may be some allusion to that technical sense here; but nothing can be established as a matter of fact on the bare ground of its being conceivable. In the mid-second century the Valentinians used plh,rwma to denote the totality of aeons (divine entities or emanations), and the word may have borne some such meaning in incipient forms of Gnosticism in the mid-first century. But it is necessary to insist no information on the Colossian heresy is known apart from inferences drawn as cautiously as possible from the argument and wording of this letter. It would make sense — one can say no more than that — if the Colossian heresy thought of a hierarchy of powers among which the divine fullness was distributed and which occupied the intermediate realm between the supreme God and the world of humanity. In that situation, any communication between God and the world, in either direction, would have had to pass through the spheres in which those powers exercised control. Those who thought in this way would see the point of treating such powers with due respect. The nature of the Colossian heresy is the subject of the next article in this series, but if it was anything like this, then it is undermined in one simple affirmation: the totality of the divine essence and power is resident in Christ. Christ is the One and all-sufficient Intermediary between God and the world of humanity, and all the attributes of God are disclosed in Him. There is no good reason to suppose that the hymn at any stage bore a different meaning from what it bears in the context of the Letter to the Colossians.
It was God’s good pleasure, moreover, to “reconcile all things to Himself” through Christ. The fullness of divine energy is manifested in Him in the work of reconciliation as well as in that of creation. In the words that follow in Colossians 1 this reconciling activity is applied particularly to redeemed humanity, but first its universal aspect comes into view. In reconciliation as in creation the work of Christ has a cosmic significance; it is God’s eternal purpose (as stated in Eph. 1:10) that all things should be summed up in Him.
If “all things” (both in heaven and on earth) were created through Him, and yet “all things” (whether on earth or in heaven) are to be reconciled to God through Him, it follows that “all things” have been estranged from their Creator. Paul had spoken of the creation as involuntarily “subjected to futility” but also as destined to “be set free from its bondage to decay and [to) obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:20-21). Since the liberty of the children of God is procured by the redemptive work of Christ, the release of creation from its bondage to decay is assured by that same redemptive work. That earlier argument of Paul’s is akin to his present one, but here not simply subjection to futility but positive hostility is implied on the part of the created universe. The universe has been involved in conflict with its Creator, and needs to be reconciled to Him; the conflict must be replaced by peace. This peace has been effected by Christ, through the shedding of His blood on the cross.
Even if Paul was not the first author of these words about the reconciliation of all things, his use of them as part of his argument implies that he understood them in accord with his general teaching about reconciliation. It is difficult to interpret his teaching along the lines of anything like universal reconciliation as that phrase is commonly understood today. He did not anticipate Origen in the view that fallen angels benefit by the saving work of Christ. Instead, Paul thought of the saving work of Christ as denuding hostile spiritual powers of all vitality and potency.21
The peace effected by the death of Christ may be freely accepted, or it may be imposed. The reconciliation of the universe spoken of here includes what would now be distinguished as pacification. The principalities and powers whose downfall is described in Colossians 2:15 are certainly not depicted as gladly surrendering to divine grace but as being compelled to submit to a power greater than their own. Everything in the universe has been made subject to Christ even as everything was created for Him. By His reconciling work “the host of the high ones on high” and sinful human beings on earth have been decisively subdued to the will of God and must subserve His purpose. As the parallel Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 indicates, the Father’s good pleasure is that all “in heaven and on earth and under the earth” shall unite to bow the knee at Jesus’ name and confess that He is Lord. As Hengel has pointed out, the hymn to Christ “served as a living medium for the progressive development of christological thinking” in the earliest church, and it also “created community in the union of avgalli,asij in praise and spirit-filled didaskali,a; indeed, the unity of the earthly and the heavenly communities became evident in the singing.”22 Few exercises can so effectively promote the spirit of unity as joint celebration of the person and work of Christ.
Editor’s Note
This is the second in a series of four articles delivered by the author as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, November 1-4, 1983.
Notes
1 Martin Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, trans. J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1983), pp. 78-96.
2 The strophic arrangement followed here is that suggested by Pierre Benoit, “L’hymne christologique de Col 1, 15-20,” in Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults, ed. Jacob Neusner, 4 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 1:226-63.
3 See Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), pp. 137-62.
4 With the qeio,thj (“divinity”) revealed in creation maybe contrasted the ethnic (“deity”) embodied in Christ (Col. 2:9).
5 A. W. Argyle compares the construction of the Septuagint in 2 Kingdoms 19:43 (not found in the Hebrew of 2 Sam. 19:43): prwto,tokoj evgw. h’ su.. “I was born before you” (“prwto,tokoj pa,shj kti,sewj [Colossians 1:151,” Expository Times 66 [1954-55], pp. 61-62).
6 An example is the messianic interpretation of Psalm 72:17 as “Before the sun his name was Yinnon” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b).
7 See Maurice Casey, The Son of Man (London: S.P.C.K., 1979), pp. 99-112.
8 Archibald M. Hunter, Interpreting Paul’s Gospel (London: SCM Press, 1954), p. 60.
9 B. W. Newton, Remarks on the Revised English Version of the Greek New Testament (London: Houlston, 1881), p. 65.
10 See C. F. Burney, “Christ as the APXH of Creation,” Journal of Theological Studies 27 (1925-26):160-77.
11 Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b.
12 Philo Who Is Heir of Divine Things? 58.
13 See E. Schweizer, “Die Kirche als Leib Christi in den paulnischen Anti-legomena,” Neotestamentica (Zurich: Zwingli Verlag, 1963), pp. 293-316
14 See Ernst Kasemann, “A Primitive Christian Baptismal Liturgy” in Essays on New Testament Themes (London: SCM Press, 1964), pp. 149-58.
15 Benoit, “L’hymne christologique de Col 1, 15-20,” pp. 248-50.
16 See Augustine Sermon 279.1.
17 The phrase in Revelation 1:5 is o` prwto,tokoj tw/n nekrw/n as compared with prwto,tokoj evk tw/n nekrw/n here, but the meaning is the same.
18 Benoit, “L’hymne christologique de Col 1, 15-20,” p. 256.
19 Kasemann, “A Primitive Christian Baptismal Liturgy,” P. 158.
20 Probably katoikh,sai should be construed as an ingressive aorist. It is not questioned that God was in Christ before His resurrection, but the risen Christ is the subject of this second strophe.
21 Because of His saving work they have been rendered “weak and beggarly” (Gal. 4:9).
22 Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, pp. 95-96.
Chapter 3 - The Colossian Heresy
By “the Colossian heresy” is meant the “philosophy and empty deceit” against which the Colossian Christians are put on their guard in Colossians 2:8. Did this “philosophy and empty deceit” denote some specific form of false teaching which was finding acceptance at Colossae? Or was the church there being warned against certain ideas which were “in the air” at the time and which its members might conceivably find attractive if ever they were exposed to them?
Perhaps one need not ask these questions if Morna Hooker, in whose eyes not even the most “assured” result of biblical study is sacrosanct, had not ventilated it 10 years ago in a paper entitled “Were There False Teachers in Colossae?” She did not return a dogmatic “no” to her own question, but suggested that the data could be accounted for if Paul was guarding his readers against the pressures of contemporary society with its prevalent superstitions, more or less as a preacher today might feel it necessary to remind his congregation that Christ is greater than any astrological forces.1 Paul’s language, however, points to a rather specific line of teaching against which his readers are warned, and the most natural reason for warning those readers against it would be that they were liable to be persuaded by it. So to Hooker’s question this writer is disposed to give the answer, “Yes, there were false teachers in Colossae.”
The only source of information about their false teaching is the Epistle to the Colossians itself. Paul does not give a detailed account of it, because his readers were presumably familiar with it already; he contented himself with pointing out some of its defects and assessing its character in the light of the gospel.
Some scholars suggest that Paul’s polemic was not always well informed, that he was prone to misunderstand the positions he attacked. The implication is that those modern scholars who charge him with misunderstanding are better informed than he was about this or that position which he attacks, whether it be the Corinthian disbelief in future resurrection or the Galatian reliance on works of a certain kind as the ground of their justification.2 On this it can simply be said that even those scholars are dependent on what Paul says about the controverted positions. So if he was misinformed, no more trustworthy source of information is available. So far as the Colossian heresy is concerned, it may be assumed that Epaphras (or whoever Paul’s informant was) brought an accurate account of it, and that Paul himself was well enough acquainted with current trends of thought to grasp its essential character.
This “philosophy and empty deceit,” then, is said by Paul to follow “the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ” (Col. 2:8). The Colossian Christians, it seems, had at one time been subject to those “elemental forces,” those stoicei/a, but through union with Christ by faith they had “died” in relation to those forces and so were no longer bound to obey them (Col. 2:20). The “elemental forces” play much the same part here as they do in the argument of Galatians 4:3, 9, where Christians (whether Jewish or Gentile by birth) who submit to circumcision and similar requirements of the Jewish Law are described as reverting to slavery under the “elemental forces.” So, according to Paul’s present argument with the Colossians, submission to the prohibitions “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” (Col. 2:21) involves re-entry into the state of bondage from which believers in Christ have been delivered by Him.
The context makes it clear that these prohibitions refer to things that are ethically neutral, not to things that are inherently sinful. Food, according to Paul, is ethically neutral,3 and “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” is a vivid way of denoting various kinds of food restrictions. Voluntary self-denial in matters of food can be a helpful spiritual exercise, and may on occasion be recommended by considerations of Christian charity; but what is deprecated here is a form of asceticism for asceticism’s sake, cultivated as religious obligation. Its association with angel worship (Col. 2:18) — whether that means worship offered to angels or by angels — and with “would-be religion” (Col. 2:23), if that is what e.qeloqrhskei,a means, might provide further help in the identification of its nature and purpose.
But the chief help is probably provided by the reference to “festival or new moon or a Sabbath day” (Col. 2:16). Festivals and new moons were observed by non-Jews as well as Jews, but Sabbaths were distinctively Jewish. As the Galatians’ observance of “days and months and seasons and years” was a sign of their renewed and untimely subjection to the elemental forces which they had served before their conversion (Gal. 4:9-10), the same could be said of their fellow-Christians in Colossae (or anywhere else) if they allowed themselves to be dictated to in matters like a “festival or new moon or a Sabbath day.”
Another Jewish reference might be recognized in Colossians 2:11, where the inward purification symbolized by Christian baptism is called “a circumcision made without hands” — probably in deliberate contrast to Jewish circumcision.
Possible Affinities
When an attempt is made by means of such indications to reconstruct the outlines of the Colossian heresy, one is prompted to ask if the reconstruction bears any resemblance to systems of thought of which something is known.
Calvin showed the acuteness of his well-informed mind in identifying the false teachers as Jews — but Jews of a speculative tendency, who “invented an access to God through the angels, and put forth many speculations of that nature, such as are contained in the books of Dionysius on the Celestial Hierarchy, drawn from the school of the Platonists.” By Platonists he meant what are today called Neoplatonists, although Pseudo-Dionysius developed his thought along lines which set him apart from the general run of Neoplatonists as much as of Platonists.4 His “celestial hierarchy” comprised nine orders of angels, by whose mediation God ordained that human beings should be raised to closer communion with Himself.5 Pseudo-Dionysius’ presentation of this scheme reflects a much later outlook than that of the first century, but the idea of a gradation of intermediaries which he elaborated certainly seems to have been present in the Colossian heresy.
In more recent times scholars have tended to see Pythago rean rather than Platonic influence here. In 1970 Eduard Schweizer found analogies to the Colossian heresy in a Neopythagorean document of the first century B.C., in which he recognized the concentration of all the themes of the heresy with the exception of Sabbath observance. Sabbath observance in Colossae suggested to him that it was a Jewish brand of Neopythagoreanism in which a central place was given to the purification of the soul from everything earthly and to its ascent to the upper ether, the dwelling-place of Christ.6 (One of the themes of the Neopythagorean text sexual abstinence, is not explicitly included among the data of Colossians, but one would expect it to be understood along with the other forms of asceticism indicated.)
Others have sought to see the origin of the heresy in the Iranian redemption myth, the outlines of which were reconstructed by Reitzenstein in 1921.7 In his Iranische Erlosungs mysterium Reitzenstein indeed cited various passages in Colossians to illustrate his reconstruction, but with the passage of years it has become increasingly evident that the Erlosungsmys terium was more his invention than his reconstruction.
In a careful study published as long ago as 1917, but first accessible in an English translation in 1975, Dibelius traced detailed resemblances to the Colossian heresy in the record of initiation into the Isis mysteries preserved in the Metamor phoses of the second-century Latin writer Apuleius of Madaura.8 He did not conclude, of course, that it was initiation into the Isis mysteries that was attracting the Colossian Christians, but he did bring out a number of interesting analogies. What these analogies amount to is simply this: no matter into what mystic cult or secret society people were initiated, there was a generic likeness between the various initiatory actions or terminology.
But did initiation, in this sense of the word, play a part in the Colossian heresy? One phrase in particular has been thought to show that it did. That is found in Colossians 2:18, where Paul described someone who professes an advanced degree of spirituality as “taking his stand on visions” or as trusting in “the things which he has seen at his initiation” however a’ evo,raken evmbateu,wn is to be translated. At one time this phrase was thought to be so difficult that conjectural emendations were favored; but in 1912 and 1913 Dibelius and Sir William Ramsay, almost simultaneously, concluded that the verb evmbateu,w here bore a sense which it had been discovered to bear in inscriptions from the temple of Apollo at Claros, a few miles northwest of Ephesus.9 In these inscriptions it apparently signifies not the initiation itself but the next stage, the initiate’s entrance into the sacred area in order to see the mysteries, which, however, could well be described in more general terms as “the things which he has seen at his initiation.”10 The readers would readily catch the suggestion that the person alluded to had formally entered on his higher experience like someone being admitted to secret rites (from which the uninitiated were excluded) and was now appealing to that superior enlightenment in support of his teaching.
Gnostic and Essene Traces
Some of the Gnostic movements of the second century involved a kind of initiation (the Naassenes, e.g.11) and it is easy to categorize the Colossian heresy as a first-century form of “incipient Gnosticism.” It is not so easy, however, to relate it to any of the particular forms of developed Gnosticism known today from Irenaeus and Hippolytus or more recently from the Nag Hammadi texts. As suggested in the second article in this series,12 perhaps the Christological use of the noun plh,rwma in Colossians was designed to refute Gnostic ideas associated with that term in the heresy, but even if that were so, this does not give much help in ascertaining what those Gnostic ideas were.
Nothing would be extraordinary in a system of incipient Gnosticism expanding in such a way as to make room for Christian elements within itself. An analogy to such an expansion has been detected in the relationship of two of the Nag Hammadi texts Eugnostos the Blessed and The Sophia of Jesus Christ. Eugnostos is a didactic letter addressed by a teacher to his disciples; the Sophia is a revelatory discourse delivered by the risen Christ to His followers. While Eugnostos has no explicit Christian content, its substance is incorporated in the Sophia and Christianized by means of expansions adapted to its new setting.13
But Gnosticism and even incipient Gnosticism must be de fined before they can be used intelligently in such a discussion. A suitable definition of Gnosticism was proposed by Scholem. It is suitable in that he had in mind especially what he called “Jewish Gnosticism.” He defined Gnosticism as a “religious movement that proclaimed a mystical esotericism for the elect based on illumination and the acquisition of a higher knowledge of things heavenly and divine,” the higher knowledge being “soteric” as well as “esoteric.”14
Some circles in Paul’s mission field set much store by knowledge in the sense of intellectual attainment. To discourage such attitudes he told the Corinthians that, by contrast with the upbuilding power of love, knowledge merely inflates: “If any one supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know” (1 Cor. 8:1-2). Socrates commented that the Delphic oracle, in calling him the wisest of men, must have meant that he knew that he did not know, whereas others equally did not know but thought they knew.15 But when knowledge was cultivated for its own sake, as it was in the church of Corinth, it can be appreciated “into how congenial a soil the seeds of Gnosticism were about to fall.”16
As has been said, the Colossian heresy was basically Jewish. Yet the straightforward Judaizing legalism of Galatians was not envisaged in Colossians. Instead it was a form of mysticism which tempted its adepts to look on themselves as a spiritual elite.
Certainly movements within Judaism cultivated higher knowledge. Those who were caught up in such movements were unlikely to remain immune to contemporary trends like incipient Gnosticism and Neopythagoreanism. One body of Jews which laid claim to higher knowledge and special revelation was the Essene order. Lightfoot, with characteristic acumen, discerned elements of Essenism in the Colossian heresy; indeed, his three discourses “On Some Points Connected with the Essenes” appended to his commentary on Colossians, written over 100 years ago,17 provided one of the most reliable accounts of the Essenes until the discovery of the Qumran texts and the identification of the community which produced them as being at least a branch of the Essene order (an identification which may now be regarded as well established). But if the Qumran texts document the Essene order from within, one can see more clearly the kind of knowledge that was cultivated there. Repeatedly the members of the Qumran community thank God that they have been initiated into his “wonderful mysteries” which remain concealed from the uninstructed majority.18 But in doing so the initiates seem to have in mind the insight they enjoyed into God’s secret purpose and the epoch of its fulfillment. His purpose had been communicated to the prophets of earlier days, but many of its details remained in obscurity until the time of fulfillment approached. The time of fulfillment was now approaching, they believed; this had been revealed to the Teacher of Righteousness, together with other details of the interpretation of the prophetic oracles, and what was revealed to him he imparted to his followers.19 With regard to these mysteries Daniel had been told, “None of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand” (Dan. 12:10); the Teacher and his disciples believed that they were “the wise” (the jylikifim; ) to whom this promise was made good.20
There are parallels to this here and there in the New Testament, 21 but not in the references to the Colossian heresy. It is unlikely that the Qumran community had members, even associate members, among the Jews of Phrygia; to follow any thing like the Qumran way of life in a pagan environment would have been difficult indeed. But the Qumran community, and the wider Essene order of which it was apparently a branch, represented a phase of a far-flung tendency sometimes called Jewish nonconformity.22 This tendency is attested as far west as Rome; some features of Jewish practice in that city were markedly “nonconformist in character, and persisted in later generations in Roman Christianity.23
To look to movements within Judaism for the source of the Colossian heresy is a wiser procedure than to postulate direct influences from Iranian or Greek culture. Some religious syncretism was no doubt present in the Jewish communities of Phrygia, but some of the features of the Colossian heresy that have been thought to point to syncretism are in fact features that tend to be common to mystical experiences, regardless of the religious tradition within which they occur. And not only in Jewish nonconformity but in what was to establish itself as the mainstream of Rabbinical Judaism there was present as early as the first century B.C. a form of religious mysticism which was destined to endure for centuries.
Merkabah Mysticism
This is commonly called merkabah mysticism, because of the place which it gave to religious exercises designed to facilitate entry into the vision of the heavenly chariot (hb,K,rim,) with God visibly enthroned above it the vision granted to Ezekiel when he was called to his prophetic ministry (Ezek. 1:15-28).24 For the gaining of such a vision, punctilious observance of the minutiae of the Mosaic Law, especially the law of purification, was essential. Moreover, in addition to what the Law required of every pious Jew, a period of asceticism, variously estimated to be 12 or 40 days, was a necessary preparation. Then when the heavenly ascent was attempted the mediatorial role of angels was indispensable. It was important therefore not to incur their hostility, for the ascent was attended by great perils.
Rabbinical tradition includes a well-known account of the privilege of entering paradise once granted to Rabbi Aqiba and three of his colleagues. Aqiba was the only one of the four to return unscathed. Of the others, one died, one went mad, and one committed apostasy.25 The apostasy of Elisha ben Abuyah per haps illustrated the dangers of the mystical ascent even more than what befell his two companions: even for one who came through physically unharmed there was the risk of being so unbalanced by the experience that one could no longer distinguish truth from error. Nor is this surprising: it is true to this day that people who have mystical experiences tend to attach more importance to what they saw or heard in they course of such an experience than to the sober truth of the Word of God.
In this context it is impossible to forget that Paul himself once had a mystical experience of this kind, when he was caught away into paradise (2 Cor. 12:2-9). So far as can be judged from his account, the experience came to him unsought with no ascetic preparation. He could not and dared not divulge what he heard on that occasion. The accounts of Paul’s conversion have echoes of Ezekiel’s inaugural vision26 but (quite apart from chronological difficulties) Paul’s experience cannot be identified with his conversion experience. He was quite ready to tell what he heard on the Damascus Road—the command of the risen Lord to be His apostle to the Gentile world. But for the rest of Paul’s life he carried with him a memento of his ascent into paradise in the form of a humiliating and recurring “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7). Paul learned to accept this physical affliction, whatever its precise nature, as a prophylactic against the spiritual pride that was prone to beset those who had made the heavenly ascent. If ever he was tempted to rely on the “abundance of revelations” received then, the thorn in the flesh would remind him to rely on the Lord alone, apart from whose grace he would be useless.
The risk of excessive elation from which Paul experienced such a painful deliverance maybe related to the terms in which he describes the self-reliant adept in Colossians 2:18, as “inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.”
Merkabah mysticism, according to Gershom Scholem, the leading 20th-century authority on the subject, was originally “a Jewish variation on one of the chief preoccupations of the second and third century gnostics and hermetics: the ascent of the soul from the earth, through the spheres of the hostile planet-angels and rulers of the cosmos, and its return to its divine home in the ‘fullness’ of God’s light, a return which, to the Gnostic’s mind, signified Redemption.”27 Recalling Scholem’s definition of Gnosticism, already quoted, merkabah mysticism could well be described, in his words, as “Jewish Gnosticism.” The throne world into which the merkabah mystic endeavored to enter was to him “what the pleroma, the ‘fullness,’ the bright sphere of divinity with its potencies, aeons, archons, and dominions is to the Hellenistic and early Christian mystics of the period who appear in the history of religion under the names of Gnostics and Hermetics.”28
Perhaps the earliest description of the heavenly ascent in the literature of this mystical tradition is found in 1 Enoch 14:8-23, belonging probably to the early first century B.C. Here Enoch describes his upward flight to the dwelling place of God, the “great Glory” seated on the chariot-throne, attended by the cherubim. His description is based partly on Ezekiel’s account of his inaugural vision and partly on Daniel’s vision of “the Ancient of Days” (Dan. 7:9-10).
As time went on the details were elaborated. Enoch speaks of two celestial houses, the throne-room of God being situated in the second and higher of the two; but later descriptions of the ascent speak of the seven heavens which have to be passed through, each controlled by its archon, while within the seventh heaven itself the mystic must pass through seven halls or palaces (hekaloth), each with its angelic gatekeeper.29 Only after these had all been safely negotiated was it possible to see the throne of glory. Before the throne of glory stood the angels of the presence, singing the praise of God; to participate in their worship and repeat their hymns was a privilege highly valued by those who completed the ascent. This is certainly part at least of what is involved in the “worship of angels” (qrhskei,a tw/n avgge,lwn, Col. 2:18). That the genitive (tw/n avgge,lwn) is subjective is maintained among others, by F. O. Francis and A. J. Bandstra: sharing in the angelic liturgy, they hold, is what is meant.30 But, high as this privilege may be, nothing in it is reprehensible; otherwise the Christian church would be at fault for taking over the Trisagion (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) from the seraphim whose words made such an impression on Isaiah. It is not improbable that in the Colossian heresy some tribute of worship was paid to the angelic powers.
It cannot be proved that merkabah mysticism was cultivated by some and recommended to others in the Christian communities of the Lycus Valley. But the heavenly ascent which is implied in Colossians 2:18 appears to have been of the same character as the experience which the merkabah mystics sought. And if their system had the slightest tendency to syncretism, it was almost inevitable that the seven heavens under their respective archons, or the seven palaces guarded by their respective gatekeepers, should be correlated with the seven planetary spheres ruled by their respective lords. Those who passed through the realms where such powers held sway would be careful not to offend them; otherwise they would be hindered in the completion of their upward journey, or else impeded in their return to earth.
The Elements of the World
When the lords of the planetary spheres are mentioned, the question is naturally raised, is there possibly a relationship between them and the stoicei/a or elemental forces against which Paul warns his readers (Col. 2:8, 20; cf. Gal. 4:3, 9)? The use of the term stoicei/a with regard to heavenly bodies is not otherwise attested before the second-century Diogenes Laertius, who seems to use it of the signs of the zodiac.31 But if regard be paid to the context in which the term appears in the Pauline writings, one can see why Nock said that “in the stoicei/a Jewish and planetary ideas meet.”32 He pointed out an analogy between bondage to the stoicei/a, against which the Galatian and Colossian churches are warned, and bondage to the planetary powers, in other words, to fate. From these powers, according to the first Poimandres tractate in the Corpus Hermeticum, human beings can escape by receiving the knowledge of the truth.33
However, quite apart from such an analogy (which does not amount to an identity), the Pauline context (especially in Gal. 4:9-10) suggests a close connection between bondage to the stoicei/a and the observance of “days and months and seasons and years” as matters of religious obligation. These divisions of time, according to Genesis 1:14, were regulated by the lights placed by God “in the firmament of the heaven” (the sun and moon were the two principal planets in ancient reckoning of time). But when these lights, or the forces believed to control them, were given independent status, and the calendar which they controlled was treated as a binding element in divine worship, then the allegiance due to the Creator alone was in danger of being paid to His creatures. Of course Paul did not think there were such beings as lords of the planetary spheres, but he knew that to those who believed in them they could become enslaving forces, just as an idol, which was “nothing in the world” to a believer in the living and true God, could nevertheless be an instrument of demonic oppression to pagans (1 Cor. 8:4, 7; 10:19-21). Such enslaving forces might well be numbered among the stoicei/a of the world, from which the gospel liberated the souls of men and women.
Some people today, as then, love to make a parade of exceptional piety. They claim to have found the way to a higher plane of spiritual experience, as though they had been initiated into sacred mysteries which give them an almost infinite advantage over the uninitiated. Others are all too prone to be impressed by such people. But Paul warns them against being misled by such lofty claims. Those who make them, for all their lofty pretensions, for all their boasting of the special insight which they have received into divine reality, are simply inflated by unspiritual pride and are out of touch with Him who is the true Head and Fount of life and knowledge.
If people practice various forms of abstinence and find their spiritual health improved thereby, that is their own responsibil ity. But if they make their abstinence a matter of boasting, and if they try to impose it on others, they are wrong. As for those who draw public attention to their abstinence so as to gain some measure of veneration, they must learn that there is no necessary connection between such impressive asceticism and the true humility of Christ. By contrast with the spiritual service which the gospel enjoins in conformity with the will of God, which is “good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2), this would-be religion is a “self-made cult,” as Deissmann rendered it,34 or a “faked religion,” as H. N. Bate put it.35
The compound evqeloqrhskei,a implies that those who practiced it thought they were presenting to God something over and above His basic requirements — a supererogatory devotion by which they hoped to acquire merit in His sight. But far from being of any avail against the indulgence of the “flesh,” as its proponents claimed, it could coexist with arrogant self-conceit, making it difficult for those who accepted it to acknowledge that before God they were sinners in need of His saving grace. When they commended harsh treatment of the body as a specific against fleshly indulgence, they thought in terms of a Platonic antithesis between body and soul. But this is not Paul’s point of view. When he speaks of severity to the body he means the body in its ordinary sense, but when he refers to “indulgence of the flesh,” he means unregenerate human nature in its rebellion against God. A chief ingredient in that rebellion is the proud spirit of self-sufficiency which has nothing to do with the body in the ordinary sense, but springs from the will. The asceticism recommended by the false teachers at Colossae feeds this particular indulgence of the “flesh” instead of starving it; hence the need of spiritual transformation which Paul insists is by “the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2).
Notes
1 Morna D. Hooker. Were There False Teachers in Colossae?” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, eds. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1973). pp. 315-31.
2 Cf. W. Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth. trans. J. E. Steely (New York: Abingdon Press. 1971). pp. 261-66: Paul and the Gnostics. trans. J. E. Steely (New York: Abingdon Press. 1972). p. 18: and W. Marxsen. Introduction to the New Testament. trans. G. Buswell (Oxford: Blackwell. 1968), pp. 55, 58.
3 Cf. 1 Corinthians 8:8.
4 John Calvin. The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians. Ephesians. Philippians and Colossians (1549). trans. ‘F. H. L. Parker (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. 1965). pp. 297-98.
5 Pseudo-Dionysius Celestial Hierarchy 1.1.
6 Eduard Schweizer. “Die’Elemente der Welt’ Gal 4. 3. 9: Col 2. 8.20.” in Verborum Veritas. O. Bocher and K. Haacker. eds. (WuppertaLBrockhaus. 1970). pp. 245-59.
7 Richard Reitzenstein. Das iranische Erlosungsmysterium (Bonn: Marcus & Weber. 1921).
8 Martin Dibelius. “The Isis Initiation in Apuleius and Related Initiatory Rites” (1917). in Conflict at Colossae. eds. F. O. Francis and W. A. Meeks (Missoula. MT: Scholars Press, 1975). pp. 61-121.
9 Martin Dibelius. An die Kolosser (Tubingen: Mohr. 1912). on Colossians 2:18: William M. Ramsay. “Ancient Mysteries and Their Relation to St. Paul.”Athenaeum. January 25. 1913. pp. 106-7: idem. The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day (London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1913). pp. 286-304.
10 The classical sense of evmbateu,w is “investigate”: if that be the sense here, then the majority reading a’ mh. ev[w,raken evmbateu,wn (“investigating what he has not seen”) is apposite.
11 Cf. Hippolytus Refutation of Heresies 5.8.4.
12 F. F. Bruce, “The ‘Christ Hymn’ of Colossians 1:15-20,” part 2 of Colossian Problems, Bibliotheca Sacra 141 (April–June 1984): 99-111.
13 These two treatises, in D. M. Parrott’s English translation, are set conveniently in parallel columns in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. J. M. Robinson (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), pp. 206-28; the Christian expansions in the Sophia are thus easily recognized. Cf. M. Krause, “The Christianization of Gnostic Texts,” in The New Testament and Gnosis, eds. A. J. M. Wedderburn and A. H. B. Logan (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983).
14 Gershom G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. 1960), p. 1.
15 Plato Apology of Socrates 21A-23B.
16 R. Law, The Tests of Life. 3d ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1914), p. 28.
17 J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (London: Macmillan & Co., 1879), pp. 347-419, reprinted in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age (London: Macmillan & Co., 1892), pp. 323-407.
18 1QH 2.13. etc.
19 1QPHab 7.1-5 (on Hab. 2:3); CD 1.11-12.
20 1QH 12.11-12.
21 Cf. 1 Peter 1:10-12.
22 Cf. M. Black, The Scrolls and Christian Origins (London: Thomas Nelson, 1961), pp. 75-88. 164-72. See also Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Qumran and Colosse,” Bibliotheca Sacra 121 (April–June 1964): 141-52.
23 Cf. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, “On the Baptismal Rite according to St. Hippolytus, Studia Patristica 2 = Texte and Untersuchungen 64 (1957): 93-105.
24 In addition to the work cited in note 14 cf. Gershom G. Scholem. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 5th ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), pp. 39-78: “Merkabah Mysticism,” Encyclopaedia Judaica 11 (Jerusalem: n.p., 1971), cols. 1386-89. For the importance of this element in the thought-world of early Christianity, see C. Rowland, The Open Heaven (London: SPCK, 1982).
25 Tos. Hagigah 2.3-4: TB Hagigah 14b: TJ Hagigah 77b; Song of Songs Rabba 1.4.
26 Cf. Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), pp. 206-23.
27 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 48.
28 Ibid., p. 43.
29 From these “palaces” some of the principal mystical treatises receive their names: the Lesser Hekhaloth; the Greater Hekhaloth (edited with an English translation by H. Odeberg: 3 Enoch or The Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1928]): the Treatise of the Hekhaloth (German translation by A. Wunsche in Aus Israels Lehrhallen [Leipzig: E. Pfeiffer, 19091, 3:33-47).
30 F. O. Francis, “Humility and Angel Worship in Col. 2:18,” in Conflict at Colossae, pp. 176-81; A. J. Bandstra, “Did the Colossian Errorists Need a Mediator?” in New Dimensions in New Testament Study. eds. Richard N. Longenecker and Merrill C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974), pp. 329-43. From Qumran and Masada have come portions of an angelic liturgy which takes up the theme, “Praise God, all ye angels,” and exhorts the angels, under many names, to offer various forms of worship to God. The exhortation formed part of the liturgy of the burnt offering Sabbath by Sabbath throughout the year: the liturgy of the people of God on earth was designed to reproduce that presented to Him on high by the heavenly host. See J. Strugnell, “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran: 4Q Sirot Olat Hassabbat,” Supplements to Vetus Testamentum (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960), pp. 318-45.
31 Diogenes Laertius Lives of Philosophers 6.102 (going back to a first-centurysource).
32 A. D. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 98, n. 4.
33 Corpus Hermeticum 1.15.19-26.
34 Adolf Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History, trans. W. E. Wilson (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1926), p. 118. He contrasts it with the logikh> latrei<a of Romans 12:1.
35 H. N. Bate, A Guide to the Epistles of St. Paul (London: Longmans & Green, 1926), p. 143.
Chapter 4 - Christ as Conquerorand Reconciler
In the Christ hymn of Colossians 1:15-20 Christ is celebrated as the Agent of God in both creation and reconciliation. His agency in creation is attested by other New Testament writers; it is emphasized in the letter to the Colossians as part of the argument that those who have direct access to God through Christ and are united with Christ have no need to worship beings or forces, which, however powerful, are part of the created order which He brought into existence.
The idea of Christ’s being the Agent in reconciliation, however, is peculiar to Paul among the New Testament writers. Paul is the only one to mention reconciliation in the theological sense. It is God who has “reconciled us to Himself through Christ,” he told the Christians in Corinth (2 Cor. 5:18).1 And he reminded those in Rome, “we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:10). Paul speaks of himself and his colleagues as entrusted with “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18). The gospel which they proclaim is “the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19) because in it the invitation is sounded on Christ’s behalf: “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). Those who respond in faith to the invitation have thereby “received the reconciliation” (Rom. 5:11); they “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).
In speaking of the ministry of reconciliation, Paul makes one statement which seems to envisage a much wider body than believers as being embraced in God’s reconciling work: “God was in Christ reconciling a world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). The adverbial phrase “in Christ” modifies the periphrastic verb “was reconciling.” Though the instrumental evn is used (instead of dia, to express agency), yet Christ is once again stated to be the Agent in God’s work of reconciliation. The translation “a world” has been offered, rather than “the world,” simply because the accusative ko,smon lacks the article in Greek; it is not that one ko,smoj among several is the object of the reconciliation. The ko,smoj in question may be the world of humanity (as in John 3:16-17; 12:47) or it may have an even wider reference, like the creation which, according to Romans 8:21, is to “be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” But the analogy of Romans 11:15, where the “reconciliation of the world” (katallagh. ko,smou) is the sequel to Israel’s rejection, suggests that it is the human family as a whole that is in view.
It may be observed in passing that the tense of the verb “reconcile” in 2 Corinthians 5:19 is not aorist or perfect; it is imperfect, and periphrastic imperfect at that (h=n . . . katalla,sswn). The reconciliation of the ko,smoj is a continuing process, not yet an accomplished fact. Its completion, as Romans 11:15 indicates, lies in the future. When the reconciliation of believers is spoken of, it is indeed an accomplished fact: God who, in Christ, is in the process of “reconciling the ko,smoj to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), has through that same Christ “reconciled us [believers] to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:18). While the reconciliation of believers is a completed work, the reconciliation of the world is not.
But the reconciliation in view in Colossians 1:20, at the end of the Christ hymn, cannot be equated simply with the reconciliation of the world in 2 Corinthians 5:19 or Romans 11:15, nor yet with the liberating of creation in Romans 8:21. Too much should not be made of the fact that the reconciliation of Colossians 1:20 is expressed by means of the double compound avpokatalla,ssw. The same compound is used of the reconciliation of believers to God in Colossians 1:22 and of the reconciliation of believing Jews and Gentiles in one body in Ephesians 2:16.
The statement at the end of the Christ hymn is that God, who was pleased in all His fullness to dwell in Christ, was pleased also “through Him to reconcile all things to Himself whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:20). The “all things” which are thus to be reconciled embrace things on earth and things in heaven, just as the “all things” which were created through Christ embrace “things in heaven and on earth” (Col. 1:16). The parallelism between these two references to “all things” leaves no doubt that the same totality is intended in reconciliation as in creation. The “all things” which are to be reconciled to God through Christ include “things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,” all of which are said to “have been created through Him” in the first place (Col. 1:16). But if we have regard to the portrayal of principalities and powers later in this letter (and in Ephesians too, for that matter), it is not easy to think of them as “reconciled” in the same sense as believers.
In fact the verb in the Christ hymn has a rather different sense from what Paul normally gives it. If the Christ hymn is an independent composition which Paul incorporates into his argument, then the situation is intelligible. Paul leaves the word as it is; there was no need to change it, for it spoke of the peace effected by Christ through the shedding of His blood on the cross. Indeed he goes on immediately to speak of the reconciliation of believers through that same death — a reconciliation necessary because they had formerly been “alienated and hostile in mind,” practicing evil works (Col. 1:21). The principalities and powers have also been hostile, malignantly so, but there is no hint that in their case reconciliation replaces hostility with friendship. As was stated in the second article in the series,2 reconciliation applied to them means more of what is, understood as pacification, the imposing of peace, something brought about by conquest. There is thus a close association between the portrayal of Christ as Reconciler in the Christ hymn and the portrayal of Christ as Conqueror elsewhere in the letter. Perhaps Paul left the verb “to reconcile” unaltered in the Christ hymn (Col. 1:20) because he was about to make it plain in the following exposition that the reconciliation of the hostile powers involved their defeat.
Cosmic Triumph
The portrayal of Christ as Conqueror is given in Colossians 2:15, the climax of a passage which reviews what God has done for His people in Christ. “When you were dead in your trespasses,” says Paul, “uncircumcised Gentiles as you were, God brought you to life together with Him [Christ]. He forgave us all our trespasses, he blotted out the bond which stood against us, ordinances and all, the bond that was contrary to us; he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. He stripped the principalities and the powers and made a public exhibition of them, triumphing over them by it” (Col. 2:13-15).
This passage illustrates the interdependence of exegesis and translation (both being inseparable elements in interpretation). To translate a passage it is necessary first to understand it. For example, the last two words in the translation just offered are “by it” (meaning “by the cross”). But evn auvtw/ might well be rendered “by Him” (meaning “by Christ”). If God is the subject throughout, then “by Him” or “in Him” is appropriate. The victory, like the creation and the reconciliation, is the work of God in Christ. But it is often held that there is an unobtrusive change of subject from God to Christ in the course of the passage: Lightfoot, for example, argues that the description of what was accomplished on the cross more naturally suggests Christ as the subject, and he locates the change of subject at the words “has taken it out of the way” in verse 14.3 Such a change of subject might come about if verses 14-15 include the quotation of a hymn celebrating in pictorial terms the redemption achieved by Christ on the cross; but this, of course, must remain hypothetical.4
The statement (at the end of v. 13) that God “forgave us all our trespasses” is nonfigurative, but it is followed by figurative expressions which challenge the interpreter. What is “the bond which stood against us, ordinances and all, the bond that was opposed to us”? God’s blotting out of this bond appears to be identical with His forgiveness of believers’ trespasses; but what precisely is the bond? It might be said to be the signed acknowledgment of indebtedness, the bond which stood “in our name” — if that is a permissible rendering of the phrase kaqv hvmw/n (in to. kaqv hvmw/n xeiro,grafon). This rendering is proposed by Robinson, and it makes excellent sense in the context, especially if he is right in identifying the bond with “our written agreement to keep the Law, our certificate of debt to it,” which man’s failure to keep the Law has turned into an acknowledgment of bankruptcy. It is this bond, he says, representing the power which the Law holds over the confessed Law-breaker, rather than the Law itself, which Paul views as canceled by God in Christ.5
But one could accept Robinson’s rendering of to. kaqv hvmw/n ceiro,grafon as “the bond which stood in our name” with greater alacrity if such a sense for kata, with the genitive were more securely established. The normal sense of kata, with the genitive is “against,” and the rendering “the bond which was against us” could be accepted without question here were it not that it seems to be tautologous with the following adjectival clause o{ h#n u[penanti<on h[mi?n, “(the bond) which was contrary to us.” Once again the hypothesis of an underlying hymn on the victory of the cross has been invoked -the clause “which was contrary to us” could have been added by Paul to make the character of the bond more explicitly clear6 — but this writer is reluctant to introduce this deus ex machina.
One must also take account of the dative toi/j do,gmasin attached to ceiro,grafon. This writer has translated this as a dative of accompaniment: “the bond, ordinances and all.” Moule makes much the same point by speaking of “the document with its decrees (meaning, apparently, a document containing, or consisting of, decrees).”7 This takes toi/j do,gmasin in the same sense as the parallel e,n do,gmasin in Ephesians 2:15. But if the words are rendered “ordinances and all” or “consisting of ordinances,” is this not equating the bond with the Law itself? Yes. There is no doubt a natural reluctance to think of the Law itself as being blotted out by God; but one must remember the different ways in which Paul speaks of the Law of God. If the Law is viewed as the revelation of God’s will, the reflection of His character, summed up in the injunction, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2), then the Law is eternal and unchangeable, holy, righteous, and good (cf. 1 Tim. 1:8). Moule distinguishes this “revelatory” sense of “Law” in the writings of Paul from its legalistic sense, and he uses this distinction to give a satisfactory answer to the question whether, in Paul’s thought, Christ abrogated the Law or not. “Paul,” he says, “saw Christ as the fulfilment of the law, when law means God’s revelation of Himself and of His character and purpose; but as the condemnation and termination of any attempt to use law to justify oneself.”8 Those who undertook to observe the Law either as a means of getting right with God or as the way to higher attainment in spiritual experience soon found that the Law, instead of helping them, bore witness against them. Perhaps the earliest commentary on these words in Colossians is Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2:15 that Christ has “abolished in His flesh the law of commandments consisting of ordinances.” There he is speaking of the removal of the barrier that formerly separated Jews from Gentiles, but in saying that Christ “abolished . . . the law of commandments” he goes as far as anything that he says in Galatians 3:19–4:4 or 2 Corinthians 3:7-16. To be sure, the verb “abolish” (katarge,w) is not used of the abrogation of the old order in Galatians as it is in 2 Corinthians and Ephesians, but the same idea is expressed in other words. And if it be asked how these forthright statements can be squared with Romans 3:31 — where Paul says that through faith we do not “abolish” (katarge,w) the Law but rather establish it — the answer can only be that in Romans 3:31 “Law” bears its revelatory sense. The canceled bond of Colossians 2:14, then, seems to be the Law, bearing witness against those who tried to use it as the way to justification or sanctification. Its cancellation is expressed in two figures: it has been blotted out, and it has been nailed to the cross. The latter figure is specially bold and vivid. It has sometimes been explained in terms of an alleged “ancient custom of cancelling bonds by striking a nail through the writing.”9 These words are by John Pearson, 17th-century bishop of Chester, but the alleged custom does not appear to be attested before the 16th century, and probably originated in an inference drawn by some reader from this very text. Deissmann thinks of the cancellation of a document by crossing it out with a large X (the Greek verb for this action is cia,zw, from the name of the letter chi).10 But there is no necessary connection between the cross (stauro,j) of Christ and the shape of the letter X. Field thinks of the custom of hanging up spoils of war in temples,11 but it is unlikely that any such analogy was in Paul’s mind.12 What the metaphor says is that Jesus took the damning indictment and nailed it to His cross — presumably as an act of triumphant defiance in the face of those blackmailing powers that were holding it over men and women as a means of commanding their allegiance. If there is an analogy here, it may lie in the fact that Jesus” own accusation was fixed to His cross. Just as His own indictment was fastened there, says Paul, so he takes the indictment drawn up against his people and nails it to His cross. His victorious passion sets them free from their bankruptcy and bondage. In the words of Krishna Pal’s hymn:
Jesus for thee a body takes,
Thy guilt assumes, thy fetters breaks,
Discharging all thy dreadful debt —
And canst thou then such love forget?
But more than that is involved in the victory of Christ. By His Cross He releases His people not only from the guilt of sin but also from its hold over them: “He breaks the power of canceled sin,” as the hymn writer put it. Besides blotting out the record of their indebtedness, He has also conquered those forces which used the record as a means of controlling them. “He stripped the principalities and powers and made a public exhibition of them.” But what is the force of the verb “He stripped”? The form used is the aorist participle middle (a,pekdusa,menoj). In verbs denoting the putting on or off of clothes, the active voice usually implies the dressing or undressing of someone else, while the middle implies the dressing or undressing of oneself. Attempts have accordingly been made to find this force of the middle voice here. What was it that Jesus stripped off from Himself?
The Greek fathers, who read the Greek New Testament in their native language, generally took “the principalities and powers” (ta.j avrca.j kai. ta.j evcousi,aj) as the object of the verb (to the middle voice of which they gave its full force). Jesus, that is to say, “stripped off from Himself the principalities and powers.” This is the interpretation preferred by Lightfoot: the powers of evil beset Him around, they “clung like a Nessus robe about His humanity,” but He tore them off and cast them aside. This avpe,kdusij of His is the prototype for the avpe,kdusij of His people, accomplished in their baptism (Col. 2:11): “in both cases it is a divestiture of the powers of evil,” with the material difference that with Him it was only the temptation, whereas with believers it is the sin as well as the temptation.13
The Latin fathers did not treat the principalities and powers as the object of the stripping: they regarded ta.j avrca.j kai. ta.j evxousi,aj as accusative in dependence on evdeigme,tisen (“exhibited”) and most of them understood “His flesh” or “His body” to be what He stripped off. So Augustine, among others, speaks of Christ as “divesting Himself of His flesh” (exuens se carne).14 This view is maintained by a number of modern exegetes. Robinson takes the passage to mean that Jesus, by divesting Himself of His flesh, laid aside the only medium by which the hostile forces had any chance of exercising control over Him, and in this way demonstrated their impotence.15 But of the Latin fathers, Hilary and Jerome understood the sense to be that Jesus stripped off the principalities and powers.16 They did not disregard the force of the Greek middle voice, but interpreted it as denoting here not something done to oneself but something done in one’s own interest. That is to say, Jesus, in His own interest (and in the interest of His people), disarmed the principalities and powers, depriving them of their strength. Among modern commentators Lohmeyer17 and Schweizer18 hold this interpretation. “These angel-powers,” says Percy, “have been deprived of all their former strength through the removal of the charges which the law brought against men and therewith also of the demands of the law itself.”19 This is the interpretation to which this writer is disposed to adhere, but with the awareness that one of the others may be right. This is indeed a knotty “Colossian problem.”
But what is to be said of Christ’s making a “public exhibition” of the defeated powers? The verb deigmati,zw, or the compound paradeigmati,zw, could well have been used to describe what was done to Jesus Himself, when He was exposed to public humiliation on the cross. The compound is used in Hebrews 6:6 of the action of those who “crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame” (KJV). The implication of Paul’s wording then may be that Jesus, by the victory of the Cross, turned the tables on His spiritual assailants; their powerlessness, not His, was publicly exposed.
Hanson draws attention to the use of paradeigmati,zw in the Septuagint of Numbers 25:4, which indicates that the ringleaders of the Baal Peor apostasy were “hanged up in the sun before the Lord.” Hanson finds a typological reference to that occurrence in the present passage. “Moses punished the rulers by hanging them . . . on a tree, whereas Christ overcame the powers by Himself hanging on a tree.”20 It is an ingenious argument, which would be rather more convincing if x.u,lon (“tree”) and not stauro,j (“cross”) had been used by Paul in Colossians 2:15.
As for the phrase “triumphing over them,” this is one of two instances of the verb qriambeu<w in the New Testament; in both it governs an object in the accusative. The other instance is 2 Corinthians 2:14, “thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph” (qriambeu,onti hvma/j). But those who are led in triumph are apparently not the defeated captives but the conqueror’s retinue, joyfully acclaiming him with shouts of “Io triumphe!” It has been argued that in Colossians 2:15 the principalities and powers are similarly engaged, that they are the heavenly host, celebrating Christ’s victory.21 But this seems to be incompatible with the context. It is more natural to view the principalities and powers here as the defeated foes, driven in front of the triumphal chariot as involuntary and impotent witnesses to their conqueror’s superior might.22
The Cross of Christ, in short, was the answer to the specious “philosophy” with which the minds of the Colossian Christians were being beguiled. How absurd it was to pay tribute to those forces which, it was held, controlled the way from God to this world and back from this world to God! That way was now controlled by one person -by Him who vindicated His sovereignty over the principalities and powers. Their envious hostility to human beings could no longer be indulged; they had been pacified by One stronger than themselves. Whatever power they once exercised, they were now the “weak and beggarly elements” that Paul declares them to be in Galatians 4:9.
A Message for Today
When Paul says in Colossians 1:15 that all things were created through Christ, “things in heaven and things on earth, visible and invisible,” he might have added, had appropriate Greek words been available in his day, “personal and impersonal.” If it is asked whether the spiritual forces which Christ vanquished on the Cross are to be regarded as personal or impersonal, the answer is probably “both.” Whatever forces there are, of either kind, that hold human souls in bondage, Christ has shown Himself to be their Master, and those who are united to Him by faith need have no fear of them.
One may think of all the influences that compel people to act in certain ways. The influence of inherited and indwelling sin is known; the gospel tells explicitly how that influence can be overcome. But there are other influences which make people act in ways which, in reflective moods, their conscience and reason may disapprove. The current climate of opinion, accepted practices which are ethically dubious, the pressure of conformity to peer groups, the desire for status or security — these and other factors may operate without a person being greatly aware of them. But if he suddenly becomes conscious that he is being moved by them to adopt standards which are less than Christian, then he should recognize these influences to be inimical forces from which he must seek deliverance — and the deliverance is available; it has already been secured.
Many people are acutely conscious of being involved in situations from which their moral sense recoils, but they are at a loss to see what can be done effectively to resolve such entanglements. Apart from the gospel, they might well think of themselves as puppets in the hands of a blind and unfriendly fate. And they may reason, what difference does it make in the end whether they resist and are crushed immediately, or acquiesce and are crushed a little later?23
These may be impersonal forces or demons under the power of Satan, the personal “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). Individuals whose faith rests in Christ the Conqueror will not underestimate the potency and malignity of such forces, but they will recognize them to be vanquished forces. Christ crucified and risen is Lord of all. True, believers do not as yet see all things put under Him, but to be united to Him by faith is to share His victory here and now, and to enjoy liberation from the forces He has overcome.
The consummation of Christ’s victory is bound up with the reconciling work which He has effected on the Cross. His victory is seen in the lives of believers, who are reconciled to God through Him and are now on the Lord’s side in the conflict of the ages. Because the decisive battle has been fought and won, they know that the ultimate issue is not in doubt. At present, their lives are hid with Christ in God, and when Christ their life is manifested, they will be manifested with Him in glory (Col. 3:4).
But that is not the whole story. The letter to the Colossians has as its companion and sequel the letter to the Ephesians. If Christ fills the cosmic role ascribed to Him in Colossians, what part is played in this cosmic role by those who are united to Him, “the church which is His body” (Eph. 1:22-23)? To this question Ephesians provides the answer.
The church, in Ephesians, is God’s masterpiece of reconciliation: it comprises those who have been individually reconciled to God through Christ and who also have been reconciled through the Cross of Christ to each other “in one body” (Eph. 2:14-16). Through this masterpiece of reconciliation “the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” are intended to learn “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph.3:10) by which He conceived “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages” (Eph. 3:9). This plan, to be realized in the fullness of time, contemplates the uniting in Christ of “all things . . . things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10). The church, despite all its limitations which are at present so obvious, is God’s advance model of the wider and more comprehensive fellowship of reconciliation which is yet to be realized. More than that, the church, as the body of Christ, is God’s agency for bringing this comprehensive fellowship into being. God’s plan to sum all things up in Christ involves the ministry and witness of those who are already in Christ. When Paul told the Corinthian Christians that, because of their spiritual immaturity, he had to feed them with milk and not with solid food, he declared that among the mature he has a wisdom to impart — “the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor. 2:7). If the exposition of this wisdom is not provided in the Corinthian correspondence, is there any place in the Pauline writings where it may be found? There is — in Colossians and Ephesians. Schlier finds it in Ephesians.24 True; but there would have been no letter to the Ephesians had there not first been a letter to the Colossians.
Editor’s Note
This is the fourth in a series of four articles delivered by the author as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, November 1-4, 1983.
Notes
1 Unless otherwise noted the translations of Greek verses are the author’s.
2 F. F. Bruce, “The ‘Christ Hymn’ of Colossians 1:15-20, Part 2 of Colossian Problems,” Bibliotheca Sacra 141 (April–June 1984):109-10.
3 J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879; Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, n.d.), p. 185.
4 Cf. Ralph P. Martin, “Reconciliation and Forgiveness in the Letter to the Colossians,” in Reconciliation and Hope, ed. R. J. Banks (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1974), pp. 116-23.
5 J. A. T. Robinson, The Body (London: SCM Press, 1952), p. 43.
6 Martin, “Reconciliation and Forgiveness,” pp. 116-20.
7 C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 45.
8 C. F. D Moule, “Obligation in the Ethic of Paul,” in Christian History and Interpretation, eds. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, and R. R. Niebuhr (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 392.
9 John Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed (1659; reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890), p. 373.
10 Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, trans. L. R. M. Strachan, rev. ed. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1927), p. 333.
11 Francis Field, Notes on the Translation of the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899), pp. 195-96.
12 Mention should be made of the interpretation of this passage in the Valentinian Gospel of Truth, according to which Jesus on the cross published the Father’s testamentary edict, contained in “the living book of the living” (trans. G. W. MacRae, in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. J. M. Robinson [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977, p. 39). But this, though of great interest for the history of interpretation, throws no light on Paul’s meaning.
13 Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon, pp. 189-91.
14 Augustine Epistle 149.
15 Robinson, The Body, pp. 41-42.
16 For the Old Latin exuens se (as a rendering of avpekdusa,menoj) Hilary read exuens and Jerome substituted exspolians.
17 Ernest Lohmeyer, Der Brief an die Kolosser (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1953), p. 119.
18 Eduard Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians, trans. A. Chester (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1982), p. 151.
19 Ernest Percy, Die Probleme der Kolosser — and Epheserbriefe (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1946), p. 98.
20 Anthony T. Hanson, Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology (London: S. P. C. K., 1974), p. 153 et passim.
21 , Cf. W. Carr, Angels and Principalities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 63.
22 The accusative with the verb qriambeu,w is attested in both senses (both for the victor’s followers and for his defeated foes).
23 Cf. G. H. C. Macgregor, “Principalities and Powers: The Cosmic Background of St. Paul’s Thought,” New Testament Studies 1 (1954—55): 27: he quotes to much the same effect from A. D. Galloway, The Cosmic Christ (London: Nisbet & Co., 1951), p. 28.
24 Heinrich Schlier, Der Brief an die Epheser, 5th ed. (Dusseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1965), pp. 21-22.
