Section 109
90Gk. ἐϰαϱίσατο. This use of ϰαϱίζομαɩ to denote the free cancellation of a debt may influence its use in v. 13 (see n. 87 above) to denote the divine forgiveness. For παϱαπτώματα see p. 259 with n. 62 (on Eph. 1:7).
91Gk. ϰεɩϱóγϱαφον, “handwriting,” a term (found also in Plutarch and Artemidorus) very common in the papyri, among which many original ϰεɩϱóγϱαφα have been preserved (cf. A. Deissmann, Bible Studies, E.T. [Edinburgh, 1909], p. 247; MM, p. 687). J. A. T. Robinson (The Body, p. 43, η. 1) describes this ϰεɩϱóγϱαφον as “our written agreement to keep the law, our certificate of debt to it” (he compares the oral undertakings of Exod. 24:3; Deut. 27:14-26). But our failure to keep the law has turned this certificate into a bond held against us to prove our guilt; it is this bond, representing the power which the law has over us, rather than the law itself, which Paul views as cancelled by Christ. This is vastly preferable to Lohmeyer’s view that the ϰεɩϱóγϱαφον is an IOU (a Schuldschein) which Adam gave to the devil in Paradise at the time of the fall of man (ad loc., pp. 116-17; cf. G. Megas, “Das ϰεɩϱóγϱαφον Adams: Ein Beitrag zu Kol 2, 13-15,” ZNW 27 [1928], 305-20). O. Blanchette, “Does the Cheirographon of Col. 2:14 represent Christ himself?” CBQ 23 (1961), 306-12 (followed in part by A. J. Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World, pp. 158-63), invokes a supposed early Christian identification of the ϰεɩϱóγϱαφον with Christ’s body, which was in fact nailed to the cross. J. A. T. Robinson seems to come nearer to the sense of the passage; cf. also C. F. D. Moule, ad loc.
92He has removed it (ἦϱϰεν ἐϰ τοῦ μέσου); this removal is elaborated in two stages: he blotted it out (ἐξαλείψας), and he nailed it to the cross (πϱοσηλώσας αὐτò τῷ σταυϱῷ). According to Deissmann (Paul, E.T. [London, 1926], p. 172), papyrus debt records illustrate the popular appeal of this double figure: the bond is first blotted out and then cancelled. Cf. two successive petitions in the Jewish prayer ’Abinu Malkenu: “Our Father, our King! blot out our transgressions, and make them pass away from before thine eyes. Our Father, our King! erase in thy abundant mercies all the records of our debts” (S. Singer, The Authorised Daily Prayer Book [London, 1939], p. 56). As for the bold conception of the ϰεɩϱóγϱαφον being nailed to the cross, Deissmann thinks of the cancellation of a bond or similar document when it is crossed out with the Greek letter X (Light from the Ancient East, E.T. [London, 1927], p. 333). The Greek verb for such crossing out is ϰɩέζω (from chi, the name of the letter). But it is not clear that σταυϱóς would suggest the X shape. On the alleged “’ancient custom’ of cancelling a bond by driving a nail through it” (adduced by J. Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed [(1659) Oxford, 1890], p. 373) see F. Field, Notes on Translation, pp. 195-96; he finds no real authority for it, and thinks rather of the custom of hanging up spoils of war in temples (but it is unlikely that such an analogy was in Paul’s mind here).
The Nag Hammadi Gospel of Truth (20:4-35), in what seems to be an early Valentinian interpretation of this passage (linked with Rev. 5:1-7), speaks of “the living book of the living” which recorded the Father’s thought before the foundation of the universe, the book which “no one was able to take since it is reserved for the one who will take it and will be slain. No one could have appeared among those who believed in salvation unless that book had intervened. For this reason the merciful one, the faithful one, Jesus, was patient in accepting sufferings until he took that book, since he knows that his death is life for many. Just as there lies hidden in a will, before it is opened, the fortune of the deceased master of the house, so (it is) with the all, which lay hidden while the Father of the all was invisible. . . . For this reason Jesus appeared; he put on that book; he was nailed to a tree; he published the edict of the Father on the cross. O such great teaching! He draws himself down to death though life eternal clothes him. Having stripped himself of the perishable rags, he put on imperishability, which no one can possibly take away from him. Having entered the empty spaces of terrors, he passed through those who were stripped naked by oblivion, being knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart of the [Father] . . .” (translated by G. W. MacRae, in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. J. M. Robinson [Leiden, 1977], p. 39).