84 See exposition ad loc. (pp. 121-22 with nn. 131-35).
81E. Schweizer, “Die ’Elemente der Welt’ Gal 4, 3.9; Col 2, 8.20,” in Verborum Veritas, ed. O. Böcher and K. Haacker (Wuppertal, 1970), pp. 245-59, reprinted in his Beiträge zur Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Zürich, 1970), pp. 83-95; cf. TDNT 9, p. 850, n. 208 (s.v. ψυXή), and his Colossians, pp. 131-33. For the Neopythagorean text (preserved by Alexander Polyhistor) see H. Diels-W. Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, I (Berlin, 31952), p. 448, line 33-451 and line 19. (One theme of the Neopythagorean text, sexual abstinence, is not explicitly present in the data of Colossians, not even in Col. 2:21, μὴ ἀψη [despite the sense of ἄπτεσθαι in 1 Cor. 7:1], as proposed by A. R. C. Leaney, “Colossians ii.21-23,” ExT 64 [1952-53], p. 92; the context of Col. 2:21 points to food restrictions.)
82R. Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium (Bonn, 1921); cf. his Hellenistic Mystery Religions, E.T. (Pittsburgh/Edinburgh, 1978).
83M. Dibelius, “The Isis Initiation in Apuleius and Related Initiatory Rites” (1917), E.T. in Conflict at Colossae, ed. F. O. Francis and W. A. Meeks (Missoula, MT, 1975), pp. 65-121. Cf. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 11.20-23.
84See exposition ad loc. (pp. 121-22 with nn. 131-35).
85See Hippolytus, Ref. 5.8.4 (cf. R. M. Grant, Gnosticism: An Anthology [London, 1961], pp. 106-07; W. Foerster, Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts, I [Oxford, 1972], 270-71).