Colossians In Recent Study
COLOSSIANS IN RECENT STUDY
It is strongly urged by some that the actual authorship of the letter does not matter. It is agreed that there is a Pauline connection; at the very least the author must have come from the devoted followers of Paul, and he has given a Pauline viewpoint in this letter. Such scholars tend to give most attention to the way the letter adapts the Pauline position to the situation in which the author finds himself.
As Childs emphasizes, "The letter to the Colossians is firmly anchored to the apostle Paul, both to his person and to the gospel which he proclaimed.” 16 He is not arguing that Paul necessarily wrote the letter, but that whether he did so or not, there is a strong connection between the apostle and the writing. Neither Timothy nor Epaphras can be thought of as the author, he maintains, and the letter identifies with Paul in the opening and closing and in the body as well (Col. 1:23-2:5). He points to the way the Colossians are told to remain in the tradition that Paul represents and that was delivered to them. Childs holds that conservatives have been too ready to insist on Pauline authorship. Much more important, he thinks, is the fact that "in Colossians a false teaching called forth a specific apostolic response which used the heresy as a transparency through which to unfold a new and positive witness to the truth of the gospel.” 17
There has been a good deal of interest in the false teaching at Colossae. The problem is how to work up all that Paul says about the errors into a coherent system. It
is most common these days to see the Colossians as opposed by some form of Gnosticism—all the more so, since Gnosticism was syncretistic, gathering in from many sources. Indeed, Kummel says, "Today there are hardly any differences in basic opinion. Paul, with obvious correctness, sees in the heretical teaching Gnosticism, secret wisdom of a syncretistic sort (Col. 2:8, 18), which combines ascetic, ritualistic worship of the elements with Jewish ritualism and Jewish speculation about angels.” 18 But this is too sweeping. Childs is more correct in saying, "Although there is a wide agreement that some form of Jewish syncretism is represented, there remains a continuing disagreement on the precise nature of the opposition.” 19 As if to establish yet another pole, N. T. Wright argues that "all the elements of Paul’s polemic in Colossians make sense as a warning against Judaism.” 20
Kummel may speak for those scholars with whom he is aligned, but for no more. Mature Gnosticism is a series of systems propagated in the second century by great teachers such as Valentinus and Basilides. It featured a great number of heavenly intermediaries, or aeons, emanations from deity bridging the gap from the high good God to this material creation. Typically there was a contrast between spirit (which was good) and matter (which was evil). Gnosticism was eclectic, gathering teachings from a variety of sources, and we need not doubt that some of those teachings were to be found in the first century. But its characteristic teachings, such as those just mentioned, were not. 21 Behind Colossians there certainly lie some teachings that were later found in some of the forms of Gnosticism, but that does not mean that Gnosticism as such was the problem in this city.
Childs is nearer the mark when he finds "continuing disagreement.” The problem is that we do not know of any teachers who combined all the features Paul is opposing. A given scholar may select certain features and say that they give us the essentials, but others will not agree with the selection. Morna Hooker’s reminder that much of what we read in this letter we can recognize as features of first-century pagan or Jewish life is important. The Colossians were new Christians. They had not long left paganism or Judaism, and it was all too easy for them to revert to practices and ways of thinking to which they had been accustomed in their pre-Christian days, which they still encountered, and whose attractiveness they found impossible to deny. In the opinion of most recent writers, this will not account for the whole situation, yet it certainly is part of it and makes it more difficult to outline the essentials of the teaching Paul is opposing. But without some further information coming to light, we cannot identify the false teachers with any certainty, nor can we say with assurance whether they had a unified system, or whether Paul is referring to more than one set of teachings.
A further feature of recent discussion has been an interest in what is seen as traditional and liturgical material that the author has taken up and used to advance his argument. There has been a concentration on Col. 1:15-20, which is widely seen as a hymn, adapted by the author to set forward important teaching about Christ and his functions. O’Neill, however, denies that it is a hymn; he does not find hymnic structure, but finds evidence that Paul is citing traditional matter.22 There is room for further discussion of this point.