Footnotes
Footnotes
1.Kummel, pp. 340-46; C. F. D. Moule, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the
Colossians and to Philemon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962); F. F.
Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, NICNT
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984); Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC (Waco,
Tex.: Word, 1982).
2.E.g., Charles Masson, L’epftre aux Colossiens, CNT (Paris: Delachaux & Niestle, 1950); E. Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1971); E. Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1982; German original, EKKNT, 1976); Joachim Gnilka, Der Kolosserbrief, HTKNT (Freiburg: Herder, 1980); Marxsen, pp. 176-86; Perrin/Duling, pp. 207-18.
3.Also advanced are one or two fairly idiosyncratic reasons for denying the authenticity of this epistle. For instance, Marxsen finds "the most serious doubts as regards the Pauline authorship” arising from the link between Col. 1:21-23 and the statements about Epaphras: "the authority of Paul is claimed for the authorization of other men.” Marxsen speaks of the letter’s "emphasis upon the apostolate—tantamount in effect to the doctrine of ‘apostolic succession’” (p. 180). This is more than curious. The only use of "apostle” is in Col. 1:1, and the only references to Epaphras are in 1:7 (where we learn that he is a "dear fellow servant” and "a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf,” and that he brought news) and in 4:12 (he is "one of you” and "a servant of Christ Jesus,” and he sends greetings). This is a remarkably slender basis on which to erect such a far-reaching doctrine as apostolic succession. It surely presents no serious obstacle to seeing Paul as the author. Although E. Lohse does not argue for Pauline authorship, he points out that in Colossians "teaching is described as a charge of the entire church” and thus not of successors of the apostles; "the church is not bound to a definite order of office and of offices” ("Pauline Theology in the Letter to the Colossians,” NTS 15 [1968-69]: 216).
4.P. N. Harrison, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles (London: Oxford University Press, 1921), pp. 20-22.
5.Kummel lists such features as pleonastic καί (kai, "and”) after διά τούτο (dia touto, lit. "on account of which,” Col. 1:9), οι άγιοι αυτού (hoi hagioi autou, "his saints,” 1:26), ev μέρει (en merei, here with the rare meaning "concerning” or "with regard to,” 2:16) and others. He concludes by saying, "The language and style of Colossians, therefore, give no cause to doubt the Pauline origin of the Epistle” (p. 241).
6. It is, nevertheless, a distinct step to move from picturing the church as a body whose members are the members of the church and that is animated by the Spirit, to picturing the church as a body of which Christ is the head. See the useful essay by Edmund P. Clowney, "Interpreting the Biblical Models of the Church: A Hermeneutical Deepening of Ecclesiology,” in Biblical Interpretation and the Church, ed. D. A.
Carson (Exeter: Paternoster, 1984), pp. 64-109.
7.L. Cerfaux has commented: "It is not wise to attempt a priori to set limits on the potentialities of a thought as original and powerful as that of St. Paul, which changes very rapidly and rises to new syntheses. It is plausible that the reaction against the
syncretism of Colossae was a powerful stimulant to Paul’s thought” (Robert/Feuillet, p. 490).
8.Bo Reicke argues that Philippians was written from Rome and the other three from Caesarea ("Caesarea, Rome, and the Captivity Epistles,” in Apostolic History and the Gospel, Fs. F. F. Bruce, ed. W. Ward Gasque and Ralph P. Martin [Exeter: Paternoster, 1970], pp. 277-86).
9.Martin, however, favors an imprisonment near Ephesus (2:216-22).
10.το στοιχειον (to stoicheion) originally meant "one of a row” and was used of such things as the alphabet (letters placed in a row), which leads to elementary teaching in general (the ABCs of the subject). Again, letters are the elements of which words are made up, and the word came to be used of the elements of which the universe is composed ("the elements” of 2 Peter 3:10, 12). The word occurs again in Gal. 4:3, 9. Bruce holds that in both Galatians and here we should think that "in the divine providence there was a time when the stoicheia fulfilled a supervisory role in the lives of the people of God, as a slave-attendant looked after a freeborn child till he came of age. The coming of age of the people of God coincided with the advent of faith in Christ: to remain under the control of the stoicheia after that was a sign of spiritual immaturity” (Epistles, p. 100). There is an excellent treatment of the term in O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, pp. 129-32.
11.G. Bornkamm finds several strands: "It originates in a gnosticized Judaism, in which Jewish and Iranian-Persian elements, and surely also influence of Chaldean astrology, have peculiarly alloyed themselves and have united with Christianity” ("The Heresy of Colossians,” in Conflict at Colossae, ed. Fred O. Francis and Wayne A. Meeks [Missoula, Mont.,: SP, 1975], p. 135) This leads Andrew J. Bandstra to ask, "Is not the syncretistic nature of the religion Bornkamm and others have pictured so unusual that one may legitimately ask whether such a religion ever actually existed?” ("Did the Colossian Errorists Need a Mediator?” in New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. Richard N. Longenecker and Merrill C. Tenney [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974], p. 330).
12.There is a useful summary of opinions on the so-called Colossian heresy in O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, pp. xxx-xli.
13.Thus Martin Dibelius holds that "the church was threatened with danger from a syncretistic movement, one of the numerous eclectic cults of Asia Minor which flourished at that critical moment in the history of religion” (A Fresh Approach to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature [London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1936], p. 167).
14.Morna D. Hooker, "Were There False Teachers in Colossae?” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, Fs. C. F. D. Moule, ed. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 315-31. Kirsopp and Silva Lake said some time ago, "There is room for doubt as to whether Paul is arguing against Gentile Christians—in other words, against heresy—or against Gentiles who are endeavouring to convert Christians to their way of thinking. This point has, perhaps, not met with sufficient attention, and writers have spoken too lightly of the Colossian ‘heresy’” (Lake, p. 151).
15.It is difficult to understand why Enslin says that "the text of the letter is in a very bad state of preservation” (p. 292). He cites only Col. 2:18-19 (which he says is
"completely unintelligible”) to support his view, whereas UBS3 gives the only disputed words in these verses a B rating. O’Brien recognizes differences of opinion about details here but says "the general drift of Paul’s thought is reasonably clear” (Colossians, Philemon, p. 141). Ralph P. Martin agrees: "These verses abound with difficulties both linguistic and conceptual. Mercifully the drift of Paul’s thought is clear” (Colossians and Philemon, NCB [London: Oliphants, 1974], p. 92).
16.Childs, p. 344.
17.Ibid., p. 346.
18.Kummel, p. 239.
19.Childs, p. 343.
20.N. T. Wright, The Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 27.
21.See discussion in chap. 21 below.
22.J. C. O’Neill, "The Source of the Christology in Colossians,” NTS 26 (1979-80): 87100.
23.Childs is scarcely fair at this point. He refers to those who "argue that it was Paul himself who ‘translated’ his message into a different idiom to meet the new situation” and then adds, "In my judgment, the philological and stylistic evidence speaks against the position.” Child goes on to refer to "the intensity of the conservatives’ defence of a direct Pauline authorship” as stemming "from a traditional hermeneutic which ties the book’s authority to the author’s intentionality” (p. 349). But Childs’s "in my judgment” by itself settles nothing. Furthermore, at least some conservatives are more concerned with the evidence than with intensity, traditional hermeneutics, and the like