Theme.— The subject of the epistle is : The Reincarnation of the Cosmic Christ in his Church through faith (chs. i-iii) and through love (chs. iv-vi). Following the characteristic opening salutation of ((grace" and ((peace" from God and Christ (i, 1-2) an elaborate Doxology (in place of the usual Thanksgiving) develops God's pre-mundane plan: the gift to Jewish and Gentile believers through Christ of salvation, spiritual wisdom, faith and love (i, 3-16a). The Prayer, which forms the subject of the remainder of the first three chapters, is for the revelation to the readers' faith of God's redemptive purpose for the whole human race (i, 16b-iii, 21). After the substance of the prayer is briefly introduced in i, 16-19, three facts are developed as .stimulating to faith: God's power already exhibited in the Head of the Church by his resurrection and enthrone ment and reproduced in the spiritual life of the members of his body, the Church (i, 21-ii, 10); in the spiritual union in his Church of the two mutually hostile divisions of the human race (ii, 11-22), and in the revelations of divine power and grace vouchsafed to the apostle in his Gentile ministry (iii, 1-13). The way is thus prepared for the triumphant da capo repe tition in iii, 14-19, with full organ tones, of the initial motif of i, 16-19. The exquisite summarizing cadence (iii, 20-21) in the form of a doxology, like the opening one in i, 3-14, is an appeal to faith such as appears in the whole underlying motive of i-iii. The com
plementary theme of chs. iv-vi is love, the organic principle of the life of God and Christ in his Church (iv, 1-16) and a regenerating and unifying force in all of the believer's social and domestic relations (iv, 17-6, 9). The con cluding section (vi, 10-24) strikes once more the dominant notes of °faith° and clove." The life of faith in Christ and God is shown to be the Church's sole defense against superhuman spiritual foes (vi, 10-18). The closing personal references, after bespeaking such a loving in terest in the prayers of the readers as the writer has for them, and repeating the initial salutation (i, 2) of 'grace" and °peace° from God and Christ, end on the two high notes of °faith" and °love," and with characteristic Pauline stress on the °greater* (1 Cor. xiii, 13) of these.
Bibliography.— Discussions of the prob lems of authorship, vocabulary, style and re lation to Colossians may be found in New Tes tament Introductions : T. Zahn (Eng. trans. 1909) ; J. Moffatt (1901) ; B. Weiss (1897) ; H. J. Hohmann (1892) ; A. Juelicher (1904) ; A. S. Peake (1910) ; F. J. A. Hort (1895) and detailed exegesis in the commentaries of C. J. Ellicott (4th ed., 1868) ; H. A. W. Meyer (Eng. trans., 1880) ; J. A. Robinson (1904) ; H. von Soden (Handcommentar, 2d ed., 1893) ; E. Haupt (8th ed., 1902).