COLOSSIANS, Epistle to the. An epistle of the Apostle Paul addressed to the "Saints and faithful brethren who are at Colos sal:." Colossal, though 100 miles east of Ephe sus and less important than the adjacent Lao dicea (Col. ii, 1) and Hierapolis (iv, 13) in the Lycus Valley, yet lying like them on the great trunk road which joined the IEgean with Syria, was in living communication with "all the [Roman] world° (Col. i, 6). Paul the apostle may have passed that way from "the upper country° to Ephesus (Acts xix, 1) but none of his future disciples saw his face in that region (Col. ii, 1). It was rather through his two years daily reasoning in the school of Tyrannus that "all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks° (Acts xix, 9f). Epaphras, finding his way from Colossal (Col. iv, 12) to the provincial capital, became Paul's "fellow-servant and faithful minister of Christ on his behalf° to the towns on the Lycus (Col. i, 5-7; iv, 12f) and the founder of the churches in Colossal, Lao dicea, and Hierapolis. Two other Colossians, Philemon and Archippus, are named fellow workers and the latter is exhorted to fulfil his "ministry received from the Lord° (Philem. 1; Col. iv, 17). Two house-churches are men tioned, one in the house of Apphia at Colossal (Philem. 2) and another in that of Nymphas in Laodicea (Col. iv, 15). The membership of the churches included slaves and their well-to-do owners (Col. iii, 22ff iv, 1; iii, 11; Philem. 15f).
The content of Paul's gospel to this Gentile population (Col. i, 27) may be divined from his contemporary first Corinthian epistle, in which his characteristic stress is laid upon the trans cendent and cosmic rank of Christ, as sole di vine agent in all creation (1 Cor. viii, 6) and upon his unique redemptive function through his incarnation, death and resurrection (1 Cor. xv, 1-4; i, 23-24, 30; vi, 11). The apostle's foreboding that after his departure from Asia some of his own converts would "speak per verse things to draw away the disciples after them° (Acts xx, 30) was to be realized in Co lossal. His failure to visit the valley churches, a natural local jealousy toward Epaphras and scant regard for his teaching ability, gave an ambitious leader (note singular number in ii, 4, 8, 16, 18) an opportunity to promulgate an alleged higher type of doctrine, with syncre tistic elements of ultimate Jewish (ii, 14, 11, 16), and perhaps Grecian (ii, 8, 23; i, 26; ii, 3), Phrygian (ii, 12) and Oriental (i, 16) origin. The new teaching, harmonizing with the in herited prepossessions of Gentiles but newly won to the Christian faith, and addressed not to the common herd but to persons flattered as possessed of superior intelligence, made a head way which Paul's unlearned sponsors found themselves powerless to arrest. They felt that no less potent a reasoner than he of the school of Tyrannus, now unfortunately a prisoner in distant Rome, could cope with the subtle and sinister propaganda. Epaphras, therefore, takes the bold venture of an arduous and per chance futile journey all the way to the im perial capital. He finds the apostle still among the living and prepared to meet the dire emer gency ih the valley churches. Tychicus, pos sibly an abler representative than Epaphras, is armed with oral instructions and dispatched with a circular letter (our so-called °Ephe sians") to "the churches of Asia" (1 Cor. xvi,
9), a second letter to the Colossian church deal ing with the heresy, and a personal letter to Philemon, together with a "living epistle" (2 Con iii, 2) in the person of the latter's con verted runaway slave, Onesimus (Col. iv, 7-9; Eph. vi, 21; Philem. 10-16).
Paul's method in refuting the false teach ing at Colossi: is to renew his earlier emphasis upon the transcendence and imma nence of the crucified and risen Christ Jesus (Col. i, 15-17) as taught in the school of Ty rannus (1. Cor. xv, 1-4; viii, 6; iii, 23). He whom they have "received as Lord" (Col. ii, 6) is One "who is before all things," "through whom and unto whom all things have been created," and "in whom all things consist" (i, 16-17), who therefore is "all, and in all" (iii, 11) and "in them, the hope of glory" (i,27). After the opening salutation, thanksgiving for their Christian graces of faith, love and hope, and prayer for their deeper spiritual knowledge and for life worthier the indwelling Christ, he sets forth in the doctrinal section (i, 13-ii, 3) the pre-eminence of Christ as Redeemer from sin, unique revealer of God, creative agent and sustainer of the universe, including every rank of intermediate beings (i, 13-17) ; and as cruci fied and risen Head of the Church, the sole divine mediator for restoring harmony in heaven and earth, through the Gospel divinely entrusted to Paul for them and all Gentiles of class and condition (i, 3). The polemical section following (ii, 4-ill, 4) con trasts the sufficiency of Christ's gospel with the insufficiency of the false teaching. Cleav ing to Christ and his gospel, they are to accept no false human philosophy as a substitute 4-8); for in him dwells the whole living om nipotent Deity, as in no lesser being, to meet every human need (ii, 9-10); to raise them with himself from the corruption and death of sin to the life of obedience, to put an end to the servitude of the Mosaic law and of the powers of evil (ii, 11-16). The new ceremo nialism is shadow: but Christ is substance; its worship of angels a fiction of the imagination, replacing personal and vitalizing union with Christ, the living Head; its ascetic rules a pitiful substitute for ethical death and victor ious life with Christ over the power of the flesh (ii, 20-iii, 4). The hortatory application follows: Put off the old nature: put on Christ! (iii, 5-iv, 6). United to Christ they are to reproduce His own death to the world and its vices (iii, 5-11), His life of love and joyous service to God and man (iii, 12-17) ; in their homes they are to incarnate His spirit (iii, 18 iv, 1) and live His life of prayer for the ex tension of His gospel (iv, 2-6). The personal conclusion (iv, 7-18) contains a reference to Tychicus and Onesimus, salutations, instruc tions as to exchange of epistles with the Laodiceans and the autograph signature.
Critical discussions of the problems of authorship, vocabulary, style, rela tion to Ephesians and the Colossian heresy may be found in the New Testament (Introductions> of Zahn (Eng. tr., 1909); J. Moffatt, (1911), B. Weiss (1897), H. J. Holtzmann (1892), Jfilicher (Eng. tr., 1904) ; W. Sanday's article in Smith's (Bible Dictionary) (2d ed., 1893) and detailed exegesis in the commen taries of J. B. Lightfoot (1875), H. von Soden (1893), A. S. Peake (1903), Haupt (Meyer 1897).