HKB
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS--THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO PHILEMON
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS
[Sidenote: The Author.]
There is no good reason for doubting that this beautiful Epistle is the work of St. Paul. It is full of Pauline thought, and is well attested by external evidence. It is apparently quoted in the very ancient work known as the Epistle of Barnabas, and Justin Martyr quotes the title of Christ "the firstborn of all creation" (Col. i. 15). It is included in Marcion's canon and in the Muratorian Fragment, as well as in the Old Latin and Peshitta Syriac versions. The notion that it is only a weak reflection of Ephesians seems incredible, for neither of the two Epistles is appreciably inferior to the other, and in each one there are several unique passages which represent as high a level of intellectual and spiritual attainment as the passages which are in some degree common to the two. Moreover, we cannot trace any definite method according to which the one writing has been used for the other, and destructive critics have only destroyed one another's arguments in their attempts to show which of the two Epistles is genuine, or why they both are forged. It is also important to consider the association of this Epistle with that to Philemon: the transparent genuineness of the latter makes it practically certain that Colossians is genuine as well.
Objections to the authenticity of Colossians have been {171} steadily growing fainter. It was denied by Mayerhoff in 1838, and by the whole Tübingen school, in spite of very strong external evidence. (1) The heresy opposed by St. Paul was said to be a form of 2nd-century Gnosticism; but the affinities which it shows with Judaism point rather to the 1st century. (2) There are a large number of words which St. Paul uses nowhere else, thirty-four being found in no other part of the New Testament; but several of these words are called forth by the special error which St. Paul rebukes, and the Epistle does contain eleven Pauline words used by no other New Testament writer. (3) The doctrine has been declared to be not Pauline, but a further development of St. Paul's doctrine of the dignity of Christ. This objection rests entirely on the hypothesis that Jesus Christ was not God, but was gradually deified by successive generations of His followers. The critics who declared that no apostle believed Christ to be more than an ideal or half-divine man, and said that St. John's writings are forgeries of the 2nd century, described the doctrine of Colossians as a transition from the true Pauline doctrine to the doctrine of the Logos contained in the fourth Gospel. But St. Paul states nothing about Christ in this Epistle which is not implied in earlier Epistles. He only makes fresh statements of truth in view of fresh errors.
[Sidenote: To whom written.]