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The Salutation is according to St Paul's established form of greeting.
[1] The translation given in this volume is based upon the Revised Version, but deviates from it in some particulars. These deviations will be explained in the exposition.
[2] The case against authenticity is ably stated in Dr. S. Davidson's _Introduction to the N. T._; see also Baur's _Paul_, Pfleiderer's _Paulinism_, Hilgenfeld's _Einleitung_, Hatch's article on "Paul" in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. The case for the defence may be found in Weiss', Salmon's, Bleek's, or Dods' _N. T. Introduction_--the last brief, but to the point; in Reuss' _History of the N. T._; Milligan's article on "Ephesians" in _Encycl. Brit._; Gloag's _Introduction to the Pauline Epp._; Meyer's, or Beet's, or Eadie's _Commentary_; Sabatier's _The Apostle Paul_.
[3] Rom. xi. 16-24; Acts xiii. 26; Gal. iii. 7, 14.
[4] Gal. iii. 10-13; 2 Cor. v. 20, 21, etc.
[5] Gal. ii. 20; 1 Cor. vi. 17.
[6] See ch. i. 9-13, ii. 11-22, iii. 5-11, iv. 1-16, v. 23-32.
[7] Gal ii. 20; Eph. v. 25.
[8] Rom. i. 16; Eph. ii. 17-20.
[9] 1 Tim. iii. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 20, 21.
[10] Eph. iii. 21, v. 32.
[11] _Kritik d. Epheser-u. Kolosserbriefe auf Grund einer Analyse ihres Verwandtschaftsverhältnisses_ (Leipzig, 1872). A work more subtle and scientific, more replete with learning, and yet more unconvincing than this of Holtzmann, we do not know.
Von Soden, the latest interpreter of this school and Holtzmann's collaborateur in the new _Hand-Commentar_, accepts Colossians in its integrity as the work of Paul, retracting previous doubts on the subject. Ephesians he believes to have been written by a Jewish disciple of Paul in his name, about the end of the first century.
[12] Matt. xvi. 15-18; John xvii. 10: _I am glorified in them._
[13] See his _Saint Paul_, Introduction, pp. xii.-xxiii.
[14] See Col. ii. 15, 18, 20-23.
[15] _E.g._, in Rom. i. 1-7, viii. 28-30, xi. 33-36, xvi. 25-27.
[16] See the Winer-Moulton _N. T. Grammar_, p. 709: "It is in writers of great mental vivacity--more taken up with the thought than with the mode of its expression--that we may expect to find anacolutha most frequently. Hence they are especially numerous in the epistolary style of the apostle Paul."
[17] Eph. iii. 1; Phil. i. 13; Philem. 9.
[18] Ch. i. 15, iv. 20, 21.
[19] Col. i. 4, ii. 1; Rom. xv. 15, 16.
[20] "My brethren" in ch. vi. 10 is an insertion of the copyists. Even the closing benediction, ch. vi. 23, 24, is in the _third person_--a thing unexampled in St Paul's epistles.
[21] Ch. vi. 21, 22; Col. iv. 7-9.
[22] Compare Maclaren on _Colossians and Philemon_, p. 406, in this series.
[23] =Tois hagiois tois ousin ... kai pistois en Christô Iêsou.= The interposition of the heterogeneous attributive between =hagiois= and =pistois= is harsh and improbable--not to say, with Hofmann, "quite incredible." The two latest German commentaries to hand, that of Beck and of von Soden (in the _Hand-Commentar_), interpreters of opposite schools, agree with Hofmann in rejecting the local adjunct and regarding =pistois= as the complement of =tois ousin=.
[24] Origen, in his fanciful way, makes of =tois ousin= a predicate by itself: "the saints _who are_," who possess real being like God Himself (Exod. iii. 14)--"called from non-existence into existence." He compares 1 Cor. i. 28.
[25] See, _e.g._, ver. 18, ii. 19, iii. 18, iv. 12, v. 3.