ecstasy and trance, its faith-cures, its gloomy asceticism, its pas- sion for martyrdom, and its savage intolerance, owed to Phry- gia its leader ; and the earlier name of the sect was “‘ the Sect of the Phrygians.”
Under Antiochus the Great, two thousand Jewish families had been transplanted into Phrygia and Lydia; and while the staple of the church was Gentile, the epistle distinctly recog- nizes the presence and operation of Jewish influences (ii. 16-21).
The form of error which prevailed at Colossae included three elements: Jewish formalism ; speculative mysticism, represent- ing the germs of what afterward developed as Gnosticism ; and Essenism, the medium through which the Jewish and Gnostic elements came into combination.
Though Gnosticism, as such, had not developed itself at this time, a knowledge of its principal features is necessary to an intelligent reading of this epistle.
It took its name from gnosis knowledge, since it claimed for a select few the possession of a superior acquaintance with truth. Its tendencies were thus exclusive and aristocratic. The Gnostics denied the direct creation of the world by God, be- cause God would thus be shown to be the creator of evil. Gar. creative energy was thwarted by the world of matter, which is essentially evil, in eternal antagonism to God, and with which God could not come into direct contact without tainting His nature. Hence creation became possible only through a series of emanations from God, each successive emanation being less divine, until the point was reached where contact with matter became possible. These emanations were called aeons, spirits, or angels ; and to these worship was rendered with an affecta- tion of humility i in approaching the lower grades of divinity, in- stead of venturing into the immediate presence of the Supreme. The evil of matter was to be escaped either by rigid abstinence from the world of sense, or by independence of it. The system therefore tended to the opposite extremes of asceticism and licentiousness.
Essenism, in the apostolic age, had established itself in Asia Minor. The Essenes combined the ritualism of the Jew with the asceticism and mysticism of the Gnostic. They rigorously
XXxli INTRODUCTION.
observed the Mosaic ritual, except in the matter of slain sacri. fices, which they refused to offer, regarding their ordinary meals as sacrificial rites. They discountenanced marriage, and foreswore oil, wine, and animal food. Their theology revealed traces of sun-worship. Holding the immortality of the soul, they denied the resurrection of the body. They also held some mystical doctrine of emanations, as agents in creation, akin to that of the Gnostic aeons. Like the Gnostics, they maintained the evil of matter.
In this epistle Paul strikes at the intellectual exclusiveness of the Colossian heretics with the. doctrine of the universality of the Gospel (i. 6, 238, 28; iii. 11). Their gnosts—the pretended higher, esoteric wisdom—is met with the assertion of the Gos- pel as the true wisdom, the common property of all believers. The words wisdom, knowledge, full knowledge, intelligence, oc- cur frequently in the epistle. Ivaau knowledge is used but once, while émiyywows full knowledge, occurs four times, em- phasizing the knowledge of God and of Christ as the perfection of knowledge. Divine wisdom is offered and prayed for as the privilege of Christians (i. 9, 27, 28; iii. 10, 16). The pre- tended wisdom is denounced as deceitful philosophy, founded in tradition, and both its Gentile and its Jewish phases are characterized as mere elements or rudiments, unworthy of men in Christ (ii. 8, 20). It is presumptuous and arrogant; a mere show of wisdom (ii. 18, 23).
The doctrine of angelic mediators in the creation and govern- ment of the world is offset by the truth of the Eternal Son, begotten before the creation, by whom all things were created and are maintained, and who is also the only and absolute head of the Church (i. 15-18). For a succession of angelic emana- tions, each less divine than its predecessor, is substituted the Son of God, in whom dwells the sum-total of the divine powers and attributes (i195 ii. 9). An angel or spirit, who is neither God nor man, cannot reconcile God and man. For the hazi- ness which invests the personality and character of these inter- mediaries, we have the sharply defined personality of Christ, the Word made flesh, uniting in Himself the human and the divine, human even unto death, divine unto the eternal life and