* Which is excluded by Meyer and Dwight.
+ The argument that it is not borne out by New-Testament usage is some- what weakened in the case of an epistle which bristles with novel expressions. There are seventeen words in this chapter which occur nowhere else in the New Testament.
496 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. IL
Intruding (€uBarevwv). Rev., dwelling in. Only here in the New Testament. It is used in three senses: 1. Zo step in or upon, thence to haunt or frequent. So Aeschylus: “ A cert- ain island which Pan freguents on its beach ” (“ Persae,” 449). 2. To invade. So in Apocrypha, 1 Mace. xii. 25; xiii. 20; xiv. 31; xv. 40. 3. To enter into for examination ; to investegate or discuss a subject. So 2 Mace. ii. 30, and so Philo, who com- pares truth-seekers to well-diggers. Patristic writers use it of searching the heart, and of investigating divine mysteries. By- zantine lexicographers explain it by &réw to seek ; éEepevvaw to track out; oKxoméw to consider. In this last sense the word is probably used here of the false teachers who professed to see heavenly truth in visions, and to investigate and discuss philo- sophically the revelation they bad received.
Which he hath not seen. Vot must be omitted: which he imagines or professes that he has seen in vision. Ironical. ‘“‘If, as we may easily imagine, these pretenders were accust- omed to say with an imposing and mysterious air, ‘I have seen, ah! I have seen,’—in relating alleged visions of heavenly things, the Colossians would understand the reference well enough ” (Findlay).
Vainly puffed up (ele gucvotpevos). Vainly characterizes the emptiness of such pretension; puffed up, the swelling intel- lectual pride of those who make it. See on 1 Cor. iv. 6; and compare 1 Cor. viii. 1. The humility is thus characterized as affected, and the teachers as charlatans.
By his fleshly mind (i276 tod vods Tis capKds adtod). Lit., by the mind of his flesh. The intellectual faculty in its moral aspects as determined by the fleshly, sinful nature. See on Rom. viii. 28. Compare Rom. vii. 22-25; viii. 7. The teach- ers boasted that they were guided by the higher reason. Paul describes their higher reason as carnal.*
“The passage is beset with difficulties. Bishop Lightfoot gives up the words & édpaxey éuBarevwy, assuming a corruption of the text, and substituting an ingenious conjectural reading. His note is deeply interesting. See also Mr. Findlay’s article alluded to in note on ver. 15, and Meyer.
Cu. IL.] THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 497
19. Holding the head (xparav tiv xeparsjv). Holding by or fast, as commonly in the New Testament. Compare Soph- ocles: “If thow art to rule (dp£es) this land, even as thou hold- est it (kparets.” “Oedipus Tyrannus,” 54). he head, Christ as contrasted with the angelic mediators.
From whom (é€ od). Fixing the personal reference of the ‘ead to Christ. Compare Eph. iv. 16.
By joints and bands (8a tay ddav Kal cuvdécpwvr). Joints (a¢@v) only here and Eph. iv. 16. The word means primarily touching, and is used in classical Greek of the touch upon harp- strings, or the grip of a wrestler. Not quite the same as gots in the sense of the parts in contact, but the relations between the adjacent parts. The actwal connection is expressed by bands* or ligaments.
Ministered (ériyopnyoupévov). See on add, 2 Pet. i. 5. Rev., supplied.
Knit together. See on ver. 2. ‘The discoveries of mod- ern physiology have invested the apostle’s language with far greater distinctness and force than it can have worn to his own contemporaries. Any exposition of the nervous system more especially reads like a commentary on the image of the relations between the body and the head. At every turn we meet with some fresh illustration which kindles it with a flood of light. The volition communicated from the brain to the limbs, the sensations of the extremities telegraphed back to the brain, the absolute mutual sympathy between the head and the members, the instantaneous paralysis ensuing on the interruption of con- tinuity, all these add to the completeness and life of the image” (Lightfoot).