ili. 22 ff.: Eph. vi. 9; Col. vi. 1: Eph. vi. 18 ff.; Col. iv. 2 ff.: Eph. vi. 21 £; Col. iv. 7 f.
These parallels are by no means all of the same value. Yet with all necessary deductions they are remarkable both in number and in quality. Taken along with the large resemblance in matter, which extends in some parts over considerable sections, they exhibit a re- lationship close enough to warrant us to speak of the two as sister Epistles.
It does not follow from this, however, that the one is dependent on the other. There are, indeed, important differences between the two kindred writings which make it difficult to regard the one as made up out of the other. The style is different, that of Ephesians being round, full, and rhythmical, where that of Colossians is more pointed, logical and concise. The question of the Church has no such place in the latter as in the former. The Epistle to the Ephesians has much more of an OT colouring than that to the Colossians. In the latter we have only one OT quotation or allusion. In the former we have eight or nine, vis.: Gen. ii. 24 (Eph. v. 31); Exod. xx. 12 (Eph. vi. 2); Ps. iv. 4 (Eph. iv. 26); Ps. viii. 6 (Eph. i. 22); Ps. Ixviii. 18 (Eph. iv. 8); Ps. cxviii, 22 (Eph. ii. 20); Song of Songs iv. 7 (Eph, v. 27, perhaps); Isa. lvii. 9 (Eph. ii. 17); Isa. Ix. 1 (Eph. v. 14). There are phrases which are distinctive of the Epistle to the Ephesians, but which do not reappear in that to the Colossians, ¢.g., τὰ ἐπούρανια. And besides all this there are whole paragraphs in Ephesians which have nothing like them in Colossians—those dealing with the union of Jew and Gentile in the one Church of God as the subject of the Divine predestination (Eph. i. 3-14); the unity of the faith and of the Church (iv. 5-16); the con- trast between the light and the darkness with their corresponding results (v. 8-14); the mystery of the marriage-union as a reflection of the union between Christ and the Church (ν. 22-33); the description of the panoply of God (vi. 10-17). And in like manner there are whole sections in Colossians, such as the polemical passage in chap. ii. and the salutations in chap. v., which have no place in Ephesians,
The question raised by the co-existence of these likenesses and differences has been very variously answered. Some have inferred that Colossians must have been the original writing, and that Ephesians resembles it at so many points because it has been bor- rowed largely from it. Others have regarded Ephesians as the earlier and more original composition. The scholar who has gone most laboriously into the details of this question, viz., H. J. Holtzmann, came to the conclusion that the priority could not be given wholly to