iii. 10). And the same is true of the ways in which circumcision is regarded in the Pauline Epistles: cf. Rom. ii. 26-29, iii. 1; Gal. v. 6, vi. 15; Phil. iii. 5; Col. ii. 11, 13, etc.
A very different position, too, is thought to be given to the Death of Christ in this Epistle from what it has in the acknowledged Pauline writings. In Epistles like those to the Romans, the Gal- atians and the Corinthians its expiatory and propitiatory value is the theme on which Paul dwells with most emphasis. But here this is passed over in silence, and comparatively little is made of the Death of Christ even in other aspects. It is rather His exalta- tion with all that it involves that is dwelt on. But the difference, so far as it exists, is due to the occasion and to the state of those addressed. It is true that it is as the means by which the reconcili- ation of Jew and Gentile is effected that the Cross is specially mentioned (ii. 16), and it is with reference to the imitation of God that Christ’s giving of Himself is described as an offering and a sacrifice to God. But there is nothing in this to make it impossible to suppose that the same author, writing with an eye on other con- ditions, might speak of the Cross and the Death of Christ in connec- tion with the reconciliation of the world or of the individual. More- over, we have here the blood of Christ, redempiton through His blood, and the forgiveness of sins as related to His blood—all which are distinctly Pauline, if they are also Johannine, terms and ideas (i. 7, ii. 13).
Further, this Epistle is alleged to depart widely from the recog- nised Pauline Epistles in its Christology, its doctrine of Christ’s Headship, and its view of the Parousia. With regard to the first of these particulars this Epistle is more in affinity with that to the Colossians than with any other, in so far as it exhibits Christ in His largest relations to creation, and presents Him as designed in the eternal purpose of God to be the bond of union or reunion for a world existing at present in a condition of dislocation and division. But there are at least the rudiments and foretokens of this doctrine of Christ’s cosmical relations elsewhere. There is, ¢.g¢., the statement of the “one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things,” in 1 Cor. viii. 6; and there is the larger analogy in the great paragraph on the Evangel of Creation in Rom. viii. 19-20. It may be, again, that in other Pauline passages the body is said to be as Christ (1 Cor. xii. 12) or be in Christ (Rom. xii. 4, 5), and the head is reckoned simply among the members (1 Cor. xii. 21); whereas here, as in Colossians, believers are the members, Christ is the Head, and the Church is the body. But the different applications of these figures have their sufficient explana-