§ 4. TnE CoLossJL"f HERESY. '.!.'here was no intrinsic importance attaching to Colossre itself or arising out of its relation to the future progress of the gospel, as in the case of Corinth or Rome ; nor had the Colossian Church any such peculiar claims on the apostle as he recognizes in writing to the Philippians or the Galatians. It is the more evident that the emergency which called forth this Epistle, and the questions that had arisen at Colossre, were in bis view of the most grave and ominons character. For in this remote country town had appeared the first symptoms 0£ a heretical movement, so well known under its later name of Gnosticism, whose outbreak in this region St. Paul had already predicted (Acts xx. 29, 30), and which was pregnant "'ith deadly mischief to the Church of Christ. The exact nature and origin of what is called "the Colossi.an heresy" it is difficult to ascertain; and widely divergent views are still prevalent respecting it. Our subsequent examination of the Epistle will show (1) that this doctrine pretended to a phiwsophical character (eh. ii. 8: comp. vers. 8, 4); (2) that its advocates were, in some sense, Judaists (eh. ii. 11, 14, 16, 17); (3) that they practised the worship of angels, whose powers they exaggerated ( eh. ii. 10, 15, 18, 19 ; i. 16) ; ( 4) that they inculcated ascetic rules, going beyond the Mosaic Law, and inspired by antipathy to the bodily life (eh.ii. 20-23); ( 5) that their whole system tended to limit the greatness and the authority of Christ and the sufficiency of his redemption (eh. ii. 8-10, 17, 19; i.14-20); and (6) that they still assumed the character of Christian teachers, and professed to be inviting Christians to a higher and more secure spiritual life (eh. i. 23, 28; ii. 3-10, 16-18, 23; iii. 1, 14, 15). The Colossi.an errorists, then, were philosophical, Judaizing, visionary, ascetic Christians. Now, it is necessary to ask whether there was anything in the conditions of the time, and in the tendencies of religious thonght in the first century, to account for so remarkable a combination as this. The question, aa it seems to us, admits of a tolerably sufficient answer. For the last two hundred years .Alexandria, the most important city of the Dispersion, had been the centre of an intellectual movement within Judaism itself whicb, while carefully maintaining the outward framework of the Mosaic economy, had profoundly modified its inner character, under the combined influence of Greek philosophy and of Oriental mysticism. The result of this process is presented to us in the extensive works of Philo, a contemporary of Jesus IKTRODUCTIO~ TO
1md <'f Pnnl. who!,le t<'stimony in l'ega.rd fo the direction of Hellenietio th0ught Rt this period is the more valuable 11.s it is evident that he was nob -n-riter of independent or original genius, but rather the eloquent exponent 0£ the long-established and influential school to which he belonged. Among the first principles of his teaching are those which have always been the commonplaces of Ea.stern theosophy, whether Indian, Persian, or Egyptian -the doctrines of the intrinsic evil of matter and of the absolute separation between the Godhead and the created World. His Judaism supplied the angel6, powers, words (and especially the word), who were the necessary intermediaries between God and the creature; and furnished also, with certain modifications and refinements, the ceremonial and ritual cultus ·by which, under angelic direction, the spiritual element in me.n was to raise itself abo-ve the gross obstructions of the material, and to regain that rational nsion of God from which it had fallen. Greek philosophy enp~ plied the terminology and the method of Philo'e system, which resolved religion into a mystical and contemplative knowledge of God belonging to the higher reason, and identified the spiritual man with the philosopher. This teaching took the form, for the most part, of elaborate expositions of the Books of the Law, allegory being the all-powerful instrument by which every historica.1 incident and legal injunction was spiritualized and made to prove or to illustrate the tenets of the Alexandrine philosophy. Prevalent and traditional as this system was with the Egyptian Jews in the home of the Septuagint, its principles were widely diffused amongst Hellenistic Jews and Greek proselytes in other quarters. Especially in Western Asia. Minor, which was in active intercourse with Alexandria. and presented si.milar mental and social conditions, we may presume that Philon.ian Gnosticism was a doctrine already current in educated Jewish circles. The Essenism of Palestine, so well known throngh Josephus ·('Jewish War,' ii. 8) and sympathetically described by Philo (' Qnod Omnis probus Liber,' §§ 12, 13), is a striking proof of the extent to which foreign theo- sophic and ascetic elements had penetrated Judaism. In spite of the "hedge set about the Law" by the watchful rabbis, a ·subtle mysticism had found its way into the heart of Palestine, filtering through either from Alexandria and the West or from Persia. and the East. It may be doubted, however, whether the local and isolated Essenic fraternities had any direct connection with the rise of the Colossian heresy.- It was the conversion of the Essenes after the fall of Jerusalem that originated in Ebi.onism, a properly Essenic Christianity (A. Ritsehl, 'Die Entstehung d . .Altkatholischen Kirche,' ss. 178-248). Although the Essenes, like the Phariseee, are called "philosophers" by Josephus writing for Greek readers, it doE,S not appear that they claimed any such title for them.selves, or that t1e:ir system wru; of a rationalistic character (see Philo, as referred to Ei.rz,ve:). Bc.t St. Paul pnu the philosophical pretensions of the Coloseia.n errorist in the forefront of hi.A denunciations ( eh. ii. 4, 8). On "the THE EPISTLE 'fO THE COLOSSIANS. vii