Essenes," sco Lightfoot'e dissertation (' Commenlary,' pp. 3-10-419; also pp. 82-95).1 It is imp01:tnnt to note that in the Greek world there had been going on for some time an extensive revival of the Orphic and Pythagorean mystic doctrines, which might ho described as a pagan Essenism. The marvel!= career of Apollonius of Tyana-philosopher, ascetic, mystic, and miracle- worker-showe how well prepared was the soil of Asia Minor in tho first century for the growth of all kinds of magical and Gnosticizing theosophy, no matter how crude in construction or monstrous in pretensions. The time was ripe, surely, for the birth of Gnosticism such as we find it, in its infant form, in this Epistle. Under all the circumstances, it would have been surprising if a theosophy of this type had not, during the apostle's lifetime, made its appearance within the Christian Church at some point or other in that strange border-land between East and West, where his mission had been attended with such wonderful success. We have evidence of a connection between Pauline Christianity and Alexandrine Judaism in the person of Apollos (Acts xviii. 24-xix. 1). The cultured Greek eloquence which, combined with his scriptural learning, made this teacher so acceptable at Ephesus and Corinth (1 Cor. i. 12 ; iii. 4-6), he owed, doubtless, to the more liberal and eclectic training of the Jewish schools of Alexandria. And the Epistle to the Hebrews, whoever was its author, shows that there were many points of contact between Christian theology and the religious philosophy of Philo, and that the gospel, as Paul taught it, was quite capable of absorbing and assimilating the best fruits of Alexandrine learning. Now, let ns suppose that some philosophic and eloquent Jew, imbued like Apollos with the Alexandrine culture, and a man of an ascetic and ambition.a disposition, had come under the influence of Christian teaching in Asia Minor; but that, unlike Apollos, subordinating the gospel to his philosophy, he had conceived the idea of amalgamating the new faith with his Alcxandrine intellectual system, modified to some extent under local influences ; also that 110 pretended, as might be expectecl with such antecedents, in carrying out this plan, to be extending and completing St. Paul's own doctrine, and offering a more advanced wisdom, the true "mystery of God," to the more cultivated an,l spiritual members of the Church. Attempts of this kind must have taken place again and again in individual instances, in that syncretistic age. The cases of Simon Magus, and of Cerinthus at a later time, are not dissimilar. But t!iis supposition, we submit, is all that is needed to explain the rise of '' The Colossian heresy." The problem is scarcely, as Dr. S. Davidson puts it (' Introduction to Study of New Testament,' vol. ii. p. 179), to account for the existence of "a Gnostic sect" in St. Paul's time. The 1 The existence of tho • Thero.peulro,' as a Jewish mone.stic sect, is very u.oubtful.
Lucius, in hie • Dio Therapeuten u. ihre Stellung in d. Geschichte d. Ascese' (Strassburg, 1879), h(\8 agnin, nnd more successfully, called ln qu~stion the authenticity of the treatiso • Do Vito Contemplativa,' nttributed to Philo viii INTRODUCTION TO
appcamnce of i1:clii,idual teachers and of sporadic tendencies always pre- cedes t.l1e forn1alion of a distinct sect. So far as the indications of the Epist.le itself a.re concerred, the heresy may have been confined to a single person, in this decaying and unimportant town of Colossoo. But the here!'iiarch was endently a tea~her of eloquence and influence (eh. ii. 4, 8, 23) ; and his doctrine, though it bad not become prevalent even at Colossre (eh. ii. 5), possessed a singular fascination. The apostle had good reason to "doubt whereunto this would grow." Where the material lies rca<l.-. for a cvnflagratioo, the first spark may be fatal. St. Paul had marked with a prescient eye the working of men's minds around him during his long sojourn at Ephesus, and be had warned the.Church there of an impending struggle (Acts xx. 29, 30). Through his intimacy with Apollos he had, presumably, become well acquainted, even if he were not so before, with the principles of Alexandrine Judaism. He had hacf'occasion to censure at Corinth the Greek tendency to overvalue eloquence, and to welcome philosophic and rationalizing views of Christian truth (1 Cor. i. 17 -ii. 16; x,. 12). In writing to Rome he had also had to deal with a class of" weak brethren," who had adopted mistaken ascetic rules (Rom. xiv.). The apostle cannot, therefore, have been altogether taken by surprise when Epaphras arrived., in preplexity and alarm, to seek his help against the strange form of doctrine that had appeared in Colossre. It is only by a forced and fanciful exegesis that Baur and his followers ha,e found traces in the Epistle of a reference to the developed Gnosticism of the second century. Had the Epistle originated then, such traces must have been much more distinct than even these critics pretend. Neither this nor the Ephesian letter knows anything of the awns, the personified Wisdom and Knowledge, the Demiurge, the S'!Jzygies and emanations of the V alentinians and Marcionites. And the a.-;;cetic notions of the later Ebionites were common to them with the Essenes and with Philo in the first century. The Colossian heresy represents the earliest and crudest stage of the movement which culminated in the foll-blown Gnosticism of the second century, with its endless ramifications and its imposing aITay of technical terms. The Epistle to the Colossians, the Pastora.I Epistles, the Apocalypse, and the Epistles of St. John, indicate in natural order the rise and progress· dnring the apostolic age of the incipient heretical tendencies which are the necessary presupposition of the widely spread and highly organized Gnostic ,;ystem delineated by the apologists of the following centuries. Pfleiderer defines with delicate precision the nature of the Colossian heresy when he .:alls it" an ad\'ance to a speculative and ascetic refinement of Judaism, which was amalgamated with Christianity, and represented as the complete fulfilment of it." But he asserts too moch when he says, "It is certain that a false doctrine of this kind conld not have existed in the time of the apostle" (' Paulinism,' English trans., vol. ii. pp. 95, 98), '!'HE EPIS'l'LE 'l'O '!'HE COLOSSIANS. ix