The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 98

xxii. 43; llfolt. xxviii. 2, etc.). "Openly" tho final Iv abrrji to Chri.1t (ver. 10), though ('" 1ra~~Tl,,./'f: literally, in freedom of speech, incorrectly implying "Christ" 11,~ subject a favourito worcl of St. Po.ul's) implies the of the verse. It was not only "in the cross" absenco of reserve or restraint, rnthor the.n tliat God unveiled himself, dispensing with mero publioity (comp. Eph. vi. l!l; Phil. i. 11ngelic theophanies, but in the rntire 20). 0p,aµf3•6,,.a.s (" having triumphed;" person nnd work of his Son (eh. i. 15 ; 2 Cor. 2 Cor. ii. 14 only othor instanco of the verb iv. 4; John i. 14, 18; xiv. 9). "Which in the Now Te~tament: its use in clRssico.l veil" (for here we may apply the words of Greek confined to Latimst writers, referring, 2 Cor. iii. 14) "is done away in Christ." historically, to the Roman triumph) present~ Bo the whole passage (vers. 10-15) en<la, a formidable difficulty in the wny of the a.a it begins, "in him : " "We are complete interpretation of the verse followccl so far. in him "-in our conversion from sin to For the common acceptation of the word holiness set forth in baptism, and our " triumph " compels us to think of the resurrection from death to life experienced " principalities," etc., o.s hostile (Satanic); in forgiveness (vers. 11-13); and in the and thls, 11gain, ns Meyer strongly contends, removal e.t once of the legal bar which dicta.tee the rendering "having spoiled" for forbade on:r e.ccess to God (ver. 14), e.n<l of il.1r,1tBucrdµe11os. So we a.re brought into the veil of inferior and partial mediation collision with two fixed points of our former which obscured his manifestation to us exegesis. If we a.re bound lexically to (ver. 15). abide by the reference to the Roman Vers. 16-23.-SECTION VL THE CLAnIS military triumph, then the angelic princi- OF TilE FALSE TEA.CHEil. p11lities must be supposed to have stood in 11, Ver. 16.-Do not let any one, therefore, be quasi-hostile position to "the kingdom of judging you in eating or in drinking (vers. God 11ncl of Christ," in so far as men had 21-23; I Tim. iv. 1-5; Rom. xiv. 17; naggerated their powers and naUed tliem at Heh. ix. 10; :xiii. 9; Mark vii 14-l!J). Christ's expense, 11,lld to have been now rob- The new teachers dictated to the Colossians bed of this false pre-eminence. 'l'he writer in these matters from the philosophical, however, ventures to question whether, on nscetic point of view (see notes on " philo- philological grounds, a better, native Greek sophy," "circumcision," vers. 8, 11), con- sense co.nnot be .found for this verb. The demning their previous liberty. (For the nouu thriambos (" triumph"), on whicll it is adverse sense of "judge," comp. Rom. xiv. based, is used, indeed, in tho Latin sense 4, 10, 13.) The scruples of the "weak 11s early 11s Polybius, o. writer on Rom11n brethren" at Rome (Rom. xiv.) were partly of history (160 B.o.). But it is extant in a o.n ascetic character, but a.re not a.scribed to much earlier cl11ssical fragment e.s synony- any philosophic views. In I Cor. viii. 8 and mous with dithyrambos, denoting "a festal x. the question stands ono. different footing, song; " and again in Plut1uch, contemporary being connected with that of the recognition with St. Paul, it is a Mme of the Greek of idollltry (comp. Acts xv. 29). In Heh. ix. god Dionysus, in whose honour such songs 10 it is purely o. point of Jewish bw. In were sung, ancl whose worship was of o. one form or other it was sore to be raised choral, proressionnl ch11racter. This ldnd of wherever Jewish nnd Gentile Christians triumph was, one mny imagine, fomilinr to were in social intercourse. Ver. 17 shows the eyes of St. Paul nnd of his re11ders, while that such restrictions arc "not according to the spect11cle ot' tho Roman triu:nph was Christ" (ver. 8), belonging to the system distant and foreign (11t least when he wrote which he h11s superseded. "Therefore" 2 Corinthians). We suggest that the bases this warning upon the reasoning of npostlo's image is tnken, both hei·e and in the previous context. Tertulli,,n (' Against 2 Cor. ii. 14, from the festal procession of the l\Iarcion,' v. l!l) supplies the link con- Greek divinity, who lends his worshippers necting this verse with vers. 10, 15, 18, when along as witnesses of his power and he s11ys, "Tho 11postle blames those who colebrnnte of his glory. Such a figure o.llegod visions of angels ns their 11utb.ority fittingly describes tho relation anti the for so.ying that men must abstain from attitude of the angels to the Di viue presence meo.ts." The abolishing of angel mecliation in Ch1·ist. Let this suggestion, howo,·er, be (ver. 15) robs theso restrictions of their regarded 11s precarious or fanciful, tho supposed uuthority. The Essenes found iu general exposition of tho verse is not thereby the Ne.znrite lifo and the rules for the involi<late<l. (For further eluoi<lation, see ministering Jewish priest (Numb. vi. 3; theExpoailo,·, first series, vol. x. pp.403-421; Lev. x. 8-ll; Ezek. xliv. 21) !.heir iueal xi. p. 78. Ou "triumph," in 2 Coriuthilms, of holiness. Philo also o.ttache,l a high see l\Ir. Waite's .A,lditiouai note in 'Speaker's moral value to abstinence from flesh nut! Commentary.') 'rho Revisers omit the wine, nnd rcgcu·ded the Levitical distinctio11s m11rginal "in himself" of the Authorized of mc11ts 11s profoundly symbolic. Or in Version, which correctly, a.a we think, rdcrs r.ispe~t of fo~t, or now moon, or cnut1ili  'I'HE EPISTLE TO Tll'E COLOSSIANS. (elf. n. 1-23.