The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 114

nre rociprocnlly linked together, and advance pari passu. Compare the teaching of Christ in promising the Holy Spirit to his discipl(ls (,John xiv. 15-24). The cloctrine of the Holy Spirit was indirectly but vitally affected by the Colossian error; and this topic, though not brought forward in this Epistle, is prominent in the Ephesian letter, which is in many respects a complement to this and, in our belief, is "the letter'' to be sent" from Lnodicea" for the perusal of the Colossi an Church (eh. iv. 16). "Christ the Mystery of God," "Chtist in you tl,e hope of glory,"-this is the apostle's mysticism, the true mystery that is to expel the false, unhallowed mysteries, that seek by self-directed intuitions and self-invented lustrations and incantations to penetrate the secrets of the spiritual world and to enter into union with the Infinite. 4. Jn the sphere of morals and practical life, the Colossian errorists inculcated a strict a.1ceticism. 'l'his part of their system is consistent with each of the other three, though it pro- ·eeded rather from its philosophical and mystical than from its Judaistic and cere- monial constituent factor. In the early Christian ages, asceticism was frequently associated with theoretic rationalism; in later times, it bas been more frequently the ally of a sacerdotal type of Christianity. Asceticism was a thing foreign to Judaism. It was a religion too healthy and practical for that. Ps. cxxviii. expresses what bas always been the true religious feeling of Israel in regard to the blessings of this life. 'l'be Pharisaic yoke was indeed "grievous to be borne," and pressed on the externals of life with the weight of a slavery; but, after all, it concerned matters which habit makes comparatively easy, and its spirit was that of a formal legalism, aiming at precision in the performance of all external acts, and by no means valuing hai·d treat- ment of the body in itself. Dut the latter was the distinguishing feature of the new Colossian ethics, as of the ethics of Eastern mysticism and of Chlistian monachism, and, in some sort, of Puritanism too. (1) Asceticism is the perversion of a true and noble impulse. In it the maxim, Corruptio optimi pessima, has its saddest illustration. How natural it is for an earnest soul, striving after purity and fellowship with God, to fall into a hatred of the body and the material world! How all but irresistible must this tendency have been in the midst of the reeking impurities and the social dissolution of the pagan and barbarian worlds! (2) Moreover, the very nature of religious language, with its necessities of figurative expression, lends itself to misconstruction of scriptural truth in this direction. ·witness the interpretations still prevalent of St. Paul's own te11ninology. It is difficult, both in thought and in practice, to distinguish always between the body, which Christ raised, which becomes the temple of bis Spirit, whose members are to be instruments of righteousness, which is the symbol of the Church the bride of Christ, which nature itself teaches every man to nourish and to cherish (1 Cor. vi. 12-20; Rom. vi. 12-14; viii. 11; Eph. v. 22-30), and the flesh, which has to be stripped off, to be put to death, to be crucified with its affections and lust~, by all who are'' of Christ Jesus" (eh. ii.11; iii. 5; Gal. v. 24). (3) With the Colo;;sian errorist-, as in the Alexandrine theosophy, the body was the source of sin, the prison ic. which the soul is shut up and severed from God. 'l'o break the chains of scn~e, to cast off the bmden of the flesh and become pure spirit, and thus to rise towards God,-this was the aspiration of the ancient mystics. Matter and spirit were the two opposite poles of being; and the distinction between moral good and evil, for them, merged itself in this. They declared indiscriminate war against the physical life and natu,ral enjoyment as itself sinful or tending to sin. Their conception of holiness it was, of course, impossible absolutely to realize; but he woulcl npproximate to it the most nearly who maintained himself in as feeble and impoverished a bodily condition as was consistent with active thought. (4) Such doctrine was, we may be sure, more often preached than practised. But it took effect, within a little time, in the denunciation of marriage (1 'fim. iv. 3; Heb. xiii. 4), as among tho Jewish Essenes, with the dis- honouring of the family life and the weakening of social bonds which necessarily ensue. 'l'o this source we trace that false ideal of Christian purity which, before many centuries, became pr~valent in the Church Catholic, and the rise of the gigantic and baleful institution of monasticism and the celibate priesthood, which, hy withdrawing from the world the most powerfnl elements of Christian character and influence, and by the immorality and social disorganization which it engendered, has blighted the Church's history and delayed indefinitdy the conversion of mankind to the faith of Christ. (5) Let us Iistqu to Olli' heavenly Intercessor, who asks the Father," :::,.,'vt that thou shouldcst  ins 'l'HE EPIS'l'LE TO THE COLOSSI.ANS, [ell, 11, 1-23,