In the first verse of the second chapter, the apostle expresses a
peculiar anxiety for the spiritual safety of those Christians who
have not seen his face in the flesh, among whom he appears to number
the Colossians and Laodiceans. It seems quite evident that he had
never been at Colosse; for though he traversed Phrygia, on two several
occasions before this time, he is not said to have visited either
Colosse or Laodicea;――but his route is so described, as to make it
almost impossible for him to have taken either city directly in his
way. This circumstance may account for the fact of his distinguishing
in this manner a single city like Colosse, of no great size or
importance; because as it appears from the general tenor of the epistle,
certain peculiar errors had arisen among them, which were probably
more dangerously rife, from the circumstance of their never having been
blessed by the personal presence and labors of an apostle. The errors
which he particularly attacks, seem to be those of the Judaizers, who
were constantly insisting on the necessity of Mosaical observances,
such as circumcision, sabbaths, abstinence from unclean meats, and
other things of the same sort. He cautions them particularly against
certain false doctrines, also referred to under the names of philosophy,
vain deceit, the traditions of men, &c. which are commonly thought
to refer to the errors of the Essenes, a Jewish sect characterised
by Josephus in terms somewhat similar, and who are supposed to have
introduced their ascetic and mystical doctrines into the Christian
church, and to have formed one of the sources of the great system of
Gnosticism, as afterwards perfected. The moral part of this epistle
bears a very striking similarity, even in words, to the conclusion of
that to the Ephesians,――a resemblance probably attributable in part,
to the circumstance, that they were written about the same time. The
circumstance that he has mentioned to the Colossians an epistle to be
sent for by them from Laodicea, has given rise to a forged production,
purporting to be this very epistle from Paul to the Laodiceans; but
it is manifestly a mere brief rhapsody, collected from Paul’s other
epistles, and has never for a moment imposed upon the critical. It has
been supposed that the true epistle meant by Paul, is another, now lost,
written by Paul to Laodicea; and the supposition is not unreasonable.