^8 Βλέπετε μή τις ὑμᾶς ἔσται ὁ συλαγωγῶν διὰ
8. μή τις _ἔσται ὑμᾶς_.
8–15. ‘Be on your guard; do not suffer yourselves to fall a prey to
certain persons who would lead you captive by a hollow and deceitful
system, which they call philosophy. They substitute the traditions of
men for the truth of God. They enforce an elementary discipline of
mundane ordinances fit only for children. Theirs is not the Gospel of
Christ. In Christ the entire fulness of the Godhead abides for ever,
having united itself with man by taking a human body. And so in Him—not
in any inferior mediators—ye have your life, your being, for ye are
filled from His fulness. He, I say, is the Head over all spiritual
beings—call them principalities or powers or what you will. In Him too
ye have the true circumcision—the circumcision which is not made with
hands but wrought by the Spirit—the circumcision which divests not of a
part only but of the whole carnal body—the circumcision which is not of
Moses but of Christ. This circumcision ye have, because ye were buried
with Christ to your old selves beneath the baptismal waters, and were
raised with Him from those same waters to a new and regenerate life,
through your faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from
the dead. Yes, you—you Gentiles who before were dead, when ye walked in
your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your unchastened carnal
heathen heart—even you did
God quicken into life together with Christ; then and there freely
forgiving all of us—Jews and Gentiles alike—all our transgressions; then
and there cancelling the bond which stood valid against us (for it bore
our own signature), the bond which engaged us to fulfil all the law of
ordinances, which was our stern pitiless tyrant. Ay, this very bond hath
Christ put out of sight for ever, nailing it to His cross and rending it
with His body and killing it in His death. Taking upon Him our human
nature, He stripped off and cast aside all the powers of evil which
clung to it like a poisonous garment. As a mighty conqueror He displayed
these His fallen enemies to an astonished world, leading them in triumph
on His cross.’
8. Βλέπετε κ.τ.λ.] The form of the sentence is a measure of the
imminence of the peril. The usual construction with βλέπειν μὴ is a
conjunctive; e.g. in Luke xxi. 8 βλέπετε μὴ πλανηθῆτε. Here the
substitution of an indicative shows that the danger is real; comp. Heb.
iii. 12 βλέπετε μήποτε ἔσται ἕν τινι ὑμῶν καρδία πονηρὰ ἀπιστίας. For
other instances of μὴ with a future indicative comp. Mark xiv. 2 μήποτε
ἔσται θόρυβος, Rom. xi. 21 μήπως οὐδὲ σοῦ φείσεται; and see Winer § lvi.
p. 631 sq.
τις] This indefinite τις is frequently used by St Paul, when speaking of
opponents whom he knows well enough but does not care to name: see the
note on Gal. i. 7. Comp. Ign. _Smyrn._ 5 ὅν _τινες_ ἀγνοοῦντες
ἀρνοῦνται ... τὰ δὲ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν, ὄντα ἄπιστα, οὐκ ἔδοξέ μοι ἐγγράψαι.
συλαγωγῶν] ‘_makes you his prey_, carries you off body and soul’. The
word appears not to occur before St Paul, nor after him, independently
of this passage, till a late date: e.g. Heliod. _Aeth._ x. 35 οὗτός
ἐστιν ὁ τὴν ἐμὴν θυγάτερα συλαγωγήσας. In Tatian _ad Græc._ 22 ὑμεῖς δὲ
ὑπὸ τούτων συλαγωγεῖσθε it seems to be a reminiscence of St Paul. Its
full and proper meaning, as appears from the passages quoted, is not ‘to
despoil,’ but ‘to carry off as spoil’, in accordance with the analogous
compounds, δουλαγωγεῖν, σκευαγωγεῖν. So too the closely allied word
λαφυραγωγεῖν in Plut. _Mor._ p. 5 πόλεμος γὰρ οὐ λαφυραγωγεῖ ἀρετήν,
_Vit. Galb._ 5 τὰ μὲν Γαλατῶν, ὅταν ὑποχείριοι γένωνται,
λαφυραγωγήσεσθαι. The Colossians had been rescued from the bondage of
darkness; they had been transferred to the kingdom of light; they had
been settled there as free citizens (i. 12, 13); and now there was
danger that they should fall into a state worse than their former
slavery, that they should be carried off as so much booty. Comp. 2 Tim.
iii. 6 αἰχμαλωτίζοντες γυναικάρια.
For the construction ἔσται ὁ συλαγωγῶν see the notes on Gal. i. 7, iii.
21. The former passage is a close parallel to the words here, εἰ μή
τινές εἰσιν οἱ ταράσσοντες ὑμᾶς κ.τ.λ. The expression ὁ συλαγωγῶν gives
a directness and individuality to the reference, which would have been
wanting to the more natural construction ὃς συλαγωγήσει.
διὰ τῆς φιλοσοφίας κ.τ.λ.] ‘_through his philosophy which is an empty
deceit_’. The absence of both preposition and article in the second
clause shows that κενῆς ἀπάτης describes and qualifies φιλοσοφίας.
Clement therefore (_Strom._ vi. 8, p. 771) had a right to contend that
St Paul does not here condemn ‘philosophy’ absolutely. The φιλοσοφία καὶ
κενὴ ἀπάτη of this passage corresponds to the ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις of 1
Tim. vi. 20.
But though ‘philosophy’ is not condemned, it is disparaged by the
connexion in which it is placed. St Chrysostom’s comment is not
altogether wrong, ἐπειδὴ δοκεῖ σεμνὸν εἶναι τὸ τῆς φιλοσοφίας, προσέθηκε
καὶ κενῆς ἀπάτης. The term was doubtless used by the false teachers
themselves to describe their system. Though essentially Greek as a name
and as an idea, it had found its way into Jewish circles. Philo speaks
of the Hebrew religion and Mosaic law as ἡ πάτριος φιλοσοφία (_Leg. ad
Cai._ 23, II. p. 568, _de Somn._ ii. 18, I. p. 675) or ἡ Ἰουδαϊκὴ
φιλοσοφία (_Leg. ad Cai._ 33, II. p. 582) or ἡ κατὰ Μω"υσῆν φιλοσοφία
(_de Mut. Nom._ 39, I. p. 612). The system of the Essenes, the probable
progenitors of the false teachers at Colossæ, he describes as ἡ δίχα
περιεργείας Ἑλληνικῶν ὀνομάτων φιλοσοφία (_Omn. prob. lib._ 13, II. p.
459). So too Josephus speaks of the three Jewish sects as τρεῖς
φιλοσοφίαι (_Ant._ xviii. 1. 2, comp. _B.J._ ii. 8. 2). It should be
remembered also, that in this later age, owing to Roman influence, the
term was used to describe practical not less than speculative systems,
so that it would cover the ascetic life as well as the mystic theosophy
of these Colossian heretics. Hence the Apostle is here flinging back at
these false teachers a favourite term of their own, ‘their vaunted
_philosophy_, which is hollow and misleading’.
The word indeed could claim a truly noble origin; for it is said to have
arisen out of the humility of Pythagoras, who called himself ‘a lover of
wisdom’, μηδένα γὰρ εἶναι σοφὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀλλ’ ἢ Θεόν (Diog. Laert.
Proœm. § 12; comp. Cic. _Tusc._ v. 3). In such a sense the term would
entirely accord with the spirit and teaching of St Paul; for it bore
testimony to the insufficiency of the human intellect and the need of a
revelation. But in his age it had come to be associated generally with
the idea of subtle dialectics and profitless speculation; while in this
particular instance it was combined with a mystic cosmogony and
angelology which contributed a fresh element of danger. As contrasted
with the power and fulness and certainty of revelation, all such
philosophy was ‘foolishness’ (1 Cor. i. 20). It is worth observing that
this word, which to the Greeks denoted the highest effort of the
intellect, occurs here alone in St Paul, just as he uses ἀρετή, which
was their term to express the highest moral excellence, in a single
passage only (Phil. iv. 8; see the note there). The reason is much the
same in both cases. The Gospel had deposed the terms as inadequate to
the higher standard, whether of knowledge or of practice, which it had
introduced.
On the attitude of the fathers towards philosophy, while philosophy was
a living thing, see Smith’s _Dictionary of the Bible_ s.v. Clement, who
was followed in the main by the earlier Alexandrian fathers, regards
Greek philosophy not only as a preliminary training (προπαιδεία) for the
Gospel, but even as in some sense a covenant (διαθήκη) given by God to
the Greeks (_Strom._ i. 5, p. 331, vi. 5, p. 761, _ib._ § 8, p. 771
sq.). Others, who were the great majority and of whom Tertullian may be
taken as an extreme type, set their faces directly against it, seeing in
it only the parent of all heretical teaching: e.g. _de Anim._ 2, 3,
_Apol._ 46, 47. In the first passage, referring to this text, he says,
‘Ab apostolo jam tunc philosophia concussio veritatis providebatur’; in
the second he asks, ‘Quid simile philosophus et Christianus?’ St Paul’s
speech at Athens, on the only occasion when he is known to have been
brought into direct personal contact with Greek philosophers (Acts xvii.
18), shows that his sympathies would have been at least as strong with
Clement’s representations as with Tertullian’s.
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