Colossians – A Brief Introduction

Colossians

According to the text, when “Paul” wrote Colossians, he was in prison (Colossians 4.3, 18). It was “written” by Paul and Timothy, and it mentions Epaphras as one who brought the gospel to Colossae, a city in the Lycus Valley with Hierapolis and Laodicea.

The text of Colossians contains many long sentences that do not resemble the accepted genuinde Pauline epistles… the same person who wrote Ephesians probably 1 wrote Colossians, for it contains many of the same Greek thoughts and complicated sentences that are contained in each of these letters. If Paul did write this, it was during his imprisonment described in Acts 28.16-28. I have proposed a theory as to how Ephesians and Colossians can both be Pauline, yet textualized after his death. You can read about this here.

Purpose of Writing

There seems to be some kind of growing heresy in Colossae which caused Paul to write a letter to a community he had never previously visited (Col. 2.1, 5). He mentions people who “beguile with enticing words” (2.4) and is worried that the saints would be “spoiled through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (2.8)

A Powerful Passage

One of the most powerful passages in Colossians deals with the idea of a Cosmic Christ:

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;  for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.  For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1.15-20 RSV)

This text was probably an early Christian hymn, according to some scholars. 2

This statement affirms what we read in John’s gospel – that Jesus was in the beginning, a cosmic being who was in all and through all things, the Logos, something John helps to give us just a glimpse as to who Jesus is and what Jesus is like.

This also relates to D&C 88:

And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space— The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things. (D&C 88:11-13)

This is a perfect description of the Nous (noos) or Logos as it was understood in the Greek speaking world of Paul’s day. Both Colossians and the Doctrine and Covenants are describing something difficult to describe: an aspect of Christ and his power – Christ as Logos, or manifestation of light and truth that is contained yet also emanates from the Father of all. The idea of the Logos is so much bigger than anything mortals can fully comprehend!

Paul writes in Colossians 2.16, 18

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days…  Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind…

What is he talking about?

Paul warns the saints to “be on guard!” (blepette – verse 8)… “Be on your guard that no one snares you by philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the universe and not according to Christ.” 3

These statements form a matrix of ideas that are associated with many of the thoughts swirling in Jewish and Christian circles in the first few centuries around Jesus’ lifetime.

“Elements of the universe” are strands of Jewish speculation about how the universe hung together. To be sure, in traditional Judaism the stars in the heavens were not considered deities.  The stars were related to the angels however, and in literature of this time period the angels, being associated with the stars, also “ruled” over the stars and at times the stars were considered a class of angels. 4

On the other hand, evidence from Jewish sources pushes against the idea that Paul is attacking Jews in these verses. From the Jewish Encyclopedia we read the following:

The charge of angel-worship raised against the Jews, based upon Col. 2.18, is decidedly unfounded. Paul had probably the same Gnostic sect in mind that Celsus refers to when he repeats the charge of Aristides (“Apology,” xiv. 4; see Origen, book i. 26, v. 6-34, 41), telling us (Origen, vi. 30) of magical figures on which he found the seven angels inscribed: (1) Michael, with the figure of a lion; (2) Suriel, as a bull (shor or tura = Turiel; see Jerome on Hab. i. 14); (3) Raphael in a serpentine form; (4) Gabriel as an eagle; (5) Yalda Bahut with the countenance of a bear; (6) Erathaol as a dog; and (7) Onoel in the shape of an ass. Of these seven archons (Celsus, vi. 27) Paul speaks continually in his letters (I Cor. 2.6-8; Col. 2.8, 20). But this Ophite (Gnostic) sect has nothing to do with the Jews. On the contrary, R. Ishmael, in Mek., Yithro, x., expressly applies the prohibition of idolatry to the likeness of angels of the ofanim and cherubim (compare Targ. Yer. to Ex. xx. 20). “He who slaughters an animal in the name of sun, moon, stars, and planets, or in the name of Michael, the great captain of the heavenly hosts, renders the same an offering to dead idols” (Ḥul. 40a; ‘Ab. Zarah, 42b).

So which is it? Is this a Jewish heresy or a Christian Gnostic Heresy? Or is this a later gloss by a writer/scribe who wanted to use Paul to attack Gnostics?

We don’t know! We just do not have enough information. But we do know that Paul is warning the Saints to avoid “false teaching” while not elaborating on what that teaching was necessarily.

My quick take on Gnosticism

  1. Lots of Gnostics were teaching doctrines and circulating ideas all over the Roman empire (and beyond!) in the first few centuries – lots! They weren’t all the same.
  2. Common characteristics:
    1. A secret tradition (the 40 day ministry of Jesus)
    2. Dualism – light/dark – powers exist from both spheres
    3. Separate creator from God – called the “Demiurge”
    4. Matter = usually something bad (not always from my reading)
    5. Docetism – this meant that Jesus (in many Gnostic traditions) “seemed” human but was not. This idea comes from the Greek word dokeo – which means “to seem” – Jesus “seemed” human, but according to those who rejected this idea, Jesus only seemed human, something John will challenge in 1-3 John.
  3. Three main branches of Gnostics
    1. Speculative/Theosophic Gnostics – Valentinus
    2. Ascetic Gnostics – super strict- see Marcion. Marcion rejected Old Testament texts and was the one of the first Christians to formulate his own canon, thereby being a catalyst that helped Christians to define canonical texts.
    3. Antinomian Gnostics – “no rules” Gnostics – Nicolatians – see Revelation 2.6-15
  4. Some things the Gnostics have in common with LDS theology
    1. 40 day temple teaching/tradition
    2. Temples and ascension texts
    3. Overcoming the flesh
    4. Premortal life 5
    5. Multiple heavens 6
    6. The importance of coming back into the presence of God
    7. The gospel was introduced even to Adam
    8. Ritual teaching was part of the inner circle of believers
    9. Sacred marriage 7
    10. Marriage that lasted beyond this life/”Beyond the Veil” readings of marriage
    11. Adam and other leaders has premortal roles assigned to them
    12. Many Gnostic texts affirmed that an apostasy was imminent

Philosophy = φιλοσοφίας

Philosophy = Literally the word means “passed down by man.” It is used to express the zeal or skill in art or science, or any branch of knowledge. Used once in the NT of the theology, or rather theosophy, of certain Jewish or Christian ascetics, which busied itself with refined and speculative enquiries into the nature and classes of angels, or into the rituals of the Mosaic law and the regulations of Jewish tradition respecting practical life. Many times this word was used to describe Gnostic ideas or teachings.

So was this written to “put down” Gnosticsm? / The Overall Message of Colossians

We don’t know if Paul was specifically targeting certain Gnostics in this text, but I think he was. There is no scholarly agreement about who these people were that the author of Colossians was attacking. The author attacks false teaching (2.8,16-18,20-23), emphasizes Christ’s role in salvation (1.15-23), commends the saints in Colossae for their goodness (2.5), reissues household codes (3.18-4.1) as seen in other epistles (see Ephesians 5.22-6.9), and encourages the saints to walk in wisdom’s paths (4.5-6).

Notes

  1. Edgar Goodspeed, The Meaning of Ephesians, University of Chicago Press, 1933.
  2. Martin Hengel, “Hymns and Christology,” Between Jesus and Paul (London: SCM, 1983), 78-96; “The Song about Christ in Earliest Worship,” Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 227-91.
  3. Colossians 2.8 translated By William Poehlmann and Robert Karris, Colossians and Philemon: Hermeneia – A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible, Fortress Press, 1971, p. 92.
  4. Poehlmann, p. 98-99.
  5. Apocryphon of James, 10.15–20 (Nag Hammadi Library, 33). Jesus is quoted as saying, “Verily I say unto you, had I been sent to those who listen to me, and had I spoken with them, I would never have come down to earth.” In addition to this statement by Jesus in The Apocryphon of James we read other statements that hint towards the notion of a premortal life. In the Gospel of Thomas we read the following: “The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live.”  Gospel of Thomas, Saying 4 (Nag Hammadi Library, 118). One way to read this text is to understand the idea that this young child who has not yet been circumcised on the eighth day has retained his impression of the “place of life,” meaning, the place where he came from before he came to earth.
  6. Seven heavens is a very common theme in these and other extrabiblical sources. See On the Origin of the World, 104.13–35 (Nag Hammadi Library, 165–66), also Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I.30.5. The notions of seven, three, and ten heavens in Jewish thought are cited with references by Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 5 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1953), 9–11. The Gnostic work The Apocalypse of Paul depicts a ten heaven cosmology. See Gnostic Apocalypse of Paul 20.6-24.8; introduction and translation in G.W. MacRae, W.R. Murdock, and D. Parrot, eds., “The Apocalypse of Paul,” The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 1988, p. 256-259.
  7. Those who have united in the bridal chamber will no longer be separated” (70.19–20 [Nag Hammadi Library, 142]. “The Lord [did] everything in a mystery, a baptism and a chrism [= anointing] and a eucharist and a redemption and a bridal chamber” (Gospel of Philip, 67.27–30 [Nag Hammadi Library, 140]). In Philip’s view, the bridal chamber, where the marriage takes place, is the same as the holy of holies: 69.24–25 (Nag Hammadi Library, 142).

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