Bibliotheca
Sacra 141 (Jan. 1984) 195-208.
Copyright © 1984 by
Colossian
Problems
Part 3:
The Colossian Heresy
F. F. Bruce
A
Human Tradition
By "the Colossian heresy"
is meant the "philosophy and
empty deceit" against which the Colossian
Christians are put on
their guard in Colossians 2:8. Did this
"philosophy and empty
deceit" denote some specific form of false
teaching which was
finding acceptance at
warned against certain ideas which were "in the
air" at the time
and which its members might conceivably find
attractive if ever
they were exposed to them?
Perhaps one need not ask these
questions if Morna Hooker,
in whose eyes not even the most
"assured" result of biblical study
is sacrosanct, had not ventilated it 10 years ago
in a paper
entitled "Were There False Teachers in
return a dogmatic "no" to her own question,
but suggested that
the data could be accounted for if Paul was
guarding his readers
against the pressures of contemporary society
with its prevalent
superstitions, more or less as a
preacher today might feel it
necessary to remind his congregation that Christ
is greater than
any astrological forces.1 Paul's
language, however, points to a
rather specific line of teaching against which his
readers are
warned, and the most natural reason for warning those
readers
against it would be that they were liable to be
persuaded by it. So
to Hooker's question this writer is disposed to
give the answer,
"Yes,
there were false teachers in
195
196 Bibliotheca Sacra — July-September 1984
The only source of information about
their false teaching is
the Epistle to the Colossians itself. Paul does not
give a detailed
account of it, because his readers were
presumably familiar with
it already; he contented himself with pointing out
some of its
defects and assessing its character in the light
of the gospel.
Some scholars suggest that Paul's
polemic was not always
well informed, that he was prone to misunderstand
the positions
he attacked. The implication is that those modern
scholars who
charge him with misunderstanding are better informed
than he
was about this or that position which he attacks,
whether it be
the Corinthian disbelief in future resurrection or
the Galatian
reliance on works of a certain kind as the ground
of their
justification.2 On this it can simply be
said that even those schol-
ars are dependent on what
Paul says about the controverted
positions. So if he was misinformed, no more
trustworthy source
of information is available. So far as the
Colossian heresy is
concerned, it may be assumed that Epaphras (or whoever Paul's
informant was) brought an accurate account of it,
and that Paul
himself was well enough acquainted with current
trends of
thought to grasp its essential character.
This "philosophy and empty
deceit," then, is said by Paul to
follow "the tradition of men, according to the
elementary princi-
ples of the world, rather
than according to Christ" (Col. 2:8). The
Colossian
Christians, it seems, had at one time been subject to
those "elemental forces," those stoixei?a, but through union with
Christ
by faith they had "died" in relation to those forces and so
were no longer bound to obey them (Col. 2:20). The
"elemental
forces" play much the same part here as they do
in the argument
of Galatians 4:3, 9, where Christians (whether
Jewish or Gentile
by birth) who submit to circumcision and similar
requirements
of the Jewish Law are described as reverting to
slavery under the
"elemental forces." So, according to Paul's present
argument
with the Colossians, submission to the prohibitions
"Do not
handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" (Col. 2:21) involves
re-entry
into the state of bondage from which believers in
Christ have
been delivered by Him.
The context makes it clear that
these prohibitions refer to
things that are ethically neutral, not to things that
are inherently
sinful. Food, according to Paul, is ethically neutral,3 and "Do not
handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" is a vivid
way of denoting
various kinds of food restrictions. Voluntary
self-denial in mat-
ters of food can be a
helpful spiritual exercise, and may on
The Colossian Heresy 197
occasion be recommended by considerations of
Christian char-
ity; but what is deprecated
here is a form of asceticism for asceti-
cism's sake, cultivated as
religious obligation. Its association
with angel worship (Col. 2:18) — whether that means
worship
offered to
angels or by angels — and with
"would-be religion"
(Col.
2:23), if that is what e]qeloqrhskei<a means, might provide
further help in the identification of its nature
and purpose.
But the chief help is probably
provided by the reference to
"festival or new moon or a Sabbath day" (Col. 2:16).
Festivals and
new moons were observed by non-Jews as well as
Jews, but
Sabbaths
were distinctively Jewish. As the Galatians' observance
of "days and months and seasons and
years" was a sign of their
renewed and untimely subjection to the elemental
forces which
they had served before their conversion (Gal.
4:9-10), the same
could be said of their fellow-Christians in
else) if they allowed themselves to be dictated to
in matters like a
"festival or new moon or a Sabbath day."
Another Jewish reference might be
recognized in Colossians
2:11,
where the inward purification symbolized by Christian
baptism is called "a circumcision made
without hands" — prob-
ably in deliberate contrast to Jewish circumcision.
Possible Affinities
When an attempt is made by means of
such indications to
reconstruct the outlines of the CoIossian
heresy, one is prompted
to ask if the reconstruction bears any resemblance
to systems of
thought of which something is known.
Calvin showed the acuteness of his
well-informed mind in
identifying the false teachers as Jews — but Jews of
a speculative
tendency, who "invented an access to God
through the angels,
and put forth many speculations of that nature,
such as are
contained in the books of Dionysius on the Celestial Hierarchy,
drawn from the school of the Platonists." By
Platonists he meant
what are today called Neoplatonists,
although Pseudo-Dionysius
developed his thought along lines which set him
apart from the
general run of Neoplatonists
as much as of Platonists.4 His "celes-
tial hierarchy"
comprised nine orders of angels, by whose media-
tion God ordained that human
beings should be raised to closer
communion with Himself.5
Pseudo-Dionysius' presentation of
this scheme reflects a much later outlook than that
of the first
century, but the idea of a gradation of
intermediaries which he
198
Bibliotheca Sacra — July-September
1984
elaborated certainly seems to have been present in
the Colossian
heresy.
In more recent times scholars have
tended to see Pythago-
rean rather than Platonic
influence here. In 1970 Eduard
Schweizer found analogies to the Colossian heresy
in a
Neopythagorean document of the first
century B.C., in which he
recognized the concentration of all the themes of
the heresy with
the exception of Sabbath observance. Sabbath
observance in
Neopythagoreanism in which a central
place was given to the
purification of the soul from
everything earthly and to its ascent
to the upper ether, the dwelling-place of Christ.6
(One of the
themes of the Neopythagorean
text sexual abstinence, is not
explicitly included among the data of Colossians,
but one would
expect it to be understood along with the other forms
of asceti-
cism indicated.)
Others have sought to see the origin
of the heresy in the
Iranian
redemption myth, the outlines of which were recon-
structed by Reitzenstein
in 1921.7 In his Iranische Erlosungs-
mysterium Reitzenstein
indeed cited various passages in Colos-
sians to illustrate his
reconstruction, but with the passage of
years it has become increasingly evident that the Erlosungsmys-
terium was more his invention
than his reconstruction.
In a careful study published as long
ago as 1917, but first
accessible in an English translation in 1975, Dibelius traced
detailed resemblances to the Colossian heresy in
the record of
initiation into the
phoses of the second-century
Latin writer Apuleius of Madaura.8
He
did not conclude, of course, that it was initiation into the
mysteries that was attracting the Colossian
Christians, but he
did bring out a number of interesting analogies.
What these
analogies amount to is simply this: no matter into
what mystic
cult or secret society people were initiated, there
was a generic
likeness between the various initiatory actions
or terminology.
But did initiation, in this sense of
the word, play a part in the
Colossian heresy? One phrase in
particular has been thought to
show that it did. That is found in Colossians 2:18,
where Paul
described someone who professes an advanced degree
of spir-
ituality as "taking his
stand on visions" or as trusting in "the
things which he has seen at his initiation"
however a{ e[o<raken
e]mbateu<wn
is to be translated. At one time this phrase was
thought to be so difficult that conjectural
emendations were
The Colossian Heresy 199
favored; but in 1912 and 1913 Dibelius and Sir William Ramsay,
almost simultaneously, concluded that the verb e]mbateu<w here
bore a sense which it had been discovered to bear in
inscriptions
from the
Ephesus.9
In these inscriptions it apparently signifies not the
initiation itself but the next stage, the
initiate's entrance into the
sacred area in order to see the mysteries, which,
however, could
well be described in more general terms as "the
things which he
has seen at his initiation."10 The readers would readily catch the
suggestion that the person alluded to had formally
entered on his
higher experience like someone being admitted to
secret rites
(from which the uninitiated were excluded) and was now
appeal-
ing to that superior
enlightenment in support of his teaching.
Gnostic and Essene
Traces
Some of the Gnostic movements of the
second century in-
volved a kind of initiation
(the Naassenes, e.g.11) and it is easy to
categorize the Colossian heresy as a first-century
form of "incip-
ient Gnosticism." It is
not so easy, however, to relate it to any of
the particular forms of developed Gnosticism known
today from
Irenaeus and Hippolytus
or more recently from the Nag Hammadi
texts. As suggested in the second article in this
series,12 perhaps
the Christological use of the noun plh<rwma in Colossians was
designed to refute Gnostic ideas associated with
that term in the
heresy, but even if that were so, this does not give
much help in
ascertaining what those Gnostic
ideas were.
Nothing would be extraordinary in a
system of incipient
Gnosticism
expanding in such a way as to make room for Chris-
tian elements within itself.
An analogy to such an expansion has
been detected in the relationship of two of the Nag Hammadi
texts Eugnostos the Blessed
and The Sophia of Jesus Christ.
Eugnostos is a didactic letter
addressed by a teacher to his dis-
ciples; the Sophia is a revelatory discourse delivered
by the risen
Christ
to His followers. While Eugnostos
has no explicit Chris-
tian content, its substance
is incorporated in the Sophia and
Christianized
by means of expansions adapted to its new
setting.13
But Gnosticism and even incipient
Gnosticism must be de-
fined before they can be used intelligently in such a
discussion. A
suitable definition of Gnosticism was proposed by
Scholem. It is
suitable in that he had in mind especially what
he called "Jewish
200
Bibliotheca Sacra — July-September
1984
Gnosticism." He defined Gnosticism
as a "religious movement
that proclaimed a mystical esotericism for the elect
based on
illumination and the acquisition of
a higher knowledge of things
heavenly and divine," the higher knowledge
being "soteric" as
well as “esoteric.”14
Some circles in Paul's mission field
set much store by knowl-
edge in the sense of intellectual attainment. To
discourage such
attitudes he told the Corinthians that, by
contrast with the
upbuilding power of love, knowledge
merely inflates: "If any one
supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet
known as he
ought to know" (1 Cor.
8:1-2). Socrates commented that the
Delphic
oracle, in calling him the wisest of men, must have
meant that he knew that he did not know, whereas
others equally
did not know but thought they knew.15 But when knowledge was
cultivated for its own sake, as it was in the
can be appreciated "into how congenial a soil
the seeds of Gnos-
ticism were about to
fall."16
As has been said, the Colossian
heresy was basically Jewish.
Yet
the straightforward Judaizing legalism of Galatians
was not
envisaged in Colossians. Instead it was a form of
mysticism
which tempted its adepts to look on themselves as a
spiritual
elite.
Certainly movements within Judaism
cultivated higher
knowledge. Those who were caught up in such
movements were
unlikely to remain immune to contemporary trends
like incip-
ient Gnosticism and Neopythagoreanism. One body of Jews
which laid claim to higher knowledge and special
revelation was
the Essene order.
Lightfoot, with characteristic acumen, dis-
cerned elements of Essenism in the Colossian heresy; indeed, his
three discourses "On Some Points Connected with
the Essenes"
appended to his commentary on Colossians, written
over 100
years ago,17 provided one of the most
reliable accounts of the
Essenes until the discovery of the
identification of the community which
produced them as being
at least a branch of the Essene
order (an identification which
may now be regarded as well established). But if
the
document the Essene
order from within, one can see more clearly
the kind of knowledge that was cultivated there.
Repeatedly the
members of the
been initiated into his "wonderful
mysteries" which remain con-
cealed from the uninstructed
majority.18 But in doing so the
initiates seem to have in mind the insight they
enjoyed into God's
The Colossian
Heresy 201
secret purpose and the epoch of its fulfillment. His
purpose had
been communicated to the prophets of earlier days,
but many of
its details remained in obscurity until the time of
fulfillment
approached. The time of fulfillment was now
approaching, they
believed; this had been revealed to the Teacher
of Righteousness,
together with other details of the interpretation
of the prophetic
oracles, and what was revealed to him he
imparted to his
followers.19 With regard to these
mysteries Daniel had been told,
"None
of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight
will understand" (Dan. 12:10); the Teacher and
his disciples
believed that they were "the wise" (the
MyliKiW;ma. ) to whom this
promise was made good.20
There are parallels to this here and
there in the New
Testament, 21 but not in the
references to the Colossian heresy. It
is unlikely that the
associate members, among the Jews of Phrygia; to
follow any-
thing like the
have been difficult indeed. But the
wider Essene order of which
it was apparently a branch, repre-
sented a phase of a far-flung
tendency sometimes called Jewish
nonconformity.22 This tendency is attested as far west as
some features of Jewish practice in that city were
markedly
"nonconformist in character, and persisted in later
generations
in Roman Christianity.23
To look to movements within Judaism
for the source of the
Colossian
heresy is a wiser procedure than to postulate direct
influences from Iranian or Greek culture. Some
religious syncre-
tism was no doubt present in
the Jewish communities of
but some of the features of the Colossian heresy
that have been
thought to point to syncretism are in fact
features that tend to be
common to mystical experiences, regardless of the
religious tradi-
tion within which they
occur. And not only in Jewish noncon-
formity but in what was to
establish itself as the mainstream of
Rabbinical
Judaism there was present as early as the first cen-
tury B.C. a form of
religious mysticism which was destined to
endure for centuries.
Merkabah
Mysticism
This is commonly called merkabah
mysticism, because of
the place which it gave to religious exercises
designed to facilitate
entry into the vision of the heavenly chariot (hbAKAr;m,), with
202 Bibliotheca Sacra — July-September 1984
God
visibly enthroned above it the vision granted to Ezekiel
when he was called to his prophetic ministry (Ezek.
1:15-28).24
For
the gaining of such a vision, punctilious observance of the
minutiae of the Mosaic Law,
especially the law of purification,
was essential. Moreover, in addition to what the
Law required of
every pious Jew, a period of asceticism, variously
estimated to be
12
or 40 days, was a necessary preparation. Then when the
heavenly ascent was attempted the mediatorial role of angels was
indispensable. It was important
therefore not to incur their hos-
tility, for the ascent was
attended by great perils.
Rabbinical tradition includes a
well-known account of the
privilege of entering paradise once granted to
Rabbi Aqiba and
three of his colleagues. Aqiba
was the only one of the four to
return unscathed. Of the others, one died, one went
mad, and one
committed apostasy.25 The apostasy of Elisha ben Abuyah
per-
haps illustrated the dangers of the mystical ascent
even more
than what befell his two companions: even for one
who came
through physically unharmed there was the risk
of being so
unbalanced by the experience that one could no
longer distin-
guish truth from error. Nor
is this surprising: it is true to this day
that people who have mystical experiences tend to
attach more
importance to what they saw or heard in they course
of such an
experience than to the sober truth of the Word of
God.
In this context it is impossible to
forget that Paul himself
once had a mystical experience of this kind, when he
was caught
away into paradise (2 Cor.
12:2-9). So far as can be judged from
his account, the experience came to him unsought
with no
ascetic preparation. He could not and dared not
divulge what he
heard on that occasion. The accounts of Paul's
conversion have
echoes of Ezekiel's inaugural vision26 but (quite apart from
chronological difficulties) Paul's
experience cannot be identified
with his conversion experience. He was quite ready
to tell what he
heard on the
be His apostle to the Gentile world. But for the
rest of Paul's life he
carried with him a memento of his ascent into
paradise in the
form of a humiliating and recurring "thorn in
the flesh" (2 Cor.
12:7).
Paul learned to accept this physical affliction, whatever its
precise nature, as a prophylactic against the
spiritual pride that
was prone to beset those who had made the heavenly
ascent. If
ever he was tempted to rely on the "abundance
of revelations"
received then, the thorn in the flesh would
remind him to rely on
the Lord alone, apart from whose grace he would be
useless.
The Colossian
Heresy 203
The risk of excessive elation from
which Paul experienced
such a painful deliverance maybe related to the
terms in which he
describes the self-reliant adept in Colossians
2:18, as "inflated
without cause by his fleshly mind."
Merkabah mysticism, according to Gershom Scholem, the
leading 20th-century authority on the subject,
was originally "a
Jewish
variation on one of the chief preoccupations of the second
and third century gnostics
and hermetics: the ascent of the soul
from the earth, through the spheres of the hostile
planet-angels
and rulers of the cosmos, and its return to its
divine home in the
‘fullness’ of God's light, a return which, to the Gnostic's
mind,
signified Redemption."27
Recalling Scholem's
definition of
Gnosticism,
already quoted, merkabah
mysticism could well be
described, in his words, as "Jewish
Gnosticism." The throne-
world into which the merkabah mystic endeavored to
enter was
to him "what the pleroma, the ‘fullness,’ the
bright sphere of
divinity with its potencies, aeons,
archons, and dominions is to
the Hellenistic and early Christian mystics of the
period who
appear in the history of religion under the names of
Gnostics and
Hermetics."28
Perhaps the earliest description of
the heavenly ascent in the
literature of this mystical tradition is found in 1
Enoch 14:8-23,
belonging probably to the early first century B.C.
Here Enoch
describes his upward flight to the dwelling place
of God, the "great
Glory"
seated on the chariot-throne, attended by the cherubim.
His
description is based partly on Ezekiel's account of his
inaugural vision and partly on Daniel's vision of
"the Ancient of
Days"
(Dan. 7:9-10).
As time went on the details were
elaborated. Enoch speaks of
two celestial houses, the throne-room of God being
situated in
the second and higher of the two; but later
descriptions of the
ascent speak of the seven heavens which have to be
passed
through, each controlled by its archon, while
within the seventh
heaven itself the mystic must pass through seven halls
or palaces
(hekaloth),
each with its angelic gatekeeper.29 Only after these
had all been safely negotiated was it possible to
see the throne of
glory. Before the throne of glory stood the angels of
the presence,
singing the praise of God; to participate in
their worship and
repeat their hymns was a privilege highly valued by
those who
completed the ascent. This is certainly part at
least of what is
involved in the "worship of angels" (qrhskei<a tw?n a]gge<lwn,
Col.
2:18). That the genitive (tw?n a]gge<lwn)
is subjective is
204 Bibliotheca
Sacra — July-September 1984
maintained among others, by F. O. Francis and A. J.
Bandstra:
sharing in the angelic liturgy, they hold, is
what is meant.30 But,
high as this privilege may be, nothing in it is
reprehensible;
otherwise the Christian church would be at fault
for taking over
the Trisagion ("Holy, Holy, Holy") from the seraphim
whose words
made such an impression on Isaiah. It is not
improbable that in
the Colossian heresy some tribute of worship was
paid to the
angelic powers.
It cannot be proved that merkabah
mysticism was cultivated
by some and recommended to others in the Christian
communi-
ties of the
in Colossians 2:18 appears to have been of the
same character as
the experience which the merkabah mystics sought. And if
their
system had the slightest tendency to syncretism, it
was almost
inevitable that the seven heavens under their
respective archons,
or the seven palaces guarded by their respective
gatekeepers,
should be correlated with the seven planetary spheres
ruled by
their respective lords. Those who passed through the
realms
where such powers held sway would be careful not to
offend them;
otherwise they would be hindered in the completion
of their
upward journey, or else impeded in their return to
earth.
The
Elements of the World
When the lords of the planetary
spheres are mentioned, the
question is naturally raised, is there possibly a
relationship be-
tween them and the stoixei?a or elemental forces against which
Paul
warns his readers (Col. 2:8, 20; cf. Gal. 4:3, 9)? The use of
the term stoixei?a with regard to heavenly
bodies is not otherwise
attested before the second-century Diogenes Laertius, who seems
to use it of the signs of the zodiac.31
But if regard be paid to the
context in which the term appears in the Pauline
writings, one
can see why Nock said that "in the stoixei?a Jewish and planetary
ideas meet.”32 He pointed out an analogy between
bondage to the
stoixei?a, against which the Galatian and Colossian churches are
warned, and bondage to the planetary powers, in other
words, to
fate. From these powers, according to the first Poimandres trac-
tate in the Corpus Hermeticum,
human beings can escape by
receiving the knowledge of the truth.33
However, quite apart from such an
analogy (which does not
amount to an identity), the Pauline context
(especially in Gal.
4:9-10)
suggests a close connection between bondage to the
The Colossian
Heresy 205
stoixei?a and the observance of
"days and months and seasons
and years" as matters of religious obligation.
These divisions of
time, according to Genesis 1:14, were regulated by
the lights
placed by God "in the firmament of the
heaven" (the sun and
moon were the two principal planets in ancient
reckoning of
time). But when these lights,
or the forces believed to control
them, were given independent status, and the
calendar which
they controlled was treated as a binding element in
divine
worship, then the allegiance due to the Creator
alone was in
danger of being paid to His creatures. Of course Paul
did not
think there were such beings as lords of the
planetary spheres,
but he knew that to those who believed in them they
could
become enslaving forces, just as an idol, which was
"nothing in
the world" to a believer in the living and
true God, could neverthe-
less be an instrument of demonic oppression to
pagans (1 Cor.
8:4,
7; 10:19-21). Such enslaving forces might well be numbered
among the stoixei?a of the world, from
which the gospel liberated
the souls of men and women.
Some people today, as then, love to
make a parade of excep-
tional piety. They claim to
have found the way to a higher plane of
spiritual experience, as though they had been
initiated into
sacred mysteries which give them an almost infinite
advantage
over the uninitiated. Others are all too prone to be
impressed by
such people. But Paul warns them against being
misled by such
lofty claims. Those who make them, for all their
lofty pretensions,
for all their boasting of the special insight which
they have
received into divine reality, are simply inflated
by unspiritual
pride and are out of touch with Him who is the true
Head and
Fount of life and knowledge.
If people practice various forms of
abstinence and find their
spiritual health improved thereby, that is their
own responsibil-
ity. But if they make their
abstinence a matter of boasting, and if
they try to impose it on others, they are wrong. As
for those who
draw public attention to their abstinence so as to
gain some
measure of veneration, they must learn that
there is no necessary
connection between such impressive asceticism and
the true
humility of Christ. By contrast with the
spiritual service which
the gospel enjoins in conformity with the will of
God, which is
"good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:2), this
would-be
religion is a "self-made cult," as Deissmann rendered it,34 or a
"faked religion," as H. N. Bate put it.35
The compound e]qeloqrhskei<a implies that those who prac-
206
Bibliotheca Sacra — July-September
1984
ticed it thought they were
presenting to God something over and
above His basic requirements — a supererogatory
devotion by
which they hoped to acquire merit in His sight. But
far from
being of any avail against the indulgence of the
"flesh," as its
proponents claimed, it could coexist with arrogant
self-conceit,
making it difficult for those who accepted it to
acknowledge that
before God they were sinners in need of His saving
grace. When
they commended harsh treatment of the body as a
specific
against fleshly indulgence, they thought in
terms of a Platonic
antithesis between body and soul. But this is not
Paul's point of
view. When he speaks of severity to the body he means the body
in its ordinary sense, but when he refers to
"indulgence of the
flesh," he means
unregenerate human nature in its rebellion
against God. A chief ingredient in that
rebellion is the proud
spirit of self-sufficiency which has nothing to do
with the body in
the ordinary sense, but springs from the will. The
asceticism
recommended by the false teachers at
ticular indulgence of the
"flesh" instead of starving it; hence the
need of spiritual transformation which Paul insists
is by "the
renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:2).
Notes
1 Morna D. Hooker. Were There False
Teachers in
Spirit in the New
Testament,
eds. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley (
2
Cf. W. Schmithals, Gnosticism in
don Press. 1971). pp. 261-66: Paul and the Gnostics. trans. J. E. Steely
(
Abingdon
Press. 1972). p. 18: and W. Marxsen. Introduction to the New
Testament.
trans. G. Buswell (Oxford:
Blackwell. 1968), pp. 55, 58.
3
Cf. 1 Corinthians 8:8.
4 John Calvin. The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the
Galatians. Ephesians.
Philippians and
Colossians
(1549).
trans. 'F. H. L. Parker (
Boyd.
1965). pp. 297-98.
5
Pseudo-Dionysius Celestial Hierarchy 1.1.
6 Eduard Schweizer. "Die'Elemente
der Welt' Gal 4. 3. 9:
Veritas. O. Bocher
and K. Haacker. eds. (WuppertaLBrockhaus. 1970). pp. 245-59.
7 Richard Reitzenstein. Das iranische Erlosungsmysterium
(
Weber. 1921).
8 Martin Dibelius. "The
(1917). in Conflict
at
Scholars Press, 1975). pp. 61-121.
9 Martin Dibelius. An die Kolosser (Tubingen:
Mohr. 1912). on Colossians 2:18:
William
M. Ramsay. "Ancient Mysteries and Their Relation to
January
25. 1913. pp. 106-7: idem. The Teaching
of Paul in Terms of the Present
Day (London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1913). pp. 286-304.
10
The classical sense of e]mbateu<w is
"investigate": if that be the sense here, then
The
Colossian Heresy 207
the majority reading a{ mh> e[w<raken e]mbateu<wn ("investigating
what he has not seen") is
apposite.
11
Cf. Hippolytus Refutation of Heresies
5.8.4.
12
F. F. Bruce, "The 'Christ Hymn' of Colossians 1:15-20," part 2 of
Colossian
Problems,
Bibliotheca Sacra 141 (April–June
1984): 99-111.
13
These two treatises, in D. M. Parrott's English translation, are set
conveniently
in parallel columns in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed.
J. M. Robinson
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), pp. 206-28; the Christian
expansions in the Sophia are
thus easily recognized. Cf. M. Krause, "The
Christianization of Gnostic Texts," in
The New Testament and
Gnosis,
eds. A. J. M. Wedderburn and A. H. B. Logan
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983).
14
Gershom G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah
Mysticism, and Tal-
mudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of
America. 1960), p. 1.
15 Plato Apology
of Socrates 21A-23B.
16
R. Law, The Tests of Life. 3d ed. (Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1914), p. 28.
17
J. B. Lightfoot,
Macmillan
& Co., 1879), pp. 347-419, reprinted in his Dissertations on the Apostolic
Age
(London: Macmillan & Co., 1892), pp. 323-407.
18 1QH 2.13. etc.
19
1QPHab 7.1-5 (on Hab. 2:3); CD 1.11-12.
20 1QH 12.11-12.
21
Cf. 1 Peter 1:10-12.
22
Cf. M. Black, The Scrolls and Christian Origins (
1961),
pp. 75-88. 164-72. See also Edwin M. Yamauchi, "
Bibliotheca Sacra 121 (April–June 1964):
141-52.
23
Cf. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky,
"On the Baptismal Rite according to St. Hippolytus,
Studia Patristica 2 = Texte and Untersuchungen
64 (1957): 93-105.
24
In addition to the work cited in note 14 cf. Gershom
G. Scholem. Major
Trends
in Jewish Mysticism, 5th ed. (New York: Schocken
Books, 1971), pp. 39-78: "Merka-
bah Mysticism," Encyclopaedia Judaica 11 (Jerusalem: n.p., 1971), cols. 1386-89.
For
the importance of this element in the thought-world of early Christianity, see
C.
Rowland, The Open Heaven (London: SPCK, 1982).
25 Tos. Hagigah 2.3-4: TB Hagigah 14b: TJ Hagigah 77b; Song of Songs
Rabba 1.4.
26
Cf. Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel (
Publishing
Co., 1982), pp. 206-23.
27
Scholem, Major
Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 48.
28
Ibid., p. 43.
29
From these "palaces" some of the principal mystical treatises receive
their
names: the Lesser Hekhaloth;
the Greater Hekhaloth
(edited with an English
translation by H. Odeberg:
3 Enoch or The Hebrew Book of Enoch (
tion by A. Wunsche in Aus Israels Lehrhallen [
30
F. O. Francis, "Humility and Angel Worship in Col. 2:18," in Conflict at Colos-
sae,
pp. 176-81; A. J. Bandstra, "Did the Colossian Errorists Need a Mediator?" in
New Dimensions in New
Testament Study. eds.
Richard N. Longenecker and
Merrill
C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House,
1974), pp. 329-43.
From
Qumran and
the theme, "Praise God, all ye angels,"
and exhorts the angels, under many names, to
offer various forms of worship to God. The
exhortation formed part of the liturgy of
the burnt offering Sabbath by Sabbath throughout
the year: the liturgy of the people
of God on earth was designed to reproduce that
presented to Him on high by the
heavenly host. See J. Strugnell,
"The Angelic Liturgy at
208
Bibliotheca Sacra — July-September
1984
Hassabbat," Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960),
pp.
318-45.
31
Diogenes Laertius Lives
of Philosophers 6.102 (going back to a first-century
source).
32 A. D. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background (New
33 Corpus Hermeticum 1.15.19-26.
34
Adolf Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious
History, trans. W. E.
logikh>
latrei<a of Romans 12:1.
35
H. N. Bate, A Guide to the Epistles of
1926),
p. 143.
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