At this time Epaphras comes to Rome and brings him a report from Colossæ. He spoke of their Christian faith, and love, and hope; but he also spoke of much which pained the Apostle's tender heart, and roused his jealousy for the pure faith of Christ. Some time appears to have elapsed after the receipt of this report before St. Paul wrote the epistle. This seems implied in the expression, 'Since the day we heard it, we do not cease to pray for you,' in ch. i. 9. Probably he waited till near the time when Tychicus, whom he sent with the letter, was ready to depart.

Having thus in some measure cleared the ground of preliminary matter, we may proceed to the consideration of the epistle itself.

St. Paul begins with the usual apostolic salutation, associating with himself Timothy, as he had done Silvanus and Timothy in his Epistle to the Thessalonians, Sosthenes in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, and Timothy in his second. The object of the Apostle in this has never been quite understood. Possibly it may have been with a view to carry out the general principle, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word should

be established; and then, within the limits of this, there may have been special motives, at present unknown to us, for the selection of the particular associates on each occasion. They seldom appear or are thought of again after the first mention; and even where St. Paul uses the plural number, 'we,' he is usually speaking not of himself and his associates, but of himself only.

Having thus opened his Epistle, he proceeds, also after his usual manner, to congratulate the Colossians on the report, which Epaphras had brought, of their faith, and love, and hope. With his thanksgiving for this, he gradually and delicately interweaves his prayer for their further advance in knowledge and practice; and then almost imperceptibly approaches the great subject of their error and his anxiety. Admirable indeed is the way in which, through the long sentence extending from ch. i. 9 to ch. i. 20, the figure of our glorified Lord is made slowly to rise upon the mind's eye in all its love and majesty; care being taken meantime that every separate clause should do its own work in affirming His truth and impugning their error. St. Paul uses the very terms which they had adopted for their vain imagina

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tions as in the case of the word rendered 'fulness' in ch. i. 19, which is the 'pleroma' of the Gnostic heretics; he overthrows by anticipation their practice of angel-worship by maintaining the absolute and exclusive pre-eminence of Christ over all created beings, and that through the blood of His cross. His blood has made peace; and in that peace they who were once God's enemies are included, provided they continue grounded in the faith, and are not moved away from it. To this end he, the Apostle, is labouring, carrying on, in his work for Christ, the afflictions of Christ to their completion, according to the stewardship of the mystery entrusted to him, which was Christ among them, the hope of the glory to come.

Now, with chap. ii., he approaches nearer to the point concerning which he is at issue with them. His object is, that they who had not seen his face in the flesh (which circumstance seems to increase his responsibility and anxiety) might attain to the thorough knowledge of the mystery of God (see corrections at end). And now appears, what must have been for some time in the mind of an intelligent reader, the motive for his writing this. It is because some one (it would appear from the form

of this sentence, as if it had been an individual false teacher) had been endeavouring to lead them captive through his philosophy and vain deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to Christ. And then their completeness in Him is again insisted on its past assurances to them in their baptism, which superseded the necessity of that Jewish ordinance into which they were again retreating back, by burying them and raising them again with Him in that living union which it symbolized. And thus, when He suffered on His cross, He blotted out, by fulfilling, all ordinances which were enacted against us; God thus, as it were, divesting Himself of that ministration of angels by which the law was brought in, exalting His Son above them, and in His Person triumphing over them (see corrections of rendering in ch. ii. 15). What then was the result? Why, this. They were to assert their Christian liberty, as being thus complete in Christ. They were to let no man domineer over them and prescribe to them as to the keeping of days, whether feasts, or newmoons, or sabbaths: all these belonged to the old law; between one part of it and another there was

no distinction: all these, sabbaths as well as newmoons and feast days, were but shadows of things then to come, which things were now come: the body which cast this shadow before it, being Christ. To the same false teacher belonged the scheme for defrauding them of their Christian prize by degrading them into worshipping of the holy angels, dwelling on the evidence of visions (see corrections, ch. ii. 18), and self-conceited, because not holding, and therefore not deriving strength from, the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. This submission of theirs to be prescribed to by men is then further stigmatized. If they died to the world with Christ, why did they allow themselves to be debarred from the use of those things which Christ has cleansed for us, as though they were living in the world? Why did they tamely submit to commands not to touch, not to taste, not to handle? Why did they submit to prohibitions against marriage, and commands to abstain from meats? Such things are not of the essence of our spiritual life, but belong merely to this perishable condition, and will vanish with it: and these meddling and petty ordinances about them serve to exalt pretended doctors and teachers into