Colossians Philemon
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'!'HE CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES THE EPISTLES OF PA UL THE APOSTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS AND TO PHILEMON CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, C. F. CLAY, MANAGER. iLonbon: FETTER LANE, E.C. 8la1gob!: 50, WELLINGTON STREET. l.tlP)h1: F. A. BROCKHAUS. :lll,eb! 11!orlt: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. illumha11 anb etalcutta: MACMILLAN AND co., LTD. [All rigl,ts rmrved.] THE EPISTLES OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO 'THE COLOSSIANS AND TO PHILEMON Edited by H. C. G. MOULE, D.D. Lord Bishop of Durham WI'TH IN'TRODUC'TION AND NOTES CAMBRIDGE: at the University Press 1906 Fii-st Edition 1893. R,jwi11ll'd 1894, 1898, 1902, 1906. PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. THE General Editor of The Cambridge Bible for Schools thinks it right to say that he does not hold himself responsible either for the interpretation of particular passages which the Editors of the several · Books have adopted, or for any opinion on points of doctrine that they may have expressed. In the New Testament more especially questions arise of the deepest theological import, on which the ablest and most conscientious interpreters have differed and always will differ. His aim has been in all such cases to leave each Contributor to the unfettered exercise of his own judgment, only taking care that mere controversy should as far as possible be avoided. He has contented himself chie~y with a careful revision of the notes, with pointing out omissions, with 6 PREFACE. suggesting occasionally a reconsideration of some question, or a fuller treatment of difficult passages, and the like. Beyond this he has not attempted to interfere, feeling it better that each Commentary should have its own individual character, and being convinced that freshness and variety of treatment are more than a compensation for any lack of uniformity in the Series. PREFATORY NOTE. THE Editor takes occasion to express his thanks for valuable assistance given him in the course of his work; particularly to Dr E. C. Clark, Regius Professor of Laws in the University of Cambridge, to the Rev. Dr Sinker, Librarian of Trinity College, and to the Rev. G. A. Schneider, M.A., Vice-Principal of Ridley Hall. Prof. W. M. Ramsay's Church in the Roman Empire was published only when the revised proofs were in the press; the Editor regrets that he was unable to use these Lectures sooner. Prof. Ramsay speaks with the authority of a special student and a geographical explorer on the early history of Christianity in Asia Minor. As a devotional Commentary, the work of the Jansenist Father, Pasquier Quesnel (Le N. T. en Franrois, avec des Rejlexions etc., Paris, 1705), is often quoted in this book. Its short notes are everywhere rich in spiritual suggestion. One critical Exposition has been always before the E<litor; Bishop Lightfoot's Epistles to the Colossians and to P/1i/emo11. Here and there the Editor has ventured to ,,express a doubt, or difference of opinion, regarding some 8 PREFATORY NOTE. detail of the Bishop's work. But every hour's use of the Commentary has deepened his sense of the great Commen tator's infinite diligence, vastness of knowledge, wisdom in its application, luminous clearness of thought and expression, and devout reverence of Christian faith. For the Editor this is no impression left only by the book; for thirty years he knew the admirable man, since the first days of student life at Cambridge, when in Mr Lightfoot's lecture-room, or in his private study, he listened to consummate explanations of Herodotus or LEschylus, and enjoyed the benefit of such a College Tutor's counsels on life and reading. Debts such as these are impossible to calculate, but they must be lovingly and reverently acknowledged, TO yJ.p yipai EUTL Oavavn11v. CAMBRIDGE, May 1893. * * * The page-references to Bishop Lightfoot's Commentary are adjusted to the First Edition, 187 5· CONTENTS. PAGES I. INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS, Chapter I. Colossre and its Neighbouring Churches 11-22 Chapter II. Date and Occasion of the Epistle...... n-30 Chapter III. Alien Teaching at Colossre............ ... 30-37 Chapter IV. Authenticity of the Epistle............... 37-41 Chapter V. The Ephesian Epistle and the Epistle from Laodicea.... ........................ 41-47 Chapter VI. Parallels and other relations between the Colossian and Ephesian Epistles 47-52 Chapter VII. Argument of the Epistle.................. 53-61 II. TEXT AND NOTES. 63--LfS Ill. INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO PHILltMON. Chapter I. Authenticity of the Epistle ............... 147-148 Chapter II. Testimonies to the Epistle ............... 148-152 Chapter III. The Chief Persons of the Epistle ...... 152-154 Chapter IV. Slavery, and the Attitude of Chris- tianity towards it ........................ 154-164 Chapter V. Argument of the Epistle .................. 164-165 IV. TEXT AND Non;;s ............................................. 167-178 V. APPENDICES ................................................... 179-192 VI. INDEX ........................................................... 193-195 JESUS CHRIST is the true God of men, that is to say, of heings miserable and sinful. He is the Centre of everything an<l the Object of everything; and he who does not know Him knows nothing of the order of the world, and nothing of himself. For not only do we not know God otherwise than by Jesus Christ; we do not know ourselves otherwise than by Jesus Christ ... In Him is all our virtue and all our felicity; apart from Him there is nothing but vice, misery, errors, clouds, despair, and we see only obscurity and confusion in the nature of God allll in our own, PASCAL, l'ensles sur la Religion. ALLIED to Thee our vital Head We act, and grow, and thrive; From Thee divided each is dead When most he seems alive. DoDDRIDGE, !Eymn.,founded on Texts in the Holy Scriptures. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. COLOSSJE AND ITS NEIGHBOUR CHURCHES. THREE Churches, or, as we may call them in the language of modern evangelization, three mission-stations, are named in the Epistle to the Colossians, and evidently as standing in close connexion; Colossre, Laodicea, Hierapolis. These towns lay in the great peninsula now called Asia Minor, in a district where Lydia and Phrygia touched and as it were overlapped each other, and which was included by the Romans in a department of proconsular Asia called the Cibyratic Union (conventus Cibyraticus)1• The sites are found about 100 miles east of that of Ephesus, near the 38th parallel of north latitude and midway between the 29th and 30th parallels of east (Green wich) longitude, in a minor valley of the system of the river Mreander, now called the Mendere. The Lycus ("Wolf"), now the Tchoruk Su, rising in the south-east, flows westward through this valley into the larger valley of the Mreander, and passes, not long before the waters meet, Colossre and Laodicea on its left, and Hierapolis, opposite Laodicea, on its right. A space of less than twelve miles divides Colossre from the two other sites, which are about six miles distant from each other; thus the three places are easily accessible in one day's walk. Colossre stood close to the stream ; in fact the waters ran through the town. Laodicea and Hierapolis stood 1 . · The district lies, according to the Turkish division of the peninsula, in the province of Anadoli, in the sanjak or department of Kermian. 12 INTRODUCTION. further back, each on a hill side, Hierapolis on the steep lower buttresses of a true mountain range. In the northern horizon, above this lower rampart, are seen the long ridges of Mess6gis, now called Ak Dagh, "\Vhite Mountain"; in the south towers the snowy pyramid of Baba Dagh, "Father of Mountains," also called Chonas Dagh, the Cadmus of ancient geography 1. The whole region is volcanic, and earthquakes have been frequent throughout its history. Laodicea was ruinously shaken at least four times between ll.C. 125 and A.D. 235; the third shock falling, probably2, in A.D. 65, a few years later than the writing of the Colossian Epistle, and striking all three towns. As late as 1720, 12,000 people perished in a great convulsion of the region. Less than thirty miles north of the valley of the Lycus is a vast district, anciently called Catacecaumene, Burnt-up Land; it still presents a scene of blackened desola tion, as after a recent eruption of volcanos. \ The rocks of at least part of the Lycus valley are calcareous, of the formation called travertine. In such a bed, flowing water rapid! y lays a stony deposit, almost snowy white; and accord ingly the country is sprinkled with glacier-like streams and cataracts of limestone. These are especially remarkable at the site of Hierapolis; the Rev. S. C. Malan's sketch in The New Testament 1ltustrated (ii. 2 54), shews the steps of the mountain side almost covered with solid white cascades. The pastures of the valley are rich, especially on the side of Colossre and Laodicea, and the breed of sheep was excellent; their wool, according to one account, was naturally dyed a glossy black by the minerals in the waters. The artificial dyes of Colossre and Laodicea were famous, as were those of 3 their provincial neighbour Thyatira, Lydia's city • 1 See for an engraved general view of the Lycus valley, Churton and Jones'sNew Testammt ltlustrated(1865), vol. ii. p. 'l46. The accuracy of the sketch is warranted by the name of the artist, the Rev. S. C. Malan. On the topography of the valley see the recent work (1893) of Prof. Ramsay, The Churcli in the Roman Empire, PP· 468 etc. A large local map is inserted opposite p. 471. · 2 Lightfoot, Colossia,is, p.