Against, e.g., Lohse, pp. 3f.; Schweizer, p. 15.
See, recently, O’Brien, pp. xli–xlix
Further details in F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit (in the U.S. Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free) (Paternoster/Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 407ff.; O’Brien, pp. xxvif.
See O’Brien, pp. xxviiif., citing Moule, p. 29.
For all this, see now the full treatment in H. Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, Eng. Tr. (Fortress, 1982), vol. 1, pp. 164–203.
For Laodicea, see O’Brien, p. xxvii; for Rome, see G. La Piana, ‘Foreign Groups in Rome During the First Centuries of the Empire’, Harvard Theological Review 20, 1927, pp. 183–403.
See the surveys in F. O. Francis and W. Meeks, eds., Conflict at Colosse (SBL/Scholars’ Press, 1975); O’Brien, pp. xxx–xli; Schweizer (who takes the ‘Pythagorean’ view), pp. 125–134. Schweizer is wrong, incidentally, when he says that Caird ‘posits a Jewish-Stoic movement’ (p. 126, n. 1); Caird (pp. 163f) discusses this possibility but does not recommend it.
See E. Schweizer, ‘Zur neueren Forschung am Kolosserbrief (seit 1970)’ in Theologische Berichte 5, eds. J. Pfammatter and F. Furger (Zürich, 1976), pp. 163–191, here at p. 174; O’Brien, p.xxxi; Gnilka, pp. 163f.
See M. D. Hooker, ‘Were there False Teachers in Colossae?’ in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: In Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule, eds. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley (CUP, 1973), pp. 315–331.
O’Brien, p. 96, citing Isa. 33:5–6; 1 Baruch 3:15–4:1; Ecclus 24:23 (this should perhaps have read 24:1–23); 2 Baruch 44:14; 54:13; and secondary literature.
See further F. O. Francis, ‘Humility and Angelic Worship in Col. 2:18’, Studia Theologica 16, 1962, pp. 109–134; C. C. Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (SPCK/Crossroad, 1982), especially ch. 4. Rowland (p. 409) cites Col. 2:16ff. as ‘evidence of a considerable degree of Jewish influence on the beliefs and practices of Christian communities in Asia Minor’.
Philo de Somn. 2:127; Leg. ad Gai. 156, 245; De Mut. Nom. 223; Omn. Prob. Lib. 88; Jos. Bell. 2:119; Ant. 18:11. See also 4 Macc. 1:1; 5:10, 5:22; 7:7–9; and compare Schweizer, p. 136, n. 8.
See above, p.25, n. 7. This criticism applies particularly to the elaborate theories of Martin and Schweizer. For discussion of the view of G. Bornkamm see Gnilka, pp. 165f.
See Hooker, ‘Were there False Teachers in Colosse?’
See e.g. R. R. Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of AntiSemitism (Seabury, 1974), pp. 95–107. The often shrill tone of this book should not be allowed to deafen its readers to the many important points that it has to make.
See now J. G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism (OUP, 1984).
See e.g. K. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Fortress, 1976).
See E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People (Fortress, 1983), p. 192.
I have argued this position at length in ch. 4, of The Messiah and the People of God: A Study in Pauline Theology with Particular Reference to the Argument of the Epistle to the Romans, unpublished D. Phil. thesis (Oxford University, 1980). I do not think that Romans 11 refers either to a large-scale lastminute conversion of ‘all Jews’ (whatever that might mean) or to a way of salvation for Jews which is other than through faith in Jesus Christ. See too S. C. Neill, Christian Faith and Other Faiths, 2nd edn (Hodder/IVP, 1984), p. 42.
E.g. Lohse, pp. 89–91.
E.g. Schweizer, pp. 18f.
O’Brien, pp. xli–xlix.
Leaving aside the whole question of pseudonymity, i.e. whether the practice of writing books in someone else’s name was as widespread in the early church as is sometimes thought, and if so, what the criteria might be for deciding whether a particular work was an example of this. On this matter see the discussion (in relation to 2 Peter, though the argument admits of wider application) of J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (SCM Press, 1976), pp. 186ff.
Details in Lohse, pp. 84–88; more fully in W. Bujard, Stilanalytische Untersuchungen zum Kolosserbrief als Beitrag zur Methodik von Sprachvergleichen (Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1973).
Lohse, p. 91.
Lohse considers ho estin (1:24; 3:14 and perhaps 1:27 – there are MS variants in each instance) to be an exception. But there are parallels for this kind of explanatory phrase in Gal. 3:16 (hos estin; some MSS have ho estin); 2 Thess. 3:17; and Eph. 1:14; 5:5; 6:17. Parallels from 2 Thessalonians and Ephesians will not of course impress those who consider those letters, too, inauthentic. But the verse in Galatians shows that this kind of phrase is perfectly possible for Paul.
Schweizer comes and goes on this question. On the one hand he claims (pp. 18f.) that the author follows Paul ‘completely in vocabulary and theological concepts’; but in the commentary itself he frequently attempts to drive a wedge between the theologies of Paul and of Colossians.
E.g. C. H. Dodd, New Testament Studies, 2nd Edn (Manchester University Press, 1967), pp. 94f.
See Phlm. 22, and the commentary on that verse. For a full statement of the argument for Ephesus, see G. S. Duncan, St. Paul’s Ephesian Ministry (Hodder, 1929), and his subsequent articles in ExpT 67, 1955–6, pp. 163–166; NTS 3, 1956–7, pp. 211–218, and NTS 5, 1958–9, pp. 43–45. See also Stuhlmacher, pp. 21f.; Houlden, p. 139; Lohse, pp. 165–167, 188; H. Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. 2, pp. 130ff.
See Schweizer, p. 26.
See now the restatement of the case for Lucan authorship of Acts in I. H. Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Commentary (IVP/Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 44–46. Compare M. Hengel, Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity, Eng. Tr. (SCM Press, 1979), pp. 66 ff. and idem, Between Jesus and Paul (SCM Press, 1983), pp. 97–128.
Galatians has been dated both in the late 40s and in the middle 50s: see the discussion in J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, pp. 55–57. Schweizer (pp. 127f.), noting the parallels between Colossians and Galatians, argues from them that Galatians is aimed, as he thinks Colossians is, not at Judaism or Jewish Christianity but at some sort of syncretism. This seems to me exactly the wrong way round.
See Robinson, ibid., pp. 46f., and compare G. B. Caird, The Apostolic Age (Duckworth, 1955), p. 209.
See Metzger, Textual Commentary, p. 601.
This means that we do not have to accept the argument of Robinson, Redating the New Testament, p. 64, that Ephesians, if authentic, rules out an Ephesian imprisonment as the place of origin for itself, and by implication for Colossians. For the possibility that Ephesians is the ‘letter from Laodicea’ of Col. 4:16, see the commentary on that verse.
My interpretation of Colossians, and of its message for today, thus differs quite drastically from that proposed by R. C. Lucas in his commentary. I believe he is correct in his analysis of certain ‘superspiritual’ trends in contemporary Christianity, and in his argument that they accord more with the spirit of the age than with genuine Christian faith. But I do not think that this is what Paul is talking about in Colossians.
Moule, p. 45.
Several MSS add ‘and the Lord Jesus Christ’, but this is almost certainly a later addition.
Moule (pp. 47f.) has a fine note on the structure of NT prayers.
For alternatives, see, e.g., Rom. 3:22, 26; Gal. 2:16; etc.
Or ‘before’, as RSV. Those who think that false teachers had recently arrived in Colosse sometimes suggest that this refers to the time before their coming.
Cf. Rom. 1:5; 6:16; 10:16; 15:18; 16:19; 2 Cor. 10:5; 2 Thess. 1:8; and see Lohse, p. 21, esp. notes 71, 74.
Mark 4:8 and parallels. Paul’s image here, however, is not of cereal crops but of a tree.
Cf. (with Gen. 1:26ff.) Gen. 17:2, 6, 16, 20; 22:17; 26:4, 24; 28:3; 35:11; etc., as well as Gen. 8:17; 9:1, 7; Jer. 3:16; 23:3.
For the use of ‘grace’ as a summary of the gospel events and their significance, cf. 2 Cor. 8:9.
See Metzger, pp. 619f.; Lohse, p. 23, n. 90.
See, e.g., Exod. 31:3; 35:31, 35; Deut. 34:9; Isa. 29:14; etc.; and, from Qumran, 1QS 4:4, 1QSb 5:25, 1QH 12:11ff. (Vermes, pp. 76, 209, 189); and other refs. in Lohse, pp. 25f. See too Rom. 2:18.
Cf. Isa. 40:28–31.
Two good MSS read ‘you’; and, though the great majority of MSS have ‘us’, this is probably caused by assimilation to ‘us’ in the following verse.
This apparently natural understanding of ‘saints’ has been challenged by some recent writers who, on the basis of impressive parallels from Qumran, take it to refer to angels (see Lohse, p. 36). This seems to me to conflict with Paul’s regular theology: God’s people inherit not angelic privileges – that is, according to many scholars, one of the ideas Colossians is written to counteract – but precisely human ones. These, in the light of the incarnation, are if anything actually greater, not less, than those of the angels.
Jesus’ baptism may have left other traces in Paul’s writings, e.g. Rom. 1:3–4. Whether or not Col. 1:13–14 is itself a poetic reference to Christian baptism it is hard to say for certain. But the language would fit such a context (cf. 1 Cor. 10:1ff.) and Paul, building on this passage, develops ideas about baptism in 2:11ff.
Some MSS add ‘through his blood’, presumably because of the parallel with Eph. 1:7.
See Caird, pp. 171–174, and D. Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings: Studies in the Semantics of Soteriological Terms (CUP, 1967), pp. 53ff.
See too e.g. 1QS 3:6–12; 11:2–5 (Vermes, pp. 75, 92).
See my article, ‘Poetry and Theology in Col. 1:15–20’, NTS 36 (1990), pp. 444–468.
See the summaries in O’Brien, pp. 31ff.; Schweizer, pp. 55–63; Martin, pp. 61–64.
Sections 3 and 4 are much more clearly balanced in Greek than is possible in English.
See the discussion in the commentary.
These words are omitted from a good many MSS: see Metzger, p. 621.
This means that the hymn, or any earlier form of it that might be imagined, has nothing whatever to do with either Gnosticism proper (as Käsemann suggested: see Lohse, p. 45, and p. 60, n. 205) or witha ‘gnosticizing trend’ (Martin, p. 65).
C. F. Burney, ‘Christ as the Arche- of Creation’, in JTS 27, 1925–6, pp. 160–177. Burney, surprisingly, never linked his interpretation to the mention of Christ as the Image of God in v. 15, which sets the tone for a reference to Gen. 1 throughout – which, as already argued, is likely from earlier oblique references in Colossians. For the translation ‘begat me’, and a full discussion showing that Prov. 8:22 is related directly to Paul’s use of the noun ‘firstborn’, see Burney, pp. 160–173.
See 28:25–27; Pss 104:24; 139:14; Prov. 3:19–20; Isa. 28:23–29; Jer. 10:12–13.
See my article, ‘Adam in Pauline Christology’ in SBL 1983 Seminar Papers, ed. K. H. Richards (Scholars’ Press, 1983), pp. 359–389, here at 361–365.
See e.g. Wisdom of Solomon 6–10; Ecclus. 15:1; 24:1–12; etc.
For the idea that the world was created for the sake of Israel see my article, ‘Adam in Pauline Christology’, pp. 362–364.
The argument is set out more fully in my article referred to on p. 67, n. 17. above.
So NIV, grasping the nettle presented by the diversity of variant readings: see Metzger, p. 198, and Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1972), pp. 113f.
For the whole idea, see also 2 Cor. 4:4 in the context of 3:18; 4:6; 5:17– 21; Rom. 8:29. There is an obvious link, also, with the idea of Christ as Last Adam: see Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–49; on which see my article, ‘Adam in Pauline Christology’.
Moule, p. 65.
See Caird, p. 178, and his The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Duckworth, 1980), pp. 191ff., and Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (OUP, 1956), pp. 1–30. See also Moule, p. 65, and Rowland, The Open Heaven, chs. 4, 5. The background belief, as expressed in the (later) work of Pseudo-Dionysius, is well discussed in C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image (CUP, 1964), pp. 70ff.
It is for this reason that Paul has to explain, in 1 Cor. 2:8, how the ‘rulers of this age’ came to crucify their Lord. They did not recognize him, he says, otherwise they would not have acted as they did.
See B. J. Walsh and J. R. Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview (IVP/USA, 1984), pp. 64f.
Caird, p. 77.
Many scholars suggest that ‘the church’ is the author’s addition to the hypothetical original poem, but this is quite unwarranted: see the article referred to in n. 17, p. 67, above.
See my article, ‘Harpagmos and the meaning of Phil. 2:5–11’, in JTS 37(2) October 1986, pp. 321–352.
See Caird, pp. 180f. ‘Fulness’ here is certainly not (as has sometimes been suggested) a gnostic technical term for something other than God himself.
See Moule, pp. 169f.
Attempts to take Rom. 5:12–21 or 11:25ff. in a contrary sense simply fail: see my articles in Churchman 89, 1975, pp. 197–212 and Themelios 4, 1979, pp. 54–58.
See Ps. 67:17, LXX (EVV 68:16); cf. further Lohse, p. 58.
See C. S. Lewis, ‘Christianity and Culture’ in Christian Reflections, ed. W. Hooper (Bles, 1967), p. 33 (2nd edn, Fount Paperbacks, 1981, p. 52).
See the masterly explanation of this subject, in relation to modern human problems, in S. C. Neill, A Genuinely Human Existence (Doubleday, 1959).
See my article ‘The Meaning of peri hamartias in Rom. 8.3’ in Studia Biblica 1978 vol. 3, ed. E. A. Livingstone (JSOT Press, 1980), pp. 453–459.
1 Tim. 3:10; Titus 1:6–7; see also, in a similar context to our present one, 1 Cor. 1:8.
Ps. 48:8; Isa. 14:32; 44:28; Hag. 2:18; Zech. 4:9; 8:9.
See M. Barth, ‘Christ and All Things’, in Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour of C. K. Barrett, ed. M. D. Hooker and S. G. Wilson (SPCK, 1982), pp. 160–172, against e.g. Lohse, pp. 66f.
See Rowland, The Open Heaven, pp. 156–160.
See Rowland, ibid., pp. 160–176, etc.
Still less likely that instead of ‘for ages and generations’ we should translate, with RSV margin, ‘from angels and men’.
See the useful note on ‘glory’ in Caird, p. 186.
Some MSS add ‘and Hierapolis’.
There is, not surprisingly, considerable MS variation at this point. NIV has rightly adopted the reading which, by its startling brevity and high Christology, more easily explains the others (see Metzger, p. 622).
See e.g. Williams, p. 80: against, e.g., O’Brien, pp. 98f.
Compare, e.g., Rom. 7:5–6 in relation to 7:7 – 8:11.
See Houlden, pp. 189, 193, 195f.
See Bruce, pp. 226f.; Lohse, p. 93, n. 1; compare e.g. 1 Cor. 11:2; 15:1–5; Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 4:1; 2 Thess. 3:6 – the latter pair also being closely joined with the idea of ‘walking’ in Christ’s way.
Bruce, p. 227. See the fine passage on grace and gratitude in K. Barth, Church Dogmatics vol. 4 (Eng. Tr.: T. and T. Clark, 1956), part 1, pp. 41ff.
It has taken the ‘and’ in the phrase ‘through philosophy and empty deceit’ as epexegetic, so that instead of letting ‘philosophy’ stand by itself (‘philosophy and hollow deception’) it is modified by the second phrase (‘“philosophy”, i.e. hollow deception’).
See Introduction, p. 29, and n. 12.
Caird, p. 190; see too his Principalities and Powers.
The line of thought is therefore very close to Gal. 4:1–11.
So Caird, pp. 191f., citing 2:17 as a parallel for the contrast of ‘solid reality’ with its ‘shadowy’ anticipations. This is fair enough: but his objections to ‘in bodily form’ can be met, along similar lines to the argument advanced above on 1:15.
On the wider significance of the idea of ‘principalities and powers’, beyond the scope of the argument here, see the references in n. 21, p. 76, above.
Against, e.g., Schweizer, pp. 140ff., who has to explain this reference away as peripheral. Our view provides, of course, another close link between Colossians and Galatians.
E.g. Lev. 26:41; Jer. 6:10; and at Qumran 1QS 5:5, 1QpHab 11:13 (Vermes, pp. 78, 242). Paul also uses the idea in Rom. 2:29; Phil. 3:3.
For other objections to this interpretation, see Caird, pp. 193f.
See Rom. 11:14, where the Greek for ‘my own people’ is, literally, ‘my flesh’.
One of the clearest expressions of this whole position is Gal. 3:26–29.
NIV omits the repeated ‘in which’.
This is the second half (after ‘Jesus is Lord’) of the basic Christian confession, according to Rom. 10:9–10.
See Caird, p. 194; A. T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to his Eschatology (CUP, 1981), ch. 5.
This follows NIV margin: the text gives ‘your sinful nature’. This can hardly be correct. Their ‘sinful nature’ may have been, in a metaphorical sense, ‘uncircumcised’, but the word sarx, ‘flesh’, which Paul uses here, clearly indicates that as Gentiles they were literally and physically uncircumcised.
Not ‘us’, as in margin: see below.
Cf. Rom. 8:17; 2 Cor. 7:3; Eph. 2:6; Col. 3:1; 2 Tim. 2:11.
Unexpressed in the Greek, rightly supplied by NIV .
Reference is sometimes made here to Phlm. 19, on which see the commentary.
Another, equally implausible, suggestion is that the passage embodies a pre-Pauline fragment which Paul has modified by the clumsy insertion of these words: see Lohse, pp. 109f., and Martin, ‘Reconciliation and Forgiveness in Colossians’, in Reconciliation and Hope: New Testament Essays on Atonement and Eschatology Presented to L.L. Morris on his 60th Birthday, ed. R. Banks (Eerdmans, 1974), pp. 104–124, here at pp. 117ff.
For the evidence, and references to discussions of it, see Martin, pp. 83–86.
Literally ‘has wiped out’ or ‘has blotted out’; with ancient inks the papyrus could actually be washed clean (see Williams, pp. 96f.).
E.g. Dibelius-Greeven; my interpretation here is quite close to that of Caird, p. 195.
See NEB: ‘he discarded the cosmic powers and authorities like a garment’. This view finds some apparent support in 1 Cor. 2:6–8: but see below.
See the first alternative in the NEB margin: ‘he stripped himself of his physical body, and thereby boldly made a spectacle of the cosmic powers and authorities, and led them…’: this view can be coupled with the interpretation of v. 11 above, which sees in it a reference to Christ’s own ‘stripping off’ – the same root word is used – of his flesh.
See e.g. Lohse, pp. 111ff.
See 1 Cor. 2:7–8; the whole context (1:18 – 2:16) contains several parallels to Colossians.
This is brought out in JB by ‘and so…’.
Perhaps by extension of the Nazirite rules in, e.g., Num. 6:3, or by the wider application of rules for priests ministering in the tabernacle, Lev. 10:9. See too the rule forbidding the seething of a kid in its mother’s milk (Exod. 23:19; 34:26; Deut. 14:21), which was extended by Rabbinic interpretation to the prohibition of drinking any milk with any meat (Mishnah, Hullin, 8:1ff.: see H. Danby, The Mishnah, Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes (OUP, 1933), pp. 524f.).
Compare the heading in J. B. Phillips’ translation at this point: ‘It is the spiritual, not the material, attitude which matters.’
See RSV ‘belongs to Christ’; NEB ‘the solid reality is Christ’s’. NIV ‘found in Christ’ is an attempt to catch the significance of the rather odd phrase ‘the reality of Christ’, which lacks any verb. Perhaps the genitive is really a defining one (see Moule, Idiom Book, pp. 37ff.): ‘the reality consists in Christ’; and perhaps this way of putting it is suggested to Paul by the parallel between the nominative and genitive in each part of the verse (‘a shadow of the coming things: the substance of Christ’).
The Greek here – a strange semitic-sounding phrase (thelōn en)– is without parallel in the New Testament.
Caird (p. 199) suggests a variation on this idea: obedience to the Torah is really worship offered to the angels who gave it. On the whole question see Introduction, pp. 23ff.
See Caird, p. 199; Houlden, p. 197.
This is an important emphasis in the commentary by R. C. Lucas.
See F. O. Francis in Conflict, pp. 197–207, and the discussion in Schweizer, pp. 160–162.
3:1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 12, 15 (twice), 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, (perhaps 24: see the commentary on that verse); 4:1, 2, 5. A good many of these have further dependent participles, imperative in intent.
Cf. 2:6, 8, 16, 18.
Rom. 7:2, 4, 6; cf. Rom. 6:7; Gal. 2:19. This whole subsection, indeed, is close to Rom. 6:8–11 (so Williams, p. 113).
Some, without very good evidence, have suggested that this ‘command’ might refer to the practice of abstaining from marriage (see the discussion in Schweizer, pp. 166f.): but the argument of v. 22 would hardly work if the verb here were restricted to that meaning.
See too Titus 1:14.
So Lightfoot, p. 204. Compare JB, ‘perish by their very use’: AV , ‘perish with the using’.
For a good discussion see Moule, pp. 108ff.
The problem with this – that there is no word for ‘restrain’ (NIV ) or ‘check’ (RSV) – is eased if we understand pros as ‘in relation to’: they are of no value in relation to, i.e. in the effort to control, fleshly gratification.
Moule, p. 114: the whole sentence is in italics.
See the full discussion (e.g. of other lists of five vices and virtues, as here) in Schweizer, pp. 182–191.
As in, e.g., the instructive parallel Matt. 6:33.
Many MSS read ‘our’ (so RSV, NEB). This might be preferred on the grounds that a scribe would be more likely to change it to ‘your’ to fit in with ‘you’ in the next part of the verse. But ‘your’ here is well supported bya wide range of MSS, and might have been altered to ‘our’ to avoid seeming to have Paul saying that Christ was their life, but by implication not his as well.
For a good critique of those who have found here an un-Pauline emphasis on the ‘already’, see Lincoln, Paradise (above, p. 113, n. 18), pp. 122–134.
So Williams, p. 125.
The AV ’s ‘inordinate affection’ is now a misleading translation, because ‘affection’ has come to refer to friendship and love, and their outward expressions, rather than (as in the seventeenth century) to inner desires. NEB’s ‘foul cravings’ is perhaps too strong, and hence too restricted in scope.
The majority of MSS add, as in Eph. 5:6, ‘upon the sons of disobedience’. To retain this phrase allows ‘in them’ and ‘in these ones’ (en hois and en toutois) in v. 7 to refer to different antecedents, which seems preferable to omitting it and making them both refer to ‘because of which’ (di’ ha) in v. 6. (See Metzger, pp. 624f., against, e.g., O’Brien, p. 173.) Vv. 6–7 will then mean ‘because of these things God’s wrath is coming upon the sons of disobedience, among whom (en hois) you also once walked, when you lived in these things (en toutois)’.
As could be implied by JB: ‘all this is the sort of behaviour that makes God angry’.
Many MSS have autois (simply ‘them’) for toutois (‘these’), but the latter should be preferred as the harder reading. For the meaning in connection with the different readings in v. 6, see p. 140, n. 57, above.
Retaining the Greek article ta, partly on good MS evidence and partly because, while it makes good sense, it would be easy for a scribe to omit.
1QS 4:3–6 (Vermes, p. 76).
Williams, p. 142.
See Eph. 5:21 – 6:9; Titus 2:2–10; 1 Pet. 2:18 – 3:7; 1 Clem. 21:6–8; Ign. Pol. 4:1–6:2; Polycarp To the Philippians 4:2–6:1.
C. S. Lewis ‘The Sermon and the Lunch’, in Undeceptions: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. W. Hooper (Bles, 1971), p. 237. The whole short piece is a gem of realistic teaching on home life.
Full details, and bibliography, may be found in Lohse, Schweizer or O’Brien, ad loc.
A superb treatment of the subject of human freedom, very relevant to all the preceding section, may be found in S. C. Neill, A Genuinely Human Existence, ch. 9 (pp. 214–233).
For ‘outsiders’ as a designation of those not within the Christian community see Mark 4:11; 1 Cor. 5:12–13; 1 Thess. 4:12.
Some MSS read ‘that he may know about your circumstances’. This is easily explained as a scribal error. Even though it has the apparent merit of avoiding repetition with vv. 7 and 9, it introduces the quite different, and unlikely, idea that Tychicus needed to acquire information about the Colossians. See Metzger, p. 626.
See the commentary on Phlm. 23–24.
See E. E. Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity: New Testament Essays (Mohr, 1978), pp. 116–128.
See I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Paternoster, 1978), pp. 33–35. For the question of whether Luke was with Paul in Ephesus see above, p. 38.
Despite C. P. Anderson, ‘Who Wrote “The Epistle from Laodicea”?’, JBL 85, 1966, pp. 436–440, who argues for Epaphras. The discussion below will indicate why I think his theory unnecessary.
Lightfoot, pp. 274–300, including a full discussion of the clearly spurious ‘Letter to the Laodiceans’, a forgery well known in the Patristic period and subsequently. See also Lightfoot’s article on ‘The Destination of the Epistle to the Ephesians’ in his Biblical Essays (Macmillan, 1893), pp. 375–396.
George Herbert, ‘Gratefulness’.
John Knox, Philemon Among the Letters of Paul: A New View of Its Place and Importance, rev. edn. (Abingdon, 1959: 1st edn. 1935); see too Goodspeed, An Introduction to the New Testament (Chicago U.P., 1937), pp. 109–124.
It is criticized in damaging detail by, e.g., Moule, Caird, O’Brien, Stuhlmacher and Bruce, Paul, pp. 401ff. At the time of going to press a further ‘new look’ on Philemon is being suggested by S. B. C. Winter: see ‘Methodological Observations on a New Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon’ in Union Seminary Quarterly Review 39, 1984, pp. 203–212.
See Lohse, pp. 190f.
See Stuhlmacher, pp. 22f., for these and other options open to a runaway slave.
Houlden (pp. 225f.) suggests that Onesimus had not run away at all, but had been loaned to Paul in the first place, making v. 18 refer to a small matter over which Philemon was unnecessarily offended. (See now also Winter, as in n. 2, p. 169, above.) But the whole letter implies a more serious breach.
The translation is taken from Betty Radice, The Letters of the Younger Pliny (Penguin, 1963), p. 246. A subsequent letter (9:24; in ibid., p. 248) shows that the request was granted.
See Lightfoot, pp. 316f.
See the notes on Col. 3:5ff., above. I have explored this aspect of the letter more fully in ch. 11 of my book Small Faith – Great God (Kingsway, 1978).
See M. D. Hooker, ‘Interchange in Christ’, JTS n.s. 22, 1971, pp. 349–361, esp. 360–361. For the theory that this koinōnia is based at least in part on the Roman idea of societas, ‘partnership’, see J. P. Sampley, Pauline Partnership in Christ: Christian Community and Commitment in Light of Roman Law (Fortress, 1980), discussed briefly in n. 4, pp. 181—182, below.
See Lohse, p. 188, quoting from Luther’s Preface to Philemon.
R. H. Barrow, in OCD, s.v. On ancient slavery in general, in addition to that article, see Lightfoot, pp. 319–323, and now H. Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. 1, pp. 59–62 (with bibliography), 330–332.
A not uncommon name: see Lightfoot, pp. 303–306.
She could of course be his mother, sister or other female relative. For the form and background of the name see the very full note in Lightfoot, pp. 306–308.
These house-churches have been the subject of a good deal of study in recent years: see the excursus in Stuhlmacher, pp. 70–75, and, on the overall social context, E. A. Judge, The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century (Tyndale Press, 1960) and now W. A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 74–110.
See the brief discussion of this literary device in BDF, p. 477.
See my article on Phlm. 5 published in The Climax of the Covenant (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993).
See 2 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 2:1–5; 3:10.
So O’Brien, p. 280. Though there are some significant parallels between Paul’s idea of ‘fellowship’ and the idea of societas, ‘partnership’, in the Roman world (see Sampley, Pauline Partnership), what we have here goes beyond this. Sampley notes (pp. 79–81) the presence in Phlm. 17 of the societas motif, but he does not see that this is based on the Christian koinōnia expressed in v. 6. See below.
See the parallels in Eph. 1:17; Phil. 1:9; Col. 1:9–10.
Moule, p. 143: italics original.
See 1 Cor. 12:6; 2 Cor. 4:12; Gal. 3:5; Eph. 3:20; Phil. 2:13; Col. 1:29; 1 Thess. 2:13.
For these and other options, see O’Brien, p. 281.
See too Eph. 1:23.
E.g. Gal. 3:16 (on which see E. E. Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Oliver and Boyd, 1957), pp. 70ff.); 4:19; 1 Cor. 1:13; 12:12.
This overcomes, e.g., Lohse’s objection (p. 199) to the translation ‘ambassador’ on the grounds that Paul is not appealing to his office or rank.
A reference, perhaps, to the recent nature of the imprisonment: see Martin, p. 163.
See Gal. 4:1–7; cf. Luke 15:19–24.
For other examples, see O’Brien, pp. 291f.; Lohse, p. 200.
See Bruce, Paul, pp. 381f., discussing the famous text in Suetonius, Life of Claudius 25:4.
It has sometimes been thought (see e.g. Bruce, Paul, pp. 399f.) that Paul is attempting here to implement the Old Testament laws regarding slaves (Deut. 23:15–16, etc.), but this seems to me unlikely. It is true that there are echoes of similar ideas here to those found in the Old Testament provisions (see on v. 15 below), but this would be an uncharacteristic way for Paul to use the Old Testament. Its commands, in this respect at least, relate to the era of the Mosaic covenant, designed for the time when the people of God were a single racial entity, which they are now no longer (Gal. 3:19–22).
See the partial parallel in the letter of Pliny already discussed (9:21): vereor ne videar non rogare sed cogere, ‘I’m afraid you will think I am using pressure, not persuasion’ (tr. Radice).
This is to take ‘he was separated’ in its full passive sense, indicating divine action: the ‘perhaps’ and the ‘so that’ strongly support this interpretation over the alternative (grammatically possible though it may be) which takes the verb in an active sense, simply meaning ‘he went away’.
This is the one point (see n. 6, p. 189, above) where the language of the Old Testament law relating to slaves almost certainly shows through: in Exod. 21:6 a slave who rejects the offer of freedom and opts to stay with his master is bound to do so ‘for ever’ (eis ton aiōna, LXX).
See the Greek of v. 6 (koinōnia tēs pisteōs sou), literally ‘the fellowship of your faith’. Compare the other great ‘welcome’ passage in Paul (Rom. 14:1–15:13).
Calvin’s comment (p. 399) is worth quoting: ‘It would be a sign of haughty pride, if he should be ashamed to count as his brother those whom God numbers among his sons.’
Houlden (p. 226) strangely attempts to play this down, implying that Onesimus’ offence was minor and that Philemon was ‘a rather fiery character’ who would take unnecessary offence at small peccadilloes. The more usual view seems altogether preferable in the context: see below.
See Williams, p. 188.
This parallel makes it very unlikely that we should translate, with NEB, ‘relieve my anxiety’.
This, with our present passage, is the complete list of all Paul’s uses of ‘obedience’, with the exception of the reference to Christ’s obedience in Rom. 5:19. The cognate verb ‘obey’ is used similarly in e.g. Rom. 10:16.
To whose church leaders he had, according to Acts 20:25 and 38, solemnly declared that they would never see his face again. Even if this passage were to be judged non-historical, it seems unlikely that its author would have written this had he known of a subsequent trip to Asia Minor. It could of course be argued that Paul intended to make such a trip but was prevented, but this would be to pile one guess on top of another.