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Colossians 2.15: Christ Triumphant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Roy Yates
Roy Yates
Affiliation:
Cleckheaton, England
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Extract

Colossians 2.15 is a notoriously difficult verse both to translate and to interpret. While textual problems are minimal, lexical, syntactical, and historical problems abound. The interpretation of almost every word or phrase has been disputed. Punctuation too is open to more than one possibility. F. Prat writes:

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , October 1991 , pp. 573 - 591
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Prat, F., The Theology of St. Paul (London: Burns Oates, 1927) 2, 169 n. 8.Google Scholar

2 Lightfoot, J. B., St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1876) 189–92.Google Scholar

3 Matters are not made any easier by the fact that we are dealing with a compound sentence, ripe with relative clauses and the piling up of participles, which goes back to v. 8.

4 Blass, F. and Debrunner, A., A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: CUP, 1961) § 5:1Google Scholar; also Delling, G., TDNT 3, 156–60.Google Scholar

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10 Plutarch Aemilius Paulus 32–34 is cited as one of the fullest and most colourful accounts of a triumph.

11 Delling, G., TDNT 3, 160.Google Scholar

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13 Findlay, G. G., ‘St. Paul's Use of θριαμβεύω’, Expositor 1st series 10 (1897) 403–21Google Scholar; also Field, F., Notes on the Translation of the New Testament (Cambridge: CUP, 1899) 181–2.Google Scholar

14 Egan, , ‘Lexical Evidence’, 41–2Google Scholar refers to a papyrus document from Roman Egypt – an appeal to a local official in which a series of crimes are reported (date 14 BC): ‘For which crimes they were delivered up in Sinary itself and they were released in order that the matter not be noised abroad.’ (έκθριαμβισθναι – Liddell and Scott, Greek English Lexicon, 507 give ‘make public, noise abroad’ as the meaning for έκθριαμβίζω, and cite the one reference commended by Egan). Egan claims that the papyrus demonstrates that the proposed meaning was current more than 70 years before the composition of the epistle, and expresses surprise that it has not figured more prominently in discussion of the Pauline passages. But is it a proper parallel to θριαμβεύω? Other supportive evidence is presented from the early translators and commentators.

15 Carr, W., Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase HAI ARCHAI KAI HAI EXOUSIAI (Cambridge: CUP, 1981) 61–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Cf. Josiah in Zech 3.1–5.

17 Versnel, H. S., Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Leiden: Brill, 1970).Google Scholar

18 According to Orosius Hist. 7.9.8 no fewer than 320 triumphs were celebrated during the period between the founding of Rome and the reign of Vespasian.

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21 One can speak of ‘orb and sceptre’ referring to the regality of a situation without having seen the crown jewels in the Tower of London.

22 Δειγματίζω is another rare word seldom found in Greek writers before the Christian era, and not in the LXX or other Greek versions of the OT. In the NT it is found only here and in Matt 1.19. It is also rare in the papyri, although it is found on the Rosetta Stone. Moulton, J. H. and Milligan, G., The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder, 1926) 137–8Google Scholar suggest it is a shortened form of the earlier παραδειγματίζω.

23 O'Brien, P. T., Colossians, Philemon (Word Bible Comm. 44; Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1982) xxx–xli, 46–7, 114, 126–32.Google Scholar

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27 Matt 26.52; Rev 19.14. Cf. 1 Thess 4.17 where the accompanying host consists of believers not angels, and 1QM 7.6.

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29 The privileged position of all believers is shown in Eph 3.10, where it is suggested that the wisdom and mystery of God's plan is made known through the Church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Again it is not just the few, but the many who share in this ministry. The masculine αύτούς is a sense construction, suggesting that they are to be thought of in a concrete sense rather than as abstracts.

30 Blass, and Debrunner, , Greek Grammar, § 307Google Scholar; Moule, C. F. D., An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (2nd ed.; Cambridge: CUP, 1959) 24.Google Scholar

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34 Lightfoot, J. B., Colossians and Philemon, 189Google Scholar. He thinks that Jerome, who replaced ‘exuens se’ with ‘expolians’ in his revised version, was responsible for this error of interpretation, and also Hilary, who read ‘exuens’ for ‘exuens se’ in his text.

35 Moule, C. F. D., The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians and to Philemon (Cambridge: CUP, 1957) 101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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38 Lightfoot, , Colossians and Philemon, 189–90.Google Scholar

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40 Lightfoot, , Colossians and Philemon, 190Google Scholar suggests that the reading άπεκδυσάμενς τν σάρκα καί τάς έξουσίας (omitting τς ρχς καί), found in some ancient authorities, must be a corruption from an earlier text, which inserted the gloss τν σάρκα after πεκδυσάμενος, while retaining τς ρχς καί, and which seems to have been in the hands of some of the Latin Fathers.

41 Robinson, J. A. T., The Body (London: SCM, 1952) 41Google ScholarPubMed, taking πεκδυσάμενος as referring to τν σάρκα, and that τς ρχς καί τς ξουσίας are solely the object of δειγμάτισεν.

42 Martin, R. P., Colossians and Philemon (London: Marshall Morgan and Scott, 1973) 81.Google Scholar

43 Cf. Zech 3.3–5. The ‘putting off’ and ‘putting on’ of Colossians has been held to recall the high priest Joshua being divested of his filthy garments and reclothed in clean garments. But there is no suggestion in Zechariah that the ‘putting off’ involves a dying, but only a change of moral garments.

44 Dibelius, M., ‘The Isis Initiation and Related Initiatory Rites’, in Francis, F. O. and Meeks, W. A., Conflict at Colossae (Montana: Scholars, 1975) 61–121.Google Scholar The text of the initiation of Apuleius' hero into the mysteries of Isis is given by Griffiths, J. G., Apuleius of Madauros: The Isis Book (Leiden: Brill, 1975) 70–139.Google Scholar See especially sections 12, 21, 23, 28, 29, where Apuleius describes how on encountering the procession of Isis worshippers he was able to cast off the vile beast of his nature. Assuming a linen garment he proceeds to his initiation into the mysteries. After fasting, preparation, and payment of money, he describes his entering the holy shrine, approaching the borders of death, passing through the elements and back, seeing the sun flashing at the dead of night, and worshipping the gods face to face. He declines to tell any more. But there follows a second and then a third initiation, with payment of monies at each stage. Although there may be some superficial parallels with the Colossians' desire to worship with the angels, as well as the careful preparation through fasting for the mystical vision, Apuleius' hero does not participate in a once-for-all death and resurrection experience. The text is also post-Christian. For a full assessment of this text see Wedderburn, A. J. M., Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Paul's Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987) 300–15.Google Scholar

45 Wilson, R. McL., Gnosis and the New Testament (Oxford: Blackwell, 1968) 75Google Scholar. For other gnostic parallels see Betz, H. D., Galatians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 188 n. 61.Google Scholar

46 Col 2.11.

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51 2 Cor 12.2–3 ‘whether in the body or out of the body’.

52 The question of whether the participles are to be understood as imperatives, so that the author is continuing his appeal begun with ‘Do not lie’; or gives the reason for the command, taking them as true participles which describe the past event in which the readers have already put off the old nature and put on the new, does not affect our interpretation. Grammatically it is possible to use a participle as an imperative. See Moulton, J. H., A Grammar of New Testament Greek 1: Prolegomena (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1906) 180–3Google Scholar, who traces this as a genuinely Hellenistic development, with examples in the NT; and Daube, D., ‘Participle and Imperative in I Peter’, Appended Note in Selwyn, E. C., The First Epistle of Peter (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1947) 467–88Google Scholar, who shows that participles are used for commands in the ethical injunctions of certain rabbinic writings.

53 Cf. Rom 6.6; Eph 4.22.

54 Cf. Rom 13.14; Gal 3.27.

55 Taking εἴ γε as expressing an assurance, as Thrall, M., Greek Particles in the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1962) 90Google Scholar, rather than doubt, as Robinson, J. A. T., The Body, 77Google Scholar, and Moule, C. F. D., ‘St. Paul and Dualism’, NTS 12 (1965–6) 121Google Scholar. For further grammatical and exegetical details about the passage see Turner, N., Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1965) 129–30.Google Scholar

56 Thrall, M., ‘“Putting on” or “Stripping off” in 2 Corinthians 5:3’, in New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger, (ed. Epp, E. J. and Fee, G. D.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1981) 221–31Google Scholar assesses the internal and external evidence for both readings, and concludes that ένδυσάμενοι is more likely to be the original reading.

57 See Pagels, B., The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 85–6, 98–9, 139.Google Scholar

58 Moule, , Colossians and Philemon, 101.Google Scholar

59 Referring to the cross of v. 14 as the place where Christ stripped himself in death.

60 Lightfoot, , Colossians and Philemon, 191.Google Scholar