Chapter 2

Chapter Two

¹ For I want you to know what great striving I have on your behalf, and for those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh. About to enter upon the doctrine, he first displays much tender affection, so that he may become more readily received. For I am in anguish, he says, on your behalf. And he joins to them those in Laodicea, and others without distinction, so that they may not be troubled, supposing that this proceeds from their own weakness. But why are you in anguish? Is it because you condemn us? It is, he says, because you have not seen my face. And he added, In the flesh, showing marvelously that he saw them continually in the Spirit.

² That their hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love. Now at last he points toward the doctrine, and he neither accuses them nor altogether absolves them of the charge. Here, then, is the apodosis. I have a striving; to what end? That they may not hold differing opinions, but may be knit together and all united into one faith. How? Not with compulsion or force, but in love. And he said this inasmuch as heresies give birth also to schisms.

³ And unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding. That is, That they may doubt about nothing, that their understanding may be fully and richly assured concerning all things—that is, the knowledge of the mystery. And he did not say, Unto the riches, simply, but, Unto all the riches. I know indeed, he says, that you have understanding of the mystery, but I seek in you the full assurance of this understanding, that it may be rich. Or else, With understanding I wish you to be fully assured, not mindlessly and irrationally.

⁴ Unto the knowledge of the mystery of God, even the Father, of Christ. And what is the mystery of God? That access comes to be through the Son, not through angels.

⁵ In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He alone knows all things; and if he alone is wise, then it was wisely that he came in the last times, and not long ago, and certain of the foolish vainly take offense at him in this. By saying, treasures, he shows their abundance; by, All, that he is ignorant of nothing; by, Hidden, that he alone knows, and that from him one must ask for wisdom and knowledge. And observe that, even if he seems to say something great, yet this too he said in condescension, for the sake of the simpler: namely, In whom are the treasures. For he is Wisdom itself and Knowledge itself.

⁶ And this I say, that no one may delude you with persuasive speech. I said this, he means—that Christ alone knows all things—so that no one may deceive you. For what does it matter if one speaks persuasively? He knows nothing, but the whole of it is delusion and sophistry.

⁷ For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit. What would have followed was to say: For though I am absent in the flesh, yet in the spirit I behold the deceivers; but instead he turned the discourse into praise. And hear him.

⁸ Rejoicing and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. That is, your good order. For not only have you not fallen, but no one has even thrown your order into confusion, nor your steadfast faith. For just as in a battle line good order makes the phalanx steadfast, so also in the Church, when there is good order, love setting all things in their place and no schisms existing, then steadfastness too comes to be. But faith also is in itself a steadfastness, not allowing reasonings to creep in which, by producing doubt, shake one.

⁹ As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord. We bring in nothing strange, but what you received, that very thing we ask back again—the Lord Jesus Christ, not the angels.

¹⁰ In him walk. For he himself is the way that leads to the Father. Do not walk in the angels; for that way does not lead there.

¹¹ Rooted. That is, holding firm without shifting, and not at one time being in Christ and at another in angels. For that which is rooted could never be moved.

¹² And built up in him. He shows that they had fallen, so that they had need of being built up again—that is, of a second building—as upon Christ for a foundation.

¹³ And established in the faith. That is, firmly holding fast to Christ through faith, not through reasonings and persuasive arguments. For the building, even if it be upon a foundation, yet if it does not stand firm, is unsteady.

¹⁴ Even as you were taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Again he sets down, Even as, so that, if they should do anything otherwise, they may feel shame before themselves. Now the phrase, Even as you were taught, is like a kind of foundation; but the abounding, this is the building up. For one must not pass beyond the teachings laid down beforehand; one must, however, advance in them, and be zealous, and show forth something abundant in the faith, giving thanks to God that he counted us worthy of such grace, and not ascribing the advance to ourselves.

¹⁵ Beware lest there be anyone who carries you off as spoil. He is a thief, he creeps in secretly, he digs through the walls from beneath unnoticed, that he may carry off your mind as spoil. Beware, therefore.

¹⁶ Through philosophy and empty deceit. He shows also the way by which the thief comes—namely, that it is philosophy. But since the name of philosophy seems venerable, he added, And empty deceit. For there is also a good deceit, concerning which Jeremiah says, You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.[1] Such also as Jacob seemed to use in deceiving Esau—which one ought not even to call deceit, but rather a dispensation.

¹⁷ According to the tradition of men. Do you see whence the deceit comes? That human reasonings transmit it. For this reason they are also called heresies, because they are the opinions of men. But the faith of Christians is not a human doctrine. Therefore it will not receive such a name.

¹⁸ According to the elements of the world. He now begins to refute the observance of days, calling sun and moon elements of the world, by which the days seem to be disposed in this way or that. And he did not say, Observances of days, but he makes mention of the whole world, so that he may show its worthlessness out of abundance. For if the whole world is nothing, much more are the elements nothing.

¹⁹ And not according to Christ. Above all, he says, even if it were possible by half measures to serve both Christ and the elements, not even so ought one to be persuaded by those teachers; but as it is, they wholly remove you from Christ. And these observances were not only Greek but also Jewish: the one set deriving from philosophy, the Jewish ones from the Law.

²⁰ For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. That is, whatever God the Word is, it dwells in him. And lest, hearing the word, He dwelt, you should suppose that he was merely energized, as the prophets were—for God dwelt in them, according to that saying, I will dwell in them and walk among them[2]—he added, Bodily; that is, it is not some energy, but substance, and as one embodied and being one hypostasis together with that which was assumed. Or else, in the manner of holy Cyril, as a soul dwells in a body; and it dwells in the body substantially and indivisibly and without confusion. But whereas the soul is separated from the body in death, God the Word was never separated from the flesh he assumed, but was present to it even in the tomb, keeping it incorrupt, and was present with the soul in Hades, preaching—that is, granting release to the captives; and there was altogether a union of both, of the soul and of the body, even when by his voluntary death they were parted.

²¹ And you are made full in him. Marvelous, what a thing he has said! You have nothing less than he, but you too are made full of the Godhead—yet in him, that is, through that which was assumed. For since our nature was united to God, we too in him became partakers of the divine nature. For everywhere Paul wishes to bring us near to Christ, as when he says, He raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ; and, If we endure, we shall also reign together with him; and he calls us joint-heirs.

²² Who is the head of all principality and authority. He sets him down as head not as one consubstantial with them, but, as above, as their cause. How then, having forsaken him, do you run to angels, of whom he is the head? For through all these things he digs through and dissolves the doctrine concerning the angels.

²³ In whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. He brought forward the marvel of the benefit, that In Christ you were circumcised. For it is not a human hand that brings on this circumcision of the flesh, but the Spirit; and it circumcises not a part, but the whole man.

²⁴ In the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ. There a member was stripped away through circumcision, the fleshly covering being removed; but here our body strips off the sins which we accomplish through the flesh. And such a circumcision the Law does not perform, but Christ circumcises it in baptism, stripping us of the old life that is given to sin and is wholly fleshly.

²⁵ Buried with him in baptism. What he called circumcision, this he now calls a tomb, presenting something greater than circumcision. For what was circumcised was not cast aside, but it perished and was destroyed. He, therefore, who is baptized is buried together with Christ, through the three immersions figuring the three-day burial of the Lord, and dying as far as concerns the old and sinful man.

²⁶ In whom also you were raised together through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. Baptism is not only a tomb, but also a resurrection. How? Through faith. For having believed that God is able to raise, and having as a proof of this that he also raised Christ from the dead, we were thus raised in two ways: both in that, hoping for resurrection, we already seem to have attained it, even though it is yet to come; and in that we have spiritually cast off the deadness of the works of sin—which is the very thing he goes on to emphasize.

²⁷ And you, being dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made alive together with him. Christ indeed, he says, having undergone bodily death, was made alive by the Father—not as though he himself were unable to give life to himself, but inasmuch as all things are referred to the Father. For that he himself raised himself is shown when he says, In three days I will raise up the temple; and again, He presented, it says, himself alive after his suffering[3]. But you, having undergone the death of sins, and being uncircumcised—that is, bearing a fleshly mind that was excessive and superfluous, which was deadening you—were made alive together with Christ. For as he rose in body, so you in spirit; yet we shall assuredly rise also in body. And in another way too the all-great John (Chrysostom) intimates how the deadness ought to be understood. For on account of the trespasses, he says, you lay under the sentence of death.

²⁸ Having forgiven us all our trespasses. Which produced the deadness. And observe of what we were worthy, and how he set us free.

²⁹ Having blotted out the handwriting that was against us in its decrees, which was contrary to us. Since he had said that He forgave us, lest you should suppose that he allowed them to remain and to be visible, he says: No, not so, but he blotted them out—that is, he scored them through. And let us understand the handwriting to be either the confession which the people, as it were in their own hand, made to Moses, saying, All that God has spoken we will do and we will hearken; or the covenant which God made with Adam, saying, In the day that you eat, you shall die[4]. For the devil held this fast, as a handwriting, and it stood against us, not allowing us to lift up our heads; for it had justice on its side. This Christ blotted out by the decrees—that is, by faith; for not by works, but by the decrees of faith was it dissolved.

³⁰ And he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. He did not merely score these things through, but also took them out of the way—that is, he made them no longer even visible; and he neither gave them to us nor kept them himself, but having pierced it through upon the cross, he tore it apart, which is the act of one who forgives with joy. For we were all liable to sin and to punishment; but he, the sinless one, being punished in our stead, dissolved upon the cross both the sin and the punishment; there, then, he also rent the handwriting asunder.

³¹ Having stripped off the principalities and the authorities. He means the diabolical powers, since human nature had put them on; or since he himself, having become man, had this very fact of being man as a kind of handle—he stripped off the handle, that is, he was found ungraspable by the principalities and the authorities. For though he assumed the sinful nature, yet he did so without sin. And you may learn what is meant in this way: The devil held human nature in his power through these two things, pleasure and pain. The Lord, then, having assumed our nature for this very reason, that he might wrestle on our behalf against his principalities and authorities—I forbear to say that even straightway from the beginning, in the assumption of his holy flesh, he shattered these, being conceived without pleasure and born without pain; but moreover, even after he was born and grown to manhood, he was tempted first by the enticements of pleasure on the mountain—I mean gluttony, love of riches, and vainglory—the enemy assailing him in person, and he conquered on our behalf. Then the tempter strove, by the contrivances of pain, to turn him aside into hating his neighbors, plotting against him through the Pharisees and Scribes, and even through those whom he himself had benefited; yet he was not able to accomplish this. Last of all, he fastened him also to the cross, bringing on his mightiest contrivance. But the Lord so far did not yield to what that one wished, that he even prayed on behalf of those who crucified him. Thus, then, upon the cross he most perfectly stripped off the principalities and the authorities, procuring for us this stripping off—for us who had put them on—inasmuch as he had shared in our nature.

³² He made a public spectacle of them openly. That is, he made them to be put to shame. For never was the devil so put to shame. For expecting to hold him, he lost also the others whom he had. And, Openly, stands for, publicly, in the sight of all. For the devil would have done anything, had he been able, to persuade men that he had not died. For this is his great defeat and undoing: that a sinless man was brought under death. Therefore he stirred up here countless heresies, introducing the notion that the death came about in mere appearance. For this reason the Lord both died openly and yet did not rise openly: because of the resurrection the later time too would be a witness, but of the death, had not the time then been the witness, no other could have come to be.

³³ Triumphing over them in it. That is, showing the demons defeated in the cross. For a triumph is so called when one, returning from a victory over enemies, celebrates a public procession, displaying to all the defeated as captives. Having therefore set up the trophy in the cross, the Lord triumphed over the demons as in a public theater of Greeks, Romans, and Jews. If, then, it was not angels who died for us, but Christ, how do you say that access was granted through them?

³⁴ Let no one therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a feast, or of a new moon, or of Sabbaths. Up to now he spoke enigmatically, Let there not be anyone who carries you off as spoil; but now more plainly, once he had first recounted the benefits. For if you have obtained such things, he says, why do you make yourselves accountable to little matters? Do not, then, allow anyone to condemn you as not keeping the Jewish observances in foods and drinks. And by this he ostensibly praises them, as setting aside the Jewish practices. And he said, In respect of a feast, because they did not venture to keep the whole of it. For even if they kept the Sabbath, yet not strictly, inasmuch as they were Christianizing. He shows, then, that the observance is vain if the whole is not kept; and that thereby the whole is already being dissolved. For if it were good, it would be observed in its entirety.

³⁵ Which are a shadow of things to come. By things to come he means the things of the New Covenant. For they were to come, with respect to the Old Covenant then present, when its proper time was at hand.

³⁶ But the body is Christ’s. Let no one defraud you of your prize. Some place a full stop at, Christ’s, so that the meaning is: The things of the Old Covenant are a shadow, but the body—that is, the truth—is Christ’s. So why must one cling to the shadow, when the body is present? Others, however, join it to what follows, so that we understand thus: But the body is Christ’s; but, that is to say, let no one defraud you of your prize—that is, cheat you. For to defraud of the prize is when one person conquers, but another receives the prize. You too, then, have conquered the devil, and are above him; why do you again subject yourselves to sin by keeping the Law, which cannot justify? And otherwise: It is Christ who has conquered the one who held us fast, and not the Law; and the prize must rest with him, the conqueror, and with you, who are the body of Christ. How then do you overlook this being given to the Law? For it is plain that, if we still Judaize, we have the Law as master, and seem to be saved by it. But if the Law is a shadow, and the things of Christ are body, we should first have been accustomed to the shadow. Fittingly, then, was he made flesh in the last times, in order to bring us near.

³⁷ Delighting in humility and worship of angels, intruding into things which he has not seen. When he had filled them with indignation by showing that they were being defrauded of their prize and insulted, then he sets forth the heretical doctrine, and says that they wish to defraud us by a seeming humility. For they said that It is unworthy of the majesty of the Only-begotten that the Only-begotten should bring you to the Father, and a thing too great for human littleness. Whence it is more reasonable, they say, to hold that the angels rendered service to your access. And from this they introduced the worship of angels, and persuaded the simpler sort to attend to these, as having saved us. And though they had never seen angels, they nonetheless made such firm assertions about them as though they had seen them.

³⁸ Vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh. In vain, he says, is he puffed up over the doctrine by a fleshly understanding, not a spiritual one. For how is it not the mark of a fleshly and gross mind to set aside the things spoken by Christ? Thus God loved the world, so that he gave his Son for the sake of men; and again, For their sake I sanctify myself; and, I lay down my life for the sheep; and, Other sheep I have, and these too I must bring; and countless other such sayings. How then did he say above, In humility? It is a seeming humility, and not a true one. In another way: They are puffed up as dogmatists, taking their stand and refusing to be taught the truth; and they commend their own doctrine through humility—not the humility which they themselves possess, but as saying that It is a thing too great for men, that the Only-begotten should be slain on our behalf.

³⁹ And not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, increases with the increase of God. He does not hold fast, he says—the one who teaches these things—the Head, that is, the Son. For he himself is the head of the angels, as their Maker and Creator; but he is also the head of the whole Church, and in this respect indeed, yet also inasmuch as we are his body and members, he having shared the same things with us. From him, therefore, the whole body of the Church has both its mere being and its well-being. If anyone falls away from him, he straightway perishes. For just as the perceptive spirit is distributed from the brain into the whole body through the nerves, and from the head proceeds all perception and all motion, so also the body of the Church is supplied from Christ—that is, receives life and spiritual increase. And when does it have this? When it is knit together, that is, has conjunction with him. For the Holy Spirit gives the supply of increase through the joints and ligaments; so that if the body were without ligaments and unjoined to the Head, and is not knit together with it—that is, is not joined fast—then neither would the supply of the Spirit come to be, nor the increase of God, that is, of the best manner of life lived according to God.

⁴⁰ If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you submit to decrees? Through baptism, he says, having died together with Christ, you were put to death with respect to all your former life, so that you no longer even serve the elements to which you were formerly subject. How then now again, as though living in your former life, are you subject to these things? For you are taught that this day is auspicious, that one ill-omened—which are Greek observances. And observe how gently he mocks them, by saying, You submit to decrees. For you sit, he says, like newly-instructed children, being dictated to and given laws as to what you must do.

⁴¹ Touch not, neither taste, nor handle; which things are all unto corruption in the using. And another observance of theirs, that of foods, which is Jewish rather—just as that of days was Greek. And, restraining the conceit of the dogmatists, he says that these are no great things, but they end in corruption for those who use them. For being decomposed in the belly, they flow off through the privy. They neither profit, then, in themselves, nor do harm.

⁴² According to the commandments and teachings of men. These are not divine teachings, but commandments of men. What then? Is the Law not a teaching of God? There was a time when it had its season, but now it is not, as no longer having a season. Or else, because the elders among the Jews falsified it, handing down traditions outside the Law, as the Lord also says in the Gospels. Or else he is intimating the practices of the Greeks.

⁴³ Which things indeed have a show of wisdom in self-imposed worship, and humility, and unsparing treatment of the body, not in any honor unto the satisfying of the flesh. They have a show of wisdom, not its power, nor its truth. For the one who teaches these things seems to be devout and moderate, and to despise the body, through abstaining from foods. And yet God honored the body, and gave foods, so that the flesh, being filled by them, may hold together and master the voluntary passions; but these men do not treat the body with honor, depriving it, and taking away its rightful due, and not permitting it to exercise rightful mastery.