Colossians 2:8

Warning against alien teachings: Christ is all for peace and life

8. Beware&c. Quite lit., "See lest any one shall be your spoiler" ;the positive and imminent risk being indicated by the future tense (" shall be"), quite anomalous in such constructions.

anyman] "This indefinite [expression] is frequently used by St Paul, when speaking of opponents whom he knows well enough but does not care to name" (Lightfoot). Cp. Rom 3:8; 1 Corinthians 11:16; 1 Corinthians 14:37; 1Co 15:12; 2 Corinthians 3:1; 2 Corinthians 10:2; 2Co 10:12; 2 Corinthians 11:20-21; Galatians 1:7; Galatians 1:9; above, Colossians 2:4, below Col 2:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 2 Thessalonians 3:10-11; 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 1:6; 1 Timothy 6:3; 1 Timothy 6:21.

spoil you Better, with R.V., maketh spoil of you. The Greek word is not known in earlier Greek literature, but its form leaves no doubt of its meaning. The false teachers would not merely "despoil" the Colossians of certain spiritual convictions and blessings, but would lead themaway captives, as their deluded adherents and devotees. Lightfoot compares 2 Timothy 3:6.

through philosophy … deceit We may fairly represent the Greek, sacrificing precise literality, thus: through his empty deceit of a philosophy. No doubt the false teachers posed as great intellectualists, and took care to present their "gospel" as something congruous in kind with existing speculations, Greek or Eastern, about knowing and being. They would say little or nothing like "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise … and that repentance and remission … should be preached in His name" (Luke 24:46-47); but rather "Thus the finite stands related to the Infinite; thus spirit is eternally differenced from matter, and thus it secures its emancipation from its material chain."

Lightfoot in an interesting note traces the word "Philosophy" from its alleged origin in the modesty of Pythagoras (cent. 6 b.c.), who declined the title of "wise" (sophos), preferring that of "wisdom-lover" (philosophos), to its later association with "subtle dialectics and profitless speculation," as in St Paul's age. And he remarks on two different views about pagan Philosophy represented among the Fathers; that of e.g. Clement of Alexandria (cent. 2 3), who regarded it as "not only a preliminary training … for the Gospel, but even as in some sense a covenant … given by God to the Greeks"; and that of e.g. Tertullian (at the same date) who saw a positive antithesis between "the philosopher" and "the Christian." Lightfoot remarks that St Paul's speech at Athens "shows that his sympathies would have been at least as strong" with Clement as with Tertullian. Can we go quite so far? Surely the main driftof his teaching emphasizes the tendency of independent speculation not to discover facts destructive of the Gospel; no such timid misgivings beset him; but to foster mental habits hostile to a submissive welcome to the Gospel. Cp. esp. 1 Corinthians 1:17 to 1 Corinthians 3:23.

"Folly indeed it is," says Quesnel, "to seek to establish a science wholly Divine on foundations wholly human. And this is what they do who seek to judge of the things of faith by the principles of philosophy."

tradition Paradosis. Cp. 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; for this word used in a good sense, that of apostolic teaching and precept. Strictly, it means what is "handed on," and so may mean, by connexion, either (as here) an esoteric "deposit," passed down as it were along the line of the initiated, or simply "teaching," the conveyance of opinion or knowledge in any way from one mind to another. It is remarkable that in this latter sense, very commonly, the word "tradition" is used by the Fathers to mean simply Scripture; "evangelic" or "apostolic tradition" denoting respectively the teachingof the Gospelsand the Epistles. Here, however, obviously the word inclines to its worse reference; the more or less esoteric teaching about things unseen, "handed on" in the heretical circles, not published in the daylight.

of men Whereas the Apostle's mission and Gospel was "not of men, neither by man" (Galatians 1:1) nor "according to man" (ibid., 11). He "neither received it of man, nor was taught it, but by revelation from Jesus Christ" (ibid., 12). Nothing is more emphatic in St Paul than this assertion of the strictly and directly superhuman, Divine, origin of the Gospel as a message.

rudiments Cp. Galatians 4:3. The Greek word means a first beginning, or principle (see Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, under στοιχεῖον), for instance, as a simple vocal sound(that e.g. of the letter r) is a first element in speech. Hence it comes to mean "an element" in knowledge, or instruction; and hence, elementary instruction. The same word also denoted the heavenly bodies, regarded as the first groundsof measurement of time; and many ancient expositors saw this meaning here, as if the Apostle had in view the observance of "days, and months, and seasons, and years" (Galatians 4:10). But Lightfoot points out that (a) the reference here is to some mode of teaching, (b) the observance of "times" was too subordinate a factor in the errors in question to be thus named as a part for the whole. See his note here and also on Galatians 4:3. The Apostle has in view the pre-Christian ordinances of e.g. sacrifice and circumcision, regarded as temporary, introductory to the Gospel, and now therefore to be laid aside. In their place, they were Divine; out of their place, they are "of the world."

On the word στοιχεῖον see further Grimm's N.T. Lexicon, ed. Thayer.

of the world Belonging to an order not spiritual but only mechanical, material. See the last words of the previous note. For such a reference of the word cosmoscp. 1 Corinthians 1:20.

not after Christ "Christ is neither the author nor the substance of [this] teaching" (Lightfoot). The holy and necessary exclusiveness of the Gospel cannot admit such "traditions" and "elements" even as subordinate allies. They must absolutely give way before it.