Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament

SAINT PAUL’S EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS AND TO PHILEMON

J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D.

Late Bishop of Durham,

Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

μιμηταί μου γίνεσθε καθὼς κἀγὼ χριστοΥ.

—————

Παῦλος γενόμενος μέγιστος ὑπογραμμός.

Clement

—————

Οὐχ ὡς Παῦλος διατάσσομαι ὑμῖν· ἐκεῖνος ἀπόστολος, ἐγὼ κατάκριτος· ἐκεῖνος ἐλεύθερος, ἐγὼ δὲ μέχρι νῦν δοῦλος.

Ignatius

—————

Οὔτε ἐγὼ οὔτε ἄλλος ὄμοιος ἐμοὶ δύναται κατακολουθῆσαι τῇ σοφίᾳ τοῦ μακαρίου καὶ ἐνδόξου Παύλου.

Polycarp

TO THE

RIGHT REV. EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D.,

LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,

IN SINCERE ADMIRATION

OF

HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER AND EPISCOPAL WORK

AND IN

GRATEFUL RECOGNITION

OF

THE PRIVILEGES OF A PRIVATE FRIENDSHIP.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

On the completion of another volume of my commentary, I wish again to renew my thanks for the assistance received from previous labourers in the same field. Such obligations must always be great; but it is not easy in a few words to apportion them fairly, and I shall not make the attempt. I have not consciously neglected any aid which might render this volume more complete; but at the same time I venture to hope that my previous commentaries have established my claim to be regarded as an independent worker, and in the present instance more especially I have found myself obliged to diverge widely from the treatment of my predecessors, and to draw largely from other materials than those which they have collected.

In the preface to a previous volume I expressed an intention of appending to my commentary on the Colossian Epistle an essay on ‘Christianity and Gnosis.’ This intention has not been fulfilled in the letter; but the subject enters largely into the investigation of the Colossian heresy, where it receives as much attention as, at all events for the present, it seems to require. It will necessarily come under discussion again, when the Pastoral Epistles are taken in hand.

The question of the genuineness of the two epistles contained in this volume has been deliberately deferred. It could not be discussed with any advantage apart from the Epistle to the Ephesians, for the three letters are inseparably bound together. Meanwhile however the doctrinal and historical discussions will, if I mistake not, have furnished answers to the main objections which have been urged; while the commentary will have shown how thoroughly natural the language and thoughts are, if conceived as arising out of an immediate emergency. More especially it will have been made apparent that the Epistle to the Colossians hangs together as a whole, and that the phenomena are altogether adverse to any theory of interpolation such as that recently put forward by Professor Holtzmann.

In the commentary, as well as in the introduction, it has been a chief aim to illustrate and develope the theological conception of the Person of Christ, which underlies the Epistle ...