Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Colossians 2:1 - 2:1
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Col_2:1. Γάρ ] The apostle now confirms in concreto the εἰς ὃ κ . κοπ . ἀγωνιζόμενος κ . τ . λ ., which has just been affirmed of himself in general: in proof of that assertion I would have you to know, etc. Hofmann holds erroneously, in consequence of his mistaken explanation of κοπιῶ in Col_1:29, that Paul desires to explain why he has said that he is becoming weary over the exertion, etc.
Instead of the more frequent οὐ θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν (see on Rom_11:25; Rom_1:13), Paul uses the θέλω ὑμ . εἰδέναι , also in 1Co_11:3; comp. Php_1:12.
ἡλίκον ] what a great, vehement conflict. Paul nowhere else uses this word, which is classical, but does not occur either in the LXX. or in the Apocrypha; in the N. T. it is only found again at Jam_3:5. That by the conflict is meant the internal pressure of solicitude and apprehension, etc. (comp. Col_1:29, also Rom_15:30), is plain—when we remember the imprisoned condition of the apostle, who now could not contend outwardly with the false teachers themselves—from Col_2:2. It is at the same time self-evident that the wrestling of prayer was an eminent way of conducting this spiritual conflict, without its being necessary to regard Col_4:12 as a criterion for determining the sense in our passage.
καὶ τῶν ἐν Λαοδικ .] The neighbouring Laodiceans (Rev_3:14 ff.) were without doubt exposed to like heretical dangers; hence also the injunction as to the mutual communication of the Epistles, Col_4:16.
καὶ ὅσοι κ . τ . λ .] The sense is: and, generally ( καί , see Fritzsche, ad Matth. p. 786. 870) for all to whom I am personally unknown. It adds the entire category, to which the ὑμεῖς and those ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ , both regarded as churches, were reckoned to belong. Comp. Act_4:6. It is plain from our passage that Paul had not been in Colossae and Laodicea. It is true that Wiggers, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 176, would have ὅσοι κ . τ . λ . understood as referring to a portion of the Colossians and Laodiceans, in which case καί would mean even; but the text itself is decisively opposed to this view by the following αὐτῶν , Col_2:2, which, if the ὃσοι κ . τ . λ . to which it refers be not the class in which the readers and Laodiceans were included, would be altogether unsuitable; as, indeed, the bare even does not suffice to give special prominence to a particular portion (we should expect μάλιστα δέ or the like), and the comprehensive ὅσοι withal does not seem accounted for. Erroneous also is the view (held already by Theodoret in the Hypothes. and in the Commentary, though Credner, Einl. § 154, erroneously denies this) of Baronius, Lardner, and David Schultz (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 535 ff.), that the ὅσοι κ . τ . λ . were other than the ὑμεῖς and οἱ ἐν Λαοδικ .; Paul having been personally known to both the latter. The subsequent αὐτῶν is fatal to this theory likewise; and how singularly without reason would it have been, if Paul had designated as the objects of his anxiety, along with two churches of the district which are supposed to have known him personally, all not knowing him personally, without distinction of locality! With how many of the latter were there no such dangers at all existing, as the Colossians and Laodiceans were exposed to! To this falls to be added the fact, that in the entire Epistle there is not a single hint of the apostle having been present in Colossae. See, on the contrary, on Col_1:8 and on Col_1:23. Comp. Wieseler, Chronol. des apost. Zeitalt. p. 440. According to Hilgenfeld, in his Zeitschr. 1870, p. 245 f., the intimation that Paul was personally unknown to the Colossians betrays the composition of the Epistle at a later, time, when the recollection of his labours there had been already superseded and had vanished from the memory of the churches. As if such a forgetfulness were even conceivable, in presence of the high esteem in which the apostle was held!
That Paul should have been so concerned about the Colossians and Laodiceans, as those who did not know him personally, is natural enough, seeing that they were not in a position to oppose the living impression of the apostle’s personal ministry, and his direct authority, to the heretical seductions. Comp. Col_2:5.
ἐν σαρκί ] not belonging to ἑωράκασι —in which case it would be a contrast to seeing ἐν πνεύματι (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Baumgarten-Crusius)—joins itself, so as to form one idea, with τὸ πρόσωπον μον (Winer, p. 128 [E. T. 169]). See Col_2:5. The addition, which might in itself be dispensed with (comp. Gal_1:22; 1Th_2:17), serves the purpose of concrete representation, without its being necessary to import into it a contrast to the “spiritual physiognomy” (Olshausen), or to the having made acquaintance in a spiritual fashion (Hofmann), in connection with which Estius even discovers a certain ταπείνωσις through a higher estimation of the latter; although generally the idea of a spiritual mode of intercourse, independent of bodily absence, very naturally occasioned the concrete description: my bodily face. There is all the less ground for assigning ἐν σαρκί , as an anticipation of Col_2:5, to the hand of the manipulator, and that in such a way as to betray an author who knows the apostle to be already snatched away from the flesh and present in heaven (Holtzmann).