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Col_2:20 f. After these warnings, Col_2:16-19, which were intended to secure his readers against the seduction threatening them, the apostle now returns for the same purpose once more to the two main foundations of the Christian life, to the fellowship with Christ in death (Col_2:20), and fellowship with Him also in resurrection (Col_3:1). His aim is to show, in connection with the former, the groundlessness and perversity of the heretical prohibitions of meats (Col_2:20-23), and to attach to the latter—to the fellowship of resurrection—the essence of Christian morality in whole and in detail, and there with the paraenetic portion of the Epistle (Col_3:1 to Col_4:6), the tenor of which thereby receives the character of the holiest moral necessity.
εἰ ἀπεθάνετε κ . τ . λ .] the legal abstinence required by the false teachers (see below) stands in contradiction with the fact, that the readers at their conversion had entered into the fellowship of the death of Christ, and thereby had become loosed from the στοιχεία τοῦ κόσμου (see on Col_2:8), i.e. from the ritual religious elements of non-Christian humanity, among which the legal prohibition of meats and the traditional regulations founded thereon are included. How far the man who has died with Christ has passed out of connection with these elementary things, is taught by Col_2:14, according to which, through the death of Christ, the law as to its debt-obligation has been abolished. Consequently, in the case of those who have died with Christ, the law, and everything belonging to the same category with it, have no further claim to urge, since Christ has allowed the curse of the law to be accomplished on Himself, and this has also taken place in believers in virtue of their fellowship of death with Him, whereby the binding relation of debt which had hitherto subsisted for them has ceased. Comp. Gal_2:19; Gal_4:3; Gal_4:9; Rom_7:4, et al.
ἀποθνήσκειν , with ἀπό , meaning to die away from something, moriendo liberari a (Porphyr. de abstin. ab esu anim. i. 41), is only met with here in the N. T.; elsewhere it is used with the dative, as in Gal_2:19, Rom_6:2, whereby the same thing is otherwise conceived in point of form. It is, moreover, to be observed, that Christ Himself also is by death released from the στοιχεία , since He was made under the law, and, although sinless, was destined to take upon Himself the curse of it; hence it was only by His death in obedience to the Father (Php_2:8; Rom_5:19), that He became released from this relation. Comp. on Gal_4:4. Huther erroneously denies that such an ἀποθανεῖν can be predicated of Christ, and therefore assumes (comp. Schenkel and Dalmer) the brachylogy: “if, by your dying with Christ, ye are dead from the στοιχεία τοῦ κοσμοῦ .”
τί ὡς ζῶντες κ . τ . λ .] why are ye, as though ye were still alive in the world, commanded: Touch not, etc. Such commands are adapted to those who are not, like you, dead, etc. As ἀποθανόντες σὺν Χ . ἀπὸ τ . στοιχ . τ . κόσμ ., ye are no longer alive in the domain of the non-Christian κόσμος , but are removed from that sphere of life (belonging to the heavenly πολίτευμα , Php_3:20). The word δογματίζειν , only found here in the N. T., but frequently in the LXX. and Apocrypha, and in the Fathers and decrees of Councils (see Suicer, Thes. I. p. 935), means nothing more than to decree (Diod. Sic. iv. 83; Diog. L. iii. 51; Anth. Pal. ix. 576. 4; Arrian. Epict, iii. 7; Est_3:9; Esther 3 Esdr. 6:34; 2Ma_10:8; 2Ma_15:36; 3Ma_4:11), and δογματίζεσθε is passive: why are ye prescribed to, why do men make decrees for you (vobis)? so that it is not a reproach (the censure conveyed by the expression affects rather the false teachers), but a warning to those readers (comp. Col_2:16; Col_2:18) who were not yet led away (Col_1:4, Col_2:5), and who ought not to yield any compliance to so absurd a demand. That the readers are the passive subject, is quite according to rule, since the active has the dative along with it, δογματίζειν τινι (2Ma_10:8); comp. also Hofmann and Beza. The usual rendering takes δογματ . as middle, and that either as: why do ye allow commands to be laid down for you (Huther), rules to be imposed upon you, (de Wette), yourselves to be entangled with rules (Luther)? and such like;[130] or even: why do ye make rules for yourselves (Ewald)? comp. Vulgate: decernitis. This, however, would involve a censure of the readers, and ὡς ζῶντες ἐν κόσμῳ would express the unsuitableness of their conduct with their Christian standing—a reproach, which would be altogether out of harmony with the other contents of the Epistle. On the contrary, Ὡς ΖῶΝΤΕς ἘΝ Κ . indicates the erroneous aspect in which the Christian standing of the readers was regarded by the false teachers, who took up such an attitude towards them, as if they were not yet dead from the world, which nevertheless (comp. Col_2:11 f.) they are through their fellowship with Christ (Col_3:3; Gal_2:19 f.; 2Co_5:14 f.). The ὡς ζῶντες ἐν κόσμῳ , moreover, is entirely misunderstood by Bähr: “as if one could at all attain to life and salvation through externals.” Comp., on the contrary, the thought of the εἶναι ἐν τῇ σαρκί in Rom_7:5 and Gal_6:14. Observe, further, that this ΖῆΝ ἘΝ ΚΌΣΜῼ is not one and the same thing with εἷναι ὑπὸ τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου (Hofmann, by way of establishing his explanation of ΣΤΟΙΧΕῖΑ in the sense of the material things of the world); but the ζῆν ἐν κ . is the more general, to which the special εἶναι ὑπὸ τ . στοιχεῖα τ . κ . is subordinate. If the former is the case, the latter also takes place by way of consequence.
μὴ ἅψῃ κ . τ . λ .] a vivid concrete representation of the ΔΌΓΜΑΤΑ concerned, in a “compendiaria mimesis” (Flacius). The triple description brings out the urgency of the eager demand for abstinence, and the relation of the three prohibitions is such, that μηδέ both times means nor even; in the second instance, however, in the sense of ne quidem, so that the last point stands to the two former together in the relation of a climax: thou shalt not lay hold of, nor even taste, nor once touch! What was meant as object of this enjoined ἀπέχεσθαι (1Ti_4:3) the reader was aware, and its omission only renders the description more vivid and terse. Steiger’s view, that the object was suppressed by the false teachers themselves from fear and hypocrisy, is quite groundless. From the words themselves, however ( γεύσῃ ), and from the subsequent context (see Col_2:23), it is plain that the prohibitions concerned certain meats and drinks (comp. Col_2:16); and it is entirely arbitrary to mix up other things, as even de Wette does, making them refer also to sexual intercourse ( θιγγάνειν γυναικός , Eur. Hipp. 1044, et al.; see Monck, ad Eur. Hipp. 14; Valckenaer, ad Phoen. 903), while others distinguish between ἅψῃ and ΘΊΓῌς in respect of their objects, e.g. Estius: the former refers to unclean objects, such as the garments of a menstruous woman, the latter to the buying and selling of unclean meats; Erasmus, Zanchius: the former concerns dead bodies, the latter sacred vessels and the like; Grotius: the former refers to meats, the latter to the “vitandas feminas,” to which Flatt and Dalmer, following older writers, make ἅψῃ refer (1Co_7:1). Others give other expositions still; Böhmer arbitrarily makes ΘΊΓῌς refer to the oil, which the Essenes and other theosophists regarded as a labes. That Paul in ἅψῃ and ΘΊΓ . had no definite object at all in view, is not even probable (in opposition to Huther), because γεύσῃ stands between them, and Col_2:23 points to abstinence from meats, and not at the same time to anything else.
Following the more forcible ἍΨῌ , lay hold of, the more subtle θίγῃς , touch, is in admirable keeping with the climax: the object was to be even ἄθικτον (Soph. O. C. 39). Comp. on the difference between the two words, Xen. Cyrop. i. 3. 5: ὅταν μὲν τοῦ ἄρτου ἅψῃ , εἰς οὐδὲν τὴν χεῖρα ἀποψώμενον ( σὲ ὁρῶ ), ὅταν δὲ τούτων (these dainty dishes) ΤΙΝῸς ΘΊΓῌς , ΕὐΘῪς ἈΠΟΚΑΘΑΊΡῌ ΤῊΝ ΧΕῖΡΑ ΕἸς ΤᾺ ΧΕΙΡΌΜΑΚΤΡΑ , also v. 1. 16. In an inverted climax, Eur. Bacch. 617: οὔτʼ ἔθιγεν οὔθʼ ἥψαθʼ ἡμῶν . See also Exo_19:12, where the LXX. delicately and aptly render ðÀâÉòÇ áÌÀ÷ÈòÅäåÌ , to touch the outer border of the mountain, by the free translation θίγειν τι αὐτοῦ , but then express the general äÇðÉâÅòÇ áÌÈäÈø by the stronger ὁ ἁψάμενος τοῦ ὄρους . Hofmann erroneously holds that ἅπτομαι expresses rather the motion of the subject grasping at something, θιγγάνω rather his arriving at the object. In opposition to this fiction stands the testimony of all the passages in the Gospels (Mat_8:3; Mat_9:20; Joh_20:17, and many others), in which ἅπτεσθαι signifies the actual laying hold of, and, in Paul’s writings, of 1Co_7:1, 2Co_6:17, as also the quite common Grecian usage in the sense of contrectare (attingere et inhaerere), and similarly the signification of the active to fasten to, to make to stick (Lobeck, ad Soph. Aj. 698; Duncan, Lex. Hom. ed. Rost, p. 150). The mere stretching out the hand towards something, in order to seize it, is never ἍΠΤΕΣΘΑΙ . Hofmann, moreover, in order to establish a climax of the three points, arbitrarily makes the subtle gloss upon ΓΕΎΣῌ , that this might even happen more unintentionally, and upon θίγῃς , that this might happen involuntarily.
Respecting the aorist ΘΙΓΕῖΝ (a present ΘΊΓΕΙΝ instead of ΘΙΓΓΆΝΕΙΝ can nowhere be accepted as certain), see Schaefer, ad Greg. Cor. p. 990, Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 804; Kühner, I. p. 833.
[130] Comp. Chrysostom: πῶς τοῖς στοιχείοις ὑπόκεισθε ; similarly Theodoret, Beza; and recently, Bähr, Böhmer, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek, and others.