[← ] 16Μὴ οὖν τις ὑμᾶς κρινέτω ἐν βρώσει καὶ ἐν πόσει ἢ[ >] [ →]
16. ἢ ἐν πόσει.
θριαμβεύσας] ‘leading them in triumph’, the same metaphor as in 2 Cor. ii. 14 τῷ πάντοτε θριαμβεύοντι ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ κ.τ.λ., where it is wrongly translated in the A. V. ‘causeth us to triumph’. Here however it is the defeated powers of evil, there the subjugated persons of men, who are led in public, chained to the triumphal car of Christ. This is the proper meaning and construction of θριαμβεύειν, as found elsewhere. This verb takes an accusative (1) of the person over whom the triumph is celebrated, e.g. Plut. Vit. Arat. 54 τοῦτον Αἰμίλιος ἐθριάμβευσε, Thes. et Rom. Comp. 4 βασιλεῖς ἐθριάμβευσε: (2) of the spoils exhibited in the triumph, e.g. Tatian c. Græc. 26 παύσασθε λόγους ἀλλοτρίους θριαμβεύοντες καί, ὥσπερ ὁ κολοιός, οὐκ ἰδίοις ἐπικοσμούμενοι πτεροῖς: (3) more rarely of the substance of the triumph, e.g. Vit. Camill. 30 ὁ δὲ Κάμιλλος ἐθριάμβευσε ... τὸν ἀπολωλυίας σωτῆρα πατρίδος γενόμενον, i.e. ‘in the character of his country’s saviour’. The passive θριαμβεύεσθαι is ‘to be led in triumph’, ‘to be triumphed over’, e.g. Vit. C. Marc. 35. So the Latins say ‘triumphare aliquem’ and ‘triumphari’.
ἐν αὐτῷ] i.e. τῷ σταυρῷ: comp. Ephes. ii. 16 ἀποκαταλλάξῃ τοὺς ἀμφοτέρους ... διὰ τοῦ σταυροῦ. The violence of the metaphor is its justification. The paradox of the crucifixion is thus placed in the strongest light—triumph in helplessness and glory in shame. The convict’s gibbet is the victor’s car.
16–19. ‘Seeing then that the bond is cancelled, that the law of ordinances is repealed, beware of subjecting yourselves to its tyranny again. Suffer no man to call you to account in the matter of eating or drinking, or again of the observance of a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only shadows thrown in advance, only types of things to come. The substance, the reality, in every case belongs to the Gospel of Christ. The prize is now fairly within your reach. Do not suffer yourselves to be robbed of it by any stratagem of the false teachers. Their religion is an officious humility which displays itself in the worship of angels. They make a parade of their visions, but they are following an empty phantom. They profess humility, but they are puffed up with their vaunted wisdom, which is after all only the mind of the flesh. Meanwhile they have substituted inferior spiritual agencies for the One true Mediator, the Eternal Word. Clinging to these lower intelligences, they have lost their hold of the Head; they have severed their connexion with Him, on whom the whole body depends; from whom it derives its vitality, and to whom it owes its unity, being supplied with nourishment and knit together in one by means of the several joints and attachments, so that it grows with a growth which comes from God Himself.’
16 sq. The two main tendencies of the Colossian heresy are discernible in this warning (vv. 16–19), as they were in the previous statement (vv. 9–15). Here however the order is reversed. The practical error, an excessive ritualism and ascetic rigour, is first dealt with (vv. 16, 17); the theological error, the interposition of angelic mediators, follows after (vv. 18, 19). The first is the substitution of a shadow for the substance; the second is the preference of an inferior member to the head. The reversal of order is owing to the connexion of the paragraphs; the opening subject in the second paragraph being a continuation of the concluding subject in the first, by the figure called chiasm: comp. Gal. iv. 5.
κρινέτω] not ‘condemn you’, but ‘take you to task’; as e.g. Rom. xiv. 3 sq. The judgment may or may not end in an acquittal; but in any case it is wrong, since these matters ought not to be taken as the basis of a judgment.
ἐν βρώσει κ.τ.λ.] ‘in eating and in drinking’; Rom. xiv. 17 οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ βρῶσις καὶ πόσις, ἀλλὰ δικαιοσύνη κ.τ.λ., Heb. ix. 10 ἐπὶ βρώμασιν καὶ πόμασιν καὶ διαφόροις βαπτισμοῖς, δικαίωματα σαρκός, comp. 1 Cor. viii. 8 βρῶμα δὲ ἡμᾶς οὐ παραστήσει τῷ Θεῷ κ.τ.λ. The first indication that the Mosaic distinctions of things clean and unclean should be abolished is given by our Lord Himself: Mark vii. 14 sq. (the correct reading in ver. 19 being καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα). They were afterwards formally annulled by the vision which appeared to St Peter: Acts x. 11 sq. The ordinances of the Mosaic law applied almost exclusively to meats. It contained no prohibitions respecting drinks except in a very few cases; e.g. of the priests ministering in the tabernacle (Lev. x. 9), of liquids contained in unclean vessels etc. (Lev. xi. 34, 36), and of Nazarite vows (Num. vi. 3). These directions, taken in connexion with the rigid observances which the later Jews had grafted on them (Matt. xxiii. 24), would be sufficient to explain the expression, when applied to the Mosaic law by itself, as in Heb. l.c. The rigour of the Colossian false teachers however, like that of their Jewish prototypes the Essenes, doubtless went far beyond the injunctions of the law. It is probable that they forbad wine and animal food altogether: see the introduction pp. 86, 104 sq. For allusions in St Paul to similar observances not required by the law, see Rom. xiv. 2 ὁ δὲ ἀσθενῶν λάχανα ἐσθίει, ver. 21 καλὸν τὸ μὴ φαγεῖν κρέα μηδὲ πιεῖν οἶνον κ.τ.λ., 1 Tim. iv. 2, 3 κωλυόντων ... ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων ἃ ὁ Θεὸς ἔκτισεν κ.τ.λ., Tit. i. 14 μὴ προσέχοντες ... ἐντολαῖς ἀνθρώπων ... πάντα καθαρὰ τοῖς καθαροῖς. The correct reading seems to be καὶ ἐν πόσει, thus connecting together the words between which there is a natural affinity. Comp. Philo Vit. Moys. i. § 33 (II. p. 110) δεσποίναις χαλεπαῖς συνεζευγμένου βρώσει καὶ πόσει, Ign. Trall. 2 οὐ γὰρ βρωμάτων καὶ ποτῶν εἰσὶν διάκονοι.
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