Trall. inscr. Ἰγνάτιος, ὁ καὶ Θεοφόρος ... ἐκκλησίᾳ ἁγίᾳ τῇ οὔσῃ ἐν Τράλλεσιν ... ἣν καὶ )ασπάζομαι ἐν τῷ πληρώματι, ἐν ἀποστολικῷ χαρακτῆρι.
The term has a recognised value
It will be evident, I think, from the passages in St Paul, that the word πλήρωμα ‘fulness, plenitude’, must have had a more or less definite theological value when he wrote. This inference, which is suggested by the frequency of the word, seems almost inevitable when we consider the form of the expression in the first passage quoted, Col. i. 19. The absolute use of the word, πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα ‘all the fulness’, would otherwise be unintelligible, for it does not explain itself. In my notes I have taken ὁ Θεός to be the nominative to εὐδόκησεν, but if the subject of the verb were πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα, as some suppose, the inference would be still more necessary. The word however, regarded as a theological term, does not appear to have been adopted, like so many other expressions in the Apostolic writers[[544]], from the nomenclature of Alexandrian Judaism. |derived from Palestine and not Alexandria.|At least no instance of its occurrence in this sense is produced from Philo. We may therefore conjecture that it had a Palestinian origin, and that the Essene Judaizers of Colossæ, whom St Paul is confronting, derived it from this source. In this case it would represent the Hebrew מלא, of which it is a translation in the LXX, and the Aramaic ܡܘܠܙܐ
or some other derivative of the same root, such being its common rendering in the Peshito.
It denotes the totality of the Divine powers, etc. in the Colossian letter.
The sense in which St Paul employs this term was doubtless the sense which he found already attached to it. He means, as he explicitly states in the second Christological passage of the Colossian Epistle (ii. 9), the pleroma, the plenitude of ‘the Godhead’ or ‘of Deity’. In the first passage (i. 19), though the word stands without the addition τῆς θεότητος, the signification required by the context is the same. The true doctrine of the one Christ, who is the absolute mediator in the creation and government of the world, is opposed to the false doctrine of a plurality of mediators, ‘thrones, dominions, principalities, powers’. An absolute and unique position is claimed for Him, because in Him resides ‘all the pleroma’, i.e. the full complement, the aggregate of the Divine attributes, virtues, energies. This is another way of expressing the fact that He is the Logos, for the Logos is the synthesis of all the various δυνάμεις, in and by which God manifests Himself whether in the kingdom of nature or in the kingdom of grace.
Analogy to its usage elsewhere: e.g.
This application is in entire harmony with the fundamental meaning of the word. The term has been transferred to the region of theology, but in itself it conveys exactly the same idea as before. It implies that all the several elements which are required to realise the conception specified are present, and that each appears in its full proportions. |in Philo of the family|Thus Philo, describing the ideal state of prosperity which will result from absolute obedience to God’s law, mentions among other blessings the perfect development of the family: ‘Men shall be fathers and fathers too of goodly sons, and women shall be mothers of goodly children, so that each household shall be the pleroma of a numerous kindred, where no part or name is wanting of all those which are used to designate relations, whether in the ascending line, as parents, uncles, grandfathers, or again in the descending line in like manner, as brothers, nephews, sons’ sons, daughters’ sons, cousins, cousins’ sons, kinsmen of all degrees[[545]].’ |and in Aristotle, of the state.|So again Aristotle, criticizing the Republic of Plato, writes; ‘Socrates says that a city (or state) is composed of four classes, as its indispensable elements (τῶν ἀναγκαιοτάτων): by these he means the weaver, the husbandman, the shoemaker, and the builder; and again, because these are not sufficient by themselves, he adds the smith and persons to look after the necessary cattle, and besides them the merchant and the retail dealer: these together make up the pleroma of a city in its simplest form (ταῦτα πάντα γίνεται πλήρωμα τῆς πρώτης πόλεως); thus he assumes that a city is formed to supply the bare necessities of life (τῶν ἀναγκων χάριν) etc.’[[546]]. From these passages it will be seen that the adequacy implied by the word, as so used, consists not less in the variety of the elements than in the fulness of the entire quantity or number.
Transition from Colossians to Ephesians.