[634]. The passage is quoted above, p. 341, note [593].
[635]. τινὲς ὑπέλαβον καὶ πρὸς Λαοδικέας αὐτὸν γεγραφέναι· αὐτίκα τοίνυν καὶ προσφέρουσι πεπλασμένην ἐπιστολήν.
[636]. Anger (p. 143) argues against a Greek original on the ground that the Eastern Church, unlike the Latin, did not generally interpret Col. iv. 16 as meaning an epistle written to the Laodiceans. The fact is true, but the inference is wrong, as the language of the Greek commentators themselves shows.
[637]. Act. vi. Tom. v (Labbe viii. p. 1125 ed. Colet.) καὶ γὰρ τοῦ θείου ἀποστόλου πρὸς Λαοδικεῖς φέρεται πλαστὴ ἐπιστολὴ ἕν τισι βίβλοις τοῦ ἀποστόλου ἐγκειμένη, ἣν οἱ πάτερες ἡμῶν ἀπεδοκίμασαν ὡς αὐτοῦ ἀλλοτρίαν.
[638]. A Greek version is given in Elias Hutter’s Polyglott New Testament (Noreb. 1599); see Anger p. 147 note g. But I have retranslated the epistle anew, introducing the Pauline passages, of which it is almost entirely made up, as they stand in the Greek Testament. The references are given in the margin.
[639]. Quoted above, p. 359, note [637].
[640]. See above, p. [315] sq.
[641]. Greg. Magn. Mor. in Iob. xxxv. § 25 (III. p. 433, ed. Gallicc.) ‘Recte vita ecclesiæ multiplicata per decem et quattuor computatur; quia utrumque testamentum custodiens, et tam secundum Legis decalogum quam secundum quattuor Evangelii libros vivens, usque ad perfectionis culmen extenditur. Unde et Paulus apostolus quamvis epistolas quindecim scripserit, sancta tamen ecclesia non amplius quam quatuordecim tenet, ut ex ipso epistolarum numero ostenderet quod doctor egregius Legis et Evangelii secreta rimasset’.
[642]. Patrol. Lat. CXVII. p. 765 (ed. Migne) ‘Et eam quæ erat Laodicensium ideo præcipit Colossensibus legi, quia, licet perparva sit et in Canone non habeatur, aliquid tamen utilitatis habet’. He uses the expression ‘eam quæ erat Laodicensium’, because τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας was translated in the Latin Bible ‘eam quæ Laodicensium est’.
[643]. See Galatians p. 232 on the authorship of this commentary.