Colossians 2:8

Colossians 2:8. Take heed. The word is usually rendered thus.

Lest there shall be; the peculiar form of the original is thus reproduced, marking an impending danger quite certain to come upon them.

Any one. This indefinite expression does not imply that Paul did not know who these false teachers were (comp. Galatians 1:7).

Maketh you his booty; not, ‘rob you.' Ellicott: ‘The false teachers sought to lead them away captive, body and mind; the former by ritualistic restrictions (Colossians 2:16), the latter by heretical teaching (Colossians 2:18).

Through his (lit, ‘the') philosophy and vain deceit. The two terms apply to the same thing, as the original indicates; the ‘philosophy' of the false teachers was ‘vain deceit.' The article shows that the Apostle means ‘not philosophy in itself and in general, however much it had, in its decay and according to its manifestation in that age, proven itself to the Apostle as folly in comparison with the wisdom of the gospel, but the definite speculation, known to his readers, which obtained in Colossse and that region, and which consisted of Gnostic theosophy blended with Judaism (Essenism), designated by the name philosophy, on account of its ontological character, and in general, irrespective of its relation to the truth rightly so called; but perhaps put forward also by the false teachers themselves under this designation, which is the more probable, since Paul uses the word only in this passage' (Meyer). Comp. Introduction, § 2.

After the tradition of men. ‘ Such a description was peculiarly appropriate to a mystic theosophy like this of the Colossian false teachers. The teaching might be oral or written, but it was essentially esoteric, essentially traditional. It could not appeal to sacred books which had been before all the world for centuries. The Essenes, the immediate spiritual progenitors of those Colossian heretics, distinctly claimed to possess such a source of knowledge, which they carefully guarded from divulgence' (Lightfoot).

After the rudiments (or, ‘elements') of the world. ‘ Elements' is the proper rendering. In 2 Peter 3:10; 2 Peter 3:12, but in Paul's Epistles (see mare, references) the term has a didactic sense: rudimentary instruction. The Fathers indeed explained this passage of the heavenly bodies as regulating festivals, but this is quite out of keeping with the fact that a mode of instruction is here referred to. The phrase suggests more than Jewish ritualistic observances, since ‘world' includes the whole sphere of material things, and the Apostle is giving the category to which the false teaching belonged. To go back to rudiments was to show themselves children (comp. Galatians 4:3).

And not after Christ. This is in contrast with all that precedes: Christ is source, substance, norm and end of Christianity. What is ‘not after Christ' is rudimentary, not ‘advanced;' all teaching that does not make Him the centre only serves to lead men captive. Culture apart from Him is an illusion and deceit.