Verse 4

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Decipiat, Greek: paralogizetai, fallaci ratiocinatione.

Verse 7

Rooted and built up in him, who is the head of all, your Redeemer, and author of your salvation, not upon Angels. (Witham)

Verse 8

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Decipiat, Greek: sulagogon, prædam furtive abducens. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: log. st. p. 118.

Verse 9

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

In ipso inhabitat omnis plenitudo divinitatis corporaliter, Greek: katoikei pan to pleroma tes theotetos somatikos. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: log. st. p. 118.

Verse 12

Buried with him in baptism, signified by the ceremony of immersion in baptism. See Romans vi. 3. (Witham)

Verse 14

Blotting out, &c.(4) This is commonly expounded of the sentence of eternal death pronounced against sinful Adam, and all his posterity, for having sinned in him. Others would have it to signify only the yoke and obligations of the Mosaical law, which could not of itself remit sins, and occasionally made persons greater sinners. This sentence of death (whether we understand the one or the other) Christ took away, fastening it as it were, to the cross, taking it away by his death on the cross. (Witham)

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Chirographum decreti; Greek: cheirographon tou dogmatos. In the common Greek copies, Greek: tois dogmasi, as Ephesians ii. 15.

Verse 15

And despoiling the principalities and powers; the devil and his infernal spirits. (Witham)

Verse 16

Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or in drink. That is, for not abstaining from meats, called unclean, for drinking out of a cup without a cover, (see Numbers xix.) or for not keeping the Jewish festivals. For these were but shadows, types and figures of future things to be fulfilled in the new law of Christ: but the body is of Christ, (ver. 17.) i.e. was the body, the truth, the substance signified by these shadows and types. (Witham) --- He means with regard to the Jewish observations of the distinction of clean and unclean meats; and of the festivals, new moons, and sabbaths; as being no longer obligatory. (Challoner) --- Modern dogmatizers wilfully or ignorantly misapply this text of the apostle, to disprove the fasts and festivals observed in the Catholic Church; but it is evident, as St. Augustine observes, that the apostle is here condemning the legal distinction of clean and unclean meats, and the feasts of the new moon, to which false brethren wanted to subject the Colossians. (St. Augustine, ep. 59. ad Paulin. in solut. quæ. 7.)

Verse 18

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Seducat, Greek: katabrabeueto. See Mr. Legh's Crit. Sacra.

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Volens, Greek thelon; religione, Greek: threskeia. --- Walking, ambulans, Greek: embateuon, superbe se ingerens.

Verse 20

If then you be dead with Christ, or if you be not of this world, why do you act as if you were in it? practising the ceremonies of the law, as if you still expected Christ; all which are hurtful to you. (St. Jerome) --- In your baptism you died with Jesus Christ to all legal observances, and should not therefore suffer any carnal laws to be imposed upon you, as if you were still living in this first state of the world. (Bible de Vence) --- These things have an appearance of humility, if your abstain from them through mortification, and not through any necessity, as if they were unclean. But if we look upon them, and reject them as impure, and despise those who do not follow our example, then these things, so far from being useful, become prejudicial. (Grotius) --- Why do you yet decree (7) in this manner? (Witham)

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Quid adhuc decernitis, Greek: dogmatizesthe.

Verse 21

Touch not, &c. That is, why do you permit yourselves to be taught in this manner by those Jewish doctors: why do you touch or eat this, lest you be unclean? such superstitious observations, now at least, when there is no necessity nor obligation for you to observe them, tend to destruction, &c. (Witham) --- The meaning is, that Christians should not subject themselves, either to the ordinances of the old law, forbidding touching or tasting things unclean: or to the superstitious inventions of heretics, imposing such restraints, under pretence of wisdom, humility, or mortification. (Challoner)

Verse 23

Which things have indeed, (as such masters teach you) a shew of wisdom, in their nice superstitious ways, joined by some of them with extraordinary abstinences, and severities practised on the body in fasting, which they observe, without any honour or regard, even not to the satiating of the flesh; i.e. according to the common expression, with such an excess, as not to allow the body(8) what is sufficient or necessary to support nature, that a man may be able to labour and comply with his duties; but here is nothing against discreet fasting, and self-denials, so much recommended in the holy Scriptures. (Witham)

===============================

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Et non ad parcendum corpori, Greek: kai apheidia somatos, et in non parcentia corporis, vel in crudelitate erga corpus. --- Non in honore ad saturitatem, Greek: ouk en time pros plesmonen.

====================

Verse 24