Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (47 page)

Given Paul’s ability to mix metaphor otherwise, possibly not too much weight should be placed on the fact that Christ here is described as the “head of the body”
rather than the “body” itself (1:18), though the usage does give one pause.
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When one considers, however, how Paul imagines the life “of the body” the differences are even more striking. The Haustafel of 3:18–4:1 has long been thought of as non-Pauline, and for reasons related to the realized eschatology already noted. In particular, this domestication of Paul in his embrace of family ideals stands at odds with Paul’s firmly stated preference, for himself and others, for celibacy. Nowhere in Paul’s letters do we find such a celebration of standard Greco-Roman ethics; on the contrary, Paul insisted on the superiority of the ascetic life free from marriage (1 Corinthians 7). This, indeed, was the appropriate response to a world that was in the process of “passing away.” Here in Colossians, on the other hand, the world is not passing away (there is no imminent crisis); it is here for the long haul, and so are the Christians who make up Christ’s body in it.
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As a result, they need to adopt behavior appropriate for the long run. Relations to those living outside the community are especially important, not to inform them of the “impending crisis” but to maintain a proper upstanding relationship. In short, this is written by someone who knows the church has been here and will be here for the long run. There is no imminent expectation of the coming end.
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On the basis of all these considerations,
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it is clear that with Colossians we are not dealing with a letter of Paul, but a letter of someone wanting his readers to think he is Paul.
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No issue in the interpretation of Colossians has so exercised interpreters as the identity of the opponents attacked in the heart of the letter, 2:8–23. Nearly forty years ago now, John Gunther could cite forty-four scholarly opinions about who the false teachers were.
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Two decades later, in one five-year stretch, four major studies appeared on the issue, each arguing a different view.
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The inability to determine the precise nature of the opposing teaching has led to three extremes among scholars. The most common is to identify the opponents with some known, marginal group (the Essenes, Jewish Gnostics, devotees of the Mystery cults); another is to invent a group not otherwise known to exist by combining features of several that are known, creating an a historical amalgam that fits a theory of the opponents better than do the known facts of history (a Stocheia cult; Christians with Essene affinities); the third is to insist that since we do not know of any group that embodies the teachings intimated in the letter, no such group at all existed, and the author’s opponents are imaginary.
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All these views appear to assume that if there were an actual group of false teachers under attack, we should have other evidence for its existence and thus should be able to name it. But why would that be so? The author is incensed by a group of Christians who deliver false teachings (2:8, 18, 20–21); we can know some of the things that they teach, but not everything. The author certainly would be under no obligation to spell out the nature of the “false teachings” for those of us interested two thousand years later. He sees them as a threat, but he clearly knows what he is referring to better than we ever can. That should give us no reason to despair and either wildly name them or claim that they must not have existed.

The latter claim was made most poignantly by Morna Hooker in a now-famous article.
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In her view, if the opponents were a real problem, the author, on one
hand, would have provided more information about their views and, on the other, would have engaged in a more heated refutation, much as one finds in the letter to the Galatians. The second point is moot. The way Paul dealt with one set of problems in one set of circumstances has no bearing on how a different author—not Paul—would have dealt with another situation. As to the first point, one should always be loath to stipulate how polemicists should go about their business, and there is, as Alice reminds us, no accounting for tastes. This does not mean that we should be able to identify the opponents with an otherwise known group. Earliest Christianity was far more diversified than most of us have ever dared imagine, and local views could run the gamut of almost infinite variety.

In broad terms, the opponents appear to promote the worship of lower beings of the cosmic order–the famous but difficult-to-identify
—either instead of, or more likely in addition to, Christ (2:8). The parallel in v. 18, which sums up the dual problematic of the opponents, suggests that these
were conceived of as angelic beings, that is, lower divine entities on the celestial scale, far below the Christ celebrated in
chapter 1
as he in whom the “fullness” of the divine completely dwells. The language of “disarming” in 2:15 may suggest that these lower beings were, in the author’s view—though obviously not in the opponents’—insidious, not beneficent, beings. If so, the argument compares favorably to later forms of Christian polemic that maligned others for worshiping divine beings that were in fact demons.

This undue worship of inferior divine beings is accompanied by religious practices and scruples that may have been borrowed from Jewish cult: observance of special days such as Sabbath, festivals, new moons; purity concerns (“do not handle … do not touch”; 2:21); and dietary laws (“do not taste”). For the author, these ritual guidelines may give the “appearance of wisdom,” in promoting sacred ascetic lifestyles in service of the divine, but in fact are of no use in the ultimate concerns of the believer, to check (real) fleshly indulgence (2:23).

The entire system proposed by those who threaten the readers with this false worship and pointless religious practices is summed up as “philosophy and empty deceit” (2:8). This deceit is obviously not the true worship that is available to believers in Christ. Contrary to what scholars sometimes assert, the threat posed by this alternative religiosity is internal, a threat to those who are already part of the body of Christ. It is not an invitation to deconvert and join some other religion (Jewish or pagan). That is to say, it is a challenge to become a different kind of Christian—although the author himself may have considered the “false teachers” as not Christian at all, as typically happened among polemicists standing in the proto-orthodox tradition. The opponents, though, appear to have seen their prescribed worship as important elements of their Christian tradition, not as non-Christian pagan or Jewish cult.

The author’s response to these unnecessary add-ons to what he takes to be the “true” worship of Christ is, as widely recognized, already adumbrated in the celebrated Christ hymn of
chapter 1
, which is used to set up his direct refutation of
chapter 2
. It is precisely because Christ is the “image of the invisible God, the
first born of the entire creation” that he alone is to be worshiped. The
are among the things that were created in him: “all things were created through him and for him.” Moreover, he is “before all things.” He alone is “pre-eminent” and in him “all the fullness is pleased to dwell.” The link between the hymn and the polemic is clearly made through the connections of 1:19 at the end of the first passage
and its loose reiteration in the second
2:9). And so the issue in the controversy has to do with the adequacy of Christ. For this author, he is the embodiment of the fullness of divinity itself. He alone should be worshiped. There is no need for worship of lower beings of any sort, however powerful or important. And no need of secondary ascetic practices. Christ is all that one needs. Adding anything to the worship of Christ is empty deceit, merely human “philosophy,” pointless and unnecessary religious exercise, and even, he suggests, the worship of malevolent beings.

In no small measure, the purpose of the letter, then, is to stress that believers who have been baptized into Christ already have complete access to him and the benefits that he conveys. They have no need of other divine beings or other religious activities. This is where the eschatology of the letter becomes crucial. For this author, those who have been baptized have not only died with Christ (as in Paul). They have already been delivered “from the authority of darkness and transferred … into the kingdom of his beloved son” (1:13). They have, that is, already experienced a spiritual resurrection. “You were also raised [aorist] in him through faith”; God “made you alive with him”; “you have been raised up with Christ.”

In other words, precisely the theological feature of the letter that suggests it was not written by the Paul of the undisputed letters (the realized eschatology) is the feature that figures most prominently in its exposition of the superiority of the Christian faith, the central tenet of the letter. The non-Pauline eschatology is not a subsidiary matter tacked onto a letter dealing with other things; it is the centerpiece of the letter and the key to understanding its polemic. For this author, the believer’s resurrection is a past, realized, spiritual event.
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