t Jesus the Lord (i. 4, 8; ii. 5-7). He sees no sign of an
attack upon him or his gospel. On the contrary, loyalty to him and
sympathy with him in his sufferings are everywhere manifest (i. 9, 24;
ii. 2; iv. 8); and the gospel of Christ is advancing here as elsewhere
(i. 6). At the same time he detects a lack of cheerfulness and a lack of
spiritual understanding in the Church. The joy of the gospel, expressing
itself in songs and thanksgivings, is damped (iii. 15, 16), and, above
all, the message of Christ does not dwell richly enough in them. Though
the believers know the grace of God they are not filled with a knowledge
of his will, so that their conduct is lacking in that strength and joy
and perfection, that richness of the fulness of knowledge expected of
those who had been made full in Christ (i. 6, 9-11, 28; ii. 2, 7, 10).
The reason for this, Paul sees, is the influence of the claim made by
certain teachers in Colossae that the Christians, in order to attain
unto and be assured of _full_ salvation, must supplement Paul's message
with their own fuller and more perfect wisdom, and must observe certain
rites and practices (ii. 16, 21, 23) connected with the worship of
angels (ii. 18, 23) and elementary spirits (ii. 8, 20).

The origin and the exact nature of this religious movement are alike
uncertain. (1) If it represents a type of syncretism as definite as that
known to have existed in the developed gnostic systems of the 2nd
century, it is inconceivable that Paul should have passed it by as
easily as he did. (2) As there is no reference to celibacy, communism
and the worship of the sun, it is improbable that the movement is
identical with that of the Essenes. (3) The phenomena might be explained
solely on the basis of Judaism (von Soden, Peake). Certainly the
asceticism and ritualism might so be interpreted, for there was among
the Jews of the Dispersion an increasing tendency to asceticism, by way
of protest against the excesses of the Gentiles. The reference in ii. 23
to severity of the body may have to do with fasting preparatory to
seeing visions (cf. _Apoc. Baruch_, xxi. 1, ix. 2, v. 7). Even the
worship of angels, not only as mediators of revelation and visions, but
also as cosmical beings, is a well-known fact in late Judaism (_Apoc.
Bar._ lv. 3; _Ethiopic Enoch_, lx. 11, lxi. 10; Col. ii. 8, 20; Gal. iv.
3). As for the word "philosophy" (ii. 8), it is not necessary to take it
in the technical Greek sense