mature and gifted Christians a higher wisdom, it yet comes into view that in the Epistles of the Imprisonment the ideas of wisdom and knowledge play a disproportionately important part. The reason of this is the emergence in the churches of Asia Minor of a new philosophy which offers to conduct believers to a higher stage of knowledge (§ 59, c), but which yet Paul can only look on as a relapse into the σTOXEîa Toû κόσμου, because it has to do with theosophie traditions (κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν ἀνθρώπων), and therefore with a φιλοσοφία (Col. ii. 8) in the sense of human wisdom, as it forms the contrast, according to note a, to the gospel. In opposition to this, Paul must bring into greater prominence how undoubtedly the goal of Christianity is the whole riches of insight (σúveσis) fully assured to themselves, perfect knowledge (èπiyvwσis: ver. 2), but that the contents of this knowledge is no sort of theosophic doctrine, but the mystery of salvation (tò μvotýριον τοῦ Θεοῦ), in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (ver. 3). The designation of the divine saving purpose as a mystery is common to our Epistles with the earlier ones (§ 100, c); but the striking prominence of this idea in the former may well be connected with the opposition to the false teachers, who pretended to reveal mysteries not yet disclosed. But the content of the mystery by whose disclosure God has most richly shown His grace in all wisdom and knowledge (opóvnois), which He has bestowed on us, is, according to Eph. i. 8, 9, His will directed for our salvation (vv. 5, 11: Bovλý тоû Beλýμaтos avтoù; comp. Acts xx. 27); according to iii. 9, the institution of salvation, which makes known the gospel, and which by its realization in the exλŋσía makes known to the heavenly powers the manifold wisdom of God (ver. 10); according to Col. i. 26, God's promise (ó λóyos TOû EOû: ver. 25), which is fulfilled by the preaching of the word (comp. To μvσтýριov тоû Xpioтoû: Col. iv. 3; Eph. iii. 4).2 If now, according to note b, the eschatological

* The philosophy of our Epistles is accordingly no transcendental speculation, as Baur, p. 264, imagines, when he here looks upon everything under the point of view of the metaphysical necessity of the process of the idea realizing itself; and, p. 273, in the emphasizing of a wisdom and knowledge which, released from its union with faith, comes into view as an independent moment of religious consciousness, he recognises the approach of the Gnostic period. Even here, too, the object of knowledge is the grace of God (Col. i. 6) as the basis of the

mysteries in particular are the object of Christian philosophy, then Christ is here, so far as He is the author of the hope of coming glory (§ 101, c), the content of the mystery of salvation which is now being made known (Col. i. 27; comp. i. 5, 6), and therefore Christians, because they possess the word of life, are light-bearers in the world (Phil. ii. 15, 16). But that is also the peculiarity of our Epistles, that every prayer for the further development of Christians is concentrated in this, that the Spirit of wisdom and revelation may lead them to the knowledge of God (Eph. i. 17), a knowledge which teaches to what a hope God has called us (ver. 18), and how great His power is by which He conducts us to this goal (ver. 19). Likewise, the perfection of the Church is sought (iv. 13) in the unity, ie. in the equal development, of knowledge in all, or is made dependent on it (iii. 19; comp. Col. ii. 2, 3). The more the healthy development of the Christian life is endangered by theosophic false teaching in the region of knowledge, all the more must it be counterworked by the presentation of the gospel as the true philosophy, and by the promotion of real knowledge.

(d) By this conception of philosophy and of the knowledge thereby aimed at, this philosophy must also have necessarily a directly practical side. To be sure, here the gospel is the word of truth (Col. i. 5; Eph. i. 13), as in note a, especially in opposition to the human teaching, which leads away from the truth (Eph. iv. 14; comp. ver. 15: aλn@evovтes: those avowing the truth, as Gal. iv. 16; Col. ii. 6, 7; comp. with vv. 4, 8); but even here aλnoeia is usually a practical principle, the rule of Sikaioσúvn (§ 100, a), true instruction in Jesus is directed to the renewing of the life (Eph. iv. 20, 21). Christian wisdom and intelligence (σúveσis) is

hope of salvation proclaimed in the gospel (ver. 5), or the Son of God (Eph. iv. 13), in whom we share this grace, i.e. Christ as our Lord and Redeemer (Phil. iii. 8), the knowledge of whom only on that account makes everything else seem eclipsed (rò úæspixov rüs yvwows), nay, even as something hurtful, which one must throw away, because any other good may hinder us in acknowledging and appropriating Him as the highest good (ver. 8). Hence also the love of Christ may be designated as this object, as it surpasses all human knowledge, and can be apprehended only experimentally (Eph. iii. 19); or the riches of salvation in Christ, unsearchable to human understanding (ver. 8); or the Christian good itself (Philem. 6).

3 Right doctrine is thus also a tradition of Christ (Col. ii. 6, 7), as it is a

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therefore, on the one hand, a knowledge of the divine way of salvation (Eph. i. 9); on the other, a knowledge of the divine authoritative will (Col. i. 9), by which one brings forth fruit in good works, and makes increase (ver. 10: read Tŷ éπiуvóσei TOû coû), or walks strictly according to duty (Eph. v. 15, 17); and so copía, Col. iv. 5 (comp. 1 Cor. iii. 10, vi. 5; 2 Cor. i. 12), stands directly for the practical wisdom of life.* Here also, as in the earlier Epistles, the contrast of the Christian life to the earlier heathen life is that of light to darkness (Eph. v. 8: ἦτε . . . ποτε σκότος, νῦν δὲ φῶς ἐν κυρίῳ; comp. Acts xxvi. 18, 23); but the nature of this enlightenment consists in this, that one proves what is well-pleasing to the Lord (ver. 10); its fruit, in which the works of those walking in a state of unenlightenment are put away (ver. 11: τὰ ἔργα τὰ ἄκαρπα τοῦ σκότους), is the righteousness in which the children of light walk (vv. 8, 9). Yet more decidedly, therefore, than in the earlier Epistles, Christian wisdom and knowledge are here regarded as having moral duties in view. The doctrine of wisdom of our Epistles is accordingly a penetrating into the deeper grounds and into the more comprehensive results of the great facts of Christian salvation, and on the other hand, a yet further carrying of saving truth into practical life, with the varied riches of its concrete relations. We shall have, in what follows, to keep in view the peculiarities of the Epistles of the Imprisonment on both sides.

doctrine of the life of Christian virtue (Phil. iv. 9). The activity of the apostles (Col. i. 28), as of the Church herself, if the word of Christ dwell in her richly (iii. 16), is thus also practical correction (vours), as also instruction (didáσmuv), and both advance her in that wisdom.

If love is to become rich in knowledge and all kinds of experience (Phil. i. 9), then the iriyvos can be only of the kind which points out to love the right way of its activity; while, on the other hand, according to Col. iii. 10, the progressive renewal of the life helps to advance true knowledge, which must in that case be throughout of a practical kind, as, according to Eph. iii. 18, only the being rooted in love can lead to a comprehension of the love of Christ; and, according to v. 14, Christ rises as light to him who wakes up from the deathsleep of sin.

It is therefore also the task of those who have been enlightened to convict others of the sinfulness of their nature (Eph. v. 11), because whenever the sinner has his own nature revealed to him, he becomes himself enlightened (ver. 13); and if, Phil. ii. 15, Christians, as possessing the word of life (ver. 16), shine as light-bearers in the midst of the perverse race of this world, the same task is for them at least indirectly pointed out.

CHAPTER XII.

THE MORE DEVELOPED DOCTRINES.

§ 103. The Cosmical Significance of Christ.

The eternal purpose of salvation, on which the salvation of the world depends, was made in Christ, who, as the first-born Son of love, was before all creatures (a). It is by Him that the world was created, and He is the end of the development of the world as a whole, which points in this direction, that all things are summed up in Him as the central point of the universe (b). The realization of this object of the world was conditioned on His descending to the earth, which is an act of free, willing self-surrender and humiliation (c). As the reward for this, He has been raised to full participation in the divine honour and dominion of the world, so that He, in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, now fills the universe governing all (d).

(a) The teaching of Christian wisdom merges before everything else in the depths of the divine purpose of salvation. That this latter is a purpose before all time, a πρóÐεσIS TŵV alwvwv (Eph. iii. 11), is taught in our Epistles in complete harmony with the earlier ones. But these latter go a step farther, even to include the election of the individual to be the object for the realization of salvation in this purpose, so that it first comes to be in them an electio aeterna. In the heavenly world (èv Toîs éπоvρavíois), God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, in that He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world (i. 3, 4); and the calling, by which this election is realized, because it proceeds from God, is a heavenly calling (Phil. iii. 14: ǹ åvw kλñois). And if it is said, Eph. iii. 9, that the mystery of salvation was hid from eternity in God, who created the universe, it is indicated by this characteristic of God, that the purpose of salvation is connected in the closest way with the plan of the world, which began to be realized in creation; and that purpose having been formed by the Creator before the creation of the world, was regulative even in its creation. If, even in the

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earlier Epistles, the inference backwards from what Christ has become by His exaltation, led to His heavenly origin (§ 79, b), then the same inference flows here à priori from the thought of the eternal purpose of salvation as having been already formed in Christ (ver. 11). If Christians are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (i. 4), and are thereby already blessed in Him in the heavenly world (ver. 3), then the Mediator of salvation, in whom the election and the blessing could be grounded at a time when the objects of these did not exist, must have Himself existed before the world. For us, this line of thought would lead only to an ideal pre-existence of the Redeemer in the divine purpose; for Paul, there is at once an eternal divine existence of the Christ who in His earthly life has become the Mediator. As the elect are now to be in Him sharers in the love of God, which was guaranteed to them when destined to sonship (Col. iii. 12; Eph. i. 5), then must He Himself be the Beloved Kar' ¿§oxýv (ver. 6), the highest object of this love (Col. i. 13: ó viòs TŶs ȧɣáπηs aỷтоû); and here also, as § 77, c, the name of Son designates Him as such (Eph. iv. 13: ó viòs Toû Oεoû; comp.

Θεὸς πατήρ : Phil. ii. 11 ; Col. i. 3, iii. 17 ; Θεὸς καὶ πατήρ: Eph. i. 3, v. 20, only in doxologies). He must be before all (Col. i. 17: pò πáνтшv), as, in conformity to His relation with God as the First-born, He rises far above every creature (ver. 15: πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως).

(b) If the divine purpose of salvation was already regulative for the creation of the world, then must salvation as well as creation be grounded on the original Mediator. His position

1 Even in a purely linguistic point of view, this expression cannot mean that He was the first-born creature among all creatures, as Usteri, p. 315; Reuss, ii. p. 75 [E. T. ii. 64]; Baur, p. 257, understand, for then ráons xriosas would be a partitive genitive: for only a plural or collective notion could designate a category or a universality to which an individual belongs. But as ons xríoses indicates each single creature, the genitive can only be understood as a comparative genitive, and can mean only that He in comparison with any other creature was the first-born (comp. Immer, p. 372). There is implied in paróToxos, therefore, at any rate, something which distinguishes Him above every creature, as He is equally put by vv. 16, 17, in a relation to the whole creation, which excludes the very possibility of regarding Him as in any sense a creature. That He is called, not the only Son, but the First-born, can therefore have no reference to this, that the creature is, in a certain sense, conceived as later born (comp. Schmidt, p. 212), but, according to what is said in the text, only to His