ther, and in each one there
are several unique passages which represent as high a level of
intellectual and spiritual attainment as the passages which are in some
degree common to the two. Moreover, we cannot trace any definite
method according to which the one writing has been used for the other,
and destructive critics have only destroyed one another's arguments in
their attempts to show which of the two Epistles is genuine, or why
they both are forged. It is also important to consider the association
of this Epistle with that to Philemon: the transparent genuineness of
the latter makes it practically certain that Colossians is genuine as
well.

Objections to the authenticity of Colossians have been {171} steadily
growing fainter. It was denied by Mayerhoff in 1838, and by the whole
Tuebingen school, in spite of very strong external evidence. (1) The
heresy opposed by St. Paul was said to be a form of 2nd-century
Gnosticism; but the affinities which it shows with Judaism point rather
to the 1st century. (2) There are a large number of words which St.
Paul uses nowhere else, thirty-four being found in no other part of the
New Testament; but several of these words are called forth by the
special error which St. Paul rebukes, and the Epistle does contain
eleven Pauline words used by no other New Testament writer. (3) The
doctrine has been declared to be not Pauline, but a further development
of St. Paul's doctrine of the dignity of Christ. This objection rests
entirely on the hypothesis that Jesus Christ was not God, but was
gradually deified by successive generations of His followers. The
critics who declared that no apostle believed Christ to be more than an
ideal or half-divine man, and said that St. John's writings are
forgeries of the 2nd century, described the doctrine of Colossians as a
transition from the true Pauline doctrine to the doctrine of the Logos
contained in the fourth Gospel. But St. Paul states nothing about
Christ in this Epistle which is not implied in earlier Epistles. He
only makes fresh statements of truth in view of fresh errors.

[Sidenote: To whom written.]

Colossae was the least important town to which any Epistle of St. Paul
which now remains was addressed. The place was on the river Lycus in
Phrygia, about ten miles from Laodicea and thirteen from Hierapolis,
and thus the three towns were the sphere of the missionary work of the
Colossian Epaphras (Col. iv. 12, 13). Colossae