The life and work of St. Paul

618 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
Lord walk in Him, rooted, and being built up in Him, 1 and being confirmed by
your faith, even as ye were taught, abounding in that faith with thanksgiving." *
He has thus given them a general warning against being dazzled by
erroneous teaching. He has laid down for them, with firm hand and absolute
defiuiteness, the truth that the Pleroma dwells permanently in Christ the
sole Lord of the created universe, and therefore the guarantee that there is in
matter no inherent element of inextinguishable evil ; the sole Head of the
Church, the solo Redeemer of the world ; the solo centre, and source, and
revealer of wisdom to all alike, as they had all along boon taught. But it is
now time to come to more specific warnings to the more immediate applica-
tion of these great eternal principles ; aud he continues ;
" Look that there be no person [whom one might name] 8 who is carrying you
off as plunder by his '
philosophy,' 4 which is vain deceit in accordance with mere
human traditions, and 5
earthly rudiments, and not in accordance with Christ. For
in Him all the Plenitude of Godhead 6 has bodily its permanent abode, and ye are
'
in Him. fulfilled with Sis Plenitude, who is the head of every principality '
and
'
power. ' " 7
From this great truth flow various practical consequences. For instance,
the Essene mystic, who was making a prey of them by the empty and specious
sophistry which he called philosophy, impressed on them the value of circumcision,
though not, it would seem, with the same insistency as the Christian
Pharisees who had intruded themselves into Galatia. But what possible good
could circumcision do them P Their circumcision was spiritual, and had
already been performed not by human hands, but by Christ Himself not as
;
the partial mutilation of one member, but as the utter stripping away from
them of the whole body of the flesh. 8 It was, in fact, their baptism, in which
they had been buried with Christ, and also raised with Him through their
faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead. 9
"
You, too, doad by transgressions and the uucircumcision of your flesh, God
quickened with Him, freely remitting to us all our transgressions, wiping out the
bond which, by its decrees, was valid against us,i which was opposed to us this
bond He has taken away, nailing it to His cross. Stripping utterly away from Him
1 Ver. 7. Notice the chaugo from cppt^upcW, the permanent result of stability, to
tiroiKoSojuoupet'ot, the continuous process of edification. Notice, too, the confusion of
metaphor which is no confusion of thought: "walk," "rooted," "being built/' "being
strengthened."
2 ii. 17. Ver 8, , indefinitely definite (cf. Gal. i. 7).
4 Remarkable as being the only place where St. Paul uses the word "philosophy,"
just as he only uses " virtue " once (Phil. iv. 8). Both are superseded by lof cier
conceptions.
* See tupra, p. 439. (Gal. iv. 3, 9.)
6 Storm, deitaa ; stronger than eeion??, diinnitas.
^ ii. 710. 8 Ver. 11, dirSwr.t. Cf. Phil. iii. 10.
10 Deut. xxvii. 14 26 ; Gal. ii. 19, iv. 9; o*,-iXfT>)*. The "ordinances" are those of th*
Mosaic and the natural law. The &6yna