Tertullian — Commentary on Scripture

Colossians 2:9

For when you do not deny that the Creator's Son and Spirit and Substance is also His Christ, you must needs allow that those who have not acknowledged the Father have failed likewise to acknowledge the Son through the identity of their natural substance; for if in Its fulness It has baffled man's understanding, much more has a portion of It, especially when partaking of the fulness Now, when these things are carefully considered, it becomes evident how the Jews both rejected Christ and slew Him; not because they regarded Him as a strange Christ, but because they did not acknowledge Him, although their own.

Against Marcion Book III

Colossians 2:11

Thus, that which becomes a spoil when stripped off, was a vestment as long as it remained laid over. Hence the apostle, when he call circumcision "a putting off (or spoliation) of the flesh," affirmed the skin to be a coat or tunic.

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Colossians 2:11

And so to the Law presently had to succeed the Word of God introducing the spiritual circumcision. Therefore, by means of the wide licence of those days, materials for subsequent emendations were furnished beforehand, of which materials the Lord by His Gospel, and then the apostle in the last days of the (Jewish) age, either cut off the redundancies or regulated the disorders.

To His Wife Book I

Colossians 2:12

The apostle indeed teaches, in his Epistle to the Colossians, that we were once dead, alienated, and enemies to the Lord in our minds, whilst we were living in wicked works; that we were then buried with Christ in baptism, and also raised again with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. "And you, (adds he), when ye were dead in sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Colossians 2:12

" But some think as if God were under a necessity of bestowing even on the unworthy, what He has engaged (to give); and they turn His liberality into slavery. But if it is of necessity that God grants us the symbol of death, then He does so unwilling.

On Repentance

Colossians 2:13

Thanks to this simplicity of truth, so opposed to the subtlety and vain deceit of philosophy, we cannot possibly have any relish for such perverse opinions. Then, if God "quickens us together with Christ, forgiving us our trespasses," we cannot suppose that sins are forgiven by Him against whom, as having been all along unknown, they could not have been committed.

Against Marcion Book V

Colossians 2:13

For unto this end was manifested the Son of God, to undo the works of the devil: "for He has "undone" them withal, by setting man free through baptism, the "handwriting of death" having been "made a gift of" to him: and accordingly, "he who is being born of God doeth not sin, because the seed of God abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he hath been born of God.

On Modesty

Colossians 2:14

But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have commended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech-destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil-the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any "likeness of anything," set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a "tree," in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord's cross on which the "serpent" the devil was "made a show of," and, for every one hurt by such snakes-that is, his angels -on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ…

But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have commended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech-destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil-the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any "likeness of anything," set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a "tree," in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord's cross on which the "serpent" the devil was "made a show of," and, for every one hurt by such snakes-that is, his angels -on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ's cross, salvation was outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that (cross) was freed from the bite of the serpents.

An Answer to the Jews

Colossians 2:14

But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have commended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech-destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil-the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any "likeness of anything," set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a "tree," in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord's cross on which the "serpent" the devil was "made a show of," and, for every one hurt by such snakes-that is, his angels -on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ…

But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have commended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech-destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil-the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any "likeness of anything," set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a "tree," in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord's cross on which the "serpent" the devil was "made a show of," and, for every one hurt by such snakes-that is, his angels -on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ's cross, salvation was outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that (cross) was freed from the bite of the serpents.

An Answer to the Jews

Colossians 2:16

Now tell me, Marcion, what is your opinion of the apostle's language, when he says, "Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath, which is a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ? " We do not now treat of the law, further than (to remark) that the apostle here teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even by passing from shadow to substance-that is, from figurative types to the reality, which is Christ.

Against Marcion Book V

Colossians 2:18

But when he blames those who alleged visions of angels as their authority for saying that men must abstain from meats-"you must not touch, you must not taste"-in a voluntary humility, (at the same time) "vainly puffed up in the fleshly mind, and not holding the Head," (the apostle) does not in these terms attack the law or Moses, as if it was at the suggestion of superstitious angels that he had enacted his prohibition of sundry aliments.

Against Marcion Book V

Colossians 2:18

The doctrine, however, of Simon's sorcery, which inculcated the worship of angels, was itself actually reckoned amongst idolatries and condemned by the Apostle Peter in Simon's own person.

The Prescription Against Heretics

Colossians 2:20

For he says in another passage also "How is it that you conduct yourselves as if you were even now living in the world?" where he is not writing to dead persons, but to those who ought to have ceased to live after the ways of the world

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Colossians 2:22

For Moses had evidently received the law from God. When, therefore, he speaks of their "following the commandments and doctrines of men," he refers to the conduct of those persons who "held not the Head," even Him in whom all things are gathered together; for they are all recalled to Christ, and concentrated in Him as their initiating principle -even the meats and drinks which were indifferent in their nature.

Against Marcion Book V

Colossians 2:23

That which springs from a virtue of the mind is perfected in the flesh; and, finally, by the patience of the flesh, does battle under persecution. If flight press hard, the flesh wars with the inconvenience of flight; if imprisonment overtake us, the flesh (still was) in bonds, the flesh in the gyve, the flesh in solitude, and in that want of light, and in that patience of the world's misusage.

Of Patience

Colossians 3:1

In so many words he says: "Since ye are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Accordingly, it is in our mind that he shows that we rise (with Christ), since it is by this alone that we are as yet able to reach to heavenly objects.

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Colossians 3:3

" The heretic erased the preposition in, and made the clause run thus: ("what is the fellowship of the mystery) which hath for ages been hidden from the God who created all things." The falsification, however, is flagrantly absurd.

Against Marcion Book V

Colossians 3:4

Now the mystery of this "sign" was in various ways predicted; (a "sign") in which the foundation of life was forelaid for mankind; (a "sign") in which the Jews were not to believe: just as Moses beforetime kept on announcing in Exodus, saying, "Ye shall be ejected from the land into which ye shall enter; and in those nations ye shall not be able to rest: and there shall be instabilityof the print of thy foot: and God shall give thee a wearying heart, and a pining soul, and failing eyes, that they see not: and thy life shall hang on the tree before thine eyes; and thou shalt not trust thy life.

An Answer to the Jews

Colossians 3:5

If we think over the rest of faults, tracing them from their generations, let us begin with covetousness, "a root of all evils," wherewith, indeed, some having been ensnared, "have suffered shipwreck about faith." Albeit covetousness is by the same apostle called idolatry. In the next place proceeding to mendacity, the minister of covetousness (of false swearing I am silent, since even swearing is not lawful )-is trade adapted for a servant of God? But, covetousness apart, what is the motive for acquiring? When the motive for acquiring ceases, there will be no necessity for trading.

On Idolatry

Colossians 3:5

He demonstrates, too, to the Colossians what "members" they are to"mortify" upon earth: "fornication, impurity, lust, evil concupiscence," and "base talk." Yield up, by this time, to so many and such sentences, the one (passage) to which you cling.

On Modesty