HOMILY VI.] HOMILIES ON COLOSSIANS. 285 again, " O my people, what have I done unto thee, or wherein have I grieved thee, or wherein have I wearied thee"? (Mic. vi. 3) and David; as when he says, " I heard thee in the secret place of the tempest" (Ps. Lxxxi. 7, Sept.); and again, " Open thy mouth, and I will fill it." (Ps. Ixxxi. 10.) And everywhere you will find it the same. That indeed were most one s duty, not to be persuaded by them, even did they say aught to the purpose ; as it is, however, obligations apart even, it would be our duty to shun those things. "And not after Christ," he saith. For were it in such sort a matter done by halves, that ye were able to serve both the one and the other, not even so ought ye to do it ; as it is, however, he suffers you not to be " after Christ." Those things withdraw you from Him. Having first shaken to pieces the Grecian observances, he next overthrows the Jewish ones also. For both Greeks and Jews practiced many observances, but the former from philosophy, the latter from the Law. First then, he makes at those against whom lay the heavier accusation. How, " not after Christ " ? Ver. 9, 10. " For in Him dwelleth all the full ness of the Godhead bodily : and in Him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power." Observe how in his accusing of the one he thrusts through the other, by first giving the solution, and then the objection. For such a solution is not suspected, and the hearer accepts it the rather, that the speaker is not making it his aim. For in that case indeed he would make a point of not coming off worsted, but in this, not so. " For in Him dwelleth," that is, for God dwelleth in Him. But that thou mayest not think Him enclosed, as in a body, he saith, " All the fullness of the Godhead bodily : and ye are made full in Him." Others say that he in tends the Church filled by His Godhead, as he elsewhere saith, " of Him that filleth all in all " (Eph. i. 23), and that the term " bodily " is here, as the body in the head. How is it then that he did not add, " which is the Church " ? Some again say it is with reference to The Father, that he says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, but wrongly. 1 First, because " to dwell," cannot strictly be said of God : next, because the " fullness " is not that which receives, for " the earth is the Lord s, and the fullness thereof" (Ps. xxiv. i) ; and again the Apostle, "until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." (Rom. xi. 25.) By " fullness " is meant "the whole." Then the word "bodily," what did it intend? "As in a head." But why does he say the 1 [" But wrongly" seems a necessary addition, though omitted by Field, doubtless because supported chiefly by the group of MSS. found to make so many unwarrantable additions and other altera tions. J. A. B.] same thing over again? "And ye are made full in Him." What then does it mean? That ye have nothing less than He. As it dwelt in Him, so also in you. For Paul is ever straining to bring us near to Christ ; as when he says, " Hath raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him" (Eph. ii. 6) : and, " Ifwe endure, we shall also reign with Him" (2 Tim. ii. 12) : and, " How shall He not also with Him freely give us all things" (Rom. viii. 32) : and calling us " fellow-heirs." Then as for His dignity. And He " is the head of all principality and power." (Eph. iii. 6.) He that is above all, The Cause, is He not Consubstantial ? Then he has added the benefit in a marvelous way ; and far more marvelous than in the Epistle to the Romans. For there indeed he saith, " cir cumcision of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter" (Rom. ii. 29), but here, in Christ. Ver. ii. "In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh in the cir cumcision of Christ." See how near he is come to the thing. He saith, " In the putting " quite away, 2 not putting off merely. " The body of sins." He means, " the old life." He is continually adverting to this in different ways, as he said above, " Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and reconciled uswhowere alienated," thatwe should be " holy and without blemish." (Col. i. 13, 21.) No longer, he saith, is the circumcision with 3 the knife, but in Christ Himself; for no hand im parts this circumcision, as is the case there, but the Spirit. It circumciseth not a part, but the whole man. It is the body both in the one and the other case, but in the one it is carnally, in the other it is spiritually circumcised ; but not as the Jews, for ye have not put off flesh, but sins. When and where? In Baptism. And what he calls circumcision, he again calls burial. Observe how he again passes on to the subject of righteous doings ; " of the sins," he saith, " of the flesh," the things they had done in the flesh. He speaks of a greater thing than cir cumcision, for they did not merely cast away that of which they were circumcised, but they destroyed it, they annihilated it. Ver. 12. "Buried with him," he saith, "in Baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him, through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." But it is not burial only : for behold what he says, " Wherein ye were also raised with Him, through faith in the working of God,who raised Him from the dead." He hath well said, " of faith," 4 for it is all of faith. Ye believed that 2 aireK&v<T(L, putting off for good, once for all. s if, " in." * [The repetition of moreus, " of faith," which Field had previ ously conjectured as required by the sense, is found in the Catena;