by many scholars to be pseudonymous, possibly written soon after Paul’s death in his name.65 Even those who defend Pauline authorship admit that “Colossians does not manifest the urgency about the timing of the Parousia [Second Coming] that 1 Thessalonians, for example, has.”66 With this dampened eschatological heat comes a comparative warmth toward the hierarchical structures of the Roman Empire: the notorious “household code” (Col 3:18–4:1) that ties the domestic theology of Colossians much more clearly to the later, pseudonymous “Pastoral” Epistles 1 Timothy and Titus.67
It is also in the Letter to the Colossians that we find our earliest possible reference to Christ’s own circumcision, a notably positive use of “circumcision.”68 The language is dense, and the Greek grammar multivalent.69 In the midst of a warning against “philosophy and empty deceit,” the author reminds the Colossians of the celestial and divine fullness of Christ in which they now participate: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (
If circumcision is not a problem, as in Paul’s earlier letters, what is it doing in this passage? The interpretation of Colossians 2:9–13 is made difficult by its abstruseness, particularly its use of terms in simultaneously literal and figurative fashion: Christ’s “body” in the beginning of the passage is presumably real (a reference to the incarnation), but the body that is “put off” by followers later on would seem to be figurative (symbolizing their old lives). Likewise, Christ’s burial is literal (he really died, and was really buried) but that of his followers is metaphorical: they “rise” from the baptismal font as if they have also been buried and resurrected. Then, finally, there is circumcision: it appears to be associated here, for the first time, with baptism (an analogy to which I return below), making it a circumcision “without hands” (sometimes translated as “spiritual” or “invisible”).71 But this analogy also confuses the literal and figurative: baptism itself is a material event—there is a body, and water, and space, and hands—yet its spiritual efficacy happens invisibly, apart from manual operation.
In this amalgamation of the material and spiritual, what are we to make of “the circumcision of Christ”? Is it figurative or literal, like his body and his burial? Greek, as English, allows for two grammatical ways to construe this possessive phrase. As a subjective genitive, it is the circumcision that Christ performs (presumably, on the letter’s recipients). As an objective genitive, it is the circumcision performed on Christ. The phrase has been interpreted both ways, but never strictly literally: like the rest of the passage, “Christ’s circumcision” enjoys dual signification, at once literal and figurative, subjective and objective. When the phrase is read as a subjective genitive, it is a figure for Christian ritual: Christ performs this “circumcision” on the recipients of the letter “without hands” (Col 2:11) in “baptism” (Col 2:12).72 This typological “circumcision”/baptism allows a reconfiguration of language that, elsewhere in the Pauline corpus, we would read more literally: by partaking in “Christ’s circumcision” (baptism), the recipients of the letter redeem their previous state of “uncircumcision” (Col 2:13: “you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh” [
What about the objective genitive reading of “the circumcision of Christ”—that is, how do we read this verse if it refers to the circumcision performed on Jesus? Here, too, the literal and figurative shade into each other. Notably, however, even when modern interpreters read this phrase objectively—the circumcision performed on Christ—they resist reading it as his literal, infant circumcision: “Some have taken the phrase to refer specifically to Christ’s physical nature—not to his literal circumcision (Luke 2:21), but to his death (cf. Rom 7:4)” (emphasis added).74 The path of this semantic redirection is not immediately obvious, since the crucifixion is not explicitly mentioned here. It is mentioned literally in Col 1:20 (“peace through the blood of the cross”); in this chapter, however, it is one more in a series of visceral metaphors: “He set this [the ‘record against us’] aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:14). Curiously, we have an instance here of an objective genitive (“the crucifixion performed on Jesus”) being transformed into a subjective genitive (“the crucifixion performed by Jesus, on the Jewish Law”).
Even assuming that enough connotations of baptism-as-death-as-crucifixion seep into the text to allow a reader to understand Col 2:12 in this way, we must still marvel a bit at the ingenuity of this reading. This interpretation is remarkable for the degree to which it maintains both the literality of Christ’s circumcision (“flesh stripped away,” here by crucifixion) and its figurality (it is still not circumcision, but “circumcision”). When James Dunn argues that the “circumcision of Christ” should be taken objectively (that is, a circumcision performed on Christ), he writes: “The final phrase, ‘in the circumcision of Christ,’ is best seen, then, simply as a summary expression of the larger imagery of the preceding phrases. This is, what is in view is not primarily a circumcision effected by Christ … but a concise description of the death of Christ under the metaphor of circumcision.”75 On Christ’s body, the “circumcision of Christ” is simultaneously circumcision and “circumcision,” crucifixion and “crucifixion,” death and “death.” Still, it is difficult to understand why modern interpreters insist that the “physical” circumcision is somehow not also his literal, infant circumcision.76 The reference to “stripping of flesh” (Col 2:11) at the very least gestures toward literal, physical male circumcision; so too, beneath and within the chain of metaphors, of literal and figurative language intertwined, might we envision Christ’s circumcision, as well. If this is the case, then Colossians 2:11 is the earliest surviving mention of Jesus’ circumcision.
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