The Pulpit Commentary on Colossians 2:21

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

gives examples of the decrees which the Colossians are blamed for regarding and in this respect more than in any other they seem to have yielded to the demands of the false teacher. 'Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch' (verses 16, 23; 1 Corinthians 6:12, 1 Corinthians 6:13; 1 Corinthians 8:8; 1 Corinthians 10:25-27, 1 Corinthians 10:30; Romans 14:14-17; 1 Timothy 4:3-5; Titus 1:15).

These rules form part of a prohibitory regimen by which sinful tendencies to bodily pleasure were to be repressed (verse 23), and spiritual truths symbolically enforced (verse 17; see note on "circumcision,'' verse 11): comp.

Philo, 'On Concupiscence;' also 'On Victims,' § 3. θίγης the last of the three verbs, appears to be the strongest, forbidding the slightest contact. αψῃ is better rendered "handle" (comp. John 20:17); by itself it will scarcely bear the meaning it has in 1 Corinthians 7:1.

The next verse seems to imply that all three verbs relate to matters of diet. Ambrose and other Latin Fathers of ascetic tendencies put these prohibitions into the mouth of St. Patti himself, reversing his meaning.

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