J. B. Lightfoot on Colossians 2:20-22

δογματίζεσθε; ^{21}Μὴ ἅψῃ μηδὲ γεύσῃ μηδὲ θίγῃς ^{22}ἅ δογματίζεσθε] ‘_are ye overridden with precepts, ordinances_.’ In the LXX the verb δογματίζειν is used several times, meaning ‘to issue a decree,’ Esth. iii. 9, 1 Esdr. vi. 33, 2 Macc. x. 8, xv. 36, 3 Macc. iv. 11. Elsewhere it is applied most commonly to the precepts of philosophers; e.g. Justin _Apol._ i. 7 οἱ ἐν Ἕλλησι τὰ αὐτοῖς ἀρεστὰ _δογματίσαντες_ ἐκ παντὸς τῷ ἑνὶ ὀνόματι _φιλοσοφίας_ προσαγορεύονται (comp. § 4), Epict. iii. 7. 17 sq. εἰ θέλεις εἶναι φιλόσοφος ... δογματίζων τὰ αἰσχρά. Here it would include alike the δόγματα of the Mosaic law (ver. 14) and the δόγματα of the ‘philosophy’ denounced above (ver. 8). Both are condemned; the one as superseded though once authoritative, the other as wholly vexatious and unwarrantable. Examples are given in the following verse, μὴ ἅψῃ κ.τ.λ. For the construction here, where the more remote object, which would stand in the dative with the active voice (2 Macc. x. 8 ἐδογμάτισαν ... τῷ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἔθνει), becomes the nominative of the passive, compare χρηματίζεσθαι Matt. ii. 12, 22, διακονεῖσθαι Mark x. 45, and see Winer § xxxix. p. 326, A. Buttmann p. 163, Kühner § 378, II. p. 109. 21. Μὴ ἅψῃ κ.τ.λ.] The Apostle disparagingly repeats the prohibitions of the false teachers in their own words, ‘Handle not, neither taste, neither touch.’ The rabbinical passages quoted in Schöttgen show how exactly St Paul’s language reproduces, not only the spirit, but even the form, of these injunctions. The Latin commentators, Hilary and Pelagius, suppose these prohibitions to be the Apostle’s own, thus making a complete shipwreck of the sense. So too St Ambrose _de Noe et Arca_ 25 (I. p. 267), _de Abr._ i. 6 (I. p. 300). We may infer from the language of St Augustine who argues against it, that this was the popular interpretation in his day: _Epist._ cxix. (II. p. 512) ‘tanquam præceptum putatur apostoli, nescio quid tangere, gustare, attaminare, prohibentis.’ The ascetic tendency of the age thus fastened upon a slight obscurity in the Greek and made the Apostle recommend the very practices which he disparaged. For a somewhat similar instance of a misinterpretation commonly received see the note on τοῖς δόγμασιν ver. 14. Jerome however (I. p. 878) had rightly interpreted the passage, illustrating it by the precepts of the Talmud. At a still earlier date Tertullian, _Adv. Marc._ v. 19, gives the correct interpretation. These prohibitions relate to defilement contracted in divers ways by contact with impure objects. Some were doubtless reenactments of the Mosaic law; while others would be exaggerations or additions of a rigorous asceticism, such as we find among the Essene prototypes of these Colossian heretics, e.g. the avoidance of oil, of wine, or of flesh-meat, the shunning of contact with a stranger or a religious inferior, and the like; see pp. 85 sq. For the religious bearing of this asceticism, as springing from the _dualism_ of these heretical teachers, see above pp. 79, 104 sq.