J. B. Lightfoot on Colossians 2:8

τῆς φιλοσοφίας καὶ κενῆς ἀπάτης, κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν κατὰ κ.τ.λ.] The false teaching is described (1) As regards its source–‘the traditions of _men_’; (2) As regards its subject matter–‘the rudiments of _the world_’. τὴν παράδοσιν κ.τ.λ.] Other systems, as for instance the ceremonial mishna of the Pharisees, might fitly be described in this way (Matt. xv. 2 sq., Mark vii. 3 sq.): but such a description was peculiarly appropriate to a mystic theosophy like this of the Colossian false teachers. The teaching might be oral or written, but it was essentially esoteric, essentially traditional. It could not appeal to sacred books which had been before all the world for centuries. The Essenes, the immediate spiritual progenitors of these Colossian heretics, distinctly claimed to possess such a source of knowledge, which they carefully guarded from divulgence; _B.J._ ii. 8. 7 συντηρήσειν ὁμοίως τά τε τῆς αἱρέσεως αυτῶν βιβλία καὶ τὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων ὀνόματα (see above pp. 89, 90 sq., 95). The various Gnostic sects, their direct or collateral spiritual descendants, almost without exception traced their doctrines to a similar source: e.g. Hippol. _Hær._ v. 7 ἃ φησὶ _παραδεδωκέναι_ Μαριάμνῃ τὸν Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Κυρίου τὸν ἀδελφόν, vii. 20 φασὶν εἰρηκέναι Ματθίαν αὐτοῖς λόγους ἀποκρύφους οὓς ἤκουσε παρὰ τοῦ σωτῆρος, Clem. Alex. _Strom._ vii. 17 (p. 898) καθάπερ ὁ Βασιλείδης, κἂν Γλαυκίαν ἐπιγράφηται διδάσκαλον, ὡς αὐχοῦσιν αὐτοί, τὸν Πέτρου ἑρμηνέα· ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ Οὐαλεντῖνον Θεοδᾶ διακηκοέναι φέρουσιν, γνώριμος δὲ οὗτος ἐγεγόνει Παύλου. So too a later mystic theology of the Jews, which had many affinities with the teaching of the Christianized Essenes at Colossæ, was self-designated _Kabbala_ or ‘tradition’, professing to have been handed down orally from the patriarchs. See the note on ἀπόκρυφοι, ii. 3.