04_Biblica_Collins_Layout 1 01/04/14 11:47 Pagina 83 83 COLOSSIANS 1,17 “HOLD TOGETHER”: A CO-OPTED TERM III. Conclusions for Col 1,15-20 Although the passage, Col 1,15-20, is widely acknowledged to be a discrete section in the letter to the Colossians, there is still dis- agreement over just what is its literary type, and what is its compo- sitional relationship to the whole letter. Probably the most common position is that it is a “poem” or “hymn”, which the author of Colos- sians cited in order to reinforce the points he sought to make in the letter. A variation of this position is to call the passage a “liturgical composition”, without getting more precise as to exactly how the congregation might have used it (e.g., singing in unison, chanting, reciting), and this is how I will refer to the passage 43. Further questions arise over whether the author of this passage is the same as the author of the letter. In this essay I do not discuss the authorship of the letter, or of the passage, 1,15-20. I simply suggest that the pointers within the letter to Paul’s involvement invite the au- dience to take it as if it came from Paul, which I take to mean consis- tently with Pauline strategies known elsewhere (such as co-opting). Col 1,15-20 gives evidence of being well structured. Re- searchers have proposed a number of different analyses for its struc- ture, but none seems to have won the day. B. Matthews offers a helpful survey of the proposals, and provides his own persuasive argument for a chiasm 44. He notes that the two occurrences of o[j evstin (“he is”) followed by prwto,tokoj (“firstborn”) and o[ti evn auvtw/| (“for in him”) 45 in vv. 15-16 and 18b-20 bracket the two oc- currences of kai. auvto,j evstin (“and he is”) in vv. 17 and 18a. In Matthews’ analysis, the chiastic structure highlights its center, 1,17b-18a: As such, the center of the chiasm communicates that just as Christ is pre-eminent over, and sustains, all things in the original creation, he likewise is pre-eminent over and preserves the Church. 43 Thus J. SUMNEY, Colossians (New Testament Library; Louisville, KY 2008) 61. 44 B.J. MATTHEWS, “What on earth is the plh,rwma? Christ and church in Colossians 1:19”, forthcoming. 45 The ESV margin at v. 16a, “in him”, serves the parallelism better than the text, “by him”, though the instrumental interpretation may well be right (cf. the end of v. 16; 1 Cor 8,6; Heb 1,2; John 1,3, all using dia,, “through”).