Colossians 2:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

And see how he mocks them: "Do not touch," "do not taste," "do not handle," as though he were restraining them from something important.

He also cites another observance of theirs concerning food, one especially Jewish, just as the observance concerning days was Hellenic. Shaming the arrogance of the dogmatists, or false teachers, there, the Apostle says that all this is insignificant and ends in corruption in those who use it. Having decayed in the belly, it is then cast out through the privy. Thus, for the soul, in itself it brings neither benefit nor harm.

Some understand the words of Scripture, “Do not touch,” “Do not taste,” “Do not handle,” as a commandment of the Apostle forbidding one to touch something, taste something, or handle something.

But the very opposite is the case, if I am not mistaken about these very obscure words. Paul certainly used these words in mockery with reference to certain people.

He did not want those to be deceived and scandalized by them who distinguished foods according to the worship of angels and passed judgment on this world.

They said, “Do not touch,” “Do not taste,” “Do not handle,” although “to the pure all things are pure” (Tit 1:15), and “every creature of God is good” (1 Tim 4:4), as he himself clearly affirms elsewhere.

The soul of the Lord hates abstinence from food that is practiced for show and goes no further than the command, "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle." But the Lord loves abstinence used to enslave the carnal mind, because through the weakening of the flesh it brings about sanctification.

"Do not touch," it is said in the law, and "do not handle" (Lev 5:2). That is, it says, do not touch a leper, do not handle one suffering from a seminal discharge (Lev 15:3), and do not taste the food of the Gentiles.

“Why,” it is said, “as though living in the world, do you submit to ordinances: Do not touch, do not handle, do not taste what perishes through its very use?” (Col 2:20 and following).

Indeed, what is harmful should not be among the pure. Therefore cease caring for the flesh and the world.

In general, we often err in sight and, under other circumstances, see more than actually exists. We also err in hearing. If we do not wish to err, let us examine not what appears to us, but what does not appear.

For when does our soul not go astray? When does it reach the throne of truth? Is it not when it is separated from the body itself, and is neither deceived nor mocked by it?

"Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," things "which all perish with use, according to the commandments and teachings of men." In Baptism you were buried together with Christ and became dead to the law. Why, then, do you tolerate those who teach such things among you? Why do you think that some foods are lawful and others unlawful, while failing to consider that nothing in them is permanent? For everything is turned into corruption. By "commandments" and "teachings" the Apostle did not mean the law, but their untimely teaching.

Chastity, therefore, is not yet a virtue unless it has been inspired by love for God. Blessed Paul already says of those who hate marriage: "In the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars, whose own conscience is seared, forbidding marriage and commanding abstinence from foods which God created" (1 Tim 4:1-3). He also says, "Let no one deceive you by self-imposed humility and severity to the body" (Col 2:18, 23).

"Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle." There is no doubt that this is said of superstitions. If anyone falls into them, he commits adultery away from Christ.

In connection with what precedes, verses 18-19, and what follows, verse 23, these words of the Apostle are a rebuke of a self-willed “worship.”

It was not founded on the word of God or on the commandments of the Church. On the one hand, it rejected the significance of Christ’s merits and denied Christ’s accomplished bringing of mankind to God (1 Pet 3:18).

On the other hand, it placed hope in the help of angels and in the exhausting of the body, as though the body were an evil principle standing as a barrier between the human spirit and the heavenly spirits.

Returning his readers to the true path of faith, the Apostle speaks as though saying this. All your hope must be in Christ.

The speculators at Colossae, as is evident, attached great importance to the very nature of certain substances. Therefore they placed force not so much in abstinence in general, but precisely in fearful abstinence from certain substances. "They explain to you: this substance means such and such, and that substance such and such. Use this in this way, at such a time and in such a place, but do not touch that" (Bishop Theophan). "And see," Chrysostom notes, "how the Apostle mocks them: 'Do not touch,' and so forth. In explaining this, those speculators made it appear that acting thus was something great" (Chrysostom).

Concluding his doctrinal instructions, the Apostle again warns the Colossians against assigning false significance, in the work of drawing near to God, to a vainly wise abstinence.

Such abstinence disorders health, deprives one of the ability to fulfill duties, and leads to exhaustion. With special force he turns them away from servile reverence for the materials of nature.

It was as though these materials had some mysterious influence on drawing near to God or being distanced from Him.

According to John Chrysostom, the Apostle then mocks the heretics. “See,” he says, “how the Apostle mocks them: Do not touch, nor taste. Those speculators, when interpreting this, pretended that acting so was something great.”

See what lofty wisdom they hand down to you. And you, like children in school, with hands humbly folded, allow yourselves to be instructed, dogmatizesthe, in such trifles.

It is as though you were senseless and did not know how one should judge or how one should live; see Oecumenius and blessed Theophylact.

“And see,” says Saint Chrysostom, “how the Apostle mocks them: ‘Do not touch,’ and so forth. Those speculators, when interpreting this, pretended that acting so was something great.”

These words, “Do not touch,” and so forth, seem to point to Jewish ordinances about food. But the Apostle has already finished with specifically Jewish arrangements in verses 16-17.

The Apostle is not rejecting the law or Moses, as though Moses had established the prohibition of certain foods out of angelic superstition. For he affirms that Moses received the law from God (cf. Gal 3:19). Therefore, this teaching, as Paul says, is "according to the commandments and teachings of men." He ascribed it to those who did not hold fast to the Head, that is, to Him in Whom all things are regarded as called back to their beginning, including the distinction of foods.