Colossians 2:8 and Secret Mark

The core idea is that Colossians 2:8 may have been heard, in some second-century circles, as a slogan for a gospel with no human superscription—a gospel “according to Christ” over against gospels “according to men.” The key phrase is Paul’s warning: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition … and not according to Christ.” In a world where “according to Matthew,” “according to Luke,” and so on had become the standard way to label written gospels, the repeated κατά-phrases of this verse (“according to human tradition … according to the elements of the world … and not according to Christ”) naturally invite a contrast between texts and teachings stamped with human names and a higher norm “according to Christ” alone.

On this reading, Col 2:8 becomes especially useful for a group that prized an older, minimally inscribed Markan dossier—understood as hypomnēmata, private notes of apostolic preaching not yet issued as a formal ekdosis. In such an environment, the later, publicly titled “arrangements” marked “according to Matthew,” “according to Luke,” etc., could be cast as products “according to the tradition of men” and “according to the elements of the world,” while a superscription-less Mark, guarded for the more advanced, is aligned with what is “according to Christ.” The publication ecology reconstructed for early gospel materials—private notes, limited circulation, resistance to full public release—makes this a rhetorically plausible way to deploy Col 2:8 in second-century debate.

Alexandrian exegesis of Colossians reinforces the pattern. In Stromateis, the verse is quoted and then sharply reworked into a contrast between “human tradition” and “divine tradition,” and between στοιχεῖα and a more perfect teaching “according to Christ.” Philosophy “according to divine tradition” is defended as upholding providence, while what is “according to the tradition of men” is criticized as clever but faith-destroying dialectic. That same move—from humanly transmitted, elementary instruction to a higher, more spiritual teaching “according to Christ”—fits neatly with a two-tier view of gospel material, where public, titled texts are milk and restricted, more “spiritual” material functions as solid food for the “perfect.”

Patristic reception of Colossians also shows how malleable the verse was in polemical hands. A Latin paraphrase used in anti-heretical argument can render the line as a warning against what is “contrary to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit,” shifting the contrast from “according to Christ” versus “according to men” to Spirit-wisdom versus human philosophy, but preserving the basic structure: a lower, human or worldly pattern of teaching over against a higher, divine criterion. That flexibility is exactly what would allow one faction to hear “according to Christ” as tacit authorization for its own superscription-less gospel, and as an implicit rebuke of the named alternatives.

Taken together, the linguistic tension inside Col 2:8, the reconstructed publication history of early gospel materials, and the Alexandrian habit of contrasting human and divine “traditions” make it plausible that this verse was used, in some circles, as a banner for the superiority of a nameless, “according to Christ” gospel over texts branded “according to” human authors. At the same time, the ordinary Pauline use of “according to Christ,” the late and paratextual character of the gospel titles, and the way mainstream writers eventually treat those titles as badges of orthodoxy rather than of corruption all caution against reading Paul himself as intentionally signaling a superscription-less gospel. The proposal is best understood as a sophisticated second-century appropriation of Col 2:8 to defend a higher, more “spiritual” Markan tradition against the publicly titled gospels, not as a straightforward window into Paul’s own view of gospel titles.