Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Ver. 8. Lest any man spoil you] A metaphor either from sheep stealers or plunderers, συλαγωγων. Seducers plunder men of their precious souls. They take them prisoners, 2 Timothy 3:6. They make merchandise of them, 2 Peter 2:3; or bring them into bondage, smiting them on the face, 2 Corinthians 11:20. Constantius the emperor suspecting Julian's proneness to paganism, sent him to be carefully grounded in Christianity to Nicomedia; but he frequented by stealth the company of Libanus and Jamblichus the philosophers, who warped him fully to their bent; which brake out afterwards.
Through philosophy] In the year of Christ 220, the Artemonites, a certain kind of heretics, corrupted Scripture out of Aristotle and Theophrastus, turning all into questions, as afterwards the schoolmen also did, that evil generation of dunghill divines, as one calleth them. Tertullian not unfitly saith, that the philosophers were the patriarchs of the heretics. Not but that there is an excellent and necessary use of philosophy, truly so called; but the apostle meaneth it of their idle speculations and vain deceits, those airy nothings, as the apostle expounds himself. See Trapp on " Rom 1:21 " See Trapp on " Rom 1:22 "
And not after Christ] The Gentiles then could not be saved by their philosophy without Christ. And yet not only the divines of Cullen set forth a book concerning the salvation of Aristotle, whom they called Christ's forerunner in naturals, as John Baptist was in supernaturals; but also some of the school doctors, grave men (saith Acosta), do promise men salvation without the knowledge of Christ. (Agrippa, Balaeus.)