Let no man therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
All Commentaries on Colossians 2:16 Go To Colossians 2
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or in drink. That is, for not abstaining from meats, called unclean, for drinking out of a cup without a cover, (see Numbers xix.) or for not keeping the Jewish festivals. For these were but shadows, types and figures of future things to be fulfilled in the new law of Christ: but the body is of Christ, (ver. 17.) i.e. was the body, the truth, the substance signified by these shadows and types. (Witham)
He means with regard to the Jewish observations of the distinction of clean and unclean meats; and of their festivals, new moons, and sabbaths; as being no longer obligatory. (Challoner)
Modern dogmatizers wilfully or ignorantly misapply this text of the apostle, to disprove the fasts and festivals observed in the Catholic Church; but it is evident, as St. Augustine observes, that the apostle is here condemning the legal distinction of clean and unclean meats, and the feasts of the new moon, to which false brethren wanted to subject the Colossians. (St. Augustine, ep. 59. ad Paulin. in solut. quæs. 7.)
