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one should hesitate to speak of "Jewish Gnosticism" or "Gnostic Judaism" at this peiod without firmer evidence than olossians itself, unless "gnostic" is being used in a diluted sense more closely equivalent to "apocalyptic" or "myustical". The evidence we have from elsewhere in first-century Judaism is that, for example, while Jewish apologists were very willing to make use of Greek philosophies and categories like the figure of "wisdom", and while apocalyptists and mystics were keen to explore the revelations of the heavens, it was all done within circles who maintained a firm Jewish identity - and not least, or rather, particularly when they sought thereby to enhance the stature of Judaism in the eys of others. Certainly, the categories used in Colossians itself have to be judged as consistently closer to those used in Jewish writings current at the time than to the later Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi.