πάσης (pases) in Colossians 1:15: Adjective Genitive Singular Feminine
πάσης (pases) in Colossians 1:15
Textual Witness
The witness reads πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως in Colossians 1:15, so the form stands inside a compact title clause about Christ and creation.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The grammar helps readers hear the total scope of the creation phrase, while the larger sentence explains Christ's relation to that creation.
How To Communicate It
In teaching, this form is useful for showing that πάσης supplies scope, not the full meaning of πρωτότοκος or the whole Christological argument.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Adjective agreement shows how the word relates to the noun, but it does not by itself settle the theology of the passage.
- Do not make grammatical gender into a gendered theological claim.
What Does The Label Mean?
Adjective: the word describes or qualifies a noun, here marking scope or totality rather than naming a thing by itself.
Genitive: the form typically expresses a dependent relationship, and here it qualifies the surrounding noun phrase in context.
Singular: the form is grammatically singular in this occurrence and agrees with the noun it modifies.
Feminine: the form is feminine because it matches the noun it describes, and this is a grammatical feature, not a theological claim.
What The Form Does In This Verse
κτίσεως in the phrase πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως
The adjective agrees with κτίσεως and belongs to the genitive creation phrase after πρωτότοκος.
It modifies creation with whole-scope force, helping the phrase speak of all creation rather than a narrow subset.
It does not by itself define πρωτότοκος as created status, and it does not settle every Christological question apart from the whole sentence and passage.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The genitive adjective modifies creation in a major Christological phrase and affects the scope readers hear.
Genitive adjective modifying κτίσεως. marks the creation noun with total scope: all or the whole of creation. Attached to κτίσεως in πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως. Governed by the genitive creation phrase after πρωτότοκος. The adjective contributes scope, but the whole clause and passage govern how firstborn is interpreted.
How broad is the creation phrase in Colossians 1:15? The adjective marks the noun with whole-scope force, so the phrase concerns all creation.
Direct: The form directly supports wording such as all creation or the whole creation.
The adjective marks scope; it does not by itself decide every debated nuance of firstborn. Feminine gender agrees with κτίσεως and should not be read as a gendered theological claim.
All creation phrase alone settles Christology: The adjective supplies scope, while the title, sentence, hymn context, and canon govern the Christological claim.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως in Colossians 1:15, so the form stands inside a compact title clause about Christ and creation.
The lemma πᾶς normally carries the sense of all, every, or the whole, and this form brings that idea into a genitive modifying role.
Because πάσης agrees with κτίσεως, it most naturally gives the creation noun whole-scope force while the title πρωτότοκος and the surrounding hymn frame the larger claim.
In this verse, the phrase presents Christ in relation to all creation, and the adjective helps readers hear the breadth of that relation without making the adjective alone decide the title.
Within the passage, the form supports a high and comprehensive statement about Christ's relation to creation, but the clause as a whole still sets the interpretive limit.
For readers and teachers, the form can be explained as the scope word in all creation or the whole creation, while the whole context governs the Christological meaning.
Do not use the feminine genitive adjective alone to prove that Christ is a created being, and do not make grammatical gender into a theological claim.