HKB
[Sidenote: To whom written.]
Colossae was the least important town to which any Epistle of St. Paul which now remains was addressed. The place was on the river Lycus in Phrygia, about ten miles from Laodicea and thirteen from Hierapolis, and thus the three towns were the sphere of the missionary work of the Colossian Epaphras (Col. iv. 12, 13). Colossae had been flourishing enough in the time of Herodotus, but now, overshadowed by greater neighbours--Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Chonae--and perhaps shaken by recurring earthquakes, it was sinking fast into decay. Still it derived importance from its situation on the great main road which connected Rome with the eastern provinces, the road by {172} which Xerxes had led his great armament against Greece. And as the people had a special way of their own for producing a rich dye named Colossinus, it retained a fair amount of trade. We may account for the presence of Jews at Colossae which is suggested in the Epistle, by remembering its convenient position and its trade speciality. The people were mainly the descendants of Greek settlers and Phrygian natives, and the intellectual atmosphere was the same as that of which we have evidence in other parts of Asia Minor: every one was infected with the Greek keenness for subtle speculation, and the usual Phrygian tendency to superstition and fanaticism. Thirteen miles away, at Hierapolis, was growing into manhood the slave Epictetus, who later on will set out some of the most noble and lofty of pagan thoughts. The persistent love of the people of this neighbourhood for the angel-worship which St. Paul rebukes, is illustrated by the facts that in the 4th century a Church Council at Laodicea condemned the worship of angels, and that, in spite of this, in the 9th and 10th centuries the district was the centre of the worship of St. Michael, who was believed to have opened the chasm of the Lycus, and so saved the people of Chonae from an inundation.
Colossae, being exposed to the raids of the Moslem Saracens, disappeared from history in the 8th century.
The Church at Colossae was not founded by St. Paul, and he was not personally acquainted with it (Col. ii. 1). But we can hardly go so far as to say that he had never seen the town at all.
[Sidenote: Where and when written.]
St. Paul sent this letter, together with that to Philemon and the circular which we call "Ephesians," by Tychicus from Rome, probably in A.D. 60. He alludes to his imprisonment twice incidentally, and again with pathetic simplicity in the postscript added by his own hand, "Remember my bonds."
[Sidenote: Character and Contents.]