Wu.LI.m P. DICKSOX.
C0LOSS./G (KoXoffffoi) was an ancient city of Pliryj;ia (very important in early history, dwind- ling in the later centuries as Laodicea waxed greater), overhanging the river Lycus (a tributary of the Marauder) on the upper part of its couree. It was distant only about ten miles from Laodicea and thirteen from Hierapolis ; and hence the three cities funned a single sphere of missionary labour for Epaphras, an inhabitant of C. (Col 4'-- "). Churches were formed in these three cities at a very early period, partly by the work of Epaphras, but also through the work of Timolliy, who had evidently come into personal relations with C. (Col 1'), and probably of other preachers. In Rev 1" 3" the single Church of Laodicea must be taken as representative of the Churches of the
whole Lycus valley. Paul himself had not been at Laodicea or at C. (Col 2i). C, like Laodicea (which see), stood on the most important route of commerce and intercourse in the eastern part of the Rom. Empire ; it w-as therefore a place where new ideas and new thoughts were always likely to be simmering, and the new religion seems to liave developed there with feverish rapidity, and not in a direction that .satisfied St. Paul. During his first imprisonment in Rome, the report which was brought to him by Epaphras of the religious views and practices in C. called forth an Epistle, in which he rebuked the tendency of the Colossians to stray from the straight path imder the influence partly of Judaism (observance of Sabhaths, etc.. Col 2"*; circumcision hinted at, 2'i), and partly of a species of theosophic speculation, which sought to find demonic or angelic powers intermediate between the supreme unapproachable God and human beings, — a kind of speculation springing from an attempt to express the ideas of Clu'istianity in the terms and forms of the philosophic and religious thought current in Phrygia and in Asia generally. The Judaic elements in this Colossian development of Christianity show that Jewish teachers had visited it, and that Jewish religion and thought had influenced the population ; and from the position of the city such influence is natural, and Jewish traders had probably settled in it for com- mercial purposes (especially trade in the beautiful wool of the peculiar colour called Colossiiins, per- haps dark purple). There is, however, no evidence that an actual settlement of Jews at C. as colonists by any of the Seleucid lungs ever occurred (as is probable or certain at Laodicea, Tarsus, etc., which see); for such a settlement was considered as a re-foundation, and was usually accompanied by change of name. Again, the semi-Gnostic style of Colossian speculation revealed to us by the Epistle shows that the Lycus valley was the seat of some philosophic activity, which had doubtless its centre at Laodicea (which see), but extended to the other cities. The same kind of speculation long clung to the valley, as Theodorct mentions in the 5th century ; and in the 9th and 10th centuries Michael, the leader of the host of angels, was worshipped as the great saint of C. (and of its later representative Chonai), and a legend was told of his appearance to save the city from a great inundation. C. disappeared from history during the 7th or 8th cent., being too much exposed to the terrible raids of the Saracens ; and it was succeeded by Chona; (now called Chona.s), a fortress about three miles farther south, in a lofty situa- tiim, with an impregnable castle upon the steep slope of Mount Cadmus (summit 8013 ft.). In 787 Bishop Dositheus took his title from C, but had his actual home in Chon;e (iirlffKovos KoXoo-o-ii' ^roi Xupwv) ; but in 870 and 879 Samuel was bishop (afterwards archbishop) of Chonje, and C. had been practically forgotten.
Colossa; is a grecized form of a Phrygian word (modified to give an apparent meaning in (ireek, as if connected with Ko\o(r<rds) ; and the native form was more like KoXavaal. Hence the ethnic Ko\off<rati;s occurs in the (not original) title of the Epistle, and in several Byzantine lists of bishops. KoXoo-ffTji-is is the invariable ethnic on coins.
LiTERATrRE.— The exact site of C. was first deterinined by Hamiltuu. Iienearchen in A/tia Minor, i. p. !JOS ; Arundel and otlu'r travellers hud previously visited the modern C'honas. and believed it to be C. The 'situation and history of C. and Chonje are very fully described in Kamsay. Citiett and Binhojiric* of Phrt/niit. chs, i.' and vi,, and C?t. in'thfi R-im. Emp. cli. xix.
W. M. R.V.MS AY.
"COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE.— This Epi-stle forms one of a closely connected group of three. It is linked on the one hand to the little letter to Philemon by the group of personal salutations
"P>/ri;tlit, 1*9^. ''.V t^li'ir'rf Srrilitter^i: S'"n.i
COLOSSIAXS
COLOSSIAXS
455
cominon to the twu, and on the other to the Ep. to 'the Kphesiaiis' by a remarkable and intricate community of contents, by the fact that the two letters are entrusted to the same messenger (4', cf. Eph (i-i), and probably by an express refer- ence in the Colossians to the sister Epistle under the title of "the Ep. from Laodicea' in 4'".
I. Arriiocsiill" AMI Datk. — The various ques- tions which have been raised during the present cent, witli respect to the autliorship of tliis group of Epp., and the particular stage in St. Paul's first imprisonment (assuming them to have been written by him) to wliich they may be most suit^ ably assigned, can be best dealt with in conne-^ion with the Ep. to the Kphes. (which see). For the present it will be enough to say (1) that the ad- mitted differences in language, .style, and, to a certain e.'ctent, in doctrine, between this group of Epp. and those of the central period, 1 and 2 Co, Gal, Ko, are by no means sufficient to establish a diversity of authorship ; and ('2) that two facts, (a) the conversion of Onesimus, who, as far as we know, could hardly have had access to St. I'aul in C;esarea, and (b) the remarkable development in the doctrine of the Eoclesia, wliich marks Eph, make it on the whole most probable that the whole group was written from Rome shortly before the outbreak of the Neronian persecution.