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Colossae
History
Colossae lay in the valley of the Lycus in south-western Phrygia, at the foot of Mount Cadmus near today's Honaz in Turkey, about 15 km up the valley from Laodicea and 20 km from Hierapolis. Its mound has never been fully excavated; survey work there began only in 2021. Herodotus says that Xerxes, marching against Greece in 481 BC, came to Colossae, a great Phrygian city at the place where the Lycus disappears into a chasm and flows underground. In 401 BC the younger Cyrus halted at Colossae for seven days, and Xenophon calls it an inhabited city, prosperous and large.
In the Hellenistic and Roman periods the nearby cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis grew and overshadowed it. Strabo counts Colossae among the small towns around Laodicea and Apameia, though it was known for its wool and for a dye named after the city.
The church at Colossae was founded not by Paul but by Epaphras, a Colossian, from whom the believers had learned the gospel; many of them had not seen Paul's face. The Letter to the Colossians, sent in Paul's name from prison (many scholars hold that a disciple wrote it), speaks of the believers of Laodicea and Hierapolis, sends greetings to Laodicea and asks that it be read there too. It calls Onesimus one of them and sends a message to Archippus, and since the letter to Philemon greets Archippus as well, the house church of Philemon, to whom Paul sent the slave Onesimus back, is usually placed at Colossae.
Tacitus records that an earthquake laid Laodicea in ruins in AD 60, and the fifth-century historian Orosius says that under Nero an earthquake overthrew the three cities of Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae. Colossae lived on as a small town; in the Byzantine period its people moved up the slope to Chonae, the modern Honaz.
Scripture: Col 1:2; Col 1:7; Col 2:1; Col 4:9; Col 4:12–13; Col 4:15–17; Col 4:18; Phlm 1:1–2; Phlm 1:10–16
Sources
- Herodotus, Histories 7.30
- Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.6
- Strabo, Geography 12.8.13; 12.8.16
- Tacitus, Annals 14.27
- Orosius, Histories against the Pagans 7.7.12
- A. H. Cadwallader and M. Trainor (eds.), Colossae in Space and Time (2011)
- U. Huttner, Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley (2013)
Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.
Verses (1)
- Col 1:2
- To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
King James Version