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.]

Some difficulties are connected with the heresy taught by the religious
agitators at Colossae. It is plain that their {173} teaching affected
both doctrine and practic