Epistle in Colossiens

The Épître in Colossiens is a book of the New Testament.

It is sent by the apostle Paul to the Church of Colosses.

Historical and religious context

Summary: At the origin, written letter by the Paul apostle in Colossiens after the visit of Épaphras, evangelist of the Church of Colossi (coll 1:7 - 8). Épaphras called to Paul that Colossiens fell into a serious error: they thought that they were better than the others because they observed certain external ordinances carefully (Collar 2:16), were essential certain mortifications and adored the angels (Collar 2:18). These practices gave to Colossiens the feeling which they sanctified. They had as the impression to better include/understand the mysteries of the universe as the other members of the Church. In his letter, Paul includes them while teaching that the redemption is not possible that by Christ and that we must show wisdom and to serve it.

The origin of the Epistle in Colossiens

If one sticks to the traditional thesis, the apostle Paul would have written this letter around summer 62, i.e. about the middle of its first Roman captivity. It is in Tychique and Onésime that the apostle had entrusted the responsibility of carry this missive to the Church of Colossi (cf Col 4.7-9).

The town of Colossi

“In a site of an Alpine beauty, that dominates the Cadmus Mount crowned of eternal snow, only the vestiges of a theater and of an acropolis, among scattered ruins”, still announce the town of Colossi, located at the edge of Lycus, tributary of famous Méandre, in the south-west of Phrygie. At some two hundred kilometers in the east of Éphèse, this city of Asia Mineure was placed at a strategic point of the road which carried out of Éphèse towards the Eastern provinces (Pisidie, Lycaonie, Cilicie, Syria, etc): “Indeed, with its height, the valley of Lycus was tightened to form a 16 km length rather narrow throat. In the south of the city, the Cadmus Mount dominated the landscape from its 2400 Mr. Colosses thus ordered the access to the driving collar towards the high plateaus.”

Colossi was formerly a very important city. Xénophon spoke about it like populeuse, rich and vast city “, thus confirming the testimony of Hérodote, which spoke, as of Ve front century J. - C., of a ``big city of Phrygie''”. But, in Ier century, because of the many changes of the road system, it is nothing any more but one small unimportant city: the close cities, Laodicée and Hiérapolis (both mentioned in Collar 4.13), distant from approximately 16 and 21 km, supplanted it and grew rich. It was however, following the example Laodicée, which had become “one of the richest cities of Asia” (cf Ap 3.14-22), re-elected for its beautiful wool with the excellent colors. “The inscriptions mention corporations of dyers with Laodicée and Hiérapolis and the adjective kolossénos indicated a dyed wool with Colosses.”

In the apostolic times, the Jews were very numerous in the area. It is in Antiochus the Large one (223-187 av. J. - C.) that one owes immigration in Phrygie and the Lydie of two thousand Jewish families coming from Mésopotamie. Many of these families was specialized in the dyeing wool. Some of them had even succeeded in thriving. The excellence of the area for the breeding of the sheep has without any doubt open the door to a profitable trade. But if the businesses met such a success, it is also because the presence of these Jewish families in this region attracted other co-religionists, with which they could easily trade.

As everywhere in the ancient world, an important manpower of slaves côtoyait the class of the free men and that of freed. Onésime, for example, represented in Colosses the bottom of the social scale, while its Philémon Master belonged to the category of the rich person owners.

At the time of the Paul apostle, Colosses is not any more what it was; “the ``big city of Phrygie'' of Hérodote made place with the village (polisma) mentioned by Strabon.” Its trace in the History will be erased little by little, whereas its name for always in biblical Canon is registered, thanks to the beautiful letter of Paul. It is that a terrible earthquake, with beginning of the year 60, was to destroy Colosses and Laodicée, both being indeed located in a zone predisposed at the earth tremors. The latter however had succeeded in being raised of its ruins. Colossi, for its part, never managed to find its vitality.

The historians report that the Phrygian population had a character “in connection with the volcanic nature of the ground”. This temperament was in particular marked “by a tendency to mysticism and orgiastic excitations which made of Phrygie the center of the frantic worship of Dionysos and Cybèle”. “Perhaps, request Daniel Furter, does he explain the favor met by Montanisme in IIe century?” In any case, this “volcanic” character offered a ground favourable with the religious expansion.

Moreover, from its strategic position on the “great shopping street energy of the West in the East”, Colosses was, more than its neighbors, in permanent contact with the various intellectual movements and monk of the time. Rhéteurs, philosophers, preachers travelling (and very often mercantile) came indeed from all shares to spread their systems and their new doctrines. Thus, on the bottom of universal and thousand-year-old paganism, “were grafted” various worships: “rites of mythology gréco-Roman, imperial worship, which had developed starting from Pergame, mysteries, prégnose, Judaism, occultism (cf ac 19).” The syncretisms of any kind were thus with the mode, which probably explains the drafting of the epistle in Colossiens, whereas the young churches of Lycus were to face the various religious pressures and with the quite real danger to amalgamate primitive Christianity with the popular pagan beliefs. “The Christians needed as to see themselves warned against licentious manners their fellow-citizens, as paganism did not repress, but encouraged rather.”

The Church of Colossi

We know that the Paul apostle was not the founder of the Church of Colossi. He only “heard of faith as a Jesus-Christ” (Collar 1.4). Moreover, the apostle mentions that never Colossiens, not more than Laodiciens, “did not see its face in the flesh” (Collar 2.1).

Paul admittedly exerted a particularly powerful and fertile ministry very close to Colossi (in Éphèse, possibly from 54 to 56). One can then suppose that it is its strategic ministry with Éphèse which, a such emanating ray of the pure light of the Gospel, illuminated Colosses and the close cities which are Laodicée and Hiérapolis. Collaborators of Paul could, indeed, leave Éphèse to go évangéliser the cities bordering Lycus and to found these three churches there.

A certain number of biblists support that it is Épaphras which founded the Church of Colossi. The texts, however, nowhere do not mention explicit manner which it is with him that returns the merit to have established the community colossienne. We know, on the other hand, that he played a paramount role, not only in the Church of Colossi, but still in that of Laodicée and in that of Hiérapolis. If he is not the founder of these churches, Paul seems however to designate it as “the principal person in charge of the congregation” of Colossi: it is with him, indeed, that Paul gave instructions for Colossiens (Collar 1.7). It is as of him as the apostle returns this beautiful testimony: “I return this testimony to him which it takes much sorrow for you” (Collar 4.12-13). Paul also describes it like his “beloved companion of service” and like a “faithful minister of Christ” (Collar 1.7).

The majority of the Christians of the Church of Colossi resulted from paganism (Collar 1.21,27; 2.13). In addition to Épaphras, Philémon and Onésime, which we already quoted, we know also Archippe (Collar 4.17) and the sister Appia (Phm 1.2). These various names, affirms Kuen, “are typically pagan”. But it may be also that there were in the community of Colossi some converted Jews. Indeed, the readers seem familiarized with the habits and the Jewish rites like with certain lesson of the Judaism (Collar 2.16-18) and they know the psalms (Collar 3.16). According to Kuen, “this knowledge, could be transmitted to them by the former Jews among them or the heretics who had had, obviously, of the contacts with the Judaism”.

The Church of Colossi grew normally (Collar 1.6) and remained firm in the faith (Collar 2.5-7). But she was also threatened by various dangers: that to fall down in the immorality of paganism (Collar 3.5-11) and to let themselves allure by the heresy (Collar 2.8-23). Daniel Furter explains: A few years had been enough for the numerical and spiritual growth to the community: the theological developments and ethics which the letter contains imply an unquestionable maturity in the believers of Colossi. That did not prevent them from running of great dangers against which the Paul apostle wants to warn them in their writing. The Church of Colossi, however, was to disappear completely from the Christian history after the letter of the apostle, whereas Laodicée and Hiérapolis had to play a big role during the first centuries. As example: the series of letters to the Churches of Asia, in the Apocalypse, does not comprise a message with the address of the community of Colossi, whereas Laodicée and Hiérapolis appear both in it.

Summary

Chapter 1 contains the greetings of Paul to Colossiens.

Chapters 2 and 3 are doctrinal and contain declarations on the redeemer role of Christ, the danger of the false worship and the importance of resurrection.

Chapter 4 teaches that the saints must show wisdom in all.

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