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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

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COLOSSAE*, COLOSSE

Ancient city in Asia Minor, located in the southwestern part of present-day Turkey, and remembered primarily for the apostle Paul’s letter to the church there (Col 1:2). Colosse was near the Lycus River, a tributary of the Meander. The city flourished during the sixth century BC. According to Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, when the Persian king Xerxes came to Colosse, it was a city of great size. Another Greek historian, Xenophon, related that Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, had passed Colosse still earlier on his way to Greece.

Colosse was situated in the region known as Phrygia and was a trading center at a crossroads on the main highway from Ephesus to the east. In Roman times relocation of the road leading north to Pergamum brought about both the growth of Laodicea, a city 10 miles (16 kilometers) away, and Colosse’s gradual decline. Colosse and Laodicea shared in the wool trade. Thus, the name Colosse was derived from a Latin name collossinus, meaning “purple wool.”

In the apostle Paul’s time Colosse was a small city with a mixed population of Phrygians, Greeks, and Jews. During his extended stay in Ephesus, Paul may have taught Jews and Greeks who lived in Colosse (Acts 19:10). Epaphras, a Colossian, visited Paul in Rome and informed him about the condition of the church at Colosse (Col 1:7; 4:12), then was later imprisoned with Paul (Phlm 1:23). Others from the Colossian church included Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, and Onesimus, a slave who became a Christian (Phlm 1:16). Subsequent history is silent on the church at Colosse. The city was weakened under Islamic rule and was eventually destroyed in the 12th century.