COLOSSAE kə lŏs’ ĭ (Κολοσσαί, G3145). A Phrygian city, in NT times situated in the Rom. province of Asia, ten to eleven m. further up the Lycus valley than Laodicea and thirteen m. from Hierapolis. The three cities formed a triangle in an area which was prob. evangelized during the fruitful period of Paul’s residence in Ephesus (Acts 19:10), the gateway to the whole thickly populated southwestern corner of Asia Minor.

Colossae originally lay on the main road from Ephesus to the Euphrates and the E, at the junction of the highways to Sardis and Pergamum, and it was the visible policy of Paul to plant the Gospel at places whence it would diffuse down the main arteries of trade and communication. The active Christian communities of the Lycus valley are vividly illustrated in both Laodicea and Colossae, the one beset by problems of affluence, the other by the heretical philosophies of a cosmopolitan community. Colossae lost its significance under the Empire, because the road to Pergamum was moved W, and Laodicea, an active and commercially aggressive society, absorbed the trade and importance of its neighbor. Originally Colossae seems to have shared in the wool trade of Laodicea, and in Pers. times to have preceded that city in standing and importance. Xerxes passed that way (Her. 7.30), and Cyrus also (Xen. Anab. 1.2.6), and the fact that both historians mention Colossae as a staging post on the march of armies is indicative of its importance at the beginning and end of the 5th cent. b.c. Laodicea was not founded until 260 b.c., and Colossae was without rival.

The Christian history of Colossae can only be conjecturally reconstructed. The foundation of the Christian Church in the locality, since Paul had apparently not visited it (Col 1:4; 2:1), may have been due to the noble Epaphras who was a Colossian (Col 1:7; 4:12). If Paul ultimately visited Colossae, it was subsequent to the writing of his letter and the founding of the Christian community (Philem 22). Archippus seems to have exercised a fruitful ministry in Colossae (Col 4:17; Philem 2), while Philemon and his slave Onesimus were members of the church (Col 4:9; Philem 10). It may be supposed that, during Paul’s Rom. imprisonment (Acts 28:30), Epaphras brought him a report of conditions in the Colossian church which produced the epistle, rebuking the deviations from sound doctrine and calling those in philosophic error back to a pure Christology and faith in the all-sufficiency of Christ.

Colossae was disastrously weakened in the 7th and 8th centuries, when the breakdown of Byzantine power in Asia Minor left the position damagingly exposed to raiders. There was a shift of the remaining population to Chonae, the modern Chonas, on the nearby slopes of Mount Cadmus. Final destruction came with the Turkish invasion in the 12th cent. The site is at present unoccupied. It lies ten m. from the town of Denizli. Archeological investigation has located the site of the church.