Our first definite knowledge of the Colossian Church dates from the presence of Epaphras in Rome in A.D.
The main argument for putting it earlier is derived from the admitted affinities between it and Romans, the Colossian and Ephesian epistles containing, it is held, a more advanced christology (so Lightfoot especially, and Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 115-129).
Colossae, like the other Phrygian cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis, had not been visited by Paul, but owed its belief in Jesus Christ to Epaphras, a Colossian, who had been converted by Paul, perhaps in Ephesus, and had laboured not only in his native city but also in the adjacent portions of the Lycus valley, - a Christian in whom Paul reposed the greatest confidence as one competent to interpret the gospel of whose truth Paul was convinced (i.
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