A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians
A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians Angela Standhartinger Although Acts has Paul wandering through Phrygia twice and even
"strengthening all the disciples" there, we have no evidence that he ever visited Colossae.1 Nor does the Letter to the Colossians make this claim.
Rather, Colossians insinuates that it was Paul's coworker, or more literarily "coservant" (σύνδουλος), Epaphras, who brought the gospel to Colossae (Col 1:7; cf. 4:12). Later, Epaphras met Paul at an unnamed place of imprisonment, from which Paul and Timothy wrote to the congregation in the Lycus valley.
Yet, Colossians was most likely not written by Paul. By means of his detailed comparison of the language and style of Colossians to the seven letters generally accepted as having been authored by Paul, Walter Bujard convinced most scholars, including myself, that Colossians was written not by Paul himself but rather by one or more of Paul's friends and companions, most likely after Paul's death, which occurred sometime after 65
CE.2 This observation raises the question of why the author—or as I prefer to assume, the group of authors—chose to address their letter to a city about 170 km east of Ephesus, where there was no documented history of any Pauline congregation. What did they know about this city in the Lycos valley on the western border of Phrygia? Was Colossians prompted by pressing questions emerging at a concrete historic location and Pauline ekklesia, or is its address part of the message the letter intends to convey?
In the following I will argue for the latter option. But first I shall summa1. See Acts 16:6; 18:23. It is not explained where the μαθηταί of Acts 18:23 came from.
2. Walter Bujard, Stilanalytische Untersuchungen zum Kolosserbrief als Beitrag zur
Methodik von Sprachvergleichen, STUNT 11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973).
Angela Standhartinger rize what modern historians know about ancient Colossae in the first two centuries of our era.
Ancient Colossae The ruins of Colossae have never been excavated. Information about the city and its history can only be gleaned from the writings of ancient historians and geographers, coins, eighteenth–twentieth-century travel accounts, and the few archaeological surface finds collected in the vicinity of the remaining höyük (mound). Alan H. Cadwallader and his team from Flinders University in Australia are to be thanked for the most recent finds and observations.3 Current excavations of the neighboring cities of Hierapolis and Laodicea as well as of some smaller villages in Phrygia have changed our picture of the region and of its development in the early
Roman Empire.4 Any statements we might make about ancient Colossae must remain provisional until the city is excavated, hopefully in the not so distant future.
Pottery finds testify to a more or less continuous settlement from the Late Chalcolithic (4000–3000 BCE) to the Byzantine period.5 In literature,
Colossae is first mentioned in Persian times, when it was referred to as the most important city in the Lycos valley. Herodotus reports that Xerxes rested in this "large city" (πόλις μεγάλη) in 480 BCE on his way to the Phrygian interior (Hist. 7.30). Xenophon recounts that eighty years later the Persian king Cyros stopped at Colossae, a "large, prosperous and cosmopolitan city" (πόλις οἰκουμένη καὶ εὐδαίμονα καὶ μεγάλη) on his march with the famed "ten thousand" Greek mercenaries. Later he arrived at the even more important city of Kelainai/Apamea in central Phrygia, where
3. See Alan H. Cadwallader, and Michael Trainor, eds., Colossae in Space and Time: Linking to an Ancient City, NTOA–STUNT 94 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2011) and most recently Cadwallader, Fragments of Colossae. Sifting through the Traces (Adelaide: ATF, 2015).
4. See for instance Axel Filges, Blaundos: Berichte zur Erforschung einer Kleinstadt im lydisch-phrygischen Grenzgebiet, IstForsch 48 (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 2006). Peter J.
Thonemann, "Phrygia: An Anarchist History, 950 BC–AD 100," in Roman Phrygia:
Culture and Society, ed. Peter Thonemann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013), 1–40.
5. Bahadir Duman and Erim Konakçi, "The Silent Witness of the Mound of Colossae: Pottery Remains," in Cadwallader and Trainor, Colossae in Space and Time,
247–81.
A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians
Kyros himself owned a παράδεισος μέγας, a palace with hunting grounds (Xenophon, Anab. 1.2.7). In 396 we hear of a Persian satrap having been appointed to Colossae, a further indication of its status and importance.6
However, when the Macedonians appeared on the scene, Colossae declined in influence. From the Hellenistic and early Roman times, our evidence is limited to four similar coins dated to the second or first century BCE, featuring on one side the head of Zeus with a laurel wreath and on the reverse, a winged thunderbolt.7 Hence, while there must have been a town there in Hellenistic and early Roman times, it was certainly a small one. The dimensions of the biconical höyük, which is approximately
30 m high and 280 m by 330 m broad/long, testify to this. Still visible is the cavea (seating sections) of a theater with twelve–fifteen rows, which could seat about nine hundred people.8 At the turn of the era, Strabo refers to Colossae as merely a πόλισμα (Geogr. 12.8.13). By the first century CE, the honor of being called an urbs celeberrima (famous city) was transferred to Laodicea,9 located about 15 km downriver (Pliny the Elder,
Nat. 5.29).
Laodicea was founded by Antiochos II Theos around 250 BCE on a private estate belonging to one of his generals and named after his wife.10
The höyük of Laodicea is about 5km in size. On the basis of its successful wool and textile industry, which boasted a distribution network that extended throughout the empire, Laodicea prospered greatly between the first and third centuries CE. Under Tiberius, the city first applied for the privilege to house a temple to Roma and Caesar but was judged at that time to be too small (Tacitus, Ann. 4.55). It received the neocorate recognition only at the end of the second century under Commodus and two decades later again, under Caracalla. Reliefs indicate that in the 6. The satrap Arisaios summoned by a letter to murder Ataxerxes military commander Tissaphernes. See Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist. 14.80.7–8; Polyaenus, Strateg.
7.16.
7. Hans von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens, 2 vols., IstMitt 25, 27 (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1987), 2:83 and table 14, no. 443–46.
8. Georg Bean, Jenseits des Mäander: Karien mit dem Vilayet Mugla (Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer, 1985), 268–70.
9. In Nat. 5.41, Pliny calls Colossae an oppida celeberrima (famous town) but uses an older list. This list still names Apamea Celaenae.
10. Thomas Corsten, "Laodikeia by the Lykos," Encyclopedia of Ancient History 7:3905–6.
Angela Standhartinger intervening period, the Laodiceans worshipped Zeus Laodiceus, Hera, and Athena in imitation of the Capitoline Triad.11
Some 19 km to the north of Colossae, on the road between Sardis and Apamea, the Seleucids also founded the city of Hierapolis. Hierapolis was famous not only for its thermal springs and hard water but also for its temple to Apollo Kareios with a cave, the Plutonion, which emitted lethal gases and in which one could consult with an oracle.12 Inscriptions indicate that this city was home to associations of wool-washers, carpet-weavers, and dyers.13 Foremost among them were the purpledyers, who, aided by the area's calcium-rich water, earned their fortune by imitating the purple of sea-snails with plants called Anchusa tinctoria and Rubia Tinctorum (Strabo, Georg. 12.8.16).14 One of them was a wealthy benefactor who funded the celebration of the Festival of the Unleavened Bread.15 There was at least one synagogue at Hierapolis and 11. Zeus = Jupiter, Hera = Juno; Athena represents Minerva. Those coins appear from Domitian onwards. See Andrea J. Armstrong, "Roman Phrygia: Cities and Their
Coinage" (PhD Diss., London, 1998), 167–78.
12. For the history of the city and recent excavation, see Francesco D'Andria, "Hierapolis of Phrygia: Its Evolution in Hellenistic and Roman Times," in Urbanism in Western Asia Minor: New Studies on Aphrodisias, Ephesos, Hierapolis, Pergamon,
Perge and Xanthos, ed. David Parrish, JRASup 45 (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman
Archaeology, 2001), 96–115.
13. See Imogen Dittmann-Schöne, Berufsvereine in den Städten des kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasiens (Regensburg: S. Roderer Verlag, 2001), 219–31.
14. See Ulrich Huttner, "Die Färber von Laodikeia und Hierapolis: Eine Nachricht aus dem Corpus der Alchemisten," in MBAH 26 (2008): 139–57. For associations of textile workers in Hierapolis, see Heinrich-Wilhelm Drexhage, Wirtschaftspolitik und Wirtschaft in der römischen Provinz Asia in der Zeit von Augustus bis zum Regierungsantritt Diokletians, Asia Minor Studies 59 (Bonn: Habelt, 2007), 172–73, 338–39.
Isabella Benda-Weber, "Textile Production Centers, Products and Merchants in the Roman Province of Asia," in Making Textiles in Pre-Roman and Roman Times: People,
Places, Identities, ed. Margarita Gleba and Judit Pásztókai-Szeoke, Ancient Textiles
Series 13 (Oxford: Oxbow, 2013), 171–91.
15. Walter Ameling, Kleinasien, vol. 2 of Inscriptiones Iudaicae Orientis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 308–448, nos. 187–209, 414–422, no. 196.n; see also Philip
A. Harland, North Coast of the Black Sea, Asia Minor, vol. 1 of Greco-Roman Associations: Texts, Translations, and Commentary, BZNW 204 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), no.
116. The deceased Publious Aelius Glykon Zeuxianos Aelianus mandates not only that the purple-dyers should commemorate his death at the festival of Unleavened Bread but also that the carpet-weavers should commemorate it at the (Roman) festival of the Kalends. Therefore, his religious identity is much debated. See Philip A. Harland,
A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians
more than twenty gravestones on which the deceased is referred to as a Ιουδαῖος.16 The archaeological record points strongly to the integration of Jews within the city of Hierapolis.17 In addition, there is evidence of a Jewish presence at Laodicea as well as in twenty-three other towns in Phrygia, confirming the extensive Jewish presence in the region referred to by Cicero and Josephus.18
Laodicea and Hierapolis enjoyed such prosperity that they were able to bounce back from the five documented earthquakes that shook the region between 20 BCE and the early third century CE.19 Tacitus reports that in 60 CE, "the famous Asiatic city" of Laodicea was laid to ruin but recovered through its own resources (Ann. 14.27).20 The fourth-century Christian authors, Eusebius and Orosius, report that Colossae was also destroyed by the earthquake of 60 CE (Eusebius, Chron. 2.154. Orosius, Adv. pag.
7.12). For Bo Reike, this indicates that the Letter to the Colossians must have been written before 60 CE and therefore by Paul himself.21 Andreas
Lindemann has advanced the opposite argument, that the devastation of Colossae allowed the author(s) to get away with the pseudepigraphon because the authenticity of a letter to a city that no longer existed could not be verified.22
"Interaction and Integration. Judean Families and Guilds at Hierapolis," in Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians: Associations, Judeans, and Cultural
Minorities (New York: T&T Clark, 2009), 123–42.
16. See Ameling, Kleinasien, 308–448, nos. 187–209. For the synagogue, see 406, no 191.
17. Tullia Ritti, An Epigraphic Guide to Hierapolis (Pamukkale) (Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari, 2006), 196.
18. Ameling, Kleinasien, 443–447 nos. 212–213. See Cicero, Flac. 28.68–9. In A.J.
12.148–153, Josephus cites a (fictive) letter from Antiochos III (223–287) in which he orders two thousand Jewish families from Babylon to settle in Phrygia. In A.J. 14.241–
243 he quotes a letter from the "Archontes" of Laodicea to the consul of the province
Asia of 45 BCE guaranteeing the right to life according to the laws of their fathers for the Jews of the city.
19. T. R. S. Broughton, "Roman Asia Minor," in An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome IV, ed. Frank Tenney (Paterson, NJ: Pageant, 1959), 601–2.
20. The date is disputed in ancient sources. For the evidence see Ulrich Huttner,
Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley, trans. David Green, AJEC 85; Early Christianity in Asia Minor 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 100–3.
21. Bo Reike, "The Historical Setting of Colossians," RevExp 70 (1973): 429–38.
22. Andreas Lindemann, "Die Gemeinde von 'Kolossä': Erwägungen zum 'Sitz im Leben' eines pseudopaulinischen Briefes," WD 16 (1981): 111–34. See recently,
Angela Standhartinger But Colossae did not cease to exist.23 Between Hadrian's reign and the middle of the third century CE, Colossae resumed minting pseudoautonomous copper coins.24 The likely inducement was a visit to the Lycos valley by Hadrian, which is documented at least for Hierapolis as having taken place in the year 129 CE.25 Strikingly, the coins no longer feature the images of Zeus and the thunderbolt. Instead many of the 157 coins of 55 different types minted from the time of Hadrian till the time of Gallienus bear images previously used by the Laodiceans and therefore belong to the Laodicean stylistic group.26 These include
Zeus Laodiceans, the reclining river god Lykos, and Artemis of Ephesus.27 Two images peculiar to the Colossian coins are those of the god
Helios, with or without his quadriga (four-horse chariot), and Artemis as a huntress. Helios is represented on Phrygian gravestones as the highest godhead, while depictions of Artemis hunting might refer either to the good hunting conditions in the region or to her significance as a fighter of illness.28 Thus it remains to be seen how these coins represent the cults and temples of the city. Unfortunately, neither architecture nor temples are featured on Colossian coins.
Colossian coins were sometimes authorized by the δῆμος ("citizens"), but more often by one of its officers, such as the ἄρχων (leader), the Vincent A. Pizzuto, A Cosmic Leap of Faith: An Authorial, Structural, and Theological
Investigation of the Cosmic Christology in Col 1:15–20 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 817.
23. See also Alan H. Cadwallader, "Refuting an Axiom of Scholarship on Colossae: Fresh Insights from New and Old Inscriptions," in Cadwallader and Trainor,
Colossae in Space and Time, 151–79.
24. The coin BMC 2891, earlier dated to the time of Caligula, must be deleted.
25. Francesco D'Andria, Hierapolis in Phrygien (Pamukkale): Ein Archäologischer Führer (Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari, 2010), 10.
26. See Andrew Burnett, Michael Amandry and Pere Pau Ripollès, Roman Provincial Coinage, vol. 1 (London: British Museum Press, 1998), 375–76.
27. Amstrong, "Roman Phrygia," 350 (von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens, 2.551–552), 351 no. 12 (Marcus Aurelius, von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens,
2.565); 355 no. 8 (von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens, 2.458); 256 no. 17 (von
Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens, 2.495–498, 507–512).
28. See Reinhold Merkelbach and Josef Stauber, "Die Orakel des Apollon von Klaros," EA 27 (1996): 1–53. The oracle of Apollon of Claros no. 2 to Pergamon orders songs also to Artemis against pestilence; the oracle to Kallipolis no. 9 orders statues of Apollon with an arrow at each town gate to fight a pestilence and an oracle to Phrygian place orders an altar to Apollon-Helios (no. 20).
A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians
γραμματεύς (town clerk), or στεφανηφόρος (magistrate).29 Some coins also bear the name of the elite benefactor who financed its minting. One of those benefactors was a lady called Eugenetoriane.30 The approximately thirty inscriptions from Colossae that have thus far been recorded and published have broadened our knowledge of the city's authorities. In one of the oldest inscriptions, the council and the people of Colossae honor
M(arcus) Larcius Crispinus, the son of M(arcus) Larcius Papias, who was the caretaker of the "honor" (most likely a statue) of Asinius Epaphrodius.
The two Larcii, whose Roman citizenship is shown by their tria nomina (combination of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen), were of Italian origin. Asinius Epaphrodius were probably relatives of Caius Asinus
Pollio, who was proconsul of Asia at the beginning of the first century CE.31
Another Roman is referred to in an inscription as a benefactor of the city.32
Thus the city seems to honor Roman officials. In a further inscription, we hear about the priestess Apphia who dedicated something, perhaps a statue, to Trajan; we also learn of a χε[ι]λίαρχο[ς] (commander) perhaps named Lukios the Macedonian and another priestess named Apphia, each of whom dedicated a statue to the emperor Hadrian.33 Another townsperson, perhaps a former soldier, is represented on his gravestone with his weaponry.34 This might suggest the presence of some Roman veterans
29. For the coins see Armstrong, "Roman Phrygia," 349–58; von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens, 2.83–94 and plates 15–19. Two coins from the Time of Gallienus show the figure of the "senate" (von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens, 2.543 and 542, see also Armstrong, "Roman Phrygia," 357 no. 28). For the number of coins see
Cadwallader, "Refuting an Axiom of Scholarship on Colossae," 162–63.
30. Von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens, 2.548.
31. MAMA 6.39 = Tullia Ritti et al., Museo Archeologico di Denizli-Hierapolis:
Catalogo delle iscrizione greche e latine (Napoli: Liguori Editore, 2008), no. 59.
32. Klaudius Menander Flavianus; Michel Armand Clerc, "Inscriptions de la vallée du Méandre: Tralles, Nysa, Attuda, Laodicée et Colosses," BCH 11 (1887): 353.5, no. 10.
33. IGRR 4.868–869. But the name of the χειλίαρχος is not well preserved, being reduced to Λ. Μα[. For the bearer of this, Lucius, see Lukas Bormann, Der Brief des
Paulus an die Kolosser, THKNT 10.1 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012), 25.
To whom Apphia was a priestess is debated. Some argue to Zeus's son Herakles, but this would be unusual. Louis Robert, "Inscriptions," in Laodicée du Lycos: Le Nymphée; Campagnes 1961–1963, ed. Jean des Gagniers, Pierre Devambez, Lilly Kahil, and René Ginouvès (Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1969), 279, argues that the name of the husband is Herakles Diosoride but loses the identification of god by this reconstruction.
34. IGRR 4.869 = J. G. C. Anderson, "A Summer in Phrygia II," JHS 18 (1898): 90,
Angela Standhartinger among the citizenry. An unnamed member of the city's elite, who had accumulated a long list municipal offices, traveled as an ambassador to the Emperor and made a sacrifice (συνθύσας) with him at the second temple of Caesar, most likely at Ephesus.35 In addition, a patriot called Korumbos financed the repair of a bath that had been damaged, probably during of the era's major earthquakes. For this, he was honored by a bomos (altar) financed by twenty-nine of his fellow Colossians.36 Yet another townsman went to study philology at Smyrna.37 Two further inscriptions refer to a sporting event called Nea Olympia and a local boxer, respectively.38
Yet most Colossians appear to have been farmers. The relief on the aforementioned bomos for Korumbos includes the image of a hunting dog.
On gravestones, people from Colossae are represent variously with a herd of pigs, a goose, a sheepdog, and agricultural products.39 One gravestone mentions a leatherworker.40 Perhaps the hetairoi (calvary) of Glykonas were wool-workers, judging by the striking coats of the two figures represented on the stone.41 As Strabo tells us at the beginning of the first century CE, Colossae was famous for its wool; indeed, a particular color of wool was named after the city (Geogr. 12.8.16; see also Pliny the Elder, no. 25; Ernst Pfuhl and Hans Möbius, Die Ostgriechischen Grabreliefs, 4 vols. (Mainz:
Zabern, 1977–1979), no. 1607 (late imperial times).
35. IGRR 4.870 = Robert, "Inscriptions," 278–79.
36. Alan H. Cadwallader, "Honouring the Repairer of the Baths: A New Inscription from Kolossai," Antichthon 46 (2012): 150–83.
37. ISmyrna 440.
38. BCH 11 (1887): 353–54 n. 11 = MAMA 6.40 (after 212 CE); Anderson, "Summer in Phrygia," 90 no. 26 = Reinhold Merkelbach and Josef Stauber, Die Westküste Kleinasiens von Knidos bis Ilion, vol. 1 of Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen
Osten (Stuttgart: Teubner), no 199802/15/01.
39. Pigs: Pfuhl and Möbius, Grabreliefs, no. 1165 (around 200) = MAMA 6.50; Ritti et al., Museo Acheologico di Denizli-Hierapolis, no 80. Goose: Pfuhl and Möblius,
Grabreliefs, no. 1974; MAMA 6.48 tav. 10; Ritti et al., Museo Acheologico di DenizliHierapolis, no. 73 (second–third centuries CE). Sheepdog: Pfuhl and Möbius, Grabreliefs, no. 236 (late imperial times); no. 1635 (late imperial time); no 1973 (late imperial times); no. 2005 (late imperial times). Agricultural products: Pfuhl and Möbius,
Grabreliefs, no. 1665b (200 BCE); no. 1920 (third century CE); no. 1973 (late imperial times); no. 2005 (late imperial times).
40. Alan H. Cadwallader, "A New Inscription, a Correction and a Confirmed Sighting from Colossae," EA 40 (2007): 111, no. 2; SEG 57.1385.
41. Pfuhl and Möbius, Grabreliefs, no. 594 (third century CE); MAMA 6.47 and plate 10; Ritti et al., Museo Acheologico di Denizli-Hierapolis, no. 113.
A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians
Nat. 21.27.51). Pliny the Elder tells us that the water at Colossae was also extremely chalky, which would have made it well suited for dying (Nat.
31.21.29).
In sum, the famous Persian city of Colossae had an afterlife during Hellenistic and Roman times and never, or at least not in the first and second centuries CE, ceased to exist. Located in a prosperous region, Colossae remained or was reestablished as a polis with institutionalized offices in early imperial times. The wealth of its benefactors originated from agriculture and especially wool and textile production. Some Romans and veterans settled there, among the Greco-Phrygian farmers. Proud of their city, the wealthy elite promoted it by means of coins, buildings and dedications, or diplomatic missions to the emperors. However, compared to its flourishing neighbors, Laodicea and Hierapolis, Colossae remained small and much less developed. For example, only one coin celebrating homonoia (unity) with Aphrodisias, dating from the end of the second century, is known.42
Colossae and Colossians How much is the specific context of ancient Colossae reflected in the letter?
Some scholars point to the so-called Colossian philosophy or opponents, others to the clothing metaphors in the paraenetic section or to the multiethnic environment of Phrygia reflected in the addition of Barbarians and Scythians to the baptismal formula in Colossians (3:11).
Clinton E. Arnold and more recently Ulrich Huttner find a parallel to Phrygian cult practice in the admonishment in Col 2:18: "Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen" (NASB).
Following William M. Ramsey and Martin Dibelius, they explain the relative clause ἃ ἑόρακεν ἐμβατεύων in Col 2:18 as a reference to a mystery cult at the oracle sanctuary of Apollo at Claros, which was visited by people from Hierapolis and Laodicea seeking answers on behalf of their cities.43
42. David MacDonald, "The Homonoia of Colossae and Aphrodisias," JNG 33 (1984): 25–27 and plate 9.2.
43. Clinton E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae, WUNT 2/77 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), esp.
108–27; see also Huttner, Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley, 131. See also William M. Ramsay, "The Relation of St. Paul to the Greek Mysteries," in The Teaching of
Angela Standhartinger Hierapolis and Laodicea recorded in stone such official visits to the oracle sanctuary on the Ionian coast, which featured boys and girls singing hymns to the god at Claros. Two inscriptions mention that the leader of such a delegation "received mysteries" as they entered (μυηθέντες ἐνεβάτευσαν).
Yet, this does not mean that they were initiated into a mystery cult. Rather, at Claros some kind of staging of their worthiness took place by allowing them to enter the subterranean rooms beneath the temple where the priest delivered answers from Apollo in metrical verse.44 Although the fourthcentury CE Christian synod of Laodicea forbade the idolatry of angels
(angelos idolatriam), we have no other evidence of cultic worship of angels, nor of any other mystery religion, for that region before the eight century
CE.45 Of course, apocalypticism and other forms of mysticism cannot be ruled out among the large Jewish population of the region. However, it remains difficult to identify the message of the opponents in Colossians with Jewish apocalypticists, gnostics, followers of a cult of angles, Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, or adherents to Cynic philosophy and the like, because the authors refer to those with whom they disagree only in vague terms.46 The letter argues against not one specific heresy but contains a Paul in Terms of the Present Day: The Deems Lectures in New York University, 2nd ed.
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914) 281–305; Martin Dibelius, "Die Isisweihe bei Apuleius und verwandte Initationsriten," in Botschaft und Geschichte II (Tübingen:
Mohr, 1956), 30–79, 55–65.
44. Theodore Macridy, "Altertümer von Notion," JÖAI 8 (1905): 168, no. 4/5.4: θεοπρόποι (meet for a god) ἦλθο[ν] Κρίσπος Τρύφωνος καὶ Π(όπλιος) Πούπιος Καλλικλῆς οἵτινες μυηθέντες ἐνεβάτευσαν. Macridy, "Anitquités de Notion II," JÖAI 15 (1912): 46, no. 2: θεοπρόπος Ἀνδρικὸς Ἀλεξάνδρου παραλαβὼν τὰ μυστήρια ἐνεβάτευσεν. See also
Merkelbach and Stauber, "Die Orakel des Apollon von Klaros," 6, no. 2[2]: οἵτινες μυ] ηθέντες καὶ ἐμβα[τεύσαντες ἐχρήσαντο καὶ ἀπέδωκαν τ]ὸν ὑπογεγραμμένον [τοῦ Κλαρίου
Ἀπόλλωνος ἀκέρ]αιον χρησμόν. See also Jean-Louis Ferrary, "Le Sanctuaire de Claros à l'époque hellénistique et Romaine," in Colloque Les Sanctuaires et Leur Rayonnement dans le Monde Méditerranéen de l'Antiquité à l'Époque Moderne, ed. Juliette de La
Genière (Paris: de Boccard, 2010), 111–14.
45. Council of Laodicea, canon 35. See also Glenn Peers, Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 143–93.
Theodoret's Commentary on Colossians (PG 82.613 A–B) concludes this from the council of Laodicea as he admits himself. Pace Huttner, Early Christianity in the Lycus
Valley, 128.
46. See most recently George H. van Kooten, Cosmic Christology in Paul and the Pauline School: Colossians and Ephesians in the Context of Graeco-Roman Cosmology, with a New Synopsis of the Greek Texts, WUNT 2/171 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003).
A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians
cluster of general warnings that point to many philosophical schools, religious groups, and syncretistic movements.47
While they are not unique to it, clothing metaphors play a strikingly prominent role in the letter's rhetoric.48 For Rosemary Canavan, this reflects the importance of the local clothing and wool industry.49
The letter builds on this specific local environment to discuss Christian identity. Yet, while Colossian farmers, leatherworkers, weavers, and woolworkers were likely proud of their products, the metaphorical language of Colossians—the "putting off" of vices and "putting on" of virtue—does not so much refer to cloth production as to the change in status symbolized by one's clothing.
To Cadwallader and Lukas Bormann, the insertion of Scythians in the baptismal creed of Col 3:11 reflects the multicultural environment of the region in which the city functioned as a mediator between the major cities in the Lycos valley and the Phrygian hinterland. A newly found inscription "Markos, son of Markus, chief interpreter and translator […]" seems to indicate a multicultural environment in which indigenous languages like Phrygian and Scythian had to be translated.50 However, it is under debate if and how far Phrygian were still spoken at this time.51 Markus might also have been an interpreter of the revelations of Apollo at Hierapolis or elsewhere.52 On the bomos that honors Korumbos for repairing
47. Angela Standhartinger, Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte und Intention des Kolosserbriefes, NovTSup 94 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 16–27.
48. For this imagery, see Col 3:8; 10; 12.
49. Rosemary Canavan, Clothing the Body of Christ at Colossae: A Visual Construction of Identity, WUNT 2/334 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 67–177.
50. SEG 57.1382. Cadwallader, "New Inscription," 109–18, nos. 3112–3118. See also Bormann, Brief des Paulus, 26–28.
51. Rick Strelan, "The Languages of the Lycus Valley," in Cadwallader and Trainor, Colossae in Space and Time, 77–103, argues by analogy from Australia for multiple indigenous languages still in use. Claude Brixhe, "Interactions between Greek and Phrygian under the Roman Empire," in Bilingualism in Ancient Society:
Language Contact and the Written Text, ed. J. N. Adams, Mark Janse, and Simon Swain
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 246–66, sees traces of Phrygian language in Greek inscriptions. More critical to the existence of spoken Phrygian in Phrygia is Ute
Kelp, "Grave Monuments and Local Identities in Roman Phrygia," in Roman Phrygia:
Culture and Society, ed. Peter Thonemann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013), 92–93.
52. Angelos Chaniotis, "Epigraphic Bulletin of Greek Religion 2007," Kernos 23 (2010), 285–86.
Angela Standhartinger the bath at Colossae, two Thracian and one likely Scythian name appear among sixty Greek names.53 Yet the non-Greek names all belong to the generation of the grandfathers.
Until a full picture of the city emerges when excavations finally take place, none of these local contextualizations can be ruled out. However, in my view, the address "to the saints and faithful siblings in Christ in Colossae" (1:1) sends a more open message to its readers. It is telling that no mention is made of an ekklesia in this city. The only geographically specific ekklesia referred to in the letter is said to gather in the house of Nympha at Laodicea, a place we hear of again at the end of the first century in Revelation (Col 4:16; Rev 3:14–21). Colossae itself is part of the worldwide ekklesia, a body of which Christ is the head (Col 1:18; 1:24; 2:19). From the very beginning of the letter, Colossae symbolizes the worldwide spread of the gospel even to this far-flung corner of Asia Minor, a small polis at the edge of the Lycos valley (see Col 1:6; 10).54
The letter implies a lot of contact between Paul and the congregation at Colossae. Not only has the gospel reached them through Epaphras, their missionary, but they have also received some instructions regarding "Mark, the cousin of Barnabas." Onesimos, "the faithful and beloved brother" (4:8), came from Colossae to Paul's place of imprisonment. Yet of the twelve names appearing in Colossians and the Letter to Philemon, ten are identical. As Eduard Lohse showed long ago, this concurrence is due to literary dependence.55 We do not know where the house of Philemon once
53. Alan H. Cadwallader, "Greeks in Colossae: Shifting Allegiances in the Letter to the Colossians and Its Context," in Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. David Sim and James S. McLaren (London: T&T Clark, 2013),
224–41. One Latin name, Likinios, might be a slave because he bears no gentile name.
54. There is almost no afterlife of the community at Colossae. John Chrysostomus, Hom. Col. 3.1 knows nothing and had to conclude from his knowledge of Laodicea that Colossae was placed in the Lycus valley. Theodoret, Interpretatio in xiv epistulas sancti Pauli (PG 82.628.4) claims that one can see the house of Philemon still there, but this is a standard formulation and does not hint to local information. Pace
Huttner, Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley, 111.
55. Eduard Lohse, "Die Mitarbeiter des Apostels Paulus im Kolosserbrief," in Verborum Veritas: Festschrift für Gustav Stählin zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Otto Böcher and Klaus Haacker (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1970), 189–94; see also Lohse, Der Brief an die Kolosser und an Philemon, KEK 9.2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968),
247. See Standhartinger, Studien, 81–85; Angela Standhartinger, "Colossians and the Pauline School," NTS 50 (2004): 572–93.
A City with a Message: Colossae and Colossians
stood. And the information provided in Colossians beyond that which we learn from the Letter to Philemon regarding those around Paul only embellishes the story of the imprisoned Paul, who is preparing himself to die.56 In Colossians, Paul is on his way to "completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions" (1:24 NRSV), an expression most likely hinting at the recent death and martyrdom of the Apostle. Therefore, it is not for Paul's release but for the release of the Word that the congregation should pray (4:3–4). Some information contradicts what is said in the Letter to Philemon. While in the latter, Epaphras sends greetings to those in Philemon's house as Paul's "fellow-prisoner," in Colossians he is referred to as a member of the local congregation (see Phlm 23 with Col 1:7–8; 4:12–13).
The information given in Colossians regarding Aristarchus and Markus— that they are "the only ones of the circumcision among my co-workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me" (4:11 NRSV)— evokes the impression that the righteous one, Paul, has been forsaken by almost everybody and especially by the Jews. Yet, a mostly non-Jewish congregation is unlikely to have existed in the historical Lycus Valley (see
Col 1:21; 2:11). "A beloved physician" such as Luke is definitely needed by somebody who is languishing in Roman imprisonment. Thus, in my view, the additional information beyond the names already mentioned in the Letter to Philemon strengthens the impression of Paul's approaching martyrdom but does not provide details about historical personalities known to the authors.
Some local information is given, however. Although I am not sure that the authors ever saw Colossae in person—they might have picked up the name from the name of a well-known kind of colored wool—one piece of information about the city seem most important to them: that it was located in the Lycos valley. They knew that Colossae was close enough to Laodicea that a letter could easily be exchanged (4:16) between the two cities. Paul fights not only for Colossae but also, if secondarily, for Laodicea
(2:1). At the end of the letter, Epaphras's work at Hierapolis is mentioned as well (4:13). Yet, it is not the famous and prosperous Laodicea, nor the equally wealthy Hierapolis, that receives the honor of a letter from Paul, but rather this small and modest city at the edge of the Lycos valley. What addressing the letter to Colossae does most in effect is to redraw the map that most inhabitants of Asia and the Roman world would have in mind
56. Pace Huttner, Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley, 111.
Angela Standhartinger when they thought about this region. The focus is shifted from the important and prosperous cities to the rural hinterlands to which the gospel has spread and where it has already born fruit. It is this small and unimportant city, known only for its sheep and colored wool that is honored by a letter documenting steadfastness and praising the spiritual life of its faithful congregation.
The address "to the holy and faithful siblings at Colossae" is in itself a message. The message is that is not the powerful, nor the many, nor those of noble birth but rather the foolish, the weak, and the lowly that God has chosen as most fitting for the message of the faithful crucified Christ.
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