This Letter belongs to the same group as those to the
Ephesians and Philemon, and was probably written from Rome about
63 A. D. Colossae was a town in Phrygia (Roman Asia), on the
river Lycus, and was destroyed by an earthquake in the seventh
year of Nero's reign. The Church there was not founded by Paul
himself (Col 2:1), but by Epaphras (Col 1:7; 4:12), and this
Letter arose out of a visit which Epaphras paid to the Apostle,
for the purpose of discussing with him the development, at
Colossae, of certain strange doctrines which may possibly have
been a kind of early Gnosticism. Paul here writes to support the
authority and confirm the teaching of Epaphras.