Ephesians, the Colossians, and to Philemon. There are passages in all these which imply that he was then near the close of his imprisonment, for he speaks with great confidence of being able to visit them shortly, and very particularly requests preparation to be made for his accommodation on his arrival.
There is good reason to think that the epistles to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, and to Philemon, were written about the same time and were sent together. This appears from the fact, that Tychicus is spoken of in both the two former, as sent by the apostle, to make known to them all his circumstances more fully, and is also implied as the bearer of both, while Onesimus, the bearer of the latter, is also mentioned in the epistle to the Colossians as accompanying Tychicus.
THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS.
The most important question which has been raised concerning this epistle, regards the point, whether it was truly directed and sent by Paul, to the church in Ephesus, as the common reading distinctly specifies. Many eminent modern critics have maintained that it was originally sent to the church in Laodicea, and that the word Ephesus, in the direction and in the first verse, is a change made in later times, by those who felt interested to claim for this city the honor of an apostolic epistle. Others incline to the opinion, that it was directed to no particular church, but was sent as a circular to several churches in Asia Minor, among which were those of Ephesus and Laodicea, and that several copies were sent at the same time, each copy being differently directed. They suppose that when the epistles of Paul were first collected, that copy which was sent to Ephesus was the one adopted for this, and that the original manuscript being soon lost, all written trace of its original general direction disappeared also.
The prominent reason for this remarkable supposition, unsupported as it is by the authority of any ancient manuscript, is that Paul writes apparently with no local reference whatever to the circumstances of the Ephesians, among whom he had lived for three years, although his other epistles to places which he had visited are so full of personal and local matters; and that he speaks on the contrary as though he knew little of them except by hearsay. A reference to the particular details of the reasoning by which this opinion is supported, would altogether transcend the proper limits of this work; since even a summary of them fills a great many pages of those critical and exegetical works, to which these
