The church, to which St Paul wrote a letter, was mainly composed of mingled Greek and Phrygian elements deeply imbued with fantastic and fanatical mysticism. Colossae lasted until the 7th and 8th centuries, when it was gradually deserted under pressure of the Arab invasions. Its place was taken by Khonae (Khonas)—a strong fortress on a rugged spur of Mt. Kadmus, 3 m. to the south, which became a place of importance during the wars between the Byzantines and Turks, and was the birthplace of the historian, Nicetas Khoniates. The worship of angels alluded to by St Paul (Col. ii. 18), and condemned in the 4th century by a council at Laodicea, reappears in the later worship of St Michael, in whose honour a celebrated church, destroyed by the Seljuks in the 12th century, was built on the right bank of the Lycus.
See Sir W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, vol. i.
COLOSSAL CAVERN, a cave in Kentucky, U.S.A., the main entrance of which is at the foot of a steep hill beyond Eden Valley, and 112 m. from Mammoth Cave. It is connected with what has long been known as the Bed Quilt Cave. Several entrances found by local explorers were rough and difficult. They were closed when the property was bought in 1896 by the Louisville & Nashville railway and a new approach made as indicated on the accompanying map. From the surface to the floor is 240 ft.; under Chester Sandstone and in the St Louis Limestone. Fossil corals fix the geological age of the rock. The temperature is uniformly 54° Fahr., and the atmosphere is optically and chemically pure. Lovely incrustations alternate with queer and grotesque figures. There are exquisite gypsum rosettes and intricately involved helictites.
Tremendous forces have been at work, suggesting earthquakes and eruptions; but really all is due to the chemical and mechanical action of water. The so-called “Ruins of Carthage” fill a hall 400 ft. long by 100 ft. wide and 30 ft. high, whose flat roof is a vast homogeneous limestone block. Isolated detached blocks measure from 50 to 100 ft. in length. Edgar Vaughan and W. L. Marshall, civil engineers, surveyed every part of the cave. Vaughan’s Dome is 40 ft. wide, 300 ft. long, and 79 ft. high. Numerous other domes exist, and many deep pits. The grandest place of all is the Colossal Dome, which used to be entered only from the apex by windlass and a rope reaching 135 ft. to the floor. This is now used only for illumination by raising and lowering a fire-basket. The present entrance is by a gateway buttressed by alabaster shafts, one of which, 75 ft. high, is named Henry Clay’s Monument. The dome walls arise in a series of richly tinted rings, each 8 or 10 ft. thick, and each fringed by stalactites. The symmetry is remarkable, and the reverberations are strangely musical. The Pearly Pool, in a chamber near a pit 86 ft. deep, glistens with countless cave pearls. The route beyond is between rows of stately shafts, and ends in a copious chalybeate spring. Blind flies, spiders, beetles and crickets abound; and now and then a blind crawfish darts through the waters; but as compared with many caverns the fauna and flora are not abundant. It is conjectured, not without some reason, that there is a connexion, as yet undiscovered, between the Colossal and the Mammoth caves. It seems certain that Eden Valley, which now lies between them, is a vast “tumble-down” of an immense cavern that formerly united them into one. (H. C. H.)
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE, the twelfth book of the
New Testament, the authorship of which is ascribed to the
Apostle Paul. 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. 7; iv. 12, 13). This Epaphras,
like the majority of the Colossians, was a Gentile. It is probable,
however, both from the letter itself and from the fact that
Colossae was a trade centre, that Jews were there with their
synagogues (cf. also Josephus, Ant. xii. 149). And it is further
probable that some of the Gentiles, who afterwards became
Christians, were either Jewish proselytes or adherents who paid
reverence to the God of the Jews. At all events, the letter
indicates a sensitiveness on the part of the Christians not only
to oriental mysticism and theosophy (cf. Sir W. M. Ramsay,
Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, and Church in the Roman Empire), but also to the Judaism of the Diaspora.
Our first definite knowledge of the Colossian Church dates from the presence of Epaphras in Rome in A.D. 62–64 (or A.D. 56–58), when Paul was a prisoner. He arrived with news, perhaps with a letter (J. R. Harris, Expositor, Dec. 1898, pp. 404 ff.), touching the state of religion in Colossae. Paul learns, to his joy, of their faith, hope and love; of the order and stability of their faith; and of their reception of Christ Jesus the Lord (i. 4, 8; ii. 5-7). He sees no sign of an attack upon him or his gospel. On the contrary, loyalty to him and sympathy with him in his sufferings are everywhere manifest (i. 9, 24; ii. 2; iv. 8); and the gospel of Christ is advancing here as elsewhere (i. 6). At the same time he detects a lack of cheerfulness and a lack of spiritual understanding in the Church. The joy of the gospel, expressing itself in songs and thanksgivings, is damped (iii. 15, 16), and, above all, the message of Christ does not dwell richly enough in them. Though the believers know the grace of God they are not filled with a knowledge of his will, so that their conduct is lacking in that strength and joy and perfection, that richness of the fulness of knowledge expected of those who had been made full in Christ (i. 6, 9-11, 28; ii. 2, 7, 10). The reason for this, Paul sees, is the influence of the claim made by certain teachers in Colossae that the Christians, in order to attain unto and be assured of full salvation, must supplement Paul’s message with their own fuller and more perfect wisdom, and must observe certain rites and practices (ii. 16, 21, 23) connected with the worship of angels (ii. 18, 23) and elementary spirits (ii. 8, 20).
The origin and the exact nature of this religious movement are alike uncertain. (1) If it represents a type of syncretism as definite as that known to have existed in the developed gnostic systems of the 2nd century, it is inconceivable that Paul should have passed it by as easily as he did. (2) As there is no reference
