be argued that Ephesus and Colossae, only one hundred miles apart, make far more plausible the flight of Onesimus, the delegation of Tychicus/Onesimus, any travels back and forth by Epaphras, the forthcoming visit of John Mark, and the possible visit of Paul to Philemon. This flurry of comings and goings is more likely than a series of lengthy sea journeys that were dangerous and took weeks or months at a time. Third, Paul’s request in Phlm 22 that a guest room be prepared for him is more realistic given an Ephesian imprisonment. If it was Paul’s plan to go further west after his release from confinement in Rome, then a journey to Colossae to visit Philemon would have meant significantly revising (or reversing) that plan. Alternatively, the remark may simply be rhetorical and a polite wish to visit but with no actual intent to do so (my in-laws in Australia threaten to visit me in Scotland all the time but thankfully only rarely do so) and remain consistent with a Roman setting. Fourth, according to ancient sources there was an earthquake that destroyed parts of the Lycus Valley, especially Laodicea, ca. 61–62 CE.41 We do not hear of any references to Christians there in extant sources and only Laodicea is mentioned among the seven churches that John the Seer wrote to at the end of the first century (Rev 1:11; 3:14). Even so, we do not know for sure how the Christians in Colossae were affected by the earthquake and what impact it had upon their lives. True enough, Paul does not mention the earthquake when we might expect him to do so, but neither does he mention other “seismic” events such as the expulsion of Jews from Rome under Claudius (49 CE) and their return under Nero (54 CE) when he wrote to the Romans.
The evidence is tightly balanced (and I confess to having changed my mind a number of times). The answer, I think, lies not with internal evidence from Colossians or Philemon, but with the letter to the Philippians and the movements of Timothy. He is named as cosender of Colossians and Philemon (Col 1:1; Phlm 1). To that we can add the observations that Timothy is also named as cosender of Philippians (Phil 1:1), Philippians is also written from captivity (Phil 1:13–14), and Philippians is similar to Philemon in at least two other respects: both look forward to Paul’s eventual release from prison (Phlm 22; Phil 1:19–26; 2:24), and there are several stylistic similarities between them as noted by Francis Watson.42 By way of deduction, my line of reasoning runs Timothy → Philippians → Philemon → Colossians → Location! Thus, the circumstances of Philippians and Timothy are crucial for the provenance and date of Colossians/Philemon.
Philippians could have been written from either Rome or Ephesus, but the internal and external evidence to decide the matter is much stronger. There is a reference to the “praetorian guard” in Phil 1:13, which may denote the elite body guard unit of the emperor in Rome, which also functioned as a police force in the capital. There is also a reference to a greeting from those of “Caesar’s household” in Phil 4:22, which would naturally fit a Roman setting. However, “praetorian” can mean more generally “palace guard” or “military headquarters” (Matt 27:27; Mark 15:16; John 18:28, 33; 19:9; Acts 23:35). And “Caesar’s household” might denote the imperial staff stationed at an imperial residence in Ephesus since this was also the Roman capital of western Asia. Given the rancorous language in Philippians, debates with Paul’s opponents in Galatia and Corinth still seem very recent (e.g., Phil 3:2–11, 18–19). It is also unlikely that Roman prisoners would be incarcerated in the emperor’s own residence. Furthermore, there is no reference to Timothy accompanying Paul to Rome in Acts 28, but he is placed in Ephesus during Paul’s extended ministry there (1 Cor 16:8–10). We also know from Acts that Timothy engaged in one or more trips to Greece and Macedonia from Ephesus (Acts 19:22). Thus, Paul’s intent to send Timothy to Philippi (Phil 2:19) is more likely to comport with his travels to Greece and Macedonia during Paul’s stay in Ephesus than during Paul’s imprisonment in Rome.43 An Ephesian provenance for Philippians seems slightly more probable. As I see it, then, this is how it all stands:
For Rome:
• There is a strong possibility that Philippians was written in Rome and, if so, Timothy’s presence with Paul in Rome is thereby established since he was a cosender of the letter to the Philippians. The Paul–Timothy–Rome connection can then be linked with the letters to Philemon and to the Colossians.
• The theology of Colossians appears to be “developed” in some sense.
• There is no clear reference to an Ephesian imprisonment and it is hard to place John Mark in Ephesus.
For Ephesus:
• An Ephesian setting for Philippians remains highly probable.
• There is no clear reference to Timothy in Rome during Paul’s imprisonment there, but we can place him easily in Ephesus.
• An imprisonment in Ephesus makes for a more plausible scenario regarding the movements of Onesimus and others to and from Colossae.
• Colossae may have been destroyed in 61–62 CE leaving Paul no one to even write to.
The marginally less problematic of these options then is the Ephesian provenance.44 I surmise that the epistle to Philemon was written by Paul himself during an imprisonment in Ephesus (ca. 55–57 CE) and Philemon subsequently discharged Onesimus to Paul’s service where he became thereafter part of Paul’s entourage. Colossians was written cooperatively by Paul and his coworkers (Col 1:1; 4:7–17) from Ephesus and was delivered by Tychicus and Onesimus. Ephesians was written by a secretary of Paul at Paul’s behest and composed on the basis of Colossians in order to be given to the Pauline churches of Asia Minor, including Ephesus and Laodicea, as the letter carriers passed through those regions on their way to deliver the correspondence to Colossae. In editorial language, Paul is the author of Philemon, the managing editor and chief contributor to Colossians, and the commissioning editor of Ephesians.
The Colossian Philosophy
Another confusing matter is the nature of the Colossian “philosophy.”45 We have no direct account of the philosophy by the teachers themselves, but are reliant entirely upon what Paul says about them, directly and indirectly, in Colossians. What Paul wrote against the philosophy is itself based on what he was told about them from others and is admixed with some general exhortations that could apply to many doctrinal intrusions among Christian groups. It is hard to determine the precise contours of the philosophy since Paul speaks of them explicitly only at limited points (2:4, 8, 16–23) and elsewhere perhaps only implicitly (1:15–20, 22–23; 2:2–3; 3:1–2).46 There is also the problem of trying to understand what kind of religious label the philosophy fits into. J. J. Gunther listed forty-four different identifications of Paul’s opponents in Colossae in his 1973 monograph, and more are continually added.47 Morna Hooker proposed that there actually was no heresy or false teachers in Colossae and Paul merely writes a general admonition to urge the congregation there not to conform to the beliefs and practices of their Jewish and pagan neighbors.48 But the portrayal of the philosophy seems far too specific and the use of the indefinite pronouns suggests that Paul genuinely did have some group or individual in mind (2:8, 16, 18). Others advocate not a Jewish or pagan threat to the Colossian church, but a Christian heresy based on the mystery religions,49 the Ebionites,50 or a syncretism involving the Christian gospel, Judaism, and Hellenistic cosmology.51 While there might be some grounds for suggesting that the philosophy has begun impacting the Colossians (e.g., 2:19),
