Colossae

(Col 1:2) - a city in southwestern Phrygia on the Lycus River, near Laodicea and Hierapolis (2:1). Herodotus called it a great city in the fifth century BC, and Xenophon saw it still flourishing a century later. By the beginning of the Christian era it had declined greatly, and an earthquake several years after Paul's Epistle to the Colossians caused severe damage. In the Middle Ages it was known as Chonae, and in the source's day as Chonas. The miracle of the Archangel Michael at Colossae, or Chonae, was assigned by researchers to centuries after the apostolic age, though an ancient church dedicated to the Archangel stood there. The site had become a small village on a slope of Mount Chonas, beside ruins of the ancient city.