This Epaphras, like the majority of the Colossians, was a Gentile.
Holtzmann (1872) subjected both Colossians and Ephesians to a rigorous examination, and found in Colossians at least a nucleus of Pauline material.
He had previously written his commentaries on the epistles to the Galatians (1865), Philippians (1868) and Colossians (1875), the notes to which were distinguished by sound judgment and enriched from his large store of patristic and classical learning.
Like its sister Epistle to the Colossians, it represents, whoever wrote it, deep experience and bold use of reflection on the meaning of that experience; if it be from the pen of the Apostle Paul, it reveals to us a distinct and important phase of his thought.
The relationship, both literary and theological, between the epistle to the Ephesians and that to the Colossians is very close.
