Such was especially the case at Colossæ, a little town long after notorious for its superstition, where Epaphras, now Paul's fellow-prisoner, had founded the church. Epaphras himself at the time of Paul's writing was in great anxiety both for this church and for the adjoining churches at Hierapolis and Laodicea. Colossians is written to meet this danger, and was sent by the same bearers as the note to Philemon. It was to be exchanged, after being read at Colossæ, for another epistle sent simultaneously to Laodicea. Whether our Ephesians is this companion letter or only a deutero-Pauline production framed on the basis of some genuine letter written on this occasion, is a disputed point among critics. In Marcion's canon our Ephesians was called "Laodiceans," and in our own oldest textual authorities it has no address. We may assume that Ephesians is really the companion letter, whose original address was for some reason cancelled;[15] or that it is but partially from Paul's own hand. Neither view will materially alter our conception of his teaching, or the special application of it to the circumstances of the churches of the Lycus Valley. The important thing to observe is that whereas the application in Colossians is specific, in Ephesians it is systematic and general. Colossians wages a direct polemic against those who are making believers the spoil of mere 'Elements' by introducing distinctions of "meats _and drinks_" (a step beyond Mosaism), with observance of "feast days, new moons and sabbaths." In Ephesians we have, either altogether at first hand, or to a greater or less extent at second, a general, affirmative presentation of Paul's doctrine of Lordship in Christ. It has only incidental allusion to being "deceived with empty words" (v. 6), and a warning not to be "children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men in craftiness, after the wiles of error" (iv. 14). Footnote 15: Harnack very ingeniously suggests as a reason the ill repute later incurred by Laodicea (_cf._ Rev. iii. 15 f.); comparing the chiselling out from inscriptions of the names of unpopular kings.