Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Authority: — Mention in the Epistles of S. Paul.j EPAPHRAS, a fellow labourer with the Apostle S. Paul, is mentioned, Col. i. 7, as having taught the Colossian Church the grace of God in truth, and is designated by S. Paul as a faithful minister of Christ. He was at that time at Rome with S. Paul, 1 and seems by the expression there used, to have been a Colossian by birth. We find him again mentioned in the Epistle to Philemon, which was sent at the same time as that to the Colossians. Epaphras may be the same as Epaphroditus; but the notices in the New Testament do not enable us to speak with any confidence on this point S. Jerome mentions a tradition to which he gives no credit, that the parents of S. Paul were natives of Giscala in Judaea, and that when that province was devastated by the Romans, they were carried off to Tarsus, and took with them the young Paul; and that at the same time Epaphras also was taken away from Giscala to Tarsus, [July X9r and so he and S. Paul made acquaintance with one another. S. Epaphras is said in the Roman Martyrology to have been bishop of Colosse, and a martyr; but there is no evidence for either of these statements. Baronius is the authority for them, and with him they were mere conjecture. It is said that his relics exist in the church of S. Maria Maggiore at Rome.