Antioch in Syria
Antioch In Syria
The great interest attaching to this. place as the seat of the mother Church of the Gentile world, justifies us in a few additional particulars respecting its modern condition. The city is now accessible only on horseback, by way of Aleppo. It is thought to contain about six thousand inhabitants, including a few Christians. Since the last earthquake (April, 1872), which overthrew one half of the houses, an almost entirely new town has sprung up, consisting, however, of unsubstantial buildings rudely constructed of irregular fragments of stone, held together with mud or inferior mortar. — The interior of the town consists of dreary heaps of ruins and unsightly houses, interspersed with rubbish and garbage. The bazaar is insignificant. On the east side of the town is a large silk-factory. Near it are the houses of the vice-consuls, all of whom (except the French) are natives, and speak their own language only (generally the Turkish). On the river Orontes are a number of large water-wheels for irrigating the gardens. See Badeker, Palest. and Syria, p. 578.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
ANTIOCH IN SYRIA
Soon after the sweeping conquests of Alexander the Great, the empire he established split into sectors under the control of his Greek generals. One of these sectors was centred on Syria, and in 300 BC the new rulers built the city of Antioch on the Orontes River as the administrative capital of the sector. They also built the town of Seleucia nearby, as a Mediterranean port for Antioch (Act 13:1; Act 13:4). With the conquest of the region by Rome in 64 BC, Antioch became the capital of the Roman province of Syria.
Christianity came to Antioch through the efforts of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians who had been driven from Jerusalem by violent Jewish persecution. The two people whose teaching most helped the church in its early stages were Paul and Barnabas. It was there in Antioch, during the stay of Paul and Barnabas, that people first gave the name Christian to the followers of Jesus Christ (Act 11:19-26; for the significance of the name see CHRISTIAN).
Upon hearing of the needs of poor Christians in Jerusalem, the Antioch church saw its responsibility to send gifts to help other Christians (Act 11:27-30). Next it saw its responsibility to spread the gospel into more distant places where people had never heard it. The church therefore sent off Paul and Barnabas as its first missionaries (Act 13:1-4). Antioch became the centre from which Christianity spread west into Asia Minor and Europe.
Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch when they had completed their first missionary journey (Act 14:26-28). Soon, however, they met trouble. Jews from the church in Jerusalem came to Antioch and tried to force the Gentile Christians to keep the Jewish law (Act 15:1; Act 15:5; Gal 2:11-13). As a result of the trouble that these Jewish teachers caused, the leaders of the Antioch church went to Jerusalem to discuss the matter with the leaders there. The Antioch leaders asserted that Christians were not bound by the Jewish law, and returned to Antioch with the reassuring knowledge that the Jerusalem leaders supported them (Act 15:6-35).
Pauls second missionary journey also started and finished in Antioch (Act 15:30-41; Act 18:22). He left from Antioch on his third journey (Act 18:23), but finished the journey in jail in Caesarea (Act 23:31-35). There is no record of any further visits Paul made to Antioch.
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Antioch in Syria
anti-ok, (, Antiocheia).
(2) Antioch in Syria. – In 301 bc, shortly after the battle of Ipsus, which made him master of Syria, Seleucus Nicator rounded the city of Antioch, naming it after his father Antiochus. Guided, it was said, by the flight of an eagle, he fixed its site on the left bank of the Orontes (the El-‘Asi) about 15 miles from the sea. He also rounded and fortified Seleucia to be the port of his new capital. The city was enlarged and embellished by successive kings of the Seleucid Dynasty, notably by Seleucus Callinicus (246-226 bc), and Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 bc). In 83 bc, on the collapse of the Seleucid monarchy, Antioch fell into the hands of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who held Syria until his defeat by the Romans fourteen years later. In 64 bc the country was definitely annexed to Rome by Pompey, who granted considerable privileges to Antioch, which now became the capital of the Roman province of Syria. In the civil wars which terminated in the establishment of the Roman principate, Antioch succeeded in attaching itself constantly to the winning side, declaring for Caesar after the fall of Pompey, and for Augustus after the battle of Actium. A Roman element was added to its population, and several of the emperors contributed to its adornment. Already a splendid city under the Seleucids, Antioch was made still more splendid by its Roman patrons and masters. It was the queen of the East, the third city, after Rome and Alexandria, of the Roman world. About five miles distant from the city was the suburb of Daphne, a spot sacred to Apollo and Artemis. This suburb, beautified by groves and fountains, and embellished by the Seleucids and the Romans with temples and baths, was the pleasure resort of the city, and Daphnic morals became a by-word. From its foundation Antioch was a cosmopolitan city. Though not a seaport, its situation was favorable to commercial development, and it absorbed much of the trade of the Levant. Seleucus Nicator had settled numbers of Jews in it, granting them equal rights with the Greeks (Ant., XII, iii, 1). Syrians, Greeks, Jews, and in later days, Romans, constituted the main elements of the population. The citizens were a vigorous, turbulent and pushing race, notorious for their commercial aptitude, the licentiousness of their pleasures, and the scurrility of their wit. Literature and the arts, however, were not neglected.
In the early history of Christianity, Antioch occupies a distinguished place. The large and flourishing Jewish colony offered an immediate field for Christian teaching, and the cosmopolitanism of the city tended to widen the outlook of the Christian community, which refused to be confined within the narrow limits of Judaism. Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, was one of the first deacons (Act 6:5). Antioch was the cradle of Gentile Christianity and of Christian missionary enterprise. It was at the instance of the church at Antioch that the council at Jerusalem decided to relieve Gentile Christians of the burden of the Jewish law (Acts 15). Antioch was Paul’s starting-point in his three missionary journeys (Act 13:1; Act 15:36; Act 18:23), and thither he returned from the first two as to his headquarters (Act 14:26; Act 18:22). Here also the term Christian, doubtless originally a nickname, was first applied to the followers of Jesus (Act 11:26). The honorable record of the church at Antioch as the mother-church of Gentile Christianity gave her a preeminence which she long enjoyed. The most distinguished of her later sons was John Chrysostom. The city suffered severely from earthquakes, but did not lose its importance until the Arab conquest restored Damascus to the first place among Syrian cities. Antioch still bears its ancient name (Antakiyeh), but is now a poor town with a few thousand inhabitants.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Antioch in Syria
[An’tioch in Syria]
This is memorable in the annals of the church as the city where the disciples were first called Christians, Where an assembly of Gentiles was gathered, and from which Paul and his companions went forth on their missionary journeys, and to which they twice returned. It formed a centre for their labours among the Gentiles, outside the Jewish influence which prevailed at Jerusalem; yet the church in this city maintained its fellowship with the assembly at Jerusalem and elsewhere. Act 6:5; Act 11:19-30; Act 13:1; Act 14:26; Act 15:22-35; Act 18:22; Gal 2:11.
Antioch was once a flourishing and populous city, the capital of Northern Syria, founded by Seleueus Nicator, B.C. 300, in honour of his father Antiochus. It was afterwards adorned by Roman emperors, and was esteemed the third city was eventually the seat of the Roman proconsul of Syria. It stood on a beautiful spot on the river Orontes, where it breaks through between the mountains Taurus and Lebanon. It is now called Antakia 36 12′, 36 10′ E. It has suffered from wars and earthquakes, and is now a miserable place. Comparatively few antiquities of the ancient city are to be found, but parts of its wall appear on the crags of Mount Silpius.