ANTILEGOMENA (an' tr-Id-goni'6n-a), (Gr. an - iee - leg- om' en - a, contradicted or disputed), an epithet applied by the early Christian writers to denote those books of the New Testament which, although known to all the ecclesiastical writers, and sometimes publicly read in the churches, were not for a considerable time admitted to be genuine, or received into the canon of Scripture. These books are so denom inated in contradistinction to the Homologate menu, or universally acknowledged writings. The following is a catalogue of the Antilegomena: The Second Epistle of St. Peter; the Epistle of St. James; the Epistle of St. Jude; the Second and Third Epistles of St. John; the Apocalypse, or Revelation of St. John; time Epistle to the Hebrews. The earliest notice which we have of this distinction is that contained in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, the learned bishop of Caesarea, who flourished A. D. 279-34o. He seems to have formed a triple, or. as it ap pears to some, a quadruple division of the books of the New Testament, terming them--1, the homologoumena (received) ; 2, the antilegomena (controverted) ; 3, the notha (spurious) ; and. 4, those which he calls the utterly spurious, as being not only spurious in the same sense as the former, but also absurd or impious. Among the spurious he reckons the Acts of Paul. the Shepherd of Hernias, the Revelation of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Instructions of the Apostles. He speaks doubtfully as to the class to which the Apocalypse belongs, for he himself includes it among the spurious; he then observes that some reject it, while others reckon it among the ac knowledged NN ritings thomologoumena). Among the spurious x%raings he also enumerates the Gospel according to the Hebrews. He adds, at the same time, that all these may be classed among the ontrlegomena. His account is consequently
confused, not to say contradictory. Among the utterly spurious he reckons such books as the heretics brought forward under pretense of their being genuine productions of the apostles, such as the so-called Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias, and the Acts of Andrew, John, and the other apostles. These he distinguishes from the anislegonlena, as being works which not one of the ancient ecclesiastical writers thought worthy of being cited. Their style he considers so remote from that of the apostles, and their contents so much at variance with the genuine doctrines of Scripture, as to show them to have been the inventions of heretics, and not worthy of a place even among the sfiterthits writings.
of four townships or quarters, each surrounded by a separate wall, and all four by a common wall. The first was built by Seleucus Nicator, who peo pled it with inhabitants from Antigonia; the sec ond by the settlers belonging to the first quarter ; the third by Seleucus Callinicus; and the fourth by Antiochus Epiphanes (Strabo, xvi :2 ; :354). It was the metropolis of Syria (Antiochiant, Dyne.' coput. Tac. Hist. ii:79), the residence of the Sy rian kings (the Seleucidze) (glace. iii :37 ; vil :2), and afterwards became the capital of the Roman provinces in Asia. It ranked third, after Rome and Alexandria, among the cities of the empire (Joseph., De Be//. sec. 4), and was little inferior in size and splendor to the latter, or to Seleucia (Strabo, xvi:2; vol. iii, p. 355, ed. Ta In the immediate neighborhood in a luxuriant grove was the suburb Daphne, with its cel ebrated sanctuary of Apollo (2 Mace. whence the city was sometimes called "Antioch (See the articles on the several epistles and the R Lvt.i...ATtoN.) W. \V.