ANTIOCH lAn'ti-Olo, ((;r.'Ayrducca, an i-a). Two places of this name are mentioned in the New Testament.
(1) In Syria. A city on the banks of the Orontes. 30o miles north of Jerusalem, and about 3a from the Mediterranean. It was situated in the province of Selencis. called Tetrapolis (Tcrpct iroXio, from containing the four cities, Anti och, Seleucia. Apamea. and 1...-mdicea: of which the first ivas named after Anthiehus. the father of the founder ; the second after himself ; the third after his wife Apamea, and the fourth in honor of his mother. The appellation Tetrapohs was given also to Antioch. because it consisted by Daphne" milltim le of Jews re•idcd in it.
Seleucus Mentor granted diem the rights of citi zenship. and placed them on a perfect equality with the other inhabitants ( Joseph. .Intig. xii :3. sec. 1). These privileges were continued to than by Ves pasian and Titus—an instance I Josephus remarks) of the equity and generosity of the Romans, who, in opposition to the wishes of the Alexandrians and Antiochrans, protected the Jews. nul With andmg the provocations thev had received from them in their wars. They were also allowed to have an Archon or Etlm arch of their own ( Joseph.
Bell J ud vii :3) Antioch is called by Pliny (Hist. Not.. v. 18), having obtained from Pompey the privilege of being governed by it own laws. This fact is commemorated on a coin bearing the inscription, ANT1()X1.31S 1111'14/11t).•, ATTIIN Nt oT. heon .11eirotol. . ulonornou, L0111 401 tilt; The Christian faith was introduced at an early period into Antioch, and with great success (Acts xi:19, 21, 24). The name 'Christians' was here first applied to its professors (Acts xi:26), and the city became the see of the four chief bishops, who were called Patriarchs. Antioch soon be came a central point for the diffusion of Chris tianity among the Gentiles, and maintained for several centuries a high rank in the Christian world. A controversy which arose between cer tain Jewish believers from Jerusalem and the Gen tile converts at Antioch respecting the permanent obligation of the rite of circumcision was the occasion of the first apostolic council or conven tion (Acts xv). Antioch was the scene of the early labors of the apostle Paul, and the place whence lie set forth on his first missionary labors (Acts xi:26; xiii:2). Ignatius was the second bishop or overseer of the church, for about forty years, till his martyrdom in A. D. 107. In the third century three councils (the last in A. D. 269) were held at Antioch relative to Paul of Samosata, who was bishop there about A. D. 26o (Neander's Allgenzeine Geschichte, etc. i :3, p. 1013; Gieseler's Lehrbuch, i :242 ; Moshemii Com men p. 702). In the course of the fourth century a new theological school was formed at Antioch, which aimed at a middle course in Bibli cal Hermeneutics. between a rigorously literal and an allegorical method of interpretation. Two of its most distinguished teachers were the presbyters Dorotheus and Lucian, the latter of whom suf fered martyrdom in the Dioclesian persecution, A. D. 312 (Neander's Allgenzeine Geschichte, i :3, p. 1237; Gieseler's Lehrbuch, i :272; Lardner's Credibility, pt. ii. ch. 55, 58). Libanius (born A. D. 314), the rhetorician, the friend and pane gyrist of the emperor Julian, was a native of Antioch (Lardncr's Testimonies of Ancient Heathens, ch. 449 ; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc., ch. 24). It had likewise the less equivocal honor of being the birthplace of his illustrious pupil, John Chrysostom (born A. D. 347; died A. D. 407). (Lardner's Credibility, pt. ii, ch. ri8; Nean
der's Allgenzeine Geschichte, ii :3, pp. 1440-56.) At the present time there are three prelates in Syria who claim the title of patriarchs of An tioch, namely: (I) the patriarch of the Greek church: (2) of the Syrian Monophysites; (3) of the Maronites (Murdoch's Illosheim, edited by Soames, p. 304-1I).
Few cities have undergone and survived greater vicissitudes and disasters than Antioch. In A. D. 26o Sapor, the Persian king, surprised and pillaged it, and multitudes of the inhabitants were slain or sold as slaves. It has been frequently brought to the verge of utter ruin by earthquakes (A. D. 394, 526, 528), by that of A. D. 526 no less than 250,00o persons were destroyed, the population being swelled by an influx of strangers to the festival of the Ascension. The emperor Justinian gave forty-five centenaries of gold (ii8o,000) $9oo,000.00, to restore the city. Scarcely had it resumed its ancient splendor (A. D. 540) when it was again taken and delivered to the flames by Chosroes. In A. D. 658 it was captured by the Saracens. Its safety was ran somed with 300,00o pieces of gold, but the throne of the successors of Alexander was degraded un der the yoke of the caliphs to the secondary rank of a provincial town. In A. D. 975 it was retaken by Nicephorus Phocas. In A. D. to8o the son of the governor Philaretus betrayed it into the hands of Soliman. Seventeen years after the Duke of Normandy entered it at the head of 300, 00o Crusaders; but as the citadel still held out, the victors were in their turn besieged by a fresh host under Kerboga and twenty-eight emirs, which at last gave way to their desperate valor (Gibbon, chap. 58). In A.D. 1268 Antioch was occupied and ruined by Boadocbar or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and Syria; this first seat of the Christian name being dispeopled by the slaughter of 17,000 persons, and the captivity of nao,000. About the middle of the fifteenth century the three patriarchs of Alex andria, Antioch, and Jerusalem convoked a synod, and renounced all connection with the Latin church.
Antioch at present belongs to the Pashalic of Haleb (Aleppo), and bears the name of Antakia (Pococke, ii :277 sq.; Niebuhr, iii :13 sq.). The inhabitants are said to have amounted to twenty thousand before the earthquake of 1822, which destroyed four or five thousand. On the south west side of the town is a precipitous mountain ridge, on which a considerable portion of the old Roman v,rall of Antioch is still standing, from 30 to 5o feet high and 15 feet in thickness.
(2) Antioch in Pisidia. Antioch in (or near) Pisidia Tits a city belonging to the province of Pisidia in Asia Minor, hut situated within the limits of Phrygia. When Paul and Barnabas visited this city (Acts xiii:i 4), they found a Jewish synagogue and a considerable number of proselytes, and met with great success among the Gentiles (xiii:48), hut, through the violent opposition of the Jews, were obliged to leave the place, which they did in strict accordance with their LorcPS injunction (xiii:51, compared with Matt. x:14; Luke ix:5).
Till within a comparatively recent period An tioch was supposed to have been situated where the town of Ak-Slicker now stands: but the re searches of the Rev. F. Arundell, British chaplain at Smyrna in 1833. confirmed by the still later in vestigations of Mr. Hamilton, secretary of the Geographical Society, have determined its site to be adjoining the town of Yalowatch, and conse quently that Ak-Sheker is the ancient Philomelion described by Strabo (xii :8; vol. iii, p. 72, ed. Tauch.). J. E. R.