ANTIOCH ('Avr:6xeca). Two places of this name are mentioned in the New Testament. i. A city on the banks of the Orontes, 30o miles north of Jerusalem, and about 3o from the Mediterranean. It was situated in the province of Seleucis, called Tetrapolis (Terpd7roNts), from containing the four cities, Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, and Laodicea of which the first was named after Antiochus, the father of the founder; the second after himself ; the third after his wife Apamea, and the fourth in honour of his mother. The same appellation (Tetrapolis) was given also to Antioch, because it consisted of four townships or quarters, each surrounded by a separate wall, and all four by a common wall. The first was built in the year 300 a. C. by Seleucus Nicator, who peopled it with in habitants from Antigonia ; the second by the settlers belonging to the first quarter; the third by Seleucus 58.
Callinicus ; and the fourth by Antiochus Epiphanes (Strabo, xvi. 2 ; iii. 354). It was the metropolis of Syria (Antiochiam, Spice caput. Tac. Hist. ii. 79), the residence of the Syrian kings (the Seleucidw) (1 Macc. iii. 37 ; vii. 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 Bell. kd. 2, 4), and was little inferior in size and splendour to the latter, or to Seleucia (Strabo, xvi. 2; vol.
p. 355, ed. Tauch.) Its suburb Daphne was celebrated for its grove and fountains (Strabo, xvi. 2; vol. iii. p. 356, ed. Tauch.), its asylum (tio•oXoy rbirov, 2 Macc. iv. 33) and temple dedicated to Apollo and Diana. 'The temple and the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and cypresses which reached as far as a circum ference of ten miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every hill, preserved the verdure of the earth and the temperature of the air' (Gibbon, ch. xxiii.) Hence Antioch was called Epidaphnes (' Avrtoxelcz '7r1 Acigov, Joseph. Antiq. XV1.1. 2, I; Epidaphnes cognomina/a, Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 18). It was very populous; within 15o years after its erection the Jews slew too,000 persons in it in one day (t Macc. xi. 47). In the time of Chrysostom the population was computed at 200,000, of whom one-half, or even a greater proportion, were professors of Christianity (orb r?dop roXecos xotartav6v, Chrysos. Adv. ,dud Onzt. t. i. p. 588; Hoot. in S. Ignat. t. ii. p. 597 ; In Malt. Hom. 85, t. vii. p. Sto). Chrysostom also states that the church at Antioch maintained 300o poor, besides occasionally relieving many more (In Malt. Hon. t. vii. p. 658). Cicero speaks of the city as distinguished by men of learning and the cultivation of the arts (Pro Archia, 3). A multitude of Jews resided in it. Seleucus Nicator granted them the rights of citizenship, and placed them on a perfect equality with the other inhabi tants (Joseph. Antiq. xii. 3, § I). These privileges
were continued to them by Vespasian and Titus— an instance (Josephus remarks) of the equity and generosity of the Romans, who, in opposition to the wishes of the Alexandrians and Antiocheans, protected the Jews, notwithstanding the provoca tions they had received from them in their wars. They were also allowed to have an Archon or Ethnarch of their own (Joseph. De Bell, yud. vii. 3. 3). Antioch is called libera by Pliny (Hist. Nat. v. 18), having obtained from Pompey the privilege of being governed by its own laws. This fact is commemorated on a coin bearing the inscrip tion, ANTIOXESIN. MEITPOHOA. ATTONOMOT.
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). [CHRIS TIAN. ] Antioch soon became a central point for the diffusion of Christianity among the Gentiles, and maintained for several centuries a high rank in the Christian world. The attempt of certain Judaizers from Jerusalem to enforce the rite of circumcision on the Gentile converts at Antioch was the occasion of the first apostolic council or convention (Acts xv.) Antioch was the scene of the early labours of the apostle Paul, and the place whence he set forth on his first missionary labours (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 Allgemeine Geschichte. etc. i. 3, p. 1013 ; Gieseler's Lehrbuch, i. 242 ; Moshemii Commentarii, p. 702). In the course of the fourth century a new theological school was formed at Antioch, which aimed at a middle course in Biblical 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 suffered martyrdom in the Dioclesian persecution, A. D. 312 (Neander's Allgemeine Geschichte, i. 3, p. 1237, ii. 498 transl. (Bohn's ed.) ; Gieseler's Lehrbuch, i. 272 ; Lardner's Credibility, pt. ii. ch. 55, 58). Libanius (born A.D. 314), the rhetorician, the friend and panegyrist of the emperor Julian, was a native of Antioch (Lardner's Testimonies of Ancient Heathens, ch. 49 ; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc. ch. 24). It had likewise the honour of being the birthplace of his illustrious pupil, John Chrysostom (born A. D. 347 ; died A.D. 407) (Lardner's Credibility, pt. ii. ch. HS ; Neander's Allgemeine Geschichte, ii. 3, pp. 1440-56).