As the ecclesiastical system became gradually assimilated to the political, the churches in those cities which held the highest civil rank assumed a corresponding superiority in relation to other Christian communities. Such was the case at Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, and, in the course of time, at Constantinople and Jerusalem, where the term Exarch was applied to the resident bishop, but shortly exchanged for that of Patriarch (Neandcr, Allg. Gesch. ii. p. 346-51). At the present time there are three prelates in Syria who claim the title of patriarchs of Antioch, namely : (i) the patriarch of the Greek church ; (2) of the Syrian Monophy sites ; (3) of the Maronites (Murdock's Mosheim, edited by Reid, pp. 128, 628).
Few cities have undergone and survived greater vicissitudes and disasters than Antioch. In A.D. 260 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. 340, 394, 396, 458, 526, 528) ; by that of A.D. 526 no less than 250,00o persons were destroyed, the popu lation being swelled by an influx of strangers to the festival of the Ascension. The emperor Justinian gave forty-five centenaries of gold to restore the city. Scarcely had it resumed its ancient splendour (A.D. 540) when it was again taken and delivered to the flames of Chosroes. In A.D. 658 it was captured by the Saracens. Its `safety was ransomed with 300,00o pieces of gold, but the throne of the successors of Alexander, the seat of the Roman government in the East, which had been decorated by Cassar with the titles of free and holy and inviolate, was degraded under the yoke of the caliphs to the secondary rank of a provincial town' (Gibbon, ch. 51). In A.D. 975 it was retaken by Nicephorus Phocas. In A.D. 1080 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 300,000 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 valour (Gibbon, ch. 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 17,00o persons, and the captivity of 100,000. About the middle of the fifteenth century the three patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem convoked a synod, and renounced all connection within the Latin church.
Antioch at present belongs to the Pashalic of Haleb (Aleppo), and bears the name of Antakia. 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 moun tain-ridge, on which a considerable portion of the old Roman wall of Antioch is still standing, from 30 to so feet high and 15 feet in thickness. At short intervals 40o high square towers are built up in it, containing a staircase and two or three chambers, probably for the use of the soldiers on duty. At the east end of the western hill are the remains of a fortress, with its turrets, vaults, and cisterns. Toward the mountain south-south-west of the city some fragments of the aqueducts remain. After heavy rains antique marble pavements are visible in many parts of the town ; and gems, carnelians, and rings are frequently found. The present town stands on scarcely one-third of the area enclosed by the ancient wall, of which the line may be easily traced ; the entrance to the town from Aleppo is by one of the old gates, called han Bablous, or Paul's gate, not far from which the members of the Greek church assemble for their devotions in a cavern dedicated to St. John (Madox's Excursions, ii. 74 ; Monro's Summer Ramble, ii. 140-143 ; Dr. Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. viii. p. 220; Conybeare and Howson's Lift and Epistles of St. Pau4 vol. i. 149-155, 2d ed. 1858).