Antioch In Syria

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

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 ( Acts 13:1;  Acts 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 ( Acts 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 ( Acts 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 ( Acts 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 ( Acts 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 ( Acts 15:1;  Acts 15:5;  Galatians 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 ( Acts 15:6-35).

Paul’s second missionary journey also started and finished in Antioch ( Acts 15:30-41;  Acts 18:22). He left from Antioch on his third journey ( Acts 18:23), but finished the journey in jail in Caesarea ( Acts 23:31-35). There is no record of any further visits Paul made to Antioch.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

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.  Acts 6:5;  Acts 11:19-30;  Acts 13:1;  Acts 14:26;  Acts 15:22-35;  Acts 18:22;  Galatians 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.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

an´ti - ok , (Ἀντιόχεια , Antiócheia ).

(2) Antioch in Syria. - I n 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 R oman 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 ( Acts 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 ( Acts 13:1;  Acts 15:36;  Acts 18:23 ), and thither he returned from the first two as to his headquarters ( Acts 14:26;  Acts 18:22 ). Here also the term "Christian," doubtless originally a nickname, was first applied to the followers of Jesus ( Acts 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.