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ANTIOCH OF SYRIA
Principal city among 16 others of the same name built about 300 BC by the Syrian emperor Seleucus I in honor of his father Antiochus. This Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey) occupies a fertile plain in a western bend of the Orontes River that terminates in the Mediterranean Sea. In ancient times the population numbered half a million. Because of its location on navigable waters reaching to a Mediterranean port 15 miles (24 kilometers) away and because of its ready access through passes in the Taurus Mountains eastward to the interior, Antioch was a busy, cosmopolitan center of trade, religious ferment, and high levels of intellectual and political life. Under Roman authority Antioch received lavish attention in the form of beautiful public works, harbor improvements, and special trade advantages.
Side by side with a truly high culture were the degrading institutions of strange fertility religions, brutalizing sports spectacles, and a variety of mystery religions. Two other major influences were the large community of fully franchised Jews who flourished there and the community of government functionaries. The Jewish community supplied a number of Christian proselytes to the early church in Antioch. The government officials provided police protection, stability, and order, alternating with seemingly insatiable appetites for lavish dissipations in gambling, chariot races, brothels, exotic banquets, and the like.
Antioch of Syria played an important role in the book of Acts. A certain Nicholas from Antioch became one of the first deacons in the early church (Acts 6:5). Jerusalem Christians fled to Antioch from fierce persecution (11:19). Acts 11 gives details of Barnabas and Paul’s teaching in the Antioch church and of the benevolent gift of the believers there to suffering Christians in Jerusalem. The term “Christians” was first used in Antioch (11:26). Acts 13 records that the first missionaries were sent from there. The Jerusalem church council’s statement on requirements for gentile believers was in part a result of the work in Antioch among Gentiles (see Acts 15 and Gal 2).
From the third century to about the eighth century, Antioch was an important center for the development of Christian theology. The approach to Scripture and to the nature of Christ taken in Antioch tended to be historical and rational, in contrast to an overly spiritualized, allegorical approach taken in Alexandria (Egypt) by such theologians as Origen and Clement.