A city dedicated to the promotion of Early Christianity
Antioch's singular fate is linked with Christianity. The city was home to a Christian community founded after that of Jerusalem, in 36, following on Stephen[1]'s martyrdom. There it was, according to the New Testament's founding texts, that Jesus' disciples first were labelled Christians: « And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. »
(Acts 11: 19-26). Under the guidance of Paul[2] and Barnabas[3], Antioch's Christian community evolved traits in rupture with communal boundaries such as the admission of new members' confession of faith and baptism without demanding of them that they be circumcised first. Antioch seemed to be the most Christianised sector in the whole Empire, even though other centres were reached by apostolic witness: Tyre (Acts 21: 4-7), Ptolemais (Acts 21: 7), Damascus (Acts 9: 3-23) and Sidon (Acts 27:3). Antioch was party to devising the Creed and to framing the Trinitarian doctrines and Christology[4]. The massive and effective presence of its suffragan bishops in the first four Councils was significant. Eighty of them were in attendance at the Concile of Nicaea in 325[5] in 325 and 120 at Chalcedon in 451[6].
Antioch assumed the responsibility to take the Gospel to all the territories under its jurisdiction, notably Mesopotamia, Osroene and Adiabene. Accordingly Edessa adopted Christianity in the 2nd century to wit Abercius' epitaph. Its theological school came close to that of Antioch and could boast the teaching of Saint Ephrem[7] and the authorship of the Peshitta or Syriac Vulgate as well as the harmonisation of the four Gospels achieved by Tatian[8] and known as the Diatessaron. Even in these unsettled times, Edessa remained an active and influential cultural centre until its fall to the Seljuqs and its destruction in the 12th century. However its missionary drive hit two stumbling blocks: imperial politics and theological disputes.
Imperial politics lead to persecutions, particularly harsh under Diocletian[9] and Maximinus II[10] and created hundreds of martyrs, Ignatius of Antioch[11] not least among them. Those martyrs' example inspired other Christians, leading to the intensification of their faith and gave rise to a solid cult comforted by the building of martyria and the translation of relics[12]. A commemorative calendar configured space and time and reignited missionary zeal. For the purpose of Antioch and thereabouts the Northern Syrian limestone massif is spattered with sanctuaries and martyria, notably Qalat Semaan et Qalb Loze, which bespeak a deeply rooted Christianity. Mesopotamia, Arabia, Phoenicia had their own sanctuaries and shrines. Their processions to martyria foreshadow our pilgrimages to holy sites.
As for theological quarrels they frequently caused lasting internal strife, even sometimes schisms[13] which councils did not succeed in resolving. Thus the 431 Council of Ephesus[14] gave birth to the Nestorian church that developed in Persia and took the gospel all the way along the silk road right up to China. The 451 Council of Chalcedon gave birth to the Orthodox Syriac church thus allowing Jerusalem to set up as an independent patriarchate and Cyprus to become autonomous. On the occasion of these two councils, Antioch's final canonical status was fixed, which gave her the fourth position in the Pentarchy[15]. Those splits altered the course of its history turning her more specifically towards the Arab and Persian populations.
Almost in synchrony with martyrdom emerged another phenomenon typical of Antiochian Christianity, namely monachism. It came in several guises: consecration[16] within the world in a fraternity called by Aphrahat[17] « sons and daughters of the Covenant »
, eremitism[18] of many kinds: anchoritism[19], stylism[20], enclosure and finally cenobitism[21] or community life within monasteries. These monks played a major part in the growth of Christianity and in cultural dissemination with an outreach stretching to Armenia, Georgia and diverse regions of Syria and Mesopotamia. This did not go without the rigorism of some whose extreme asceticism led them to abuses such as encratism[22] and messalianism[23] condemned by the Church.
