the Geography of early Christianity

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andrewcriddle
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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MrMacSon wrote:Now,

Are we sure that reference to Antioch is generally reference to 'Antioch on the Orontes river'; or Antioch of Pisidia ??

There is reference to a few people coming from Antioch (in Cappodica(?)) or being Patriarch of Antioch in later times ie. the 4th C
On 26 November 380, two days after he had arrived in Constantinople, Theodosius expelled the non-Nicene bishop, Demophilus of Constantinople, and appointed Meletius patriarch of Antioch, and Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the Cappadocian Fathers from Antioch (today in Turkey), patriarch of Constantinople

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius ... ian_creeds
Saint Meletius of Antioch (Μελέτιος) (died 381) was a Christian bishop, or "Patriarch of Antioch", from 360 until his death.

Gregory_of_Nazianzus was born of Greek parentage[4] in the family estate of Karbala outside the village of Arianzus, near Nazianzus, in southwest Cappadocia. His parents, Gregory and Nonna, were wealthy land-owners. In AD 325 Nonna converted her husband (an Hypsistarian) to Christianity; he was subsequently ordained as bishop of Nazianzus in 328 or 329.[3]:vii
Eustathius of Antioch, sometimes surnamed the Great, was a bishop and patriarch of Antioch in the 4th century.

He was a native of Side in Pamphylia [south of Pisidia]. About 320 he was bishop of Beroea, and he became patriarch of Antioch shortly before the Council of Nicaea in 325.
One of the features of the later part of the Arian controversy (c 340 to 380 CE), was the tendency of every group involved to elect their own bishop of Antioch. Deciding who was the true rightful bishop of Antioch proved as difficult as resolving the doctrinal dispute.

Andrew Criddle
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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andrewcriddle wrote:
One of the features of the later part of the Arian controversy (c 340 to 380 CE), was the tendency of every group involved to elect their own bishop of Antioch. Deciding who was the true rightful bishop of Antioch proved as difficult as resolving the doctrinal dispute.

Andrew Criddle
Cheers.

And it seems that ...
Seventeen ancient cities in Turkey were named Antioch, but only two are remembered by any but scholars today. One is Antakya (the ancient Antioch in Syria) and the other is Antioch in Pisidia, Asia Minor. http://www.allaboutturkey.com/yalvac.htm
The role of 'Antioch' in the development of Christianity might have started with Ignatius (if he spent any time in an Antioch), or possibly with Theophilus 'of Antioch'1, or Tatian. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, a School of Antioch supposedly started around or shortly after the deaths of Theophilus of Antioch and Tatian (both d. ~ 180 AD/CE). http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... of-Antioch
  • 1 Theophilus was born near the Tigris & Euphrates rivers, according to his Apologia ad Autolycum (i. 14, ii. 24.), so either born in Anatolia or in Persia. Theophilus could have been form or associated with a local Antioch -
    • Antiochia in Commagene (on the west bank of the Euphrates); later Samosata - now Samsat, Adıyaman Province, Turkey
    • Antiochia in Sittacene, in ancient Sittacene, between the Tigris and Tornadotus
    • Antiochia in Susiana, later Charax, near the confluence of the Tigris and the Choaspes rivers
It's interesting that Wikipedia says
Epiphanius relates that Tatian established a school in Mesopotamia, the influence of which extended to Antioch in Syria, and was felt in Cilicia* and especially in Pisidia.
    • * Antiochia in Cilicia ? now Adana, Adana Province
      . Antiochia ad Taurum ?
      . Antiochia ad Pyramum?
What were the relative roles of the two main Antiochs - Syria and Pisidia - and the others? - and who was really where?? ....
.
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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Pisidian Antioch

Seventeen ancient cities in Turkey were named Antioch (there are 17-18 Antiochia in modern Turkey1), but only two are remembered by any but scholars today. One is Antakya (the ancient Antioch in Syria) and the other is Antioch in Pisidia, Asia Minor. Both figure largely in ancient and early Christian history, and the latter in particular is celebrated for its architecture. Pisidian Antioch is located 1 km north of Yalvac in the province of Isparta in southern Turkey. The first excavations were carried out here in 1913-14 and 1924 by the archaeologists W. Ramsay and D. M. Robinson, revealing that there had been a settlement here since the Neolithic age.

According to written sources and archaeological finds, the city was founded by Antioch I in 280 BC. The city proper, or polis, covers an area of 14 sq km, but the lands which belonged to it stretched from Sultan Dagi to the southern shore of Lake Egirdir, and southwest as far as Gelendost. It stood at a junction of two main roads stretching from west to east and from north to south, and this strategic importance combined with its fertile lands meant that it was an important settlement in the region for many centuries.

In 25 BC Antiocheia became a Roman military colony known as Colonia Caesareia Antiocheia. Of all the other colonies cities - such as Olbasa, Komama, Kremna, Parlais, and Lystra - Pisidian Antioch was the oldest, largest and most Romanised. It was appointed the second Roman capital in Anatolia by the Emperor Augustus, and three thousand veterans from Rome were brought to settle here. Its districts were named after those of Rome, and the discovery of the important Latin inscription known as the Res Gestae on the site illustrates the importance attached to Pisidian Antioch as a sister city of Rome.

Antioch became one of the first Anatolian cities to accept Christianity. St. Paul came to Antioch in the 1st century AD and chose it as a centre for his missionary activities. Having proclaimed the Christian religion in the city, St. Paul gave his first sermon to the congregation of a synagogue, on the site of which the first and largest church dedicated to St. Paul was later constructed.

Excavations at Pisidian Antioch were resumed in 1979, and revealed the remains of many important buildings dating from the Roman and subsequent eras of this important Christian and commercial centre. One of these finds was the foundations of the city portal built as a monument commemorating the victory of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus over the Parthians. This was a triple gate with four pylons, one at either side and two in the centre.

On a rocky outcrop at the highest point of the city Emperor Augustus built the Augustus Temple which was dedicated to the mother goddess Cybele (aka Kybele; the Great Mother Goddess of the Phrygians in Anatolia and later the Greeks and Romans). This remarkable building with unique architectural features was used as an open air church around 400 AD.

The church dedicated to St. Paul stands on the west side of the city and was its largest church. Most of the walls have disappeared, but the superb mosaics and inscriptions which entirely cover the floor are worth seeing.

Other buildings include a theatre seating fifteen thousand, a Roman bath, monumental fountain, well built aqueducts, a horseshoe shaped stadium seating thirty thousand, and the Men sanctuary. On the nearby Limenia Island in Lake Egirdir is a temple of [Greek god] Artemis, rock tombs and St. Mary's Monastery.

Pisidian Antioch, which is mentioned in the bible, is one of the places sought out by Christians interested in the early history of their faith in Anatolia. Although only ten percent of the city has so far been revealed, this once magnificent ancient capital city in the centre of Anatolia is a fascinating place to visit.

http://www.allaboutturkey.com/yalvac.htm

1 There are 17-18 places named Antiochia in modern Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochia#In_modern_Turkey
.
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turk ... an-antioch

http://www.bibleplaces.com/pantioch.htm
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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Antiochia or Antiocheia or Antiochea or Antiokheia may refer to any of several Hellenistic cities in the Near East which were founded or rebuilt by the several rulers named Antiochus during the Seleucid Empire:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochia
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ocheia-geo
Antiocheia 2 in Persis - a city founded by Antiochus I; may also have been called Laodiceia
→ Wikipedia entry ☆ DARE (map)
261/15 The foundation of Antiocheia-in-Persis, with settlers from Magnesia.
205/13 OGI+_233, a decree of Antiocheia-in-Persis renewing its close connect


Antiocheia 3 Margiana - a city on the river Margus, to the west of Bactria; the modern Merv
→ Wikipedia entry ☆ DARE (map)
261/14 The foundation of Antiocheia Margiana.
Antiocheia → see Nisibis
= Antiochia Mygdonia, in ancient Mesopotamia, now Nusaybin, Mardin Province

http://www.attalus.org/names/a/antiocheia.html
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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.
Antiocheia is used 19/20 times in the NT:
  • Galatians 2:11: "Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face,"

    2 Timothy 3:11: "came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra";

    {Acts 11:19: ".. those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia & Cyprus & Antioch,
    . . . . . . . . . . . speaking the word to no one except Jews."
    {Acts 11:20: "But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists [or Grecians] also, ..."
    {Acts 11:21: And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
    {Acts 11:22: The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
    {Acts 11:23: When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose,
    {Acts 11:24: for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.

    {Acts 11:25: "So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,
    {Acts 11:26: and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people.
    . . . . . . . . . . . . And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians."
    {Acts 11:27: "Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.."

    Acts 13:1: ."church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers;"
    Acts 13:14: "Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into"

    Acts 14:19: "there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded"
    Acts 14:21: "and to Iconium, and Antioch,"
    Acts 14:26: "And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the"

    Acts 15:22: "of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas:"
    Acts 15:23: "are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia."
    Acts 15:30: "dismissed, they came to Antioch: and when they had gathered the multitude together,"
    Acts 15:35: "Barnabas continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the"

    Acts 18:22: "church, he went down to Antioch."
http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fus ... ocheia.htm
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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"The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch claims the status of most ancient Christian church in the world. According to Luke the Evangelist- himself [allegedly] a Greco-Syrian member of that community:
  • "The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. (New Testament, Acts 11:26)
"St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostle are considered the cofounders of the Patriarchate of Antioch, the former being its first bishop. When Peter left Antioch, Evodios and Ignatius took over the charge of the Patriarchate. Both Evodios and Ignatius died as martyrs under Roman persecution.

"Some historians believe that a sizable proportion of the Hellenized Jewish communities and most gentile Greco-Macedonian settlers in Southern Turkey (Antioch, Alexandretta/[little] Alexandria, and neighboring cities) and Syria/Lebanon – the former being called "Hellenistai" in the Acts – converted progressively to the Greco-Roman branch of Christianity that eventually constituted the "Melkite" (or "Imperial") Hellenistic Churches of the MENA area:
  • "As Jewish Christianity originated at Jerusalem, so Gentile Christianity started at Antioch, then the leading center of the Hellenistic East, with Peter and Paul as its apostles. From Antioch it spread to the various cities and provinces of Syria, among the Hellenistic Syrians as well as among the Hellenistic Jews who, as a result of the great rebellions against the Romans in A.D. 70 and 130, were driven out from Jerusalem and Palestine into Syria.[1]
"Acts 6 points to the problematic cultural tensions between the Hellenized Jews and Greek-speaking Judeo-Christians centered around Antioch and related Cilician, Southern-Anatolian and Syrian "Diasporas" and (the generally more conservative) Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity based in Jerusalem and neighboring Israeli towns:
  • "The ‘Hebrews’ were Jewish Christians who spoke almost exclusively Aramaic, and the ‘Hellenists’ were also Jewish Christians whose mother tongue was Greek. They were Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora, who returned to settle in Jerusalem. To identify them, Luke uses the term Hellenistai. When he had in mind Greeks, gentiles, non-Jews who spoke Greek and lived according to the Greek fashion, then he used the word Hellenes (Acts 21.28). As the very context of Acts 6 makes clear, the Hellenistai are not Hellenes.[2]
"Some typically Grecian "Ancient Synagogal" priestly rites and hymns have survived partially to the present in the distinct church services of the Melkite Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities of the Hatay Province of Southern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek"
"These ethno-cultural and social tensions were eventually surmounted by the emergence of a new, typically Antiochian Greek doctrine (doxa) spearheaded by Paul (himself a Hellenized Cilician Jew) and his followers be they 1. Established, autochthonous Hellenized Cilician-Western Syrian Jews (themselves descendants of Babylonian and ‘Asian’ Jewish migrants who had adopted early on various elements of Greek culture and civilization while retaining a generally conservative attachment to Jewish laws & traditions), 2. Heathen, ‘Classical’ Greeks, Greco-Macedonian and Greco-Syrian gentiles, and 3. the local, autochthonous descendants of Greek or Greco-Syrian converts to mainstream Judaism – known as “Proselytes” (Greek: προσήλυτος/proselytes or ‘newcomers to Israel’) and Greek-speaking Jews born of mixed marriages.

"Paul’s efforts were probably facilitated by the arrival of a fourth wave of Greek-speaking newcomers to Cilicia/Southern Turkey and Northwestern Syria: Cypriot and ‘Cyrenian’ (Libyan) Jewish migrants of non-Egyptian North African Jewish origin and gentile Roman settlers from Italy- many of whom already spoke fluent Koine Greek and/or sent their children to Greco-Syrian schools. Some scholars believe that, at the time, these Cypriot and Cyrenian North African Jewish migrants were generally less affluent than the autochthonous Cilician-Syrian Jews and practiced a more ‘liberal’ form of Judaism, more propitious for the formation of a new canon:
  • "[North African] Cyrenian Jews were of sufficient importance in those days to have their name associated with a synagogue at Jerusalem (Acts 6:9). And when the persecution arose about Stephen [a Hellenized Syrian-Cilician Jew, and one of the first known converts to Christianity], some of these Jews of Cyrene who had been converted at Jerusalem, were scattered abroad and came with others to Antioch [...] and one of them, Lucius, became a prophet in the early church there [the Greek-speaking ‘Orthodox’ Church of Antioch].[3]
"These subtle, progressive socio-cultural shifts are somehow summarized succinctly in Chapter 3 of the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians:
  • "There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).[4]
Dual self-designation: "Melkites" and "Eastern Romans"
'The unique combination of ethnocultural traits inhered from the fusion of a Greek cultural base, Hellenistic Judaism and Roman civilization gave birth to the distinctly Antiochian “Middle Eastern-Roman” Christian traditions of Cilicia (Southeastern Turkey) and Syria/Lebanon:
  • "The mixture of Roman, Greek, and Jewish elements admirably adapted Antioch for the great part it played in the early history of Christianity. The city was the cradle of the church.[5]
"Members of the community in Southern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon still call themselves Rûm which means "Eastern Roman" or "Asian Greek" in Arabic.

"In that particular context, the term "Rûm" is used in preference to "Yāvāni" or "Ionani" which means "European-Greek" or Ionian in Biblical Hebrew (borrowed from Old Persian Yavan = Greece) and Classical Arabic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orth ... ral_legacy
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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.
The city was founded as Alexandria (’Αλεξάνδρεια) and named for Alexander the Great.

Ecclesiastical history
The bishopric of Alexandria Minor was a suffragan of Anazarbus, the capital and so also the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Roman province of Cilicia Secunda. Greek menologia speak of Saint Helenus, and the martyr saints Aristio and Theodore as early Bishops of the See. But the first documented one is Hesychius, who took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and in a synod at Antioch in 341.

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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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Antioch – Theophilus, Paul 'of Samosata', Theodore of Mopsuestia, Arius, Nestorius.

The city of Antioch, by the end of the second century, was gaining reputation for its distinctive theological reflection. Among the most influential of early Antiochene expositors was Theophilus who became its bishop at about 170. For him, the Jewish scriptures were of supreme authority and an important source of wisdom for Christians. Theophilus offered the historical events of the Hebrew Scriptures as the source of truth, prefiguring what in the course of one of two more centuries would become recognizable as a distinct Antiochene school for exegesis and theology. The Antiochenes stood in a tradition which had stressed the role of Christ as the “second Adam,” whose human obedience had a central place in the work of salvation.

The concern especially for the full humanity of Jesus Christ as his being anointed by the Logos or Spirit can be seen in Paul of 'Samosata' [ Samosata was probably known then as Antiochia in Commagene], a far more controversial bishop of Antioch who became the head of the church around the year 260. According to Eusebius, Paul refused to confess “that the Son of God descended from heaven.” Instead he asserted that “Jesus is from below;” at Jesus’ baptism the Spirit took up abode in him as a temple.

His teachings were eventually rejected as heretical, but the Antiochene emphasis upon the humanity of Jesus and the mode of divine indwelling that was conceived as the Logos descending upon him persisted. Such a Christology resonated more comfortably with the monotheistic concerns of Judaism, and Christians and Jews in Antioch generally enjoyed good relations. It is no accident that Arius, who later advanced his views while a priest in Alexandria, had actually been trained in Antioch

https://luminousdarkcloud.wordpress.com ... stologies/
and
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Re: the Geography of early Christianity

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Tarsus

"The city remained largely pagan, however, up to the time of Julian the Apostate (r. 361–363), who reportedly planned to make it his capital. Following his death during his campaign against Sassanid Persia, he was buried next to the city walls, opposite the earlier tomb of the Tetrarch Maximinus Daia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarsus,_Me ... antine_era

Despite Saul/Paul coming from Tarsus and Wikipedia speculating (as many writings do about a lot of things early-Christian) that "already by 'this time' a Christian community probably existed", it seems "the first recorded bishop, Helenus, dates only from the 3rd century".

I wonder why Paul had no influence there??

compared to what Acts 9 said
And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.
27 - But Barnabas took him, and brought [him] to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.
28 - And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem.
29 - And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians: but they went about to slay him.
30 - [Which] when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.
31 - Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.
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