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The Visual Atlas
Places, art and manuscripts across time. First era: the apostolic and early church, from Pentecost to the early fourth century.
Antioch on the Orontes
The city where the disciples were first called Christians and where Paul's journeys started. Its second bishop, Ignatius, was sent from here to die in Rome.
- 36.222551
- 36.183214
The real question: how much of Antioch's early church do we actually see, and how much do we see only through a list of names? A company history lists every manager since the shop opened. The first two names may come from people who were there. They may come from someone tidying up the past fifty years later. What kind of list is Antioch's?
Believers scattered after Stephen reach Antioch, and some of them preach to Greeks there; after a year of teaching by Barnabas and Saul the disciples are first called Christians in Antioch (Acts 11:19-26). The church sends Barnabas and Saul out (Acts 13:1-3) and receives the Jerusalem letter (Acts 15:22-35). Eusebius names Evodius as first bishop and Ignatius as second (Church History 3.22), and has Ignatius sent from Syria to Rome (3.36.3). He names Theophilus as sixth from the apostles and lists his books (4.20, 4.24). In the third century Paul of Samosata holds the see and is opposed by a gathering of bishops at Antioch (7.27-30). Josephus records accusations against the Jews who remained at Antioch after the war (Wars 7.3.2).
Scattered believers preach first to Jews only, then some from Cyprus and Cyrene speak to Greeks (Acts 11:19-20). The name Christian appears here first (Acts 11:26). Prophets and teachers are listed, including Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen and Saul (Acts 13:1). Paul and Barnabas sail back to Antioch, where they had been commended to God's grace (Acts 14:26). The Jerusalem letter is delivered to the gentile believers in Antioch (Acts 15:22-23, 30).
Eusebius says that after Cornelius, a multitude of Greeks at Antioch believed (Church History 2.3.3). Luke, he says, was of Antiochian parentage (3.4.7). Evodius was first bishop and Ignatius second (3.22). Ignatius wrote to churches while being taken to Rome and commended the flock at Antioch to Polycarp (3.36.10). Theophilus wrote three books to Autolycus and works against heresies (4.24). Paul of Samosata received the see after Demetrianus died, and his views of Christ brought bishops together against him (7.27).
- https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/f59db4d0-7cba-e122-9f1d-5185afc6f6e9/full/843,/0/default.jpg
- Floor mosaic of fish and shellfish, dated 200 to 230, from a house at Daphne near Antioch, excavated by a Princeton team in 1936 according to the museum's provenance record.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Mosaic Floor Panel Depicting Marine Life, 1937.48, gift of Henry J. Patten
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/23276
- Public domain (is_public_domain true in the Art Institute of Chicago API)
No manuscript in the sources read here is tied to Antioch in this era.
Eusebius says report has it that Ignatius was sent from Syria to Rome and became food for wild beasts (Church History 3.36.3). The letters Eusebius lists place him on the road; the manner of his death he gives as report. Eusebius calls Ignatius second in succession to Peter at Antioch (3.36.2); Acts never places Peter in Antioch, and the early bishop list rests on Eusebius. The panel above comes from Daphne, near Antioch, not from the city itself.
Not the Antioch of Acts 13:14. That is Antioch in Pisidia, a different city in Asia Minor. This entry is the Syrian capital on the Orontes.
- Acts 11:19-30
- Acts 13:1-3
- Acts 14:26-28
- Acts 15:22-35
- Acts, checked in the King James Version
- Eusebius, Church History, trans. McGiffert, NPNF2 vol. 1 (1890), 2.3, 3.4, 3.22, 3.36, 4.20, 4.24, 7.27-30
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, trans. Whiston (Project Gutenberg ed.), 7.3.2
- Pleiades gazetteer, place 658381, Antiochia/Theoupolis, places.csv
- Art Institute of Chicago, object 23276, API record
