ANTIOC H.

BY MISS AGNES STRICKLAND.

THERE is not a spot on earth, Jerusalem alone excepted, to which such interesting recollections are attached, as to the fallen capital of the once mighty Syrian monarchs-Antioch.

It was built by Seleucus Nicator, founder of the Syro-Macedonian empire, and called Antioch, or Antiochia, in honour of his father Antiochus. This prince was the founder of the famous Seleucidan dynasty, which ended with Antiochus Asiaticus, and ruled Syria for two hundred and forty-seven years, reckoning from the time of Seleucus Nicator began his reign, (B. C. 312.)

To enter into the historical details of the eventful reigns of these monarchs would occupy a much larger space than is allotted to any single article of this Annual. Suffice it to say that they are already familiar to every classic scholar, and accessible to every reader who may be desirous of information on the point.

Antioch is supposed, by some, to be the same with Riblah in the land of Hamath, where Nebuchadnezzar slew Zedekiah's children, and put out the eyes of that monarch. It stands in the valley of the river Orontes, and was originally built on both its banks. It is situated about twenty miles from the shores of the Mediterranean sea, in the immediate vicinity of the famous,

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or rather infamous, temple of Daphne. It was adorned with galleries, fountains, and noble gardens, and was much famed for the richness of its soil, the purity of the air, and the elegance of the buildings, where Eastern magnificence was improved upon by the classic taste of Roman architects and sculptors. It was a favourite retreat of several of the Roman emperors. Vespasian, Titus, and others granted many privileges to its inhabitants.

But Antioch, though for so many centuries considered as the queen of the Eastern world, possesses, in the eyes of the reflecting reader, a higher interest than the most important recollections connected with the history of the departed ages of her grandeur. It was at Antioch that the disciples of our Lord were first distinguished by the name of Christians.* A name bestowed, doubtless, by the heathen inhabitants of this stronghold of idolatry and voluptuousness, as an epithet of contempt, of reproach, and abhorrence. A name intended to indicate, in the strongest terms, the difference between the haughty Roman, the luxurious Greek, the bigoted Jew, and the meek selfdenying followers of the crucified Galilean, as these self-deluded men styled the incarnate Lord of life and light. A name which has since been claimed with eager joy by the high and mighty of the earth, when, in due course of time, kings and queens stood forth as the nursing fathers and nursing mothers of the infant church of Christ, and every nation of Europe has subsequently been proud to boast itself a Christian land; a name which the prophetic pages of holy writ assure us will, in the fulness of time, extend itself over every quarter of the globe, and, extinguishing every false light and jarring feeling, unite all differing races and realms in the sweet bonds of brotherly love and charity under the universal name of Christians, which first was heard at Antioch.

Acts xi. 26.

Antioch was honoured with the apostolical preaching of St. Peter and St. Paul, who here, with their zealous fellow-labourer in the holy work, Barnabas, made known the joyful tidings of salvation to a people who, heretofore, sat in the dark valley of the shadow of death, and were the blessed instruments of leading many of them to a saving knowledge of the truths of the Gospel.

Antioch is also famed for having been the birth-place of the evangelist Luke; and the church over which Ignatius, the scholar of St. John, presided. It was here that this holy martyr, in the hope of averting the storm of pagan persecution from his Christian fold, by offering himself as a voluntary victim to suffer in their stead, presented himself before the emperor Trajan, boldly avowing his faith, and essaying to move the imperial despot by combating his heathen errors in the persuasive eloquence of reason and revelation. Trajan was filled with rage at the intrepid learning of the venerable Christian pastor, from whose lips he, for the first time in his life, perhaps, heard the uncompromising language of truth addressed to himself. Part of the dialogue between them, which is very curious, is thus related by Milner in his Church History:

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TRAJAN. What an impious spirit art thou, both to transgress our commands, and to inveigle others into the same folly, to their ruin!

IGNATIUS.-Theophorus ought not to be so called, for as much as all wicked spirits are departed far from the servants of God. But if you call me impious because I am hostile to evil spirits, I own the charge in that respect; for I dissolve all their snares, through the inward support of Christ the heavenly King. TRAJAN.-Pray, who is Theophorus ?

IGNATIUS. He who has Christ in his breast.

TRAJAN. And thinkest thou not that the gods reside in us, also, who fight for us against our enemies?

IGNATIUS.

You mistake, in calling the demons of the nation by the name of gods. For there is only one true God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and one Jesus Christ, his only Son,-whose kingdom be my portion!

TRAJAN. His kingdom, do you say, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate?

IGNATIUS.

His, who crucified my sin, with its author, and has put all the fraud and malice of Satan under the feet of those who carry him in their heart.

TRAJAN.-Dost thou, then, carry him who was crucified, within thee?

IGNATIUS.-I do, for it is written, I dwell in them, and walk in them."

The haughty Roman potentate, splendid as his character has been considered by profane historians, possessed not that lofty spirit of magnanimity which would have prompted a nobleminded heathen to respect the unshrinking firmness of the Christian hero, and with an insulting jest he pronounced the following barbarous sentence upon the venerable man, against whom not even malice could allege the shadow of a crime:

"Since Ignatius confesses that he carries within himself him that was crucified, we command that he be carried, bound, by soldiers, to great Rome, there to be thrown to the wild beasts, for the entertainment of the people."

This cruel sentence was inexorably fulfilled, and sustained by Ignatius in a manner that caused his martyrdom to diffuse additional glory on the persecuted church of Christ.

For several ages it grew and multiplied at Antioch, till at length that pagan city became one of the principal seats of Christianity in Asia; and in the fourth century the famous Chrysostom was bishop of this see, which eventually possessed no fewer than three hundred and sixty Christian churches.

In the year 548 it was taken and burnt by the Persians, and all the inhabitants were put to the sword. Four years after this, it was rebuilt by Justinian, but in 574 it was again conquered by the Persians, who broke down its walls. In 588, sixty thousand of its inhabitants perished by an earthquake. It was subsequently rebuilt, but in 637 it fell into the hands of the Turks, by whom the Christian church there was nearly annihilated. The crusaders, under Godfrey of Bouillon, wrested it from the Turks, after a siege of seven months, in 1098, and it became a Christian principality for one hundred and fiftynine years, under the European conquerors of Syria.

In the thirteenth century, the Sultan Bihars took it from the Christians, and destroyed all its churches. It finally passed under the Turkish yoke, and remains in a state of ruinous decay. Its trade and commerce were removed to Aleppo, and its few Christian inhabitants now meet, for the purposes of prayer, in one of the caves or excavations in the hill leading to Aleppo; for, in the city where that now illustrious name was bestowed on the disciples of our Lord, not one visible church remains, wherein Christians are permitted to mingle together for the celebration of public worship. Surely in no city of the world have the vials of wrath been more fiercely shed than on this proud seat of Eastern magnificence, Roman power, and Christian celebrity. It has been devasted by the successive scourges of the Roman, the Persian, the Saracen, and the Turkish invader. It has been visited by persecution, swept with storms, and overthrown by earthquakes, and now the candle of its church is extinguished, and the queen of the East (as Pliny styled Antioch in his day) sits lonely and desolate among the ruinous memorials of her former greatness, sunk in religious and moral degradation-a shame to herself, and a scorn to her foes. Yet, let us trust, that the day is at hand, when the waning crescent shall disappear before the refulgent