The city of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians,
(Acts xi. 26.) was built by Seleucus Nicator, 300 B.C., and enlarged
by Antiochus Epiphanes. All the civilized world was then under Roman
rule; Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem were the leading cities. Jerusalem
being a Jewish city, and Rome being a Roman heathen city, there was
no room in either to preach the gospel freely; nor indeed in any
other--the disciples were persecuted and martyred everywhere. There
was just one exception--the city of Antioch; that was as free as
any American city is to-day. This arose from the fact that when
in the Asiatic campaign of Pompey the Great, he came about 65
B.C. to Antioch, he was received by the people with great honors;
and was so charmed with the city, and his treatment, that he made
it an absolutely free city for all, for every nation and for every
religion, and the Roman emperors continued its privileges. When
Stephen was martyred in Jerusalem the disciples were scattered; some
of them reached Antioch, 300 miles north, and began to preach freely,
making many converts. Barnabas was in Jerusalem, but hearing of his
brethren's success, he also went to Antioch and began to preach; as
he was a great orator, full of enthusiasm and faith, thousands were
converted. But he was not satisfied. Crossing the Bay of Iskenderoon,
about eighty miles off, he went to Tarsus, where Paul, now a convert,
was living, and induced Paul to return with him to Antioch that they
might preach the gospel together.
Only scholars have any idea of the greatness and beauty of Antioch at
this time; it was second only to Rome, and was the second largest city
in the world, with nearly a million people; so rich and luxurious as
to be called the Golden City; so lovely and architecturally imposing
as to be called the Queen City. The finest street ran east and west
for several miles; it was of great width, paved from end to end with
vari-colored marble blocks, and with marble pillars on both sides along
its whole extent, on which were magnificent marble palaces of the
Roman officers. In that same grand avenue were theaters, singers of
both sexes, fortune-tellers, great heathen orators and philosophers,
and throngs of people passing along. Paul and Barnabas stood on the
marble pavement month after month for a year, full of the Holy Ghost,
and proclaimed the everlasting gospel. Crowds gathered to hear them;
even the officers and their wives, stretching their heads from the
windows of their palaces, listened to them; they gained disciples
from every rank for Christ and His religion, and the converts there
first received the name of Christians.
This was my birthplace and my relatives still live there. Since the
time of Christ and his disciples, Antioch has been ten times destroyed
by earthquakes. In the fourth century the whole city was destroyed,
and 250,000 people were buried under the ruins. That beautiful street
and its magnificent palaces are now buried two or three yards below
the surface of the ground. In 1872, when I was there, an earthquake
destroyed the whole city, and almost in a moment several thousand
people perished. Several of my own relatives and many of my friends
were killed. The city has now only 25,000 people, most of them
Mohammedan Turks. There are many Fellahin, and perhaps 2,000 Greeks,
and 500 Armenians, but in the suburbs the Armenians are more numerous,
and are the intellectual heads of the whole.
Antioch is still a beautiful and stately city, and a great center for
licorice, raw silk, wheat, and soap. The finest soap is manufactured
there. About thirty factories make it, from pure olive oil and daphne
oil, the latter giving it a sweet fragrance. The daphne groves
are very numerous. The city has excellent orchards and vineyards,
orange trees, olive trees, fig trees, yeniduinya trees, palm trees,
pomegranate trees. All sorts of fruits, in every season of the year,
are fresh on the branches. But for occasional earthquakes, it would
be a queen city yet; none could surpass its beauty or fruitfulness.