Chapter 1 The City

INTRODUCTION The spread of early Christianity is often caricatured like this: Jesus’ first disciples were simple fishermen. They were largely ignorant, illiterate, unpolished. They began preaching their message to the poor and the disenfranchised, such as slaves. This message brought them hope and began to leak out from Jerusalem. The Christians spread to small villages and back waters. Over time, the message spread to some cities and eventually captured attention – again, primarily among the poor – in some big cities. The success of the mission in Antioch shows that this is a cartoon of what actually happened. And that is why we ask, “What happened in Antioch?”

THE CITY OF ANTIOCH The City of Antioch was a large and influential city. It was located in northwestern Syria – just south of the border with modern Turkey. To get an idea of its placement: Antioch was located north of Jerusalem, about 300 miles (compare distance from Dallas to Little Rock). It was about 86 miles east of Paul’s hometown, Tarsus. And it was inland from the Mediterranean about 20 miles.

Antioch was the third most important city in the Roman Empire at the beginning of the first century, following Rome and Alexandria. By the end of the Century, Antioch would overtake its rival, Alexandria. The City was called “the Queen of the East.”

Antioch had a storied history. It was founded by one of Alexander the Great’s generals following the conqueror’s death. One story places the founding of the city in the year 300 BC. Seleucus I founded the city where he did because it had strategic importance and natural beauty.

Antioch: Queen of the East

It lay upon the Orontes River on its north and west side, and was protected by mountains – the highest peak of which was Silpius – on the eastern side. From the beginning, it was a prosperous city that commanded the fabled Silk Road stretching to the east. When the Romans came to the area in the 60s BC, they made Antioch the capital of the Province of Syria. Octavian undertook a number of building projects here, especially a huge Temple to Jupiter. Over the years, the Romans connued to favor the City with new building projects.

St James Studies Antioch 1: The City Page I - 1 The great Cicero extolled the city for its art and literature. The satirist Juvenal, however, also pointed to its reputation for immorality: he wrote that “the Orontes pours pollution in to the Tiber,” meaning that it had a deleterious effect on the morals of Rome itself. What happened in Antioch did not apparently stay in Antioch!

Augustus had granted Antioch a great honor: he approved a mint for the City and subsequent emperors continued to utilize it – a sign of both its prosperity and stable loyalty.

The original city was laid out on about 1 mile square. A conservative estimate is that Antioch had 150,000 residents at the time the Church was planted there, not counting its suburbs. Now if you are good at math, you will have noticed that its population density would be 117 persons per acre! (Compare that to modern NYC, at 37/acre; or Chicago, at 21/acre. Manhattan island has a density of about 100/ acre.)

Of course, that number is somewhat misleading: it assumes that people are spread out over the whole area. In fact, some 40% of the real estate was occupied by large public buildings and forums – which means the living area was even more densely packed. By the end of the 1st century it had spread to 2 square miles.

Typically, buildings could not rise very high – about 6 storys due to construction techniques. (In Rome, a height limit of 65.6 feet was imposed.) Upper floors were inhabited by the poor, who often subdivided their tenements. These “apartments” were overcrowded. Ground level floors were reserved for shops and manufacturing. Inner courtyards were used for butchering, cloth dying, blacksmithing and other forms of work. Construction techniques were fairly light, mostly of wood-framed buildings with plastered exteriors. This led to constant collapsing of buildings and fires – and loss of life.

Roman cities were tightly packed with narrow streets occupied by people and animals alike. Large carts were drawn through these streets by oxen and horse, making them noisy and filthy. There was little sanitation: even at Rome, sewers served only the rich who could afford them. It is said that ancient cities could be smelled long before they could be seen!

The typical family lived in a single room. Cooking was done on a charcoal brazier – furnaces and fireplaces were unknown (except perhaps for the rich). Windows were covered with a skin or cloth. Apartments were hot in summers, and cold and smoky in the colder months, and drafty due to their construction. Chamber pots and garbage were simply dumped on the streets below.

Schools were reserved for those families who could afford them, and normally only boys were educated. For the most part, teachers were independent contractors and conducted their classes on the sidewalks in the city.

Water was brought to cities by aqueducts, but stored in cisterns. Most people did not enjoy ready access to fresh water. Water had to be brought to the apartments in large jugs, up many floors. The water tended to be stagnant and unpalatable. Pliny suggested that people always boil their water!

Given the poor state of sanitation, the cities were breeding grounds for insects and vermin. Diseases were frequent and quickly passed from person to person. The mortality rates were higher in cities than in rural areas. It is estimated that the life expectancy in the large cities was about 30 years! Children born to city families were lucky to have one parent survive their growth to adulthood, and orphans (untended) were a constant feature of ancient city-life.

St James Studies Antioch 1: The City Page I - 2 All this led, in turn, to a constant need for what is called “in-migration,” bringing new residents to the cities to keep them going. This in-migration tended to make the cities a gathering of strangers – the in-flux of people who came from various areas, were of different racial stock, spoke different languages and held different customs. It is estimated that in Roman times there were as many as 18 different identifiable ethnic enclaves at Antioch. But this probably understates the true conditions, for many who came to live in Antioch– especially retired military men and administrative officials – brought with them their slaves and servants from widely different places. Such diversity resulted in suspicion, competition for meager resources, misunderstanding, crime and riots. The cities were not safe.

These conditions may well have applied to the wealthy as well as to the lower SELEUCUS I classes. It is well known that some famous Romans lived in what would otherwise A General under Alexander be considered questionable residences in Rome rather than their own enclaves in the Great - Founder of order to be close to the action (Senate, forum) at important times, and the same was Antioch (300 BC) probably true in other major cities. This would not, of course, preclude the wealthy and prominent from having villas in the country or near the sea – refuges to get away to in times of difficulty or for relaxation. Certainly, the wealthy could afford larger living spaces and may have had luxuries indoors that were not available to the poorer folk. But outdoors, they needed to be prepared for crime and concerned for safety just like anyone else.

Living conditions were complicated by numerous disasters, some of human origin and many more “of nature.” In the course of 600 years, Antioch, according to known historical records • Was conquered 11 mes • Was sacked on five of those occasions • Was laid siege (but did not fall) two addional mes • Was burned to the ground (enrely or in large part) 4 mes • Was beset by dozens of earthquakes, 8 very large ones that did significant damage AUGUSTUS CAESAR • Was the site of at least 6 major riots that resulted in significant loss of life Roman Emperor who honored Antioch with great • Was the site of at least 3 major epidemics (25% mortality or higher) buildings. (10 BC) • Suffered at least 5 significant famines

According to Rodney Stark:

Any accurate portrait of Antioch in New Testament times must depict a city filled with misery, fear, despair, and hatred. A city where the average family lived a squalid life in filthy and cramped quarters, where at least half of the children died at birth or during infancy, and where most of the children who lived lost at least one parent before reaching maturity. A city filled with hatred and fear rooted in intense ethnic antagonism and exacerbated by a constant stream of strangers. A city so lacking in stable networks of attachments that petty incidents could prompt mob violence. A city where crime flourished and the streets were dangerous at night. And, perhaps above all, a city repeatedly smashed by cataclysmic catastrophes: where a resident could expect literally to be homeless from time to time, providing that he or she was among the survivors. (Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 1997: p. 160 f.)

We might ask why people flocked to such places. And the answer then, as now, is simply that the city is where one could find work, or food, or shelter – and in spite of the challenges, find some degree of security. In any case, this is what life was like. People did not know better and probably had no better alternatives.

It is into such a scene that the first Christian missionaries planted a church. We will consider how this happened next.

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