which only ministered to luxury, and we may fairly assume that, like Tarsus and Alexandria, it would have its schools of rhetoric and philosophy, and we may add, with special reference to a question that will hereafter come under discussion, of medicine also. The population of Antioch, like that of most Eastern cities of the Empire, included many heterogeneous elements. "He who sits in our marketplace," said Libanius, in the fourth century, "may study the customs of all cities in the world."1 The bulk of the slaves and working classes were Syrians. The more wealthy citizens were either Greeks by descent or had adopted Greek language, customs, and religion. The prefect and the officials, civil or military, who accompanied him were, of course, Latins, either by birth or language. Mingled with these, and yet retaining their distinctness, were Jews who had flocked to that city in great numbers. The early monarchs of the dynasty of the Seleucidæ, true to the tolerant policy of Alexander, and emulating the Ptolemies in their application of that policy in increasing the population and the greatness of Alexandria, had attracted many Jews to settle in the new city by offering privileges which placed them on a level with the other citizens. The insane attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to enforce the religion and the customs of Greece on the Jews of Palestine was but a passing interruption to the concord thus established; and his successors after his death adopted a more liberal policy, and sought to conciliate their Jewish subjects by the somewhat singular step of presenting to 1 Libanius, "Antiochicus," i. p. 326, ed. Reisk. the chief synagogue of Antioch some of the brazen vessels which had been taken from the Temple of Jerusalem. The munificence of Herod, in embellishing the city, could hardly have been without fruit in securing the position of those who belonged to the race over which he ruled. Their influence in the Syrian Antioch may be measured by what is recorded of the Pisidian, and of other cities. Men and women who were weary of the religion in which they had been trained, or of the scepticism which had taken its place, would come to the synagogue to seek a higher truth, and the conspicuous position given in the list of the seven so-called deacons to the name of Nicolas, the proselyte of Antioch (Acts vi. 5), may be taken as evidence that at a very early stage in the history of the Christian Church it had attained at least some notice in the Syrian capital. What has been said will have been enough to indicate the general aspect of the city in its moral and social relations. The vices which made it a by-word of reproach, even at Rome, were dark and flagrant. When Roman generals issued orders that any soldier found within the precincts of the groves of Daphne should be punished with immediate dismissal, we may well believe they looked on the orgies that were held within the precincts of the sanctuary as fatal alike to discipline and manliness. The picture which Spenser has drawn in his "Faerie Queen," 2 of the gardens of Acrasia, might represent, in no overdrawn colours, the habitual life of its frequenters. At Antioch, how1 Josephus, "Wars," vii. 3, § 3. 2 Faerie Queen, Book ii. 5. ever, as in other cities, the profligacy of the inhabitants culminated in its religious festivals. There was the Maiuma, held in spring, in honour of Dionysos and Aphrodite, which kept its position even under all Christian influences, down to the time of Chrysostom, in which the Hetairai, or prostitutes, of Antioch, as Nymphs and Nereids, exposed themselves in the waters of one of the crystal lakes of Daphne to the gaze of the spectators. There was the Adonis festival, such as Milton has described it: Thammuz next came behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah.-"Paradise Lost," i. 446-457. The races of the Hippodrome offered excitement of another kind. The whole city was divided into factions, distinguished by green and blue badges, each having its own favourite charioteers, and contending for them with a clamorous eagerness, breaking at times into tumultuous fights like those which, under the Eastern emperors, became the scandal even of Christianized Byzantium. The private life of such a city was sure to be on a level with its public profligacy. As at Corinth, so here, the preachers of a new faith would be en countered by a fathomless impurity, stretching beyond the vices which still haunt the streets of all great cities into those darker shades of evil which we have learnt to shudder at, but not to name. The work which lay before the missionaries of the Gospel and the preacher of repentance must have been at Antioch much as it was at Corinth. "Such were some of you," (Cor. vi. 9, 11) might have been spoken, in the one case as in the other, to those who had been snatched as brands from the burning, after they had fallen to the lowest depths of shameless evil. It would be a labour at once of love and of surpassing interest to trace the working of the new leaven, operating, not to corrupt but to purify, on this seething mass of corruption, to put one's finger on the precise moment when the name of Jesus as the Christ, the Redeemer, and the Saviour, was heard there as a new element of life. This, however, lies almost, if not altogether, beyond the record of the Apostolic work. The widely-spread knowledge of our Lord's life, and works, and death to which St. Peter appeals, in speaking to Cornelius and his friends at Cæsarea, (Acts x. 37) may well be supposed to have already spread to the capital of the province, which had a large Jewish population, of whom many must, in the common course of things, have been present at the feasts in Jerusalem in the course of His ministry. The Procurator of the sub-province of Judæa, Pontius Pilate, could hardly have failed to report to the Prefect of Syria the trial and execution of one who claimed to be King of the Jews. Centurion and chiliarch, passing from one part of the province to another, may have carried the news of the appearance of the new sect, the followers of the Nazarene, who were taking their place side by side with Pharisees and Sadducees, Herodians and Essenes. Vague as they are, the words of St. Matthew (iv. 24) that the fame of Jesus "went throughout all Syria" suggest the thought of a rumour widening as it went, which may have passed beyond the heights of Lebanon and Hermon to the valley of the Orontes. After "the day of Pentecost we begin to tread on surer ground. The prominence of the proselyte of Antioch in the Church of Jerusalem has been already noticed. It is obvious, as the boundaries of the Church had not been yet enlarged by the teaching of the conversion of Cornelius, that he must have been what the Jews called a "proselyte of righteousness," bound by the covenant of circumcision to the observance of all other ordinances of the Mosaic law. He had passed through the synagogue of Antioch before he sought admission into the Church of Jerusalem. It is obvious that his selection by the multitude of Hellenistæ, or Greekspeaking Jews, who had joined the new society, implies that his social position entitled him to respect, and that his character had won their confidence, and it is, at least, probable that he had been chosen as the representative of those who, though Jews, were yet his fellow citizens and had known his probity in their previous intercourse with him. A little further on in the history of the Acts (xi. 20) we read that "they which were scattered abroad, upon the persecution about Stephen, travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, |