1.2. Antioch in the New Testament (51st Maronite Meditations Podcast)
So far as we know, none of the apostles or disciples went there during the life of Christ. However, Antiochians met the faith very early on, almost certainly in the lifetime of Christ, for we are told that one of the first deacons was Nicolaus, a “proselyte” from Antioch (Acts 6:5). Prior to Christianity, a proselyte was one who had been a Gentile but had become a Jew. Martin writes of this passage:
Since the following narratives indicate that Stephen and Philip were born Jews and the grammar of the sentence clearly applies the description “proselyte” only to Nicolaus, the implication is that the others in the list were born Jews and he alone had come into Judaism from paganism by way of circumcision … Cadbury … thought that others in the list might have been gentiles. But this theory is dispelled by Nicolaus’ position in the list as last. Gentiles would have been listed after born Jews and proselytes. … Nicolaus is the first named gentile to come to faith (cf. the implication in Acts 2:10).
It is not clear, however, whether Nicolaus had become a Jew before becoming a Christian, or whether he came straight from his paganism to Christianity. The word prosēlutos often meant one who had “come over from polytheism to Judean religion and practice”, but it came to mean a “convert” more generally, even a convert to the worship of the goddess Isis. No other relevant and reliable information about Nicolaus has been preserved, so no one knows how close his ongoing ties with Antioch were, but this fact points to the possibility of a direct link between the inner circle of the early Church and that city.
Nothing further is said in relation to Antioch until we learn that after the persecution which followed in the wake of Stephen’s martyrdom – probably by 36 – missionaries were spread as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, with the significant detail that they preached only to Jews (11:19). The evangelisation of the Gentiles begins in this way:
There were some Cypriots and Cyrenians among (the evangelists) …, who came to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks as well, preaching the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The news about them reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord. And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. (Acts 11:20-26)
So, when the Book of Acts says that the Cypriots and Cyrenians preached to the Greeks “as well”, it would mean that these were pagan Gentiles who understood the Greek language, not necessarily even Greeks by birth, and certainly not Greek-speaking Jews. Antioch was a good place for this evangelisation, since Jewish opponents of Christianity had much less power in Antioch than in Jerusalem, where they made the spread of Christianity dangerous. It must be remembered that Cyprus is not far from Antioch by sea, and that the Antiochians probably saw many Cypriots: this could have been a factor in the Barnabas Cypriot’s success in Antioch.
Barnabas was clearly an important figure in the mission to the Gentiles: he was mentioned in Acts 4 and 9. Acts 4:36-37 tells us: “Joseph, also named by the apostles Barnabas (which is translated “son of encouragement”), a Levite, a Cypriot by birth, sold a piece of property that he owned, then brought the money and put it at the feet of the apostles”. The fact that he was a Cypriote is significant: it suggests two things, first, that he shared the more open attitude to Greeks that the other Christian Cypriotes did, and secondly, that the Jerusalem church may have sent him to Antioch because he knew the Cypriotes who had begun the mission, or could be expected to have a natural fellow-feeling with them. It was Barnabas who recommended Saul to the church in Jerusalem when they doubted the sincerity of his conversion (9:29), and he spent some years with St Paul, refers which see Galatians 2:1 and 9. It is thought that Paul and Barnabas began their mission in Antioch around the year 40. It may also be significant that Paul and Barnabas, who did not always travel together, used Antioch as their base, until in about 55 or 56, when Paul returned not to Antioch but to Jerusalem, where he was arrested, and his ability to travel as he willed was lost. Antioch was not only well-placed for missionary work, it acted as a base for people like Barnabas and Paul, who although not born there, worked from it. Antioch caught the spark from Jerusalem, and then it spread the fire.