09 - Antioch

It was impossible, of course, for Antioch to consist entirely of idlers who spent their days lounging around the gardens and their nights in drunkenness and fornication. Antioch had to be fed and housed, as well as amused. Food and raw materials were brought into the city from all the provinces of Asia Minor, much of it through the mountain passes by camel or donkey, and some of it by ship.

There was also a lively commerce between the cities of Jerusalem and Antioch, and, as these things normally happen, news of Messiah spread rapidly from one to the other. There was a large Jewish settlement in the Syrian capital and it quickly became the center of the first congregation of Messiah in Syria.

The Jewish community existed as a little island on the right bank of the Orontes, right in the middle of the ocean of sin. It was clustered around the great synagogue, which was famous as the repository of certain holy vessels from the first temple in Jerusalem. All Jews of Antioch, as well as converts, belonged to the synagogue, whether they followed the Law of Moses or believed that Messiah had already come.


The right bank of the river was the workshop of Antioch. From here the coppersmiths, weavers, and sandal makers went daily into the streets and markets of the city. Slaves and freedmen stood in the open air under canopies of woven leaves to carry on their work. Shopkeepers chaffered loudly with customers, and moneychangers clashed their trays to attract attention to their tables.

The crowds were thickest and noisiest on the bank of the river where some of the incoming boats dropped anchor, and long rows of naked men carried the bales and bundles of merchandise to the warehouses like beasts of burden. Here and there little canals extended from the river, allowing other boats to bring their cargoes right into the yards of the warehouses.

One day Saul and Barnabas entered one such yard where they found a crowd of workers gathered around two men, a short, black-bearded Jew with brown skin and glittering Oriental eyes, the other a towering Gentile. Both of them were talking to the workers about the resurrection of Messiah and salvation.

Barnabas told Saul that they were in the warehouse yard of the rich Jewish merchant, Manaen, who’d been brought up in the court of Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee. Manaen’s conversion had raised the believers’ standing in the eyes of the Jewish community and was the reason that there was little opposition to Jews becoming Christians there. A number of prominent Gentiles also joined the new faith, but for now their conversion was kept secret.

Saul was here to meet two preachers, a Jew named Simeon, who was called “Niger,” and a Gentile convert named Lucius of Cyrene. They were active among both Jews and Gentiles and had won many souls, particularly among the Gentiles who came to the synagogue. They also went into the markets and warehouse yards and preached to the workers during their rest periods. People started calling them “prophets”, a title no longer used by the Jews, but which had come into vogue among the new believers.

The shopkeepers’ booths and stalls had all closed for the evening, and some workers from nearby streets had also come to the warehouse yard. They’d heard that Jewish messengers had arrived from the Holy City this evening, sent by the mother congregation to preach the tidings of Messiah. Some of them had never heard the gospel preached before, but had often heard fellow workers, Jews and non-Jews, talk about “the anointed one.” The gospel had spread into all corners of laboring Antioch among the forges and smithies, the weavers, potters and pack carriers.

So this was the group to whom Paul preached his first sermon in Antioch.

“Come all of you who are weary and heavily burdened. Messiah brings consolation and help to all who suffer. There is no pain, no anguish, and no degree of slavery he didn’t feel on his own body. He took it all on himself freely, so that in suffering he might redeem those who are in bonds. The anointed one himself was tortured on the cross for all who are poor and oppressed, and God raised him up to life on the third day. Now he sits at the right hand of God, the protector of all who suffer.

“When he lived on earth he taught men to love and help each other. And those who make a bond with him are beyond the reach of evil for you can be sure that no matter what happens to you on earth you will be raised up by him into the world beyond. He will raise you from death, and you will find eternal life in the midst of your loved ones.”

“Will he bring me together with my wife Vespa?” called a slave from out of the corner.

“Where is your beloved Vespa, brother?” asked Saul.

“I don’t know. We lived in peace together in a little house by the sea on what my net brought out of the water. One day the government seized us because of a rebellion on the island, and we were put on the slave market. I was purchased by my master and brought to Antioch. I don’t know what happened to her.”

“She too will hear of his name. She’ll turn to him, and pray to him, even as you do, and both of you will unite with Messiah. And no matter how far you are from each other, you’ll be united in him. He’ll bring you together in eternal life when you come before him. Be assured that you will find her. She’ll be waiting for you at his side.”

These were words slaves understood.


After that Saul continued to preach in the synagogues, workshops, and marketplaces, to both Jews and Gentiles. Within a few months the congregation of believers in Antioch was in perfect unity, so that there was no difference between circumcised and uncircumcised.

The faith penetrated to all levels of the population, rich and poor alike. People everywhere heard about the God-man, or Son of God as they began to call him, who had taken all the pains and sorrows of mankind on himself to redeem all human beings from sin. All who believe in him are redeemed from their sins, becoming like newborn children. And though their bodies are still enslaved, their souls are free from sin, and they are bound to him in the highest glory in heaven. When Messiah returns, there will be no more masters and no more slaves, no strong and no weak, no ruler and no ruled. There will only be saved and lost, those who believed and those who did not. All who believe will share an eternal life of peace, glory and everlasting satisfaction, united with those from whom they’d been torn in life. Those who do not believe will be lost forever.

This belief kindled hope that had been extinguished, and brought light where darkness had seemed complete and immovable.


One day, a procession of sober men and women walked along Corso Street. Their eyes were modestly fixed on the ground to avoid looking at the panderers of lust offering their wares along with the stargazers, snake charmers, and dancing Arabian harlots.

These men and women were easily distinguishable from the rest of the population. Their clothes were of sackcloth. They used no dark cosmetics for their eyes or bright cosmetics for their lips and cheeks, and they didn’t drench their bodies in exciting or oppressive perfumes. They took no part in the open games and ceremonies or in any of the city celebrations. They never went to the temples or engaged in the sacrifices and orgies.

The sight of the “faithful” was particularly infuriating to the wicked element of the city, which included many of the wealthy idle young men. On this occasion, one young buck made an obscene gesture, and cried out, “Here come the anointed!”

For some reason this particular word caught the fancy of the bored idlers. A score of them imitated the obscene gesture, and shouted derisively, “Anointed! The anointed!”

The word caught on and became a title of mockery for the believers in Antioch.

When Saul heard of this new fashion, he said, “God Himself put the word in their mouths. For even as our lord was anointed by God to wear the crown of thorns, even so are we anointed to suffer for his name and to live a life of purity and holiness in our faith. Our lord is called the anointed Christ, and we will call ourselves the anointed followers.”

Thus from that time on, they called themselves the anointed Christians.


Saul’s influence through his preaching was great, but the influence of his actions was even greater, for he practiced what he preached. The day after he arrived in Antioch he found employment at his trade and earned enough for his modest needs. It was never his practice to apply to the charity fund of either the believers or of the general Jewish congregation, as other visiting preachers did. This had a double effect. It raised him in the eyes of the congregation, and it confirmed him in his feeling of independence. He was free to speak his mind.

Saul’s personal attitude about Jewish ritual was so correct that even the strictest Pharisees of the Jewish community could find no fault with him. Even though he preached that the discipline of the law should be lightened for the Gentiles, he gave full obedience to the law in his own life. He was scrupulous in the observation of kosher foods, and he preached the sanctity of the Sabbath to Gentiles as well as Jews. In his personal devotions, his prayers were so intense and passionate that he sometimes fell into a faint in the middle of it. He made no resolution, took no new step, without first praying long and earnestly in the privacy of his room. Titus, who shared his room, often woke up in the middle of the night to find Saul stretched out in agonizing prayer calling insistently and passionately on God. He often fell asleep, or perhaps lost consciousness while doing so. Titus would then lift him to the mattress and refresh him with some wine.

For all the hours he spent in agonizing prayer, once a resolution was fixed in his mind, there was no changing him. It was then as if he’d received clear instructions from above, through a divine voice.


One day a wandering prophet named Agabus brought news of an impending famine in Jerusalem and in all Judea. Indeed the fields lay parched in the sun and the latter rain had delayed so long that the grain was withering away. A time of bitter hunger was approaching for all in the Holy Land.

The Jews immediately started to collect money to help the believers in Jerusalem. This was not unusual for they were used to paying taxes, tithes and offerings to the Temple. But the Gentiles were not accustomed to giving to charity or to sharing their bread with the needy. So Saul decided this was a golden opportunity to teach the uncircumcised believers about the virtue especially associated with Abraham, that of compassion. He exhorted Gentile believers, slave and free alike, to spare something from their meager daily rations, earned in the sweat of their brow, for “brothers” they’d never seen, whose existence they’d been unaware of until a little while ago, and who lived in the strange and distant hateful Jewish city of Jerusalem. He told them again how Jesus had submitted to all the sorrows of the world, for strange people he’d never seen, for Jews and Gentiles of all lands, taking them to his heart and binding them to himself in eternal love. And thus all who were united in the faith of Messiah were no longer strangers to each other.

“Though you’ve never seen them,” he pleaded, “they’re your own brothers in the blood Jesus offered for all of us, and in the spirit that binds us to each other. For all of us have died to our sins and are born again in the spirit, in love and faith. So even though they are not your brothers and sisters in blood, they are your brothers and sisters in spirit. By the pity and love you show to them you bind yourselves to them in Jesus.”

And so the Gentiles, side by side with the Jews, took out the last copper coins, their food for tomorrow, and threw them into the common fund. Poor women brought their last cruses of oil to sell. Slaves brought part of their daily ration, the lean cakes that were their only food, and put them at the feet of the messengers. When Saul saw all this, he knew it was a sign that the Gentiles’ offering was acceptable to God and that the compassion that had awakened in their hearts made them children of Abraham.

When the offerings had all been collected, the elders of the congregation, Simon Niger and Lucius and Manaen, chose Saul and Barnabas to carry the gift to the holy ones in Jerusalem.


In Jerusalem Barnabas brought Saul before the elders of the congregation, James, Simon, and John. He told them of the work Saul had done in Antioch and how he drew the hearts of the Gentiles to the God of Israel through Jesus. He explained how Saul had trained them in the virtue of Father Abraham, the virtue of compassion.

Barnabas laid down the bags of money that had been gathered from among the Gentiles, and said, “Here is the proof that for the Gentiles too the gates of salvation have been opened.”

When the elders of the congregation saw this wonder, they rejoiced and agreed God had taken pity on the Gentiles and had given purpose to their life. Nevertheless, they did not put their hands on Saul, and they did not invest him with authority. But they sent Barnabas back to Antioch, with Saul under him. Barnabas also took with him John Mark, his sister’s son, for the boy had now grown into manhood. And the three of them set out for Antioch.