ANTILIBANUS

16. and 17. He is apparently to return with the kings of Parthia, but he is also, in Rev 17«-", identified with the beast of the abyss (cf. Sib. Or. v. 28-34).

(e) The myth of Simon Magus, or that of the false prophet. — This myth seems to have been common in Christian circles, and Simon Magus (wh. see) became the typical (Jewish) prophet and magician who opposed Christianity.

2. Synthesis of the elements. — These variouselements possess so much in common that it was inevitable that they should be combined in the figure of the Satanic opponent whom the Christ would utterly destroy as a pre-condition of establishing His Kingdom of God. A study of the Book of Revelation, as well as of other NT writings (e.j. 2 Th 2' -'2, 2 Co 6'K 1 Jn 2"-« 43, 2 Jn ', Rev ll'-i2 13' -18 17. 19" -2', Mk 13»-2»), will show that there was always present in the minds of the writers of the NT a superhuman figure, Satanic in power and character, who was to be the head of opposition both to the people of Christ and to the Christ Himself. This person is represented in Assumption of Moses (ch. 8), Ascension of Isaiah (ch. 4), as well as in other Jewish writings, as one who possessed the Satanic supremacy over the army of devils. He was not a general tendency, but a definite personality. As such it was easy to see his counterpart or incarnation in historical characters. Indeed, the entire anti-Messianic programme was em-ployed to characterize historical situations. We must think similarly of the use of ' the man of lawlessness ' of St. Paul (2 Th 2^; see Man of Sin) and the various opponents of Christ in the Apocalypse. Transcendental pictures and current esohatology set forth the Chris-tian's fear on the one hand of the Roman Emperor or Empire as a persecuting power, and on the other of Jewish fanaticism. Just which historical persons were in the mind of the writers It is now impossible to say with accuracy, but Nero and Domitian are not unlikely.

In the Patristic period the eschatological aspects of the anti-Messianic hope were developed, but again as a mystical picture of historical conditions either existing or expected. In Ephraera Syrus we have the fall of the Roman Empire attributed to Antichrist. He is also by the early Church writers sometimes identified with the false Jewish Messiah, who was to work miracles, rebuild the Temple, and establish a great empire with demons as his agents. Under the inspiration of the two Witnesses (Elijah and Enoch) the Messianic revolt against the Antichrist was to begin, the Book of Revelation being interpreted Uterally at this point. The saints were to be exposed to the miseries that the book describes, but the Messiah was to slay Antichrist with the breath of His mouth, and establish the Judgment and the conditions of eternity.

Thus in Christian literature that fusion of the elements of the Antichrist idea which were present in Judaism and later Christianity is completed by the addition of the traits of the false prophet, and extended under the influence of the current polemic against Jewish Messian-ism. The figure of Antichrist, Satanic, Neronic, falsely prophetic, the enemy of God and His Kingdom, moves out into theological history, to be identified by successive ages with nearly every great opponent of the Church and its doctrines, whether persecutor or heretic.

Shailer Mathews.

ANTILIBANUS,— Jth 1'. See Lebanon.

ANTIMONY.— Is 54u RVm. See Eye.

ANTIOCH (Syrian).— By the issue of the battle of Ipsus, Seleucus Nikator (b.c. 312-280) secured the rule over most of Alexander the Great's Asiatic empire, which stretched from the Hellespont and the Mediterranean on the one side to the Jaxartes and Indus on the other. The Seleucid dynasty, which he founded, lasted for 247 years. Possessed with a mania for building cities and calling them after himself or his relatives, he founded no fewer than 37, of which 4 are mentioned in the NT —

36

ANTIOCH

(1) Antioch of Syria (Ac 11"), (2) Seleucia (Ac 13<), (3) Antioch of Pisidia (Ac 13" I421, 2 Ti 3"), and (4) Laodicea (Col 413-16, Rey 1" 3"). The most famous of the 16 Antioohs, which he built and named after his father Antiochus, was Antioch on the Orontes in Syria. The spot was carefully chosen, and religious sanction given to it by the invention of a story that sacred birds had revealed the site while he watched their flight from a neighbouring eminence. It was poUtically of advantage that the seat of empire should be removed from the Euphrates valley to a locality nearer the Mediterranean. The new city lay in the deep bend of the Levant, about 300 miles N. of Jerusalem. Though 14 miles from the sea, the navigable river Orontes, on whose left bank it was built, united it with Seleucia and its splendid harbour. Connected thus by the main caravan roads with the commerce of Babylon, Persia, and India, and with a seaport keeping it in touch with the great world to the W., Antioch speedily fell heir to that vast trade which had once been the monopoly of Tyre. Its seaport Seleucia was a great fortress, like Gibraltar or Sebastopol. Seleucus attracted to his new capital thousands of Jews, by offering them equal rights of citizenship with all the other inhabitants. The citizens were divided into 18 wards, and each commune attended to its own municipal affairs.

His successor, Antiochus i., Soter (e.g. 280-261), introduced an abundant water supply into the city, so that every private house had its own pipe, and every public spot its graceful fountain. He further strove to render Antioch the intellectual rival of Alexandria, by inviting to his court scholars, such as Aratus the astronomer, and by superintending the translation into Greek of learned works in foreign tongues. In this way the invaluable history of Babylon by Berosus, the Chaldsean priest, has been rescued from oblivion.

The succession of wars which now broke out between the Seleucidse and the Ptolemys is described in Dn 11. The fortunes of the war varied greatly. Under the next king but one, Seleucus 11., Kallinikus (b.c. 246-226), Ptolemy Euergetes captured Seleucia, installed an Egyptian garrison in it, and harried the Seleucid empire as far as Susiana and Bactria, carrying off to Egypt an immense spoil. Worsted on the field, KalUnikus devoted himself to the embellishment of his royal city. As founded by S. Nikator, Antioch had consisted of a single quarter. Antiochus i., Soter, had added a second, but Kallinikus now included a third, by annexing to the city the island in the river and connecting it to the mainland by five bridges. In this new area the streets were all at right angles, and at the intersection of the two principal roads the way was spanned by a tetrapylon, a covered colonnade with four gates. The city was further adorned with costly temples, porticoes, and statues. But the most remarkable engineering feat begun in this reign was the excavation of the great dock at Seleucia, the building of the protecting moles, and the cutting of a canal inland through high masses of soUd rock. The canal is successively a cutting and a tunnel, the parts open to the sky aggregating in all 1869 ft., in some places cut to the depth of 120 ft., while the portions excavated as tunnels (usually 24 ft. high) amount in all to 395 ft.

With Antiochus iii., the Great (b.c. 223-187), the fortunes of the city revived. He drove out the Egyptian garrison from Seleucia, ended the Ptolemaic sovereignty over Judffia, reduced all Palestine and nearly all Asia Minor to his sway, until his might was finally shattered by the Romans in the irretrievable defeat of Magnesia (B.C. 190). After the assassination of his son Seleucus iv., PhUopator (b.c. 187-175), who was occupied mostly in repairing the flnancial losses his kingdom had sustained, the brilliant but wholly unprincipled youth Antiochus iv Epiphanes (b.c. 175-164), succeeded to the throne. With the buffoonery of a Caligula and the vice of a Nero, he united the genius for architecture and Greek culture which he inherited from his race. In his dreams Antioch