:salam2:
Antioch was a chief center of early Christianity. The city had a large population of Jewish origin in a quarter called the Kerateion, and so attracted the earliest missionaries. Evangelized, among others, by Peter himself, according to the tradition upon which the Antiochene patriarchate still rests its claim for primacy, and certainly later by Barnabas and Paul during Paul’s first missionary journey. Its converts were the first to be called Christians. This is not to be confused with Antioch in Pisidia, to which the early missionaries later travelled.
Re: Late Antiquity - Christianity
So where is this Antioch? As far as I know, Jesus spent his life in Palestine, then how Rome became the centre of Christianity?
Re: Late Antiquity - Christianity
Roman historical accounts describe an embassy sent by the "Indian king Porus (Pandion, Pandya or Pandita (Buddhism) to Caesar Augustus around 13 CE. The embassy was travelling with a diplomatic letter on a skin in Greek, and one of its members was a sramana who burned himself alive in Athens to demonstrate his faith. The event made a sensation and was described by Nicolaus of Damascus, who met the embassy at Antioch (near present day Antakya in Turkey) and related by Strabo and Dio Cassius. A tomb was made to the sramana, still visible in the time of Plutarch, which bore the mention:
“ΖΑΡΜΑΝΟΧΗΓΑΣ ΙΝΔΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΒΑΡΓΟΣΗΣ”
(“The sramana master from Barygaza in India”)
Strabo also states that Nicolaus of Damascus in giving the details of his tomb inscription specified his name was “Zarmanochegas” and he “immortalized himself according to the custom of his country.” Cassius Dio (Hist 54.9) and Plutarch cite the same story Charles Eliot (diplomat) in his Hinduism and Buddhism: An Historical Sketch (1921) considers that the name Zarmanochegas "perhaps contains the two words Sramana and Acarya."HL Jones’ translation of the inscription as mentioned by Strabo reads it as “The Sramana master, an Indian, a native of Bargosa, having immortalized himself according to the custom of his country, lies here.” These accounts at least indicate that Indian religious men (Sramanas, to which the Buddhists belonged, as opposed to Hindu Brahmanas) were circulating in the Levant (Bilad Ash-Shaam) during the time of Jesus.