An´tioch. Two places of this name are mentioned in the New Testament.
Antioch, 1
A city on the banks of the Orontes, 300 miles north of Jerusalem, and about 30 from the Mediterranean. It was situated in the province of Seleucis, called Tetrapolis. It was the metropolis of Syria, the residence of the Syrian kings, and afterwards became the capital of the Roman provinces in Asia. It ranked third, after Rome and Alexandria, among the cities of the empire, and was little inferior in size and splendor to the latter. Its suburb Daphne was celebrated for its grove and fountains, its asylum and temple were dedicated to Apollo and Diana. It was very populous; within 150 years after its erection the Jews slew 100,000 persons in it in one day. In the time of Chrysostom the population was computed at 200,000, of whom one-half, or even a greater proportion, were professors of Christianity. Cicero speaks of the city as distinguished by men of learning and the cultivation of the arts. A multitude of Jews resided in it. Seleucus Nicator granted them the rights of citizenship, and placed them on a perfect equality with the other inhabitants. These privileges were continued to them by Vespasian and Titus. Antioch is called libera by Pliny, having obtained from Pompey the privilege of being governed by its own laws.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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