How early Christians viewed the ancient city
John Chrysostom on a gold medallion inlayed with enamel (10th–11th century).
Photo in public domain, via Metropolitan Museum of Art.
When a massive earthquake struck Antakya, Turkey, in 2023 (see Going, Going, Gone: Devastation in Antakya), this was, sadly, far from the first time. A long history of devastating earthquakes—along with thick alluvial deposits from the Orontes River—explains why so little of the ancient Greco-Roman city, Antioch-on-the-Orontes, survives and why neither the imperial residence nor the Great Church, begun under Constantine the Great, has been found. a
Antioch’s architectural glories are nevertheless preserved in the writings of some illustrious local figures, such as John Chrysostom (c. 349–407 CE)—a popular preacher and, later, a short-lived bishop of Constantinople. Unlike his teacher Libanius, who spoke of the wonders of the city, John tended to discourse on less famous, more everyday aspects of the physical spaces of Antioch: its marketplaces and alleyways, its homes, synagogues, and churches. But the one space that he repeatedly mentions as truly glorious is not what we might expect. These were the cemeteries, the burial places of the celebrated martyrs of Antioch, including Babylas, Ignatius, and Thecla, but also many anonymous saints slain for their Christian faith.
John very often spoke about Antioch’s cemeteries collectively—as a ring, a wreath, a fortification, or a pasture that encircled the city. In his imagination, there was a continuous space outside the city walls that formed an integral part of the city. Seeking to cultivate a distinctly Christian imagination among his audience, John re-envisioned the burial places that surrounded the city, transforming the cemeteries, which included graves of martyrs, from a cause for mourning into a cause for joy. In contrast to some in the Latin West who were just beginning to relocate the relics of martyrs into cities, John attempted to make the cemetery into a different sort of space altogether: The cemetery was where the kingdom of heaven met the earth, where martyrs were already living the resurrection life, the life of the angels.
By John’s time, Antioch had a long Christian history, and the city’s Christians were very proud of this fact. But John was also cultivating his audience’s geographical imagination: Antioch’s cemetery space, along with the relics of the saints interred there, were for him an integral and functional part of the city. In his sermon On the Cemetery and the Cross, John states that “by the grace of God our city is fortified [lit. walled in] with the relics of the saints on every side.” In another sermon, he writes:
The bodies of these saints fortify our city more securely than any wall that is of adamant or impregnable. Indeed, just like some towering rocks that thrust forward on all sides, they don’t just beat back the attacks of these perceptible and visible enemies, but also the machinations of the invisible demons.
(On the Egyptian Martyrs 1)
Eighteenth-century engraving of the ruins of Antioch (modern Antakya) in southern Turkey. Louis-François Cassas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Although the bodies of the martyrs were in fact outside the city walls in cemeteries, through this metaphor the martyrs were integrated into the space of the city, as its physical and spiritual fortifications. Instead of bringing the relics into the city, as some were beginning to do, John metaphorically and imaginatively incorporates the relics into the city’s fortifications.
John also describes the cemeteries, counterintuitively, as pastures. In contrast with the distinctly urban “wall” metaphor, this metaphor was suburban or even rural. Nevertheless, it continues to have the city as its reference point, with the pasture being “outside the city.” In a sermon delivered on the feast day of Drosis, a local martyr, he says:
Whenever hardworking shepherds see the sun’s rays becoming brilliant and daytime becoming warmer after a long winter, they lead the sheep out of the pen and off to the usual pastures. Imitating them, this good shepherd [i.e., a local bishop] too has led this holy crowd and Christ’s spiritual flock off to these spiritual pastures of the saints. When they stand at the feedbox, the sheep are satisfied. But whenever they’re outside the pens, they reap a more abundant benefit from the plains.
(On the Holy Martyr Drosis 1)
Similarly, in a sermon John delivered on the Feast of the Ascension (On the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1), the cemeteries that house the martyrs are referred to as the “pure springs” to which the shepherd (i.e., the bishop) leads his flock. While the people have moved from inside to outside the city, the sheep have been led from inside the sheepfold to the pasture. In both cases, the inside is admittedly good, but the outside is better. Therefore, although the “pasture” or “plains” (i.e., the cemetery outside the city) is the focus of the metaphor, it would make no sense without the rootedness of the place of the sheepfold where the feedbox is found, namely the city.
Finally, in a sermon John preached on Good Friday in a cemetery called Koimeterion (lit. dormitory), he explains that the liturgy is held there because “we celebrate the memorial of the cross, and the crucified one was crucified outside the city.… Therefore, let’s go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach” (On the Cemetery and the Cross 1). John’s discourse reflects a liturgical trend that was taking root throughout the Roman Empire in the fourth century. With each city standing in for Jerusalem, meeting outside the city walls was akin to meeting outside of Jerusalem. Paraphrasing Hebrews 13:13, John exhorts his audience to “go out” to meet Christ, who is even now present outside the walls. Far from an uninhabited space, “outside the city” in the cemeteries is where one goes to meet Christ. “Outside the city” is also where one goes to meet and worship alongside the martyrs. To gather at a martyr’s shrine (martyrion) outside the city means to commune with the martyrs, who are not dead but asleep and resting, and with Christ, who was crucified but is alive.
As we have seen, John Chrysostom designates Antioch’s extramural cemeteries either metaphorically or by negation. The metaphors show that this space was integral to the life of the city, as a place of protection (city walls) or provision (pastures). The negative definition—not inside but outside the city—turned the cemetery into a sort of mirror of the city with inhabitants of its own. According to John, when city-dwellers entered into this space, they came to live alongside those who were living the life of the resurrection, for this place was no necropolis (“city of the dead”) but a city of those who were truly alive in Christ.
Robert Edwards is Lecturer in Christian Thought and History and Director of Postgraduate Studies at Brisbane School of Theology in Australia, and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Queensland.
Notes
a. See Florent Heintz, “Polyglot Antioch: Will Archaeologists Ever Find the City Described in the Literary Sources?” Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 2000.
