What was the school of Antioch?

It was at Antioch that those scattered in the persecution after the murder of Stephen "spoke to Greeks also" and many believed. It was an Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.

By the 300s, Antioch was established as a major centre for the Christian faith. When, at the Council of Nicea in 325, particular cities and bishops were identified as having a "place of honour" with wider jurisdiction over other bishoprics (canon 6 of the Council of Nicea), the top four were Rome, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem (later, Constantinople was identified as second).

In the early centuries, the classes for new converts (catechetical schools) morphed into centres for Christian thought, sometimes compared to modern-day universities. There were catechetical schools at Alexandria, and at Antioch.

The school of Antioch has become associated with a plain interpretation of Scripture and also with the teachings of Nestorius, condemned at the 431 council of Ephesus.

The history of the school of Antioch has been divided into three periods: 170 to 350, 350 to 433, and from 433 onwards.

So what was the school of Antioch, and who were its leading thinkers? An early representative of this school was Theophilus of Antioch. Later, a key thinker associated with the middle period (350 to 433) was Diodorus of Tarsus, whose disciples included Theodore of Mopsuetia and John Chrysostom.

Hear what Church historian Philip Schaff wrote about the school of Antioch:

"The Antiochian School was not a regular institution with a continuous succession of teachers, like the Catechetical School of Alexandria, but a theological tendency, more particularly a peculiar type of hermeneutics and exegesis which had its centre in Antioch. The characteristic features are, attention to the revision of the text, a close adherence to the plain, natural meaning according to the use of language and the condition of the writer, and justice to the human factor."

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