Rome and the East
cally at least, the Christians of Antioch spoke Greek and those of its territory
(chora) Aramaic. Similarly, Theodoret mentions a hermit from the territory
of Cyrrhus who knew no Greek.^84
Thus, though the evidence is slight and scattered, it is sufficient to show
that Aramaic was a living language in Roman Syria. But all the indications
are that it remained a rustic vernacular with no claim to rival Greek as a lan-
guage of culture;^85 it does not seem to have been until the fifth century that
Syriac came to be the vehicle of literature written in Roman Syria.^86 Further-
more, although the appearance of a Christian Syriac literature in Edessa in
the second and third centuries is something of great interest and importance,
it seems likely that we should see it as an off-shoot of, rather than as a rival to,
Christian Greek culture. In short, just as it seems unlikely that either a man
from Samosata or a ruler of Palmyra could have seen himself as in any sense
representative of the ‘‘Orient’’ as against the Graeco-Roman world, so there
is very little to indicate that such a claim would have evoked any response in
Roman Syria. More particularly, the most we could claim from parallel and
later evidence for the church at Antioch is that in the third century it may
have begun to penetrate to the non-Hellenised strata of the population.
These considerations must tend to call in question certain presuppositions
from which the events of the s and s have been approached. That done,
it is time to consider the course of these events themselves.
Palmyra and Antioch
If we turn from the complex and elusive questions of the cultural background
to the more immediate and concrete political setting, the primary question
is chronological—when did Palmyrene control of Antioch begin?
The relevant events begin with the capture of Valerian in / by Sha-
pur I, and the subsequent capture of Antioch.^87 After this campaign Shapur
. Theod.,Hist. Relig.(PGLXXXII, , ).
. Note, however, Theodoret’s account of a fourth-century monastic foundation near
Zeugma where the original group of Greek-speaking monks was soon followed by one of
Aramaic-speakers, which was kept separate but had complete parity with the first, inHist.
Relig.(PGLXXXII, –).
. See Duval (n. ), ; Baumstark (n. ), ff.; I. Ortiz di Urbina,Patrologia Syriaca
(), chap. V.
. The date rather than is argued by S. Lopuszanski,La date de la capture de
Valérien et la chronologie des empereurs gaulois(); cf. Th. Pekáry, ‘‘Bemerkungen zur Chro-
nologie des Jahrzehnts – n. Chr.,’’Historia (): , andPIR^2 L.