Serapion of Antioch

Serapion of Antioch was a Christian bishop of the late second and early third centuries who occupied the see of Antioch, one of the principal churches of the Roman East. Ancient ecclesiastical historians, above all Eusebius of Caesarea in the Ecclesiastical History, present him as the eighth bishop of Antioch, following Maximinus. Conventional chronologies based on later episcopal lists assign his tenure approximately to the years 191–211, though these dates are reconstructions rather than contemporary records. In his time Antioch remained a major imperial city and a leading center of Greek-speaking Christianity; its bishop exercised influence not only in Syria but also in neighboring regions such as Cilicia and, according to later tradition, Osrhoene.

Almost everything that can be known of Serapion’s teaching and activity comes from notices and excerpts preserved by Eusebius and from a brief entry in Jerome’s De Viris Illustribus. Eusebius reports that Serapion wrote a letter to Caricus and Pontius against the Montanists, quoting earlier anti-Montanist authors including Claudius Apollinaris of Hierapolis. He also addressed a work to Domninus, a Christian who during persecution had fallen away from the faith and turned to what Eusebius calls Jewish error; the letter sought his restoration. These writings show a bishop engaged with the principal doctrinal and pastoral problems of the Syrian churches: the New Prophecy originating in Phrygia, the strain of persecution, and the boundary between Christianity and Judaism.

Serapion’s best-known intervention concerned a gospel circulating under the name of Peter. The church at Rhossus in Cilicia had adopted this Gospel of Peter for public reading. Serapion at first allowed it, believing it consistent with orthodox faith. After obtaining a copy and studying it, he judged that it contained Docetic material that compromised the reality of Christ’s flesh and passion. He therefore forbade its use and wrote to the Rhossian community explaining the errors he had found. The fragments of this letter preserved by Eusebius constitute one of the earliest surviving episcopal evaluations of a gospel’s orthodoxy and an important document for the history of the New Testament canon in Syria.

Later Syriac sources associate Serapion with the church of Edessa, stating that he ordained Palut as bishop of that city and thereby connected the Edessene hierarchy to Antioch. While the details of Edessene succession remain debated among historians, the tradition attests to the prestige of the Antiochene see in the wider Syrian Christian world. Serapion died in the early third century, commonly dated to about 211, and was succeeded by Asclepiades, whom Eusebius notes had suffered as a confessor. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 30 October as a bishop of Antioch distinguished for learning and holiness. No reliable information survives concerning his birth, family, or burial, and his original works are lost except for the quotations given by Eusebius.