Antiochus of Palestine

Who is Antiochus of Palestine?

Antiochus of Palestine, also known as Antiochus Strategos and Antiochus the Monk, was a 7th-century monk.

He is believed to have been born near Ancyra. He lived first as a solitary, then became a monk and Abbot of the famous Lavra of St. Saba near Jerusalem. He witnessed the Persian invasion of Palestine in 614, and the massacre of forty-four of his companions by the Bedouins.

In 619, five years after the conquest of the Holy Land by Chosroes, Ancyra was taken and destroyed by the Persians, which compelled the monks of the neighbouring monastery of Attaline to leave their home, and to move from place to place. As they were, naturally, unable to carry many books with them, the Abbot Eustathius asked his friend Antiochus to compile an abridgment of Holy Scripture for their use, and also a short account of the martyrdom of the forty-four monks of St. Sabbas.

In compliance with this request he wrote a work known as the Pandects of Holy Scripture. It is a collection of moral sentences, drawn from Scripture and from early ecclesiastical writers.