AN INTERESTING RELIC

New Zealand Tablet, 4 October 1917, Page 23

AN INTERESTING RELIC

Portraits of Christ and the Apostles which, it is believed, may be authentic, are on an old chalice dug up from the ruins of Antioch and now in the possession of a firm of art dealers in New York (states the North-West Review). The chalice, according to the dealers, came directly to them from the hands of the excavators in 1910. It can be dated with certainty to the second half of the first century A.D., says Dr. Gustavus A. Eisen, the archaeologist, who is now in this country and who has made a preliminary report upon it in the American Journal of Archaeology. It was found by Arabs digging a well in. Antioch, Syria. At the depth of many meters they came upon underground chambers, one of which contained the treasure. It is probable, say experts, that the chalice is a relic of the cathedral erected in Antioch by Constantine the Great after his removal of the capital of his empire to Constantinople. This Antioch church was intended to be the centre of Christian worship in the East, and remained standing until the year 526, when during an assemblage of 250,000 Christians, the city was levelled by an earthquake so disastrous that one building could not be distinguished from another among the ruins.