Antipater of Bostra

ANTIPATER (an-tip´a-ter) OF BOSTRA: Bishop of Bostra (70 m. s. of Damascus) soon after 450. As a theologian he belongs to the opponents of the 203 Origenists, against whom he wrote his chief work (in Greek), the “Refutation.” Only a few fragments of it are preserved, in the “Parallels” of John of Damascus. Most of the homilies ascribed to Antipater are not his. Even the two on John the Baptist and Annunciation Day, which Migne claims for him, are doubtful; the first supposes a fully developed veneration of the Baptist, and its diction is suggestive of Byzantine rhetoric; the other address is more simple. The question as to the genuineness of the homilies can not be decided until more of them shall have been published. His works are in MPG, lxxxv., xcvi. (the quotations in John of Damascus).

Philipp Meyer.

Bibliography: Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Grœca, x. 518 sqq., Hamburg, 1807.