ANTIPATRO, bishop of BOSTRA. — In 457 he was consulted by the emperor Leo I concerning the authority of the Council of Chalcedon. The response has not come down to us. We have no other information about his life, except that he was bound by friendship to St. Euthymius of Palestine (473). A. distinguished himself as a preacher and controversialist.
Two of his homilies, known for a long period only in Latin translation, were published in the original text by A. Ballerini, Sylloge monumentorum ad mysterium Conceptionis immaculatae Virginis Deiparae illustrandum, II, Rome 1856, pp. 1–26, 411–69. One celebrates the birth of the Forerunner and also the mysteries that preceded it; the other, in honor of the Virgin, comments on the Gospel of the Annunciation and that of the Visitation. Both delivered on a Sunday, one week apart, they recall two elements of what may be called the primitive Eastern Advent, two feasts preparing for the Nativity of the Lord. There is no serious reason to doubt their authenticity. Cf. M. Jugie, La première fête mariale. L'Avent primitif, in Echos d'Orient, 22 (1923), pp. 129–52. Of other homilies by him, only quotations survive.
As a controversialist, A. is remembered for a Refutation of the Apology for Origen by Eusebius of Caesarea, in several books: a lost work, of which we find some interesting fragments in the acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Mansi, XIII, cols. 177–80), and in the Sacred Parallels of St. John Damascene (PG, 96, 468, 488–505). Gelasius, abbot of the Great Laura near Jerusalem (537–46), had it read in church to turn his monks away from Origenist errors. The Byzantine Church honors A. as a saint on June 13.