Antipatris (Ἀ ντί π ατρις)
Antipatris, a Hellenistic town of Palestine, stood at the eastern edge of the Plain of Sharon, where the military road from Jerusalem to CAEsarea left the hills. Under the protection of a body of Roman cavalry and infantry, St. Paul was brought thither by night, and thence, with a diminished escort, to CAEsarea (Acts 23:31, Acts 23:32). Antipatris was a border town between JudAEa and Samaria (Neubauer, Géogr. du Talm., 1868, p. 80f.), and after it was reached there would be less danger of a Jewish attack. Josephus (Ant . xvi. v. 2) gives an account of its foundation:
‘Herod erected another city in the plain called Kapharsaba, where he Chose out a fit place, both for plenty of water and goodness or soil, and proper for the production of what was there planted, where a river encompassed the city itself, and a grove of the beet trees for magnitude was round about it: this he named Antipatris, from his father Antipater.’
The historian elsewhere identifies it with Kapharsaba (Ant . xiii. xv. 1), and Robinson (Biblical Researches, iv. 139f.), followed by Schürer (ii. i. 130f.), naturally concludes that the site must be the modern Kefr Sâbâ; but, as the latter place cannot be described as well-watered, Conder, Warren, G. A. Smith, and Buhl all favour Rasel-‘Ain, a little farther south, at the source of the Aujah.
James Strahan.