The topography of ancient Antioch is so effaced that we should search in vain over its site, nearly destitute as it is of any vestiges of the antique, for the point to which to attach such grand recollections. Here, as everywhere, Christianity was, doubtless, established in the poor quarters of the city and among the petty tradesfolk. The basilica, which is called "the old" and "apostolic"{12.42} to the fourteenth century, was situated in the street called Singon, near the Pantheon.[12.43] But no one knows where this Pantheon was. Tradition and certain vague analogies induced us to search the primitive Christian quarter alongside the gate, which even to-day is still called Paul's gate, _Bâb-bolos_,[12.44] and at the foot of the mountain, named by Procopius _Stavrin_, which overlooks the south-west coast from the ramparts of Antioch.[12.45] It was one of the quarters of the town which least abounded in pagan monuments. There we saw the remains of ancient sanctuaries dedicated to St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John. There appeared to have been the quarter where Christianity was longest maintained after the Mohammedan conquest. There too, as it appeared, was the quarter of "the saints," in opposition to the general profanity of Antioch. The rock is honeycombed like a beehive, with grottoes formerly used by the Anchorites. When one walks on these steeply cut declivities, where, about the fourth century, the good Stylites, disciples at once of India and of Galilee, of Jesus and of Cakya-Mouni, disdainfully contemplated the voluptuous city from the summit of their pillar or from their flower-adorned cavern,[12.46] it is probable that one is not far from the very spots where Peter and Paul dwelt. The Church of Antioch is the one whose history is most authentic and least encumbered with fables. Christian tradition, in a city where Christianity was perpetuated with so much vigor, ought to possess some value. The prevailing language of the Church of Antioch was the Greek. It is, however, quite probable that the suburbs where Syriac was spoken furnished a number of converts to the sect. In consequence, Antioch already contained the germ of two rival and, at a later period, hostile Churches, the one speaking Greek, and now represented by the Syrian Greeks, whether orthodox or Catholics; the other, whose actual representatives are the Maronites, having previously spoken Syriac and guarding it still as if it were a sacred tongue. The Maronites, who under their entirely modern Catholicism conceal a high antiquity, are probably the last descendants of those Syrians anterior to Seleucus, of those suburbans or _pagani_ of Ghisra, Charandama, etc.,[12.47] who from the first ages became a separate Church, were persecuted by the orthodox emperors as heretics, and escaped into the Libanus,[12.48] or, from hatred of the Grecian Church and in consequence of deeper sympathies, allied themselves with the Latins.