the hills for many miles around are covered with ruins, and the sole denizen of Kulaát Simân gave me the names of some twenty sites in its immediate neighbourhood, which would, I have no doubt, well repay the labours of the ecclesiologist and the antiquarian. I must now quit the precincts of the Church of S. Symeon Stylites, to which I have devoted so much space; for this is not the place to discuss either the religious or the historical bearings of that very curious phase of Eastern Christianity of which it presents the most remarkable, but not the only surviving memorial: for I afterwards visited the ruins of another large Church celebrated for the asceticism of another Symeon Stylites (the Younger), a contemporary of Evagrius Scholasticus, who has recorded some particulars of his personal intercourse with "this admirable man." This Church is situated between three and four hours north-east of Antioch, on the summit of a mountain, synonymous with this "Jebel es-Simân;" which rises abruptly from the narrow plain which here skirts the Mediterranean, and in which the modern village of Souadieh is situated. The ruins are inconsiderable in comparison with those which have been above described, but the remains of the pillar, cut out of the live rock, with rude basemouldings, are much more pronounced; while the ground-plan of the Church is peculiar, and would repay the outlay of much more time than I was able to devote to it. With regard to the state of Christianity which could not only produce, but admire and repeat, such a type of sanctity as Symeon of the Column, it is not without interest to find a kind of anticipatory condemnation of it, in the language of one of the most eminent of the Greek Fathers, whose life and character, not less truly ascetic than that of his eccentric countryman, presents a marked contrast to it; while the Church has tacitly disallowed it; for, although she canonised the Syrian Fakeer, the example of his peculiar form of devotion was soon suffered to fall into disuse, nor have any attempts been since made to revive it. It were an anachronism to suppose that the following passage from a Homily of S. Chrysostom, delivered probably at Antioch, could have any personal reference to the eccentric hermit of the Mandra in the neighbouring mountains: but it certainly has a close, and even literal, bearing on his case. The preacher is deploring the general decay of ancient piety among the Christians of his day; which he ascribes to the relaxation of the wholesome discipline of former times, and the consequent enervation of Christian energy, through the love of money and worldly conformity. He adds: "And if one be found having a vestige of the ancient philosophy, leaving the cities, and the market-places, and the society of his fellows, and the direction of others, he betakes him to the mountains: and if asked the reason of this retire ment, he invents a pretext which cannot be allowed. For,' he says, 'I start aside lest I also perish, and my virtue lose its edge.' But how much better edge, and gain others, were it for thee to lose the rather than remaining on high to neglect thy perishing brethren1!" But I must proceed with my contrasts; and turn from the vision of the Church in the zenith of its power, which has been conjured up by these ruins, to its actual material degradation as witnessed by the present aspect of the once proud capital of the East, which claimed for itself the somewhat presumptuous designation of "the City of God," but is ever glorious for the memories of the apostolic and early Christian ages with which it is associated. No ancient city of any consideration has more utterly perished than Antioch. It once boasted a population of little short of half a million; and its public buildings, civil and sacred, vied with those of imperial Rome herself in their magnificence; and though frequently desolated by earthquakes, yet under the fostering care of successive Emperors it rose again and again phoenix-like from its ruins. Now not a single vestige of its ancient magnificence is to be seen in its squalid streets. Not even the fragments of a column or capital or cornice or frieze are to be seen built into modern hovels, as in most other ancient cities; even the medieval castle, St Chrysost. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. Cap. 1. Hom. vi. ap. fin. 1 crowning the height, preserves but scanty traces of the Crusaders' or of Saracenic architecture. As regards the present condition of the Orthodox community in Antioch it is somewhat ameliorated from what it was thirty years ago, as described in the second Appendix to this volume, when their only place of worship was a natural cave in the rock, which they shared with the flocks and herds of the Moslem shepherds. This cave they disposed of, about ten years since, to the Latins, and an inscription records that the present Pope has restored it to public worship'. The marble columns of this old church were used in the construction of the handsome and spacious Church in which the Greeks now worship, erected on the site of an old one; after centuries of desecration. The permission to restore the building was obtained from Ibrahim Pasha, during his temporary occupation of Syria,— that golden era for the Christians and other oppressed nationalities of this part of the Turkish Empire-but it was not completed until some twenty years ago, under the present Patriarch. The icons, lamps, church-books and vessels are the gifts of the Emperor of Russia. A handsome throne is provided for the Patriarch in the middle of the apse, This inscription runs as follows: "Honori S. Petri, Quod Antiochiæ ministerium gerens, illic sacra officia obivit, Ecclesiam, loco a dominis redempto, Pius IX., P.M. sua munificentia reparavit, et cultui publico restituit, Anno MDCCCLXII." and another at the side of the iconostasis, likewise facing west, but neither of them had been occupied by Hierotheus for more than ten years before our visit, although the numbers of the believers of the Orthodox Greek rite in and about Antioch might justly claim more frequent visits from their chief Pastor, even if the greater importance of Damascus makes that modern capital of Syria more eligible for his permanent official residence. By a census taken in the year 1865 it was ascertained that the Christians of the Orthodox rite in Antioch and the neighbourhood numbered 17,000 souls, of which the number in the city itself were variously computed by three several informants, at 1800 souls, all told; 1000 males-men and boys; and 800 families. They are ministered to by three priests and a deacon. Such then are the past glories, and such the present state of decay, of the capital and central district of that vast diocese of Antioch which once embraced within its ample limits according to its ambitious title "all the East;" conterminous with the second Patriarchate of Christendom, that of the New Rome, towards the west; with the third Patriarchate, that of the Evangelical Alexandria, on the south; and of illimitable extent towards the east; out of which were carved the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the autocephalous Churches of the Armenias, Georgia, Seleucia, and others. This volume, it is true, travels over a very small part of this wide |