'■'ym^. FROM SCHOLA TO CATHEDRAL Si ^tudp of EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE AND ITS RELATION TO THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH G. BALDWIN BROWN, M.A. LATE FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFOED, AND WATSON-GORDON PROFESSOR OF FINE ART IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS 1886 B7 TO ^Itc ^cmonj of MY FATHER. ' Come, tell us in lohat place you assemble and gather together your followers ■■ ' Prefect of Rome to Justin Martyk. PKEFACE. The history of Christian architecture can be traced in existing monuments as far back as the fourth century. We find it then ah'eady represented by imposing buildings, with a distinct plan and an elaborate system of decoration, presupposing a period of tentative efforts. The record of these efforts lies however beneath the surface. The monu- mental evidence of them is but slight, and it is only by a search into literary records that we can discern their form and character. It is the object of the present study to bring together this literary material into a shape convenient both for the general reader and the architectural student. The old theory which derived the forms of the Christian church from those of the pagan basilica no longer satisfies the inquirer. The pagan basilica, it is now seen, accounts for several features of the Christian meeting-place, but not for all. For the origin of some of the most important of these we must seek elsewhere, and this search carries us back to the primitive times of the Church. Halls of meeting were used by the Christians of the 'ages of persecution,' long before there can have been any question of copying pagan basilicas, and it is to these that the student of the begin- nings of Christian architecture must in the first place direct his attention. Vill PREFACE. The opening chapter deals accordingly with the general position of the early Christian communities in the Eoman world, an understanding of which is necessary before any clear idea can be formed of the probable character of their first places of assembly. We are met here by the theory rendered familiar to the British reader through Dr. Hatch's Organisation of the Early Christian Churches, that the Christian communities resembled in certain important outward features the religious associations or clubs of the pagan world. From this the hypothesis naturally follows that the meeting-places of the Christians resembled those of the pagan clubs the technical name of which was schola;, and the reader of these chapters will be asked to consider the view that the schola of a religious association was the original form of the Christian ehurch. In the second chapter an attempt is made to illustrate from literary sources the meetings of the primitive Christians, and to convey an idea of the various buildings, scholcc, private halls, cemetery chapels, subterranean chambers, in which they were called together. The remainder of the book deals with the monumental history of ecclesiastical architecture in the West and in the East during the early Christian and Byzantine periods, and with some of the more general questions connected with the history of architecture in the Teutonic kingdoms of the West. For the Appendix has been reserved a more detailed discussion of the relation of the pagan basilica to the Christian church, necessary for the proper understanding of the whole subject, but too archaeological in character to be of interest to the general reader. If the method of treating architectural history pursued PREFACE. IX in this book should find favour with the public, it is the intention of the writer to follow it by similar studies on subjects such as ' Monastic Architecture and Art,' and, ' The Ancient Temple.' The illustrations, as will readily be seen, are merely of the nature of explanatory diagrams, and it was not con- sidered necessary to reproduce any of the familiar woodcuts which make their appearance in so many architectural treatises. University of Edinburgh, December 1885. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Christian Communities as Religious Associations under the roman empire. The origin of Christian institutions — Connection of the Cliristians with the Jews, and with other associations of the time — Importance of this in protecting them during the ages of persecution — Influence on Christian forms of the Temple • and the Synagogue ; the Christians confused with the Jews — First recognition of the Christians as a distinct body in the letter of Pliny to Trajan, c. a.d. 110 — Christian meetings connected in this letter with those of clubs and assemblies in general — The associations of the Roman world — The relation to them of the Christians recognised by Tertullian — Its bearing upon the legal position of Chris- tianity — Question of the legal position of the associations in general — Special favour shown by the law to the burial clubs — Their practices illustrated by inscriptions —These practices closely copied by the Christians — The Christian communities as burial societies — Their cemeteries protected, and meetings in them permitted — Special importance of meetings in honour of the martyrs — Christian burial cere- monies — Devotion to the martyrs, and worship at their tombs — The festivals of the martyrs in the ages of peace ; their survival in the modern Saints'-Day celebrations, . 1-32 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. PAGE The Earliest Christian Assemblies and Places of Meeting. The earliest meetings of the Christians illustrated from the New Testament and from patristic writings — Use of the Synagogues by the Christians in the days of St. Paul — Meetings in private houses — The festal halls of the Roman house — Consecration of them to Christian worship— These meetings cease in the fourth century — Other meeting- places of the Christians during the ages of persecution — (1) Scholce — Form and character of the Schohe, Curice, or lodge-rooms used by heathen associations and by the Chris- tians, illustrated from existing remains and inscriptions — (2) Cellce or memorial chapels in the cemeteries used for funeral ceremonies— existing remains at S. Callisto — A memorial cella reconstructed — (3) Subterranean chapels in the cemeteries. Development from these structures of the Christian Church — Examples of such development from private halls and memorial Ccllce—The root-fibres of Christian architecture — Period at which the Christian Church came to assume its regular form— The age of Constantine and the revival of the arts, ...... 33-73 CHAPTER III. The Basilica, the Synagogue, and the Christian Church. Ecclesiastical buildings figured in early Christian mosaics — First appearance of the basilican plan — Connection of Christian architecture with the columned and vaulted CONTENTS. xiii PAOE interiors of the ancient world — Origin and architectural development of the basilica, illustrated from Vitruvius and from existing remains — Early use of the basilican form by the Jews — The ancient Jewish synagogue — Its various forms — Description of a normal synagogue of the basilican type — The synagogue as the expression of the national life of the Jews — The Christian basilica of the fourth or fifth century — Its precinct, atrium, and vestibule — Its basilican interior — The terminal apse its important feature — Essential diflference between the Christian and the pagan basilica ; the latter not apsidal — The private basilica — Summary. The materials and decoration of the Christian basilica — The art of the catacombs and its distinction from that of the mosaics — Lyric and epic expression — Pictorial decoration in the churches, its origin and intention illustrated from Paulinus of Nola, . . . . . .74-1.34 CHAPTER IV. The Domed Church and Byzantine Art. Problem of the history of the dome — The Pantheon the earliest monumental dome known — Traces of dome construction on a small scale in Egypt and Assyria — Is the dome Eastern or Roman? — Use of the dome by the Romans, and by the Christians — The earliest domed church built at Antioch — The dome in the East and West in early Christian and mediteval times— Progressive development of dome-construction from the fourth century — Its culmin- ation in Justinian's church of S. Sophia — Description of S. Sophia — Solution in it of problems in dome-construction — Its lighting and decoration — Byzantine culture and art. Later use of the dome — The dome as a Christian form, . 1.35-178 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE Christian Architecture in the West, from the Early Christian to the Medi.^val Period. Description of an early Christian church in the Apostolical Constitutions — Evident eflfort to secure order in church- organisation — Inheritance of this principle from Rome. Effect on Christian architecture of the Teutonic invasions — Atti- tude of the barbarians towards Roman culture — Patronage of the Church continued by Teutonic chieftains — Church- building not interfered with — Testimony of Gregory of Tours — The Teutonic genius and Christian architecture — Primitive Celtic and Teutonic building — The 'Roman manner.' The early Christian church a Schola enlarged, not a basilica simplified — Its development to the Romanesque minster — Successive appearance of Romanesque forms — New move- ments of the twelfth century — Change in the spirit of architecture — Gothic as the true expression of the Teutonic spirit — .Esthetic character of Gothic — Conclusion, . 17.9-216 APPENDIX. NOTE I. The pagan basilica and the Christian church. . . . 217-225 NOTE II. Sassanid architecture, ...... 226-228 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. FIG. PAGE Chronological Table, . . . .to face, xvi Memorial Cella in a Christian Cemetery at the time of the preparation for a Feast in honour of a Martyr, about 270 A.D. Conjectural restoration, . . {Frontispiece) 1. Private Houses, from the Capitoline Plan of Eome, . . 40 2. 'Insula,' from the Capitoline Plan, . . .41 3. Normal Eoman House, . .43 4. Curiae or Scholse at Pompeii, from Overbeck, . . .52 5. Scholae (?) from the Capitoline Plan of Eome, . . .53 6. SmaU Synagogue or Schola, from a mosaic of the Fifth Century, . . . . . .54 7. Schola beside the INIetroon at Ostia, . . . .55 8. Plan of IVIemorial CeUa in the Cemetery of S. CaUisto, Eome, 56 9. Fimeral Triclinium at Pompeii, from Overbeck, . . 58 10. Underground Meeting-place in a Eoman Cemeteiy, . . 60 11. CeUa and Basilica of S. Sinforosa, near Eome, from Stevenson, 65 12. Early Christian buildings, from a carved sarcophagus : Fourth century, . . . . . . .74 13. Ecclesiastical structures, from a fifth-century mosaic in S. Maria Maggiore at Eome, . . . . .75 14. Basilica and Baptistery at Eavenna : Sixth century, . . 75 15. Section of part of Basilica in its (conjectured) earliest form, . 88 16. Section of part of Basilica. Normal form, . . .89 17. Basilica Ulpia from Capitoline Plan, . . . .91 18. Basilica Julia, from Dutert, Le Forum Eomain, . . 92 19. Conjectural Plan of the Basilica at Alexandria, as an example of the .Jewish Synagogue of the grandest type, . . 107 XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 20. A Pagan Basilica, .... 21. A Christian BasUica, .... 22. Private Basilica in Palace of Domitian at Rome, 23. Model illustrating Dome Construction, 24. Model illustrating Dome Construction, 25. Ground-Plan of S. Costanza, 26. Ground-Plan and Section of S. Lorenzo at Milan, 27. Ground-Plan and Section of S. Sophia at Constantinople, 28. Plan of a Romanesque church, simplified from that of Hect lingen, ....... PAGE 124 125 127 154 155 157 158 161 200 meet in Private Rooms, Mem- ; in the cemeteries, and probably E Rooms or Schol^ after the gan associations. XANDER Severus occurs the first Tie acquisition of land, for build- ody of Christians in common. id churches and places of as- )w constructed in the cemeteries etings. These become for the :es of hiding. period of prosperity the ancient ivate Halls, Scholse, etc.), no for the throngs of converts, and by spacious churches (Eusebius) he form afterwards used in the mtine. truction of Christian edifices, [riven to the subterranean meet- ihe cemeteries. Pkofane Architecture. Fii'st Basilica erected at Rome, B. c. 184. Pantheon of Agrippa, b.c. 27. Architectural magnificence under the Roman Emperors, chiefly in relation to secular buildings, such as — Circuses, Thermse, Basilicas, Palaces. Therms of Caracalla, c. a.d. 215. Development of Roman art of vault- ing, both in domes and cross and barrel vaults of large span. Polygonal domed building, so-called temple of Minerva Medica, date un- certain. Thernice of Diocletian. Basilica of Maxentius (or Constantine). Grand achievements in vaulting Christian Architecture. V^estern Empire. ) (Eastern Empire.) IS everywhere built in place of those destroyed under Diocletian, e.g. '^'^ ) at Nr^°' >Rome. m churches. Costanza near Rome, circular ction of S. Lorenzo at Milan ')• Df Christian architecture con- en imder the Teutonic kings. develops gradually into the ihurch, through the transitional arolingian period. Basilicas at Tyre and Nicomedeia, at Byzantium, in Palestine and Syria. c. 327. Erection at Antioch of first important domed church in the East, and introduction of domical con- struction to what became afterwards the Byzantine Empire. This is perfected in S. Sophia. 532. Dome Construction continues at By- zantium through the Middle Ages. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Main Periods. A.D. 30 to 100. 260 to 300, ■■ \ 300 to 313. 313 to c. 500. Position of the Christian Communities. »l Christians treated as a sect of the Jews and sharing in the general toleration accorded to them. Christians recognised as a distinct body, and rendered liable to persecution : — 1st. For treason and impiety, 2nd. As belonging to illegal associations, but at the same time protected in their capacity of members OF Friendly or Burial Societies of a kind allowed BY the Law. Free use of cemeteries permitted to them. Christians in danger from outbreaks of popular violence. Christianity recognised as a formidable power by the state. Commencement of an open struggle between Chris- tianity and the secular authority. Systematic persecutions now carried on by Decius and Valerian, to be renewed later more effectively by Diocletian. The cemeteries of the Christians now for the first time interfered with and become places of hiding and secret assembly. Persecutions cease for a time. 40 years' Peace of the Church. Time of much prosperity when, as Eusebius writes, 'great multitudes flocked to the religion of Christ.' Last decisive struggle uuder DIOCLETIAN. Events relating to the Christians. Partial and local persecutions under Nero, a.d. 64. Domitian, a.d. 96. Flint's Correspondence about the Chris- tians with Trajan, c. 110. 202-211. Partial persecution under Septi- Mius Severus. Alexander Severus (222-235), friendly to the Christians. 250-251. Systematic attempt of Decius to destroy Christianity. 257. Valerian forbids the assemblies of the Christians, and all visits to the cemeteries, and confiscates cemeteries and meeting-places. 258. Valerian decrees death to all priests, and death or other punishments to all persist- ing Christians. 260. Gallienus gives back to the Christians the use of their cemeteries, but it is doubtful whether Christianity is now recognised as a 'Religio Licita,' and whether the Christians would legally hold property other than ceme- teries in common. 303. Diocletian issues edicts for the de- struction of churches, and confiscation of sacred writings. Christians degraded from office and out- lawed. Severer measui'es against the clergy. CONSTANTINE the great, 306-337. 313. EDICT OF MILAN— Full toleration of Christianity. Triumph ok the Church and its worldly prosperity under Imperial favour; rapid acquisition of riches through legacies. Irruption of Teutonic tribes into the West. c. 500. Establishment of Teutonic kingdoms on the ruins of the Western Empire. Patronage of the Church continued by barbarian chieftains. Byzantine culture and art take definite form under JUSTINIAN, 527-565. Constantine encourages artists, erects numerous churches at Rome and Constan- tinople, in Palestine, etc. 330. Dedication of Constantinople. 378. Defeat of Emperor Valens by the Goths at Hadrianople. Artistic importance of Ravenna, c. 430- 550. Reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 493- 526 ; he patronises the Church and protects ancient works of art. Christian Architecture. Christians meet in Private Rooms, Mem- orial CelLjB in the cemeteries, and probably also in Lodge Rooms or Schol* after the manner of Pagan associations. Under Alexander Severus occurs the first mention of the acquisition of land, for build- ing (?) by a body of Christians in common. Undergi'ound churches and places of as- sembly are now constructed in the cemeteries for secret meetings. These become for the first time places of hiding. During the period of prosperity the ancient buildings (private Halls, Scholae, etc.), no longer suffice for the throngs of converts, and are replaced by spacious churches (Eusebius) probably in the form afterwards used in the days of Constantine. General destruction of Christian edifices. Christians driven to the subterranean meet- ing-places in the cemeteries. Profane Architecture. First Basilica erected at Rome, b. c. 184. Pantheon of Agrippa, b.c. 27. Architectural magnificence under the Roman Emperors, chiefly in relation to secular buildings, such as — Circuses, Therm;e, Basilicas, Palaces. Thermae of Caracalla, c. a.d. 215. Development of Roman art of vault- ing, both in domes and cross andbaiTel vaults of large span. Polygonal domed building, so-called temple of Minerva Medica, date un- certain. Thermae of Diocletian. Basilica of Maxentius (or Constantine). Grand achievements in vaulting Christian Architecture. (Western Empire. ) (Eastern Empire.) Basilicas everywhere built in place of those destroyed under Diocletian, e.g. Old St. Peter's ) ^j, StJohnLateran, Vj^^^g etc. etc. ) Many African churches. c. 336. S. Costanza near Rome, circular domed building. c. 390. Erection of S. Lorenzo at Milan (domed churcli). Traditions of Christian architecture con- tinued unbroksn under the Teutonic kings. The basilica develops gradually into the Romanesque Church, through the transitional forms of the Carolingian period. Basilicas at Tyre and Nicomedeia, at Byzantium, in Palestine and Syria. c. 327. Erection at Antioch op first important domed church in the East, and introduction of domical con- struction to what became afterwards the Byzantine Empire. This is perfected in S. Sophia. 532. Dome Construction continues at By- zantium through the Middle Ages. C. 800. CHARLES THE GREAT, Roman Emperor, 800. CHAPTER I. THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES AS EELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE. In the familiar record of the first days of the Christian Church we read how the men of Galilee, who returned to Jerusalem after the ascension, 'went up into the upper' chamber,' which was at once their dwelling-place and their house of prayer and of assembly. There, at the first com- mon meal, the bread was broken and the cup passed round in solemn remembrance of the last occasion on which they had sat at meat with Christ, There, too, they assembled together for their first act of church-government, the elec- tion of a successor to the apostate Judas. All is simple and domestic, yet we have here the beginnings of what became in time the most wide-reaching and highly organised of human systems. An elaborate hierarchy, a complicated theology of the sacraments, were to arise out of the informal conclave, the memorial meal ; and in like manner, out of the homely meeting-place of the disciples would be developed the costly and beautiful forms of the Christian temple. It is with the growth and the details of this organised system that the student of Christian antiquities has to deal. His task it is to trace the development of Christianity in its manifold connections as an institution with the world about A 2 CHRISTIAN FORMS NOT INVENTED BUT BORROWED. it, and to attempt to discover the origin and early use of those numerous forms, of which ecclesiastical architecture is one, adopted by it as the apparatus of its outward life. Tlie fundamental fact from which any investigation into these outward forms must start is the following : — that the inven- tion of them is not as a rule to he ascribed to Christianity itself. Christianity, it is true, made certain forms and ordinances its own. At first few and simple, they became in after time very elaborate and numerous ; but when their history is pursued backward to its origins, it is found that they were not at first distinctively Christian, but were inherited or borrowed from Jewish sources, or adopted from the practice of other associations, religious and secular, existing at the time in the pagan world. The hypothesis, that Christianity rather adopted from without than created independently for itself this apparatus of outward life, is one which commends itself to the historic sense of the day,^ and is in full accordance with the great principle of the economy of causes, which we see at work all about us. It may be argued, indeed, that a special provision of that Divine Providence which guided the for- tunes of the Early Church led it to clothe itself in outward forms tending to conceal for a time from public view its unique, original, and, as Hegel has phrased it, revolutionary character. For Christianity was not left to develop in peace and independence. It grew up under the shadow of a colossal despotism, the wielders of which would inevitably regard its claim to universal dominion as insolent defiance. The relation which Christianity was to occupy to the Eoman Empire must have been a subject of the most anxious thought to the statesmen of the Early Church, and a dread ' The Bamptou Lectures of Dr. Hatcli, ou the Organisation of the Early Christian Churches — a work to which the author desires to express his great obligation — may be cited in ilhistratioii. THIS FACT AN ELEMENT OF STRENGTH 3 of provoking a conflict explains much of the prudent con- servatism of St. Paul on social and political questions. But a conflict more or less open must necessarily arise, and how would Christianity fare ? It is here that we find the im- portance of the conforming tendency just noticed in the Church. The connection of Christianity with Judaism, and with other associations of the time, had a twofold value. If, on the one hand, the Church borrowed largely from these sources both ceremonies and details of organisation, on the other, it owed to them a still more important debt, a debt which it is hardly going too far to call the debt of life itself. During the ages of persecution the Christians were indebted to an incalculable extent to the connections just mentioned. At first they were sheltered through the fact that they were identified by the authorities with the Jews, and the Jews were a privileged sect. Later on, their conformity to many of the proceedings of permitted associations in the Eoman world was a source of advantage of a similar kind. The gain in both cases cannot be over-estimated. One cannot speak of the possibility of Christianity passing out of exist- ence altogether under the blows of persecution, but there can be little doubt that, had the gigantic power of the empire been from the first brought steadily to bear against the infant Church, a loss to Christianity only less vital than that of life itself must have ensued. Eome could not have killed Christianity, but she probably could have driven it away from the centres of her civilisation, and in this case the new religion, proscribed at the seat of Empire, would have retired to the East, and have grown up to maturity sur- rounded by influences tending to develop unduly its mystical and ascetic side. That eminently rational and human character which belongs to Christianity was pre- served and strengthened by its position in the very foci of the political and intellectual life of the West — at Antioch o 4 IN THE WORLDLY POSITION OF THE CHUKCH. and Alexandria, at Corinth, Carthage, and Eonie. How remarkable is the growth of the community of Eoman Christians I Founded perhaps by some of the ' sojourners from Eome ' who witnessed the miracle of Pentecost, by the middle of the first century the faith of its members ' is proclaimed throughout the whole world,' and they number among them some who are ' of Csesar's household.' A little later, in the time of the Flavii, scions of the imperial family itself have embraced the faith, and men of consular rank are ready to lay down their lives for Christ.^ In the days of Aurelian, the Bishop of Eome already occupies a prominent position in relation to the Church at large.^ Well did the Churcli, thus planted and watered at the centre of the world's affairs, justify its privilege. The leaders of its community learned there the lesson which they have never to this day forgotten — the Eoman art of ruling men. There they based upon Eoman traditions the foundations of a rule more wide and absolute than any which Csesar dreamed of, and, faithful throughout to the ancient capital, they stood forth amidst the ruins of the Western Empire vigorous in a new life, but encircled still with the prestige of the old. Catching the torch of civilisa- tion from the failing hands of the Csesars, they bore it forward in the face of the awestruck barbarians, and follow- ing still the Imperial motto, ' Incorporate into the State all that anywhere is excellent,'^ they gathered and united them in a spiritual empire, in which the majesty and policy of Eome were to endure unbroken for another thousand years. The cardinal fact of the Middle Ages — a fact form- 1 Diet. Christ. Biocj., artt. ' Clemens Flavius ' and ' Domitilla.' - Aurelian (270-275) decrees that certain Church property at Antioch ' shall belong to those to whom the Bishops of Italy and of Rome shall assign it.' — Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vii. c. 30. ^ See the speech of Claudius to the Roman Senate. — Tacitus, Ann, xi. 24, and the original in Gruter, Dii. KELATION OF TEE FIRST CHRISTIANS TO THE JEWS. 5 ing, as we shall see, the basis and explanation of mediseval architecture — is this wide extended dominion of the Eomish Church, the foundations of which were laid in centuries when the Emperors, had they so determined, could have driven out the infant community into the desert. That they did not so determine is largely due to the familiar and unobjectionable character of the" ordinances adopted by growing Christianity, when it ceased, like ' a new-born babe,' to desire only the sincere milk of the gospel, and came to clothe itself in human institutions, and to take its place as a citizen of the world. It is with these external relations of Christianity, treated as the necessary basis for a study of early Christian archi- tecture, that the present chapter will be occupied. And lirst, as to the relation of the early Church to the Jewish social and religious system in the midst of which it arose. For the present purpose two aspects only of this relation need be noticed, on the one hand the actual derivation of Christian forms from Jewish, on the other the historical connection of Jews with Christians and its influence on the outward history of the Church. It must in the first place be remembered that the original members of the Christian brotherhood were Jews, and were in no haste to abandon the religious customs of their nation. Christ had come 'not to destroy, but to fulfil,' and the example of the Master strongly inculcated respect for the ancient forms. He frequented with his disciples the modest synagogues of Galilee, remains of some of which have recently been investigated.^ He went up to Jerusalem at the solemn feasts, and while at Jerusalem 'taught daily in the Temple.' The sanctity possessed by these venerable institutions in the mind of every pious Jew was increased to the disciples by these more dear associa- 1 Palestine Exploration Fund. Quarterly Statement, 1869. 6 JEWISH INFLUENCK OX CHRISTIAN PKACTICE ; tious, and when they started forth on their independent career it was with no desire to parade their differences from their brethren of the stock of Abraham. A remarkable ilhistration of the hold which Judaism retained on even tlie most liberal of the early Christian leaders is afforded by the story of St. Paul's connection with the four men which had a vow. The incident, as recounted in the twenty-first chapter of the Acts, arose out of a rumour that the Apostle was accustomed to teach the Jews in Gentile cities to ' forsake Moses.' There were at that time (verse 20) thousands of Jews converted to tlie faith who were at the same time ' zealous for the law,' and in deference to their feelings St. Paul thought it well to follow the advice of his brethren and to give a public proof that he himself also ' walked orderly, keeping tlie law.' ^ This was not, it must be noticed, an incident of the earliest days of the Church. The Christian preachers had already ' turned the world upside down.' - Gentile converts were already numerous, and upon them also ' was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.' ^ The hostility of the Jews, both rulers and people, to the new sect had frequently broken out in violent and murderous riots. Yet to the end of his career we find the great Apostle to the Gentiles asserting, both in act and word, his undiminished reverence for ' all things which are according to the law, and which are written in the prophets.'^ We should naturally, therefore, be pre- pared to find in Jewish forms the starting-point of the development of those adopted by the Christians. The religious ordinances of the Jews in the time of our Lord had two aspects. They were in part ceremonial, but in part of a decidedly open and democratic type. The two institutions of the Temple and the Synagogue corre- * Acts xxi. 24. ^ IblrL xvii. 6. 3 Ihhl. X. 45. '» Ibid. xxiv. 14. AND ON CHRISTIAN FORMS. i spond to this distinction, and from both of these the Church borrowed largely. The spirit of formalism, of which we see strong signs in some of the first Christian leaders, was nourished from the traditions of the ceremonial law of the Hebrews, and to take one instance, the rite of baptism, appearing in its original simplicity in scenes in the Acts like the impromptu immersion of the Ethiopian eunuch, or the baptism of the household of Cornelius, is already, in the early Patristic writing, the Teaching of the Tivelve Aiwstles, encumbered with the Jewish obligation of fast- ing.^ The immense importance of this Hebrew rite of baptism, and the various ceremonies involved in it, led to the construction by the Christians of special buildings for its administration, and with these buildings are connected some of the most interesting chapters in the story of ecclesi- astical architecture. Another instance in which Jewish temple-ceremonial affected the development of Christian buildings concerns the treatment of the altar. When the Christian Church assumed its distinct form in the third or fourth century, the j^i'^'shyterium, or portion reserved for the clergy and for the altar, had borrowed much of its sanctity from the Holy Place of the Temple of the Hebrews, while equally Jewish was the association of the idea of sacrifice with the Christian altar, in its origin nothing more than a simple table recalling that employed by Christ and His disciples at the Last Supper. Lastly, the sundering of the clergy as a distinct body from the people, which, together with the mystical view of the altar, has had so important an influence upon Christian architecture, is enforced in the Patristic writings by arguments drawn from the Jewish institution of Priests and Levites.^ ^ Teaching, etc., vii. 4. Ed. De Romestin, Oxford, 1884. - The inOuence of the Jewish Temple on Christian architecture is discussed by Weingilrtner : Ursprung und Entwicklung des christlichen Kirchengebiiudes. Leipzig, 1858. 8 llESULT OF THIS CONNECTION ; The Synagogue, on the other hand, knowing nothing of Priest and Levite, offered a form of religious worship of a simple and popular kind, familiar and dear to every born Hebrew, and at the same time, it might be thought, exactly suited to Christian needs. The architectural form and arrangement of the Jewish meeting-place are of importance to the present subject, and will be noticed in the following chapters. It is enough to refer here to one or two points of general resemblance between the Hebrew and Christian institutions. In the first place, the habit itself of constant assembly for devotional purposes, at appointed times and places, so characteristic of the Christian communities, is only a continuation of the practice of the synagogue. The Apo- stolic and Patristic writers exhort the brethren to let their ' assembling together be of frequent occurrence,'^ by similar arguments to those used in the Talmud to enforce the duty of frequenting the synagogue,- and it is the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews who exhorts his hearers not to forsake the wholesome custom of congregational meeting.^ The com- ponent parts of the service in the synagogue — reading of tlie Scriptures, singing of psalms, prayer, exhortation — were retained in the churches,^ though the hierarchical organisa- tion of the latter gave them soon an ordained ministry, and left no room for the pleasant custom of the synagogues, where strangers entering to worship might receive the kindly summons, ' Brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.'^ The Synagogue and the Christian (Jhurch agreed also in another characteristic. The buildings were by no means only used for Divine service, but were gathering places for the Community, affording opportunity for 1 Ignatius, Ep. ad Pohjc. iv. - E.ii. S. Chrysostom., Migue's eel. i. j). 725. Babylon Bfrakhoth, 6 a, in Le Tahainl de Jerusalem, translated by M. Schwab, Paris, 1871, etc., vol. i. p. 240. ^ Heb. X. 2.1. ■* Apost. C'onnt. ii. .'")7. ^ Acts xiii. l.j. THE CHRISTIANS CONFUSED WITH THE JEWS, 9 neighbourly intercourse, for teaching and discussion, and also for judicial proceedings. Innumerable stories in the Talmud exhibit to us the Synagogue as the centre of the daily life of the people, in the same way that the early Christian Church was the common resort of the faithful who dwelt in its vicinity. The synagogues, moreover, unlike the Temple and the shrines of the heathen, were often connected witli the tombs of the founders, or of local worthies, and we have here a notable point of correspondence with the Christian Church.^ It need not be said that this close connection which existed in many respects between Synagogue and Church did not prevent a feeling of intense antagonism between their respective adherents. The first cause of open separa- tion between Christians and Jews was the violent popular onslaught made by the latter upon the followers of Jesus of N^azareth, while Christian apologists, from the author of the Teaching downwards,^ in their bitter criticism on the Jews, laid the foundation for the disgraceful persecutions whicli stain the history of Christendom. Hence the Synagogue and the Ecclesia were sundered, and their well-known effigies in early Christian art stand apart in antagonism ; but it does not follow that the outside observer would at once notice the separation. On the contrary, the connection between Chris- tianity and Judaism was far more patent than the severance which seemed so vital to those actually involved in the con- troversy, and during the first age of the Church the connec- tion was sufficiently close to make it inevitable that the secular powers should fail to see wherein the difference * See the account of the synagogues of Mesopotamia in the Itineranj of Benjamin of Tuclela. Ed. Asher, p. 90 ff. - In the Teachuir/ it is said (c. viii. I), that the hypocrites — by whom Ad. Harnack understands the Jews generally — fast on Monday and Thurs- day, while the Christians have adopted what the writer naively believes the more excellent way of mortifying the flesh on Wednesday and Friday. 1(1 AND SO PK0TECTE1>. lay. To Gallic, when he drove his suitors from the judg- ment-seat, the question at issue seemed only one between two conflicting Jewish sects, and the various officials before whom St. Paul pleaded his cause were inclined to make light of his supposed offence, as being a matter only of Hebrew superstition. It is evident, too, from the testimony of pro- fane literature, that Jew and Christian were, during the first century at any rate, habitually confused.^ This fact had a twofold result ; it was to some extent a cause of suffering to the Christians, but it was also, and to a far greater extent, an advantage, for if it rendered them unpopular, it at the same time secured to their religion and to their society gene- rally a certain amount of legal protection. In his Antiquities of the Jews, the historian Josephus rehearses, with patriotic pride, the various decrees of immunity and protection granted in favour of the Jews by the Roman authorities.- Pompeius had treated the Jews with brutal severity. Csesar, on the contrary, had greatly favoured them, and in return for timely assistance they had furnished to him at Alexandria, he granted them certain privileges in consideration of the re- (juirements of their law. They were permitted to ' use the customs of their forefathers in assembling together for sacred and religious purposes,'^ and to ' make contributions for com- mon suppers and holy festivals.''* At Piome, where they had a synagogue, they were patronised by the first Emperors, and soon made themselves of importance. Their legally-recog- nised position could not preclude a large amount of popular odium, which gathered round them and resulted in the charges of ' hatred to the human race ' and the like, familiar to readers of Eoman literature ; nor did it shield them from occasional measures of severity, as when Claudius ' com- ^ Such a confusion probably underlies tliat obscure piece of history, the account of the persecution of the Christians by Nero after the burn- ing of Home. Merivale, History of the Romans vnder the Empire, c. liv. - Antlqulth^, xiv. 10. = Ibid. § 12. ^ Ihhi. % 8. FIEST OPEN KECOGNITION OF THE CHKISTIAN8 1 1 raanded all the Jews to depart from Rome.'^ It gave them, however, an assured status, and the benefit of this assured status was shared, though not with the goodwill of the Jews, by the members of the Christian community. If the Jews were permitted freely to assemble in their synagogues, and carry on there such religious rites as they pleased. Christian gatherings and Christian ordinances had a good chance of escaping hostile notice, and hence it is that Tertullian, in his elaborate survey of the legal position of the Christians in his Apolofjeticus, writes of Christianity as ' standing under the shadow of the illustrious religion of the Jews, a religion undoubtedly allowed by the laws.'- The exact extent to which this semi-legality was secured to Christianity through association with Judaism, and the time through which it operated, it would be difficult clearly to fix. That a period came when Christianity was recognised as an independent system, and was actually placed under the ban of the law, is well known ; but it seems probable that the confusion between Christians and Jews continued throughout the first century, for the first time the former are treated as holding an independent position is in the days of Trajan, whose correspondence on this subject with the younger Pliny is of such unique interest. This correspondence brings clearly before us, for the first time, a fact of which there are traces previously, and which was destined, in the periods of active persecution, to protect the Christians in the same way that they had been protected before under the name of the Jews. This fact is the connection of the Christians with the knm'm and recognised system of association for religious and other 2yurposes prevalent in the ancient world. The letter of Pliny to Trajan =^ describes the position of Christianity in the province of Bithynia at the opening of the second century, and the relation towards it of the Roman authorities. To 1 Acts xviii. 2. - Apohgetims, c. 21. ^ Plin., Ef. x. 9G. 12 AS AN INDEPENDENT BODY. such an extent had men fallen away from the old forms of worship that the temples were almost deserted, the sacred rites long disused, and the demand for victims reduced almost to nothing. Information was laid before Pliny, as Eoman governor, accusing certain persons of being Christians. Many of these were shown to have been falsely charged, but some confessed the new doctrines. Pliny, who admits that he had had grave doubts whether the mere profession of Christianity was to be regarded as a crime, decides to sentence to death those who persist, on the thoroughly Roman ground tliat 'whatever the nature of their opinions might be, a contumacious and inflexible obstinacy deserved punishment' Wishing to know more, he puts two female ministers of tlie Church (deaconesses) to the torture, but can find out nothing but an ' immoderate and absurd superstition.' All that he could discover about the proceedings of the Christians is the following : — that they were accustomed to meet on a certain day before dawn, and to chant in alternate strains a hymn to Christ as God, binding themselves by an oath — not to any wicked design, but — never to commit either fraud, theft, or adultery, never to break their word, or deny a deposit whicli they had received. After this they would separate, and later on re-assemble to partake of a simple and harmless meal. This custom, some of the recreant Christians tell him, they liad ceased to observe, in consequence of his having issued an edict forbidding the meeting of clubs and assemblies. It is clear from this letter that, in the first place, it was an understood thing that Christianity was illegal, though the exact ground of illegality might be doubtful ; and in the second, that it was recognised as coming under the same heading as clubs and assemblies in general, so that a prohibi- tion of these would put meetings of Christians at once under the ban of the law. Into the nature and the history of these clubs and THEIR CONNECTION WITH ' CLUBS AND ASSEMBLIES.' l-"» assemblies ^ there is no space here to enter. They were voluntary associations formed for mutual benefit, or for accomplishing a common purpose, and resembling in their different kinds the religious brotherhoods, the political clubs, the guilds of workmen, and the friendly and burial societies of the modern world. Their number was so great that at times they literally honeycombed ancient societies, and they were regarded with favour or disfavour by governments according as their religious and charitable character, or the secret political influence which they might be supposed to wield, seemed most prominent. Though some of the societies were politically dangerous, and others cultivated certain foreign forms of religion inimical to good morals, yet, on the whole, their operation must have had a good social effect, especially on the condition of the poor. These friendly associations, indeed, bring out one of the best sides of Paganism. Nowhere would tlie early Christians have found ideas and habits with which they had more in common than those which were there in force. Liberality of the rich to the poor, mutual assistance, meetings in common, and a common worship — all prevailed in them, and nothing which the pagan world had to show presented more features in common with the Christian brotherhood. What wonder then if the Christians came to conform themselves in large measure to the practice of these sodalicia, and so gave cause to the Eoman authorities to apply the same laws to both. The earliest beginning of this connection may perhaps be discerned in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The picture which the Apostle draws, in the eleventh chapter, of the members of the church assembling themselves together in some place of meeting, which it seems from verses 22 and 34 is not a private house, and there each eating his 1 Called generally by the Greeks eraipeiai ('hetperic-e '), and by the Romans, ' collegia,' ' sodalitates,' or ' sodalicia.' 1 4 COMMON MEALS OF CORINTHIAN CHRISTIANS. own supper tirst, and afterwards sharing with the rest in the celebration of the Communion, agrees in some important respects with the known procedure of the heathen colleges. These had, as one of their institutions, a lodge or meeting- room called ' scJiola,' where they held their gatherings, and assembled for common meals, to which each member brought his share of provisions. The words of St. Paul seem to imply the possession by the Corinthian Christians of a place of meeting of a similar kind, and to describe a meal like the above eaten in common, at the close of which the memorial bread and wine would be passed round. The common meal referred to here is the same that St. Jude speaks of under the name ayaTrr], ' love-feast,' or, in the old translation, ' feast of cliarity,' Its origin has been variously explained, but it is sufficient to ascribe it to a desire on the part of the disciples, who ' liad all things in common,' and ' brake their bread from house to house,' to copy as closely as possible the last evening meal with the Lord. The great popularity which the a(jfa23c attained in the early Church was un- doubtedly due in part to the fact that common meals of this kind were familiar institutions throughout the ancient world. They were the most natural form possible for giving effect to a feeling for brotherly union wherever men were brought together by common interests. Not only the pagan ' clubs and assemblies,' but the communities of the Jews, possessed similar institutions, and the law recognised, as we have seen, their periodical contributions and common meals ; nor is it likely that the heathen of the time would have perceived any outward difference between their own and the Jewish societies, and those which were addressed by the Apostle in his letter to the Christians of Corinth.^ 1 So characteristic of tbe Christians was this institution of the agaj^e that a Latin inscription (Orelli-Henzen, Inscr'ipt. Lat. set. ampJ. collfclio. No. 4073), which records the possession of a cemetery by the 'associates who are accustomed to eat together at a common feast," may, it is con- TERTULLIAX CONNECTS THE CHRISTIANS WITH THE CLUBS. 15 An important passage from Tertullian ^ is the best illus- tration of this that can be brought forward. He describes the Christians as a body knit together by common religion, by unity of discipline, and a common hope, assembling for prayer, for the reading of the Scriptures, and for the exer- cise of discipline under the presidency of tried elders. There is a treasure-chest, but 'it is not replenished by purchase-money' — i.e. the entrance- fees paid by those who joined the heathen guilds — ' as if our religion could be bought.' ' On the monthly collection-day, or whenever he wishes, each one puts in a small donation, but only if he likes, and if he can, for there is no compulsion ' (as in the ordinary associations) — ' all is voluntary.' The funds are not spent on feasts and drinking-bouts and eating-houses, but ' to support and Ijury poor people,' and for similar good purposes. The feasts of the Christians are humble ; there is none of the extravagance and waste of similar celebra- tions among the heathen, as at the feasts of the Salii and of the tribes and Curias. The name ' love-feasts ' explains their nature. Their object is partly to provide sustenance for the needy, who are benefited by the good cheer. The meal begins and ends ^vitll prayer. ' As much is eaten as satisfies the cravings of hunger ; as much is drunk as benefits the temperate. The talk is that of those who know that the Lord is among their auditors.' In concluding, Tertullian appeals to all whether the assemblies of the jectured, refer to a community of Christians, who emploj* this periphrasis to avoid using an unpopular name. The time was not long in coming when the love-feasts tended to become too convivial, and they were separated from the Lord's Supper in the manner described in the letter of Pliny, where the ' simple and harmless meal,' the aijape, follows the Eucharistic service of the early morning. Later on, they fell into disuse altogether, or only survived in the form of charitable feasts to the poor. Another form of the common meal of the Christians, the memorial feast at the tombs of the martyrs, will be noticed on a subsequent page. ^ A pologeticus, c. .39. 1 li BEARING OF THIS ON LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANS. Christians are not innocent and praiseworthy, and entirely unlike those of the secret factions obnoxious to govern- ment ; or, to quote his own words in c. 38, ' Inter licitas fadiones scctam istam deputari oportehat, a qua nihil tale committitur quale de iUicitis factionibus timeri sold.' ^ The bearing of this upon the legal position of the Chris- tians has now to be considered. We shall have to notice some of the customs of the pagan collegia and determine their legality. It will then be necessary to prove that the Christians adopted the same customs, and to show the likelihood that they would in consequence share in the legal protection accorded to their heathen contemporaries. With regard then to the position of the collegia in the eye of the law, it has already been mentioned that the govern- ment was sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile to them. Trajan was especially severe upon them, and suspected them always of a dangerous political tendency.- Alexander Severus and others encouraged them. It follows that under an emperor like the former, all societies of whatever kind would find themselves in danger. Under one like the latter liberty of association would be generally conceded. At the same time there was under every regime alike a recognised difference between legal and illegal associations. No ruler would seek to abolish the institution altogether, while none would grant to it unlimited freedom. It must not be assumed, moreover, that every society had always its distinctly recognised position in one of the two classes. A sodalitas might be technically illegal (nooi licita), and yet for various reasons might escape actual molestation. The exact legal position of these societies generally at various periods does not appear yet to have been satisfactorily ^ ' That brotherhood should have a place among law-tolerated societies which commits none of the acts commonly dreaded from societies of the illicit class.' 2 piin_^ Ep x. 43. LEGAL POSITION OF THE PAGJAN CLUBS. 17 settled ; but we know that on one occasion, when they were suppressed by the Eoman government, an exception was made in favour of a class of associations of the poor called tenuiores, which, for charitable reasons, were suffered still to exist ;^ and it is argued by some scholars that, under the protection of this general permission, new societies of a similar kind might enrol themselves, and claim a legal authorisation. Now the particular character of these chari- table associations lay in the fact that they were largely, if not entirely, burial clubs. No obligation was held more sacred in the ancient world than that of performing all appointed rites to the dead — nothing was so universally respected as a sepulchre. Authorised, therefore, by a decree of the Senate, ' it is permitted to those who desire to make a monthly contri- hution for funeral expenses to form an assoeiation,"^ these clubs or colleges collected their subscriptions into a treasure- chest, and out of it provided for the obsequies of deceased members. Funeral ceremonies did not cease when the body or its ashes was laid in the sepulchre. It was the custom to celebrate on the occasion a feast, and to repeat that feast year by year on the birthday of the dead, and on other stated days. For the holding of these feasts as well as for other meetings a building — the above-mentioned schola — was necessary, and when the societies received gifts from rich members or patrons, the benefaction frequently took the shape of the presentation of a new lodge-room, or of ground for a new cemetery with a building for meetings. Inscriptions recording these gifts and the thanks of the members benefited are common, and the proofs they give of the mutual good feeling of associates leave a pleasant im- pression. The following is an interesting example : — ^ Corpus Juris Civllis, Dig. xlvii. 22. - Quoted in the ' Jnscriptio Lanuvina ' appended to Mommseu's De. coUegiis et sodccUtiis Romanorum, Kilise, 1843. B 18 TIIEUt PUACTICES ILLUSTRATED FROM INSCRIPTIONS. ' The place or field which lies on the Appian Way between the second and third milestones ... on the estate of Julia Moninie and her partners, on which there is erected a schola under a portico consecrated to Silvanus and the members of that brotherhood, has been conveyed, free of incumbrance, to the curator and the whole body of mem- bers of that brotherhood, for a nominal price, by Julia Monime and her partners , . . that the meml)ers may be free to assemble at that place to offer sacrifice, to eat and to make their lianquets as long as that brotherhood endures.'^ We have recorded here the concession to a pagan brother- hood, whose patron deity was Silvanus, of a space of ground outside the walls, with a lodge erected thereon as a place of meeting. The ground, there can be little doubt, was to be used as a cemetery, and one of the purposes of meeting, as signified in the inscription, was to celebrate the obsequies of members, and to hold memorial banquets as often as their birthdays came round. So important a matter was it held in ancient times for these memorial banquets and other rites to be continued at the proper anniversaries, that persons of wealth, who per- haps could not trust to the dutiful affection of their surviv- ing relatives, left money to these colleges on the condition that their memory was kept alive by these observances. Numerous inscriptions make mention of this. For example, a college of smiths and carpenters ' erected from the ground at their own expense a new schola upon land presented by Titus Furius.' The same donor left also a sum of money, ' from the interest of which a feast should be held on the anniversary of his birthday.' - The most curious glimpse we have of these funeral customs is afforded by an interesting record of ancient ' Orelli-Henzen, No. 4947. - Ihid. Xo. 40SS. THEIR BURIAL CUSTOMS. 1 9 times, wliich has come down to us in the fovm of elaborate directions by a pagan Eoman of wealth, for the cultivation of his memory, not in connection with a college, but by his family and his freedmen.^ He provides that his memorial cella (chapel) shall be completed according to his plans, and that there be built an eoxdra (alcove) with a seated statue of the testator in marble, and also one in fine bronze, not less than five feet high. Under the alcove is to be a couch with two seats at the sides, all of costly marble. There are to be rugs and carpets kept ready for use on those days on which the cella is opened, and two bolsters and pillows, with a couple of dining dresses and two cloaks and tunics. An altar is to be erected in the front to contain his bones. He further provides that all his freedmen and freedwomen, as well as his heir, shall contribute yearly a certain sum, out of which provision is to be made of meat and drink, from which sacrifice is to be offered before the building, and which is then to be ' consumed in that place on the anniversaiy of my birth, and all are to remain there till the amount contributed has been finished.' There is something touching in this piece of old-world life brought back to us. Here is a rich man who will have a costly monument with everything of the best — yet marble and fine bronze do not content him. He must know that human lips will speak his name when he is gone, and the gaiety of a human feast echo round his urn. How carefully he provides for the guests at this strange banquet,! All is arranged for them — couches, rugs, cushions, even the festal garments are to be kept in readiness, that nothing be wanting. Yet we note that he has to provide that the feast shall be no mere form. These freedmen and heirs shall not receive the meat and drink and take it home, ^ See the document given in de Rossi's Bullcttlno di Arch, Crist., 1863, p. 94. 20 CHRISTIANS CONFORM TO THE I'UACTICE OF THE CLUBS. thinking no more of the dead, but shall remain till all is consumed on the very spot where he is laid. We turn now from pagan to Christian. The reader will be prepared for the next step. It is a fact rendered certain by the investigations of the last twenty years that the whole procedure of tliese funeral colleges, with their contributions, their lodges, their ccllcc, their meetings, and their burial and memorial feasts, was closely copied, with certain obvious modifications, by the Christians, and it was largely through their adoption of these well- understood and respected customs that they were enabled to hold their meetings and keep together as a corporate body through the stormy times of the second and third centuries. ' It is evident to me,' writes de Eossi,^ ' that the Christians made use of the privilege of the funeral colleges, and that the Emperors who were well disposed to them, or at any rate not persecutors, availed themselves of this pretext to tolerate the assemblies of the faithful, and to permit the Church to establish itself little by little as a corporation in the bosom of the Empire.' It was as a funeral college that a community of Christians had the best chance of escaping attack, both from the side of the populace and that of the government, and the cemeteries were a secure centre of Christian life at times when in the towns the faithful were, as TertuUian says, 'daily beset by foes, daily betrayed, oftentimes surprised in their meetings and congrega- tions.' ^ The cemeteries of the Christians existed wherever there was a community of believers, but are chiefly known from the famous examples at Eome which have yielded such rich results to their most recent and indefatigable explorer, Commendatore de Eossi. As we should expect, they were in their origin and many of their arrangements precisely ^ Bullettino, 1864, p. 62. - Apo/or/etiais, c. 7. CHRISTIAN FUNERAL OBSERVANCES. 21 similar to those of the heathen. Ancient cemeteries were always situated outside the walls of the cities, and consisted of a plot of ground (generally bounded on one side by a public road) which was carefully marked out by tablets inscribed with its extent and boundaries, and secured to the possessors by an indefeasible legal title. The ground, or area, as it was technically called, was partly laid out in gardens, and partly used for the erection of monuments or of ccUk, like the one so carefully described in the Eoman testament. Beneath the ground any arrangements desired might be made for the disposal of the remains of the dead. The Christians had, as is well known, their own methods of Ijurial, in the chambers and along the passages hewn at different levels below the surface, but they conformed to the regular custom in having tlieir area:, strictly defined, and in keeping their excavations all within the boundaries, until the acquisition of adjoining arcm permitted them to extend their operations further. The earliest Christian cemeteries were the property of private individuals, or of Christian families, who offered accommodation in them to the poorer brethren, and the legal title of these possessors was of course as valid as if they had still worshipped the gods of the State. When the Christians came to possess cemeteries in common, they would hold them under the same title as the burial associations, and it was a title which would not lightly be interfered with. The discussion about the legal position of the Christian communities in the first three centuries turns upon the question whether that recognition by the law, which was certainly accorded to them for some part at least of the time, was granted to them only in relation to their funeral observ- ances, or embraced their whole position as religious asso- ciations. Whether, ])efore the days of Constantine, the Christians as a corporation could hold a legal title to pro- 22 LEGAL PROTECTION OF CHRISTIAN CEMETERIES. perty is a difficult question ; ^ it is held by some that all the direct evidence for the affirmative applies only in strict- ness to the cemeteries. The crucial moment in the history of the cemeteries is the middle of the third century. Up to that time, except in the case of a few popular raids, the Christian cemeteries and all belongiuL; to them had enjoyed a complete immunity from disturbance. The edict of Valerian, in 257 a.d., for the first time forbade all Christian assemblies and all visits to the cemeteries. It was then that burial-places, or, as they have come to be called, cata- combs, became for the first time places of actual hidini;, with the ordinary entrances blocked up and access only gained through hidden passages, which opened sometimes into disused quarries and sand-pits, l^p to that time the Christians could, as a general rule, perform what funeral ceremonies they liked in the upper air. This was now impossible, and they were forced to construct for their accommodation the subterranean meeting-places or churches whicli have been met with in some of the catacombs. The edict of Valerian only remained in force for a brief season, and was succeeded by an important edict of tolera- tion issued by Gallienus in 2 GO, which has been interpreted by some writers as conferring upon Christianity the privilege of a religio licita. Nothing more seems, however, to be implied in this edict than the restoration to the Christians of the use of their cemeteries, which had been taken away by Valerian. That the Christians obtained at this time the position of a legal corporation in all its relations is by no means to be inferred. It is true that some evidence that this was the case is to be found in the expressions in the famous edict of ]Milan, issued by Constantine and Licinius 1 See the article " Christenverfolgungen," by Franz Gtirres, in Kraus's lieal'Encykiopddie. der christlichen Alterthumer, with the note of the editor on p. 243 ; also Dr. Hatch's Bampton Lectures, 2tl ed., p. 152, and note. AVEEE CHRISTIANS OTHERWISE LEGALLY RECOGNISED ? 23 in 313, as the first charter of the freedom of the Church. The following words are quoted from the report of the edict furnished by Lactantius/ and refer to the restitution of church property which had been confiscated under Diocletian : — ' Whereas the Christians are known to have possessed, besides the places where they were accustomed to assemble, others also which belonged not to private indivi- duals, but to tlie whole body of them, that is, of the Churches ;' all these are to be given back ' to the Christians, that is, to their body and communities ' (Christianis, id est cmyori et convcntiadis coruni). These words may be taken to imply that the Christians had possessed the general rights of property of a recognised corporation, but it is doubtful whether anything more is intended by the ' other places ' than the cemeteries. In a letter of Constantine, quoted by Eusebius, these other places are explained to be ' houses, fields, and gardens.'- Tlie arcce of cemeteries were often, we know, laid out in gardens, and houses for the caretakers and sextons were erected upon them, so that there is nothing here which necessarily proves that the law recognised the Christians in a wider capacity than that of funeral associa- tions. This is a question which cannot be pursued further. Whichever way it is finally settled there is no doubt that the legal title of the Christians to their cemeteries was an older and a firmer one than any which they may have acquired in the last half of the third century in relation to other property, such as land and buildings within the city walls. If the inscription referred to above (p. 1 4, n. 1 ), ' Loc[us] SEP[ULTUR.E] con VICTOR [U.M] QUI UNA EPULO VESCI SOLENT IN fr[onte] p[edes] ... IN agr[o] p[edes] XX,' 2 really refers to the Christians, it would imply that they held their burial- grounds in the same open way, and by the same tenure, as 1 De Mort. Persec, c. 48. - De Vita ConM., lib. ii. c. 39. 3 Orelli-Henzen, 4073. See ile Rossi, BuUettino, 1864, p. 62. 24 THE CEMETERIES AS CENTRES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. the heathen, who inscribed the fact of their ownership upon the boundary stones of their arcoc. The Cliristian cemeteries on the roads which radiated from the walls of tlie great cities of the Eoman world became in this way the surest and safest rallying-place of the faithful in the ages of the Church's trial. They received a peculiar consecration as the resting-place of the remains of the venerated martyrs. It is in connection wnth the funeral rites of the martyrs that we see the full importance to the Christians of these cemeteries, and find at the same time the most curious parallel to classical procedure. All that was done by the pagan associations in regard to the funeral observances and memorial feasts of their patrons was carried out by the Church in connection with the tombs of the honoured patrons of the whole body of the faithful, the saints and martyrs. The earliest evidence of these martyr-festivals is to be found in the Acts of Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, A.D. 155, where it is said: 'We took up his bones, more precious than costly jewels, and more highly approved than tried gold, and laid them in a fitting place, where, as far as possible, the Lord will grant us to assemble together with rejoicing and praise to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom, botli in remembrance of those who have fought the fight and for the practice and jjreparation of those whose time is coming.'^ So popular did the institution become, and so similar did it appear, to the careless or malicious eye, to the pagan festivals, that an opponent of St. Augustine, in one of his controversies, roundly accuses him on this very ground. ' The sacrifices of the Gentiles,' says Faustus, the Manichrean, 'you change into love-feasts, the idols into martyrs, to whom you pray as they do to their idols. You appease the shades of the departed with wine and food.' ^ Dressel, Patrinn Apostolkorum Opera, ji. 404. FUNERAL KITES OF THE MAETYES. 25 St. Augustine explains, of course, that the offerings are not to the martyrs but to God, in dutiful remembrance of His servants ; but he admits a general similarity in the practices, and himself mentions the memorial feasts in honour of the martyrs, at which, in his time, he confesses, the wine-cup sometimes went round too freely.^ For the holding of these funeral ceremonies buildings were needed corresponding to those employed by the heathen societies, and there exists an interesting inscription of the third century which describes the presentation of one to the Christian brotherhood. It was found at Cherchel, in Northern Africa, and is to the following effect: — ' A worship- per of the Word (cultor verbi) presented a space of ground for a sepulchre, and out of his own means erected a cella, which he left as a memorial to the holy Church. Hail, brethren, from a pure and guileless heart Euelpius salutes you, ye who are born of the Holy Spirit !'- We cannot fail to be reminded here of heathen inscrip- tions, which correspond so closely in wording and in the benefactions described, but lack the bountiful spirit of Christian love which breathes through this. The expression ' cultor verhi ' is noteworthy, for ' cvltores ' was the technical term for the members of a pagan religious association in relation to their patron deity. The ' area ' and the ' cella ' recall the Eoman testament before quoted, but how different is the free gift of Euelpius to the brotherhood at large to the self-regarding arrangements of the wealthy Pagan ! 1 S. Aiigustinus, Contra Faustum, xx. 21. Professor Kraus, in the article ' Agapeii,' in his Enci/klojukUe, is anxious that the agape should be kept distinct from the memorial feast at the tombs. The agapt was, of course, in its origin a distinct institution, but at the time when memorial feasts were in fashion they were to all intents and purposes agapce, as the words just quoted from St. Augustine's opponent imply. Every common meal of a religious kind for which the Christians came together would be called a love-feast. See also infra, p. 59, n. 2. - De Rossi, Bullettino dl Arch. Crist., 1864, p. 28. 26 BURIAL IN THE CATACOMP.S. The funeral ceremonials which were carried on in these cellcc, or in times of danger in the crypts below, differed from those of the heathen in the constant reference to the expected resurrection, in accordance with which the burning of the body was forbidden, and the scene relieved from any impression of hopeless gloom. It is to be remarked, how- ever, that the Greek and Roman funeral rites had also a cheerful side, illustrated by the abundant use of flowers, and by the funeral feast in which the departed was supposed in some way to share. There were many funeral customs of the heathen which the Christians could adopt without any sense of unfitness. Among these was the use of flowers and unguents. ' We do not crown the corpse,' writes, it is true, Minutius Felix, in a beautiful passage, 'for the blessed need no flowers, the lost have no joy in them. We twine no fading garland, but we receive from God one blooming with eternal blossom,' — the hope of future blessedness.^ But Prudentius sings in his funeral hymn how ' the path of light to the broad gardens of the sky lies open now to the faithful soul, while we below with flowers and thick-strewed branches will deck the tomb, and pour the liquid unguent over the inscription and the chilly stones.'- The body, fragrant witli embalming spices, was wrapped in fair white linen, or, it might be, dressed in the fine raiment or the official robes which had been the attire of the living. It was then borne to the sepulchre, and, laid in one of the niches or loculi of the catacombs, was sealed up till the day of awakening behind a stone, on which a few simple letters witnessed to the name of the deceased, and to the Christian hope. The crumbling bones of the Christians of the early centuries are still to be seen in those strange vaults in the lioman Campagna, whitlier we descend with the same feel- ' Minutius Felix, Octavius, c. xxxviii. - Prudentius, Cathemerinon, x. v. 161 xeq. PKESEEVATION OF BODIES. 27 ings of interest and awe which, more than fifteen hundred years ago, impressed themselves on the youthful Jerome when, as he tells us, he was wont on the Sundays to go round with his companions to visit the sepulchres of the martyrs.^ De Eossi describes, as an eye-witness, the discovery of more than one body which, embalmed with spices, and enclosed in a marble sarcophagus, had remained in a wonder- ful degree of preservation. One that he himself assisted to move was that of a lady, the golden ornaments of whose robes were still to be seen, while the crushed bones of the skull and the marks of blood seemed to betoken martyrdom.^ A still more extraordinary example of preservation is that of the body which has been connected with the name of one of the most famous of the early Eoman martyrs, St. Cecilia. A body, presumed to be that of the saint, and un- questionably that of an early martyr, had been conveyed from the catacombs by Pope Paschal i. in 821, and placed beneath the high altar of the Church of S. Cecilia in Trastevere at Piome. There, in the year 1599, it was dis- covered and brought to light, and its appearance has been minutely described by the famous Cardinal Baronius, and the antiquarian Bosio. ' I saw,' writes Baronius,^ ' enclosed in a marble sarcophagus, a coffer of cypress-wood, which enshrined the sacred limbs of Cfecilia. It was covered with a sliding lid, a little decayed. . . . Within we found the holy body of Ctecilia laid as it had been found by Pope Paschal, with the veil steeped in her blood at her feet. Some threads of silk embroidered with gold, which were visible, were the remnants of that gold-enwoven robe mentioned by Paschal, which was now decayed by age. Another vesture of silk, of light texture, laid over the body of the martyr, * S. Hieron., in Ezech. xl., Migne's ed., vol. v. p. 375. 2 De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea, vol. ii. \}. 125. 3 Ad annum j.c. 821, § 15. 28 DEVOTION TO THE MARTYK8. and clinging to it, permitted the posture and the form of the limbs to be seen. It was remarkable then to behold how the body was not lying supine, as if in a tomb, but as a maiden might lie on her couch, upon the right side, with the knees a little drawn up, looking more like the form of one who slept than of the dead, and so ordered as to convey to all beholders the idea of virgin modesty.' The beautiful statue by Stefano Maderna, which is to be seen in the church, is said to reproduce with accuracy the attitude of the body as it lay in its coffin of cypress-wood. Brought thus into personal contact, as it were, with Christians of the age of persecution, we can realise more readily the circumstances under which they were laid to rest, and sympathise even at this distance of time with the feelings of the survivors. The sentiment of the early Chris- tians for their martyrs was of the intensest kind. On the one hand, the thought of them called out the most enthu- siastic feelings of personal devotion ; on the other, they appeared before the faithful as standing witnesses to the most momentous articles of their belief. Christianity stands alone among religions in evoking that passion of personal affection, which is the strongest feeling in human nature. Devotion to the martyrs fed this passion till it carried the faithful away into extravagances which the Church autho- rities found it necessary to control. Such were the honours paid to any who suffered — not the pains of death — but even the slight inconvenience of imprisonment for the faith, that interested persons took advantage of the liberality of the faithful, and the satirist Lucian humorously describes how a rogue of his acquaintance, at his wits' end for means, at last turned Christian, had himself imprisoned, and was immedi- ately feted as a hero.^ ^ The passage, an amusing one, is iu the dialogue called ' Peregrinus,' § 12, and runs as follows : — ' Proteus is now thrown into bonds, but this very PAGAN MYSTERIES AND THE CHRISTIAN HOPE. 29 This is, of course, merely the excess of a natural and noble enthusiasm. It had deeper roots than mere hero- worship. The martyrs were, in the estimation of the early Church, the first-fruits of the sacrifice of Christ. They were the witnesses of that faith in the resurrection of the dead, for which Paul had been called in question. ' They have persuaded themselves that they are immortal,' writes Lucian, ' so they despise death, and seek it even of their own free will.' ^ There was nothing in which the Christians differed from the adherents of the heathen creeds more vitally than in this belief in a life of personal activity beyond the grave. It is true that under the Eoman Empire the faith in the old gods of the Greco-Eoman theology had become a thing of the past. All that was religious in the Paganism of the second and third centuries centred in the foreign cults of Isis and Serapis, of the Magna Dea, and of Mithras. These oriental religions, with their mystic rites, in which men could ' approach the confines of death, and passing the threshold of Proserpina, penetrate to the hidden source of all things,' in which they ' saw, at midnight, the sun blazing in clearest radiance, and entering the presence-chamber of the infernal and the heavenly gods, adored them face to face,' ^ might answer in some measure to the craving for something circumstance won for him no small reputation, starting him afresh in life, and ministering to his delight in notoriety and sensation. For when he was put in prison the Christians took it greatly to heart, and moved heaven and earth to get him out again. When this could not be done, they set to work in right good earnest to do everything they could to serve him, and from early dawn you might have seen ancient widows and orphan children standing about the prison, while those in aiithority bribed the gaolers, and got themselves in to i^ass the night with him. All sorts of dainties were then introduced at meal-time, and sacred discourses held, in which he won the name of a new Socrates. Inci-edible is the fuss made when the Christians take up publicly a matter like this, and no expense is spared. Hence Peregrinus made himself master of no small sums of money, and gained considerable profit through his bonds.' 1 Lucian, Dt morie Peregrin!, § 13. - Apuleius, Metam. xi. 23. 30 THE CATACOMBS IX TIMES OF PERSECUTION ; deeper and more inward than the ancient State religions had to offer. But how dffferent were the dim glimpses of the unseen which their votaries thought to gain in initiation, to that clear vision, that inspiring hope, which made the light of the Christian's life ! Through the martyrs men felt that they came nearer to the unseen %vorld, into which these had entered, and on the threshold of which the survivors mi^ht at any moment be standing. Hence, when tlie waves of persecution were closing around, the Christians clung more and more closely to the assurance which these examples offered. To realise the feelings of those times we must transport ourselves in thought to tlie Christian cemeteries when, in the days of sorest persecution, they afforded the only hope of a safe meeting-place. Thither, in the dusk of twilight, by unfrequented ways, in twos and threes, we can picture to ourselves the Christians gathering. Entering by a secret passage the closed, and perhaps guarded, catacomb, they assembled in the subterranean chapels, where the bodies of the martyrs lay at rest. With the sarcophagus for an altar, the lioly ceremonies were performed, and perhaps a hurried love-feast eaten in memory of the dead. There, w^hile the paved road without might be ringing with the tramp of tlie cohorts of the watch, the spirits of the martyrs would seem to come near to them, and inspire them to dare all for Christ. There even, as the priest laid his hands on the bread of the communion, they might behold in their ecstasy beneath the altar, ' the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God,' and hear them cry ' with a great voice, saying. How long, Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood ?' till from all the congrega- tion is breathed back with one accord the words of answer : ' Tarry yet a while till w^e also and our brethren, who shall be slain even as ye were, shall be fulfilled.' ^ 1 Rev. vi. 0-11. AND IN TIMES OF THE CHURCH'.S TRIUMPH. 31 The popular enthusiasm which attached itself in the times of persecution to the martyrs' graves, found new- methods of expression in the age of the Church's triumph. The anniversaries of the martyrdom of the saints, or, as they were called in imitation of the pagan custom, their hirtlidays, became the occasions of great popular festivals, like sacred Uionysia or civic games, with which indeed Church writers compare them. The situation of the cemeteries outside the walls was a favourable circumstance, and made the fete a country one; so that St. Chrysostom contrasts the town festival of the Maccabees at Antioch, when the rustics all thronged in through the gates, with the rural feasts of the martyrs, which left the towns deserted.^ On such occasions St. Jerome proudly boasts, ' the gilded Capitol is horrid with neglect ; with smoke-stains and spiders' webs are covered all the temples of Rome, the city is moved from its seat, while the torrent of the populace sweeping past the ruined shrines pours forth to the martyrs' tombs.' "^ It would be easy to multiply quotations to illustrate these festivals. The literature of the lime is full of notices of them, and we see how they rapidly came to take the posi- tion of Christian substitutes for the frequent pagan celebra- tions which had come to be considered so indispensable. The excesses which are wont to accompany popular festivities on a large scale were not wholly wanting here, and a passage from St. Augustine has already been men- tioned (page 25), which shows the tendency of the memorial feasts to become mere convivial gatherings, wherein, to borrow the sarcasm of St. Jerome, ' the martyrs, who had pleased God by fasting, were themselves honoured by sur- feiting and drunkenness.' ^ It is not to be wondered at that 1 S. Chrys., De Sanctis Martyribus, § 1. Migne's ed., vol. ii. p. 647. 2 S. Hieron., Epistolce, cvii. 1. Migne's ed., vol. i. p. 86S. 3 Ibid. xxxi. 3. Migne, I.e., p. 446. 32 Di:CLINE OF THE CEMETERY FESTIVALS. Church writers and Church Councils felt it necessary, even in the fourth century, to put a curb upon the practice. The time was soon to come, however, when these expedi- tions and rural festivals were to be cut short in another fashion. The incursions of the barbarian and the infidel rendered the country unsafe, and confined the population within the walls of the cities. Italy became the scene of incessant invasions and counter invasions, and the inroads of the Goths and of the Lombards reduced the Eoman popula- tion to the utmost straits, while the barbarians even plundered the cemeteries themselves. It was in these times that the practice was- adopted of conveying for safety within the city walls the priceless treasures of the catacombs, and an inscription in S. Prassede records how, in 817, Pope Paschal translated into Eome no fewer than 2300 bodies of the saints, while cartloads of relics are said to have been buried at the same period in the Pantheon, or, as it was called by the Church, S. Maria ad Martyres. The arrange- ments which were made in the churches for the reception and conservation of these relics had an important bearing upon architecture, which will be noticed in the next chapter. The festivals of the martyrs still continued to be held in the places to which their bones had been removed, and led on by insensible transitions to the modern saints-day celebrations. The semi-pagan character, which still belongs to many of these ' festas ' in Southern Europe, has often been commented on, and, even in the heart of Protestantism, the Public-School boy of to-day, who enjoys his half-holiday on the festival of a saint, is perpetuating an institution of the early Church, which, itself resting on classical tradition, is linked on to the joyous popular feasts that he reads of in Herodotus or Plato. CHAPTER II. THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN ASSEMBLIES AND PLACES OF MEETING. From the general position of the Christian associations in the Eoman world of the first three centuries, we pass on to the question of the form and character of their earliest meeting-places. Little aid can here be derived from a study of existing monuments. The earliest monuments of Chris- tian architecture of which we possess actual remains are the basilicas and domed churches of the fourth and fifth centuries at Eome, Eavenna, and Milan, in central Sjrria and in northern Africa. The aspect of these corresponds to an advanced stage of church organisation, and to a condition of worldly prosperity which did not exist until after the age of Constantine. The primitive communities would, we may be sure, have cared little about the situation, the form, and the decoration of their meeting-places, but the numerous Syrian churches of about the fifth century, described by de Vogiie,-^ are solidly built and exceedingly conspicuous ; S. Lorenzo at Milan, from the end of the fourth, shows us an architectural conception of the utmost boldness carried out with accomplished science, while in the basilicas of the same period at Eome and Eavenna we find a regularly ordered plan, with distinct places for different sections of the community, with ecclesiastical fittings to supply the requirements of ritual, and with splendid decoration and didactic pictures to reflect the glory of the Church, and ^ Syrie Centrale, Architecture civile et religieuse du V au 7* siecle Paris, 1865. C 34 THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MEETING-PLACES. bring home its liistory and its doctrines to the mind of the convert.^ These existing examples, together with those described to us by writers of the period, convey an idea of Christian architecture very different from the reality of the primitive age, and it would be a great mistake to argue back from them to the original forms. For the earlier period we are forced to rely upon literary records, illustrated by what we know about the non-Christian buildings which are likely to have served as models for the meeting-places of the faithful. The New Testament contains less information than might have been expected about Christian meeting-places, for the word ' ecclesia,' though commonly used in after time to denote a ^jfece of assembly, seems in the Acts and Epistles to have no local significance, but to mean only the congregation of the faithful. One passage, however, in which distinct reference is made to a regular place of Christian worship occurs in the Epistle of .Tames, and here the word employed is ' synagogue.' ^ The use of this word would suggest that it is to the Synagogue that we must look for the pattern of the first Christian meeting-house, but we might easily fall here into a mistake as great as that which has just been guarded against. The Jewish synagogues, like the basilicas of the fourth century, were often large and imposing structures, and it is obvious that the earliest Christians can neither have desired nor been able to erect buildings of the char- acter of these legally sanctioned edifices, the outcome of a ^ The early mosaic pictures in the churches of Rome and Ravenna con- tain contemporary representations of these biiildings and of their interior fittings, which supplement the literary accounts, and form an indispens- able groundwork for a discussion of the church architecture of the time. - James ii. 2, ' If there come into your synagogue a man with a gold ring, in tine clothing . . . and ye have regard to him that weareth the fine clothing, and say, Sit thou here in a good place,' etc. THE CHRISTIANS IN THE SYNAGOGUE. 35 time-honoured and elaborate religious system. The fitting place, therefore, to discuss the form and arrangement of the synagogue will be in connection with Christian buildings of the more advanced period, and this must be deferred till the next chapter. The early use of the synagogue by the Christians, before their final separation from the Jews, is, however, a point of some interest, which a moment's atten- tion to some familiar passages in the Acts will enable us to elucidate. Now it is clear from the New Testament that as the seer of Patmos ' saw no temple' in the city which descended before his eyes from heaven, so no idea of a specially Chris- tian form of building occurred to the members of the primi- tive Church. The Temple at Jerusalem was still sacred to them. Thither they still ascended at the hour of prayer,^ and one of its porticoes they chose for a time as their place of daily assembly.^ Away from the capital they still followed the customs of their people, frequenting the synagogues and places of prayer, and freely delivering therein some of the first Christian sermons.^ It was the more easy to propagate the new doctrines in this manner through the fact that, as we see in the accounts of the proceedings of St. Paul on his missionary journeys, the congregation in the synagogues was of a mixed description. The cities visited by him, Antioch, Iconium, Philippi, Thessalonica, though they might contain a large Hebrew population, were not Jewish, but Hellenistic. So attractive to the pagan mind at this period was the religion of the Jews * that the Greek or semi-Greek inhabi- 1 Acts iii. 1. - Ihkl. v. 12 ; Luke xxiv. 53. ^ Acts ix. 20; xiii. 5, 16 ; xiv. 1, etc. * A striking example of this is the case of the centurion at Caper- naum (Luke vii. 5), who need not have been a regular proselyte. Josephus [Wars, ii. 20, § 2) mentions that almost all the matrons of Damascus were addicted to the Jewish religion. Horace, Juvenal, and Tacitus testify to the influence of the Jews in the Roman world. 36 USE OF THE SYNAGOGUE BY ST. PAUL. tants of these cities seem to have formed the habit of attend- ance at the synagogue, and we find the Apostle addressing his audience by such terms as ' Men of Israel, and ye that fear Godl ' Brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and those among you that fear God! ^ So successful was this appeal at Antioch in Pisidia that ' the next Sabbath almost the tvhole city was gathered together to hear the Word of God,'^ and Paul turns from the Jewish to the Gentile section of his hearers as if both had an equal right to be present.^ At Iconium ' they entered into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude loth of Jeivs and of Greeks believed.' * At Corinth he ' reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and jpersuaded Jews and Greeks.' ^ It is in accordance with those open and democratic characteristics of the worship of the Jews already referred to ^ — characteristics expressed by the sacred motto, ' Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all peoples ' ^ — that we find it the custom for any suitable person to lead the service and offer the word of exhortation in the syn- agogues, and for any who chose to enter and share in the ministrations provided. Nor did the controversial character of the addresses delivered by the Apostle make them unsuit- able for the place or the audience. Either the synagogue itself, or a side building closely connected with it, was the recognised place for rabbinical disputations, and these we know were sometimes carried on, as by the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai, with no little vehemence. The brilliant and zealous disciple of Gamaliel i. would be certain to attract numerous hearers, and the interest of his speech might to the majority of the mixed audience excuse its want of orthodoxy. In other cases earnest Jews, as at 1 Acts xiii. 16, 26. ^ //^j-^^. 44. 3 n^^^ 45^ 43. * Ibid. xiv. 1. '" Ibid, xviii. 4. ^ Ante, p. 8. ^ Isaiah Ivi. 7. THE ' SEPARATION OF THE DISCIPLES.' 37 Bercea/ would carefully examine, before condemning, the arguments, so that the Apostle could speak boldly in the synagogue at Ephesus 'for the space of three months, reasoning and persuading as to the things concerning the kingdom of God.' - We come now, however, to the point when we must for a time turn our back upon the synagogue, for the verse follow- ing that just quoted contains a notice of great significance for the period on which we are about to enter. During these three months it appears that the Christian converts assembled with the other Jews in the regular synagogue where Paul was accustomed to offer exhortation, and no division seemed to either party to be called for. At the end of this time occurred a manifestation of popular hostility similar to those which had so often cut short at other places the Apostle's ministry, and in consequence, we are told, he ' departed from them,' ceasing to frequent the synagogue and 'separated the disciples.'^ The next step was not, as might perhaps have been expected, to formally open a new ' synagogue of the Christians.' The new community had, as we have seen, neither the worldly means nor the legal position which would have enabled it to erect for its accom- modation imposing public buildings like the synagogues. It had to have recourse to interiors of a humbler and more private kind, and it is with these that the story of Christian architecture really begins. Following then the Apostle's steps at Ephesus, we find him leading the disciples to the ' School of Tyrannus.'^ Tyrannus may have been a Christianised Jewish instructor, or a Grecian Sophist who was either a convert or was will- ing to let out his lecture-hall to the Christians— in any case his room was a private one, and meetings held there would have the same informal character as those in the house of 1 Acts xvii. 11. - Ibid. xix. S. -* Ibid. 9. * Ibid. I.e. 38 THE CHRISTIANS MEET FIRST IN PRIVATE HOUSES. Titus Justus, hard by the synagogue at Corinth, in which the Apostle had previously, under similar circumstances, taken refuge.^ It seems clear that the first meeting of the Christians as a community apart — meetings, that is, of a private rather than a proselytising character — took place, as we see from Acts i. 13-15, in private apartments, the upper rooms or large guest-chambers in the houses of individual members. Such a room was doubtless provided by the liberality of Titus Justus, such a room again was the upper chamber in which St. Paul preached at Troas;- in such assembled the converts saluted by the Apostle as the ' church which is in the house' of Aquila and Prisca,^ of Nymphas,'* and of Philemon;'' while it was in his own hired dwelling that at the close of his career he received and addressed his countrymen at Eome,^ who nmst often have united with him there at a love-feast or eucharistic service. In the literature of the age which succeeded to the apostolic, there is abundant evidence of the continuance of this practice. Meetings of the Christians at Eome in private houses are referred to in the Acts of Martyrdom of Justin Martyr and his companions, in the second century, — a docu- ment which is probably based upon the official notes of the trial itself. The Christians were brought up before the Prefect of Eome, who asked them, ' Where do you assemble V Justin said, ' Where each one chooses and can ; do you sup- pose that we are all accustomed to meet together in one place ? Quite otherwise, for the God of the Christians is not confined by place, but being invisible, He fills the heaven and the earth, and the faithful everywhere adore Him, and sing His praise.' Then the Prefect, ' Come, tell us in what place you assemble and gather together your 1 Acts xviii. 7. - Ib'ul. xx. 7, S. '^ 1 Cor. xvi. 19. ^ Col. iv. 15. s Phile. 2. « Acts xxviii. 30. THE ANTIQUE DWELLING-HOUSE ; 39 followers?' Justin answered, 'I have lodged up to this time by the house of one Martinus, at the bath which is called Timiotinian. This is the second time that I have been in Eome, and I know no other place but the one I have named. There, if any one wished to come to visit me, I communicated to him the Word of Truth.' ^ These meetings in private houses, though they belong to the earliest, and, as we might say, the domestic age of the Church, by no means passed out of use when Christianity became a more public institution. Until freedom of religion was proclaimed by Constantine, and the permission which the Church obtained to receive legacies poured into her lap abundant funds for church building, the custom of meeting in private houses seems still to have remained in vogue. That there was nothing in this custom incompatible with the position of the Christian communities as religious col- leges is proved by heathen parallels. Tacitus speaks of associations devoted to the worship of Augustus which ' held meetings after the manner of the colleges from house to house,' 2 and an inscription tells of 'the college of the elders and of the juniors in the house of Sergia Paullina.'^ It becomes, accordingly, a problem of interest in the history of Christian architecture to determine what was the form and character of these primitive meeting-places, which may have contributed to form in the minds of the earliest Christians their nascent idea of an architectural style suited to their needs. A word as to the arrangement of antique dwelling- houses will here be necessary. These may be divided into two kinds — the normal house built where there was freedom of space, and the city residence amidst crowded streets. The former had the principal rooms on the ground-floor, and covered in consequence a large area in proportion to its 1 Ruinart, Acta Martyrum Sincera, Ratisbon, 1859, p. 10(j. 2 Tacitus, Annale.% i. c. 73. ^ Orelli-Henzeii, 4938. 40 ITS diffp:i;ext forms ; lieight. Most of the houses laid bare at Pompeii are of this kind, and on the fragments of the ancient Capitoline plan of Eome, which dates from the time of Septimius Severus, there are several of a similar form indicated (Fig. 1),^ and these will presently be described. nrm JL • • • • • • • .Tiiniri;_ Fig. 1.— Private Houses from the Capitoline plan of Rome. The primitive Eoman house had only one story, but as cities grew to be more densely populated upper stories came into use, and it was the custom to place in these the dining apartments, which were called cenacula. Such apartments would answer to the ' upper rooms ' mentioned in the Scrip- tures in connection with Eastern houses, and associated with the early days of Christianity. The immense increase in the population of Eome under the early emperors, of which poets and satirists so feelingly complain, made build- ing land very costly, and to gain room story upon story was added to the houses, until considerations of safety obliged the government to fix a maximum of height. Martial tells us that he lived up three pair of stairs, but they were very ^ Jordan, Forma Ui-bis Bomct, frag. 172. THE ' INSULA.' 41 liigh ones.^ These lofty houses were built in blocks, called iiisulce, and let out to numerous tenants, who paid very high rents for even the uppermost floors. It is probable that Fig. 2,2 from a fragment of the Capitoline plan, repre- sents a block of this kind, the shops which surrounded it on Fig. 2. — ' Insula,' from the Capitoline plan. the ground floor being alone marked in detail. The Mar- tinus mentioned by Justin may have owned an insula, or a portion of one, and let out rooms which were used by the Christians as a place of assembly. In the an ti- christian dialogue Philojxiiris, formerly ascribed to Lucian, we are introduced to a Christian gathering in an upper chamber of one of these city houses. The speaker describes how he was taken up a long winding staircase and ushered into a hand- some room with a gilded ceiling, wherein was seated a company of men of a gloomy aspect, who were gloating over the misfortunes impending on the human race ! 1 Strabo {xvi. 11, § 13) writes of Aradus in Syria, that even in his time 'the population was so large that the houses had many stories ; ' aud of Tyre {ibid. § 23), that ' the houses consist of many stories, of more even than at Kome.' - Jordan, Forma Urbit Homa, fiag. 191. 42 ANTIQUE FESTAL HALLS Of more importance in relation to the beginnings of Christian architecture are the meetings of the Christians held in private mansions of the normal kind, which differed entirely in plan from these many-storied residences in the crowded parts of the cities. The existence of capacious halls in these mansions is proved, not only from existing remains, but from the descriptions of classical entertainments. These halls were the additions of an age of wealth and luxury to the modest domiciles of the early classical period. Up to the last period of the Eepublic, the houses of the Romans were simple and of small extent, consisting only of the atrium, or partially covered court, the nucleus of the home, some small chambers and offices opening out of it, and one or two living and dining apartments of moderate size be- yond, — all on the same floor, or, it might be, with the addi- tion of some upper rooms or cenacula. In the case of a house of this kind, the natural method of extension, when extension was needed and space allowed, was to throw out new apartments at the back, where land could most easily be acquired. These adjuncts were built in the Greek style, and called by Greek names. They consisted of a spacious court or ixristylc, surrounded by a colonnade out of which opened sundry festal apartments, called occi, from the Greek word oIko<;, a house or hall, and varying in number size and splendour with the wealth and position of the owner. A garden often lay beyond, into which the ocnis opened. Fig. 3 gives the normal plan of a Eoman house of the later classical period, with the atrium and surrounding apartments, and the peristyle with festal halls and garden beyond. In the court of the ijeristylc would be found a fountain, with statues, flowering shrubs, etc. The Greek house received similar additions in the post- Alexandrine period of private luxury, and it was in the apartments of this portion of the establishment that were USED FOE CHRISTIAN GATHERINGS. 43 held the entertainments described by writers of the later classical epoch. The Christian communities contained from an early period members of wealth and social position, who could accommodate in their houses large gatherings of the faithful ; and it is interesting to reflect that while some of the mansions of an ancient city might be witnessing, in suppers of a Trimalchio or a Virro, scenes more revolting to modern taste than almost anything presented by the pagan world, others, perhaps in the same street, might be the seat of Christian worship or of the simple Christian meal. Fig. 3. — Normal Roman House. The architectural style of these halls varied, and Vitru- vius mentions four kinds,"* though his words are hardly clear enough to afford grounds for a reconstruction. Upon this point something more will be said in the next chapter, but it may be remarked here that the richness of decoration of these festal halls and cenacula must have had a potent effect in preparing the Christians to apply similar adornments to their regular churches, as soon as these came to be built. It is with the employment of these structures, rather than . with their architecture, that we are at present concerned. The use of these large private halls for Christian gatherings is well illustrated in the curious theological romance known as the Recognitions of Clement. The work professes to de- scribe the proceedings of St, Peter and a band of his followers ^ De Architectura, vi. 3. 44 ILLUSTRATION FROM THE ' RECOGNITIONS.' in the course of a missionary jovirney near Palestine, during which discourses are preached and conversions made with- out number, and a brisk controversy kept up with ' Simon Magus.' On one occasion the party comes to Tripolis and is lodged in the house of one Maro. In the morning a con- course of those eager to hear the word assembles before the gates. Peter asks where there is a suitable place for discus- sion. Maro replies, ' I have a very spacious hall capable of holding more than 500 persons ; there is a garden too within the house.' Peter said, ' Show me the hall and the garden.' When he had seen the hall, he was going in to view the garden also (which may have opened out of the hall), when suddenly the crowd rushes in and fills the place. Taking his stand, therefore, upon a pedestal against the wall, he salutes them and begins his address. Later in the day couches are spread in the shady part of the garden, and the Christians recline to take the evening meal.^ During such meals, as we know from other sources, the younger brethren who had good voices would lift them up in psalms. At El Barah, in central Syria, not a long distance from Tripolis, de Vogiie found the well-preserved ruins of a hand- some country villa, surrounded by a large garden, and con- taining a hall of fine proportions, from which we may derive an idea of this of Maro.- Another passage in the Becognitions is interesting as a record of the formal assignment, by a wealthy convert, of an apartment in his mansion for the purposes of Christian assembly. At the close of St. Peter's mission in Antioch, so runs the romance, ' a certain rich man of the place, Theo- philus, who was more exalted than all the nobles of the country, consecrated the immense hall (basilica) of his palace as a Christian church, and there, by the acclamation of the ^ Clementine Recognitions, iv. 6. - De Vogiie, Sijrie Centrale, pi. 51-53. EAELY CHRISTIAN ' CLERGY-HOUSES ;' 45 people, was set up the chair of the Apostle Peter.' ^ Tradi- tion makes this Theopliilus afterwards bishop of Autioch, in the same manner as in the Recognitions Maro, the owner of the hall and garden already mentioned, is made by St. Peter bishop of Tripolis. In this way not the hall alone, but the whole residence, might be converted to Christian uses, and become the recognised centre of Christian life and work for the town and the surrounding country. We may be per- mitted to conjecture, indeed, that it was a maxim of church policy to secure as bishops men of wealth and social station, in whose houses the adherents of the faith should have an advantageous position from which to extend their operations. Such clergy-houses — if the expression may be used — might easily be transformed a little later into monasteries. The arrangement of the mediaeval monastery recalls that of the ancient house. The cloistered court is the peristyle; the church, the refectory, the chapter- house, and other apart- ments round it correspond to the oeci of classical times, and the resemblance may be due to this derivation. A Christian establishment of the kind just noticed we have brought before us in a curious document - referring to the time of the Diocletian persecution, 303 a.d., and record- ing the ofiicial visit of the Eoman magistrate of the town of Cirta, in Africa, to the domicile of the Christians, in quest of their sacred writings which had been confiscated by Imperial edict. 'When they came to the house where the Christians were wont to assemble, Felix, fiamen 2^^fp€,tuus curator of the colony of Cirta, said to Paul the bishop, " produce the writings of the law and anything else which you may have." ' The bishop fenced with the demand, and said that ' the readers had the copies of the Scriptures,' but a search ^ Clementine Recognitions, x. 71. 2 Known as Gesta Purgationis GmciUani, and printed in the Appendix to vol. ix. of Migne's edition of St. Augustine's Works, p. 794. 46 THEIR USE ILLUSTRATED. was made, which is described as follows : — ' There was seated Paul the bishop, with Montanus and Victor, Densatelius and Memorius, presbyters ; standing by were Martis, with Helius, deacons ; Marcuclius, CatuUinus, Silvanus, and Carosus, sub- deacons ; Januarius, Meraclus, Fructuosus, Migginis, Satur- ninus, Victor, and others, sextons. Victor, the son of Aufidius, took down the inventory, as follows: — Two golden cups, item, six silver do., six silver ewers, a silver vase, seven silver lamps, two candelabra with branches, seven short bronze candlesticks with their stands, item, eleven bronze lamps with their chains; 82 women's tunics, 32 capes, 16 men's tunics, 13 pairs of men's shoes, 47 pairs of women's do. . . . Afterwards search was made in the library, but the cases were found empty. . . . When the dining-room {tri- clinium) was opened there were found there four jars and six vases. . . . The search was concluded by a visit to the houses of the readers, where various copies of the Scrip- tures were given up to the authorities. The scene here is undoubtedly a private house, the resi- dence of the bishop, but devoted to Christian purposes. The hall is the regular place of meeting, and here the bishop sits in state to receive the magistrate, with two presbyters on each side of him. The deacons and under oflicers stand at the side. A chamber near, or a recess in the hall, is the treasury, and here are found the various objects used at the gatherings. The library, which was always a feature in houses of the wealthy, is hard by, with its cases for books. The dining-room is the place where the love-feasts are celebrated. The inventory of objects found is curious. The lamps and candelabra which figure so largely show that meetings were held in the evening or before dawn. The cups or chalices and the ewers were used at the celebration of the Eucharist. The jars and vases found in the tridinkuii may have been employed for LIMITATION OF PRIVATE GATHERINGS. 47 the purpose of measuring out the portions of wine and oil assigned at the love-feasts to the poorer members. The most singular item is the abundant supply of men's and women's garments kept in store. The custom of putting on a festal robe for dining is illustrated by the accounts we possess of classical banquets, as well as by the parable in the Gospel of the feast and the guest who had not on a wedding garment. It is possible that these robes were used for the attiring of the poorer brethren at the love-feasts, that no one of the faithful should have cause to be ashamed of the poorness of his habit. We are forcibly reminded of the similar provision of robes for the memorial banquet referred to in the Eoman testament quoted on an earlier page.i We are able by means of these and other passages to trace the custom of meeting in private houses down to the very end of the ages of persecution. In the subsequent period such gatherings were discouraged. It was against the policy of the Church to allow meetings of the faithful to be held without the superintendence of the authorities. It was believed, no doubt, that they would lead to divergencies of various kinds from orthodox dogma and practice, and they were prohibited unless licensed specially by the bishop. The institution did not however pass away without giving birth to an offshoot which has survived to modern times. This is the private oratory for family use, of which we find traces in early Christian days. On the Aventine there was discovered in the last century a small oratory, adorned with Christian paintings of the fourth century, which belonged, apparently, to the house of one Pudens Cornelianus, a member of a family famous in the early traditions of the Church. Another small oratory of interesting form, and adorned with Christian paintings, was discovered near the Thermae of 1 Ante, p. 19. 48 OTHER MEETING-PLACES. Diocletian, and is described by de Rossi in his Bnllettino for 1876. These domestic chapels are of course quite dis- tinct from the large private halls of which we have been speaking. The question now arises, Were these the only meeting- places possessed by the Christians in the Eoman cities ? Eusebius tells us that at the time of the Decian perse- cution in the middle of the third century, there were forty- six presbyters at Eome,^ and the statement of Optatus, that in the days of Diocletian there were more than forty Eoman basilicas,^ leads to the inference that there were that number of independent communities, each presided over by a presbyter. Did these communities only meet in private houses ? The supposition is a very natural one that, in some parts of the city at any rate, common meeting-places, unconnected with private houses, had at an early period been erected. It w^as not in every quarter of Eome, or in every place where there was a community of Christians, that houses with large private rooms would be available for the purposes of the faithful. In cases where these were wanting, nothing is more probable than that the Christian communities — the outward organisation of which resembled, as we have seen, that of other religious associations — should have followed the example first of the Jews and then of the various clubs and colleges which were so numerous all about them, and have procured or erected, ex cere comniuni, a modest meeting-place, such as that which we may imagine used by the Christians of Corinth.^ In days when active persecutions were not unfrequent, it was important for these buildings to be as unpretentious as possible, and there was no way by which they could more surely escape hostile 1 Hist. Eccl. vi. 43. 2 De Seism. Donat. ii. 4. ^1 Coi-. xi. 17-34. aCHOLAl OR LODGE-ROOMS. 49 notice, than by assuming the character of the scholceov lodge- rooms, already referred to as the meeting-places of the pagan associations. As a fact, the first account we have of any action of the Christians in a matter of the acquisition of land, presumably for building, suggests a scJwIa. It occurs in the life of Alexander Severus (222-235) by Lampridius, and is to the following effect : — ' The Christians had occu- pied a certain space of land which liad before been public property, and the tavern-keepers (j)opinarii) opposed them, saying that the ground ought to be theirs. The emperor decided that it was better that God should be worshipped in that place in any sort of a way, than that it should be given over to tavern-keepers.' ^ This passage should be taken in connection with another which describes the action of Severus in encouraging clubs and guilds in general. ' He established corporations every- where, of the wine-dealers, the inn-keepers, the cobblers and, in a word, of all the trades.'^ It is fair here to con- jecture that the claim of the tavern-keepers upon a piece of formerly public land arose out of this action of Severus towards the guilds. There can be little doubt that these popinarii formed a society similar to those mentioned above by Lampridius, or to the ' corpus tdbernariorum' or " guild of the victuallers,' which we find in an inscription,^ and it may be that Severus had gone so far in his favour towards the societies as to allow some of them to appropriate portions of vacant public land on which to build their meeting-places. Expecting a similar permission, these tavern-keepers found themselves forestalled by a community of Christians. The matter is referred to the emperor, who looks at the dispute as one between two associations, one religious, and the other trading, and decides that any sort of religious society is more ^ Lampridius, Alex. Sev. c. 49. ^ Ibid. c. 33. ^ Orelli-Henzen, 7215 a. 50 SCIIOL.E OF HEATHEN ASSOCIATIONS to be encouraged than the guild of the tavern-keepers.^ Whatever building the Christians erected on the ground thus secured would have been considered a scJiola, and would have had the form and architectural character of those buildings. These scliolce, the name of which survives in the Italian term scuola, for the lodge of a fraternity, belong to a class of public buildings not so important as temples, theatres, baths, or basilicas, but essential to the equipment of an ancient city. Official bodies of various kinds, from the Eoman or the municipal senates downwards, had their places of business or of deliberation, called curicc or scholcc. The curia was the regular name for a senate-house, and the senate at Eome had its curicc, though it held its meetings very commonly in temples, especially in the temple of Con- cord ; the ancient divisions of the Eomau people, too, the c^iriK, met in edifices called by the same name. Bodies of officials, like those who managed the public games, or the details of municipal affairs, had also their proper offices, which seem to have been called curicc or scliolce, according to their greater or less importance. Thus, a set of public clerks at Eome were located close to the Tabularium, in a row of chambers called the Scholci Xanta, while the august priests of Mars, the Salii, had a curia upon the Palatine. At Ostia the semi-official guilds of officers and workmen about the port had their scliolce, and these have recently been brought to light — some above the magazines of grain, and others in a portico on the Forum, divided for this purpose into sundry compartments, on the thresholds of which are inscribed the names of the guilds in occupation.^ ^ This story bears upon the question, noticed in the last chapter, whether the Christians could hold a formal legal title, as a corporation, to ordinary property (p. 22, note). - Lanciani, in the Athencnum, July 18S0 and Jan. 1882. ILLUSTRATED FROM INSCRIPTIONS, 51 Within the walls of Eome the situations of some of the meet- ing-places of trading or religious corporations are indicated by inscriptions, though there are no actual remains to point to. Thus we read of a college whose members met in a scJiola by the Theatre of Pompeius.^ A religious brotherhood devoted to the worship of the genius of the Imperial family, had a scJiola above the Temple of Claudius.^ A third was close to the Pantheon of Agrippa,^ The fishermen seem to have been located by the Tiber bank,'* and a writer in Grtevius suggests that the schokc of many of the trade guilds would have been found near the market under the Aventine.^ The form of these scJiokc would doubtless vary according to the property and importance of the college. Some of them were built and adorned at the expense of wealthy individuals, whose benefactions are recorded by inscriptions, and these would possess some architectural pretension. For example, we read of a ' schola with its statues and images, and all its adornments ; ' ^ and again, ' Cornelius Aphrodistus erected at his own cost a new building as a gift to his associates, and dedicated it on the Kalends of June;'''' ' Orfia Priscilla paid to the college of smiths the sum of money which Orfius Hermes, her grandfather, had promised for the decoration of their schola, in remembrance of Orfius Severus, his son.'^ The best idea of the form of these buildings is to be gained from the three small edifices which stand side by side close to the Porum of Pompeii, and are marked xix. on Over- beck's plan.^ Pig. 4 gives the form of two of them : they were simple oblong halls, measuring about 50 feet by 30, 1 Orelli-Henzen, 4085. 2 jf^id 2389. 3 Ibid. 7215 a. * Ibid. 4115. 5 Thesaurus, iv. 1537 c. ^ Orelli-Henzen, 3303. 7 Ibid. 4092. 8 Ibid. 4089. " Overbeck, Pompeji, etc.. 4 Aufl., Leipzig, 1883. 52 FllOM EXISTING REMAINS, and were embellished with some taste. They probably formed the offices or board-rooms of municipal functionaries, but the scholce of private associations may well have had a similar form. It may be remarked that on the fragments of the Capitoline plan of Eome, there are not a few buildings indicated which have the same form as those of Pompeii, and may have been cjmce or scholce. Fig. 5 ^ gives some specimens. It will be observed that a constant feature in these buildings is the apse at the small end furthest from the entrance, which was without doubt the place set apart Fig. i. — Curiw or Scholre at Pompeii, from Overbeck. for the president and officials at the meetings ; and the similarity of this arrangement to that prevailing in the Jewish synagogue, and at a later time in the Christian Church, will not escape attention. A good idea of the general appearance of small buildings of this kind may be gained from Fig. 6, taken from an early Christian mosaic, which possibly (infra, p. 99) represents a Jewish meeting- house. It is conceivable that some of the halls shown in ' Jordan, Forma Urhh, Frag. 228, 233, 236, 289, 380. AND FROM THE CAPITOLINE PLAN. 53 plan in Fig. 5, may have sheltered Jewish or Christian communities. The brotherhoods whose place of meeting was outside the city, were generally funeral societies, and their scholm were connected with the cemeteries. Outside the walls of Eome more than one such ancient scliola has been identified. The foundations of two have been discovered among the tombs on the Appian Way, and there is no doubt that they served for the burial and memorial feasts of the funeral colleges. Fig. 5.— Scholse(?) from the Capitoline plan of Rome. One of these is the scJiola mentioned in an inscription quoted in the last chapter (p. 18) as belonging to the college of Silvanus. It lay on the right of the Appian Way, a little beyond the cemetery of S. Callisto, and was of a circular form, with an altar in the centre, and seats of stone ranged round the circle of the walls. A portico was also connected with it.^ A second schola is described as a quadrangular cclla with a single entrance, measuring about 18 feet on every side. In the midst was an altar, and around the ^ Carlo Fea, Varietd di Notizk, p. ISO. 54 SCHOLJ-: OF BURIAL ASSOCIATIONS walls ran a continuous bench of stone, which would have accommodated nearly fifty persons.^ Fig. 7 gives the plan of the remains of another schola belonging to a pagan religious brotherhood, which was discovered at Ostia.^ Here we have an irregular quadrilateral plan with two altars in the midst, and a continuous bench of the same kind as before. In the case of the Christians, on the other hand, de Eossi has been fortunate enough to discover and identify the remains of a large schola, very similar in form Fig. 6.- Small Synagogue or Schola, from a ^Mosaic of the Fifth Century. and arrangement to the last, by the entrance to the ancient catacomb of Domitilla. It was of irregular form, and possessed a stone bench along the walls ; a vaulted chamber with a well opened out of it. This de Eossi calls ' a vast triclinium for a large number of guests, in a word, a scliola sodalium similar to those of the pagan brotherhoods instituted for purposes of burial.'^ The parallel between Christian and Pagan could not be more exact. ^ C. L. Visconti in Annall dell' Inst, di Corr. Arch., 1S6S, ]\ 387. 2 Annali del Inst. Arch., 1868, p. 362. 3 De Rossi, Bulletthio, 1865, p. 97. PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN. 55 Akin to the scholcc of these burial associations, were the ccllce erected in cemeteries for the due performance of funeral rites. Directions for the fitting up of one have already been given in the words of a pagan testament.^ Here again Christian sources furnish us with something closely parallel, and we come now upon the traces of an important form of early Christian building. A Christian inscription from Cherchel in North Africa, quoted on a previous page, records the presentation to the church of a Fio. 7. — Scliola besiJe tlie Metioon at Ostia. place of burial with a cella} Eusebius^ quotes a writer of the end of the second century who tells us that in his day the 'trophies' (memorial chapels) of the martyrs Peter and Paul were to be seen on the Vatican Hill, and on the road to Ostia, The Liber Pontificalis states that Pope Fabian (236-250) ' caused many structures to be erected in the cemeteries,'^ and it is probable that most of these were memorial cello:. The researches of de Ptossi in the region of the catacomb of S. Callisto at Pome have identified two of 1 Ante, p. 19. - Ante, p. 25, ^ jjigt^ EccI ii. 25, * Anastasius, Hist, de Vitis Rom. Pont. 21. 56 MEMORIAL CELL^': the ancient buildinfrs, which remain above o;round at that spot, as Christian ccllcc of the kind referred to in the inscrip- tion from Cherchel.^ These seem to date in their original form from the period before the Diocletian persecution, and may contain some of the original work of Pope Fabian. The form of these edifices is of great architectural interest. It will be convenient to deal with the structural questions connected with them in the next chapter, and to aim only in this place at bringing their probable aspect and use as clearly as possible before the reader. Fig. 8 shows the ground plan of one of the cellcc upon the area of the cemetery Pig. S.— Plan of Memorial Cella in the Cemetery of S. Callisto, Rome. of S. Callisto, in the original form as ascertained by de Eossi, while the drawing upon the frontispiece of this volume is an attempted restoration of a similar building, as it may have appeared at the time of the preparation for a memorial feast in honour of a martyr in the latter half of the third century a.d. The ground plan shows three semicircular apses set trefoil-fashion on the tliree sides of a square, the fourth side being left open. Such a structure would be aptly described by the term eoxdra (alcove), a word used in the Eoman testament (p. 19) to express the place appointed for the memorial feast on the birth- 1 De Rossi, Rom. Soft. iii. -lOS. IN CHEISTIAN CEMETERIES. 57 day of the testator, so that the arrangements described in that curious document may be taken as data to assist in the reconstruction of the memorial edict of the Christians. In the drawing on the frontispiece, the cella is supposed to be situated in a Christian cemetery on rising ground above the Appian Way, a short distance beyond the gates of Rome, the buildings of which are seen in the middle distance. The area of the cemetery is bounded by walls, with gates for access on the two sides nearest the city, and is pleasantly laid out as a garden.^ Within it are to be observed, (1) a memorial cclla, (2) an entrance to the sub- terranean galleries and chambers, which were the actual places of sepulture, and (3) the small tenement where the officials of the cemetery might reside, and where would be kept all the furniture and utensils required for the funeral rites and the memorial feasts. These officials formed an important body, called Fossorcs, who were numbered among the inferior clergy,^ and charged with the excavation of tombs, and the care of the cemeteries in general. Portraits of these fossorcs, bearing their picks for excavation and their lamps, occur in the wall-paintings of the catacombs, and in the case of one interesting picture, which seems to portray the celebration of the Eucharist and the agape, a figure of a fossor occurs at each side, standing with pick on shoulder, as if on guard to prevent the intrusion of the uninitiated.^ Hence we may suppose that the fossorcs of a cemetery would not only carry out the arrangements for a memorial feast under the direction of the deacons, but would also, as shown in the drawing, guard the gates while the congregation was assembling. - The anaugement of the Christian cemeteries above groitnd is dis- cussed by de Rossi, Rom. Sott. iii. 400 ff. ^ As in the description qiioted on page 46. ^ Ki-aus, Real-Encyklopadie, art. ' Eucharistie,' p. 441. 58 FUNERAL FEASTS IN CEMETERIES With regard to the cella itself, its dimensions were small, that shown in plan in Fig. 8 measuring about 30 feet on each side of the square. The large congregations that assembled on the festivals of the martyrs must have found accommodation on the open space outside, while the religious service and the preparation of the feast were directed by the presbyters and deacons within the building. Such an open- air feast has classical parallels. For example, in the street Fig. y. — Funeral Triclinium at Pompeii, from Overbeck. of tombs at Pompeii, there is a small open tricliniitm arranged with couches for the guests at a funeral banquet. Fig. 9, from Overbeck's Pompeji, gives a view of this, and the arrangement of the three sloping couches, with the table in the centre, has been adopted in the restoration on the frontispiece. Couches and tables might be, like those at Pompeii, of brick or stone covered with stucco, or the couches might be of turf, with moveable tables of wood. In BOTH CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN. 59 the drawing, couches and a table for the clergy and distin- guished members of the congregation are placed in front of the cella, while seats, couches and tables for the main body of the people stand at the sides. A division formed of wooden barriers runs down the centre to keep apart the women and the men. For the furnishing forth of the memorial feast there would be required the cushions, rugs, etc., mentioned in the Roman testament, as well as the wine-jars and other vessels included in the inventory of the possessions of the Christian com- munity at Cirta, quoted on p. 46. These would be under the charge of the fossores who kept the cemetery. With respect to the cella itself, as shown in the drawing, its ground plan is, as we have seen, derived from an actually existing ruin. The facade is copied from that of an exedra in the street of the tombs at Pompeii.^ The exterior is adorned with inlaid marbles, the fa9ade with reliefs repre- senting the story of Jonah, the interior with wall paintings.- ^ Nicolini, Cose e Monumenti dl Pomp, descriz. (jen. Tav. vi. - The best early patristic authority for these memorial feasts with which the writer is acquainted is to be found in the so-called Canons of S. Hippolytus, edited by de Haneberg from an Arabic MS. in the Vatican Library, under the title : Canones S. Hippohjti Arabice e Codicibu.s Romanis cum versione Latina, etc. Monachii, 1870. Canon thirty-three runs as follows : — ^ About the commemoration for the dead ; it is forbidden to hold it on the Lord^s day. If commemorations are held for those who are dead, first, before the people sit down to meat, let them take the sacrament, but not however on the Lord's day. After the communion, let the bread (of thanksgiving) be distributed to them before they sit down to meat, but let it be done before the sun sets. Let no catechumen sit down with them in the Agape. Let them eat and drink as much as they need, but not to drunkenness, but as in the divine presence, and with thanks to God.' The Latin version is appended : — ' XXXIII. Canon triyesimus tertius, De commemoratione pro de- functis : interdicitur, ne fiant die dominica. ' Si fiunt commemorationes pro iis, qui defuncti sunt, primum, ante- quam consideant, sacramenta sumant, neque tamen die dominica. Post communionem distribuatur eis panis (eulogiarum) ante solis occasum, 60 UNDERGROUND CHAPELS Next to the scJioke of the cities, and the memorial ccllce on the cemeteries, must be mentioned the underground chapels excavated in the aixce of the burying grounds, and used, as we have seen, as places of meeting during the dark hours of the Church's history in the Decian and Diocletian perse- cutions.^ The form may be gathered from the accompanying illustration (Fig. 10) representing one discovered in the catacomb of S. Agnese, and described and figured in Marchi's work on the early Christian cemeteries. The space is formed by throwing into one a number of the small square cells or Fig 10.— Underground Meeting-place in a Roman Cemetery. antequam consideant. Noii sedeat cum eis aliquis catechumenus in Agapis. ' Edant Inbantque ad satietatem, neqiie vero ad ebrietatem ; sed in divina praesentia ciim laude Dei.' It is clear from this passage that the memorial feast in hononr of the martyrs, called here by the name agape, was a recognised institution, and was held without any secrecy ; the author of the Canons is particular in his directions that all is to be done by daylight, so that the people may return safely and in order to the city before nightfall. The double character of the celebration (which begins with the religious ordinance of the Eucharist, but tends as we see from the last sentence to become over-convivial), and the exclusiveness of the gathering (which includes only those in full church-fellowship), are also points to be noticed. The above Canons may be ascribed to the first half of the third century (de Haneberg, p. 22). At a later period these agapce are dis- couraged (S. Greg. Naz., Migne, S. G. xxxviii. p. 98 ; S. Chrys. in S. Jul. Mart. § 4), and the councils of Laodictea (364 ?), (Labbe, ii. 570) and Hippo (393), (Labbe, iii. 923) decree against them. ^ The Chronological Table gives a view of these successive periods of repose and persecution. AND THEIK ARRANGEMENT. 61 cubicula, in the walls of which were constructed the niches to contain the bones of the honoured dead. The cubiculum A is the seat of the clergy, with the bishop's chair at a. B, B, are the spaces for the men ; C, C, those for the women of the congregation. The gallery D gives access from the other parts of the cemetery. The pavement of the church, if so we may call it, was of marble, and pilasters projecting from the wall at h, h, h, b show some attempt to give archi- tectural character to the construction. The niches, c, c, are supposed by Father iVIarchi to have held statues, but were more probably receptacles for lamps. If this archteologist is right in his explanation of this crypt, and in assigning to it a date in the third century, we have here for the first time some of the peculiarities of arrangement which we find in force in the churches of the age of Constantine. They con- cern the separation of the sexes during worship, an arrange- ment insisted on by the Church, and one for which the Christian, like the Jewish, architect had to provide. St. Chrysostom tells us that of old such separation was not necessary. In Christ there is neither male nor female ; and in the upper chamber at Jerusalem there were gathered together both men and women. Now, however, he explains, some purity of heart has been lost, and it has been found needful to place wooden barriers in the churches to keep the sexes apart.^ Another feature is the division of the presbytery, or place for the clergy, from that appointed for the people. The former were ranged on stone benches on each side of the bishop, who probably had in front of him a portable altar. There is nothing which has had more influence on the planning of Christian churches than the necessity of pro- viding for this separation, and it is interesting to observe it here marked for the first time in existing monuments. 1 Hom'iUa Ixxiii. in S. Matthceum, 3. 62 1>KI!IVATI0N OF THE FORMAL CHURCH That the Christians were driven in times of persecution to meet in still less convenient localities than these sepulchral crypts will readily be believed. ' Dens and caves of the earth ' were put to sacred uses, and Gregory of Tours tells us that the few followers of the first bishop of that district met in crypts and caverns in the time of the Emperor Decius.^ The siieluncce (disused cisterns ?) of Alexandria sheltered the trembling congregations in the days of Aurelian.^ These temporary expedients have no importance for our present purpose, and the synagogue, the private hall, the schola, the memorial cella and the crypt, remain the only forms with which we need concern ourselves. The circumstances under which the formal church (what- ever may have been its architectural form) came to supersede these irregular structures must now be considered. The dedication of private halls as Christian churches has already been noticed. Only in a single instance has such a hall been preserved till modern times. Up to the period of the Eenaissance there existed at Eome, in the vicinity of S. Maria Maggiore, an ancient church known as S. Andrea in Barbara, remarkable for its splendid internal decoration in mosaics of coloured marble. The researches of de Eossi ^ leave little doubt that this was originally erected in 317 A.D. by a wealthy Eoman, the consul Junius Bassus. For what purpose it was built we cannot exactly determine, but the subjects of the mosaics, which were taken from pagan mythology and history, leave no doubt that it was once a heathen secular building. An inscription in the apse proves that in the latter part of the fifth century it was the pos- session of a private person of wealth, who bequeathed it by testament to the Church. The inscription describes its ^ Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, x. 31. - Eutych. Alex. Ann. i. p. 398 ; Migne, S. G. cxi. 997. " De Pvossi, Bidlettino, 1871, p. 5, FROM THE PRIVATE HALL, 63 dedication to Christian worship by Pope Simplicius (468- 483), who was content to substitute a fine Christian mosaic in glass for the old decoration of the upper part of the apse, and to leave the rest in its original state. The loss of this building, which had fallen into ruin before the seven- teenth century, deprives us of a unique and most interesting monument of early Christian times. In the case of not a few of the principal Eoman chui-ches we have traditional or other evidence to connect them in their origin with private houses. In these instances what actually remains to us is a church in the regular form of the fourth or fifth century, no portion of which seems ever to have done service as a private hall ; and we may suppose, if this derivation be correct, that the mansion would in time fall into ruin and disappear, while the hall would be altered and rebuilt to suit ecclesiastical requirements. Thus the famous Basilica of St. John Lateran, ' the mother church of Christendom/ was in its earliest form a portion of the palace of Fausta, the wife of Constantine; and an apart- ment of the Sessorian Palace became the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. According to tradition the ancient Church of S. Pudentiana, one of the oldest in Ptome, stands on the site of the palace of the senator PudenSj the supposed entertainer of St. Peter. A legend connects S. Cecilia in Trastevere with the house of the saint herself, and in the case of S. Clemente we have the interesting fact that the lower church, which dates from the days of Constantine, is connected with the chambers of a private mansion, now buried beneath the ground, which is conjectured to have been the abode or the place of teaching of St. Clement of Eome. It is true that these are somewhat shadowy per- sonages, but the traditions are not so valueless as to warrant our omitting all notice of them. Por the derivation of Christian churches from synagogues, 64 AND FROM THE MEMORIAL CELLiE or from the ordinary city schohe, we have no direct evidence, though a tradition ascribes to the Church of S. ]Maria in Trastevere an origin in the building which was the subject of dispute between the Cliristians and the popinarii in the days of Alexander Severus. In the matter of the buildings in the cemeteries the evidence is much clearer. We have seen that meetings under ground were only rendered com- pulsory through exceptional edicts of persecution, and the subterranean churches were not used more than was abso- lutely necessary. Though they are in themselves interesting memorials, they are too small and have too little architec- tural character to have contributed much to the ultimate forms of the Christian church. The contrary is the case with the memorial cellce above ground, the connection of which with later architectural efforts can clearly be traced. It will readily be remembered that many of the principal Roman basilicas are situated outside the walls of the ancient city. This was the case with the two. mightiest of them all, St. Peter's on the Vatican and St. Paul's on the road to Ostia, as well as with the ancient shrines of S. Lorenzo and S. Agnese. These churches originated neither in private houses nor in lodge-rooms, but in memorial cellm of the martyrs whose bones were supposed to rest beneath them. The enthusiasm of the age brought ever-increasing throngs of the faithful to celebrate their feasts, and structures, which at first were only cxcdrce or chapels, had grown by the fifth century into enormous churches. The process of this growth may be seen in a curious monument a few miles from Rome. On the road to Tibur, nine miles from the city gates, lay the spot hallowed by the bones of the martyrs S. Sinforosa and her seven sons. Their remains were laid in a tomb, above which was built an cxedra or cella (A. Fig. 11), with three apses of the same form as those which still exist on the area of S. Callisto. In course of time, this accommoda- OF THE CEMETERIES. 65 tion proving insufficient, a regular church of the basilican form was erected close beside it at B. The importance of proximity to the martyrs' grave was so great that the build- ings were placed in contact with each other back to back, and an opening was made through the walls at a, so that wor- shippers in the apse of the basilica might still be able to look down upon the spot where the sacred bodies were laid.^ The arrangement is an instructive one ; it is an early manifestation of a feeling which had large influence on later architecture, — the feeling that a church and an altar are hallowed by contact with the body or relic of a saint.- The fantastic tricks which were played with relics even in early days, and continued through the Middle Ages, have their origin in this reverence for even the bones of the mar- tyr's. Churches erected in the place of the original memorial cellce derived their importance from the fact that ^h^^'^'-^'^Z^X'^ guarded the relics of the martyr, and Rome, from Stevenson. there are numerous instances of the extreme care taken by architects in the reconstruction and enlargement of churches, to avoid chan^incf the situation of the altar in its relation 1 H. Stevenson, in tie Rossi's Bullettino, 1878, p. 75. ^ A precedent for this outside the Christian pale can be found in the customs of the Synagogue. A dead body would have been considered to defile the Jewish Temple, and the Greeks and Romans kept their sepulchres apart from their towns and their sacred enclosures. Funeral ceremonies involving the presence of the corpse were, however, per- formed in the synagogues (Jerusalem Berakhoth, iii. 1, Schwab, i. 57), and it became the custom for these buildings to be connected with the tombs of their founders or of some great man of the past. Interments did not take place in the synagogues, but beside them, where the tomb remained to add a dignity to the place of meeting. E 66 THE KOOT-FIBRES to the sacred tomb. When the actual visits to the burial- places without the walls fell into disuse there ensued a curious change. The Church, no longer able to go out to honour the martyrs, brought the martyrs in to herself within the walls, and instead of building churches above the tombs, dug tombs under the churches in which the precious treasures were deposited. This was the origin, first of the confessio of the basilicas, and at a later period of the crypt which answered the same purpose in the Church of the early Middle Ages. In this way the Eomanesque crypt is the direct descendant of the liyiwgmim or excavation of the early Christian Catacomb. There have now been passed in review the principal structures that can be brought into connection with the assemblies of the Early Christian Church. It will be noticed that no mention has yet been made of the building which occurs most naturally when a question arises about the origin of Christian architecture — the pagan basilica. The old theory which derives the Christian Church from the basilica will be noticed more at length on a subsequent page. Its insufficiency is seen at once when we consider that it was not till the Church had grown comparatively wealthy and strong that buildings of the size and importance of basilicas could ever have been thought of, and as we cannot suppose the history of Christian architecture for the first two hundred years to have been entirely a blank, we must look to other buildings than basilicas for its first beginnings. Now no one of the structures just noticed can, any more than the pagan basilica, be taken by itself as a model for the Chris- tian temple. Christian architecture had, as it were, several root-fibres traceable back to non-Christian origins, and these unite to form the historical Church of the age after Constan- tine, an architectural creation embodying features derived OF CHEISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 67 from different sources. There is, to begin with, the Syna- gogue. Eemembered as it was with affection by all Jewish converts, and designed to suit a congregational service resembling in many important points that of the Christians, what could seem more suitable as a model for the meeting- place of the brethren ? The primitive Christians, assembling when and where they best could, and exposed from time to time to actual molestation, might be excused if they turned with a sigh of envy to the secure and well-appointed syna- gogues of the older faith, and it is perhaps with a special view to their encouragement that the author of the Apoca- lypse describes the New Jerusalem as dispensing with any visible shrine of prayer.^ As the Christians grew strong a feeling of rivalry with the Synagogue may well have influ- enced the constructors of their churches, and led to a certain assimilation of their form to that of the older edifice. On the other hand, the strong antagonism between Christians and Jews and the Gentile origin of most of the former would tend to minimise this influence of the Synagogue, and it would probably be a mistake to attach much weight to it. The question is rendered more difficult by the fact that, as will be seen in the next chapter, we know comparatively little about the normal form of the ancient synagogues of the Jews. The private hall is of far greater importance to our subject, for here we know the Christians habitually as- sembled, and we shall see reason for believing that some of the characteristics of the perfected Christian Church may be best explained as a reminiscence of the primitive meetings in dwelling-houses. The halls themselves had no one fixed shape, and none of their forms save one would, so far as we know, have provided the special features which have become stereotyped in Christian architecture. This exceptional 1 Kev. xxi. 22. 68 SYXAGOGUE, OECUS, SCHOLA, form is that of the so-called 2^''"^vcdc basilica, or hall of audi- ence, of the Eoman princes and nobles, and on this a word will be said later on. The building which, beyond all the others, we should be inclined to fix upon as the model of the Christian Church of the ages of persecution, out of whicli grew the great basilicas, is the schola or lodge for the meeting of associates. This had the advantage over the private hall that it was specially designed for the purposes of assembly, and its internal arrangement was one which would lend itself easily to Christian worship ; the Christian would take the place of the pagan altar, and the elders or overseers of the church would occupy the same position of presidency as the corresponding officials of the sodalicia. Hence a schola would give the Christians exactly what they needed, and would only need enlarging in the manner to be studied in the next chapter to become the Church of the fourth century. It is unfortunate that this can only be presented as a con- jecture. A city schola of the Christians has yet to be discovered, but it is hoped that the hypothesis that the city schola ivas the earliest form of huilding erected, hy the Christians with a special vieiu to their gatherings has suffi- cient intrinsic probability to admit of its being put forward in this place. The private hall was not erected but only used for Chris- tian worship, the schola (supposing the above hypothesis to be correct) would be designed for the purpose, but would be a simple building with 2ise for its primary object, and would not be in any sense the architectural expression of Christian ideas. For such expression we must turn elsewhere, and we find that a new and important element in the develop- ment of Christian architecture is introduced by the exedra or memorial cella of the cemeteries, for with these that architecture takes for the first time a pronounced monu- mental character. The buildings we have been discussing, MEMORIAL CELLA. 69 whether expressly erected or only adapted for worship, were to the Christians merely buildings for accommodation ; that is to say, there was no connection between the feeling of the Christian community and the architectural features of its buildings. To the worshippers these were mere acci- dents ; all that they required was a meeting-place providing them with the needful shelter and privacy, and arranged on a convenient plan. In the memorial cella of the cemeteries, on the other hand, we have at once architecture of an expres- sive kind, a building erected not so much for use as for feeling, for the celebration, that is to say, of an idea which the community had at heart, the commemoration of its mighty dead. The name applied to these cellse in a passage already referred to^ is significant. They are called in Eusebius ' Trophies of the Martyrs,' ^ so that their erection as a heroic honour to the martyrs made them tJie first definite architectural expression of Christian feeling, and as such their influence will be found very apparent in the perfected form of the Christian temple. Some answer has now been gained to the questions, In what buildings did the primitive Christians assemble ? How did these develop into the regular church ? and. Which of these buildings is most likely to have given that church its special form ? and there only now remains to consider. At what period did the regular church first become an estab- lished institution ? The ' Age of Constantine ' is a con- venient era, and is generally taken to be the period in question ; but we should probably be more correct in ante- dating it by some half-century. Considerable light is thrown upon the condition of Christian architecture in the half- oentury before the age of Constantine by a passage in ^ Ante, p. 55. - The term trophies iu this passage must certainly mean some con- spicuous monument above ground, an rxedra or cella. 70 PERIOD OF DEVELOPMENT Eusebius referring to the forty years' peace of the Church, which preceded the breaking out of the Diocletian persecu- tion in A.D. 303. We there read of the 'innumerable multitudes of men who flocked daily to the religion of Christ,' and of the ' illustrious concourse of people in the sacred edifices,' whence it came about that, ' no longer content with the ancient buildings, they erected spacious churches from the foundation in all the cities.' ^ If the 'ancient buildings,' now discarded, were the private halls or the schola' already described, the ' spacious churches' must have possessed a distinct and imposing form. A saying put into the mouth of the Emperor Aurelian (270-275) proves that in his time they were well-known features in Eoman cities. ' It would seem,' said the Emperor reproachfully to the Eoman Senate which had displeased him, ' that you were holding your meetings in a church of the Christians instead of in a temple of all the gods.' - Eor a reason which will presently appear, we have no specimens remaining of the church architecture of this particular period, but it may be conjectured that it would approximate more or less closely to that we find established in the days of Constantine. At one of these buildings we are accorded, however, a passing glimpse in an account of the opening scene of the great Diocletian persecution, when edicts were put forth to ' tear down the sacred buildings to the foundation, and burn the Holy Scriptures with fire.'^ Lactantius records the destruction on this occasion of the important Christian church at Nicomedeia, the residence at the time of Diocletian, and the seat of empire. It was situated on rising ground,* 1 Hist. Fed. viii. 1. ^ Vopiscus, c. 20, ^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 2. * We are reminded here of the Jewish synagogue, which, according to the Talmud, ought to occupy the most elevated position in a town or villace. OF THE CHURCH TO ITS PERFECTED FORM. 71 within full view of the palace, and was surrounded by many and large buildings. The gates were first forced open and the building pillaged, after which Diocletian, dreading a general conflagration if it were set on fire, lets loose upon it the Pretorian guards, who, with axes and crowbars, in a few hours 'levelled that very lofty edifice with the ground.'^ Partly owing to the general carrying out of these edicts of destruction, and partly to the rebuilding which went on in the succeeding age, it is impossible to point to any existing church of an earlier date than the time of Constantine, and it is not till then that the monumental history of Christian architecture has its beginning. The reign of Constantine introduced an entirely new era for the Church. Christianity was now for the first time placed openly, and in all its relations, under the protection of the law, and the important right of receiving legacies accorded to it. Whatever was the personal attitude of Con- stantine towards Christianity, it fell in with his policy to interest himself in ecclesiastical affairs, and give them all the prestige of Imperial favour. The Church took at once full advantage of its changed position, and proceeded to sur- round itself with the utmost possible pomp and splendour. The meeting-place at Nicomedeia, though lofty and spacious, can only have been a slight structure, if a few hours sufficed for its demolition. Constantine, if we may accept the accounts of Church historians, now set the example of erect- ing solid structures of squared stones, and extending to vast dimensions the houses for Christian worship. The faithful threw themselves eagerly into the work, and, as Eusebius writes : ' Every place that a short while before had been desolated by the impieties of the tyrants, revived again, and temples rose once more from the soil to a lofty height, and received a splendour far exceeding that which had been 1 Lactantius, De Mortihus Persec, 12. 72 ARTISTIC IMPORT AN'CE formerly destroyed,' while ' there were festivals and con- secrations of newly erected houses of prayer throughout all the cities.'^ This outburst of zeal for building coincided with a revival in the arts, which enabled it to find a fitting outward expres- sion. Among the edicts of Constantino we find some which relate to measures for the encouragement of architects and decorative artists, whose services the Emperor wished to employ on his vast undertakings at the new capital of Constantinople. * Of architects,' he says in one of his latest edicts, ' there is great need.' ^ To the new Eome he transported a large number of statues and other works of art from the cities and temples of Greece, and through the influence of these models, as well as through the measures taken for the training of artists, the arts, which had been rapidly declining, received a new impetus. The successors of Constantine continued to encourage the artists, and reaped the fruit of the movement which he had set on foot. Some important edicts of Theodosius are evi- dence of the interest taken by that great emperor in artistic matters. The Church was not slow to avail itself of the oppor- tunities thus brought within its reach. It is absurd to suppose that Christianity would in itself have brought about a revival of art. Without good models and good training, Christian artists would have produced a barbarous, though perhaps expressive art, like that represented at a later time by the bronze doors at Hildesheim. The classical revival between the time of Constantine and that of Theodosius kindled anew the old traditions of Eoman building, and supplied the designer with a conception of the human figure and of drapery that had something of antique simplicity and 1 Hist. Eccl. X. 2, .3. 2 Const. Mag. decreta, eel. Migne, p. 381. OF THE AGE OF CONSTANTINE. 73 grandeur. With the stimulus upon him of the new impulse, and at the same time with the command of all ancient lore, the Christian architect girded himself to his task, and created forms which were destined to have the most splendid history in architectural annals, while the decorative artist, following in his steps, elaborated a style of graphic design as expressive and beautiful as it was original. The modes of architectural and artistic expression which were in this way adopted, it will now be our task to trace. CHAPTER III. THE BASILICA, THE SYNAGOGUE, AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. On the carved sarcophagi, and in the mosaic pictures of the period after Constantine, occur representations of the Chris- tian churches of that day, of which Figs. 12, 13, 14 may be taken as specimens. Fig. 1 2 shows a group of ecclesiastical buildings. In the foreground is a hall of simple plan, sug- gesting a schola. Further back is a similar building, ter- minating in an apse, like the curia:, or kindred edifices, at Fig. 12.— Early Christian buildings, from a carved sarcophagus. Fourth Century. Pompeii, or on the Capitoline plan of Eome. By the side of it is a small round structure covered with a domed roof, and a similar pair of buildings is seen in the riglit-hand corner. The oblong building is a meeting-house, the other a bap- tistery, wherein was administered the rite of initiation to the Christian fraternity, and the circular form of which marks a new departure in Christian architecture. Two buildings of EARLY PICTURES OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 19 the same kind appear in Fig. 14, from a sixth-century mosaic in S. Apollinare Nuovo at Eavenna, but there is here an important architectural difference. The groun plans, it will be observed, are no longer simple, but side- aisles or their equivalent are added, with the effect of Fig. 13. — Ecclesiastical structures, from a fifth-ceutury mosaic in S. Maria Maggiore at Rome. largely increasing the available area. These side-aisles, or in the case of the baptistery this circular surrounding pas- sage, must be understood to be divided off from the central space by colonnades. Above these rise the walls of the central portion, which, as they ascend above the side-roofs. Fifi. 14. — Basilica and Bapti.stery at Ravenna. Sixtli century. are pierced with large clerestory windows for lighting the interior. This central portion, and the side spaces, have distinct roofs, which arc covered with tiling. The oblong- building has a porch at the entrance end, and at the other the familiar apse. In this interesting little picture, reproduced 76 THE BASILICAN FORM ; here from an accurate drawing by Mothes,^ we have a con- temporary representation of the early Christian church in the perfected form which it had assumed by the days of Constantine, a form retained, though with many modifi- cations, through the whole history of ecclesiastical archi- tecture, and the first adoption of this special type of construction marks the moment when the Christian church takes its place among the distinct architectural types of the world. We have already seen that the adoption of this type of building took place in all probability during the latter half of the third century, when the enormous influx of converts necessitated a corresponding increase in the size of the meeting-houses. The source from which was derived this simple but ingenious plan of side-aisles and clerestory light- ing must now be considered. This source may be briefly indicated as the so-called Basilica. It was from the buildings known in classical times as Basilicas that appear to have been derived the distinguishing features which mark off the structures of Figs. 13 and 14 from those of simpler type in Fig. 12, and in the earlier illustrations in this book. The Basilica w^as, however, a building of such importance, both in itself and in its relation to Christian architecture, that it must be treated of with some fulness. What was a Basilica ? A Basilica was a pagan secular building used like a modern exchange for the transaction of business, and con- taining also accommodation for the holding of courts of law. 1 Die Baukunst des Mittelalters in Italien, p. 192. Mothes considers it likely that the round building is intended for the existing Catholic baptistery, while the meeting-house represents the famous 'Basilica Ursiana,' the original structure replaced by the present Cathedral of Ravenna. The Catholic baptistery is, however, of a dififerent form from that shown in the mosaic. ITS SPECIAL ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES. 77 A special architectural character seems to have belonged to it, and to have consisted mainly in the division into nave and aisles, and the clerestory lighting already noticed, so that all buildings with these peculiarities would be naturally called by the name hcisilica. Such at least is the inference which it seems just to draw from sundry passages in ancient authors. Vitruvius tells us that among the different kinds of private halls, oeci, in the mansions of the wealthy, was one called ' Egyptian,' which was flanked upon the two long sides by colonnades sup- porting galleries open to the outer air. Along the interior edge of these galleries was a second row of columns, sup- porting a roof over the central space, and affording free passage into the interior for light and air. To make his meaning clear, Vitruvius states, in conclusion, that such structures have more resemblance to basilicas than to other private halls.^ Again, we read that warehouses for wine - were sometimes called basilicas, when there could have been nothing to justify the term except special features of construction. The magnificent range of triple colonnades, built by Herod along the southern edge of the Temple platform at Jerusalem, was called by the same name, and we know that this elevation of the central portion above the two side aisles was a feature of the structure.^ An inscription found in Britain, and dating from about 220 A.D., mentions the erection of a basilica for the pur- pose of exercising cavalry,^ by wliich we must miderstand a large riding-school or drill-hall constructed on the basi- lican plan. Both the name and the form of the pagan basilica have 1 De Arch. vi. 3. 9. ^ Rutilms, de re rustica, i. 18. 3 Josephus, Ant. xv. II. 5. * Orelli-Henzen, 6736. ' . . . hasilicam equestrem exercitatoriam . . . mdificavlt.^ 78 ORIGIN OF THE llOMAN BASILICA. given rise to no small controversy.^ The name is Greek, and means ' royal.' Some modern critics are disposed to see no special significance in the term, and take it to imply simply ' splendid ' or ' costly.' Others have held that the name was borrowed from that of a conspicuous public building at Athens, the hall of the king Archon, or Archon Basilcus. Now there is a great inherent probability of a connec- tion between this Athenian columned hall and the Eoman basilica; and when we consider the circumstances under which the basilica was introduced at Eome, there can be little doubt that the Athenian building was its true origin.^ The first basilica was erected at Eome by Cato the Censor, in 184 B.C., just at the period when Greek fashions began to influence the uncultured dwellers on the Seven Hills. Cato, though a Eoman of the Eomans, had something to do with the introduction of a taste for things Hellenic. He had served in Greece, and resided for some time at Athens. When he left he made a speech to the people, expressing his delight in the beauty and grandeur of their city.^ Later in his life he held the censorship at Eome, an office which gave him much to do with public works, in which he could put in practice the lessons he had learnt at the metropolis of the arts. Amongst his buildings was a basilica* — the first ^ Zestermann, in die antlhen und die chrlstlkhen BasiUken, Leipzig, 1847, began the controversy, which has chiefly been carried on by German scholars. The Appendix to this book contains a notice of this controversy, and an examination of some recent contributions thereto. 2 It is not likely that the llomans of the Republic would have used the term basilica, ' royal,' as a mere epithet with the meaning ' splen- did.' Plautus, it is true, employs the adjective, but only in an ironical sense, not as implying real admiration. The use of the word in Latin a>»if>4>4>4i4>4>i»«4'4 + if4'«'l> 4i4>BB-iBlBB.BBBBaB4>4' Fir.. 18. — Basilica Julia, from Dutert, Le Forum Romain. that the galleries which opened into the central space were frequented by those who wished to see — they were too far off to hear — the proceedings below.^ Above the gallery there was a promenade on the roof, from which, according to Suetonius, the Emperor Caligula amused himself by throwing down gold coins to the crowd in the Forum beneath.^ At the back of the structure, on the side away from the Forum, was apparently a row of shops, some of the walls of which are still to be seen iri situ, and these, by opening directly 1 Plin. Ep. vi. 3:5. - Calig. 37. DERIVATION OF THE BASILICA FOEM 93 into the basilica, made it still more like the open Forum. The law courts, with the busy crowd of suitors and minions of the law, would have reminded us of old Westminster Hall, while the shops and the loungers recalled the Palais Royal at Paris. A further question, to which it is only possible to refer in passing, concerns the architectural history of this basilican construction ; the source, that is, whence was derived the system of clerestory lighting, wherein its peculiarity con- sists. A review of the various columned halls of the ancient world cannot be attempted here, but there is one form of these which presents itself with a special claim upon the attention. This is the columned or 'hypostyle' hall, already mentioned as forming an important part of the Egyptian temple. To bring this into connection with the basilica, we have only to take note of an already quoted passage from Vitruvius, wherein he applies the name ' Egyptian ' to a certain kind of private hall resembling a basilica. Now why should a columned hall, lighted by a clerestory, be called ' Egyptian ' ? The answer is that some of these temple-halls of Egypt contain the earliest, and in some ways the most effective, examples of this very system of interior lighting. The grandest structure of all, the hypostyle hall at Karnak, is supported upon 134 colossal columns, so arranged that the two centre rows, composed of far larger columns placed at greater distances apart, rise high above the roof of the side portions of the building, and bear a flat covering of their own. Between this covering and the main roof there is accordingly a con- siderable space, and this, filled in with marble lattice-work, is employed to give light to the interior.^ Here we have the principle of the clerestory fully understood, and used to ^ Lepsius, Denhmdler, Abth. i. Bl. 80. Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de VArt dans UAntlquiU, Paris, 1882, etc. LEgypte, PI. v. 94 FROM THE TEMPLE-HALLS OF EGYPT. produce a very striking and beautiful interior effect. ' No language,' writes Dr. Fergusson of this hall at Karnak, ' can convey an idea of its beauty. . . . The mass of its central piers, illumined by a flood of light from the clerestory, and the smaller pillars of the wings gradually fading into ob- scurity, are so arranged and lighted as to convey an idea of infinite space. At the same time the beauty and massive- ness of the forms, and the brilliancy of their coloured decorations, all combine to stamp this as the greatest of man's architectural works.' ^ But it may be asked. What possible link of connection can there be between ancient Egyptian temple-halls and the basilicas and festal apartments of the Eomans of the Empire ? A moment's consideration of the position and artistic importance of Alexandria will show that there was no source from which the Eomans could more readily have borrowed an architectural form than Egypt. Alexandria, the metropolis of Hellenistic architecture and art, taught the Eomans not a few lessons in building and decoration, and the ' ^^gyptius cecus ' of the Eoman house, as described l)y Vitruvius, was in all probability an Alexandrine structure borrowed by the ingenious and receptive Greeks of the Ptolemaic kingdom from the ruined halls of the valley of the Nile. We should probably, moreover, not be mistaken in going a step further back, and conjecturing a derivation of the basilica form in general from the same ancient source. The communication of Greece with Egypt did not date from the founding of Alexandria, but had already existed for centuries, and the recent ' find ' at Naukratis shows it to have been more close and constant than had previously been supposed. It is more than possible that the Egyptian clerestory gave to the builders of the columned halls of Greece the first idea of 1 History of Arcliitecture, i. 119. RELATION OF CHRISTIAN TO PAGAN BASILICA. 95 that system of construction which was perfected in the magnificent Eoman basilicas of Caesar and of Trajan. If this conjecture is well founded, we may look with a new interest upon the hoary monuments of the Nileland, and may find amongst them the first beginning of an archi- tectural system consecrated to us through its employment by forty generations of Christian builders. A general idea has now been obtained of the ancient basilica as it actually existed, and not as it has been recon- structed upon an assumed exact resemblance to the church of the Christians. The theory regarding that exact resem- blance rests on a ;petitio priticipii which has been often exposed. The form of the Christian basilica was well known from existing examples. It was assumed that this was similar to that of the pagan buildings of the same name, and the latter were accordingly reconstructed upon the model of the former. This having been accomplished, writers could expatiate freely upon the resemblance of the two, and hold it proved that the Christian form of the structure was derived from the pagan. When the matter is looked at critically, however, it is seen that there were essential differ- ences between the buildings which rendered exact copying altogether out of the question. In other words, the pagan basilica had to be modified in most important respects before its excellent architectural qualities could be made use of by Christian builders, or, to put it more accurately, the latter only required to borrow from the pagan basilica certain special features. What was the true relation of the two buildings under consideration will be seen when we proceed to examine the actual form of the Christian church. Before, however, we pass on to this subject, the reader's attention must be for a moment directed to an important fact which now presents itself. This hasilican type of 96 BASILICAS USED BY THE JEWS. interior vxis actually adapted to a form of congregational worsJiijp closely resembling that of the Christians at a period, long before there can have been any question of a Christian basilica. In other words, the Jewish Synagogue preceded the Christian Church in employing, at any rate occasion- ally, the basilican style, and from this fact a valuaLle light is thrown upon the architecture of the period on which we are engaged. The history and constitution of the ancient Jewish Syn- agogue have been fully elucidated by Dr. Ginsburg in his article on the subject in Kitto's CyclopcBdia : all that we are concerned with here is its architectural structure. Upon this subject we have two sources of information, literary and monumental. The remains of certain ancient synagogues, datin" back to the earliest centuries of our era, are still to be seen in Galilee, and they have been recently thoroughly explored and measured in connection with the Survey of Western Palestine.^ There exists besides a vast body of literary material in the Talmud and other writings of the Jews, with the accounts of early travellers like Benjamin of Tudela, from which information can be obtained both as to the normal and orthodox form and arrangement of the syn- agogue, and the special characteristics of certain prominent specimens. The ruined synagogues of Galilee seemed at first to promise most interesting results alike for the student of architecture and of the Bible, but subsequent consideration has modified the view taken of their importance.^ It was ^ Survey of Western Palestine, Special Papers, p. 295 ff., esp. the paper by Lieutenant (now Lieut. -Colonel) Kitchener. 2 There are notices of these synagogues scattered about the pages of the publications of the Palestine Exploration Fund, e.g. Memoirs, vol. i. ; Quarterly Statements, 1869, p. 37; 1875, p. 22; 1877, pp. 118, 179; 1878, pp. 25, 32, 123. These are again collected in the ' Special Papers ' already referred to. THE ANCIENT JEWISH SYNAGOGUE. 97 thought, on the one hand, that some among them might be the actual buildings hallowed by the presence of Christ Himself and His disciples, and on the other, that we might argue safely from them to the normal form of the synagogue generally. The paper upon them by Colonel Kitchener^ places them in a different light. The number of undoubted ex- amples, according to his report, is eleven, and the whole area in which they occur is not much larger than Eutlandshire. They are a local phenomenon, and are curiously alike in form and in architectural treatment. He is disposed to believe that they date between the years 150 and 300 A.D., and that they were erected under Eoman influence, if not by the hands of Roman legionaries. On this hypothesis can be best explained some curious features presented by these structures wdiich seem to run counter to Jewish law and Jewish tastes. In considering them accordingly we are not, in his opinion, to imagine that we have before us the normal form of the orthodox Jewish meeting-house. It is not indeed inherently likely that any one normal form existed, though in certain features of arrangement all synagogues would be found to agree. The abundance of these synagogues, existing as they did often in considerable num- bers wherever there was a community of Jews,^ and the wide area over which they were scattered, together with the known absence from among the Jews of a distinct national style of architecture, render it probable that there was no ^ Special Papers, I.e. 2 E.g. there were thirteen synagogues at Tiberias alone (Babylon Berakhoth, 8 a, Schwab, i. 252). The different sections of the Jewish community at Jerusalem had their distinct synagogues (Acts vi. 9), and the Jerusalem synagogues numbered, according to a somewhat doubtful tradition (Jerusalem Megllla, iii. 1, Schwab, \\. 235), no fewer than 480. Among these there is mentioned in the Talmud (der Traktat Megilla, translated by Rawicz, Frankfurt, 1883, p. 93) — if we may trust the rendering — a synagogue of the smiths, which is interesting as a Jewish parallel to the pagan collegia with their scholce or lodge-rooms. G 98 NO ONE NORMAL FORM, fixed type of construction recognised. To begin with, it was not necessary for the synagogue — or, as it was sometimes called, e.g. by Josephus,^ jproscuclm, ' place of prayer,' — to be in the strict sense a building at all, for the ' place of prayer ' of Acts xvi. 13 was evidently only an ajDpointed station where the people gathered for service in the open air. We read of such suburban 2^'''oseuchce on the seashore,- or, as here, by river banks, where there would be provision for the needful ablutions. Epiphanius tells us that there were in old times places of prayer outside the cities both among the Jews and Samaritans, and mentions one at Neapolis, the ancient Sichem, in the plain without the walls, arranged like a theatre, and open to the sky above.^ The synagogue, again, might consist in an enclosed space without a roof, in an open court, that is, surrounded by colonnades after the pattern of an early Mohammedan mosque. An interesting synagogue of this kind at Aleppo is described by a traveller of the seventeenth century, ' Early in the morning,' writes della Valle,^ 'I went off to see the synagogue of the Hebrews, which has in Aleppo a high reputation for beauty and for antiquity.' Behind some buildings which masked it from the street ' we found the synagogue, which consists in a square open court of considerable size, with covered por- ticoes all round supported on double columns arranged in good architectural taste. On the right hand as one entered, beside the covered portico there is also a large hall which serves for holding the service when the weather is cold or rainy, while the open court is used when it is fair above.' In the middle of the court was ' a small cupola supported on four pilasters, beneath which, on a lofty and handsome 1 Life, § 54. 2 Josepbus, Antiq. xiv. 10, § 23. ^ Epiphanius, Advertois Hcereaes, iii. Haer. 80. * Via(j(ji, Eoma, 1662, iv. 424. THE COLUMNED SYNAGOGUE. 99 platform, resembling the altars of Christian churches, were preserved the rolls of the law, and whence also the service was conducted.' In general, however, the synagogues would be regularly enclosed and roofed edifices, provided with seats for the use of the congregation, and with fi.ttings and furniture for the performance of public worship, and for the other purposes which the buildings were required to serve. Those of smallest size might be mere chapels, without internal colonnades, of the kind shown in Fig, 6, p. 54. This is taken from an early Christian mosaic in S. Maria Maggiore ^ at Eome, where it does duty for the temple at the door of which Zacharias is receiving the angel's message. The lamp suspended from the roof — a constant feature of the synagogue — makes it not unlikely that the artist was copying here a building actually used for Jewish worship at Eome. Synagogues of more extended size would be furnished with interior columns for the support of the roof,^ and of this columned type are the synagogues of Galilee already mentioned. These were simple stone buildings of moderate size, the largest of the group, that of Meiron, measuring in the in- terior about 90 by 44 feet,^ and are thus described in the words of Sir Charles Wilson : * — ' The buildings are always rectangular, having the longest dimension in a nearly north 1 Ciampini, Vet. Mon., i. p. 200. - A story in the Talmud (Jerusalem Berakhoth, v. 5, Schwab, i. 108) tells how a certain Doctor placed himself behind a column of the synagogue to escape notice. Again, ' R. Am6 and E.. Assa say : Although there were thirteen synagogues at Tiberias, it was fittest to pray j?i the midst of the columns where study was going on.' — Babylon Berakhoth, 8 a, Schwab, i. 252. 3 The interior dimensions of the synagogues of Galilee measured by the Palestine explorers are as follows (omitting fractions) : — Meiron, 90 X 44 ; Tel Hum (Capernaum?), 74 x 56 ; Kerazeh, 74 x 49 ; Kefr Birim, large synagogue, 60 x 46, small, 48 x 35. — Special Papers, p. 300. ■* Quarterly Statements, ii. p. 37, and Special Papers, I.e. 100 EXAMPLES IN GALILEE. and south direction, and the interiors are divided into five aisles by four rows of columns, except in the small syna- gogue of Kefr Birim, where there have been only two rows of columns and three aisles. The masonry of the walls is well built and solid, of native limestone, the stones are set without mortar, the beds and joints -being "chiselled in" from two to five inches, and the remainder rough picked. The exterior faces are finely dressed, but the backs are left rough, more readily to take the plaster with which the in- teriors seem to have been covered, and of which some traces remain at Tel Hum.' The floors are paved with slabs of white limestone. The roof appears to have been formed of flat slabs supported on the numerous columns which were placed very close together, and to have been covered above by a layer of earth. On the lintels of the doors, which were usually three in number and at the southern end, there was some carving of a simple kind, representing objects familiar in Hebrew tradition, such as the vine, the pot of manna, Aaron's rod, the paschal lamb and the ' lion of the tribe of Judah,' and in one instance the Roman eagle. The large synagogue at Kefr Birim had in front of it a covered porch, and was decorated on the outside by pilasters. The style of these buildings (of which very little now remains), their masonry, mode of roofing and ornamentation — seems to resemble that of the buildings of central Syria explored and figured by de Vogiie.^ The chief points of interest about them for our purpose are, on the one hand, their divergence from orthodox Jewish tradition (in the matter of orientation, and in the animal forms, including even the 'Abomination of Desolation ' itself carved upon them), which has led Colonel Kitchener to set them apart as exceptional ; and on the other, the interior arrangement of the columns. These do not divide the plan into a nave and side aisles, ^ S)/rie Centrale, etc. SYNAGOGUES OF GRANDER TYPE. 101 but into five or three aisles of equal width, au arrangement familiar in the later Mohammedan mosques, such as that at Cordova. The many-columned mosque is, however, supposed to be developed out of the simple columned court in which the earliest mosques consist, by the gradual encroachment of the covered porticoes on the open space. Here there is no sign of any such development, and these many- columned synagogues appear rather as copies on a small scale of build- ings like the hypostyle halls of the Egyptian temples, or the grand Persian ' hall of the hundred columns ' at Persepolis. As regards the lighting of these synagogues, nothing can be made out beyond the fact that there were small window's in the front of the large synagogue at Kefr Birim. On the whole, they do not present to us the idea of really commodious build- ings for congregational assembly, or answer to the grand con- ceptions which we form of the larger Jewish meeting-places from sundry passages in Josephus and the Talmud, Josephus, for example, speaks of a Proseucha (synagogue) at Tiberias as a vast edifice capable of receiving a large con- course of people,^ but gives no details from which we may infer its form. That the form of these great synagogues was, in some cases at any rate, hasilican, is proved by an important passage in the Talmud, describing the splendid Jewish house of assembly at Alexandria, which has been rightly called ' a noble example of Hellenistic architecture.'- The community of Jews at Alexandria was the largest and most important of all those in the cities of the dispersion, and must have included a large proportion of the million Hebrews who inhabited Egypt in the early days of the Eoman Empire.^ The wealth and comparative independence of this commu- nity, the artistic skill at its disposal, and its opportunities 1 Life, § 54. ^ Hamburger, Beal-EncyHopddif fur Bibel tind Talmud, art. " Alex- andrien." •* Philo, adv. Flaccuiu, ii. 102 THE BASILICA AT ALEXANDRIA. of obtaining from abroad any needful materials for building and decoration, make it certain that this great Alexandrian synagogue, the erection of which has been assigned to the second century B.C., would be a structure of the first im- portance.^ Accordingly, the much-travelled Jehudah ben Ilai, who flourished during the latter half of the second century A.D., was wont to say that ' he who has not seen the double colonnade {^ittXt} arod) of the synagogue at Alexandria has seen nothing of the splendour of Israel.' ^ The Talmudic writer goes on to say, ' it was a very lofty basilica,^ composed of colonnades one within the otlier, and contained sometimes an assembly of worshippers twofold the number of the Children of Israel who came out of Egypt. There were there seventy thrones of gold adorned witli pearls and precious stones, for the use of the seventy elders, members of the great sanhedrim, and each one was placed upon a pedestal the worth of which was twenty-five myriads of golden denars. In the midst of the building was a platform of wood, on which stood tlie conductor of the synagogue worship. When any one rose up to take part in the read- ing of the law, the presiding official waved a banner to give notice to those placed at a distance, in order that all might be able to answer Amen at the same moment ; and for every benediction recited by the leader of service, the president again waved the banner. Notwithstanding such a crowd of persons, all were seated in exact order. There were distinct groups formed by the separate corporations of the trades, so ^ The Jewish community in Alexandria was presided over by a func- tionary called Alabarch (Jos. Antiq. xviii. 6. 3). One Alexander Lysima- chus was Alabarch in the time of our Lord, and presented a costly offer- ing of gold and silver plates for the adornment of the doors of Herod's temple at Jerusalem. — Wars, v. 5. 3. - Jerusalevi Soucca, v. 1, Schwab, vi. 42. ^ The technical term ' basilica ' is introduced into the Hebrew text of the Talmud. Schwab, vi. p. iv. NORMAL PLAN OF THE GREATER SYNAGOGUES. 103 that when strangers {^evol) arrived they were able to enter into communication with comrades of the same trade, and in that way meet with work from which to support themselves. The edifice has been destroyed by Trajan the impious.' Here is a picture which historians of architecture and students of Christian antiquities may both alike contemplate with advantage. We must allow, of course, for Oriental exaggeration in numbers and valuations, but there can be no question that the building destroyed by Trajan was a basilica of magnificent proportions and of extreme richness of decoration, in the fine style of Hellenistic architecture and ornament. Some words in the Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela,^ descriptive of the synagogue at Bagdad in the middle of the twelfth century, may be quoted as a supple- ment to what has just been given. 'The metropolitan synagogue of the Prince of the Captivity is ornamented with pillars of richly coloured marble, plated with gold and silver. On the pillars are inscribed verses of the Psalms in letters of gold. The ascent to the holy Ark is composed of ten marble steps, on the uppermost of which are the stalls set apart for the Prince of the Captivity, and the other princes of the house of David.' Let us now, in the light of these descriptions, and of other passages in the Talmud and elsewhere, attempt to draw out the normal plan of a synagogue of the grander type, like that at Alexandria. Before the entrance to the building we may assume that there was a porch, as is the case in the existing example at Kefr Birim in Galilee, and seems to be demanded by the mention of devout doctors sitting reading the law at the gate of a synagogue,^ Here would be provided water for the necessary ablutions. According to orthodox Eabbinical prescription, the building 1 Itinerary, ed. Asher, Lond. 1840, p. 104. ^ Jerusalem Berakhoth, v. 1, Schwab, i. 98. 104 THEIR ORIENTATION ; should be on the most elevated ground available, and should be oriented in the direction of Jerusalem, The following fine passage from the Talmud ^ conveys this prescription in notable language : ' Those who are in foreign countries, be- yond the borders of Palestine, ought in praying to turn their face towards the sacred land, as it is written, " They shall address their prayer to Thee by the way of the land which Thou hast given to their ancestors" (1 Kings viii. 48). Those who dwell in Palestine direct their countenance towards Jerusalem, for it is written, " They shall pray unto Thee to- ward the city which thou hast chosen" {Ibid. 44). Those who make their prayer at Jerusalem turn towards the mount of the Temple, as it is said in the same verse : " And the house which I have builded in Thy name." Those who are upon the mount of the Temple turn towards the Holy of Holies, as it is said : " They shall address their prayer to Thee in this place, and Thou wilt hear it in heaven TJiy dwelling-place, Thou wilt hear it, and wilt pardon" (1 Kings viii. 30). Hence it follows that those of the north should turn towards the south, those of the south towards the north, the men of the east towards the west, the men of the west towards the east, so that all Israel shall turn in the act of prayer towards the same place, as it is written, " My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations" (Isaiah Ivi. 7).'"^ According to this prescription the head of the building would point towards Jerusalem, while the doors were upon the opposite side, and there, at the end of the interior space, ^ Jerusalem Beralchotli, iv. 6, Schwab, i. 90. 2 One of the reasons for considering the synagogues of Galilee excep- tional is their orientation. They are all turned towards the north, and worshippers entering by the doors on the south would turn their backs, and not their faces, towards Jerusalem. It must be added, however, that this question of turning in prayer towards a single spot was somewhat controverted among the Doctors. There were not wanting those who said, in the spirit of Christ's words to the woman of Samaria, ' God is THEIR LIGHTING, 105 visible at once to all who entered through the portal, was placed the receptacle for the sacred treasure of the synagogue, the ark containing the rolls of the Law. We are supposing that the basilican form would be that usually adopted for important synagogues. The mention of the ' double colon- nade ' at Alexandria shows that it was a basilica with nave and four side aisles, and this form seems the best to answer to the characteristics of the synagogue, as we trace them in the Talmudic stories. For it would give, first, abundance of light to the interior. That this was considered necessary follows from the great importance attached to the reading of the Law without any mistake on the part of the ministrant, and from the fact that the building was not only used for service but for the study of the Law.^ It is also proved by the following passages. On the eve of the Passover it was prescribed that search should be made by candle light in all places to see if any leavened bread were lying about. ' R. Jeremia demanded if it were necessary to carry on this search in the synagogues and the halls of study. . . . The question was justified because, hy reason of the abundant light which jpcrvadcs these interiors, one might doubt whether it would not be sufficient to examine them by daylight without having recourse to a candle.'- Again, it was said, 'One ought only to pray in a house which has windows, as it is said (Daniel vi. 11), He had opened the windows of his chamber towards Jerusalem.'^ It would seem natural from this to suppose that, in a basilica like this at Alexandria, everywhere,' and deprecated this formal orientation. Again, it was doubted by some whether, after the destruction of the second Temple, the duty of thus turning was not at aa end. Some Jewish teachers objected ever to turn towards the east, as in so doing they would be following the example of the heathen Persians. — Jer. Berakhoth, iv. 6, Schwab, i. 90 ; Hamburger, Real-Encyk., art. 'Synagoge.' ^ Babylon Berakhoth, 8 a, Schwab, i. 252. - Jerusalem Pesahim, i., Schwab, v. 2. ^ Babylon Berakhoth, 34 b, Schwab, i. 367. lOG POSITION OF THE AHK. the ark of the Law would be placed in an exedra at the Jerusalem end of the building, and that in the walls of this windows would be pierced, opening, like those of Daniel, towards the Holy City. Such a position for the ark would give it command of the whole interior, and it would accord also with another important feature of the synagogue. This feature was the range of ' chief-seats ' for the rulers of the synagogue, and the doctors of the law. These, it is well known, faced the congregation, which accounts for the love of them on the part of the scribes and Pharisees.^ Where could they be placed more suitably than in a semicircle on each side of the ark ? for we cannot suppose that any doctor would actually turn his back upon the sacred receptacle. This is indeed the position which seems marked out for them by Benjamin of Tudela's words about the synagogue at Bagdad, which doubtless had preserved its form from Tal- mudic days. ' The ascent to the holy Ark is composed of ten marble steps, on the uppermost of which are the stalls set apart for the Prince of the Captivity, and the other princes of the house of David.'- If, therefore, we suppose a semicircular exedra, or apse, with steps ascending to it, we should obtain a form like that shown in Fig. 19, which is that of a basilica of the largest dimensions, with double aisles surmounted by galleries, but with the colonnade and gallery removed from the end opposite to the entrance, and their place taken by a commanding apse.^ In the centre of this, at the extreme end of the edifice, would be placed, possibly in a recess in 1 Matthew xxiii. 6. 2 /thierary, I.e. 2 It may seem a somewhat daring conjecture to place an apse at the end of an Hellenistic building, but whence did the Romans derive this characteristic feature of their later architecture ? There are no Roman apses earlier than those in the interior of the Pantheon, but there is a Greek one in the terrace wall of a temple at Pergamon, dating from at least as far back as the second century B.C. See Ausgrabungen zu Per- gamon, 1880-81, Berlin, 1882, p. 29. The names used by the Romans for the apse — exedra, hemicyclium, absis-—a,ve Greek. THE ' CHIEF SEATS.' 107 TliBa Giiyirt Litlt' Fig. 10. ^Conjectural plan of the Basilica at Alexandria, as an example ot the Jewish Synagogue of the grandest type. A. Ark containing the rolls of the Law. B. B. ' Chief seat.s ' for the elders. C. Rostrum. D.D.D. Gallery for the women. E.E. Porch. F. F. Stairs giving access to gallery. 108 POSITION OF THE ROSTRUM. the wall, and always with a rich curtain in front, the moveable ark of wood, containing the rolls of the Law, and sometimes, in another compartment, vestments and sacred utensils.-^ In front of the ark was a small platform, raised a step or two above the floor of the apse, and this was the appointed place for the offering of prayer, the regular term for which, in the Talmud, is ' ascending before the Ark.' On each side of this platform may have been placed, if needful in two ranks, as suggested in the plan, the richly adorned seats of the elders, who would thus occupy a similar position to that assigned to the clergy in the Christian basilica. For the reading of the Law and the general conduct of the service, there was provided a platform or rostrum large enough to hold several persons at once, and this was, after the ark, the most important internal feature of the synagogue. As regards its position. Hamburger ^- states that there are no explicit directions in the Talmud, and most modern syn- agogues have the rostrum at the end. It is Dr. Ginsburg's opinion, however, that its ancient place was in the midst of the building, which, indeed, we are expressly told was the case with the rostrum at Alexandria. On the occasion of the Feast of Tabernacles the ark was removed on to the rostrum, and the people marched round it seven times in procession, which could only have been accomplished with the rostrum thus situated. With respect to the other fittings and arrangements, we know that seats were provided, and the consre^ation was divided into distinct sections, so that confusion was avoided, and order reigned throughout the edifice.^ The separation of the women from the men is a ^ Jer. Megilla, iii. I, Schwab, vi. 237. 2 Real-Encyk. art. ' Synagoge.' 3 Jerusalem Megilla, iii., the locus classicus for the arrangements of the synagogue, contains a notice of its various fittings, — seats and benches, the curtain of the ark, the rostrum and the planks composing it, the reading desks, etc. GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SYNAGOGUE. 109 familiar feature of the synagogue, and for this provision could easily be made in a basilica by using the galleries characteristic of that form of building. Separate entrances might readily be contrived as suggested on the plan, and an arrangement would result similar to that which prevailed in Byzantine churches, such as S. Sophia. In the body of the building, in cases when, after the example at Alexandria, the members of the different trades sat in sections apart, the appointed location of each in the synagogue would answer the purpose of a kind of schola, or place of trade assembly. An interesting suggestion here offers itself. This custom at Alexandria has been brought into connection with the enforced temporary residence in Egypt of Joseph the car- penter of Nazareth.^ It seems natural to suppose that he would wend his way towards the metropolis of the Egyptian Jews, the city which claimed for itself a monopoly of the trade and commerce of the country .^ The special arrange- ments made at Alexandria for the reception of strangers, ^6vot (p. 103), would be an additional attraction, and we may picture him entering the immense synagogue on the Sabbath, and forgathering with the brethren of his craft, while Mary, with her infant in her arms, ascended among the daughters of her people into the gallery above. The Jewish Synagogue is a building so interesting in itself, and so important from its affinities to the Christian meeting- house, that no apology is needed for the space here devoted to it, nor can we turn from it without one glance back at its general aspects as a religious and social institution. For the synagogue, the expression of all that was best in the national life in the period we are considering, was bound up in the most intimate way with the being of the Jewish communi- ties. Around the synagogue, rather than the temple, moved the activity of the national party of the Pharisees, the party 1 Matthew ii. 14. ^ strabo, xvii. 1, § 13. ] 10 ITS SANCTITY ; of the mild but princely Hillel, of the wise and noble Jehudah ben Ilai, of the liberal Gamaliel i., and his more famous disciple Saul of Tarsus. The Talmud is the literary expression of this side of Judaism, and from the Talmud we may learn not only the outward features of the synagogue, but the place it held, or was designed to hold, in the religious life of the people at large. The synagogue was far from possessing the mysterious sanctity of the temple,^ and knew nothing of the rigorous restrictions relating to Levitical impurity, which excluded all Jews not Levitically clean, and a fortiori all Gentiles, from the inner courts on Mount Zion, Hence, as already noticed, the mixed multitude was admitted to its services, Imt provision was at the same time carefully made that its own sacredness should always be preserved to it. It was never to be used, or even approached, without a due feeling of religious reverence. Its very stones were sacred from the moment they were cut in the quarry, and if the building fell into disuse its material ought not to be sold for secular purposes. Even ruined synagogues were still holy, and should be left as they were till their condition inspired a pious wish to rebuild them.^ A secular hall might be dedi- cated as a synagogue, just as it might be made into a Christian church, and would become sacred so soon as the rolls of the law had been deposited in the place prepared for- them.^ The buildings were used for public service three or four times a week, and for daily private prayer, so that, while possessing doors with bolts,'* they would stand in the daytime always open. Apart from divine service their chief religious use was for reading, study,^ and disputation, which ' Babylon Berakhoth, 62 b, Schwab, i. 499. - Jerusalem Megilla, iii. 1, Schwab, vi. 235. ^ Ibid. p. 236. * Jems. Eroubim, x. 10, Schwab, iv. 302, ^ ' R. Abaji said. Formerly I learned my Talmud at home, and went to pray in the synagogue, but after I had read the verse of the Psalm, ITS VARIOUS USES. Ill went ou in the building itself when there were no side- rooms dedicated to these purposes.^ ' The synagogues,' said E. Josue b. Levy, ' are made for the use of the wise,' ^ and became the recognised home of the teacher and the student, as well in their hours of relaxation as of study.^ It was, on the other hand, an offence for the ordinary person to stroll aimlessly into the building, or use it for trifling purposes. It was not to be employed as a short cut, a place of prome- nade or of shelter from the sun and rain : to sleep therein or to eat and drink was forbidden,^ though stransfers misht be sheltered and provided with refreshment without any desecration.^ To carry on commercial transactions in the synagogue was as bad as to turn it into a charnel house.^ The following is an illustrative story : — ' E. E. Eawina and Adi asked a question of Eawi in the street. There came on a sudden shower, and they took refuge in the neighbouring synagogue.' This was held to be rightly done, because it was not merely shelter that was sought, but the opportunity of continuing undisturbed a conversation on a question of the Law.'' The synagogues were employed also for judicial proceedings : the local courts were held in them, and there also their sentences were carried out by the infliction of stripes.^ Finally, funeral ceremonies were conducted in them, but only in the case of distinguished persons as the expression of general mourning.^ Lord, I love the habitation of Thine house, I learned my Talmud also in the synagogue.' — Meg'dla, trans, by Eawiez, p. 105. ^ Every synagogue was also a hall of study, but separate apartments for study were (generally ?) provided. The numerous synagogues at Jerusalem are said each to have had a hall for reading the Scriptures, and a hall for studying the Mischna. — Jer. Megilla, iii. 1, Schwab, vi. 235. 2 Ibid. I.e. p. 240. 3 j/e^. Rawicz, p. 102. * Ibid. p. 103 ; Jer. Meg. I.e. ° Jerusalem Pesaliim, i., Schwab, v. 2. ^ 3feg. Rawicz, p. 102. 7 Ibid. p. 103. 8 Matt. x. 17. ^ Meg. Rawicz, p. 102. 1 1 2 THE SYNAGOGUE IN ITS RELATION Tlie synagogue appears, accordingly, as an essentially popular institution, democratic in the sense that no priestly caste or privileged family had part or inheritance therein, yet preserved in inviolable sacredness through the religious habits of the community. The chief influence in the pre- servation of those habits vs^as education. ' The whole uni- verse,' said the Doctors, ' has less value than a single one of the prescriptions of the Law;'^ but they also laid it down that ' the act of hearing a passage of the Bible repeated by a little grandson was equal to the audition of the law on Mount Sinai.' In the spirit of this fine maxim the Jewish boy was brought up from the first to feel that in the life of the synagogue he should find his highest and holiest pleasure, and that it would some day be his part to lead therein the solemn service. So soon as he came to man's estate he might be called upon to take public control of the worship, to read without hesitation or blunder the sentences of the Law, to direct from the rostrum the singing of the congrega- tion, or to give the sacerdotal blessing from before the ark.- We who are satisfied to set apart a certain number of our community and a certain measure of our time for the service of the sanctuary, hardly can realise what a powerful element in the religious education of an earnest Hebrew layman was the consciousness that he must qualify himself not only to follow but to lead the daily devotions of his people. That such was the office of the members of the community at large was the most open fulfilment of the promise which it was the highest aspiration of Judaism to realise, ' Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.'^ Announced at the most solemn crisis of the national history, 1 Jerusalem Pea, i. 1, Schwab, ii. 14. 2 In Jer. Soucca, iii. 12, Schwab, vi. 31, it is stated that the youth is not to be permitted to do this before his beard is grown. ^ Exodus xix. 6. TO THE NATIONAL LIFE OF THE JEWS. 113 the opening of the drama of Mount Sinai, this promise had been kept alive through the influence of the prophets, who stood outside the temple system with its hereditary priest- hood. The writer of the second of Maccabees^ re-asserts the same principle, that God ' the Saviour of all his people, hath given to all the inheritance and the kingdom and the priesthood and the consecration,' and St. Peter appeals to it again in his epistle to the ' sojourners of the dispersion.' ^ There were two ways, however, in which the promise might be fulfilled. The prophets, in immortal words, had claimed for it a spiritual fulfilment by the righteousness of the heart, and Christ, in whom the prophetic line received its close and consecration, made this the keynote of His teaching. The Pharisees interpreted it in a legal fashion. They had emancipated themselves from the hereditary priesthood, and sought to elevate each individual man, through the exactest regulation of conduct, to a priestly order of a nobler type. Their holiness tended, however, as we know too well, to become an external matter, resulting in that formalism and pride which drew down the sharpest rebukes from the lips of our Lord. This fundamental error of Pharisaic teaching we may recognise to the full, without being blinded thereby to the elements of true moral strength in the orthodox Judaism of the hall of study and the synagogue. He is indeed an unsympathetic reader who can turn over the pages of the Talmud without discerning that underneath this Eabbinical casuistry and apparent zeal only for the ' letter which killeth,' there lay the deep foundation upon which the lasting greatness of the people is based, the foundation of personal self-respect and purity, of blameless family life, of infinite care for the nurture of the young, and above all an intense religiousness. ' An holy nation,' in the sense in which the words would be used by Christ, the 1 2 Mace. ii. 17. ^ 1 Peter ii. 5, 9. H lU THE SYNAGOGUES ON THE GREAT FESTIVALS. Jews were not, but their effort after such holiness as they discerned was still a noble one, and it was the greatness not the faults of the people that these synagogal services called into play. We may picture to ourselves the broad spaces of the Alexandrine basilica flanked with inscribed and gilded columns,^ and canopied with a roof curiously graven,^ and rich with colour and glance of metal. On the rostrum in the centre, midmost of the congregation, stands the director of the worship, and summons now one and now another to take part in reading or in prayer. He who is asked at first refuses, as not deeming himself worthy of the proffered honour,^ but, duly urged, comes forward to the desk, and receives from an attendant's hands the sacred roll of the Law. Practised as is his voice, it cannot penetrate to every part of the immense interior, and the presiding officer waves an embroidered banner to give the signal for the responses. There is movement about the doors as men come and go, while, calmly enthroned beside the ark, inflexible as the Law itself, in face of the thronging thousands, sit the elders of Israel. Or let us imagine some great anniversary, when the ordinary service gives place to a solemn commemoration. How deeply stirred were those vast audiences with the joy and the sorrow and the dread, the recollection of the past, the hopeless longing, the far-off expectation, which the grandly-contrasted Jewish festivals called up to every mind. With what mighty waves of passion were they swept on the days of triumph, when the silver trumpets of remembrance pealed forth, and men bethought them of the blasts on Sinai, of the fall of the ramparts of Jericho, of the glories of the ^ As at Bagdad, ante, p. 103. - Like the roofs of Herod's porticoes round the temple courts. — Jos. Wars, V. 5, 2. 3 Bab. Berakhoth, 34 a, Schwab, i. 364. THE CHRISTIAN BASILICA. 115 temple service, or, of nearer date, the heroic clarions which ring the note of faith and of victory through the first of the Maccabees. How dread the gloom, when, on days of fast and penitence, the people cast cinders on their heads and the sacred ark was moved from its place in the synagogue, and covered not as of yore with gold, but with the ashes of wood, was borne slowly out into the street, while the bones of the pious trembled with reverence and holy sorrow.^ Such were the scenes on which Mary of Nazareth may have looked down during those years of Egyptian sojourn. This was indeed to the outward eye the ' splendour of Israel,' and not without awe would she gaze on the assembly of the wealthy and powerful and learned of her race. What a contrast were they to the stranger fugitives from their obscure village of Northern Palestine ! Yet perchance as she pondered once more over the sayings treasured in her heart, there may have flashed before her eyes a vision of a greater glory that should come, as, kindling again with the enthusiasm of the Magnificat, she knew that it was upon her the blessing of the generations would be spoken, while for the fall and rising again of these many in Israel should be set the unconscious babe which slumbered on her breast. Turning now from the meeting-house of the Jews to that of the Christians, let us approach in thought a Christian basilica of the fourth or fifth century, and consider the form, arrangement, and decoration of its various parts, tracing wherever it is possible their origin in the earlier buildings of the ages of persecution. The Christian church was occasionally surrounded by a 1 Jerusalem Taan'dh, ii. I, Schwab, vi. 152. ' R. Zeira said : Every time that I have seen the ark thus borne my body was seized with trembling.' 116 THE FORECOUirr, OK ATltlUM. wall of enceinte, pei'ibolus, marking out a sacred precinct, within which it stood with its subsidiary structures grouped about it. So stood the basilica erected by order of Con- stantine near the supposed site of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and in such a precinct rose the grand church at Tyre, described by Eusebius in the tenth book of his Ecclesiastical History. This precinct, a distinct copy of the tcmenos or sacred enclosure of classical temples and of Mount Zion, cannot have been of frequent occurrence. Almost universal, on the other hand, was the important preliminary feature of the forecourt or atrium which lay before the entrance side of the building. A portico gives admission to this, and we find ourselves in a court enclosed on three sides by colonnades, and containing in the midst a fountain under a baldachin or canopy, called Cantharus. At this fountain those about to enter the sacred building washed their hands and lips in token of purification. The arcades round the court, and its central space, afforded room for groups to walk and to converse. It was as it were the Christian forum where the business of the community was transacted, and it has been considered by some that it was a copy of the public forum of the city, the church taking the place of the basilica adjacent thereto. It is far more probable that it was a reminiscence of the 2^cristi/le, or court surrounded by colonnades, of the private mansion, out of which opened the mcus and other festal apartments. In such open courts had been held the meetings of the early Christians for daily salutation, for council, for the reception of converts, and for informal business generally, and we cannot doubt that in the fountains which made pleasant music in their midst Christian baptism had been in the early days not seldom administered. In the atrmm of the basilica we may see, therefore, a clear trace of the primitive meetings in private houses. THE INTERIOR. 117 The fourth side of the court is occupied by the facade of the church, which at tins period commonly lay with its entrance to the east, and with the altar at the western end. The arrangement of vestibules varied in different places. Sometimes the continuation of the colonnade along the fourth side in front of the church formed a porch before it, from which access was gained immediately into the building. Sometimes a special vestibule was interposed, or the portion of the church nearest the doors was marked off by barriers. Tliese arrangements had reference to the different classes of catechumens and penitents of various degrees, who were not in full fellowship with the Church, but had their appointed places in the outer courts. On entering the building through doors over which hung rich curtains, indicated in Figs. 6 and 12, we should have seen before us a light, spacious and well-proportioned hall of oblong plan, divided by rows of columns into a central space and two or four side aisles. Above the colonnades would possibly appear the galleries characteristic of the pagan basilicas, but more frequently — as in almost all the existing basilicas of Eome and Eavenna — a plain wall would rise above the columns of the nave, the upper portion of which would be pierced with windows many and large, admitting a flood of light into the edifice.^ The roof might either be open, that is, with the timbers of the con- struction shown, as in the ancient example in S. Sabina on the Aventine at Eome, or concealed by a ceiling por- tioned out into squares — cassettes — and richly carved and gilded. 1 The earliest basilicas had a profusion of windows, which in later times were diminished both in size and number. The notion of a ' dim religious light ' is a refinement of comparatively modern times. The t5ize of the clerestory windows of the basilica in Fig. 14 is remarkable. Abundance of light characterised, as we shall see, the churches of Byzantium. 118 IMPORTANCE OF THE BASILICAN FORM, Here at once is apparent the significance of the name ' basilica,' as applied to the Christian church. The question of church-building at this period must have been greatly a question of providing accommodation for the immensely increasing numbers of the Christians in the latter part of the third century, or in the days of Constantine, and the adoption of the basilican plan was the readiest means of procuring it. The importance of this plan lay in the fact that it allowed a far larger building to be erected and roofed at a moderate cost than was possible if the form of the simple hall or scloola were maintained. These were neces- sarily limited in size through the difficulty of roofing a wide unbroken space. The contrivance of interior colonnades which might be two or four in number, enabled the building to be at once enlarged to the magnificent proportions of old St. Peter's at Eome, 380 feet in length, by a total width of 212, while the roofing, being divided into parallel sections over nave and aisles, was still perfectly easy. The lighting of the interior by windows in the upper walls of the nave was a natural consequence, and a Christian congregation might find itself in a building of basilican form before the name ' basilica ' had yet l)een applied to it. The name itself came into use during the first half of the fourth century. There is some trace of its employment in docu- ments relating to transactions in Africa during the Diocletian persecution of a.d. 303,^ but before that time it was never employed, and this fact agrees with the view here put for- ward that the Christian church was enlarged into a basilica at the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century, and received the name in consequence of the architectural change. Previous to this the meeting-house of the faithful was called by such names as olKOft irpoaevKTrjpio'i, ' house of prayer,' oIko'^ eKKKrja-ia^, ' house of assembly,' ccdcsia, ^ De Eossi, Rom. SotL iii. 461. DIVERGENCE FROM IT OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 119 oratorium, or more commonly ' house of the Lord,' domini- cum, in Greek KvpiaKov, whence, in all probability, the modern ' kirche,' ' kirk,' and ' church.' A certain pilgrim from Bordeaux, who visited Jerusalem in the year 333, in writing of the church built by Constantine near the site of the Holy Sepulchre, uses the words ' basilica, ID est DOMI- NICUM, mira; ^:)?(^c7i?'tY2J, p. :;7i« OR EASTEKX ? 139 origin of the dome as a mominicntcd form. The primitive Eastern dome seems to have been on a very small scale, and to have been used for subordinate purposes only. On early Egyptian monuments we find the representation of rows of buildings covered with dome-like roofs. These are clearly nothing but store-rooms or granaries of modest dimensions. On Assyrian monuments similar structures are shown, and one plate from Layard's Nineveh'^ exhibits an interesting- group of buildings covered, some with hemispherical, others with egg-shaped domes. The scene is a country one, and the buildings may be village houses, or, as has been sug- gested, kilns or ovens. They have certainly no monumental character. Similar structures, also on a modest scale, are to be seen nestling up against a city wall in a design on a Phoenician bowl, figured in Helbig's Das HomeriscJic Epos aus den Denhndhrn cnlhdcrt. It is interesting to find that domes of this simple kind are used to the present day in the same regions in which we find them figured in monuments three or four thousand years old, and a graphic passage in M. Place's Ninivc describes how he witnessed the construction, by some village women in Mesopotamia, of a small domed oven, eight feet in dia- meter, through a process which may well date back to the days of Sennacherib.- We have therefore the following results. The dome was employed on a small scale for sub- ordinate buildings in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and was probably constructed of crude brick by the same pro- cess in use at the present day. The architects of the Hellenistic cities, who were confined in some cases to the ^ Second Series, pi. 17. 2 Ninlve et VAssyrie, i. 266, cf. Ferrot, L' J^gypte, 112. In the 2'hon- sand and One Nights, tale of the enchanted Prince, Kight 7, there is mentioned a ' round-roofed hut of mud bricks,' which will serve as a mediaeval example. 140 ()i;i(;ix ov the dome an open question. use of brick, ma^j liave adopted this form, and maT/ have carried it out on a monuiueutal scale. The close connectiou between Eoman architecture and Greek renders the hypo- thesis a natural one, that the dome came to the Komans from the East through the medium of the Hellenistic Greeks. This is, however, by no means a matter of proof, and we have finally the i'act, which is the ground-work of the dis- cussion in this chapter, that the first monumental dome of ivJiich vje have either remains or elcar reeord, is the cupola erected by the architect of 3Iarcus Agrippa over the drum of the Pantheon some time before the year 27 B.C.^ This extraordinary hiatus in the history of the dome, be- tween tlie small mud-brick cottages ovens and storehouses of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the magnificent vault of the Pantheon, leaves it an open question whether it is most correct to consider the dome an Eastern or a Eoman form. On this question depends the view we take of Sassanid and Byzantine architecture. Are these the fruit of an old Eastern stock independent altogether of the West, or were they directly inspired by the splendid triumphs of Eoman dome construction ? The key to this problem may be hidden among the mounds of rubbish which cover the sites of the once opulent and beautiful Hellenistic cities. If it could be proved that the cupola grew in tliese to monu- mental proportions, we should be forced to look upon Eoman Sassanid and Byzantine domes as successive offshoots ^ It is necessary to insist the more strongly upon this fundamental fact, because the writer of a recent work of importance, M. Dieulafoy, in VArt antique de la Perse, 1884-85, has lately denied it, though upon wholly insufficient grounds. This writer holds that some of the well- known ' Sassanid ' domes, belonging in the common view to about the fourth century a.d., were built in the days of Darius and Xerxes. This theory, a very extraordinary one, will be examined in the Appendix. M. Dieulafoy's hypothesis is accepted by Choisy, L^Art de batir cJiez ka ByzantinK. Paris, 1882. ESTHETIC CHARACTER OF THE DOME, 141 from the Greco-oriental stem. If, on the contrary, it was the Eoman architects themselves, and foremost among them the creator of the Pantheon, who first made the dome a really important motive in architecture, then the cupola is by right Eoman, and the Pantheon is truly the motlier-dome of the world. Fresh discoveries on Oriental sites mav aid us in this perplexity, but till some new facts in the history of dome construction come to light, or till ]\I. Dieulafoy and M. Choisy can bring forward some better proof of the truth of their recent paradox, there is no reason for wishing to deprive the Ptoman architects of the meed of honour which lias been universally assigned to them as the first great dome constructors of the world. The aesthetic aspects of this question demand a moment's notice. The dome has been spoken of as a singularly expressive architectural feature, and there are those to whom it seems especially connected with Oriental ideas. Here are some words by the late Professor Unger of Gottingen, the historian of Byzantine art. ' One may say that there is no other architectonic form which is so suited as this to serve as the expression of the Oriental view of life, no other breathes to so great an extent the spirit of mystical contem- plation. . . . Through the cupola the impression of gTandeur, sublimity, and vastness is greatly heightened.'^ If this is true, it may be partly explained by the obvious connection between the form of the cupola, and that of the vault of heaven, through which it j)roduces naturally the impression of the one, the all-embracing. When M. Pienan says that the desert is monotheistic, he is claiming for the East a special power of nourishing these gTand unifying conceptions, but it is, on the other hand, to be remembered that these do not belong wholly to the East, and it is this very idea of nnity which underlies the ^ Ersch und (riuber, Euciillopuirie, § I., Tli. 84, p. 3.51. 142 ^■"T MOllE EASTEllX policy the Lhoiight and the constructions of Rome. Virgil expresses the Roman idea when he writes of the varied gifts in art eloquence and science of the Greeks, and then turns to his own country with the words : — ' Rule thou the nations, Rome, imperial ! thine These arts alone. Peace on the peoples bind, The vanquished spare, the proud in arms confound.' Rome strove to make a unity of the whole world of her possessions. She not only conquered and incorporated in her own body-politic the nations, but she united them by her bridges and roads, which abolished natural barriers, and brought distant provinces into connection. Her mighty aqueducts, which traverse the plains in monotonous succes- sion of arches towards the walls of her cities ; her amphi- theatres, with their endless iteration of pillar and arch, and their unbroken rings of seats — these are fit emblems of her irresistible course, her levelling, all-dominating policy, before which all limitations, all local varieties, were forced to disappear. In this way the empire of Rome seems only the continuation of the great imperial systems of the East. What it offered the world was the essence of these systems, with the addition of all the apparatus of rational politics and law, which was the creation of the West, M. Place, in his account of Assyrian architecture, remarks justly on the points of similarity it bears to that of Rome, while we may bring out the resemblance further by contrasting both with that of Greece. The Pantheon, though it has been provided with a portico, is, in its style and character, essentially unhellenic. The Greeks delighted always in the appearance of contrast ; with their fine sense of proportion — the foundation of their artistic character — they loved to measure one thing against another, and to note the diversity of parts which are held 1 Virg., .-En. vi. 852. THAN EOMAN. 143 together iu harmony in their works of art. Hence they set their temple as a monument upon the pedestal of its stylo- bate, and throughout it opposed part to part, — the upright column to the horizontal entablature, the capital to the shaft, the architrave to the frieze, the ornamented portions to the plain spaces which set them off. In the Pantheon all is uniform ; the decorative forms are repeated, not contrasted ; the attention is never roused to balance and to measure ; the mind is impressed with a vague sense of sublimity rather than excited to a more active artistic delight. Hence an interior like that of the Pantheon — with its simple divisions, its surfaces so sparingly broken, its immense dome brooding equally over all — conveys a sublime idea of unity, which is perfectly expressive of the character of the Eomans. From the aesthetic point of view, therefore, though the dome may have originated in other climes, it is not at Eome an exotic, but a genuine national production. The old traditions of dome construction were absorbed by the Eoman builders, and given forth again in a perfected form which has every right to be considered their own pro- perty. The importance of a clear understanding upon this point will appear as we proceed, and if this subject seems to be dwelt upon at unnecessary length, it may be urged in excuse that it is a common practice to call all domes built after about the sixth century, whether they are in the East or the West, by the inaccurate term ' Byzantine.' It must always be kept in mind that Kome possessed a world-famous cupola several centuries before the first Byzantine dome, and that during those centuries, dome construction had advanced on parallel lines in the West and in the East, so that the middle ages inherited in the West as genuine a tradition in regard to the cupola as any which flourished in the East. It is no part of tlie present subject to discuss the 144 i'liOIlLEMS COXNECTEI) WITH TIIK I'ANTIIEOX. Pantheon, but a liope may be expressed that before long some complete monograph may be composed on this most important of Roman monuments. Every writer on archi- tectural history or on Eoman antiquities has an account of the Pantheon, but we are still in doubt as well regarding its history and its destination, as its system of construc- tion, the original features of its interior, and even its correct measurements. In his official report of tlie recent excava- tions around and behind the building, Sig. Eodolfo Lanciani deplores the uncertainty in which the building is involved. ' II Pantheon,' he writes, ' presenta il f enomeno singola- rissimo, di essere 1' edifizio antico il piu intatto, ed al tempo stesso di rimanere inesplicabile sotto parecchi punti di vista, die concernono tanto la massa quanto i particolari.' ^ It illustrates this remark to find that even that all-important measurement, the internal diameter of the dome,' is given differently by almost every authority. Thus, reducing the measurements to English feet, we have from Desgodetz^ 143 feet 6 inches; from Canina,^ Isabelle,* and Viollet le Duc^ about 144 feet 6 inches; from Fergusson^ 145 feet 6 inches ; while in the latest monograph on the building,'' the span of the vault is reduced to 139 feet. With the Pantheon for a starting-point, let us now glance at the employment of the dome during the early centuries ^ II Pantheon, etc., prima Belazione a sua Eccellenza il Ministro delta Istruzione Pubblica, p. 4. Sig. Lauciani is of opinion that the Pantheon was never an apartment of the Thermaa of Agrippa, but, from its first origin, a temple. - Les Edifices Antiques de Rome dessln^s et mesuj'is ires exactement, Paris, 1682. ^ Edifizi, ii. tav. 67-74. * Les Edifices Circidaires et les Domett, Paris, 1855, pi. 6. ^ Dlctionnaire, art. 'Voute.' •^ History of Architecture, i. p. 311. '' Giro Nispi-Landi, Marco Agrippa e i suol Tempi, le Terme ed il Pantheon, Koma, 1883. (An unscientific work.) USE OF THE DOME BY THE ROMAXS. 145 of our era. The most constant use of this architectural form by the Komans was in connection with their great batliing establishments. Circular buildings covered with cupolas are included in the normal TJiermce described by Vitruvius/ and we find them occupying in the Thermae of Caracalla and Diocletian the place held by the Pantheon in relation to those of M. Agrippa. One important building of this kind is known by the erroneous name of the ' temple of Minerva Medica.' Another class of buildings constructed by Eoman architects with domes are tomb-monuments. For these the circular form was traditional, and well-known examples are the tombs of Csecilia Metella and Hadrian. When the dome came into use, to employ it for the covering of such structures was a natural step. Circular temples were also traditional at Rome, and Vitruvius describes them among the normal forms of his day."^ The temple of Vesta, goddess of the hearth, was always round, and it has been suggested that the origin of it is to be found in the circular huts of the herdsmen who • settled in primitive days upon the seven hills.^ Later on, in the time of the Empire, other deities also were worshipped in round temples, and of one dedicated to Helios we read that its circular form repre- sented the figure of the sun, the light being admitted, as in the Pantheon, by a single opening in the roof'* This seems to imply a dome, while another domed temple formed part of the palace of Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia.^ Our concern is not, however, with pagan but with Christian buildings. In connection with these the most general use of the dome in the early centuries is for the covering of baptisteries. These small round or polygonal buildings, with 1 De Arch. v. 10. 2 j^^i i^ 3. 3 De Rossi, Piante iconografiche e jwospettiche di Eoma, p. .3. 4 Macrob. Saturnal. i. 18, § 11. ^ This is now considered to liave been destined for a tomb-monument. K 146 EAIJLV CHEISTIAN DOMES their domical roofs, appear in the mosaic pictures copied in rigs. 12, 13, 14, as regular adjuncts to the Christian meeting- house. When the first baptisteries were built we have no means of knowing ;i but both their name and form seem borrowed from pagan sources. They remind us at once of the bathing apartments in the Thermae, and the fact that Pliny, in speaking of the latter, twice uses the word haptis- teria, seems to point to this derivation. The Christians also adopted the use of the dome in connection with tomb monuments, and perhaps the earliest Christian dome that can now be recognised is that covering the small memorial cella of the third century in the cemetery of S. Callisto, of which the frontispiece gives a restoration. In the case of early domed buildings, we are in the same position as in that of the meeting-house ; nothing of import- ance exists of earlier date than the age of Constantine. The earliest existing baptistery is that of the Lateran, said to have been erected in its original form under Constantine. Throughout the Eoman world round or polygonal baptis- teries seem to have been constantly employed from the fourth century onwards, and the Italians have preserved throughout the separate building for baptism, while north of the Alps the practice has generally prevailed of administer- ing the rite in the churches. Among existing Christian tomb-monuments of domical form the first place is taken by the round building known as S. Costanza, on the Via Nomentana near Eome, erected, according to tradition, by ^ The rite of baptism, as we find it in the New Testament and in the Teaching of the Twelve Aj>ostles (vii. 4), is independent of any special place. At the beginning of the third century Tertulliau (de Coron. 3) speaks of baptism as a formal and somewhat elaborate rite, but does not imply the existence of a separate building. Somewhat later the Canons of S. Hippolytus (xix. 12) seem to regard the place of baptism as distinct from the church, while the discourses of St. Cyrill of Jerusalem (middle of fourth century) presuppose independent baptisteries of considerable size. USED FOR BAPTISTERIES AND TOMB-MONUMENTS. 147 Constantiue for the sepulchre of his daughter about 336 a.d., and adorned with the earliest existing Christian mosaics. The constructive aspects of this building will be noticed on a subsequent page. Some other important domed buildings of this time are no longer preserved to us, and among these the foremost place is due to the round structure erected by Constantino between the years 326 and 334 a.d., on the supposed site of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.^ This seems originally to have consisted in a small dome supported on a ring of twelve columns, representing the twelve apostles, and in this form it is represented in an early Christian mosaic in S. Apollinare Nuovo at Eavenna. The influence of this building upon later architecture has been very marked. If the martyrs' graves in general received, as we have seen, such extraordinary reverence, still more would naturally be lavished upon the supposed tomb of our Lord, and it is not surprising to learn that pilgrims who had visited the shrine erected copies of it on their return to their own country. Such a copy exists in the church of S. Sepolcro at Bologna, one of the seven small buildings grouped together under the name of S. Stefano, and it is said to have been erected by S. Petronio about 430 a.d., after a visit to the Holy Land. On the platform of the temple at Jerusalem stands a beautiful and enigmatical building known as the ' Dome of the Eock,' and less correctly as the ' Mosque of Omar.' Whether this be Arabian (Adler), Byzantine of Justinian's time (Sepp), or, ^ Around the buildings of Constantine at the Holy Sepulchre (Euseb. de Vita Const, iii. 31), has gathered a mass of controversy, in which is also involved the famous ' Dome of the Rock.' For the diflferent opinions expressed on these subjects see Fergusson, The Holy Sejiulchre and the Temple at Jerusalem, 1865 ; Unger, Die Bauten Constantins am heiligen Grabe, Gottingen, 1863 ; Adler, Der Felsendom und die heilige Grabeskirche zu Jerusalem-, Berlin, 1873 ; Sepp, die Felsenkuppel eine Justinianinche Sophienkirche, Miinchen, 1882. 148 THE EARLIEST DOMED CHURCH. as Dr. Fergusson and Professor linger have maintained, in part at least the original church of the Holy Sepulchre built by Constantine, it is a structure of great historical importance. A comparatively modern development of dome-construction appears here anticipated, and the cupola presents itself for the first time as a prominent external feature. The ' Dome of the Eock ' has had, too, a curious influence upon western architecture, and has become, through a pardonable blunder, the parent of all the churches of the Order of the Templars. These crusading knights imagined it to be part of the temple of Solomon, and adopted its form for their own buildings, so that where- ever in the West there appears a church of the Templars, there we see perpetuated the plan of this so-called Mosque of Omar. The above is sufficient to illustrate the use of the domed form by the Christians for baptisteries and sepulchral monu- ments. "We have now to consider its employment for the more important purposes of congregational assembly. The first domed churches built for Christian worship are of special interest, for from them sprang Byzantine archi- tecture, with its various offshoots. So far as our information extends, the builder of the earliest domed church of any magnitude was Constantine, — its locality the famous city of Antioch in Syria, the nurse of the infant Christian com- munity. About the year 327 a.d., Constantine erected here a building, which Eusebius calls ' a kind of church altogether unique for its size and beauty.'^ Its ground-plan was an octagon, and high above, supported on precious columns, rose the light and lofty cupola, flooded with light which played upon its roof, and won for it the name given to it by St. Jerome of Dominicum Aureum, ' the golden House of the Lord.' There seems good ground for believing that this 1 De Vita Const, iii. 50. OKIGIN OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 149 building, the great ornament of the ' metropolis of the East,' — so Antioch was called,^ — which contained at the end of the fourth century a larger Christian community than Con- stantinople,^ was the starting-point of the rich development of domical construction in the Eastern empire, and among the adjacent peoples. It is true that we meet here once more the question discussed in the preceding pages, the question whether or not the Hellenised East possessed an independent tradition of this domical construction, which could have produced Byzantine architecture without the intervention of Eome. It is not possible in the present state of knowledge to give a confident answer, but something may be done by calling attention to the few definite facts which form our most important landmarks. This 'golden church ' of Antioch occupied part of the site of some Thermae of the Emperor Philip the Arabian, and its plan may have been adopted from that of the circular bathing apartment of these Thermae. Of the octagonal form chosen for it we have another example in Constantine's baptistery of the Lateran at Eome, and these two facts would appear to connect it with Eoman traditions of building. The words just quoted from Eusebius may be taken to mean that it was designed in a style new to the regions of Syria. It is a noteworthy fact also that among the Christian edifices of central Syria described by de Vogiie, the polygonal and domed form is quite exceptional, — the only two important examples of the style, the churches at Ezra and Bosrah,^ dating from the beginning of the sixth century, — though there, if anywhere, we should have expected this supposed Eastern tradition to have asserted itself with prominence from the earliest days of Christian architecture. If Constantine builds over the ^ S. Hieron, Contra Joann. Hieros. 37. 2 S. Chrys. Horn, de Consonantia utr. Test. I. ^ De Vogiie, Syrie Centrale, etc., pi. 21, 23. 150 DOMED CHURCHES IN THE WEST Holy Sepulchre a light cupola, resting on a ring of columns, a new and possibly Hellenistic form/ he repeats the form, as we shall see, a few years afterwards at S. Costanza near Eome. The admired church at Antioch, the loss of which we have greatly to regret, was copied in a building erected at Neo-Ctesarea in Asia Minor by the father of St. Gregory Nazianzen, while before the close of the fourth century there must have already existed at Milan in North Italy the original edifice of S. Lorenzo, which proves how far the early Christian builders of the West had advanced at this time in the development of dome construction. The cupola did not take its position as the characteristic form of Eastern Church architecture till some two centuries after Constantine, and even then it was not exclusively Eastern, but remained in use in well-marked, though comparatively unfrequent, examples in the West. Up to the reign of Justinian (a.d. 527-565), the vast majority of churches erected throughout the Emjjire were of the oblong basilican type, or, as the Greeks called them, BpofjbiKol, from the resemblance of their plan to the stadium or race-course. It was not till the first half of the sixth century, when Justinian's architects erected S. Sophia at Constantinople, that the full capabilities of the domed style were made apparent, and this form was definitely adopted by Byzantine architects. From this time onwards almost all the churches of the Eastern Empire exhibit the domed style, which spreads into the neighbouring lands, and produces on the one side the architecture of Armenia, and on the other that of Kussia, while it exerts a marked influence on the constructive forms of the Arabs. Western architects continue, liowever, their independent use of the dome, and tlie beautiful S. Vitale at Eavenna dates from about the same time as S. Sophia, while at the end of the eighth 1 Ante, p. 83. NOT NECESSARILY BYZANTINE. 151 century we have the famous minster of Charles the Great at Aachen, the form of which reappears in several churches of the Ehineland. From the eleventh century onwards cupolas are not unfrequent in conjunction with basilican ground- plans. The Duomo of Pisa (enlarged to its present form in 1063) is the earhest important Western example of a dome covering the crossing of a cruciform church, and cupolas in similar positions are frequent features in Eomanesque min- sters. It has been urged that in these domes we have a direct result of Byzantine influence, but the existence in the "West of a tradition of dome construction based upon Eoman and early Christian models, renders the modern critic cautious about assuming Byzantine influence in the West, except where there is positive evidence that it was exercised. That evidence is clearest in the case of St. Mark's at Venice, which is undoubtedly Byzantine in form and decora- tion. It is not to be denied again at St. Front at P^rigueux in Western France, and in other churches of that region which are derived from St. Front, though here it is only the bare form which is Byzantine, the decoration being of purely classical type. S. Antonio at Padua has also a pronounced Byzantine character. At the time of the Eenaissance in Italy and Western Europe, domed constructions became again of the first importance, and it is interesting to note that the Pantheon becomes once more, in the hands of Brunelleschi, the starting-point of a new development, which culminated in the cupolas of St. Peter's at Eome, and St. Paul's in London. From this brief sketch of the history of the domed church we now pass on to consider its development in its more strictly constructive aspects. The characteristic difference between the Christian basilica and the domed edifice resides here. The former was an admirably convenient building for its purpose, but as will be seen in the next chapter, it 152 THE DOMED CIIUKCH AND THE BASILICA. was structurally crude and incomplete. The latter was, on the contrary, architecturally perfect in its earliest form, but not suitable for the purposes of a Christian meeting-house. The development of the two buildings proceeded therefore on opposite lines; the loosely-constructed basilica became the severe and compact Eomanesque minster, while the too simple and uniform round building becomes broken up in such a way as to provide the requisite architectural divisions and a commanding position for the altar. The Pantheon resembled the pagan basilica noticed in the last chapter, in that it was nowhere focussed, and had no natural station for the altar, nor any divisions which might serve to keep the classes of the congregation separate. Nor again did its severely regular form admit of those side-buildings so neces- sary for vestries and the like, while its circular plan rendered it difficult to connect with other buildings. The develop- ment of this form of edifice will, as we shall see, proceed in the direction of giving to it the convenient accommodation offered by the Christian basilica, while its architectural character and the fine effect of the dome are still preserved. The form of the Pantheon is too well known to need description. Its construction is undoubtedly very scientific and is not yet thoroughly understood, but its general plan is of the simplest. A circular drum half as high as its diameter is completely covered in by a hemispherical dome, fitting evenly upon it in every part, light being admitted through a single opening at the summit of the vault. The first step towards a freer treatment of the ground-plan is to be observed in the building known as the temple of Minerva Medica.^ There is here also a drum and a hemispherical cupola sur- mounting it, but the severe simplicity of the Pantheon is abandoned. The height of the building is no longer equal to its diameter, but exceeds it, and the form of the ground- * Isabelle, Les l^dlfices Circniaires et les Domes, Paris, 1S55. DEVELOPMENT OF DOME CONSTRUCTION. 153 plan is no longer circular, but polygonal. This leads at once to a modification of the form of the dome. We have no longer a cylinder for its support, but a polygonal drum of ten sides. On this is placed a hemispherical dome like that of the Pantheon, but, as will easily be seen, it will no longer exactly fit. We may either construct it of such a size as to rest upon the extreme corners of the polygon, or else make it a little smaller, so as to be supported upon the centre of each side, the corners projecting beyond. In both cases some more work would be required to complete the construction. This would be obviated if the dome, instead of being round, were itself polygonal, that is, were composed of triangular slips meeting in a point above, each one of which fitted exactly on to the top of one of the sides of the base. This is a form of dome of which we shall find examples, but it is the hemi- spherical cupola with which we are at present concerned. In the temple of Minerva Medica the dome rests on the corners of the polygon, and would naturally project a little beyond the flat sides. Let the reader imagine that he has before him a model of the form represented in Fig. 21, where the side A is shown as overlapped by the domical covering. If we suppose a knife passed up along the sides, so as to cut off the projecting parts of the dome, we should find that above each side there would be left a round arched aperture, as shown in the drawing over B. The wall may then be con- tinued upwards to fill in this aperture, as at C, and if this were carried out all round, we should again have a complete construction like the Pantheon, though with this important difference on which much of the effect of the interior would depend, — we should miss the effect of the full hemispherical dome, for the vault would seem to begin, not at the points where it rests on the corners of the polygon, but only at the level, D, where its surface rises clear above the upper portion of the sides, which, as we have seen, cut into it. 154 THE DOME AND ITS SUPPORTS. The cupola would accordingly have a flat saucer-like appear- ance, and the grand sweep of the complete hemisphere would be lost. The effect of such a cupola is to be seen in the Baptistery of Kavenna, where the dome is joined to an octa- gonal drum in the way just described. This flatness of effect would be obviated if the dome, instead of touching the corners of the polygon, rested on the middle of the sides, as shown in Yin. 22. The construction A B Fig. 21. — Model illu.strating Dome Construction. would have to be completed in the interior by building up- wards and outwards from the corners to meet the portions of the edge of the cupola. A, which would be hanging unsupported, while on the exterior the projecting corners of the polygon, B, would require to be masked. The result would be at first sight the same as before, but there would be the import- ant difference that the portions which fill up the corners, whether they are marked off from the dome or merged into it, would be something extra added to the dome, instead of THEIR VARIOUS RELATIONS, 155 being subtracted from its surface, so that the full extent of the hemisphere would be displayed, free of all interference. It is in the treatment of these corners and their connection with the dome that the great constructive advances were made which culminated in S. Sophia, and to which we shall accordingly have to return. With regard to the question of support, the dome of the Pantheon is to outward appearance borne up equally at every point by the circular drum, the upper part of which, above Fig. 22. — Model illustrating Dome Coustructiou. the niches on the ground-floor, seems a solid mass. The appearance is, however, deceptive. The dome is not homo- geneous in structure, for it is in all probability formed of ribs of brick running up to meet in a solid ring surrounding the aperture, the spaces between the ribs where the familiar cassettes appear being formed of nodules or scorice imbedded in cement. The walls again do not form a solid cylinder, but are scientifically put together with numerous discharging arches, and contain in their thickness chambers and galleries 156 IN THE PANTHEON, placed, it may be assumed, in order to correspond with the variation between the brick ribs and the concrete filling-in. It is calculated by Prof. Adler that there is actually em- ployed not much more than half the material which would have been necessary for the construction of a solid drum.^ There is, therefore, even in the Pantheon, an effort to gather the pressure into certain points, meeting it there by special supports, and this proves that there is only partial truth in the idea that the Eomans resisted pressure merely by brute mass, not by calculated supports. It is, at the same time, true that it was more in accordance with the genius of the Eomans to bring their material together in abundant quan- tity than to treat it with economy after the manner of the Gothic builders, who concentrate attention only on those points where resistance is absolutely needed. At Minerva Medica we find, perhaps for the first time, this concentration clearly marked. The dome is built with ribs of brick resting upon the corners of the base, and these corners are fortified on the exterior by buttresses counteracting the thrust of the ribs, and relieving from pressure the intermediate portions which rest upon the flat sides. These sides are built thinner in proportion than those of the Pantheon, and are pierced with windows admitting light to the edifice without the necessity of an aperture in the roof. Below the windows the walls are built out into apses which form projections on the exterior, and which, in themselves natural and obvious features in Roman buildings, are of structural advantage ^ Das Pantheon zu Rom., Berlin, 1871. Prof. Adler's bold restora- tion of the Pantheon, by which the obnoxious attic story in the interior is abolished, and the grand niches opened out to their full height, deserves the warmest recognition on the part of all lovers of this unique monument. It is right, however, to add that this idea is not a whoUy new oue, since it is noticed by Canina, who decides against it. Sig. Lanciani {Prima Relazione, etc., p. LS) admits the merit of the idea, but is not prepared to accept such a restoration. ' MINERVA MEDICA,' S. COSTANZA, 157 here in giving strength to the wall. They act really as hollow buttresses resting against the wall and giving it lateral support, so as to counteract the thrust of the vault. Another Eoman edifice presents us with an important advance in the direction of dividing the inner space and preparing the building for congregational purposes. This is the already mentioned S. Costanza, of which Fig. 23 gives the ground-plan. The novelty here consists in the fact that we have no longer a single drum with its cupola covering the whole interior, but a central space, A, roofed with a dome, and around this a covered passage, B B, which is to the centre just what the side aisles of the basilica are to the nave. The similarity is carried still further by the central drum being pierced with windows above the roof of the aisle, after the fashion of a basilica.^ An equally important feature is the roofing of the passage or aisle with a continuous tunnel , ... .,11 . Fio. 23.— Grovmd-plau of S. Costanza. vault, which, with the massive walls flanking it on the outside, forms the lateral support of the central cupola. The direct support is given by a double ring of columns, to which, as in the basilica, is given the apparently unsuitable task of bearing up the unbroken mass above. A further and most important stage in the develop- ment of the domed church is illustrated in S. Lorenzo at Milan, one of the most beautiful and interesting monuments of early Christian architecture. A ground-plan, with corresponding section, is given in Fig. 24. Here again we find a central ^ Fig. 14, p. 75, sliows a baptistery coustructed witli central sjiace and passage round, while the earlier designs, Figs. 12 and 13, have the simple form of the Pantheon. 158 AND S. LORENZO AT MILAN. Section. Fig. 24.— Ground-plan of S. Lorenzo at Milan. IMPORTANCE OF S. LORENZO. 159 cupola with surrounding spaces. These do not, however, merely repeat the form of the central space as at S. Costanza, but are planned so as to make on the outside a square, a form which is far more convenient for connection with other build- ings than the circle or the polygon. The central drum is in this building octagonal, and is upborne, not by columns, but by solid pillars. Lateral support is given to it by apses on four sides of the octagon, acting as at Minerva Medica after the manner of buttresses to counteract the outward thrust of the cupola. The other sides of the octagon are backed by additional pillars. Around the central space are the aisles filling up the square formed by the external walls. These walls are, however, thrown out again in shallow apses, so that the square form is somewhat masked. The aisles are two-storied — that is, they exhibit the basilican feature of a gallery opening into the central space under the dome. It is to be noted that the cupola is not round but octagonal, with eight triangular vaulting fields corresponding to the eight sides of the drum from which it rises. In adopting this form the architect has made a sacrifice for the sake of ease of construction, for there can be no question of the superiority in effect of the unbroken hemisphere, and we note that in S. Vitale at Eavenna, which resembles S. Lorenzo, the circular form has been retained.^ ^ S. Lorenzo, which is far less often visited than it deserves, was probably erected at the time of the great prosperity of Milan, under the headship of St. Ambrose, in the latter part of the fourth century. In the sixteenth century the cupola, with other portions of the building, fell into ruin, and was restored with only slight alterations by the architect Martino Bassi, who has left an exact account of the old state of the building and of his restoration. ' II Tempio Vecchio di San Lorenzo,' he writes, ' che rovin6 era dell' istessa forma che si va rifa- cendo,' etc. It is certain, therefore, that we have in it an early Christian monument, and one of the most important of its class. The report of Martino Bassi is to be found in a work entitled, Dispareri in materia d'architettura, etc., Bressa, 1572. 160 EVOLUTION OF THE PERFECTED FORM These examples are sufficient to show that on Italian soil, and within the limits of the fourth century, some very important steps had been taken towards evolving a church suited to the requirements of a Christian congregation out of the simple structure of the Pantheon. It is surpris- ing to see, moreover, how in many points of construc- tion which we admire in the fully developed churches of the middle ages, the Eomanesque and Gothic builders had been preceded by the Eoman architects of early Christian times. The structure of Minerva Medica shows us the con- centration of pressure upon fixed points of support, which is such a feature in Gothic. The use of pillars instead of columns for the support of the walls and 'roof of the central space was established at S. Lorenzo. The employment of the vault of the side aisles to sustain laterally the main vault, — a marked characteristic of the Eomanesque churches of the South of France, — occurs in Constantine's edifice of S. Costanza. The one point in which the basilica still had the advantage over the already far more architecturally developed domed churches was the position of the altar. At S. Lorenzo the altar seems to have been placed in the centre under the dome, but this was not nearly so advan- tageous as its position in the grand apse which formed the termination of the nave of the basilica. The question now was, whether the advantage possessed in this respect by the basilica could be combined with the science and beauty of the domed style, and this question, with others relating to the construction of cupolas, was finally answered, not on Italian soil, but at Byzantium, in Justinian's church of S. Sophia. The general form of this famous edifice will be under- stood by a reference to Fig. 25. It sums up within itself all the points of interest connected with Christian domed archi- tecture, and contains the solution of all the problems which occupied the builders of the previous age. It is also a OF THE DOMED CHURCH IX S. SOPHIA. 161 Section. .\ Central cupola. B Eutiauce. a a Supporting pillars. C Terminal apse. a' a' Supplementary pillars. E Ati'ium. Fio. 2">. — Ground-plan of S. Sophia at Constantinople. 162 STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF S. SOPHIA. building of tlie rarest beauty, the interior effect of which, foi- form and decoration, has probably never been equalled. It is only possible here to touch upon a few of the more im- portant characteristics of this unique monument, while it must be left to those who have seen it to describe its artistic {;harm. S. Sophia, like all early Christian churches, was approached through an atrium or court surrounded on all sides by colon- nades, out of which access was gained into the so-called narthcx or vestibule, a characteristic feature of Byzantine churches. From this doors open into the building, which consists of a free central oblong, and of side-spaces affording accommodation for various purposes, above which are gal- leries opening into the central space, and set apart for the use of women. The first point to notice within the building is the central cupola A, 107 feet in diameter, and rising 180 feet above the floor. This springs from a square base formed by four pillars, a, a, a, a, connected together by mighty arches, and the elevation of a round dome upon a base of this shape is the great structural triumph of Justinian's architects, and the most important contribution of Byzantium to archi- tectural science. To understand this we must go back a little. The union of a round cupola with a polygonal base necessitated, as we have seen, either a sacrifice of the hemi- spherical appearance of the vault, or a filling up of the corners of the polygon which, when it rested on the middle of the sides, its edge failed to touch. At S. Vitale, at Ravenna, begun in the year 526, these corners are filled in by small niches, which have neither connection with each other, nor structural significance. An almost contemporary building at Constantinople, SS. Sergius and Bacchus, erected at the opening of Justinian's reign, shows an important advance in this respect. The fillings up of the octagon are ' SPHERICAL PENDENTIVES,' 163 here brought into organic connection with each other and with the dome. They are so formed as to be all sections of one and the same hemisphere, and their upper corners all meet so as to form a complete ring, which is marked with a projecting cornice encircling the edifice. In this cornice we find again what was afforded in the Pantheon, a continuous circular base for the cupola, the construction of which begins from this point. It is as if the builder had started with a cupola in the form of that at Minerva Medica, resting on the corners of the polygon, and cut into by the upper portions of the sides, and had stopped it as soon as it was free of these, and surmounted it with a cornice, on which he erected a fresh cupola in its full hemispherical form. These lower structures are called by architects spherical pendentives. When they are employed, the number of the sides of the base is immaterial ; they can be made to fill in the corners ■of a square as well as of an octagon, and it was their intro- . S3 ff.) 182 ciiinsTiAX cnuKCii okganlsation made to secure order on tlie part of the congregation ; in the interests of order the whole assembly is under the absolute control of the otticials, and every section has an appointed place ! The way is prepared for the outward development of church organisation in the middle ages, and for the unyielding assertion of the hierarchical principle, both in the relation of individuals to ecclesiastical superiors, and in that of subordinate communities and churches to the central authority at Eome. With the outcome of that special part of church organisation which has relation to ritual and to ceremonial observances connected with places and seasons, we have in this place comparatively little to do, for this in- fluenced rather the interior fittings than the general form of the churches. But with the effort of the Church after order the case is different. Here we have to deal with a deep underlying principle that was of vital importance in the development of architectural forms, and it belongs to the argument in this chapter to emphasise the view that this principle was in great part an inheritance from Eome. It is a remarkable illustration of the support received by the Church in her work of ecclesiastical organisation by this inheritance from Eome, to find that the great conventual establishments of the middle ages, in which her power chiefly resided (and which were the homes of architecture and the arts), were both in their origin and their relation to each other and to the Papal See, not a little like Eoman colonies. These we know were ' outposts of the Empire,' — ■ wedges thrust into a hostile region to be the means of reducing and holding it beneath the Eoman sway. In like manner the monasteries were Christian colonies accomplish- ing the same work in the service of the Church. If all colonies were, as Cicero says, ' small images and models of the Eoman state,' so all monasteries conformed to a certain general pattern. As the Eoman city had been the central AND ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE. 183 pivot of a vast system of provincial organisation, so now the Eoman Church, inheriting the imperial tradition, made her- self the religious metropolis of the West, linking the scattered ecclesiastical establishments into one grand unity, in the administration of which Eoman maxims of government still lived on. Throughout this ecclesiastical system reigned the Eoman spirit of order, and it is the loorking of this same spirit in the sphere of architecture which makes the difference hetween the Romanesque minster and the early Christian basilica. The truth of this will be seen when we glance at the main points of contrast between these buildings, but before proceeding to this it will be necessary to introduce a brief digression. In insisting upon the Eoman character of early mediaeval architecture it must not be forgotten that this architecture belonged in great part to Teutonic, or at any rate largely Teutonised lands — Saxony, the Ehineland, Northern France, Lombardy, — and no general argument on the subject before us can be complete without a previous consideration of the question. What effect upon Christian architecture was pro- duced by the Teutonic invasions of the West ? The circumstances under which the development of Western buildings proceeded were widely different from those which surrounded the Byzantine architecture noticed in the last chapter. While the architects of the Eastern Empire, secure behind the impregnable bulwarks of Con- stantinople, could work out to their utmost logical conse- quence the forms with which they started, their brethren of the West were subjected to another set of conditions alto- gether which might be expected to exercise over their work a most powerful influence. The main facts in the history of the Western provinces of the Eoman Empire from the fifth century onwards are familiar to all. Not fifty years had elapsed since the death of Constantine, before the 184 THE TECTONIC INVASIONS Goths had crushed the legions of the Emperor Valens at Hadrianople by a blow heavier than any Roman army had felt since Cannge, and the inroads of the barbarians into the Empire had begun in earnest. During the next hundred years the West was swept by wave after wave of Teutonic invasion, till by the beginning of the sixth century the Eoman Empire of the West had to outward appearance passed away, and the ruling powers in Illyricum and Gaul, in Italy and Spain, and in the province of Africa were no longer the Imperial prtefects, but kings of the Goths the Franks and the Vandals, while a little later a body of wilder Teutonic invaders had possessed themselves of the once important Eoman j^rovince of Britain. In the course of the seventh century the Saracens overran Syria and destroyed there the flourishing Christian communities, the remains of whose architecture are of such unique interest to the modern student. Advancing westward along the Mediterranean coast, the tide of Mohammedan invasion overwhelmed the African province, — one of the most busy and populous seats of Christianity, — and, overflowing into Spain, drove the Christian population for a time into the remote corners of the peninsula. What, we may ask again, was the effect of these vast historical changes upon the future of Christian architecture ? The Teutonic invasions of the West assume different aspects, according as we dwell upon the things which were destroyed, or upon those which were left intact. The invaders were barbarians, and could show themselves on occasion as lawless, insolent and cruel as any of their kind, but their barbarism was greatly tempered by the fact that they were in many cases no strangers to Eoman culture and religion, and had grown up with an instinct of rever- ence for Eome and an aptitude for the reception of what- ever Eome could teach them. The invaders shattered the AND THEIR EFFECT ON CIVILISATION. 185 armies of the Empire and sacked her cities. The soldiers of Alaric * filled the streets of Eome with dead bodies/ stripped her palaces and sold her citizens into slavery. Teutonic chieftains wrested from the Emperor his power of command, and were ready to defy to his face, in moments of irrita- tion, the impotent wearer of the purple. But against all that, in the deeper sense, was Eome they were powerless. All these outward things that could be touched and handled they might destroy or seize, but before the ideas, the culture, the art, the institutions, and above all the religion of Eome they were irresistibly compelled to bow. The often-quoted words of one of the ablest barbarian leaders bring out into the clearest light their attitude towards Eoman civilisation. ' When I was young and eager in mind and body,' said Athaulf the successor of the great Alaric, ' I had at first vehemently desired to blot out the Eoman name, and make and call all that was Eoman the kingdom of the Goths alone, till Eomania should have become Gothia, and where there had once been Coesar Augustus there should now be Athaulf. But taught by long experience of the unbridled savagery of the Goths and fearful of depriving the State of those laws without which it would cease to be a State at all, I chose rather to make it my glory to restore anew and to exalt the Eoman name through the vigour and strength of the Goths, so that I should be known to posterity as the author of the restitution of Eome since fate had not given it to me to be her remover.' ^ Among the institutions of the Empire which loomed so majestically before the eyes of the strangers from the North, none was more imposing than the Christian Church. The influence which the Church possessed in virtue of her association with Eome w^as rendered irresistible through a certain natural affinity in the Teutonic nature for Christian ' Orosius, Hist., vii. 43. 18G ATTITUDE or THE BAEBARIANS ideas, which explains the rapid and complete conversion of the invaders even before they had violated the boundaries of the Empire. Striking is the scene described by Orosius at the sack of Rome by Alaric. A Gothic chieftain had invaded the house of an ancient virgin who had the care of a church. On his demand she produced a treasure of massive objects of gold and silver plate, but warned him that they were the sacred vessels of St. Peter. The bar- barian in awe sent to inform Alaric, who ordered the spoil with its custodian to be conveyed in safety to the church of the apostle. Borne upon the heads of the gigantic bar- barians the glittering vessels were transported through the streets of Eome, while a guard with drawn sw^ords encircled the procession, and Eomans and Goths sang sacred hymns in concert as it passed.^ To the Church Christianity was no question of race though it was one of orthodoxy, and Greek and Jew, bar- barian and Scythian were all alike before her. The continuity of religion was of greater moment than the disruption of political relations, and Orosius who was a Roman citizen of Spain protests that ' if the barbarians had been sent into the Roman territory only for this one reason that it should be possible to see on every side, throughout the East and West alike, the churches of Christ filled with an innumer- able and varied multitude of believers, — Huns and Suevi, Vandals and Burgundians, — it would be right to praise and magnify the mercy of God in that through the ruin of the provincials he had brought so many nations to a know- ledge of the truth to which otherwise they would never have attained.' ^ This attitude of the barbarians towards Roman civili- sation and towards Christianity, is an important fact in con- nection with the history of Christian architecture in the » Orosius, Hist., c. 39. - Ibid. c. 41. TOWARDS CHURCH-BUILDIXG, 187 Teutonic kingdoms of the West. The one exception to this attitude was in the case of the English, who had never been touched in their native seats by Roman influences, and whose conquest of Britain involved a destruction of the inhabitants which was without a parallel in other lands. While therefore the native Christians were driven into the hilly regions where their representatives still remain, Britain generally relapsed for a time into paganism, till Christianity was imported into it afresh from Rome at the end of the sixth century. The complete abolition of Christian insti- tutions in the lands conquered by the Saracens is also of course to be taken for granted, but except in these two instances the barbarian conquests did nothing to retard the mission of the Church. The continuity of religious work under Roman and barbarian rule is well illustrated by a passage in Gregory of Tours (died 594), in which at the end of his history he enumerates the churches erected by his predecessors in the bishopric of Tours from the third to the end of the sixth century. The account of the early times is additionally interesting as showing how similar the con- ditions of church-building were in the provinces to those which we have seen prevailing at Rome.^ Gatian the first bishop was sent from Rome in the time of the Emperor Decius. . . . He had a few followers who met in crypts and caves of the earth because of the persecution. . . . He was buried in the cemetery which belonged to the Christians. The second was Litorius a native of Tourraine; he erected the first church at Tours, for the Christians were now numerous and the first basilica was formed by him out of the dwelling of a certain senator. The third was St. Martin, consecrated 374 a.d. ; ... he built a basilica in the monastery afterwards called the ^ Greg. Tur., Hi^t. Franc, x. 31 seq. 188 ILLUSTRATED FROM GREGORY OF TOURS. Greater, and visiting the villages round about, destroyed the shrines, baptized the folk, and erected numerous churches. His successor Briccius followed his example and erected moreover a small basilica over the body of St. Martin, in which he was himself afterwards buried.^ The fifth bishop also built cliurches in the districts round about, while the sixth, Perpetuus, a very rich man and of senatorial family, pulled down the small basilica of Briccius and erected a larger one, very beautifully built, into the apse of which he translated the body of St. Martin. A baptistery is mentioned as existing in his time. He built also several churches in town and country, including the basilica of St. Peter. On his death he left his possessions by will to the churches. The seventh bishop had similar rank and wealth which he expended on church-building. In his time Clovis already bore rule in some of the cities of Gaul (c. 490), and the pre- late suspected by the Goths (who had preceded the Pranks in the conquest of south-western Gaul) of an intention to submit to the rule of the Pranks, was condemned to exile at Toulouse where he died. His successor shared the same fate. In the time of the ninth bishop, Clovis the king returned victorious to Tours after the defeat of tlie Goths. After him co-bishops, Theodorus and Pro- culus, were appointed at the command of the blessed Queen Clotilda, whom they had followed from their native Burgundy. Leo, the thirteenth bishop, was an artificer in wood and made towers covered with gilding, of which remains existed in Gregory's days. He was skilled too in other works. . . . Baldwin became the sixteenth bishop, having previously 1 This was the origin of the famous church of St. ^Lartin at Tours, one of the most important in Christendom. A BREAK IN THE SEQUENCE OF MONUMENTS, 189 been chancellor to King Clotaire. The seventeenth, Gun- thar (we notice how Teutonic names occur), was often em- ployed on political missions by the kings of the Franks. In the time of Eufronius, Tours with all its churches is con- sumed by a great conflagration. Two of these he rebuilds, and restores and covers with lead (stanno), at the expense of King Clothair, the basilica of St. Martin {i.e. the famous church). In his time was erected the basilica of St, Vincent as well as district churches. The nineteenth bishop was Gregory himself (c. 573-594). The list of his works comprises the rebuilding in an en- larged form and with more lofty roof of the cathedral of Tours, the restoration and decoration of the basilica of St. Perpetuus, and the erection by it of a baptistery, together with the dedication of many churches and oratories in and about Tours, which he will not weary his readers by describing. This account is sufficient to show how little the settle- ment of the barbarians in the Empire interfered with the church building which was one of the primal cares of these wealthy bishops. It is said by Fergusson that about the sixth or seventh centuries there ' occurs an hiatus in the architectural history of Western Europe, owing to the troubles which arose on the dissolution of the Eoman Empire and the irruption of the Barbarian hordes.' ^ This is only true as regards the sequence of existing monuments, for these, owing to the constant rebuilding which went on in the early middle age, are in almost every case of considerably later date. Literary records however, like the passage just quoted, make it clear that the barbarians had no intention of interfering with architectural operations, but continued the patronage of the Church formerly exercised by the Eoman govern- ment. It is true that these invasions and conflicts of tribe ^ History of Architecture, i. p. 396. ] 90 BUT NO BREAK IX ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY with tribe threw the country into considerable disorder, and it is true too that a barbarian chieftain might not seldom, through accident or through irritation, burn a church or harry a monastery, but the bishops and abbots were always masters of the situation and knew how to make the spoiler restore fourfold what he had destroyed. There is no ques- tion therefore that church building went on steadily through the centuries between the sixth and eleventh, under the same conditions which surrounded it in the fifth. There is an hiatus in the monuments, but although the age of the basili- cas is separated from that of the earl}^ Romanesque churches by a long period to which but few existing monuments can be ascribed, it would be a mistake to assume that they repre- sent entirely different developments of architecture. The basilica belongs to the Eoman world, the Romanesque church arose in lands occupied by Teutonic invaders ; but it does not follow that the basilican style died out with the Roman authority, while the Romanesque or the mediaeval style repre- sents a new beginning on Teutonic lines in independence of the old. Had we a charm to conjure back into existence for a moment all the ancient churches which have succeeded each other from generation to generation in some famous city like Tours, could we see Briccius' basilica of St. Martin over-against the five others which were successively erected on the same site at various dates between the fifth and the thirteenth centuries, could we reconstruct all these edifices which fire or the crowbar or decay have crumbled to ruins, and set them side by side in order, we should have before us no signs of an hiatus or a sudden change, but the suc- cessive steps in a long course of unbroken development which we can trace, though by no means so clearly as we could wish, in ecclesiastical records. Certain monuments which w^e do possess from this period illustrate in a striking manner this continuity of BETWHEEN EARLY CHRISTIAN AND MEDLEVAL TIMES. 1 9 1 architectural traditions from the early Christian to the mediaeval epoch. In the midst of various uncertain or fragmentary structures, two important buildings stand out as representative of the architecture of the two greatest of the Teutonic kingdoms founded on the ruins of the "Western Empire. Both are sepulchral chapels of great barbarian monarchs, and as such might be expected to show stronger traces of a traditional northern style than any other monu- ments. One is the tomb of Theodoric the Ostrogoth at Eavenna, the other the church erected by Charles the Great at Aachen, partly for his palace chapel and partly for his sepulchre. The latter has ah'eady been referred to as an example of domed construction on Eoman principles, and there is little in either building which is not in accord- ance with classical traditions. The Mausoleum of Theodoric is imitated from Eoman mausoleums like that of Hadrian, but exhibits ornament of barbarian type, not unlike that which we find in the early Xornian churches, while the Minster at Aachen is in structure detail and ornament throucrhout a Eoman building. With these edifices before us we need hardly be told of Theodoric's admiring care for classical remains, or the zeal with which Charles sent for workmen from 'all the regions on this side the sea' — i.e. from Gaul and Italy, and imported costly marbles and other material from Eavenna and from Eome. It is possible now to fix the true connection of the northern tribes with the development of Christian archi- tecture in the "West. We have seen that they were ready from the first to carry on in the old course the traditions of early Christian building, and that no idea of sweeping away the old and making a new departure ever dwelt for long in their minds. Yet we have seen on the other hand that both the Eomanesque church of the eleventh century and the Gothic cathedral of the thirteenth, are buildings in 192 AVHAT DOES CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE many ways stiikiagly unlike the basilica, and though retaining the same general plan have assumed forms of independent constructive and aesthetic interest. What part, it may naturally be asked, did the Teutonic genius play in this development ? The following sentences contain in brief the answer to this question. I. The barbarian tribes possessed no native style of architecture and no solid technique, nor do they appear to have brought with them into the Empire any distinct architectural tendencies, but were content to learn and use the style and technique of the Eoman population of the countries which they overran. II. The constructive forms which were added to the basilica to produce the Eomanesque church of the early middle ages were in no case of barbarian but of Eoman origin, and there is nothing distinctively northern or Teu- tonic in the way in which they were at first dealt with by mediaeval builders. III. While the attitude of the barbarians towards Eoman architecture was, so far as the form and the structure of the buildings are concerned, purely receptive, they employed from the first in the regions which they made their own, certain peculiarities in building for which there is no classical authority, and, more especially, a system of orna- mentation strongly tinctured with northei'n feeling, so that, speaking broadly, the early mediieval church is in form Eoman but in decoration Teutonic. IV. In the Gothic architecture of the later mediaeval period the Teutonic spirit for the first time distinctly asserts itself, and all that is most characteristic in that great development of architecture is the expression of the romantic spirit of the North. A few words in illustration of these statements will be sufficient for the present purpose. OWE TO THE TEUTONIC GENIUS? 193 In the first place there is no evidence to show that either the tribes who inhabited the West before the Eomans subdned it, or those who pressed into it from the North and East in the fourth and following centuries, knew of any style of building except simple constructions of wattle and clay or of wood. Of the Gauls Strabo writes that ' they dwell in houses of considerable size, constructed of planks and wicker work, and covered with heavy thatched roofs of conical form,' ^ and he records of the Britons that ' forests are their cities, for having enclosed an ample space with felled trees they make themselves huts therein and lodge their cattle.' ^ In the case of the Teutons there is linguistic evidence of the same practice in the prevalence in the old Teutonic tongues of forms of the one verb ' to timber ' for all kinds of build- ing, while the accounts which Tacitus and later writers give of the nations beyond the Ehine describe them as living in scattered communities with no regularly constructed build- ings. ' The houses of the Germans,' writes Herodian in the third century, ' are very soon burned down because they are mostly of wood.'^ We possess a curious account of an embassy sent from Constantinople in the year 448 to Attila, king of the Huns, at a time when he was sojourning in the land of the Goths beyond the Danube, and the description of his residence gives an idea of the style of building pre- valent in those regions,^ 'It was put together of well- smoothed beams and planks and surrounded by a palisade of wood, not intended for defence but for adornment.' This building was also furnished with towers while the lodging of Attila's consort was more elaborate in construction and was ornamented with carving; the whole, to quote Schnaase's words, presenting the character of ' a very fully developed 1 iv. 4, § 3. 3 Herodian, vii, 2, § 3. 2 iv, 5, § 2. * Script. Hist. Byz., pars vi. p. 187. N 1 94 TIMBER CONSTRUCTION OF THE BARBARIANS timber architecture with a probably fantastic but tolerably rich decoration.' ^ We know from records as well as from existing remains that the architecture of the Saxons and other Teutonic in- vaders of Britain was also confined to wooden constructions, while in Norway there are timber churches dating from about the twelfth century which represent the ancient style of the Scandinavians, while their curious ornamentation, consisting of dragons and interlacing bands, may give us an idea of that seen in the fifth century on the dwellings of Attila. This native style did not die out upon the introduction of Roman civilisation, for we know that in Gaul and in Britain there was kept up until the middle ages a primitive manner of construction in wood or wattles called ' Gallic ' or ' Scottish ' which was contrasted with the substantial build- ing of the Eomans. Thus Bede speaks of a church erected in the Celtic style and not of stone {more Scotorum, non de lapide), and in the seventh century we hear of a basilica erected 'not after the Gallic manner of pieces of wood and beams,' minutis ac rudibus, but of squared stones, w^hile at the same period Abbot Benedict of Wearmouth sends to Gaul for stone-masons to erect for him a ' stone church after the manner of the Eomans.'^ The architectural efforts of the non-Eomanised inhabitants of the West were confined therefore to wooden constructions, slight and easily destruc- tible, though often most ingeniously put together and elaborately decorated with carving and with colour. For solid structures of brick and stone they had recourse to classical models and to the ' Eoman manner.' This ' Eoman manner ' carries us back to the days of Constantine and his successors when, as we have seen, efforts were made to arrest the decay of ancient practice in the arts ^ Geschichte der b'dd. Kiinste, 2 Aufl., iii. 509. - See the references in Schnaase, iii. 521 fF. CONTRASTED WITH THE * ROMAN MANNER.' 195 by the establishment of provincial schools of architecture and decoration. In these schools the classical tradition was handed down unbroken to the middle ages, and it was to these that the barbarian chieftains turned whenever they desired to raise any durable monuments. The towns of northern Italy and of Gaul naturally contained a large number of these classically trained artificers whose services were invoked by the Goths, the Franks, and the Lombards. It was by the hands of these that the bishops of Tours built their churches under the Frankish kings, and they were sent for, as we have seen, from Gaul to Britain, and also sum- moned from Italy into the regions of Germany. After a time the men of the new races learned the same craft and boasted that they could build in the Eoman style without the aid of the conquered population, as in a Gothic inscription from the South of France, testifying that * this work, which no stranger of Eoman race came to fashion, has been accom- plished by a man of the barbarian stock.' It follows from what has now been said, that the Teu- tonic invasions of the West did not exercise any definite determining influence upon Christian architecture in the early mediaeval period. The church of that period was not a creation of the Teutonic genius, and those special features in which it differs so markedly from the earlier basilica and scliola are to be explained, not as an importation from the North, but as the result of a normal development upon lines already indicated. The Eomanesque church, stately but often heavy, and always severely logical, is a testimony to the power of the grand principle of Order inherited and maintained by the Church as the outcome of the Eoman system of government and law. Hence the significance of the name ' Eomanesque,' which some have been tempted to drop for the vaguer term ' early mediaeval,' or the meaning- 19G JUSTIFICATION OF TERM ' IIOMAXKSQUE.' less ' round -arched Gothic' To us 'Gothic' is in itself a perfectly meaningless word, but, by a convention of language, it is used to express a certain very distinct phase of Chris- tian architecture, and in this connection everybody under- stands it. ' Eound-arched Gothic ' is enigmatical, for the round arch is a characteristic Eoman form, and yet no one Avould speak of ' Eoman Gothic' Those who employ this expression probably are of opinion that ' Gothic ' has a real ethnological meaning as equivalent to ' northern ' or ' Teu- tonic,' and that the round-arched style of the early medifeval period is, equally with the pointed style of the thirteenth century, a northern production. It is the thesis of this chapter, however, that this round-arched style is, in its essential character, a continuation of Eoman traditions, and for the support of this, appeal may be made to the Syrian churches described by de Vogiie, which exhibit an advance from the basilica in the direction of Eomanesque forms strikingly parallel to that exhibited in the West, though upon soil which no early Teutonic invader ever visited. In the next few pages it is proposed to notice some of the salient points in the constructive development of the early mediaeval church, and to fix, as far as possible, the first appearance of characteristic Eomanesque features. In preceding chapters, the various 'root-fibres' of Chris- tian architecture have been traced back to their probable origin in buildings familiar to the Greco-Eoman world. We have seen reason to connect the church, or certain features of it, with private halls, lodge-rooms, memorial cellse, or even underground crypts of the cemeteries. What is re- quired, however, is to discover, if possible, some one guiding principle of the earliest Christian architecture, some general scheme that would always be adhered to. As a fact, a guiding principle of this kind did really exist, and is not far to seek. Undoubtedly, the true germ of the Christian church TRUE OKIGIX OF THE CIIKISTIAX MEETIXG-HOUSE. 197 was an oblong interior terminated hy an apse. It appears to have been a well-understood tradition among the early- Christian builders, that whatever might be the special features of their design, this fundamental idea must be fol- lowed, and this tradition is the determining influence in the architecture of the age of Constantine. Those who make much of the pagan basilica as the true form-giving element at this important epoch, must deny or pass lightly over this previous tradition, and a criticism of their views is reserved for the Appendix to this volume. It is sufficient here to insist once more upon the fact that the Christian basilica of the fourth century could not have derived its apse, the essential feature of its plan, from the pagan basilica, for this building, which ' nan e cli sua natura ahsidata,' had no such feature to lend. The apsidal termination, with the oblong interior in such exact accordance therewith, must have been previously established, and no more simple and natural origin can be suggested for it than the city scliola of religious brotherhoods, after the pattern of the Pompeiian buildings shown in plan on page 52. It is on the hypothesis that this form had become established by the end of the third century as the most suitable for the Christian church, that we can best explain the characteristic features of the architecture of the period which succeeded. Especially welcome is the ex- planation offered by this hypothesis of one feature wliich has always been somewhat of a stumbling-block. This is the appearance, in the Christian basilica, of a plain wall above the colonnades of the nave, where in the pagan basilica there is placed a gallery. This plain wall has been severely criti- cised as an architectural crudity, and even quoted as the first sign of the barbarism which was to destroy the purity of antique forms. Unquestionably the plain wall, as we see it, for example, in St. Paul's at Eome, or as it must have appeared in Old St. Peter's, is of overpowering extent when 198 ABSENCE OF GALLERIKS EXPLAINED. compared with the colonnade on which it rests, and its monotonous surface is destitute of all architectural breaks and subdivisions other than the simple mouldings which frame the mosaic pictures. A reason for its appearance in the Christian church may be found in the desire to secure extensive spaces for the disj^lay of these sacred pictures, the use of which has been illustrated from Paulinus of Nola. But this desire, strong as it may have been, can hardly be held to explain so great a structural change. Let us seek for some architectural reason for the plain wall. Instead of supposing it to be something substituted for the gallery of the basilica when this form was taken over by the Chris- tians, let us imagine it rather a jjortioii of the older huilding left untouched at the time when the columns of the basilica were introduced beneath it. In other words, let us consider the Christian church as the primitive schola, with its three plain walls and its apse, enlarged by the introduction of the side aisles and clerestory lighting of the basilica; rather than the pagan basilica, with an apsidal termination added, and blank lateral w^alls substituted for the convenient and sightly galleries. The non-appearance of these galleries in the early Christian basilica, save in one or two exceptional cases, is a fact requiring more attention than it generally receives, for these were most suitable features in buildings for congrega- tional assembly, and were used almost universally in the circular and domed churches ; they reappear also in many Romanesque buildings of the middle ages. That the gal- leries should have been deliberately abolished for the sake of securing space for pictures is not easy to believe, while the hypothesis that the Christian church begins really in tlie schola supplies a ready and satisfactory explanation.^ * 0. Mothes, in his elaborate and scholarly work, Die Battkiinst df:A Mittelalttrs in Italien, erster Theil, p. 149, holds that the existing galleries in basilicas, such as those in S. Lorenzo and S. Agnese near Rome, are later additions to the original structures. ARCHITECTURAL CRUDITY OF THE BASILICA, 199 The meeting-place of the fourth century is accordingly not a basilica simplified, hut a schola enlarged, and this fact goes far to explain its form and character. As the union of two different buildings, — a plain walled interior, and a structure put together out of classical colonnades, — it naturally presents a somewhat crude and formless aspect. It is true that it was an admirably convenient building, exactly suited to the needs of the Christian congregations of the time, but in point of architectural character it was really only a building in embryo, and lacked that organic relation of part to part, and of the parts to the whole, which had belonged to the classical temple, and reappeared in the mediaeval minster. The materials of the fabric are generally poor, the construction slight. The arrangement of the ground-plan, and the relative proportions of the parts are not fixed on any regular principle. The relation between the width of the nave and that of the side aisles varies in different examples, and the transept, or the clear space be- fore the apse, is sometimes present and sometimes wanting, while the elevation of the side walls of the nave is open to grave criticism. The exterior of the building, lacking as it does those calculated divisions, and that balance of masses which the mediaeval architects were so careful to secure, simply follows the form given by the arrangement of the interior, and makes no independent claim on our attention. Hence, in spite of the grand interior effect of the apse of the Christian basilica ; in spite of its spaciousness and its simple directness of construction ; in spite, too, of the monu- mental grandeur imparted by its interior decoration in nobly-designed and imperishable mosaics, it fails to pro- duce the impression that it is an artistic unity, informed throughout, like all great architecture, by an all-dominating idea. Herein resides that difference between the early basilica 200 IX COXTKAST WITH THE KOMAXESQUK MIXSTER. and the Eomanesque church which we have seen reason to connect with the spirit of the Church at large. In the Khineland minster of the eleventh and twelfth centuries we find precisely those qualities which are wanting to the basilica. We find, that is, a building remarkable for its well-considered plan, and for the close organic connection of part with part which is observable both in its exterior and interior aspects. The ground-plan is cruciform ; the tran- sept is as well marked a feature as the nave itself, and the apse is thrown back by a prolongation of the nave beyond the transept, which makes the fourth arm of the cross. The dimensions of the four arms of the cross are regulated according to a common measure, the unit of measurement being the square space where nave and transept cross each other. Start- ing with this, the Eomanesque archi- tect set off similar square spaces for ' ' ' ' ■ the chancel and for the two arms of the transept, while the same square, ,,.-.■ three or four times repeated, formed the length of the nave. The result was a plan like that given in Fig. 26, where a repetition of the square at the meeting of nave and transept generates the whole, the side aisles being exactly half the width of the nave, and divided into squares Fig 20 -Plan of a Romanesque Q^e-fourth the slzc of thc larger. church, simplified from that ot o Heckiingen. Yov the usc of coluuins in the basilica is substituted an entire or partial employment of pillars, furnishing a more suitable support for the upper walls of the nave, while in the completest form of the church, when it is vaulted with stone, connection of the closest kind is established between the different stages of XOEMAL ROMANESQUE PLAN. 201 the structure from the floor to the roof.^ The exterior of the building assumes an equal architectural importance with the interior. The addition of towers supplies a fresh feature, and in their design and grouping the genius of the mediaeval architect finds a noble field of exercise. The entrance end of the church, flanked by towers, becomes an imposing and well-proportioned facade, and the termina- tions of the transept lend themselves to similar treatment. Throughout the building we perceive the working out of an architectural conception, through which the various members are bound together into a grand unity, and just as the early Christian communities, with their loose organisation, give place to the finished Church-system of the middle ages, so from the formlessness of the basilica is evolved the intel- ligent and beautiful order of a work of art. It remains for us now to review in a few sentences the chief points of difference between these contrasted buildings, with the object of showing that the appearance of each new feature is not so much the result of Teutonic influence as of a regular and normal architectural development independent of any ethnological changes. The medieval monasteries were homes of the arts ; the buildings connected with them were the work of men who had artistic instincts and training, and it was natural that their designs should show a progressive increase both in expressive character and archi- tectural beauty. The builders of the Syrian churches, so frequently mentioned in these pages, were also men of archi- tectural genius, and they too, as de Vogile has shown, developed the crude form of the early basilica into structures ^ It is when stoue vaulting came to be used throughout the Roman- esque church that the full constructive imj)ortance of these square divisions became manifest, for, until the beginning of the Gothic period, the cross-vault employed in all Romanesque districts except southern France was always constructed in the ancient Roman fashion on a square plan. 202 TREATMENT OF THE GROUND -PLAN worthy of comparison with the Komanesque minster. The resemblance of the Syrian style to that prevailing in the South of France has led some writers to derive French Romanesque from Syrian through the channels of communication opened by the Crusades. It seems simpler to regard Syrian and Western Eomanesque as parallel developments exhibit- ing the forms that would naturally be assumed by the basilica among any people of architectural tastes and education. The cruciform ground-plan of the mediaeval church is produced first by the transept, and next by the prolongation of the nave beyond the crossing. The pagan basilica had no transept, nor any vestige of one, but the transept is clearly marked in some of the grander Christian basilicas of Eome, such as Old St. Peter's and St. Paul's, and its intro- duction may be due to the desire to provide ample space for great ecclesiastical ceremonies. The object of the pro- longation of the nave is generally held to be the provision of increased space for the clergy, and the need for this extra accommodation would be especially felt in monastic churches. It is noteworthy that plate 19 of de Vogue's work shows us an example of the same prolongation of the nave in a church of central Syria. With these extensions the cruciform plan would be arrived at independent of all considerations of symbolism. That the cruciform plan was however known in the earlier period, and that its significance was understood, is proved by the fact that a church of this form was erected by Constantino (ante, p. 176), while of S. Croce at Eavenna, built by Galla Placidia in the first half of the fifth century, it is recorded that it was a church in honoreni sandce crucis, a qua habet et nomen ct formam. It would seem that St. Ambrose of Milan (374-397) had a special affection for cruciform plans, and many of the churches founded by him were of this form.^ The basilica proper did not however ^ Mothes, BaukuvKt etc., p. 140. AND INTERIOR ELEVATION. 203 assume its cruciform shape till the later mediaeval period, for the plans of the age of Charles the Great ^ show it still in process of formation. With regard to the treatment of the interior surface of the walls of the nave, the change is that from a blank wall between colonnade and roof, to an artistically treated eleva- tion broken into justly balanced horizontal and vertical divisions, with the supporting members of the roof carried down to the ground, and the weak colonnade replaced by massive pillars of the same solid character as the wall itself. The first attempt in the direction of uniting the different portions of this elevation so crudely treated in early Chris- tian basilicas, is to be found in the substitution of round arches in the nave arcade, in place of the flat classical archi- trave found in some of the great Eoman churches. The round arch carries the eye naturally upwards from the column to the wall, and prepares the way for a further union of the parts. When the pillar, a portion of the wall carried down to the ground, is substituted for the column, there is a decided advance. It was natural for the column to be largely employed in Italy, where marble was plentiful and where excellently wrought shafts and capitals could be torn from the ruins of classical edifices. Elsewhere the pillar is almost universal in mediasval churches, and it is sometimes used alone, and sometimes in rhythmical interchange with the column, as in the beautiful St. Michael's at Hildesheim. One of the earliest examples of the use of the pillar in con- nection with a basilica may be found in the small early Christian church of S. Sinforosa, near Eome, figured in plan upon a previous page.^ An important step is taken when the roof story is con- 1 Especially the famous plan of St. Gall, a.p. 822, the discussion of which belongs to the subject of monastic rather than early Christian architecture. '^ Ante, p. 65. 204 IMPORTANCE OF THE STONE VAULT. nected with the ground by means of a series of half-columns dividing the elevation into vertical sections. Such half- columns find their true function when they act as supports at the springing of the cross- vaults, but they appear occasion- ally at an earlier period to support arches thrown at intervals across the nave, as at S. Prassede at Eome, or to offer on their capitals a convenient bed for the tie-beams of the wooden roof. On the position of these depends that of the clerestory windows, and of the gallery openings where a gallery exists, while with the orderly spacing of the windows there goes hand in hand a division of the external face of the wall by pilasters of small projection joined under the cornice by a series of round arches. Such an architectural embellishment of the outer wall occurs in early Christian buildings like the fifth century mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Eavenna, but it is in connection with stone vaulting that it receives its full importance. The pilaster is then enlarged into the buttress, which corresponds in position with the half-column within, now charged with important functions as a vaulting- shaft. The roof of masonry renders at once necessary the strictest adherence to plan throughout the edifice, and binds all its parts closely together. It is the true form-giving element in later mediteval architecture, but it is certainly not a Teutonic invention. The fact that, as we have seen, vaults of all kinds were employed from the first in connec- tion with polygonal and domed churches is a sufficient proof of this, and it is significant tliat the first attempt at vaulting the nave of a basilica occurs at Eome, where in the church of S. Vincenzo alle tre Fontane there exist the beginnings of a vault of brick, which date according to Mothes ^ from the year 796. The age of vaulted basilicas does not come till the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and by that period the process of organising the architectural forms of the church ' Bauknnst vo, 21s., unth nearly 300 Illustrations. THE ARCHITECTURE OF PROVENCE AND THE RIVIERA BY DAVID MACGIBBON AUTHOR OF "the CASTELLATED AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND' EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS Two Volumes 8vo, fully Illustrated, 12s. each (sold separately). SCOTLAND IX EARLY CHRISTIAN TIMES THE RHIND LECTURES IN ARCHEOLOGY— iS'jg AND 1880. By JOSEPH ANDERSON, LL.D. 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