I HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. a *w (^' \ \ X N, z*" / / ) v /*C:^-^ THE GOOD SHEPHERD. Laleran Museum, about A.D. 300. l-'rontispicce- SIDE-LIGHTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. BY THE 1 REV. EDWARD L. CUTIS, D.D., AUTHOR OF 'a dictionary of the church of ENGLAND," "TURNING-POINTS OF CHURCH history," ETC. A) rUBLISIIED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUiMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C ; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. BRIGHTON : I3S, NORTH street. New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG AND CO- lS93- PREFACE The special object of this book is to make more widely known the results which the study of the remains of Early Christian Art has attained in throwing light upon the early history of the Church. While making free use of the mass of material open to every student, the writer has exercised an independent judgment, and hopes that he has contributed to put some things in a clearer light, e.g. the externals of the worship of the Churches before the time of Constantine. Some care has been taken to show how the early phase of the Church's life links on to the beginnings of our own English Church history. Grateful acknowledgments are hereby tendered to the authorities of the Science and Art Department I .sr>0070 VI PREFACE. at South Kensington, for permission to make use of reproductions of the woodcuts of sarcophagi, etc. from its " Monuments of Early Christian Art," by Dr. Appell ; and to Messrs. Hatchette, of Paris, for permission to use reduced copies oi some of the plates of the Count M. de Voguee's important work on the architectural remains of Central Syria. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Definition of '* Christian art " — Early Christian art was Greek art ; in its decadence ; its historical interest — Scope of this DOOlC »»» ••• ••■ tt« ••• ••• CHAPTER 11. THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. The Upper Room at Jerusalem reconstructed ; a service in it ; dignity of the room and service ; it was the Church of the Apostles — The first Churches were the Ccenacula or Atria of the houses of wealthy Christians — Examples at Antioch in the Recognitions of Clement ; at Rome in the Acta of St. Pontus ; at Bourges in Gregory of Tours, in the Dialogues of Lucian — Plan of a Grecian and Roman house — These rooms in houses were often given to or acquired by the Church ; and continued to be used as public Churches ; and rebuilt on the same site CHAPTER in. THE PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE. That the Churches worshipped in the catacombs during the ages of persecution an error —The persecutions partial and brief ; in the intervals the Church living and worshipping freely — First public church in Rome probably in the time of Alex- ander Severus (222-235) — Toleration of GaUienus — Church organization in Rome — Forty public churches in Rome in the time of Diocletian ; in other places — The arrangements of the first public churches derived from the houses in v>'hich the Cliristians had been accustomed to assemble ... 24 viii CONTENTS. CHArTER IV. ARCHITECTURE OF THE PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE. PAG a Churches in the East ; in Central Syria ; in North Africa ; Egypt and Nubia — Description of a Basilican Church— The Church at Tyre — Church symbolism ... ... ... 34 CHAPTER V. THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. Rome no longer the capital of the empire, and not the centre of Christian influence — Constantine's Churches at Rome — Basilicas not converted into Cliurches — Temples seldom con- verted into Claurches ; their materials used in building Churches on their sites — Description of St. Peter's, St. Paul's, and St. Agnes' at Rome — Constantine's Churches in the East ; at " Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Constantinople — Effect of Con- stantine's conversion on Christian art ... ... ... 4S CHAPTER VI. THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. The colonnades with the Greek architrave ; with the Roman arch ; with an upper tier of columns — St. Clement's, Rome — St. Ambrose's, Milan — Churches of Central Syria : Ba- bouda ; Qualb Louzeh ; Tourmanin — Domestic architecture of Central Syria — Churches at Nisibis ; Thessalonica — The Golden Gate of Jerusalem — Churches of Egypt and Nubia, Thamugas — Ravenna : Tomb of Galla Placidia ; St. Apolli- nare Nuova ; St. Apollinare in Classe ; St. Vitale — Parenzo in Istria — Churches of Gaul: Lyons; St. Martin's, Tours; Clermont — Existing remains of the classical style in Gaul — The dome in Persia ; in Central Syria ; St. Ezra ; Bozra — The Byzantine dome ; Sta. Sophia — Domes in the West — Traces of the basilican style of architecture in Britain, at Canterbury, Frampton, Silchester — The Celtic churches ... 65 CHAPTER VII. THE BAPTISTERIES. Primitive baptisms — Baptisteries in catacombs — When the Atrium was the Church, possibly the Baptisterium of the bath was the baptistery — Public baptisteries ; of the Lateran ; CONTENTS. ix PAGE at Aquileia ; at Nocera dei Pagani ; at Ravenna ; at Deir Seta; in Italian cities — Fonts in churches — Illustrations of the subject in England — Baptistery at York ; Canterbury — Holy wells — Fonts — Chapterhouses ... ... ... 9"^ CHAPTER VIII. THE CATACOMBS. Literature of the subject — Incremation — Columbaria — Roman subterranean sepulchral chambers — Jewish burial customs — The Church adopted the custom of burial — Christian cata- combs — Description of those at Rome — Family catacombs of wealthy Christians put at the disposal of the Church — Burial clubs — Public Christian catacombs became places of pilgrimage — Jerome's description of them — Prudentius's description of them, and of the Confessio of Hippolytus — The removal of relics — The catacombs deserted and for- gotten ... ... ... ... ... "• 101 CHAPTER IX. TOMBS AND MONUMENTS. Tombs and monuments at Rome, Jerusalem, and elsewhere — Christian tombs : of Constantia, Helena — Syrian tombs at Kerbet Hass, llass, Kokanaya — Subterranean chamber at Mondjeleia — Twin columns at Sermeda, Dana, Bechindelayah — Pillar stones in Britain — Tombs used for funeral rites — Primitive regard for the dead — Funeral feasts — Confcssio of the martyrs ; in the catacombs ; above ground — Story of Theodotus of Ancyra — Basilica of SS. John and Paul, Rome — St. Alban, his martyrion — Early tombs represented in the paintings and sculptures of the Raising of Lazarus — Abyssinian tomb — Visits to tombs, and names scratched on them — Prayers to the saints ... ... ... ... 130 CHAPTER X. PAINTINGS. Classical paintings at Rome and Pompeii — Christian paintings in the sepulchral chambers and catacombs — In churches — Wider range of Scripture subjects introduced in the fourth century — Canons of Illiberis— Churches at Nola — Pictures of martyr- doms — St. Nilus — Painting in English churches : at Wear- CONTENTS. mouth and Jarrow — Scripture subjects in tlie decoration of houses ; testimony of Asterius, Palace of Constantine ; House of SS. John and Paul, Rome — Subjects of paintings at different periods: Symbolical, historical, apocalyptic, Passion subjects, Madonnas — Style of the early Christian school of painting ; of the Byzantine school — Repetition of a narrow cycle of subjects — Originated in the East — The IX0T2; the XP ; the AH — The origin of the emblems : lamb, dove, etc. — Conventional treatment of subjects — The "Guide to Painting " — Came from the East — Clement of Alexandria — The Apostolical Constitutions — St. Ephrem ; St. Gregory of Nyssa ; St. Cyril — Paintings in North Africa ; in Alexandria 159 CHAPTER XI. THE LIKENESSES OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. The earliest representations conventional — The statuary group at Paneas; the likenesses by St. Luke ; the Veronica legend ; Eusebius on the subject ; Publius Lentulus's description — The two types of likeness, the classical and the Byzantine — St. Peter and St. Paul — The four evangelists ... ... 186 ^ CPIAPTER Xn. SYMBOLISM. Emblems: the cross; the crucifix; the "Graffito Blasfemo;" the monogram — Symbolical subjects : the shepherd ; the lamb ; the fish ; a fisherman ; the ship ; anchor ; amphora ; vine ; olive ; palm ; doves ; sheep ; goats ; peacock ; phoenix ; Orpheus ; mount with four streams ; stag drinking ; nimbus ; aureole — Symbolical subjects from the Old and New Testa- ments : their meaning ; Daniel ; the Three Children ; Jonah ; Lazarus ; Noah ; sacrifice of Isaac ; healing the paralytic ; the infirm woman ; the blind man ; the passage of the Red Sea ; giving the Law ; the burning bush ; gathering manna (?) ; seizure of Moses (?) ; striking the rock ; Job ; creation of Eve ; fall of man ; Adam and Eve clothed ; Abel and Cain ; translation of Elijah ; baptism of Christ ; entry into Jeru- salem ; arrest of Christ — Eucharistic symbols : feeding the multitude ; miracle of Cana ; manna ; table with fish and bread ; fish and bread — List of subjects on sarcophagi in the Lateran and Vatican collections — Groups of subjects : on ceilings, gilded glass, arcosolia ... ... .., 195 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER Xlir. SYM UOLISM —coutiiiiied. PAGE The representation of individual persons — Representations of deceased ; oranti ; oranti with saints — The so-called Ma- donna of the Cemetery of Priscilla ; the so-called iVIadonna of St. Agnes — Funeral feasts — Personal emblems: fossors ; sculptor; painter, etc. — Punning emblems: a dragon for Dracontius, etc. — Instruments of martyrdom (?) ... ... 234 CHAPTER XIV. SCULPTURE. Classical sculpture — Christian statuary : the Good Shepherd, at Rome, Constantinople, and Athens; the St. Plippolytus ; the St. Peter — Sarcophagi : Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman, Chris- tian ; kept ready made — The subjects sculptured on them — Sarcophagi of Empress Helena ; Constantia ; Petronius Probus ; Junius Bassus ; Anicius Probas, etc. — Sarcophagi in Gaul, Spain, etc. — Pagan sarcophagi used for burial of Christians — English examples— Survival of style and subjects in stone crosses and fonts ... ... ... ... 253 CHAPTER XV. THE MOSAICS. J^ History of mosaic decoration ; its subjects — Examples: at Rome ; St. Constantia ; St. George Salonica ; Sta. Maria Maggiore ; Sta. Pudentiana ; Vatican ; SS. Cosmas and Damian ; S. Praxedes, etc. — At Ravenna : tomb of Galla Placidia ; the two baptisteries; St. Vitalis; St. Apollinare Nuovo ; in Classe — At Constantinople, etc. — At Aix-la-Chapelle ; St. Mark's, Venice — Fragments in the catacombs ... ... ... 2S3 CHAPTER XVI. IVORIES. Consular Diptychs ; Church Diptychs — Diptych of St. Gregory- Chair of St. Maximinus ; of St. Peter — Book-covers — Pyxes and relic-boxes — Caskets and shrines — Doors ... ... 297 CHAPTER XVII. GILDED GLASS VESSELS. Where found ; mode of execution ; subjects ; inscriptions— En- £C?"aved glasses — '")n' nnnl use: menorial nn lica'ion ... "504 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRII'TS. PAGE Earliest books, sacred and profane— Sacred MSS.— The Syrian Gospels of Rabula— Early IMS. in England : the Genesis of the Cotton Library; the C.C.C. Cambridge and Bodleian Gospels— The Irish and Saxon MSS. ... ... ... 312 CHAPTER XIX. GOLD AND SILVER VESSELS— HOLY OIL VESSELS — SACRED EMBROIDERY. The altar and its canopy ; altar vessels, etc. ; censers ; crosses"} lamps— Holy oil vessels ; their use ; examples at Monza — Superstitions connected with : continued to the present day — Sacred embroidery ; hangings in churches ; clerical vest- ments ... ... ... ••• ••• ••• 319 CHAPTER XX. RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS IN DOMESTIC USE. Religion in daily life— Use of religious subjects in decorating houses ; dress ; water-vessels ; wine-cups ; buckles— Lamps 329 CHAPTER XXL COINS, MEDALS, AND GEMS. Coin of Severus with Noah's ark ; of Trajan with XP ; of Salonina with EN EIPHNH— Coins with Christian symbols : of Con- stantine, etc.— Medals : pectoral crosses— Gems : primitive use of them with Christian symbols— Clement of Alexandria — Examples in the British Museum, etc. .•■ ••• 33^ CHAPTER XXII. INSCRIPTIONS. History and character of inscriptions ; prayers for the departed, and requests for their intercession ; euphemisms ; examples 348 CHAPTER XXIH. Some Conclusions ... ... •«• •" ••• 357 Index ..• #.. ... ••« ••• 365 all rru raJfaJ inJ raJ \M\ raJ raJ r^T^J raJ Kia raJ raJ raJ raJ raJ ISM raj raJ r^ raJmT LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Good Shepherd, Lateran Museum, about a.d. 300 Frontispiece Capital of Pilaster supporting the " Triumphal Arch" OF the Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian, Diarbekr 35 Church at Chaqqa, Syria ... ... ... ... 37 Arch of Constantine, Rome ... ... ... 50 The Maison Carri&e at Nimes... ... ... ... 55 The Church of St. Paul without the Walls, Rome. After the Fire ... ... ... ... ... 59 The Church of Bethlehem ... ... ... 62 Plan of St. Clement's, Rome ... ... ... ••• 67 The Church of St, Clement, Rome ... ... 68 Church of Babouda, Syria ... ... ... ••• 7^ Church of Baqouza ... ... ... ... 72 Church of Tourmanin, Syria ... ... ... ... 73 From a House Front, Central Syria ... ... 74 Plan of St. George, Ezra, Syria ... ... ... 81 Church of St. George, Ezra, Syria ... ... 82 Roman Funeral Urn ... ... ... ■•• ••• 102 Ambulacrum with Loculi and Entrance into Cubicula, Cemetery of St. Cecilia, Rome ... ... ... 109 A LocuLus closed with Slabs of Stone ... ... "o xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE a loculus partly opened ... ... ... ... ho a loculus closed with an inscribed marble slab ho The Tomb ok the Empress Helena ... ... ... 133 Tomb at HAss, Central Syria ... ... ... 134. Subterranean Sepulchre at Mondjeleia, Central Syria 137 A Christian Monument at Prymnessos, Phrygia ... 139 Plan of Chapel in the Cemetery in Via Ardentiana, Rome ... ... ... ... ... ... 147 Tomb at Adowa, Abyssinia ... ... ... 148 The Raising of Lazarus ... ... ... ... 154 Wall-painting of St, Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, from the Cemetery of Callistus, Rome ... ... 157 Painted Ceiling of One of the Chambers of the Ceme- tery OF St. Callistus... ... ... ... 161 Ceiling, from the Catacombs ... ... ... ... 163 Fresco Painting, from the Cemetery of St. Callistus 174 Our Lord as the Giver of the Divine Word. Fifth Century ... ... ... ... ••• •■• i93 Wall-painting, from the Cemetery of Pontianus, Rome ... ... ••■ ••• ••• ••• ^97 Wall-painting, from the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem ... ... .■• ••• ... 198 Scribbling on the Wall, Palatine Hill, Rome ... 199 Miniature Painting, from the MS. Syrian Gospels, by RABULA ... ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 202 Monumental Inscription at Sivaux, France ... 203 Monumental Inscription in the Roman Catacombs ... 203 The Sacred Monogram ... ... ... ... 203 Glass Vessel embedded in the Mortar of a Loculus, with Palm Branch ... ... ... ... 208 Orpheus. From the Cemetery of Domitilla, Rome ... 211 Wall-painting, Cemetery of St. Callistus, Rome 227 Wall-painting, Cemetery of St. Marcellinus. An Orante clad in Chasuble ... ... ... 235 Wall-painting, Cemetery of St. Soter, Rome ... 236 Inscription on Marble ... ... ... ... 236 Wall-painting, Cemetery of St. C.^xilia, Rome ... 237 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv PAIB Painting from the Upper Cemetery of St. Gennaro, Naples ... ... ... ... ... ... 239 Wall-painting, Cemetery of St. Callistus, Romei! 243 Orante and Child, the so-called Madonna of the Cemetery of St. Agnes ... ... ... 244 Wall-painting, Cemetery of St. Callistus, Rome ... 245 The Good Shepherd. Statue in the Lateran Museum 254 From a Sarcophagus in the Cathedral, Tortona, Fourth Century ... ... ... ... ... 257 Statue of St. Hippolytus, Lateran Museum ... 258 From the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a.d. 359 ... 263 Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a.d 359 ... ... 269 Sarcophagus of Anicius Probus, a.d. 395 ... ... 271 Sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum, late Fourth or Fifth Century ... ... ... ... 273 Sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum ... ... 275 Sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum ... ... 277 End of Sarcophagus of Archbishop Theodorus, St. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna. Seventh Century 278 Mosaics in the Apse of the Ancient Church of the Vatican ... ... ... ... ... ... 2S9 Mosaic from the Tomb of Galla Placidia, Ravenna 292 Upper Gallery, Church of St. Vitalis, Ravenna ... 293 The Empress Theodora: St. Vitalis, Ravenna ... 294 Ivory Diptych at the Cathedral, Monza ... To face 298 A Pax of the Eighth Century, Cividale, Friuli 300 Gilded Glass Vessel, from the PvOman Catacombs. Side View ... ... ... ... ... ... 305 Gilded Glass Vessel, from the Roman Catacombs. Full View ... ... ... ... ... ... 305 Gilded Glass Vessel: " Pompeiane, Teodora, Vi- b(v)atis" ... ... ... ... ... ... 306 Gilded Glass Vessel: "Angne" ... ... ... 307 Gilded Glass Vessel. Bust surrounded by Twelve Figures ... ... ... ... ... ... 30S The Ascension : from the Syrian Gospels, by Rabula, A.D. 586 (?) ... ... ... ... ... 315 XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Ampulla, at Monza ... Water- VESSEL from North Africa Buckle of a Belt. Daniel in the Lions' Den, and an Orante Clay Lamp, with xp Ornament Coin of Septimus Severus Coin of Constantine the Great ... Coin of Constans Coin of Justin I, ... Coin of Licinia Eudoxia, Wife of Valentinian IH. Medallion of the Eighth or Ninth Century St. Paul and St. Peter (Bronze) Leaden Medallion Early Christian Rings ... ••• ... PAGE 332 334 337 338 340 341 341 342 343 343 345 : ^F^:t;tit:t Rj^iiiiiJ:iJdiiii+ii;i-+-4; + :fl:4-4-l-I^H HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART, CHAPTER I. EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Definition of " Christian art "—Early Christian art was Greek art; in its decadence ; its historical interest— Scope of this book. T may be well to explain, to begin with, that by the phrase Christian art is meant art apph'ed to Christian uses. The Christianity is in the subjects, not in the style. Artists cannot invent a new style to order, or at will. A man must utter his thoughts, how- ever novel they may be, in the language of his time. The Evangelists and Apostles had a new revelation to convey, but they had perforce to express its mysteries in the Greek which was the lingua franca B 2 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. of their age. So if a man undertake to express facts or thoughts in painting or sculpture, it must be in the art of his time ; the early Christian artists had ito present their subjects in the style of art which Kwas then in current use. Language indeed grows and changes, but slowly, under certain influences ; so does art change, slowly, under the influence of new needs, materials, methods of construction, moods of thought, and feeling ; and the climax of the history of early Christian art is the actual emergence of a new phase of art under the gradual influence of all these causes. f Art all over the civilized world at the time of the t Christian era vvasGreek art. The Macedonian con- quests had spread Greek civilization and art over the East ; the Romans had adopted them from I conquered Greece, and carried them forward with less genius of conception and less refinement of taste ; and, beyond the slow process of natural decadence, art underwent no changes in Roman hands. At the beginning of the Christian era this art had already passed its highest point of excellence ; but the architects of the time of Augustus could still decorate the Forum with temples imitated from and hardly inferior to the best of the ancient temples of Greece ; the sculptors produced fine replicas of the great works of earlier art ; and the original statues of imperial and noble persons which peopled Rome had great dignity in the pose, skill in the broad handling of the robes, and especially great power of portraiture. Few examples of the painting EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. \ of the period have survived, and those chiefly the less serious works which were used in domestic decoration ; enough, however, remains in the house of Livia on the Palatine, at Pompeii, and elsewhere, to prove that the artists possessed great technical skill and abundant graceful fancy. But by the time that the Christian Church needed to employ the arts in its service, the decaSfehCfe of ^ctSssicat''arT'lTa3'TuTI}r^er in,'~1and the decline con- tinued through several centuries. Moreover, the j Christian art work which has survived is not equal j to the contemporary work of heathen art. The circumstances of the early Church made it unlikely that it should obtain, " for love or money," the services of the greater artists who were busy building and adorning the palaces of Roman patricians, and of plundering proconsuls and procurators. So that the early art we have to do with here is poor and debased compared with the earlier classical art, and effete and feeble compared with that of later ages, when Christian civilization had at length wrought (out for itself a new style in which to express its mind and soul. This early Christian art, with all its defects, is, however, of the highest interest to us, because it is the autograph record in art language of the history of the Church of those times, its doctrines, worship, manners and customs, hopes and aspirations. And those times were times of especial interest in the history of the Church : first, the three ages before the Church was allied with the State ; then the three ages during which all the great 4 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Doctors and Fathers of the Church taught ; while the Church was still in external unity, and its life- blood circulated freely throughout its vast extension. In the latter part of the period of the decline of classical art the phenomena are not merely those of decline ; there present themselves indications of a new initiative — new modes of treatment, a growing boldness and vigour of originality, new plans in architecture, new subjects in pictorial art, a disregard of the naturalistic conception and treatment of Greek art and in its place the mystic conception and suggestive treatment of the Byzantine art. There is a wide borderland between the two, in the upper part of which Byzantine feeling is making itself felt, and in the lower classical tradition still survives. ,A history of early Christian art is bound to note the rise of the Byzantine school while it pursues with interest the late survivals of the earlier school. CHAPTER 11. THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. The Upper Room at Jerusalem reconstructed; a service in it ; dignity of the room and service ; it was the Church of the Apostles — The first Churches were the Cceracula or Atria of the houses of wealthy Christians — Examples at Antioch in the Recognitions of Clement ; at Rome in the Acta of St. Pontus ; at Bourges in Gregory of Tours, in the Dialogues of Lucian — Plan of a Grecian and Roman house — These rooms in houses were often given to or acquired by the Church ; and continued to be used as public Churches ; and rebuilt on the same site. HE history of Christian art, i.e. art applied to Christian uses, begins with the birth of the Church, on the great Day of] Pentecost, in the upper room of Mary's j house at Jerusalem. Let us try to reconstruct this upper room. A typical Eastern house of the better class is usually built round an open court, which is paved with marble, and has a marble tank or fountain in the middle. Sometimes trees planted near the tank rise to a considerable height, seeking air and sun, and spread out their foliage, giving a pleasant shade ; 6 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. round the sides of the court are disposed shrubs in great boxes, or a border of flower beds ; and climbing plants half clothe the walls. In one corner is a kind of room, open on one side to the court, rising through the two stories of the house up to the flat roof, its floor raised two or three feet above the pavement of the court, with a stone or marble bench round its three sides. This is the divan, where the master of the house usually receives visits of courtesy or of business.* An external stone stair along another side of the court gives access to a balcony f at the height of the second story. And from this balcony opens a large room which is the great reception-room on occasions of ceremony or festivity. This is our Upper Room, in Graek virepwov, in Latin cosnaciihim. Now Mary, the mistress of the house, apparently at this time a widow, was the sister of Barnabas the Levite. Josephus states at the beginning of his Auto- biography that the priests were the aristocratic caste "of his nation ; the Levites were the second order of this aristocratic caste; and Mary was of aLevitical family. Her brother Barnabas had not only the emoluments of his office, but was also a landowner in Cyprus, and appears from the whole narrative to * Our Lord was probably sitting here when they let down the paralytic through the roof above, so that the sick man alighted on this raised platform at the feet of Jesus, between those who sat round the divan and the crowd who stood in the court (Luke v. i8, 19), t On the Day of Pentecost the Apostles probably came out of the upper room upon this balcony, and thence Peter addressed the crowd in the court below, and perhaps on the flat housetops around. The fountain in the middle of the court would afford water for the baptism of the three thousand (Acts ii. 14). THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. have been a person of some distinction. Mary, his widowed sister, was probably a person of some social consideration and wealth, for she resided in the capital, and her house was a large one, since its ccenaailuin would contain at least one hundred and twenty persons. Herod the Great, half a century before, had introduced into Jerusalem a taste for sumptuous architecture in the prevailing classical style of art, and the large and lofty reception-room of Mary would possibly be in the prevailing taste ; adorned with i pilasters and cornices, its wall-panels and ceiling ornamented with painting. It would make a very convenient church, as the Royal Chapel at Whitehall did, which was built for a banqueting hall. An Eastern reception-room has little more perma- nent furniture than the low bench which runs along one or more of its sides, so that there was nothing to interfere with an assembly of people; and since Eastern congregations always staTidto_worship^ there was nothing lacking for their accommodation. Having reconstructed the room, let us go a little further and assist at one of the Christian assemblies in it — the early morning assembly for the Breaking of the Bread. On this occasion some furniture is required ; at least a plate for the bread, a cup for the wine, and a table to place them upon. Now, the people of those times did not possess the facilities which we have for investing surplus wealth at interest. The accumulated wealth of well-to-do people was not in the shape of scrip and shares, but of actual silver and gold and gems. But instead of 8 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. keeping all this precious metal and these beautiful stones hidden, it was the custom to use them much more largely than we are in the habit of doing in the form of personal decorations and of ornamental furni- ture. A wealthy household would have a very much larger display of precious vessels in common use than a household of similar- station and means among ourselves. In supplying the vessels necessary for the solemn Memorial of the Sacrifice of the Son of God a natural feeling of reverence would lead Mary to select the best in her possession. We know the kind of vessels in common use at the time, and recognize that the first "paten" and "chalice" would very possibly be a tazza and a cup of silver or gold, perhaps adorned with gems, and made beautiful in form and ornamentation by the best skill of the goldsmith. The tables of the same time often consisted of a marble slab supported by an ornamental frame of bronze ; and such a one would be convenient for the use in question. Convenience would dictate that the table should be placed at the upper end of the room. The Apostles would naturally stand behind it^^asjhe ministrg,jUs,»- while the people would stand in reverent order in the body of the room, the men by themselves and the women by themselves ; this was the arrangement directed by our Lord in the miracles of the feeding of the multitudes, which were types of this spiritual feeding of the people. Look at the dress of the Apostles, for it is the earliest authority for "clerical vestments." The usual dress of the higher and middle THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. 9 classes at that time in Judsea, as elsewhere, was the tunic and pallium ; * on occasions of religion and ceremony their colour was white, and the long tunic 1 was worn, the sleeves of which reached to the wrists and || the skirts to the ankles. This is the dress assigned to f the Apostles in the earliest pictorial representations, '■'^ even when the successors of the Apostles had adopted \ other fashions of episcopal costume,f and it is highly / probable that it is that which they actually wore ; % it is a costume of such statuesque simplicity of line and breadth of fold, that artists to this day employ it to give dignity to their sacred figures. This, then, is the first presentation of Christian art in the Church ; and in the magnitude and architectural character of the place of assembly, in the costly beauty of the sacred vessels, in the habit of the ministers, in the order of the congregation, there was nothing lacking to the dignity of the Divine service. We have taken pains to realize this assembly of the Apostolic Church in the upper room at Jerusalem in order to combat at the outset the vulgar error that the early Church affected a studious plainness and informality in Divine worship and its appointments. There is not a word of evidence to that effect in the * The pallium was a Inrpe nhlnnir pipr^ (^f nin th, lately come into use instead of the old toga, and was disposed in certain folds about the person. t As in the mosaic in SS. Cosmas and Damian at Rome, of the time of Felix IV. (526-530), and in the mosaics of the same century at Ravenna. :|: In the "Recognitions of Clement," viii. 6, about 150 A.D., St. Peter is represented as saying, "My dress is what you see, a tunic with a pallium," lo HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Scriptures, or in the early Christian writers, and the probabilities are to the contrary. The first Christians were Jews, and had been trained in the principles of Divine worship amid the splendours of the Temple, and continued to attend the Temple worship. Even the synagogues for their " prayer-meetings " were handsome buildings and suitably furnished. But the worship of the Church was the continuation of the solemn liturgical worship of the Temple, not of the prayer-meetings of the synagogue. When the [Churches could do no better they worshipped in the 'open air or in a cave, and knew that their worship " in spirit and in truth " would be acceptable to the Most High ; but when they could do better, they thought the best which they could do was only a suitable outward expression of their reverence. This principle of Christian worship is sanctioned by our Lord's approval of Mary of Bethany's act of worship in anointing His feet with the precious ointment, and by His implied rebuke of Simon the Pharisee's neglect of the ceremonious courtesies usually offered to an honoured guest. It is highly probable that this Upper Room was the usual place of assembly of the innermost circle of the disciples ; that there the Lord celebrated the last Passover and instituted the memorial of the breaking of the bread ; * there the disciples assembled on the evening of the great Easter Day,t and on the follow- ing Sunday ; % there the election of Matthias to the ♦ Luke xxii. I2. t John xx. 19. J John xx. 26. THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. ir Apostleship* took place; there the disciples assembled every day after the Ascension in prayer for the coming of the promised Comforter ; f and there, on the day /i'of Pentecost, they were baptized with the Holy Ghost (I and with fire, and the Church began to be. ^^ It is highly probable^'tRat the Upper Room thus consecrated continued to be used for the assemblies ■ of the Church and for its worship ; that it was there "at the house" that the disciples daily broke the bread, that is to say, celebrated the Eucharist ;% that I this was the house which was supernaturally shaken f in answer to their prayers ; § there the Church kept \ up its ceaseless intercession for Peter while in prison ; || there the seven deacons were ordained ; If there the first council was held,** For there is an early tradition > that the house of Mary was at length entirely given *. over to the Church ; and under the name of the Ccenaculum, or of the Church of the Apostles, it \ continued to be the most venerated of the churches | of Jerusalem down to the fourth century and / later.ft -^ We meet with other notices in the writings of the New Testament of the use of these upper rooms for Christian assemblies. Dorcas was '"•^'laM^ TTOt:'^ to * Ac's i. 15. t Acts ii. J Acts ii. 46. § Actsiv. 23-31. II Actsxii. 12, f Actsvi. 6. ** Acts XV. 4-6. tt St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (a.d. 347), seems to say that the "Upper Church of the Apostles" of his time was this Upper Room ("Catechetical Lectures," xvi. 4). In the group of buildings on the southern brow of Zion, now known as the Ccenaculum, is a large upper room fifty feet by thirty, which is supposed to represent, if not actually to be, this venerable room. 12 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. receive the last honours in an upper room,* very possibly that in which the Christians of Joppa were accustomed to assemble. The Church at Troas was used to assemble in an upper room, on the first day of the week, for the breaking of the bread. f It is- probable that in all the cases in which we have notices in the New Testament of the Church in the house of Such-an-one, what is implied is not the prayer-meeting of a circle of Christian friends, but the general assembly of the Church of that city, regularly held in the house of some wealthy convert.^ For there is sufficient evidence that in the period before the Christian communities were able to erect public churches for their meetings, it was the regular practice everywhere to hold the assemblies for Divine worship in the house of one of the brethren ; usually (as was natural) in the house of a Christian of wealth and distinction, because its large rooms afforded ample accommodation to the Church. There were probably more early converts of the higher classes than is popularly apprehended. St. Paul indeed says § that "not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble," were among the disciples of his time ; but some there" were. At the very first, among those who believed in the Christ were the nobleman of Capernaum, II who is probably the same as Chuza, Herod's steward ; H the centurion of Capernaum ; Joseph and Nicodemus, members of the Sanhedrim ; * Acts ix. 37. t Acts XX. 8- X Acts xviii. 7 J Rom. xvi, 15 ; I Cor. xi. 18, 22 ; xiv. 23 ; xvi. 19} Col. iv. 15. § I Cor. 1. 26. 11 John iv, 46. \ Luke viii. 3. THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. 13 later, the treasurer of Ethiopia and the centurion of Caesarea — one of the patrician Cornelii ; still later, Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, the " most excellent Theophilus " of Antioch, Dionysius the Areopagite, to say nothing of the " chief women " of Thessalonica, and the " honourable women which were Greeks not a few " at Berea ; lastly, members of the noble Roman families, Pudentian, Pomponian, Anician, and others, culminating in " them of Caesar's household," a phrase in which recent discoveries * have enabled us to include Flavius Clemens and his wife Flavia Domitilla, the former the cousin and the latter the niece of the Emperor Domitian. Other recent discoveries in the Roman catacombs f have proved that the Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was included in the same indictment and sentence with Flavius Clemens, was also a Christian with members of his family. This family attained celebrity about 200 years B.C., when Acilius Glabrio the consul con- quered the Macedonians. Towards the end of the Republic they were established on the Pincian PI ill, where they had a palace and large gardens, and were so greatly esteemed that Pertinax, in the memorable sitting of the senate in which he was elected emperor, declared them to be the noblest race in the world. Manius Acilius Glabrio was consul with Trajan in the year 91 A.D., and in this very year he was com- pelled by Domitian to fight with a lion and two bulls in the amphitheatre adjoining the emperor's villa at Albanum. He survived the combat, and was • See p. 115. f See p. 117. 14 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. banished. But four years afterwards, A.D. 95, he was tried, condemned, and executed, together with Flavius Clemens and others, on the charge of having embraced the customs and persuasion of the Jews. Recent discoveries have also put it beyond a doubt that Pomponius Gra^cina, the wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain, was a Christian. An inscrip- tion bearing the name nOMnONIOC TPHKEINOO has been found in the cemetery of Callistus, together with other records of the Pomponii Attici and Bassi. Some scholars think that Graecina, the wife of Aulus Plautius, is no other than Lucina, the Christian matron, who interred her brethren in Christ in her own property, at the second milestone of the Appian Way. Other evidence of the conquests made by the gospel among the patricians is given by an inscription dis- covered in 1866, in the catacombs of Praetextatus, near the monument of Quirinus the martyr. It is a memorial raised to the memory of his departed wife by Postumius Quietus, consul A.D. 272. Here also was found the name of Urania, daughter of Herodes Atticus, by his second wife Vibullia Alcia, while on the other side of the road, near St. Sebastian, a mausoleum has been found, on the architrave of which the name URAN10E[VM] is engraved. Eusebius, in speaking of the martyrs of the Flavian family, quotes the authority of the historian Bruttius. He evidently means Bruttius Praesens, the friend of the younger Pliny, and the grandfather of Crispina the Empress of Commodus. In 1854, near the THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. 15 entrance to the Flavian crypt, was found a fragment of a stone sarcophagus with the name of Bruttius Crispinus, so that the Flavian family and that of their historian were united in the proximity of their villas and tombs and by community of religion. There also occur the names of several Cornelii, Caecihi, and ^milii, the flower of Roman nobility, grouped near the graves of St. Caecilia and Pope Cornelius; of Liberalis, 2, consul sujfectiis* and a martyr, whose remains were buried in the Via Salaris ; of Jallia Clementina, a relative of Jallius Bassus, consul before A.D. 161 ; of Catia Clementina, daughter or relative of Catius, consul A.D. 230, not to speak of persons of equestrian rank whose names have been collected in hundreds.f The subject of these domestic churches is of such general interest that it is worth while to illustrate it in some detail. The " Recognitions of Clement," written soon after the middle of the second century, says that " At Antioch, by the preaching of St. Peter, within seven days more than 10,000 men were baptized, so that Theophilus,t who was more exalted than all the men of power that were in that city, consecrated the great hall of his house for a church,§ and a chair {cathedra) ^Elected to supply the place of a consul dying or retiring in his year of office. t Lanciani, " Pagan and Christian Rome," ii. 9. % The "most excellent Theophilus ' of St. Luke's dedication of the Gospel and Acts; "most excellent" was an official title. Tradition says that St. Luke was a resident in Antioch. § '■^Domus stm ingcntem basilicam ecdesice nomine constcraret " (x. 71). l6 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART, was placed in it for the Apostle, and the whole mul- titude assembled daily to hear his word." The writer of a novel, for such is the nature of the "Recognitions," does not necessarily narrate truths, but he is careful to make his narrative truth-like ; we / infer, therefore, that it was in accordance with the known facts of the history of the Church, that a man of rank and wealth should give up "the basilica of his house " for a church.* ' "" ~^ — -^ ' The " Acta " of St. Pontus supplies, in the course of a charming contemporary sketch of Roman life, another_exain2leof thechurch__in_aji^^ It relates that one day, in his boyhood, as Pontus was passing at dawn through the streets of Rome, on the way to his preceptor, accompanied by his pedagogue and a young companion, he heard singing from an upper room of one of the houses which they were passing, and distinguished the words, " Our God is in heaven. . . . Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands," etc. (Ps. cxv.). Seized with a sudden impulse, he knocked at the door of the house. Some looked down from above through a window,t and saw that it was a child who knocked. Bishop Pontianus (A.D. 230-235), who was present, * The house would probably be the same building, called by Eusebius o ttjs E/c«A.7/(nas oiKOi, "the house of the Church," in which Paul of Samosata made so much display of episcopal state, and which he refused to give up on his deposition from the bishopric for heresy, until compelled by the intervention of the Emperor Aurelian, A.D, 272. t The principal windows of an Eastern house look into the interior courtyard, but there is often a small projecting window overlooking the street, so that the inhabitants can, as in this instance, ascertain who comes and goes and knocks. THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. 17 bade that he should be admitted, " for of such," he said, " is the kingdom of God." Pontius, with his com- panion Valerius (who is the author of the narrative), having been admitted, ascended to the coenaciihnn (the upper room), and seeing that they were cele- bratmg the Divine mysteries, turned aside till the service was concluded ; then Pontianus talked with him, and laid the foundation of his conversion. Gregory of Tours relates that the missionaries who planted the church at Bourges in the middle of the third century, when they had made some converts, began to cast about for a place for their assemblies for worship, and sought to obtain possession of the private house of some citizen for the purpose of con- verting it into a church ; but all the senators and wealthier people of the place were still heathen. So they had recourse to one Leocadius, a man in the highest position and related to the family of Vettius Epagathus, who had suffered in the famous persecution at Lyons a century earlier, and offered to purchase his house. He became a Christian, and gave his , I house for use as a church. The existing cathedral I of Bourges is the magnificent representative, on the same site, of the atrium of Leocadius. ^ The satire of an opponent of Christianity affords us still another example. In the "Dialogue of Philo- patris," which goes by the name of Lucian, but is probably by a later writer, and of date A.D. 363, the time of the Emperor Julian, one of the characters relates that he was persuaded to visit some men, who, he was told, would teach him all mysteries. Pie C i8 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. passed through iron doors and by brazen ways, and having ascended a long roundabout route, he came to a chamber with gilded ceiling, such as Homer tells of the house of Menelaus.* He saw no Helen, however, but only a number of men with pale countenances bent towards the earth. In short, he had been in- duced to visit a Christian assembly. This description of the satirist is no doubt imaginary, but it is better evidence for our purpose than an isolated fact, because his story would certainly be founded upon what was known to be the general custom of the Christians. The Christians at Cirta, North Africa, were using a house for their assemblies at the time of the outbreak of the Diocletian persecution. The houses of Greece and Rome were built on a different model from the Eastern house which has been described, and in houses of this plan it would be the atrium which would be used for the place of assembly, and it is this atrium which afforded the type of the churches of the first six centuries. . In the sketch plan of a Greek or Roman house given in Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," -f* the visitor passes first through an outer court, which is sometimes surrounded by a colonnade, and has a fountain in the middle. He * "There was a radiance like that of the sun or moon throughout the huge vaulted hall of renowned Menelaus, . . . the gleam of bronze and of gold, of amber and of ivory" (" Odyssey," bk. iv.). t The prehistoric palace at Tiryns (Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities") and the first-century houses at Pompeii (Lanciani, "Pagan and Christian Rome," Ii4)jbear witness 'to the persistency of this normal plan. THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. 19 enters into the atrium, the common reception-room. It is always large in proportion to the size of the house, for, as in the halls of our Saxon ancestors, the indoor life of the family was for the most part trans- acted in it. Frequently it was divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of columns, which sustained the roofs. Beyond, it was the tablimim, or supper- room, which was only divided from the atrium by a curtain. The outer court, atrium, and tablinum, formed the principal body of the house ; besides these, were usually a room on each side of the tablinum, some small rooms on each side of the atrium opening from it, and receiving their only light through their doors ; and sometimes a second story of small rooms over these. The houses of Pompeii afford many examples of houses of this plan still standing. At Corinth, when St. Paul desisted from his preach- ing in the synagogue, he separated the believers, and formed them into a Church, which " came together into one place" for worship (i Cor. xiv. 23), probably in the house of Justus (Acts xviii. 7). Now, Justus was a Gentile, and the house of a well-to-do Gentile in the lately rebuilt city of Corinth would be of the usual plan and architectural style of the period. The Christian congregation would pass through the outer court into the atrium. The reader may accompany them, and study the place and people. On the further side of the open-air court, by a short passage through the house, he enters the atrium. It is a large and lofty hall ; two rows of pillars support the roof, which is 20 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. open in the middle for light and air ; the walls are divided by pilasters to correspond with the columns, and the wall panels are decorated with paintings, like those in the house of Livia, or in the houses at Pompeii. At the further end, when the curtain is withdrawn, the eye travels into the tablinum,* which is like a chancel ; its table is already conveniently placed for the approaching Breaking of the Bread, the necessary vessels are already placed upon it, and the Apostle Paul and his assistant ministers, Silas and Timotheus, are seated behind it, waiting for the time to begin. The hall would be destitute of furniture, ' and the people would stand, the men on the left hand and the women on the right, the men with their .heads uncovered, the women with the usual head- /veil, which partly concealed the face. Mere con- venience would dictate that the Divine service should be performed in the tablinum, and the sermon preached thence ; the people would come up to the tablinum, and there, standing, would receive the con- secrated food, as they now do in all the churches of the East. Thus naturally grew the plan of the church and the order of its service. / There is abundant evidence that the Churches continued to assemble for Divine worship in private houses, not only during the ages of persecution, but long after the decrees of Constantine had given * This custom of screening the tablinum from the atrium by a curtain was perhaps the oiigin of the custom of the early Church to place a curtain before the apse, which was drawn and withdrawn in different portions of the services. THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. 21 universal peace to the Church. It was natural that it should be so. The buildings, as we have seen, whether upper room or atrium, were sufficiently spacious to contain a considerable congregation, sufficiently dignified architecturally for a church, and endeared to the Christian community by long years of the most sacred associations. There, in the tablinum, saints and martyrs had celebrated the Divine mysteries and had preached the Word ; there, in the atrium, this and that illustrious person had stood to worship ; there their parents and rela- tives had worshipped ; there they themselves had first been brought to the assembly of the faithful. No wonder that the place had become to them a sacred place, " none other than the House of God, and the very gate of heaven." It is probable that in some cases the whole house had been given to the Church. We see something like this adumbrated very early in the case of Mary's house at Jerusalem. The owners of the house, ex hypothesi zealous Christians and wealthy people, would be moved by natural piety to feel that a building so long dedicated to sacred purposes should not return to secular uses, and would give it to the Church; or the Church, desirous to retain a building so endeared to them by its venerable associations, would seek to possess it, if necessary by purchase. The place so long used for the assembly of the congregation would still be used as the church, and the rest of the house would afford a dwellins:- place to the bishop, or to some of the clergy, or would serve some similar Church use. Thus there 22 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. is an extant letter of Pius I. (a.D. 142-157), Bishop of Rome, in which he states that Euprepia, a pious widow, had assigned her house over to the Church, "where dwelling with the poor we celebrate the Divine offices." The natural sequel would be that, in course of time, these houses would be taken down and larger churches would be built upon their venerable sites. The ancient and credible tradition at Rome is that several of its most ancient churches were thus built upon the sites of houses in which first the Church assembled by permission of the owner, then the owner gave the house to the Church, and lastly, larger churches were built upon the site. St. Prisca is traditionally said to occupy the site of the house in which St. Prisca was baptized by St. Peter, and the first church to have been built by Bishop Eutychianus, A.D. 280. The interesting church of St. Clement is said to have been built upon the site of the house of Flavius Clemens, of the imperial family. The Pudens saluted by St. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 21), is said to have been the distinguished senator of that name, in whose house St. Paul is said to have lived ; and the grandson of this Pudens, Pius I., Bishop of Rome from a.d. 142 to 157, is said to have converted part of the family mansion * into a church, of which the existing church of St. Pudentiana is the successor. Its proper name is the Church of Pudens, and it is so called in an inscription on the book held by the figure of our * Part of the house still remains (Lanciani). THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE, 23 \;:^ Lord in the apse, for the early Christians called their churches after the name of their founder. Part of the Anician Villa on the Via Latina was converted into a church in the fourth century by Demetrias, the daughter of Anicius Hermogenianus, prefect of the city (368-370), and of Tyrrania Juliana, the friend of Augustine and Jerome, The remains of villa and church were discovered in 1857.* * Lanciani, "Pagan and Christian Rome." . / ''^ \AsA^ V(5U i!m\m\mm\mmB^f^}mm\mm\mm\mm\mmm-\m\mm}mm\mmm CHAPTER III. THE PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE. That the Churches worshipped in the catacombs during the ages of persecution an error — Tlie persecutions partial and brief; in the intervals the Church living and worshipping freely — First public church in Rome probably in the time of Alexander Severus (222-235) — Toleration of Gallienus — Church organization in Rome — Forty public churches in Rome in the time of Diocletian ; in other places — The arrangements of the first public churches derived from the houses in which the Christians had been accustomed to assemble. HERE is a very widespread belief that there were no public churches before Constantine ; that during the first three centuries Christianity was under such continuous persecution, that its adherents were driven to worship in secrecy and concealment in caves and catacombs, or in holes and corners of one another's houses. The error has an important bearing upon our subject, for a community in such a condition could have no thought to spare for art. It has a more important bearing upon the whole history of the PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 25 Church, for men in the condition supposed, however fervent their personal piety, could have no freedom to embody their principles in institutions, to develop their beliefs and sentiments and aspirations into manners and customs, to express their inner life of thought and feeling, as free human nature will do, in their surroundings. In such a case, we should have had to reckon with two results : first, that the condition of the Church before Constantine could not be accepted as a model of what the Church, freely and fully grown and developed, should be ; and next, that the Church after Constantine would lie under the suspicion of having suddenly developed, not freely and independently, but under the influence of imperial patronage. Whereas the truth is that, while Christians were always liable to individual molestation, and local Churches did suffer from occasional persecutions, and while this might serve to keep off the half-hearted and to brace the spiritual nerve of those who really believed, there was not enough of continuous general persecution to warp or hamper the natural growth of the life of the Church. There are two points to be noticed — the chronic danger in which all Christians lived, and the special danger of the occasional systematic persecutions. ,/ Christianity was at first a " new superstition," ex- clusive, unsocial, mysterious, which excited suspicion and dislike. Being a religio illicita^ a religion un- recognized by the law, its professors were liable at any moment to be brought before the magistrates 26 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. on that charge. The condition of the Christians, till after the edict of Gallienus (a.d. 260), was always precarious, and there were many examples of suffering for conscience sake in all parts of the empire. Informers sometimes, moved by cupidity or malice, brought the accusation against indi- viduals ; the fanaticism of the people sometimes, on the occasion of public calamity, clamoured against the Christians as atheists, who provoked the anger of the gods against those who tolerated them. But the emperors Trajan and Hadrian issued edicts against these individual delations and these riotous out- breaks ; and the Christians in time lived down the popular suspicion and dislike, and, except in times of systematic persecution, exercised their religion freely and lived unharmed among their neighbours. The authorized persecutions were few in number, brief in duration, and occupied in the aggregate a very small space out of the three centuries over which they extended. Nero's persecution in the year 64 A.D. was a solitary act of wanton tyranny which did not extend beyond Rome. It is not till halfway through the three centuries that Marcus Aurelius_ ordered the first general procedure against the professors of the new faith, which extended over about twenty years (161-180) of his reign, and ceased at his death. Septimius Severus, about two years before the close of his reign (209-211), provoked at finding men and women of the highest rank becoming Christians, issued an edict forbidding his subjects to become Jews or Christians, and renewed the law PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 27 against " close associations ; " but this edict was rescinded by his successor, Alexander Severus (222- 235) had a statue of Christ, among those of other great religious teachers, in his private oratory, and favoured Christianity ; and Philip the Arabian (244- 249) was so friendly to Christians that he was suspected of being a secret convert. There were partial outrages against Christians under Maximin (235-238). Decius ma-de a serious attempt to destroy Christianity entirely, but his action was directed chiefly against the clergy, and did not continue above a year (251). The persecution was renewed during the last three years and a half of the reign of Valerian (253-260), but on his capture by Sapor (260), his son Gallienus suspended the persecution, and shortly after restored the confiscated buildings and property of the Churches, and gave the Christians freedom of worship ; there is reason to believe that his wife Salonina was a Christian. Diocletian himself during the first twenty years of his reign (284-305) showed great favour to the Christians. Eusebius tells us that of the freedmen whom he employed in the management of the affairs of the empire many were Christians ; he entrusted to Christians the government of provinces, and exempted them from the customary sacrifices which it was their official duty to attend ; his wife and daughter were secretly attached to the faith ; the bishops were recognized and treated with respect by the magistrates of their cities. In short, the Church was looking with hope and expectation for the con- version of the emperor, when, under the influence of 28 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. the brutal Gallerius, the last and most dreadful perse- cution began. The first persecutnig edict was issued in 303. The tolerance of Constantius and Constan- tine mitigated the severity of the persecution in the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, over which they ruled. The persecution lasted in the East till 308, and the last two years were the most prolific of bloodshed. /AH fear of persecution ceased in the West with the V conversion of Constantine in 312; vexatious pro- ceedings were continued in the East until the final ■ victory of Adrianople (323) made Constantine sole 1/ master of the Roman world. /; If the reader will take the trouble to consider this brief summary he will find that there was no general official action against the Christians till 161, and that it ceased with the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180. From the death of Marcus Aurelius to the reign of Decius the Church had peace for eighty years, with the short interruption of Severus's unfavourable action, which only lasted about two years ; the Decian and Valerian persecutions occupy about eight years (25 1-260) ; and again, from the death of Valerian to the beginning of the Diocletian persecution, there was another interval of forty years of unbroken peace, and during those years the Church was not only tolerated by official indifference but was some- times encouraged by imperial favour.* • In times of persecution most likely the Churches met in secret places. Thus Gregory of Tours (lib. x. 31) says that Gatianus, the first Bishop of Tours, in the time of Decius, concealed himself on account of the attack of great men who overwhelmed him with ill- treatment, and celebrated secretly in crypts and hiding-places the PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE, 29 During these long intervals of peace the Church was freely and independently growing in numbers, wealth, and consideration. The congregations assembled without any secrecy in the houses where their worship was conducted ; and later on they built churches in the cities, and possessed themselves of suburban cemeteries in which they erected chapels and monuments; till at length this great organization, rapidly growing in numbers, wealth, and influence in every part of the world, including all ranks and classes, bound together by a bond of sacred fraternity, possessed of a spirit of self-devotion to the cause, and a burning zeal of proselytism, seemed to Roman statesmen to constitute a serious danger to the State, In these long intervals of peace the Churches made free use of the arts and applied them to their require- ments ; while the individual martyrdoms and general persecutions have left their marks upon the art history of the times. To return to the special question of Christian architecture before Constantine, it was probably in the interval of peace after the death of Septimius Severus, under the favour of Alexander Severus, that the Christian communities first openly began to build churches. In the reign of Alexander Severus (222-235) there was a dispute between the Christians of Rome and the Guild of the Popinarii — the Taverners — about the Mystery of the Solemnity of the Lord's Day to the few converts whom he had made. 30 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. possession of a plot of land, on which one proposed to build a church and the other a tavern ; it was referred to the emperor, who gave his decision in favour of the Christians, saying that it was better that God should be worshipped in any form in the place, than that the place should become the scene of the license of a tavern. Tradition says that the church built on this site was dedicated by Bishop Callistus, and is now represented by the Church of St. Maria in Trastavere. It is very possible that the persecution of Decius was in part provoked by this growing boldness of the Church, and would check it for the time ; * but the edict of Gallienus, restoring to the Church its property and making its worship lawful, was almost an invita- tion to build places for its worship. It is certain that before the end of the third century churches had been built in many of the cities of the Roman empire, and probably in the eastern countries beyond the boundaries of the empire, in which also the Church was flourishing. Lactantiusf relates that in the empire, " by the time of the outbreak of the Diocletian persecution, the numbers of the frequenters of the churches had so increased that they pulled down the ancient churches and rebuilt them from the founda- tion in all the cities, and these buildings were * A passage in the "Apostolic Constitutions" (viii. 34) seems to belong to this period. " If it be not possible to go to the church on account of the unbelievers, thou, O bishop, shalt assemble them in a house, . . . if it is not possible to assemble in a house, let every one by himself sing and read and pray, or two or three together. " t " De Mortibus Persecutorum," ch. xii. PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTJNE. 31 insufficient to contain the increasing multitudes of worshippers, and in their place more spacious and stately edifices were erected." The publicity of their churches and their architectural character is illustrated by that of Nicomedia, the eastern capital of the empire, which is described as a " magnificent " building, erected on an elevated site in the midst of the other great buildings of the city, in full view from the windows of the imperial palace. There are some interesting notices which help us to conjecture the growth of Church organization in Rome. An extant letter of Pius I., Bishop of Rome (142-157), states that Felix, a presbyter, had given a " titulusy * As early as the beginning of the third century Bishop Evarlstus is said to have divided the "titles" among the priests and appointed seven deacons. Fabian (236-251) divided the four- teen (civic) regiones of Rome among the deacons ; and there is reason to believe that each region had its titulus, or " parish church," and its cemetery ; that each cemetery had its chapel^ r basilica : and that there were two priests to each title, one of whom ministered in the chapel of the cemetery. DIonysIus (259-269) is said to have revised this organization ; Marcellus (308-3 10) constituted twenty-five tituli m the city of Rome ; Optatus of Melevia states that there were forty churches in Rome and its suburbs in the time of Diocletian — twenty-five in the city and fifteen in the suburbs. * I.e. a permanent church to which priests were appointed, and which might not be abandoned (Ducange). 32 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. The provincesof Gaul, Spain, and Britain were much behind the ancient, populous, wealthy, and civilized provinces of the East, and behind Italy ; but that even in those remote and backward populations there were, before Constantine, Christian communities, who had built for themselves churches, we gather from the statement of Lactantius, that the Csesar Constantius did not approve of the persecution ordered by Diocle- jtian, and " while he destroyed the churches in his provinces, which could be rebuilt, the true temple /| which is in men he preserved." That there were public churches and cemeteries in Spain and no hindrance to their free use seems to be proved by certain Canons of the Council of Illiberis (300 or 301 A.D.) ; for Canon 21 censures those who should be absent from church for three Sundays ; Canon 36 prohibits the painting on their walls of sacred persons or saints ; and Canon 35 forbids women to attend the night vigils in the cemeteries, because it was found to lead to abuses. We have also proof of the exist- ence of churches in Africa in the fact that when Con- stantine became Emperor of the West he gave the clergy of those regions money for the rebuilding of their churches which had been destroyed. When the Church began to erect independent buildings for its worship, it adhered to the plan to which it had so long been accustomed, with such modifications as convenience suggested. Its architects found this modified plan ready to their hands in the basilicas of the Roman magistrates. For the official PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 33 basilica was an enlargement of the usual reception- rooms of a Roman house, adapted to the needs of a large public assembly. There the great patrician received the crowd of clients who waited upon him daily to pay their respects or to prefer their requests ; there the Roman magistrate received the crowd of courtiers and suitors, administered justice, and transacted his general public business.* It retained the open court on what we may conveniently call the west. The great hall was divided by its two rows of columns, only instead of the centre of the nave being left open to the weather, it u'as usually completely roofed over. The ancient tablinum was modified into an apsidal tribune, which, for the sake of convenience and dignity, was raised above the level of the hall, and the opening between them was spanned by a lofty arch. The curule chair of the magistrate was placed upon the elevated platform, on the chord of the apse, conveniently overlooking the great hall ; and a stone bench round the curve of the apse afforded seats for assessors, officials, or visitors of distinction. A curtain was drawn before the tribune while the judges consulted. A transverse aisle or transept sometimes separated the tribune from the rest of the hall. Such a basilica was " Herod's judg- ment hall "1 at Csesarea, where Festus, sitting in his chair of office, with Agrippa and Bernice on chairs beside him, and the chief captains and principal men of the city on the bench behind, permitted St. Paul to speak for himself. * Compare the basilica of the house of the •' most excellent Theo philus " at Antiodi, p. 15. I CHAPTER IV. ARCHITECTURE OF THE PUBLIC CHURCHES BEFORE CONSTANTINE. Churches in the East ; in Central Syria ; in North Africa ; Egypt and Nubia — Description of a Basilican Church — The Church at Tyre — Church symbolism. I HEN the architects were required to build churches for public worship, we have seen that they adopted the basilican plan, which retained the architectual arrangement to which the congregations were accustomed, with just such modifications as made it still better suited to Christian worship. We find the plan almost universally in use from Britain to Nubia, from Spain to Mesopo- tamia, and it continued in use for centuries, and indeed continues, in a modified form, down to the present day. In the thirteenth century it became usual, in England, to enlarge the semicircular tribune into the long square-ended chancel, in order to transfer the choir into it out of the atrium ; but the nave and aisles of mediaeval and modern churches ARCHITECTURE BEFORE CONSTANTINE, ^35 are the old atrium, with Gothic, instead of Grecian, details. In looking for the earliest existing examples of these public churches, we do not necessarily turn to Rome, where the people, and especially the noble families, were among the latest to abandon the worship of Capital of pilaster supporting the "Triumphal Arch" of the Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian, Diarbekr. the ancient gods ; nor necessarily to the empire at all. There are several other countries where we might search with better reason. Tradition indicates a very early acceptance of Christianity by the kings of Osrhoene, and it is confirmed by the fact that the 36 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Abgarus who reigned at Edessa from i6o to 170 replaced the old symbols of the national worship on his coinage by the symbol of the cross. The Edessans are said in their chronicle to have had a church {templum ecclesics Christianorwn) which was destroyed by a flood in 202 A.D. A church still exists at Urfa (Edessa) of basilican plan and with details of good classical character.* The Church had been planted in Parthia in Apostolic times, and, sometimes protected, sometimes persecuted by the Great King, it had attained considerable magnitude before the age of Constantine. Two churches exist at Diarbekr f with capitals of fine and pure classical design ; at Nisibis is a basilica of early date and in perfect preserva- tion ; these may be among the earliest existing churches, but we need fuller and more accurate infor- mation about them. Gregory, called Thaumaturgus, is said to have built a church at Neo-Csesarea in Pontus in 258. Gregory the Illuminator caused three churches to be built at Etchmiadzin, about 300 A.D., and under his preaching Armenia had embraced Christianity as the national religion before the age of Constantine ; among the ancient churches of these countries it is possible that some very early examples may still exist. The earliest existing examples which we are able with any confidence to claim are in Central Syria and in North Africa. In Northern and Central Syria are more than a * "Christians under the Crescent," p. 81. t Ibid., p. loi. ARCHITECTURE BEFORE CONSTANTINE. yj hundred ruined — or rather deserted — cities; for in many of them houses, public buildings, churches, and tombs are so far perfect that a very little labour in replacing fallen stones, putting on roofs and adding doors, would restore them to their original condition. They were built in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, were deserted probably at the time of the Mohammedan conquest early in the seventh century, have never since been occupied, and remain unaltered by the hand of man. We shall have to return to this Church at Chaqqa, Syria. interesting series of examples of Christian architecture, but for the present we have only to introduce two of them which belong to the period with which we are here immediately concerned. M. de Vogue * thinks that at Chaqqa to be the earliest, and assigns it to the end of the second or beginning of the third century. It differs from the conventional basilican type. It is 1830 metres from east to west, and 1980 from north to south, the height of the fagade • " Syrie Centrale," by Count M. de Vogu^. 38 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. being 8"36. The internal colonnades are not, as usual, of equally spaced columns, but each colonnade con- sists of a wide central arch with one narrower arch on each side. De Vogiie says that there was a gallery on each side over the side aisles. The construction is rude, of stone without cement, except in the facade and pillars. The basilica at Taffka, which has the remarkable feature of a tower at the north corner, is assigned by M. de Vogu6 to the third century. The section across the church shows that the arches of the nave reached to the roof; while the side aisles are divided into two stories, of which the upper forms a gallery. The entire construction is of stone ; the roof, the floors of the galleries, even the shutters of the windows (of which two remain 171 situ), are of stone. In North Africa there are also ancient cities so far perfect that they are more correctly described as deserted than ruined, as Lamboesis, Thamugas, Theveste, in Algeria, south of the slopes of the Aures, and Sufetulu, in Tunisia ; an account of the remains of the early churches in these countries would occupy a chapter ; their foundations may be traced in nearly every town, and occasionally portions of the super- structure remain. These also are all (or with very rare exceptions) of the basilican type. In Egypt, and so far south as Nubia, very ancient churches are found. The church at Ermet in Egypt, and that at Ibrim in Nubia, are, perhaps, of the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century. The fine basilica of Theveste, built not later than the first ARCHITECTURE BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 39 century, has certainly been a church since the reign of Justinian, but it was perhaps originally built for a civil basilica, and subsequently converted to Christian uses. One of the earliest which we can claim as having been built for a church, is at Djemla, in Algeria. It is a rectangular hall, 92 feet long by 52 feet wide, divided by pillars into a nave and aisles, with a lofty square enclosure at the upper end, on the usual site of the chancel. Its floor is covered with a fine mosaic pavement, so purely classical in design as to leave no doubt of its early date. Another very early church at Announa, also in Algeria, is of the common basilican plan, a body and aisles, about 95 feet square, with a semicircular apse at the upper end. A basilica at Orleansville, the ancient Castellum Tingitanum, erected, according to an inscription, in 252 (probably a local era corresponding to A.D. 325), is 80 feet long by 52 wide, divided by four rows of pillars into a nave with double aisles, and has an apse at the lower as well as the upper end. A church of the usual basilican plan at Oued Gilma, of the fourth or fifth century, has the novel features of external buttresses and small windows in the aisle wa^. It is clear, then, that the Christian communities from the first were accustomed to worship in the spacious and handsome upper rooms, or in the stately pillared atria, of the houses of wealthy converts ; and that at a comparatively early period, they built public churches, in which they imitated the domestic build- 40 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. ings to which they had become accustomed, not only in general architectural plan and design, but in the use of marble and bronze, mosaic pavements, and mural paintings. There is reason to believe that the sumptuous appointments of the private houses were also imitated in the furniture of the public churches ; and that the greater churches sometimes possessed considerable wealth in gold and silver vessels for the Eucharistic service, silver lamps, and silken hangings.* The following is a detailed description of a basilican church : — The court was usually approached from the west by a pronaos or entrance more or less orna- mented. It was a large open area surrounded by a pillared cloister, and in the middle was a cantharus or fountain, at which the people washed their hands as they came to worship. This was the original of jf the holy-water stoop outside the doors of our medieval churches, into which the people dipped their fingers. The church presented on the side of the court an unpretending fagade, A low portico, a con- tinuation of the cloister of the atrium, stretched across the front, and sometimes a long narrow porch beyond that called the nart]iex,2,\.Q.xx\\ whose derivation is uncertain. Above the portico were usually three long round-headed undivided windows, symmetrically arranged, and above them a round window in the pediment ; windows of the same kind were introduced * See chapter xix. ARCHITECTURE BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 41 in both side walls immediately under the eaves, which admitted abundance of light. The portals were usually square-headed, and often decorated with sculptured architraves taken or copied from older buildings. The church itself, we have seen, was a large hall divided by colonnades. The pillars often supported an architrave which carried the wall above ; but the arch was more frequent. In either case the structure was not adapted to vaulting, and was roofed with timber ; the rude timber beams which we see in some cases are not necessarily original, it is pro- bable that the original roofs were more ornamentally finished with timbers carved, coloured, and gilded, or sheathed in metal ; we know that the basilica of Ulpia, for example, was roofed with beams of gilded bronze. At the upper end of the nave was placed the choir elevated some feet above the pavement, and enclosed by cancelli from which we get the name of chancel. In the early Oriental churches these cancelli were made of wood ; in the West all the examples which remain are of marble, very generally adorned with that kind of mosaic which is called opus Alexandrinum. On either side of the choir stood the atnbones, or pulpits, the loftier and more richly adorned was usually on the (ritual) north side from which the deacon read the Gospel, the other on the south side from which the subdeacon read the Epistle. From the Gospel pulpit also the Bidding Prayers were read, and the bishop or priest preached ; a small pillar in front of it supported the Paschal candle. 42 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. The sanctuary in the larger churches was divided from the nave by the triumphal arch. The altar — there was only one — stood on the raised platform of the apse, on the chord of the apse, or a little before or behind that line, but always well forward from the east wall, surmounted by its tabernacle or baldachino. A stone chair, elevated on some steps against the centre of the east wall, was the throne of the bishop, and the stone bench round the curve of the wall formed the seat of his presbyters. We are able to conclude this series of the ante- Constantine churches by a contemporary description of one of them, the earliest detailed description of a church and its furniture which has come down to us. A new church was built at Tyre between the years 313 and 332 ; it was built on the site of a former church — though that was not the most advantageous position which could have been found for it — on account of the attachment of the people to the old site. It was built, not by the imperial bounty, for it must be borne in mind that the imperial favour was not extended to the Church in the East till the defeat of Licinius in A.D. 323, but by the voluntary donations of the people themselves, under the pious care of Paulinus, the aged bishop. It is not to be supposed that all churches were of like magnitude and splen- dour, for we are expressly told that this was by far the most noble church at that time in Phoenicia. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, the well-known historian of the early Church, as metropolitan of the province, dedicated the church, and preached the dedication ARCHITECTURE BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 43 sermon, and, with a pardonable vanity for which we are very grateful, preserved his sermon in his History; and in his sermon the description of the church occurs. We give a paraphrase * of Eusebius's account as more generally intelligible than the rhetorical and somewhat obscure original : — "Eusebius states that the bishop surrounded the site of the church with a wall of enclosure. This wall, according to Dr. Thomson (' The Land and the Book,' p. 189, chap, xiii.), can still be traced, and measures 222 feet in length by 129 in breadth. In the east side of this wall was a large and stately entrance, which gave access to a quadrangular atrium ; this was surrounded by ranges of columns, the spaces between which were filled by net-like railings of wood ; in the centre of the court was a fountain, at which those who were about to enter the church purified themselves {i.e. washed their hands and feet). " The church itself was entered through interior por- ticoes, perhaps a narthex, but whether distinct from the portico which bounded the atrium on that side, does not appear. Three doorways led into the nave ; the central of these was by far the largest, and had doors covered with bronze reliefs ; the other door- ways gave entrance to the side aisles. Above these aisles were galleries, well lighted (doubtless by ex- ternal windows), and looking upon the nave ; these galleries were adorned with beautiful work in wood. The passage is a little obscure, but it seems most pro- bable that the passage from the galleries into the nave * From the •' Dictionary of Christian Antiquities." 44 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. was protected by a balustrade of wood. The nave was constructed of still richer materials than the rest, and the roof was of cedar of Lebanon. Dr. Thomson states that the remains of five granite columns may still be seen, and that ' the height of the dome was eighty feet, as appears by the remains of an arch.' Nothing which Eusebius says leads to the supposition that there was a dome, and the arch was probably the triumphal arch, through which, as in many basilican churches, a space in front of the apse, some- thing like a transept, was entered. " The building having been in such manner com- ) pleted, Paulinus, we are told, provided it with thrones ' in the highest places for the honour of the presidents, \ and with benches according to fitness, and, placing the most holy altar in the midst, surrounded the whole with wooden net-like railings of most skilful work, so that the enclosed space might be inaccessible to the crowd. The pavement, he adds, was adorned with marble decoration of every kind. Then, on the outside, he constructed very large external buildings and halls, which were attached to the sides of the church, and connected with it by entrances in the hall lying between. These halls, we are told, were destined for those who still required the purification and sprinkling of water and of the Holy Ghost. " It may not be out of place to extract the passage of the sermon in which the preacher makes an elaborate parallel between the material and the spiritual Church of Tyre. 'The exterior wall he compares to the great mass and multitude of the ARCHITECTURE BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 45 people. The doors, to the ostiaries who admit the people into the building. These he has supported by the four pillars which are placed without around the quadrangular atrium, by initiating them in the first elements of the literal sense of the Four Gospels Then he stations around on both sides of the royal temple, those who are yet catechumens and that are yet making progress and improvement, though not very far separated from the inmost view of Divine things enjoyed by the faithful. Receiving from among these the souls that are cleansed like gold by the Divine washing [baptism], he likewise supports and strengthens those with columns far better than these external ones, viz. by the inner mysteries and hidden doctrines of the Scriptures. He also illuminates them by the openings to admit the light, adorning the whole temple with one grand C\ vestibule (?) of adoration to the one only God, the universal Sovereign ; exhibiting however, as the second splendour, the light of Christ and of the Holy Spirit on each side of the Father's authority, and displaying in the rest, throughout the whole building, the abundance and the exceeding great excellence of the clearness and brilliancy of truth in every part. Having also selected from everywhere and every quarter the living and moving and well-prepared stones of the mind, he has built a grand and truly royal edifice of all, splendid and filled with light within and without. " ' And in this temple there are also thrones and many seats and many benches [for the bishop, priests, 46 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. and deacons], and in all the souls in them the gifts of the Holy Spirit reside, such as anciently were seen in the holy Apostles, to whom cloven tongues as of fire appeared and sat upon each of them. But in the chief of all [the bishop] Christ Himself resides as it were in His fulness. In those that rank next to Him [the priests] each one shares proportionately in the distribution of the power of Christ and of the Holy Ghost. The souls of those to whom is com- mitted the care of instruction [the deacons, etc.] may be seats for angels. Nobler and grand and unique is the altar, such as should be, sincere and most holy, the mind and spirit of the priest of the whole congregation [the celebrant]. That great High Priest of the universe, Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, Himself standing at His right hand, receives the sweet incense from all, and the bloodless and immaterial sacrifices of prayer, with a bright and benign eye ; and with extended hand bears them to the Father of heaven and God over all. He Him- self first adoring Him, and the only one that gives to the Father the worship that is His due, and then interceding with Him for us, that He may always continue propitious and favourable to us.' " Notwithstanding a little obscurity of language here and there, we easily catch the meaning of this interesting early example of ecclesiastical symbolism. The preacher reaches his climax when he proceeds to remind his hearers that the material Temple which they are dedicating, is a figure of the universe, and this worship of the Church on earth but a faint ARCHITECTURE BEFORE CONSTANTINE. 47 echo of the worship which all His intelligent creatures offer through Christ to God : — i '"Such is the character of this great Temple which the mighty creative Word hath established through- out the whole world, constituting this again a kind of intellectual image on earth of those things beyond the vault of heaven. So that in all His creation, and by all His intelligent creatures on earth, the Father should be honoured and adored. But those regions beyond the heavens are also displays of what areliere ; and that Jerusalem above, and that heavenly Sion, and that City of the Living God beyond our earth, in which* are the mnumerable choir of angels, and the assembly of the Firstborn written in heaven, extol their Maker and the Universal Sovereign of all with praises and hymns inexpressible. These surpass our comprehension, neither could any mortal tongue be adequate to express that glory. For eye hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive those things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' " CHAPTER V. THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. Rome no longer the capital of the empire, and not the centre of Christian influence — Constantine's Churches at Rome — Basilicas not converted into Churches — Temples seldom converted into Churches ; their materials used in building Churches on their sites — Description of St. Peter's, St. Paul's, and St. Agnes' at Rome — Constantine's Churches in the East ; at Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Constantinople — Effect of Constantine's conversion on Christian art. HEN Constantine entered Rome, after the victory at the Milvian Bridge (A.D. 312), it was as an avowed convert to Chris- tianity and champion of the Christian cause. He made open profession of his new faith by causing to be placed in the hand of his statue in the Forum a copy of the Labarum, the standard embroidered with the symbolic XP under which he had gained his decisive victory ; and the senate, probably with no very great enthusiasm, decreed / a triumphal arch to the victor. The arch of Constantine is in a sense a Christian monument, the earliest of his reign, and the only THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 49 one which has come down to us unaltered and un- injured, and it is quite worth while to include it among our illustrations, if only as a standard of architectural comparison, and to say a few words about it. After the victory of the Milvlan Bridge, which gave to Constantine the Empire of the West, and secured the victory of Christianity, the Roman senate decreed to their new sovereign the honour of a triumphal arch. It was the work of the senate, which was still, and for long afterwards continued to be, conservative of the religion of the gods of Rome ; but it is a monument of the victory of Christianity, and its ambiguous inscription bears witness to the politic compromise which the senate made between their own beliefs and the new religion of the emperor to whose honour it was dedicated. It is sufficiently well known, and the woodcut sufficiently represents its general features to make a detailed description unnecessary. But there are some remarkable features in its construction which illustrate the state of art at the time which we have elsewhere had occasion to mention. Portions of the monument, notably the bas-reliefs and statues which adorn its faces, are of the age of Trajan, and probably belonged originally to an arch dedicated to that emperor ; while others of the bas-reliefs introduced are in a style of art greatly inferior, and are no doubt the \vork of the sculptors employed at this date by the senate. The usual explanation is that the senate destroyed an arch of Trajan, and used the materials E 50 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. in the construction of their monument to Constantine, which would be in accordance with the custom ol the time to rifle ancient monuments of their precious materials for the construction of new buildings, of which we find so many examples in the Christian Churches for centuries afterwards, and, in harmony with another custom, to appropriate old imperial Arch of Constantine, Rome. statues to new emperors by the simple expedient of cutting off the heads of the old statues, and replacing them by new portraits. But we take leave to offer another conjecture which we venture to think more probable. The fine design and pure archi- tectural details of this noble monument seem to be beyond the capabilities of the debased art of the beginning of the fourth century. Moreover it does THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 51 not on examination give evidence of being, as a whole, a new design worked up out of old materials. The work looks like a fine and homogeneous whole, with a few debased details manifestly added. We suggest that an arch dedicated to Trajan was bodily "annexed" by the senate; a few new bas-reliefs substituted for others which were unsuitable for its present appropriation ; and a new inscription placed over the central arch, which dedicated it to the glory of the new master of Rome. The inscription on the south front is as follows : — IMP . CAES . FL . CONSTANTINO . MAXIMO . P. F. AVGVSTO . S. P. Q. R. QVOD . INSTINCTV . DIVINITATIS . MENTIS MAGNITVDINE , CVM . EXERCITV . SVO TAM . DE . TYRANNO . QVAM . DE . OMNI . EIVS FACTIONE . VNO . TEMPORE . JVSTIS REMPVBLICAM . VLTVS . EST . ARMIS . ARCVM . TRIVMPHIS . INSIGNEM . DICAVIT "To the Emperor Csesar Flavius Constantinus, Maximus, Pius, Felix, Augustus, who, by the inspira- tion of the Divinity and the greatness of his genius, together with his army, has avenged, by his just arms, the Republic at the same time from the Tyrant and all his faction, the Roman Senate and People have dedicated this eminent Arch of Triumph." Inside the centre arch are also the inscriptions : LIBERATORI . VRBIS, on one side, and on the other, FVNDATORI . QVIETIS. To the Liberator of the City ; To the Founder of Peace. There used to be a 52 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. question whether the words INSTINCTV . divinitatis were not a later insertion, a correction of some allusion to a Pagan deity ; but at the instance of the Emperor Napoleon III., architects and savans were allowed to ascend the arch and make a careful ex- amination of the inscription, and they found that the words were beyond doubt an integral part of the original inscription. The popular notion that Constantine proceeded to give basilicas and temples to be converted into churches, and to make Rome the centre of the Christian world, is erroneous. Rome was at that time, and continued to be for two centuries longer, the chief stronghold of the ancient religion ; its temples occupied the most commanding situations, and were among the great architectural glories of the city ; their worship was maintained with all its wonted splendour. The great nobles adhered to the old religion as part of the ancient order to which they belonged, and the citizens as a body showed the same attachment. The vast population of the city, drawn from all parts of the world, afforded converts enough to make up the most numerous Church of any city in the empire, but they were chiefly of the lower orders of the people. The Church was over- shadowed in Rome by the dominant State re- ligion. Nor was the Church of Rome distinguished among the Churches of Christendom ; it had not yet pro- duced a single name great in theological learning or THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 53 ecclesiastical statesmanship. The Churches of the East constituted by their wealth, learning, and civilization, the most important part of Christendom, and for many generations to come they looked down upon the comparatively recent, rude, unlearned Churches of the West. Moreover, Rome had long ceased to be the political centre of the empire. The Eastern conquests had made the shores of the Bosphorus the most convenient centre of affairs ; there, on the Asiatic shore, Diocletian had built a new capital at Nicomedia, and Constantine shortly removed it to the western shore at Byzantium ; and the secondary capital of the Augustus of the West had been established at Milan. This will explain the fact that Constantine remained less than three months at Rome on this occasion, and did not revisit it again till he celebrated there his decennalia. No doubt the conqueror during those three months showed his good will to his new faith by benefactions to the Church of Rome. Notably he founded two noble churches over the resting-places of the Apostle-martyrs, the founders and patron- saints of the Roman Church, St. Peter's at the Vatican and St. Paul's without the Walls ; and several other churches are, with less certainty, attributed to him. When it is said that the emperor built churches, at Rome and elsewhere, what is meant is that he contributed the necessary funds, but there is direct evidence that he left the design and execution of the work to the bishops of the places, to whom it naturally belonged. 54 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. There is no evidence that he gave any of the civil basilicas in Rome or elsewhere to be converted into churches. It would be difficult to explain why the head of the civil administration of the empire should eject the magistrates from their courts and build new basilicas for them, when it was just as easy to build new churches where they were wanted. There is, in fact, only one known example in which a basilica was turned into a church, and that was at Treves.* Constantine did present the Palace of the Lateran, which had come to him through his wife, the Empress Fausta, to the Bishop of Rome, who made it the episcopal residence ; and the basilica of the palace, which was probably larger and handsomer than all the earlier churches, was used as a church — the cathedral church of the city — and it still takes pre- cedence of all the churches of Rome. Bishop Sylvester is said to have added a baptistery. Nor did Constantine give up the ancient temples to be used as churches. It was his wise policy at this time to relieve the public mind of any fear of retaliation for the past persecution of Christianity, or of a crusade against the ancient religions. The only temples whose worship Constantine suppressed were some temples of Venus, on account of the im- moralities practised in them, and for like reasons he suppressed the worship of Isis in Egypt. The temples were gradually deserted, until the edict of Valentinian II' (391) put an end to the public ceremonies of the old religions, closed the temples, and appropriated * E. A. Freeman, THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 55 them to various public uses, or left them to gradual decay.* The building which is given here as a specimen of the ancient temples is that at Nimes, in France, which is popularly known as the Maison Carrie. It is a gem of architecture. The excellence of its proportions, the beauty of its Corinthian columns, The Maison Carree at Nimes. frieze, and cornice, and its wonderful preservation, make it the finest example of a classical temple remaining in Northern Europe. The date is disputed, but it is probably of the time of Antoninus Pius. The columns scattered around it are the remains of * Jerome (Ep. cvii. I, 2) speaks of the temples at Rome as left to neglect, disorder, and decay. 56 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. long colonnades, which probably formed part of the forum of the ancient city, into the further end of which the temple projected. Some of the disused temples of the ancient gods were ultimately converted into churches, but the ordinary plan of a temple was not well adapted to the uses of the Christian assembly. The ancient worship was an outdoor worship. The altar was placed at the base of the porticoed front of the temple. As the people stood assisting at the sacrifice, the pillared facade of the temple formed a background to the altar and an ornamental screen for the cella behind, in which O the deity was supposed to be present. Since the j:ella _j y was not intended to contain a body of worshippers, it was comparatively small and dark. An early church was architecturally a temple turned inside out. It was intended to enclose the whole body of worshippers within its ample area ; its stately colon- nades, sculptured friezes, and marble veneering were all inside, while the exterior presented to the outside world only a mass of brick wall, with hardly any attempt to mitigate its blank ugliness.* There were exceptions such as will readily occur to the mind of the reader. The Parthenon at Athens, and the Temple of Jupiter of the Capitol of Rome, in which the senate held its meetings, and others, had a cella large enough to contain a great congregation ; in some other instances, by throwing down the cella and building a wall between the columns * The exteriors of the Syrian churches are an exception to thi-s statement. THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 57 which had surrounded it, a capacious church was obtained.* More frequently the temples left desolate by the expiring heathenism, and handed over to the trium- phant Church, were pulled down, and churches were built on the site, and largely out of the old materials. A great number of churches all over Christendom are traditionally said to occupy the sites of heathen temples, and among them St. Peter's, Cornhill, and St. Paul's, London. One of the commonest features of the most ancient churches is that they are largely made up of the spoils of more ancient buildings. The Christian architects had not wealth enough at their disposal to obtain at first hand the shapely monolithic columns of the earlier magnificence of the Roman world, or skill enough to execute the beauti- fully carved capitals of a purer style of art ; but they had taste enough to appreciate them, and they habitually used them in their new buildings. Some- times the columns did not match, and the architect helped a column which was too short by giving it a taller base. In the same way, the Christian artists ^ > used ancient carved ivories to ornament a bishop's /^ chair or form the covers of the sacred books, and ancient gems engraved with classical devices (some- times strangely incongruous) to enrich chalices and * The Pantheon and the Church of S. Maria Egiziaca are the only '^.'^ examples at Rome of temples turned into churches (Liibke's " History \ of Art") (the Pantheon at Rome was consecrated as a church in A.D. 610), and the Church of S. Urbano alia Caffarella in the suburbs of Rome (Lord Lindsay), but very few in Italy ; in the East a larger number were thus converted. 58 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. shrines. And in doing this they were perhaps moved not only by the artist's instinct to adorn his work with that which was intrinsically precious in material and beautiful in art, but wiLh something of the spirit of a conqueror displaying in his triumphal procession the riches of the conquered people. These were the Church's trophies of its conquest over the heathen worships and godless luxury of the ancient time. X The new churches which were built at this period at Rome, the two basilicas — the one on the site of Nero's Circus, in honour of St. Peter, and the other without the walls, on the Ostian Way, in honour of St. Paul — both have ceased to exist. St. Peter's was destroyed to make way for the present magnifi- cent monument of the Renaissance. Of the old St. Peter's, however, drawings exist which give us a very accurate idea of the great church. The plan shows the atrium, 212 feet by 225, entered by a portico with buildings on each side which may have been added in the Middle Ages. It has the usual columned cloister round the sides and the fountain in the middle. The eastern portico, which formed the narthex, is entered by a little porch. The church itself was 380 feet long by 212 wide ; its magnificent dimensions are perhaps best understood from the statement that it covered as large an area as any 7 mediaeval cathedral except Milan and Seville. At the upper end is a kind of transept, and the apse was separated from the transept by a row of pillars. Over the colonnades of the nave the side walls were THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 59 divided into a double tier of panels, each of which contained a picture ; above these panels was the cleres- tory from which the building received its light, and a broad cornice of ornamental work supported the wall-plate of the roof. What was the design of the original roof is matter of pure conjecture ; probably it was finished with an ornamental ceiling. The The Church of St. Paul without the Walls, Rome. After the fire. columns with their bases and capitals were taken from earlier buildings. The first Church of St. Paul without the Walls was a small church of the normal basilican plan — a fore court, a nave with aisles, and an apse flanked by two square chambers.* Having been badly built, * Lanciani, " Pagan and Christian Rome." 6o HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. it fell into disrepair. The second church on the same site was begun by Theodosius and finished by his sons Arcadius and Honorius on a much larger scale. It was 419 feet long by 217 wide, and the nave 80 feet high ; it had a great court, on the west side of which were five chambers. The noble colonnade was composed of pillars taken from earlier buildings, pillars of the finest and rarest marbles— Greek, Phrygian, and African— some with Corinthian capitals of their own, some with capitals of the time. The two columns of Pentelic marble which supported the triumphal arch were, base and capital included, 45 feet high. It was almost an exact counterpart of St. Peter's in dimensions and plan, but there was one important structural difference : the pillars which separated the nave from the aisles were surmounted by arches instead of a horizontal architrave, which was an improvement in picturesque effect as well as an advance in the principles of construction. The woodcut gives a sufficient idea of the grandeur of the general effect. It was partially destroyed by an accidental fire in 1822. From existing drawings and from the portions which survived the fire the church has been rebuilt as a reproduction of the original church. Several smaller churches claim to have 'been originally built by Constantine or in his reign. One of these, the Church of St. Agnes without the Wall, has preserved its whole construction with THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 6i very little change, and is in this respect one of the most interesting churches in Rome. It consists of a nave separated from the two aisles by sixteen ancient columns — some of them curiously fluted — with good Corinthian and composite capitals. Above rises a second range of columns of smaller dimensions, upon which rests the wall, pierced with windows and sup- porting the roof. Over the aisles and at the west end is a gallery which was reserved for the women. Under the high altar, which has a baldachino, is the " confession " of St. Agnes, where the remains of the virgin martyr are deposited. The square chamber at the east end of the south aisle was probably the ancient sacrarium, and the larger chamber (now used as a vestry) at the north-west side of the building was perhaps the baptistery. Among the other churches in Rome traditionally said to have been founded by Constantine are San Lorenzo and Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme. Both contain portions of the original building and fragments of the greatest interest, but they add nothing to our know- ledge of the art of that early period. When Constantine had won the Empire of the East he caused other churches to be erected at his cost. One at Antioch for its splendour was called the Golden Church; others were at_^Iamre, at Heliopolis in Phoenicia, and at Nicomedia. When the pilgrimage of his mother, the Empress Helena, had drawn attention to the "Holy Places" of Palestine, the emperor built a church at Bethlehem over the site of our Lord's Nativity, a group of churches on the site of the Holy 63 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Sepulchre, and one on the Mount of Olives, over the supposed site of the Ascension. The nave of the church at Bethlehem still remains as represented in the accompanying woodcut. It is the only church of Constantine which still exists ; all the others have been rebuilt or have disappeared. This seems to be a purely unaltered example of the age, with the advantage that all its pillars and The Church of Bethlehem. capitals appear to have been made for the place which they occupy. The dimensions of the whole church are 215 feet long by 103 across. The choir, with its three apses, was probably added or rebuilt by Justinian. The group on the site of the Holy Sepulchre consisted first of a memorial church, of the usual circular plan, round about the rock-tomb which was THE CHURCHES OF CONSTANTINE. 63 believed to be the actual tomb in which our Lord was laid, and to the east of it a basilican church in honour of the Resurrection ; and the two were connected by subsidiary buildings. Constantine's directions to the Bishop of ^lia for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were that it should excel all other churches in beauty, and that not only the building itself, but all its accessories should be such that they should not be surpassed by the fairest structures of any city of the empire. Eusebius gives an elaborate description of the church, and an account of the grand ceremonial of its dedication, A.D. 335. A full description, accom- panied by plans of the buildings erected by Constan- tine, may be seen in Professor Willis's essay in the second volume of Williams's "Holy City." Mr. Fer- gusson has started the strange notion that the Dome of the Rock on Moriah is Constantine's church ; and another site outside the Damascus Gate has lately been put forward as that of the Holy Sepulchre ; but it is highly probable that the traditional site is not only that which was pointed out to the Empress Helena, but also that it is the true site of the Sepulchre. When Constantine built a new capital for the reunited empire on the west shore of the Bosphorus he made it from the first a Christian city ; not a single heathen temple was permitted within its walls, but fourteen churches supplied the people with abundant provision for Christian worship. The chief of them, dedicated in honour of the twelve Apostles, which came to be more commonly known after his own name as the Ecclesia Constantina, was, 64 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Eusebius says, " vastly high, and yet had all its walls [internally] covered with marble, its roof [ceiling] over- laid with gold, and the outside, instead of tiles, covered with gilded brass," A second great church dedicated to the Holy Wisdom, Sancta Sophia, was finished by his son Constantius. The Church of St. John Studens, commonly said to have been rebuilt after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, is now believed to have retained its original plan and pro- bably much of the original building, the date of which is tolerably well ascertained as A.D. 363. It is a plain basilica, 120 feet long by 85 wide, divided into a nave and aisles by rows of marble columns, supporting an architrave, frieze, and cornice, upon which stand other columns supporting arches ; the capitals are semi-classical, ornamented with acanthus leaves. The style is rich, and retains much of the ancient classical form and feeling. It has a semi-octagonal apse and an oblong narthex. The conversion of Constantine gave a great impulse to the spread of Christianity, especially among the upper class of society, and thereby caused a great increase in church-building and in the employment of all the arts in the service of religion. It would also naturally have the effect of placing at the disposal of the Church the services of the most eminent artists. But this would only ensure that the best of contemporary art would be bestowed upon Christian subjects ; it could not pos- sibly produce any sudden change in the style of art. CHAPTER VI. THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. The colonnades with the Greek architrave ; with the Roman arcn ; with an upper tier of columns— St. Clement's, Rome— St. Am- brose's, Milan— Churches of Central Syria: Babouda ; Qualb Louzeh ; Tourmanin— Domestic architecture of Central Syria — Churches at Nisibis j Thessalonica— The Golden Gate of Jerusalem —Churches of Egypt and Nubia, Thaumugas— Ravenna : Tomb of Galla Placidia ; St. Apollinare Nuova ; St. Apollinare in Classe ; St. Vitale — Parenzo in Istria — Churches of Gaul : Lyons ; St. Martin's, Tours ; Clermont — Existing remains of the classical style in Gaul — The dome in Persia ; in Central Syria ; St. Ezra ; Bozra — The Byzantine dome ; Sta. Sophia — Domes in the West — Traces of the basilican style of architecture in Britain, at Canterbury, Frampton, Silchester— The Celtic churches. HE great defect, as it seems to us, in the interior design of some of the early- basilicas was that the columns were too low in proportion to the great height of the wall which they supported, so that the long- drawn colonnades, which ought to have been the noblest feature of the view, looked dwarfed and over- loaded. This was especially the case where the pillars were surrounded by a straight architrave, as in St. Peter's. But it must be borne in mind that F 66 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. painting was very largely used in the decoration of interiors, and that this wall space would be divided into panels corresponding with the intercolumnia- tions ; the strong vertical borders of these panels would break up the long wall, and continue the line of the columns upwards ; and the panels would be filled with painted designs, so that the whole wall would be alive with interest and rich with colour. The defect of the disproportion of the height of the columns to the height of the wall was greatly diminished by the substitution for the architrave of a series of round arches, as is seen in the interior view of St. Paul's without the Walls (p. 59). The change abolished the strong horizontal line of the architrave which emphasized the defect, and the extra height of the arches increased the proportionate height of the arcades in fact and still more in effect to the eye ; the lines of painted decoration also would naturally follow the curve of the arches and give additional apparent height to the arcades, while it diminished the apparent height of the wall. But in later examples, as we have seen in St. Agnes, the architect frequently got rid of the defective proportion altogether by means of a second tier of columns, which formed what in Gothic churches we call the triforium ; and the Roman designer made better use of this space over the aisle than the Gothic builder, by making it a commodious gallery for the accom- modation of the women. The architrave over the lower arcade found its constructive use as the front of the floor of the gallery, and carried a low parapet THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 67 wall or screen which formed the gallery front. The sloping timber roof, of low pitch, was covered with tiles ; internally it was often ceiled, but in any case the main timbers were often carved and gilded and the panels ornamented with painting. The apses of the aisles were not intended for chapels and had no altars. Paulinus of Nola * de- scribes one of them as the sacristy, and the other as a place where the pious could read the Scriptures and say prayers. There was not more than one altar in a church till centuries later in the Western Church, and in the Eastern Church never. The Church of St. Clement at Rome was lone thought to be the original church built upon the site of the house of the Flavian family, and one of the most unaltered of existing Chris- tian churches. Recent discoveries have shown that the original church was filled in, probably in the twelfth century, in consequence of the great rise in the level of the neighbouring ground ; the present church was built on the same site and partly out of the old materials, and the furniture of the old church was re- placed in the present. The result is that the present church does retain a less altered appearance than any other, and that its arrangements give a better idea of the interior of a primitive basilica. * Ep. 32. rianof St. Clement's, Rome. ^C 68 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART, It has the only perfect court (a) left in Rome. The chancel (g), the earliest remaining example, was probably removed to its present position from the lower church, and is of the time of John VIII., in the The Church of St. Clement, Rome. ninth century. The enclosing walls of marble are sculptured with Christian emblems. On the sides of the choir are the anbones or pulpits (f, f). That on the left (looking towards the altar), from which the Gospel was read, is ascended by a double stair, and THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 69 has a handsome candelabrum of mosaic-work for the Paschal candle ; that on the right has two reading- desks, one towards the tribune, the other towards the nave. The presbytery (i) is separated from the choir by a screen of handsomely sculptured marble panels, evidently of the same period as the choir ; (b) is the narthex ; (l) the altar ; (m) the bishop's throne. The Church of St. Ambrose at Milan still retains very much of the plan and design of a primitive basilica. The fine ninth-century court surrounded by a colonnade is perfect. The church, originally built in the fourth century, was renovated in the twelfth, but it retains its ancient plan, and the tribune retains an ancient episcopal throne ; there is a sculptured sarcophagus of the sixth century over which the pulpit is built, the baldachino is of the eighth century, and the gold and silver altar frontal of the Carolingian period. As we have had to quote a late example of the chancel, so we have to take a late illustration of the arrangement of the apse. The little church at Tor- cello, in the Venetian Lagune, was originally erected in the seventh century, and was altered and perhaps to some extent rebuilt in the first year of the eleventh ; but it still retains much of the original arrangement and character, and is the best example we know of the ancient arrangement of the apse — the bishop's throne elevated so that it overlooks the whole con- gregation, and the benches of the presbyters arranged like those of an ancient theatre.* * Fergusson's "History of Architecture," i. 427. 70 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. The exteriors of the older basilicas were usually- very plain in design, and depended upon magnitude and proportion for any dignity which they possessed. Other buildings attached to the church are occasion- ally described, or traces of them found, but the pro- vision of an official house for the clergy does not appear to have formed a regular part of the plan, except in the case of monastic churches. The numerous churches of the deserted cities and monasteries of Central and Northern Syria afford a very interesting and valuable series of examples, fairly perfect and unaltered, of the ecclesiastical art of the period from the third to the seventh centuries. Many of them are given in plan, elevations, and details, in Count M. de Vogue's work on the " Archi- tecture of Central Syria." The churches have not usually inscriptions or dates, but some of the houses and monuments have, and by comparison M. de Vogue claims to assign the dates of the churches with trust- worthy accuracy. These Syrian architects, while adopting the universal basilican plan, and using the principles and ornamental forms of the old Greek art, display much artistic vigour and freedom. They had not, as the builders in countries of older civiliza- tion had, the ruins of temples and palaces to furnish them with columns and capitals ready to their hand, and consequently they had not the example of those older works as a constant check upon their own genius. Moreover, the material with which they had to deal influenced their work to some extent THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE, 71 both in construction and ornament ; for the absence of timber drove them to employ arches to span their intercolumniations and to cover their areas, and the hard character of the stone was unfavour- able for such fine work as Corinthian and Composite capitals, and led them to the use of ornament in low relief. The result is that we do not find their churches — like so many in other countries — made up of interesting but incongruous ancient materials, and we do find original invention in scientific construction and in artistic design. In these churches first occurs the idea of two western towers, which became a characteristic feature of medifeval cathedrals ; some of their apses are deco- rated in a way which found its full development in the Romanesque of the Rhine ; and, lastly, we find here the introduction of the square plan surmounted by a dome, which after- wards developed into the characteristic fea- ture of Byzantine archi- tecture. We can only cite two or three examples of special interest as re- presentatives of the characteristics which we , , .11 Church of Babouda, Syria. ; have described. The little church at Babouda, of the fifth century, has a nave witliout aisles, an apse, and a narthex. The western elevation is a charming example of the 72 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. ornate composition of the external designs of these Syrian churches. It will be seen by a study of the elevation that the narthex has an upper story, open to the air westward and to the church eastward, by which the church receives a flood of light ; this upper story forms a western gallery. The roof of the church continues over the narthex. The massive piers and their capitals, the ornamented moulding round the arches, and the shafts which carry the Church of Baqouza. timbers of the roof are worthy of special notice. The aisles are roofed with horizontal slabs of stone. The church of Baqouza, of the beginning of the sixth century, has a nave with aisles, an apse, and a chamber on each side of the apse, a narthex, and two porches on each side. The woodcut gives a view of the striking eastern elevation ; being built on the slope of a hill, this east end stands on a base which THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 73 gives it additional dignity. The nave is of six bays divided by circular columns with Corinthian capitals, supporting round arches. Qualb Louzeh, in remarkable preservation, has a nave and aisles three bays in length, and a narthex flanked by two western towers. The apse is a fine composition, with three windows, ornamented with shafts still more richly than that of Baqouza. Church of Tourmanin, Syria. One of the finest of these designs is the church of Tourmanin, which consists of nave and aisles of seven bays, an apse with a chamber on each side, and a narthex with two western towers. Like the church at Baqouza, this stands on a site vv^hich gives occasion for a flight of stairs up to the western entrance. It will be seen that here also, as at Babouda, the narthex has an upper gallery, open 74 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. both to the outer air and to the church. The west end is an especially fine composition. These Syrian cities give us also illustrations of the influence of Christian feeling in domestic architecture. De Vogiie remarks that the sudden growth of civilization in the district came immediately after the victory of the Church, and that the religious zeal of the people is shown not only in the existence of numerous churches and several monasteries, but in From a house front, Central Syria. De Vogue's " Syrie Centrale," Plate XLII. the fact that on the greater part of the houses Christian symbols are sculptured, and numerous inscriptions of pious sentences and scripture texts, whose choice indicates the general exultation in the recent triumph of the faith. He mentions one in the bourg of Refadi where a certain Christian named Thalasis built himself a house, and on the door engraved his profession of faith : XPIETE BOHeEI EIS eEOS MONOS, "Christ, help ; Thou art the one God." At Deir Sanbit some one has painted on the THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 75 wall of a house, with red distemper, the sacred monogram of Constantine's Labarum XP with the All, and repeated it, and written over TOYTO NIK A. At Nisibis, beyond the Euphrates, is a triple church which retains the mouldings of its doorways and windows as perfect as when they were erected. "They are identical in style with the buildings of Diocletian at Spalato, and of Constantine [?] at Jerusalem " (Fergusson). At Thessalonica the Eski Juma, or Old Mosque, is a Christian church probably of the fifth century. It is a simple basilica in plan, with nave and narthex. St. Demetrius is larger, divided into five aisles with internal transept, and accessory buildings. The Golden Gate in the east wall of the Temple enclosure at Jerusalem is a fine and fairly perfect work. Fergusson assigns it to Constantine, but it is more probably of the fifth to sixth century (De Vogiie), and a good example of the style as it approached the Byzantine. Basilicas of the fifth and following centuries are still numerous in Egypt and Nubia, the oases of the Libyan Desert, and in the waste lands of Algeria and Tunis. They are usually small, with the peculiarity that the apse is included within a square external wall. At Thamugas in the Aures is one with an inscription which states that it was built in 646 — a square building with an apse, divided into nave and aisles by columns of rose-coloured marble.* * Colonel Playfair's "Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce." 76 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. As time went on the basilican plan and arrange- ment for an ordinary church were still adhered to in the Western Empire, but the architects — especially where they were not influenced by the use of old materials and the presence of old models — began to work with greater freedom, and to feel their way slowly towards a new style. The most important examples are at Ravenna, which Honorius in 404 had made the capital of the empire. His sister, Galla Placidia, afterwards adorned the city with superb monuments, of which her tomb remains. At a later time, when it fell into the hands of Theodoric the Goth, the enlightened conqueror continued the works which he found in progress and built others. The Church of St. Apol- linare Nuova was built in his reign (443-525), and his tomb, with its dome composed of a single stone, is one of the most remarkable of architectural monuments. His daughter Amalasuntha encouraged similar undertakings. When Narses gained the victory over the Goths, Ravenna became the resi- dence of the Exarchs of Justinian. In this reign was built the Church of St. Apollinare in Classe, at the port of Ravenna, about three miles from the city ; it was commenced in 538 and dedicated in 549. These two basilicas still remain in their original condition. They show a considerable development in plan and design ; the nave has a tall clerestory above the level of the aisles, an impost over the capitals, arches over the windows, and a tall bell-tower. In St. Apollinare in Classe the exterior has some THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 77 little relief to the plain side walls of the nave and aisles, in an arcading of shallow pilasters and arches ; but the west wall and the great narthex are as unadorned as they possibly could be, in striking contrast to the elaborate and beautiful architectural design of the interior. A woodcut in Fergusson's " History of Architecture," vol. i. p. 423, of the angle where the nave joins the apse, gives some idea of the grandeur of the design and the richness of its ornamentation. Internally, with its twenty-five Greek marble columns, its richly adorned archivolts, and its grand mosaics (hereinafter described), it is a very noble monument of early Christian architecture. The Church of San Vitale, built A.D. 528-547 under Eastern influences, is the first church in the West which shows a strong Byzantine feeling. It is in plan an octagon, forty-seven feet in diameter, with a choir and apse added to it ; massive pillars support the clerestory and dome ; between the piers of this central area are niches, with galleries above ; * the square piers are cased with marble, and the wall-spaces above are adorned with twisted columns and mosaics. Another fine example, contemporary with these at Ravenna, is the cathedral at Parenzo in Istria, built by Bishop Euphrasius, A.D. 542. It is a long basilica, with apses to the aisles in addition to the central apse, and retains its atrium ; to the west of which is the baptistery — an octagon within a square ; and to the west of that a tower, square externally and round * An arcade of this gallery is given at p. 295. 78 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. internally. Some of the capitals are Corinthian, taken from an earlier building ; others are of a form and ornamentation influenced by the new Byzantine style, which was very shortly to supersede the long- continued debasement of the classical forms of art. For down to this time the sculptors were still imitating the old capitals, architraves, and cornices, rudely and with variations which, with the occasional exception of deliberate copies of old work, departed more and more from the ancient forms. Very few examples of the buildings of this early period remain north of the Alps. We know that Southern Gaul was highly civilized, and possessed noble buildings of all kinds, including churches. The basilican plan for the larger churches, at least, was almost universal, and they had marble columns, tessellated pavements, gilded ceilings, glass windows, mosaics and paintings on the walls. Sidonius (Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius), in one of his pleasant letters,* describes a basilica which Patiens, Bishop of Lyons (A.D. 470), built in honour of the popular Gallic saint Justus, for which Sidonius wrote a dedicatory inscription, engraved on a tablet and fixed on the west wall. The church faced " the equinoctial east." " It is light within ; the sun is attracted to the gilded ceiling, and wanders, with its yellow glow, over the gilded metal. Marbles of various splendour enrich the ceiling {camerariiis), the pavement, and the windows ; and through the green glass of the windows, beneath vari-coloured figures, an encrustation, grassy and * Liber ii. lo. THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE, 79 springlike, bends around the sapphire gems.* It has a triple portico (probably along three sides of the atrium), magnificent with Aquitanian marbles, and a similar portico closes the further (eastern) side of the court. A grove of stone scatters its columns far and wide over the interior." It is easy to recog- nize that the church was of the usual basilican type, with court and narthex, handsomely adorned with marbles, mosaics, and gilding. Gregory of Tours describes some of the Gallic churches of his time (A.D. 573-594). The new basilica of St. Martin, built by Perpetuus, the sixth successor of Martin in the see of Tours, was 160 feet long by 60 wide, and its height to the ceiling, 45 feet ; it had 52 windows, 120 columns, and 8 gates. The church which Namatius, the eighth Bishop of Clermont, built, "which is the principal church there," was 150 feet by 60, and 50 feet high to the ceiling of the nave ; in front {i.e. to the east) it had a round apse, and on each side stretched aisles of elegant structure, and the whole edifice was disposed in the form of a cross. It had 42 windows, 70 columns, and 8 gates. The wife of the above-named Bishop Namatius built the basilica of St. Stephen, without the walls of the town, and had it painted with paintings which she indicated to the artists out of a book which she pos- * The passage is very obscure. Does it describe a pattern of coloured glass in the windows, or the mosaics on the walls ? Here is the original : — *' Ac sub versicoloribus figuris Vernans herbida crusta sapphiratos Flectit per prasinum vitrum lapillo? " 8o HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. sessed. Was it a book with miniature pictures, or a book like that which the Greek artists of later times possessed— a directory of subjects for artists ? * The inhabitants of the south and south-east of France long maintained the classical civilization which the Greek colonists had originally planted there ; and the classical style of art survived in their buildings to a late period. The actual remains of this classical style in Gaul are the porch of the cathedral of Avignon, St. Paul aux Trois Chateaux, near Avignon, and other fragments in the Rhone Valley, as the apse at Alet, with good Corinthian capitals and cornice ; the baptistery at Poictiers, the church of the Convent of Roman Motier, on the Jura, St. Trophimus in Aries, St. Gilles in Languedoc, and others. In the north of Gaul the cathedral at Treves claim.s to be of the date of Constantine ; four colossal granite columns with Corinthian capitals, and portions of the original walls, still remain. It had a circular building adjoining it, probably a baptistery, on the site of the present Liebfrauenkirche. The church is remarkable for having an apse at the west, as well as at the east end. This feature has its prototype in the basilica of Trajan at Rome ; it is found in the early basilica at Orleansville, Algeria, already mentioned ; in several other northern churches, e.g. at Bemberg, Rothenberg, Maintz, and Laach ; and perhaps at Canterbury and Lyminge, Kent.f * See Miss Stokes' edition of Didron's " Iconographie." t Tlie small parish church of Ileybridge, Essex, also hfis a westerq as well as an eastern apse. THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 8r One of the most striking developments of the new style of architecture which was gradually growing up to express the mind of the new Christian world, was the adoption of the square plan, surmounted by a dome, which became the characteristic feature of Byzantine architecture. Where that grand architectural feature the dome originated is not known ; perhaps the earliest example which exists is at the palace of Sarvistan in Persia, constructed in the fourth century, B.C.* It was from Persia probably that the energetic and able builders of Central Syria borrowed it. The earliest church in which it appears is the Church of St. George at Ezra, which is certainly one of the most interesting of all the Christian buildings of this region. Finished in 515 A.D., according to an inscription carved on the lintel of the west door, it has come down to us without altera- tion, and uninjured in its es- sential features ; always conse- crated to the offices of religion, for which it was built, and which are still celebrated beneath its venerable vault. The plan is extremely simple.f It consists of two regular con- centric octagons, inscribed in a square ; the central octagon supports a drum and cupola. Projecting from the eastern face of the J I I I M Plan of St. George's, Ezra, Syria. Ill It ' L'Art Antique de la Perse." M. Dieulafoy. t Plate XX., De Vogue's " Syrie Centrale." HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. external octagon is built the choir (flanked by two square sacristies); which terminates in an apse, and in each of the angles of the square is a niche ; there are three doors at the west, and one on the north and south sides of the square. The diameter of the external octagon is 60 feet ; of the interior octagon, 35 feet ; the total length of the choir is 27 feet. The cupola is supported by eight pillars 14 feet high, which carry a drum of 18 feet. The last Church of St. George, Ezra, Syria, two rows of this drum are made of slabs, which transform the octagonal drum first into a figure of sixteen sides, and then of thirty-two sides, and so the octagon passes gradually into the circle, which serves as the base of the cupola. The cupola De Vogue believes to be part of the original structure. Its ovoid form is very unusual, and recalls the monu- ments of Central Asia. At the base of the cupola is a row of small windows, the first example of a THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. Z^ method of lighting which finds its full development in Sta. Sophia at Constantinople. Round the apse are seats for the clergy. i The inscription seen over the west door is to the effect that the abode of demons is become the house of the Lord ; the light of salvation enlightens the place which the shadows obscured ; the sacrifices to a deity are replaced by the choirs of angels ; where the orgies of a false god v/ere celebrated the praises of God are sung. A man who loves Christ, the notable John, son of Diomed, has offered to God, at his cost, this magnificent monument, in which he has placed the precious relic of St. George, the triumphant martyr; the saint having appeared to him, the said John, not in a dream, but in reality. In the ninth indiction in the year 410 (=: A.D, 515). The church, we gather from this inscription, was erected on the site of a temple to a pagan deity, probably to Theandrites, a divinity especially worshipped at Ezra. The cathedral of Bosra is almost of the same date as that of Ezra) and constructed in the same style, but on a much larger scale. The exterior walls alone remain, and in the empty interior a small basilica was subsequently built. The original plan (Plate XXIL, " Syrie Centrale ") of the cathedral was a great circle of 120 feet diameter, inscribed in a square of 125 feet a side, to which was added on the east a choir of 36 feet, flanked by sacristies and lateral chambers. The dimensions are exactly double those of the cathedral at Ezra, and an imaginary restoration is easily deduced 84 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. from the latter church, aided by some indications in the existing walls. An inscription states that it was finished under the Archbishop Julian, in 511 of our era, and dedicated to the holy martyrs Sergius Bacchus and Leontius. Of the completed Byzantine style the dome is the essential and characteristic feature. Where the build- ing is a square, or octagon, or square carried up into an octagon, one dome covers the whole building ; where the plan is a cross of equal arms, a central dome covers the crossing and minor domes the arms. The other principal features are the mighty arches and broad wall surfaces. Colonnades which were the principal ornamental feature of the basilicas, hold here only a subordinate position, to screen off aisles or support galleries. The friezes, door and window frames, capitals and bases, everything which lends itself to it, is covered with surface ornamentation, classical in suggestion, skilfully wrought, and elegant in design. The internal walls and piers are veneered with marble ; the domes, arches, and niches are adorned with mosaics ; the capitals have a convex, outline adorned with acanthus leaves which sit close to the bell, are, indeed, incised upon it, and have a reminiscence of the old archivolt in a moulded impost. The general effect of the broad spaces over- arched at a great height by the golden hemisphere of the dome is very grand, the sculptured architectural details are original and beautiful, and the mosaics add greatly to the richness and dignity of the effect. When Justinian, in the middle of the sixth century, THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 85 undertook to replace the ruined Church of the Holy Wisdom at Constantinople, originally built by Con- stantine and rebuilt by Theodosius II., he adopted this idea of a square plan surmounted by a dome. The emperor's ambition was to make it the most splendid temple Avhich the world had ever seen. He entrusted the design to the two most eminent architects of the time, Anthemius of Tralles and Isodorus of Miletus. The body of the building was constructed of brick, and the exterior walls, after the fashion of those ages, were entirely destitute of any attempt at architectural adornment. But the interior was as costly and splendid as power, wealth, and art could make it. The world was ransacked for the most costly materials. Eight great porphyry columns, which Aurelian had carried off from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, and which were worth a great fortune, eight green columns said (erroneously) to have been taken from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, still adorn the build- ing. The most beautiful marbles from all countries were brought to line the walls. On the day of its consecration, Christmas Eve, A.D. 568, the emperor ascended the pulpit, looked around, and with outstretched arms cried, " God be praised :[ who has deemed me worthy to complete such a work," and added, sotto voce, " Solomon, I have out- stripped thee." The plan is a central square surmounted by the dome, contained within a larger square which forms the aisles. The influence of the original basilica 86 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. plan is seen in a semicircular apse on the east, the narthex on the west, and the western atrium. The sculptured details of the architecture are free from any imitation of the old classical style ; they are the most finished examples of the new style which had been gradually growing up in the East, and of which there are numerous earlier tentative examples in the churches of Syria which have been already described. Santa Sophia was the triumph of the new style of Christian art, and exercised an influence over the architecture of the Greek Church which has survived in full vigour to the present day. The structure of this grand church still remains uninjured, waiting till the decadence of the Turkish empire shall once more restore it to the uses of Christian worship for which it was erected. Meanwhile the conquests of the Barbarians had divided the Western Empire from the Eastern. In the West the new nations took the art whose monu- ments they saw around them as the starting-point of the new styles which their fresh energy gradually evoked. There are noble examples of the square plan and dome in the West, but only where some exceptional Greek influence was powerful enough to introduce them. After Justinian's conquest of Italy the Church of St. Vitalis at Ravenna was built on the new Greek plan, and became the model of all those erected in Europe for several centuries. Charle- magne's church at Aix-la-Chapelle is one of the most important of them. Others are the Duomo of THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 87 Ancona, and St. Fosca Torcelli. St. Mark's, at Venice, is on the same plan, and is an evidence of the extent to which the Eastern associations of that great emporium influenced its art. At the Renais- sance the influence of Byzantine art led to the adoption of the dome as the great feature of the new St. Peter's at Rome, and, later, to Wren's adoption of the dome in St. Paul's. But in the West the Greek idea of square plan and dom.e was always an exotic, and never made its way against the traditional following of the original basilican type. Of the churches of this period, we have only slight traces in this country, but these traces are very in- teresting to us. We know, from Bede's history of the re-establishment of the Church in Kent in the sixth century, that there existed at Canterbury, after its conquest by the Jutes, at least two deserted churches of earlier times. One, St. Martin's, was repaired by King Ethelbert for the worship which Bishop Eleutherius and his staff of clergy maintained on behalf of the Christian queen Bertha. The present church is partly built of the old materials, since some of the bricks of the Roman time, easily recognized by their shape and texture, are still visible in its walls ; but there is nothing to indicate its original plan and design. Of the other, which Ethelbert gave to Augustine, nothing remains but a description of it at the time of the fire which nearly destroyed it in 1067; but from this description Professor Willis was able to make out that it was a basilica, having a 88 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. western as well as an eastern apse, like that at Treves, with an adjoining baptistery. The plan of two other early churches has been preserved by foundations still existing. One at Frampton, Dorset, 31 feet by 21, has an apse ; in the tessellated pavement, across the chord of the apse, was a band of circles all filled with scrolls of foliage, except the centre one, which had the sacred monogram XP. Since this symbol seems not to have been used in Rome till about the time of Constantine, the date of this building was probably about the fourth century. The other, at Silchester, Hants (probably the Roman Calleva), was only discovered in 1892. The foundations indicate a nave with apse, two aisles enlarged into quasi- transepts, and a narthex extending along the (ritual) west end. The whole of the nave and apse has been paved with tesserae ; in front of the apse, where the altar would be placed, is a square of finer mosaic, five feet square, in black and white check, with a border of coloured lozenges. There are remains of a tessellated pavement in the narthex. About eleven feet in front of the narthex is a foundation of brick about four feet square, perhaps formerly the base of the fountain in the middle of the atrium. The very interesting church of Brixworth, Northants, is built of Roman brick, and the main walls may possibly be of Roman con- struction, but there is nothing to prove conclusively that it was a Roman church. The church in Dover Castle, also, is partly of Roman work, but so altered in the eleventh century, and almost rebuilt in the THE CHURCHES AFTER CONSTANTINE. 89 thirteenth, that its original plan and design arc lost in the subsequent alterations; and, again, there is nothing to prove that it was originally a church. The Celtic churches had a plan of their own, the characteristic feature of which is a long square-ended chancel with only a small opening into the nave, and this plan has modified our national type of church. Some eminent Churchmen of the Italian school, like Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop, travelled through Gaul to Italy, and brought back from Rome models for church-building, decoration, furniture, and music ; so that the churches of Wilfrid at Hexham and Ripon, and of Benedict at Wearmouth and Jarrow, were imitations of classical basilicas. The Norman builders also used the circular apse of the old basilican type ; at Norwich Cathedral the traces still exist of the bishop's stone chair and the presbyters' bench at the east end of the original apse. CHAPTER VII. THE BAPTISTERIES. Primitive baptisms — Baptisteries in catacombs — When the Atrium was the Church, possibly the Baptisierium of the bath was the baptistery — Public baptisteries ; of the Lateran ; at Aquileia ; at Nocera dei Pagani ; at Ravenna ; at Deir Seta ; in Italian cities — Fonts in churches — Illustrations of the subject in England- Baptistery at York j Canterbury — Holy wells— Fonts — Chapter houses. N the first age, before public churches and baptisteries were erected, we have to infer the details of the administration of bap- tism from the incidental notices of it with which we meet. The mode of our Lord's Baptism by John would be likely to influence the mind of the Church ; and we suppose that the tra- ditional representation of it is correct, that our Lord went down into the water to a certain depth, and that the Baptist poured water, from his hand or from a shell, over His head. It is thus represented in a painting in the Cemetery of Callistus, of the second century ; in a painting of uncertain date, over the font in the Cemetery of Pontianus (Marchi, THE BAPTISTERIES. 91 Plate XLII.); in the baptistery at Ravenna, called San Giovanni in Fonte, A.D. 450 ; in the later baptistery, in the same city, called Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, A.D. 553 ; and in other early works of art. So, probably, Philip baptized the treasurer of Queen Candace in the stream which they came to on their journey. The three thousand who were con- verted on the Day of Pentecost seem, from the nar- rative, to have been baptized there and then in Mary's house, perhaps with water poured over their heads from the fountain in the middle of the court of the house (see p. 5) ; and the jailer of Philippi and his family perhaps in the same way. Tertullian observes that Peter baptized his converts in the Tiber at Rome, as John had baptized his in Jordan, and that it makes no difference whether one is baptized in the sea or a lagoon, a river or a foun- tain, a lake or a marsh. In the " Recognitions of Clement" St. Peter is represented as preaching to the people that they might wash away their sins in the water of a river, or a fountain, or the sea ; and the writer describes the actual baptism of some con- verts in certain fountains by the seashore. Justin Martyr seems to say that baptism was usually per- formed outside the church : " All who believe the things which are taught, and promise to live accord- ingly, are taught to pray, with fasting, for forgiveness. Then we bring them where there is water, and they receive the washing of water ; . . . we bring the person to be washed to the bath ijo Xovrpov). After thus washing him, we bring him to those who are 92 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. called brethren, where they are assembled together to offer prayers in common ; " and he goes on to describe the celebration of the Eucharist.* The recently discovered " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," a document whose date is said to be "far nearer the middle of the first century than the middle of the second," directs, " Baptize in living water \i.e. water not separated from its source], but if thou hast not living water, baptize in other water — in warm, if thou canst not do it in cold. But if thou hast neither [in sufficient quantity], pour water upon the head three times in the name of Christ." This would seem to contemplate baptism in a spring or river, in the baptisterium of a bath, or by affusion only. Perhaps the earliest font which still exists is that in the Cemetery of Pontianus, already alluded to. The fossores, in extending its underground galleries, came upon a spring of water, and it was natural that they should excavate a little chamber and cistern in the floor of the chamber to make a reservoir for their own convenience, and for the convenience of any who visited the cemetery. It was quite as natural that, in some subsequent time, those who had control over the cemetery, with their minds full of religious symbolisms, should appropriate the subterranean fountain for baptismal purposes, and convert the chamber into a baptistery. The decorations of the little chamber prove that it was thus used. The font consists of a small cistern, or piscina, between two . - • "First Apology," §§6i and 65. THE BAPTISTERIES. 03 and three feet deep, and six feet broad, constantly supplied by a current of water. It is approached by a flight of steps, between the base of which and the water is a level space, about five feet wide, on which the priest may have stood. Above the water is a painting of our Lord's Baptism, and on another side is a painting of a cross, adorned with gems and throwing out leaves and flowers from its stem ; two lighted candelabra stand on the arms of the cross, and the letters Ai2 are suspended from the arms by chains (see woodcut, p. 197). The date of the paint- ings is probably the seventh century, and may be later than that of the excavation of the cemetery. There is something of the same kind in the catacombs at Naples.* A careful consideration of all the circumstances, and of these incidental notices, suggests that when churches were in the private houses of well-to-do converts, baptisms were performed in the bath which formed a usual adjunct of such a house ; so that as the atruim and tablimim afforded the type of the future churches, the baptis- teriuin afforded the type of the future baptistery. In the old baths at Pompeii the baptistery is square externally, internally a kind of octagon ; the circular piscina, or basin, in the middle of its floor is 13 ft. 8 in. in diameter and 3 ft. 8 in. deep, coated with white marble, having two marble steps down into it, and a * In the catacombs of San Gennaro, at Naples, is a church with three arches, supported by columns cut out of the tufa rock, with an altar, episcopal seat, and baptistery of stone, and in another part is a fountain, which was probably used for baptismal purposes. 94 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. marble bench all round on which the bather could sit. The diameter of the building leaves a broad margin of floor round the piscina ; the roof is vaulted.* The piscina of the baptistery in private baths seems usually to have been circular.f When the Church built public basilicas it possibly built baptisteries beside them, but the only one we can mention before the time of Constantine is in connection with the new church at Tyre, already described (p. 43) ; for Eusebius seems to allude to a baptistery when he says that there were spacious exJiedrcB and oeci on each side, attached to the basilica and communicating with it, " for those who require yet the purification and the sprinklings of water and of the Holy Spirit." From the beginning of the fourth century a baptistery is usually found attached to a cathedral church, and in Rome alone to many of the churches. From the beginning the baptisteries are built on a certain fixed general design, from which there are only minor deviations. The plan is usually octa- gonal,t or rarely circular, with an inner octagon of eight columns supporting a second story ; the columns surround a piscina, or bath, which is protected by a • See plan, p. 254, and interior, p. 279, in Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," article " Balnea;." t E.g. that of Pliny's villa at Laurentium (Letter xx. to Gallus). X The octagonal form was considered peculiarly applicable to the baptistery — " Octochorum sanctos templum surrexit in usus i Octagonus fons est munere dignus eo. Hoc numero decuit sacri Baptismatis aulam Surgere, quo populis vera salus rediit." THE BAPTISTERIES. 95 parapet wall, and support a dome which forms a canopy of honour over the piscina. In some cases the central columns do not form a constructional part of the building, but are smaller shafts fixed in the angles of the parapet wall of the piscina, carrying a light cupola over it. In either case, the shape of the building, the internal circle of columns surrounding the basin, the reflection of the architecture in the still mirror of the sacred bath, must have produced very striking pictorial effects. There was often an anteroom at the entrance of the baptistery, where the catechumens made the renunciation of Satan and confession of faith which formed the introduction to the service ; * and an apsidal recess opposite the entrance contained an altar at which the newly baptized received their first communion. Baptis- teries were also used for assemblies of people, and bishops were not infrequently buried in them. The earliest remaining example is the building at Rome known as San Giovanni in Fonte,t or the baptistery of Constantine, which is said to have been built for the baptism of the two Constantias — the sister and daughter of the emperor. It is an octagonal building of brickwork, in the adornment of which the columns and capitals of earlier buildings have been freely used. The central octagon of eight columns, with Ionic and Composite capitals, carries a cornice which runs round the building, and supports * In medieval times this vv^as done in the porch of the church, t St. John of the Fonts, i.e. St. .John Baptist. All the Italian baptisteries are similarly dedicated. 96 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. eight smaller columns of marble, which again support the octagonal drum of the cupola and lantern of the roof. It has a portico which was so large as to form an entrance hall to the baptistery. The fabric may- be of the time of Constantine, altered by later adapta- tions and adornments, but Liibke is of opinion that the original structure is of the fifth century. There is an example of this primitive period in ruins at Aquileia * octagonal in form, with a small apse at the east angle, an inner octagon of columns, and a hexagonal piscina. At Nocera dei Pagani, between Naples and Salerno, is an extremely beautiful circular church of early date almost unaltered, " built undoubtedly for the purpose of a baptistery." An inner circle of doubled columns supports the dome, and forms a circular aisle. The central piscina is twenty feet in diameter and nearly five feet deep, circular within and octagonal without ; two stone steps or benches surround the interior ; it has a raised parapet of marble, ornamented with incised patterns, and upon the angles of the parapet stood eight columns which probably carried a canopy, t The most interesting of all the early baptisteries which remain to us is that known as San Giovanni in Fonte, in Ravenna, of the fifth century. It is an octagonal brick building of two stories, very plain externally, but internally richly adorned with marble * Engraved in the "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," i. 175, t Plan and section are given in Fergusson's " History of Archi- tecture," i. 433, 434. THE BAPTISTERIES. 97 columns which support a dome ; the walls are lined with marble and the dome with mosaics. It has an octagonal basin, and a stone reading-desk beside it for the convenience of the officiating minister.* At Deir Seta, in Central Syria, is a hexagonal baptistery, with a hexagonal basrn, with columns at its angles which probably supported a canopy.f There are other interesting baptisteries, all of the same general design, at Bologna, Florence, Torcello, Volterra, Cremona, Verona, Padua, Parma, Pisa, Baveno, etc. The basin was sometimes of fanciful form : in Lusitania it was commonly cross-shaped ; in the " Pontifical of Landulph " it is a quatrefoil in plan. After the eleventh century it became the custom for parish priests to baptize children soon after birth, and fonts were introduced into the parish churches for the purpose ; about the middle of the eleventh century. Pope Leo IV. recommended the clergy hence- forth to provide fonts in their churches ; and very io^fj cathedral baptisteries were subsequently built. In some of the Italian cities, however, as Pisa, Florence, and others, baptism continued, and still continues, to be administered only in the baptistery. We can easily understand the strong sentiment in favour of continuing to baptize the whole population of the city in the one font, the same in which the ancestors of the whole people had been baptized for many * There are good representations of it in Gaily Knight's " Ecclesias- tical Architecture of Italy." t De Vogue, " Syrie Centrale," Plate CXVII, H 98 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. generations. The miniature paintings in the " Ponti- fical of Landulph of Capua," which is of the ninth century, represent two scenes within one of these early baptisteries. In one an adult is standing up to the breast in the piscina, and a priest seems to have poured — or to be about to pour — water over his head ; in the other, infants are being baptized by immersion.* The plan for the church of St. Gall, which is of early ninth century, shows a circular font within the nave, at its west end, surrounded by a screen. In our own country we have some illustrations of these Church customs. Augustine at Canterbury and Paulinus at Catterick are said to have bap- tized their converts in the neighbouring river. We have already had occasion to notice that the Romano-British basilica at Canterbury had a bap- tistery adjoining it. For the baptizing of King Edwin of Northumbria a wooden baptistery was erected over a spring or well, and the cathedral was subsequently built around it, and the well still exists in the crypt. About A.D. 750, Cuthbcrt, Archbishop of Canterbury, erected a church east of the cathedral, and almost touching it, to serve as a baptistery and for other purposes {exantinationes jiidiconwi, burial of archbishops, etc.). There are wells in some of our churches and churchyards, which were very possibly used as baptismal fonts. Some of the holy wells are enclosed in a building, and have a screen of columns * They are engraved in D'Agincourt's " L'Art par ses Monumens," and in the "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," pp. 158 and 171. THE BAPTISTERIES. 99 supporting a canopy over the water, after the fashion of the old baptisteries ; there is a beautiful example at Holy Well, Flintshire, near Chester.* We have no existing baptisteries attached to our cathedrals, and there are no fonts in our English churches earlier than the eleventh century. It is interesting to note that the small parish church fonts retain some reminiscences of the diocesan baptisteries which they superseded, for their most usual form is an octagonal external plan with a circular bowl ; and many of them have, and probably many more once had, a cover in the shape of a canopy of honour. Some of them have the Baptism of Christ sculptured upon them, as at Bridekirk, Cumberland, and Lenton, Notts, On the Norman font at Darenth, "Kent, and those at Kirkburn and Thorpe Salvin, Yorkshire, is a representation of baptism in a font. The chapter houses attached to so many of our cathedrals seem to have been derived from the old cathedral baptisteries. Every monastery had its chapter house, but it was an oblong hall, always adjoining a transept of the church ; but the chapter house of cathedrals served by canons was usually a large octagonal building (sometimes of nine sides) with a pyramidal roof, standing alone conspicuously, in the immediate neighbourhood of the church, and sometimes connected with it by a covered way. It would seem that when no longer needed for baptisms, such a building was still wanted for ecclesiastical * It may very possibly have been used as a baptistery. loo HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. I assemblies. The modification of its construction by the substitution of a central pillar to support the groining of the roof, in place of the old octagon of columns supporting the dome, is an interesting ex- ample of mediaeval felicity ot design. ^^^^l•l;+•+^t^l^l^f•t^t•fH:+:4H;fiiiili•>;+H•4;+rl:l:4•4;|:+'TH^^ :4;^■;4-^^RT^■^■-l■j+;f;4^;^^;+;4^;4^;T^;^i■;+;+it:+:+H■i■^;^^;t:j^}^■;^'^;•|^;^^;^•;■^yl^ W a CHAPTER VIII. THE CATACOMBS.* Literature of the subject — Incremation — Columbaria — Roman subter- ranean sepulchral chambers — ^Jewish burial customs — The Church adopted the custom of burial — Christian catacombs — Description of those at Rome — Family catacombs of wealthy Christians put at the disposal of the Church— Burial clubs— Public Christian catacombs became places of pilgrimage — Jerome's description of them — Prudentius's description of them, and of the Confessio of I^Iippolytus — The removal of relics — The catacombs deserted and forgotten. HEIR tombs are often the most important surviving monuments of the existence of the ancient races of mankind, and the contents of the tombs supply the prin- cipal materials left to us for determining what manner * On the rediscovery of the Roman catacombs at the close of the sixteenth century the first results were published by A. Bosio (" Roma Sotteranca," 1632). Aringhi, Boldetti, and Bottaii do little more than work up Bosio's materials. D'Agincourt in his " Histoire de I'Art par ses Monumens," 1823, gives the result of additional discoveries up to his time. A new era opens with Padre Marchi's "Monument! deir Arte primitive Cristiane," 1844, followed up by the magnificent works of De Rossi, the "Christian Inscriptions of Rome," and the " Roma Sotteranea." Garucci's " Storia della Arte Christiana " brings I02 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. of people they were. So of the earhest ages of the Church, the catacombs contain almost the only ex- amples left of the painting and sculpture of several centuries, and afford invaluable illustrations of the beliefs and customs of primitive Christianity. At the period when the Church began its exist- ence the cremation of the dead had been for some centuries the gene- ral custom throughout the Roman world. The law required that the dead should be disposed of without the walls of the towns and cities, and it was the custom to place their monuments beside the suburban The body was upon a costly pile, or more economically cinerated in a ustritmm — a furnace made for the purpose ; a handful of the calcined human remains was carefully rescued from the heap, and en- together, in its five great folios, photographic representations of all the principal objects of art of the first centuries. T. Roller has illustrated the Roman catacombs and their contents by photogravure, and discussed them from an anti-Roman point of view. J. II. Parker's photographs of the paintings and sculptures of Rome are a very valuable addition to the student's materials. F. Ferret's copies of the paintings are fanciful restorations of what the originals may have been, or ought to have been — of very little archaeological valud The photographs are the only trustw^orthy authorities, [hW>. ..'.,<"•> 1 roads. vA."^ ^-^.-..V burned Roman funeral urn. funeral THE CATACOMBS. 103 closed in an urn of earthenware, glass, marble, silver or gold, according to the wealth of the deceased. Some Roman cemeteries which have been carefully examined {e.g. at Colchester) indicate that large areas of land by the sides of the principal roads leading out of the towns were appropriated as general cemeteries, each with its own ustrinum ; and that the funeral urns (together with other vessels of glass and earthenware, containing perhaps salt, wine, oil, etc., as offerings to the manes, and personal relics of the deceased, as a necklace of beads or the like) were buried in orderly rows in small shallow square graves ; in many cases four of the large flat Roman bricks lined the grave and formed the sides of a rude cist, while another brick formed the lid, which sufficed to ward off the pressure of the surrounding soil and to preserve the frail deposit uninjured to the present day. Over some of these graves were erected monuments of various kinds, as plain upright stones with an inscription, columns, slabs of stone with an effigy of the deceased sculptured in sunk relief, and accompanied by an inscription. * Wealthy families purchased a suburban plot of land, and built a family tomb upon it. A common form of the tomb was a square basement with a round upper story ; the massive walls were internally honeycombed with niches, each of which accommo- dated a funeral urn ; while the chamber afforded accommodation for the funereal rites, and memorial feasts. Place was often found in the tomb for the funeral urns of dependents of the family. The 104 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. external shape of the round tower and its internal rows of niches like pigeon-holes obtained for these tombs the name of cohimharia. Some however of the Roman families, especially perhaps those who prided themselves on their de- scent from the ancient Etruscan nobles, adhered to the earlier custom of entire burial. These deposited their dead in chambers hewn out of the sides of the rocky hills, with an architectural facade against the scarped face of the hill ; or they excavated chambers in the rocky substrata of the plain, reached by a perpendicular well or a sloping driftway, the entrance to which was protected by an architectural building like a little temple. Of the former kind is the Tomb of the Scipios in the Latin Way, which consists of a chamber hewn in the hillside, with a Doric front ; and the •Tomb of the Nasos (the family of the poet Ovid) in the Flaminian Way, which is a similar crypt in the hillside, also with a Doric front. Of the latter kind is the group of sepulchral chambers found in recent times on the Latin Way, paved and lined with marble, and adorned with paintings, with the sculp- tured sarcophagi still remaining undisturbed in their recesses. The Jewish funeral customs had, no doubt, great influence upon the mode in which the Christian Church disposed of its dead. The Jews clung to the custom of entire burial and laid their dead in chambers hewn out of the rock. The earliest ex- ample is the Cave of Machpelah. The neighbourhood of Jerusalem still possesses examples of these tombs. ' THE CATACOMBS. 105 The hillsides round about the holy city are honey- combed with sepulchral grottoes. The Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was one of them, hewn in the rock within his suburban garden. The Tomb of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, a proselyte in the reign of Claudius, has a facade to the scarped front of the rock, consisting of a column and two semi-columns, supporting an architrave, cornice, and frieze ; its door gives access to an entrance hall, and from the hall open a series of small chambers all excavated out of the interior of the hill. The so-called Tomb of St. James is a chamber excavated out of the side of the cliff, with a fagade consisting of two Doric columns and two semi-columns supporting architrave and frieze. The so-called Tomb of the Prophets is a catacomb with a central chamber and radiating and concentric galleries. Individuals of the powerful and wealthy Jewish colonies of Alex- andria, Cyrene, Antioch, and Cyprus, may have con- structed monuments equally important. But the custom of the less wealthy is illustrated in the Jewish cemeteries of the same period in the neigh- bourhood of Rome and elsewhere. They adopted the method of which we have seen an example in the Tomb of the Prophets. They obtained possession of a piece of ground, dug down to the rocky stratum beneath the surface soil, and excavated galleries and chambers, extending them from time to time as need required. Three small catacombs on different sides of Rome have been identified, by the inscriptions and symbols which they contain, as belonging to ^\ io6 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. the Jews, and one of them is ascertained to be the earliest of all the numerous catacombs around the city.* Another has been found at Venosa in the south of Italy. The Church seems at once to have adopted the custom of burying its dead without mutilation. The fact that the nuclei of the Churches were generally groups of converted Jews would naturally incline the Church custom in that direction. The burial of the Lord would afford an influential precedent to His followers. A number of religious considerations, as to the sacredness of the body which had been grafted into the mystical Body of Christ, and had been the temple of the Holy Ghost, and as to the doctrine of the Resurrection, would strengthen the other motives for shrinking from cremation and adopting burial as the custom of the Church. The funeral customs of the early Christians were therefore derived from two sources. The Jewish custom of burial was uni- versally adopted ; but the other circumstances of the interment were largely influenced by the general funeral customs. It must be borne in mind that many of the Christians of these early ages were men and women converted in adult age, who had their ingrained notions and habits ; that no customs have so tenacious a hold upon the popular mind as those which relate to burial ; and that the Church did not set itself against the innocent customs of the people, but rather adopted them, impressed upon * Julius Csesar gave the Jews at Rome legal protection for their burial associations and graves. THE CATACOMBS. 107 them a Christian character, and utilized them in the service of religion. The Christians of Rome appear to have at once followed the example of the Jews of Rome and buried their dead in underground catacombs. There are Christian catacombs in other places besides Rome, indicating that this method of interment was widely- adopted by the Church. There are extensive cata- combs at Naples ; a catacomb at Alexandria only partially explored, at Venosa, Chiusi, Oria, Syracuse, Malta, and other places ;* and subterranean chambers of less extent abound about the deserted cities of Central Syria. The Christian catacombs themselves, independently of the paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions which they contain, are an interesting monument of the primitive age of the Church, and demand a careful description. The Christian catacombs in the neighbourhood of Rome are not only the most extensive known to us, but they have been the most thoroughly explored, and, what is still more important, the discoveries made in them have, especially during the last few years, been systematically observed and recorded. The substrata of the soil around Rome consisted chiefly of three formations. The Pozzolana piira was a stratum of sharp sand which formed excellent material for the making of mortar, and the Roman * Some Christian sepulchres were found at Cagliari, in Sardinia, in 1892, which have tombs, inscriptions, paintings of Lazarus, Jonah, etc, of the third and fourth centuries, io8 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. builders had for generations been in the habit of quarrying it by means of driftways {arenaria) carried beneath the soil, wide enough for the passage of the carts which conveyed the sand. Another stratum was of Tufa litoide, which was hard and difficult to quarry. ' A third stratum was of Tufa granolare^ not so hard to excavate as the second, not so soft and crumbling as the first ; it could be easily worked, and yet was firm enough not to crumble and fall in ; it was this last stratum which was selected for the cemeteries. Some of the cemeteries are now entered by acci- dental openings where the superincumbent soil has fallen in from the surface, from the arenaria^ and other- wise; but it seems probable that they all had originally one or more formal entrances, and these entrances had probably some architectural approach — a little building containing chambers above ground for the celebration of funeral rites, and protecting the flight of steps which led down to the subterranean galleries and chambers ; or a descending driftway down to the level of the chambers and galleries, with an archi- tectural face to the scarped rock through which the excavated chambers were entered. Beyond this entrance the catacomb consists of a narrow gallery (ambulacnim) cut through the rock, in the sides of which are excavated a series of shelves {locidi) like the berths of a ship's cabin, tier above tier, each large enough to contain a single body ; * as each loculus was occupied, it was closed by three * In pagan and in Jewish cemeteries, and in that of Alexandria, the loculus is sometimes at right angles to the corridor, so that the bodies were placed in them feet first. THE CATACOMBS. 109 tiles or a slab of marble embedded in mortar ; some- times a name was rudely painted along the front, H o in S o O o C ci c YPioY AlAKU NKA TECKEYACA TOKMOPION EAYTWKAm CYMBimoY "IH sa^"*; MP GEYnPL "EKN°iL , = ."a A Christian monument at Prymnessos, Phrygia. 143 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. there is an individuality which the engraving in- adequately represents, and which carries with it the conviction that it is a portrait ; and he can hardly imagine it to be the work of a fourth-century artist. But it is certain that fourth-century sarcophagi not infrequently have sculptured portraits of the deceased; and on the whole we incline to assign this interesting monument to that period. Short unadorned pillar-stones with an inscription are common everywhere. Of these we have some ex- amples in the Celtic portions of our own island. At St. Just, Penrith, is one inscribed with the monogram XP and an inscription "SENILIS IC lACET." Two others in Cornwall have the monogram XP, one at St. Helen's Chapel, the other at Phillack. One in Wales, in Permachno Church, Carnarvonshire, has an inscription, "CARAUSIUS HIC JACET IN hoc CONGERIES LAPIDUM." In Scotland, in the old burying-ground of Kirk-madrine in the parish of Stoneykirk, are two stones inscribed with the mono- gram XP and AO, and inscriptions — on one, " Hic JACENT SCI ET PRyECIPII SACERDOTES ID EST VI- VENTIUS ET MAVORIUS ; of the other inscription only the name "sc FLORENTIUS" remains. The idea that the tomb is the house of the deceased is a very common one. Even cinerary urns are commonly found in Central Italy, and elsewhere, made in the shape of a house, and afford a curious evidence of the general outline of the houses of the period at which they were made. Many of these TOMBS AND MONUMENTS. 141 early Christian tombs are like houses, and their chambers are so commodious and so handsomely painted, and look so habitable, as even to have sug- gested to a recent writer* the idea that they were actually inhabited. It is highly probable that the clergy who fled to the catacombs for refuge in times of persecution, really sojourned in these habitable tombs, and retreated into the mazes of the galleries with which they communicated only in case of a hostile visit to the tomb. Thus St. Cyprian, when his life was first threatened, is said to have concealed himself in the tomb of his family. The Acts of Paul and Thekla, though apocryphal, may be accepted as evidence of the customs of the early age of Chris- tianity. It says that when the apostle was expelled from Iconium, he and the family of Onesiphorus, with whom he had been lodging in the city, spent many days in a tomb on the road which leads to Daphne. That the tombs were frequently visited is certain, and the commodious chambers were intended for these visitations. The heathen, we know, had elaborate funeral rites and were very solicitous for their due performance ; a striking witness to their instinctive belief in a life after death. There was a funeral feast on the occasion of the funeral, which took place in the sepulchral chamber or some chamber adjoining it. The tomb was visited again on every anniversary of death, and on the ferialia when everybody visited the tombs of their relatives ; so that the visits paid to a family tomb in the course of the year would be ♦ In J. H. Parker's "Archaeology of Rome." 142 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. numerous enough to make it very desirable to have a convenient chamber for these meetings. Christians continued these ancestral customs with clearer faith and a higher intention. The vague instinctive belief of the heathen in a life after death became in these early Christians the profoundest conviction of the continuity of life, and a more vivid realization of the unseen world than is common even with ourselves. The result was that the dead occupied a larger space in religion, and were regarded with a somewhat different shade of feeling. The Church then really knew no more than we do of the details of the condition of the departed, but it drew larger deductions from what it did know ; it was more keenly alive to the truth that the faithful still militant in this life, and the faithful departed resting after their labours in Paradise, were not beyond the reach of one another's sympathies and prayers — that they still formed one Church and had mystical communion one with another in Christ. Christians therefore regarded the bodies of their brethren with reverence, and laid them in their tombs with abundant honours and solemn services, and held a great funeral feast, at which they entertained large numbers of the poor ; and returned again to the tomb at the month's end, and again on their anniversaries, with a firmer per- suasion that they were keeping up a real com- munion with the departed than the heathen could possibly have, and than wc in these days commonly possess. Happily in our times a new impulse has been TOMBS AND MONUMENTS. 143 given to a more vivid realization of our abiding relations with our loved ones who have gone before to Paradise by the example of her Majesty Queen Victoria, who, following the instincts of the religion of the heart, has revived the celebration of annual commemorative religious services. To her Majesty also we owe the encouragement of those accessory funeral services by means of which a whole nation in all its churches may assist at the funeral honours paid to its great men, so that the funeral of a Colonial Premier may be virtually celebrated in Westminister Abbey.* There is an example of the funeral feast in the case of Pammachius the senator, the friend of Jerome. When his wife Paulina died in 397, he caused it to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet throughout Rome that on the occasion of the funeral a funeral feast, followed by a distribution of money, would be made to the poor in the Church of St. Peter. Crowds assembled. Pammachius himself presided. The long tables spread in the church v^^ere filled again and again with guests. As they departed Pammachius gave to each a new robe and a considerable alms. Jerome, in narrating the incident, remarks, " Some husbands assuage their grief by scattering upon the tombs of their wives, roses, lilies, and purple flowers ; Pammachius bedews this holy dust vi'ith the balm of charity." Pammachius became a monk. It is a valuable illustration of the times which is placed before us when we are told that he took his place * In the case of Lord Macdonald. \/ 144 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. in the senate in his brown monk's tunic amidst the laughter of his pagan colleagues. This reverence for the dead gave rise to a clasa of buildings which became very common in the cemeteries of the early Christians, chapels built in honour of the saints and martyrs. The ages of persecution we have left sixteen cen- turies behind, and in the long perspective of history " the noble army of Martyrs " seems to us to stand side by side with " the glorious company of the Apostles " and " the goodly fellowship of the Prophets," three bands of blessed ones, dimly perceived through the halo of glory which surrounds them, far removed from the experiences and sympathies of our daily life. But in the three centuries of the Church's gradual growth, through misrepresentation and contempt, through suspicion and opposition, through constant danger of injustice and punishment, through liability to local outbreaks of persecution involving torture and death, through occasional general persecutions, the martyrs and confessors of the Faith were very real persons. They had relations and friends who took a personal interest in their fate. Their relations and friends in the flesh were proud of the dis- tinguished position they had won in the great crusade of Christ against the world ; their descendants were proud of it, as we are of the fame of an ancestor who won the nation's gratitude by some great deed in which he lost life in maintaining his country's cause. Many of these sufferers were the bishops and TOMBS AND MONUMENTS. 145 clergy in whom their Churches felt a special interest. Their constancy under torture and death were so many victories of the faith, so many glorious testi- monies to the ever-present succour of Him who was seen by the first martyr " standing at the right hand of God." The Diocletian persecution especially, so general, prolonged, and horrible, made a great impression on the mind of the Church. The people perhaps hardly realized the grandeur and glory of the strife while they were engaged in it. It was only when the last great effort of the emperors to crush the Christian name out of existence had failed, and when the greatest of the emperors had himself embraced the Christian faith, that all men fully realized the magni- tude and conclusiveness of the victory. Then the martyrs shone forth as the heroes and champions of the great campaign, who, like their Lord, had con- quered by dying. The subject is curiously illus- trated by a comparison between a monument which Diocletian had erected in Spain with the inscription "Religio Christianorum deleta," and the dying exclamation of Julian, " O GALILEE, VICISTI ! " The whole Christian community felt a personal interest in these Illustrious members of the Church, and delighted to do honour to their memories. Their names were recorded in the diptychs and mentioned at the celebration of the Holy Communion ; their relics (as in the case of Ignatius, c. A.D. 116) were reverently treasured ; and the whole Church visited their tombs, adorned them with evergreens and L 146 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. flowers, and took part in the commemorative ser-' vices on the anniversary of what, with a beautiful ^ euphemism, was called their birthday— into the higher life. Monumental chapels were constructed in con- nection with these visits. Sometimes, as we have already seen (p. 123), a space was cleared away around the burial-place of the saint by removing the neigh- bouring blocks of tufa, and a miniature basilica was built in the catacomb itself. Sometimes a chapel was built above ground, over or near the place where the body of the saint rested in the catacomb beneath, and probably in such cases a communica- tion existed or was made between the chapel above ground and the sepulchre below. Such a building V was called in Greek naprvpiov, and in Latin co7i- fessio. Bishop Fabian (236-251) is said to have erected a number of such buildings in the cemeteries of Rome ; and certain little churches scattered ovei the Campagna, which cover entrances to the cata- combs, have recently attracted attention, and are now believed to be examples of these chapels. Northcote and Brownlow give woodcuts of two of these, one in the Cemetery of St. Sixtus and St. Camellia,* the other in that of St. Soter ; each is a rather lofty and very plain building, square in plan with an apse on each of its three sides. The woodcut gives a plan of the first of these, showing the stairs by which it com- municated with the catacomb beneath. It has an interesting history. The decree of Valerian in the ^ middle of 258 ordered bishops, priests, and deacons * Compare Lanciani, TOMBS AND MONUMENTS. H7 to be summarily executed ; persons of rank to loss of dignity and goods, and on their refusal to renounce Christianity, with death ; imperial officials to labour in chains. Xystus or Sixtus was surprised by the soldiers seated on his episcopal chair, surrounded by his deacons and others, in the Cemetery of Praitextatus on the Appian Way, and, according to some of the accounts, he was beheaded on the spot, and the two deacons Agapetus and Felicissimus and others with him. The bishop was taken for burial to the epis- copal sepulchral chamber in the Cemetery of Callistus, the others were buried in the cemetery in which they were slain. Lan- ciani asserts that Sixtus and his flock were assembled in this spot, which was then a schola open to the air, or sheltered by a wooden roof, and that the upper walls and vaulted roof were added at a later period when the building was converted into a chapel. When De Rossi discovered it it was used as a wine cellar. It has again become the property of the Church, and divine service was recommenced in it in April, 1891, It is curious to see how ancient forms survive in out-of-the-way places among unprogressive com- munities : here is a modern Abyssinian tomb * of the * Illustrated Loudon NewSf March, 1893. de'camclrr r t Z i ^ i 6 y B ^ tn 1-*«1 — 1 — h-H — I — ( — I — \ — { — t Plan of chapel in the ceme- tery in Via Ardentian, Rome. 148 HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Abouna Kyrilos (Bishop Cyril) at Adowa, en the model of the tombs of the fourth and fifth centuries. There is a very interesting story in the " Acts of Theodotus and the Seven Virgins," * which illustrates Tomb at Adowa, Abyssinia, many features of the Christian life of the East in the beginning of the fourth century, and among others the existence and uses of these chapels. In the beginning of the Diocletian persecution Theodotus, fleeing from the persecution at Ancyra, the capital of Galatia, retired to a place near the village of Malus, about forty miles distant, and there found some other fugitive Christians of Ancyra whom he knew, living in a cave whence the river Halys flowed. " They reclined on the grass, for there was much grass there, surrounded by both fruit-bearing and forest trees, adorned with all kinds of sweet-smelling flowers, enlivened by the chirping of cicadae and the song of nightingales and of all various birds, and, in short, supplied with everything with which Nature can • Ruinait's "Acta Primorum Martyrium," Amsterdam, p. 338. TOMBS AND MONUMENTS. 149 adorn a solitude." During the repast Theodotus smilingly suggested to the priest of the neighbour- ing village, Fronto by name, who had joined them after he had said the office of the sixth hour, what a charming place it was for the erection of a martyrion, and asked why he did not set about it. " Do you supply mc," Fronto replied, " with an occasion to set about such a work and you shall not have to blame me for tardiness ; it is necessary first to have the relics, and then to think about building an edifice." "It is my affair," rejoined Theodotus, " or rather God's, to find you the relics, yours diligently to prepare the sacred house ; there- fore I pray you not further to delay the work, for as soon as you have finished it the relics will speedily come to you ; " and, taking off a ring from his finger, he gave it to the priest, saying, " God be witness between me and thee, that you shall shortly be provided with relics." Theodotus returns to Ancyra, and ultimately meets with a martyr's death. The village priest, Fronto, happens to come to the city that day to sell the wine of his vineyard ; he rescues the body, carries it away secretly, and buries it in the spot which Theodotus had suggested, and a chapel is ultimately erected over it. In the course of Theo- dotus's adventures in the neighbourhood of Ancyra, we read of his going by night to the Confession of the Patriarchs to pray, but finding it blocked up {pbstnictani) * by the unbelievers, he prostrated him- * Probably with thorns. Gregory of Tours (ii. 25) says that Euric, the Arian Visigothic king (