dess. Not long after this, Honorius, Anno 408, published two laws in the western Empire, forbidding the destruction of any more temples in cities, because they might serve for ornament or public use,' being once purged of all unlawful furniture, idols, and altars, which he ordered to be destroyed, wherever they were found. These laws, as Gothofred rightly observes, seem to have been publisded at the instance of the African Fathers, who, as appears from one of the canons of the African Code,' petitioned the Emperor "that such temples as were in the country only, and private places, not serving for any ornament, might be destroyed." Arcadius published such another law for the eastern Empire, which relates only to the destruction of temples in country places and not in cities, where now there was no such danger of superstition, since they might be converted to a better use. And upon this ground the author under the name of Prosper, commends Honorius for his piety and devotion, because he gave all the temples, with their adjacent places, to the Church, only requiring the idols to be destroyed. It is true, indeed, after this we find a law of Theodosius Junior commanding all temples to be destroyed. But, as Gothofred seems rightly to interpret it, the word, destroying, in that law is to be understood only of despoiling them of their superstition, because it follows in the same law, that they were to be expiated by placing the sign of the cross upon them, which was a token of their being turned into churches. And his observation may 5 'Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. 10. de Pagan. leg. 18. Edes inlicitis rebus vacuas, ne quis conetur evertere. Decernimus enim, ut ædficiorum quidem sit integer status. It. leg. 19. Edificia ipsa templorum, quæ in civitatibus vel oppidis, vel extra oppida sunt, ad usum publicum vindicentur : aræ locis omnibus destruantur. Cod. Afric. can. 58. 8 Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. 10. de Pagan. leg. 16. Si qua in agris templa sunt, sine turba et tumultu diruantur. His enim dejectis, omnis superstitionis materia consumetur. Prosper de Promiss. lib. iii. c. 38. Honorius, Christianâ religione ac devotione præditus, templa omnia cum suis adjacentibus spatiis, ecclesiis contulit; simulque eorum simulacra confringenda in potestatem dedit. Theod. ibid. leg. 35. Cuncta eorum fana, templa, delubra, si qua nunc etiam restant integra, præcepto magistratuum destrui, conlocationeque venerandæ Christianæ Religionis signi expiari præcipimus. 5 Cod. be confirmed further from what Evagrius reports of Theodosius, That he turned the Tychæum, or temple of Fortune, at Antioch, into a church, called by the name of Ignatius. The like was done by a great temple at Tanis, in Egypt, as Valesius has observed out of the Itinerary of Antoninus, the martyr. Cluver also, in his Description of Italy, takes notice of a place in the Jerusalem Itinerary, called Sacraria, betwixt Fulginum and Spoletum, near the head of the river Clitumnus, which he thinks was originally no other than the temple of Jupiter Clitumnus: though another learned antiquary makes it something doubtful as to the present church now standing there. However we have seen instances enough of this practice; and Bede' tells us, "that Gregory the Great gave Austin, the monk, instructions of the same nature, about the temples here among the Saxons in Britain,-that if they were well built they should not be destroyed, but only be converted from the worship of Devils to the service of the true God;" and so, he observes, it was done at Rome, where, not long after, Boniface IV. turned the heathen temple, called the Pantheon, into the church of All Saints, in the time of the Emperor Phocas. Sometimes the temples were pulled down, and the materials were given to the Church, out of which, new edifices were erected for the service of religion, as Sozomen and Ruffin particularly observe of the temples of Bacchus and Serapis, at Alexandria. I have already showed, out of Ausonius, that the Roman halls, or Basilica, were likewise turned into churches. The like is reported of some Jewish synagogues, by the author of the Chronicon Alexandrinum,10 who takes notice particularly of a synagogue of the Samaritans, in a place Σηκὸς ἐυαγὴς καὶ τέμενος ἅγιον τῷ Ιγνατίῳ τὸ παλαι 2 Vales. Not. in Sozomen. lib. v. c. 21. Immensum 3 Cluver. Ital. Vetus. p. 702. 5 Bede, lib. i. c. 30. 1 Evagr. lib. i c. 16. τυχαῖον γέγονε. fuit ibi templum, quod modo est ecclesia. Holsten. Annot. in Cluver. p. 124. Bede, lib. ii. c. 4. See chap. i. s. 5. 7 Sozomen. lib. vii. c. 45. Ruffin. lib. ii. c. 27. 10 Chron. Alex. an. 10. Zenon. p. 757. 'Eroinσe τὴν συναγωγὴν ἀυτῶν, τῶν ἦσαν εἰς τὸ καλέμενον Γαργαρίδην, ἐυκτήριον οἶκον μέγαν, &ε. called Gargarida, which Zeno, the emperor, converted into a large Christian church. 1 And though it is not agreed by learned men whether the temples said to be built by Hadrian were intended for the worship of himself or the worship of Christ; (for Casaubon and Pagi think he designed them for himself; whilst Huetius defends Lampridius's relation, who says he designed them for the honour of Christ ;) yet it is certain, that after they had been used to other purposes, they were at last, some of them, turned into Christian churches. For Epiphanius says there was a great temple at Tiberias, called the Hadrianum, which the Jews made use of for a bath; but Josephus Comes, the converted Jew, in the time of Constantine, turned it into a church. And the like was done by another of them, by Athanasius, at Alexandria, having before been the hall or palace of Licinius, as the same Epiphanius informs us. So that now, partly by the munificence of the Emperors, building churches at their own charge, and partly by their orders for converting heathen temples into churches, and partly by the great liberality and zeal of private Christians, in times of peace, churches became another thing from what they were in former ages, that is, more noble and stately edifices, more rich and beautiful, under which advantage we are next to take a view of them in the following part of this Book. CHAP. III. Of the different Forms and Parts of the Ancient Churches. And first of the Exterior Narthex, or Ante-Temple. SECT. 1.-Churches anciently of different Forms. It may easily be collected from what has been discoursed in the former Chapter, that anciently churches were not all 'Casaubon. Not. in Lamprid. Vit. Alex. Severi. p. 179. in Baron. an. 134. n. 4. 8 Huet. Demonstrat. Evangel. Propos. iii. Epiphan. Hær. 80. Ebionit, n. 13. Pagi, Critic. 5 Epiphan. Hær. 2 built precisely in one form or figure: for since both heathen temples and public halls were turned into churches, it can hardly be imagined, that all these should happen to be built exactly in the same form. Nor indeed was there any universal rule among Christians about this matter. The author of the Constitutions seems to intimate that they were generally oblong, in the figure of a ship. This figure was otherwise called dromical, Spoμukov, because, as Leo Allatius and Suicerus after him conjecture, churches built in this form had void spaces for deambulation. And this is said to be the figure of the famous church of Sancta Sophia, at Constantinople, by Paulus Silentarius and other writers. But this figure was not so general but that we meet with churches in other forms; for the church which Constantine built over our Saviour's sepulchre at Mount Golgotha, was round, as we learn from Eusebius and Walafridus Strabo.5 That which he built at Antioch, Eusebius says, was an octagon; and such was the church of Nazianzum, built by Gregory, the father of Gregory Nazianzen, as we find in the son's Funeral Oration upon his father," who describes it as having eight sides equal to one another. Other churches were built in the form of a cross, as that of Simeon Stylites mentioned by Evagrius; and the church of the Apostles, built by Constantine at Constantinople, was in this form likewise, as we learn from Gregory Nazienzen in his Somnium Anastasia, who thus describes it; Carm. 9. Tom. ii. p. 79, Σὺν τοῖς και μεγάλαυχον ἕδος Χριτοῖο Μαθητῶν, Among these stood the stately church of the Apostles of Christ, dividing itself into four wings in the form of a cross. These were sometimes made so by the addition of a wing of building on each side, (which wings the Greeks called Apsides,) as Cedrenus, and Zonaras observe in the Life of 1 Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. p. 57. Ο οίκος ἔσω ἐπιμήκης, ὅτις ἔοικε νηΐ. 2 Allatius, de Templis Græcorum. Suicer. Thesaur. Eccles. Voce, 5 Strabo de Rebus. Eccl. c. 4. "Naz. • Cedren. Ναός. * Euseb. Vit. Const. lib. iii. Euseb. Vit. Constant. lib. iii. c. 50. 'Ev oкraidρe oxíμari. Orat. 19. de Laud. Patr. p. 313. Vit. Justin. in Compend. Hist. p. 390. Evagr. lib. i. c. 14. Justin Junior, who added two of these Apsides to the church of Blachernæ, and so made it resemble the form of a cross. Valesius has also observed1 out of the Itinerary of Antoninus, the martyr, that the church which Constantine built at Mambre, was in a quadrangular or square figure, with an open court in the middle, so as one part of it was made use of by the Jews, and the other by the Christians. Some churches were also called Octachora, but as Valesius rightly observes, those were the same with the Octagones, as appears from this ancient inscription in Gruter; Octachorum sanctos tempulm surrexit in usus, or Suicerus and Allatius take notice also of another form of churches, which they call, Τρελλωτά, Κυλινδρωτα, θολωτὰ and Kukλoud, that is, round in the figure of an arch, a sphere, or a cylindre, or a shield, or a circle, as the Pantheon at Rome was said to be. But this, properly speaking, was not so much the form of a church, as the figure of one part of some churches, as particularly that of Sancta Sophia, the body of which was built in the form of a Trulla, that is, a great round arch or sphere; but yet the whole was oblong, resembling the form of other churches, as the reader may judge by comparing the several figures in the following table, whereof one is that of Sancta Sophia, taken from Du Fresne's Constantinopolis Christiana, another from Dr. Beverege in his Pandects, a third from Leo Allatius, and a fourth from Goar; all of which being contracted and put together by Schelstrate, in his Concilium Antiochenum, are here represented from his copy, with the proper names referring to each part of them. To these I have added another figure, representing the stately church of Tyre, built by Paulinus, and described by Eusebius in his panegyrical oration upon the church and the founder of it, which the curious reader may see at large in the tenth Book of his Ecclesiastical History. I shall here in a great measure follow his description, as one of the most ancient and Antonin. ap. Vales. Not. in Euseb. de Vit. Const. lib. iii. c. 53. Est ibi basilica ædidificata per quadrum, et atrium in medio discoopertum, &c. Gruter. Thesaur. p. 1166. Euseb. lib. x. c. 4. |