In

indeed, at a very early stage in the history of the Church, became the dominant element, which fact, from the first century, is clearly seen in the oldest Christian monuments. the Roman catacombs, for example, Gentile converts from noble families continued to follow the custom of decorating family tombs. The Church approved rather than objected; she merely substituted Christian subjects, drawn from the Bible, for the more or less idolatrous motifs of classic painting, and thus laid the foundation of Christian art.

In the construction of their separate places of assembly, in the third and fourth centuries, the Christians still continued to observe classic traditions of architecture. Leclercq, indeed, after a minute investigation of the sources, finds a rather vague "point of contact" between synagogues and churches,1 but no more; the models of Christian churches were found in the structures, private or public, of the localities in which they were erected.

The first edifices in which the principal act of Christian worship, "the breaking of bread" took place, were the houses of certain converts in Jerusalem. The custom thus inaugurated of holding separate gatherings in the residences of those of the brethren spacious enough to afford accommodation for the Christians of a given locality was everywhere adopted. and the domus ecclesiae became the original type of Christian church. In Rome, for example, some of the most ancient churches (St. Clement, St. Caecilia, St. Pudentiana, St. Prisca), were erected on the site or formed part of private residences. Indeed the great mansions of the wealthy classes were admirably adapted for assemblies such as those of the first Christians. These mansions were ordinarily a combination of the Greek peristyle and the Roman atrium The peristyle consisted of an open, rectangular court, surrounded on three sides by a covered colonnade, about which the apartments of the family were distributed. The Roman atrium was also rectangular, with a roof sloping towards a rectangular opening above the impluvium, a receptacle for rain water which stood

1 1 Leclercq, Manuel d'Archéologie Chrétienne (Paris, 1907), 1, 340 sqq.

in the center of the court. The rooms of the family were in this case also distributed around the edifice, and were separated from one another by partitions. Opposite the entrance from the street was the tablinum, corresponding with the Greek prostas, flanked by two rooms-alae-containing the portraits of

ancestors.

The characteristic mansions of imperial Rome were formed by a combination of the Greek peristyle and the Roman atrium. This was effected in either of two ways (1) by introducing the colonnade feature of the Greek peristyle into the atrium, or (2) by the addition of a peristyle connected with the atrium by means of the tablinum. In the latter type of residence the peristyle became the center of family life, while the atrium, with its reception rooms, libraries and picture galleries, developed into a public room where business was transacted and family worship took place.

It was in private mansions of either of these types that the liturgical assemblies of the Christians during the first and second centuries, were ordinarily held. They were admirably adapted to the purpose. The atrium of a house of the kind described contained ample accommodation for a large congregation. The tablinum opposite the door was a suitable place for the bishop and clergy, the alae on either side may have been occupied by the deacons, virgins and widows, while the congregation were distributed according to sex in the covered spaces around the central open court. The future holy water font was a development from the impluvium in the center of the atrium, and the cartibulum, an ornamental stone table which stood in front of the impluvium, occupied the place corresponding with that of the altar in the later Christian basilicas.

But while the Christians of the first and second centuries appear generally to have held their meetings in the atriums of private residences, there were exceptions to this rule. The Clementine Recognitions, for example, which record the imaginary labors of St. Peter, contain interesting references to this

2

Cabrol et Leclercq, Dict. d'Archéologie et de Liturgie, 11, 532.

matter, which show the practice in Syria towards the end of the second century. A wealthy Christian named Theophilus is represented as having the large private basilica of his house consecrated as a church (Recog., x, 71), in which an episcopal chair was placed for the prince of the Apostles (Recog., x, 71), On another occasion, at Tripolis, the host of the Apostles, named Maro, offered a hall of his house capable of accommodating 500 people to St. Peter as a place to address the great concourse of people who wished to hear him (Recog., Iv, 6).

Thus, it may be said that the Christians of this period assembled for public worship in any convenient place owned by one of the brethren of a given community. The typical mansion of the time, however, was most frequently employed for this purpose, as is evident from its acknowledged influence on the earliest development of Christian architecture.

66

But

But there is good reason to believe that from the third century special edifices were in many places constructed for Christian worship. Even in the first age the Church enjoyed long intervals of peace during which, especially if the local authorities were of a tolerant disposition, the Christians could without difficulty erect churches. The decision of Alexander Severus (222-235) assigning a disputed piece of land for a Christian church is an indication of what could easily have become pretty general (Lampridius, Alex. Severus, 49). we are not left merely to conjecture. Tertullian apparently alludes to a public church when he speaks of the home of our Dove" as always erected" in high and open places " and facing the East (Adv. Valent., c. 3). In 260 the Emperor Gallienus, after the persecution of Valerian, restored to certain bishops a number of "places of religious worship." In the persecution of Diocletian numerous churches were destroyed; even the tolerant Constantius Chlorus carried out this part of his government program, while sparing the lives of Christians. In 303 a church was seized at Cirta in Roman Africa, and Lactantius tells of the destruction, by order of Diocletian, of a church in Nicomedia which stood on a rising ground in view of the imperial palace (Lact., De mort. persec., c. 12). In Rome, according to Optatus of Milevi, there were in the third

century forty basilicas within the limits of the city, and in Asia Minor several of the basilicas (Birbinkilisse) are regarded as dating from the third century or as reproducing types of churches of the pre-Constantinian period.3

THE BASILICAS.

From these rather meager data it seems fairly well established that the Christians of the earliest period gave little attention to the form of the places in which they worshipped. They were content to take any edifice in a given locality that offered sufficient accommodation. In places, however, where the conditions were favorable they erected churches, in our sense of the term, and this development took place especially in the third century. Their legal disabilities, however, always existed, and they were never sure of the morrow: facts which no doubt had a strong influence in preventing an early development of an architecture bearing the ear-marks of Christianity. What might have happened had conditions been otherwise is indicated by the evident encouragement given by the Church to another department of art. The frescoes of the Roman Cata

combs bear witness to the deep interest of the Roman Church authorities in the first efforts to create a distinctively Christian form of painting, and although no progress was made so far as regarded form in this art during the first three centuries, yet a multitude of excellent biblical subjects were portrayed in the crypts and chapels of the catacombs, which indicated what in better circumstances might be expected. But during this time little was possible in sculpture and architecture for the reasons above given. With the Edict of Milan, however, all changed (313). The Church now passed at once from the position of an institution regarded by the civil power with the greatest hostility to that of the highest favor. Her property, recently confiscated, was restored, and the resources of the em

Cf. Wieland, Mensa u. Confessio, p. 75.

Strzygowski, Kleinasien, 159.

pire were placed largely at her disposal for the erection of edifices worthy of the cult of the Redeemer of mankind. Constantine himself, and his mother St. Helen, took the initiative in this respect, and their example was followed by the bishops generally. The chief cities of the empire soon possessed great churches which compared favorably with the civil edifices of the same epoch, though inferior to the structures of an earlier period, erected before the arts had entered on their decline. The great halls of private palaces were still in some few cases, as in that of the Lateran basilica given to Pope Sylvester by Constantine, transformed into churches. Pagan temples also were occasionally similarly adapted to the new worship, the most important example of which, though it dates only from the pontificate of Boniface IV (608-615), was the transformation of the Pantheon into the Church of Sta. Maria ad Martyres. But the greater number of Christian churches were entirely new structures, in the construction of which, however, the materials of the now disused temples were often employed.

The churches which thus came into existence in the fourth century were called by the name familiar at the time of "basilicas," from certain resemblances which they bore to the edifices known by this name which served as law courts, market places and for other purposes. The development of the Christian basilica was different, however, in the East and the West. The characteristics of the Western, or Greco-Roman basilica, were an atrium, which stood before the main edifice, an interior colonnade and a roof of wood; the typical Oriental basilica, on the other hand, was a vaulted structure, with a narthex in place of the atrium and towers flanking the façade. The Greco-Roman basilica was the kind more commonly adopted throughout the empire, except in Egypt, Asia Minor and Syria, where the Oriental type came into being. The atrium, however, was often wanting in the Greco-Roman basilica of the East, and even in the West, in the basilica of the Lateran, it did not exist.