The Basilica – Early Essays

The earliest church-buildings, as found at Dura, are nothing more than rooms in a house, yet they were built, or adapted, according to a pattern which met the needs of the Christian community. Grouped around a central courtyard, and thus avoiding any undue public attention, they generally consisted of a fair-sized room for meetings, a smaller room equipped with a font for baptisms, and a third chamber in which to hold the eucharistic meal.

To these might be annexed an office or store-room and a place for the instruction of converts. In affluent centres and during periods of prosperity a building of some size might be required, and benefactors came forward such as one Theophilus of Antioch, 'who was a man of more distinction than all the influential people in the city and consecrated the large hall of his house on behalf of the church'. The historian Eusebius, writing of events immediately before the last great outburst of persecution in 303 ad, comments on the greater luxury which grew up in Christian circles along with the rapid increase of numbers:

How could one describe those crowded assemblies and the multitudes gathered together in every city and the remarkable concourses in the places of prayer? The result was that people were no longer satisfied with the buildings of olden time and began to erect from the foundations wide and spacious churches throughout all the cities.

This is a somewhat vague and rhetorical flourish on Eusebius's part, but it may be that, even before Constantine's victory, Christians here and there were emboldened by tolerance or driven by necessity to try their hand at rather more pretentious church-building than the adaptation of a middle-class house.

The copying of pagan temples was ruled out, not so much through fear of the corruptions of heathenism as because the temple was essentially designed to attract crowds of worshippers around it, while the form of a Christian church was intended to draw a congregation for devotion and fellowship within. Porphyry, a vigorous opponent of the Christians, charged them about the year 300 ad with putting up 'great buildings in imitation of the structure of temples', and this, if the words can be taken in any literal sense, seems to imply something of a more distinctive and public character than the house-church.

The walls which have been discovered far below the church of S. Crisogono in the Trastevere district of Rome have been interpreted as one such building. A simple, aisleless hall is indicated, 28 metres by 15.5 metres, with a covered portico running along its flank and some attempt at a facade with a large central opening and a smaller one at each side. The brickwork is thought to date from the very beginning of the fourth century, but whether the building was in fact a church rather than some form of covered market is uncertain. In any case, exceptions are few and dubious: the general rule is that churches were parts of houses, or buildings which resembled very ordinary houses, until 313 when Constantine, by the Edict of Milan, granted to Christians the right for local churches to retain and enjoy the use of their places of assembly as 'the lawful property of their corporation'.

A year earlier Constantine had written to Anullinus, governor in Africa, ordering him to restore to the churches all that they had possessed before the last outburst of persecution, 'whether gardens or buildings or whatsoever belonged to these same churches by right', while Caecilianus, bishop of Carthage, was informed that money from the imperial treasury had been made available to meet the expenses of 'certain ministers of the lawful and most holy catholic religion'.

These clear signs of the emperor's favour caused the Church to prosper both in numbers and in the social standing of its adherents and the process was rapidly hastened whereby the organization of the Church in dioceses ruled by bishops was modelled in detail on the dignified arrangements made for civil government in the provinces. The liturgy also continued its process of development; from being a simple matter of scripture reading and a fellowship supper, it became a solemn ceremonial which borrowed and adapted certain features of court procedure.

A new type of church was therefore required to meet the desire for size and splendour, and one such building, consecrated at Tyre about the year 318, is described by Eusebius, who was called upon by his friend, Bishop Paulinus, to deliver the inaugural speech. He speaks of a large outer enclosure, bounded by a wall, and of an entrance-porch. Within came a colonnaded court 'having pillars raised on every side and the spaces filled with wooden barriers of lattice-work rising to a convenient height'. In front of the church itself fountains played, and entry to it was gained by one of three porches, the central doorway being larger and more richly decorated than those at each side.

Paved in marble and roofed with cedar, the church, in Eusebius's opinion, presented an appearance of 'brilliant beauty and dazzling workmanship', while the seating was conveniently arranged 'with thrones, very lofty, to do honour to the presidents'. The altar was apparently no longer a moveable wooden table but fixed 'in the midst of the holy of holies' and protected by a screen of lattice-work, 'delicately wrought with the craftsman's utmost skill'. Eusebius refers to this handsome church at Tyre as a 'royal house', and it was in fact an early example of the basilica, the type of building which served as a church, at least in the West, for several centuries.