PART I.

In the early days of the Gospel, while the Christians were generally poor, and when they were obliged to meet in fear of the heathen, their worship was held in private houses, and sometimes in burial-places under-ground. But after a time buildings were expressly set apart for worship. It has been mentioned that in the years of quiet, between the death of Valerian and the last persecution (A.D. 261-303), these churches were built much more handsomely than before, and were furnished with gold and silver plate and other rich ornaments.[16] And after the conversion of Constantine, they became still finer and costlier. The clergy then wore rich dresses at service, the music was less simple, and the ceremonies were multiplied. Some of the old heathen temples were turned into churches; but temples were not built in a shape very suitable for Christian worship, and the pattern of the new churches was rather taken from the halls of justice, called _Basilicas_, which were to be found in every large town. These buildings were of an oblong shape, with a broad middle part, and on each side of it an aisle, separated from it by a row of pillars. This lower part of the basilica was used by merchants who met to talk about their business, and by all sorts of loungers who met to tell and hear the news. But at the upper end of the oblong there was a half circle, with its floor raised above the level of the rest; and in the middle of this part the judge of the city sat. Now if you will compare this description with the plan of a church, you will see that the broad middle part of the basilica answers to what is called the _body_ or _nave_ of the church; that the side _aisles_ are alike in each; and that the further part of the basilica, with its raised floor, answers to the _chancel_ of a church; while the _holy table_, or _altar_, stands in the place answering to the judge's seat in the basilica. Some of these halls were given up by the emperors to be turned into churches, and the plan of them was found convenient as a pattern in the building of new churches.

[16] Page 32.

On entering a church, the first part was the _Porch_, in which there were places for the catechumens (that is to say, those who were preparing for baptism); for those who were supposed to be possessed with devils, and who were under the care of the _exorcists_;[17] and for the lowest kinds of those who were undergoing penance. Beyond this porch were the _Beautiful Gates_, which opened into the _Nave_ of the church. Just within these gates were those penitents whose time of penance was nearly ended; and the rest of the nave was the place for the _faithful_--that is to say, for those who were admitted to all the privileges of Christians. At the upper end of the nave, a place called the _Choir_ was railed in for the singers; and then, last of all, came the raised part or chancel, which has been spoken of. This was called the _Sanctuary_, and was set apart for the clergy only. The women sat in church apart from the men; sometimes they were in the aisles, and sometimes in galleries. Churches generally had a court in front of them or about them, in which were the lodgings of the clergy, and a building for the administration of baptism, called the _Baptistery_.

[17] Page 81.

In the early times, churches were not adorned with pictures or statues; for Christians were at first afraid to have any ornaments of the kind, lest they should fall into idolatry like the heathen. No such things as images or pictures of our Lord, or of His saints, were known among them; and in their every-day life, instead of the figures of gods, with which the heathens used to adorn their houses, their furniture, their cups, and their seals, the Christians made use of emblems only. Thus, instead of pretending to make a likeness of our Lord's human form, they made a figure of a shepherd carrying a lamb on his shoulders, to signify the Good Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep (_St. John_ x. 11). Other ornaments of the same kind were--a _dove_, signifying the Holy Ghost; a _ship_, signifying the Church, the ark of salvation, sailing towards heaven; a _fish_, which was meant to remind them of their having been born again in the water, at their baptism; a musical instrument called a _lyre_, to signify Christian joy; and an _anchor_, the figure of Christian hope. About the year 300, the Council of Elvira, in Spain, made a canon forbidding pictures in church, which shows that the practice had then begun, and was growing; and also that in Spain, at least, it was thought to be dangerous (as indeed it too surely proved to be). And a hundred years later, Epiphanius, a famous bishop of Salamis, in the island of Cyprus, tore a curtain which he found hanging in a church, with a figure of our Lord, or of some saint, painted on it. He declared that such things were altogether unlawful, and desired that the curtain might be used to bury some poor man in, promising to send the church a plain one instead of it.

Christians used to sign themselves with the sign of the cross on many occasions, and figures of the cross were early set up in churches. But crucifixes (which are figures of our Lord on the cross, although ignorant people sometimes call the cross itself a crucifix) were not known until hundreds of years after the time of which we are now speaking.