DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61894#0218
388
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. V.
are the most ancient now existing1, and erected
as they were in the earliest ages of Christianity,
give ns a clear and precise idea of the notions of
the Christians of that period with regard to the
form and the arrangement of churches. In the
first place, as not one of these churches bears
any resemblance to a cross, we may conclude
that Mr. Gibbon was mistaken, when he attri-
buted to the first Christians a partiality to that
figure in the construction of their oratories, and
an unwillingness to convert pagan temples into
churches, because not erected in that form.
Many temples from their narrow limits were, as
I have already remarked, totally incapable of
holding a Christian congregation. Several of
greater magnitude were actually converted into
churches, and are to this day used as such; and
if Constantine could in prudence, at a time when
the Roman senate was still pagan, have offered
the splendid seat of pagan worship to the bishop
of Rome, the offer would have been readily ac-
cepted, and the temple of Jupiter Capitolinas,
though not in the form of a cross, would like the
Pantheon have been sanctified by Christian
rites, and might probably still have remained a
noble monument of ancient magnificence. It
is difficult to determine at what precise period
the figure of the cross was introduced, but it
seems to have been about the end of the fifth
1
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. V.
are the most ancient now existing1, and erected
as they were in the earliest ages of Christianity,
give ns a clear and precise idea of the notions of
the Christians of that period with regard to the
form and the arrangement of churches. In the
first place, as not one of these churches bears
any resemblance to a cross, we may conclude
that Mr. Gibbon was mistaken, when he attri-
buted to the first Christians a partiality to that
figure in the construction of their oratories, and
an unwillingness to convert pagan temples into
churches, because not erected in that form.
Many temples from their narrow limits were, as
I have already remarked, totally incapable of
holding a Christian congregation. Several of
greater magnitude were actually converted into
churches, and are to this day used as such; and
if Constantine could in prudence, at a time when
the Roman senate was still pagan, have offered
the splendid seat of pagan worship to the bishop
of Rome, the offer would have been readily ac-
cepted, and the temple of Jupiter Capitolinas,
though not in the form of a cross, would like the
Pantheon have been sanctified by Christian
rites, and might probably still have remained a
noble monument of ancient magnificence. It
is difficult to determine at what precise period
the figure of the cross was introduced, but it
seems to have been about the end of the fifth
1