Texier, Charles; Pullan, Richard P.: Byzantine architecture illustrated by examples of edifices erected in the East during the earliest ages of christianity (London, 1864)

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PAGAN TEMPLES CONVERTED INTO CHURCHES

TEMPLES IN ASIA CONVERTED INTO CHURCHES.

IIE progress of the Christian religion made itself felt throughout the whole Roman
territory from the time of the conversion of Constantine, whom the zeal of the bishoyis
constantly stimulated to labour for the extinction of paganism. The towns of Palestine and
Syria were the first to experience the* consequences of Christian reaction. In Antioch and the
neighbouring provinces the Christians had suffered most from the attempts of Julian. Not
only had the edict, which had remained to a certain extent unobserved, been enforced, but
violence of every sort, even torture, had been employed by the pagans to bring hack the
new converts to the ancient worship. Therefore, when the free exercise of the Christian
religion was proclaimed by Valens, through a very natural reaction, the temples of Antioch were
for ever closed. The great basilica of Constantine had been completed by Constantius; but this
church was considered insufficient for the town in which Christianity had been proclaimed for
the first time, in the year 43 of our Lord.

St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, had been thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheatre
of Rome, in the reign of Trajan. Ilis relics, carefully gathered by his disciples, had been
conveyed to Antioch and deposited in a tomb situated near the Gate of Daphne, where for
three centuries they had been the object of veneration to the faithful. Theodosius the Younger,
on his accession to the throne, was desirous of giving the patriarch of Antioch a sepulchre
more worthy of his renown. He caused the Temple of Eortune, which had been closed for
many years, to be purified, and converted it into a church under the patronage of St. Ignatius
and an annual festival was established in commemoration of the translation of his relics. The
church of St. Ignatius was destroyed in one of the great fires that devastated Antioch, and
there are now no traces of it.

Rufinius, prefect of the praetorium under Arcadius, had demolished the Temple of Mercury and
employed the materials in the construction of the great basilica which bore his name. These
splendid edifices perished in the fires and sieges from which the town suffered.

THE TEMPLE OE YEN US AT A PIIR O D I S I A S.

One of the most ingenious adaptations of an ancient temple to Christian worship was
certainly that which the Temple of Menus at Aphrodisias underwent. It is strange that this
building should have been so appropriated; for of all the deities of paganism, Venus was, without
doubt, the most abhorred by Christians, on account of the licentious ceremonies of which she
was the object. Eusebius never pronounces her name without a malediction—“the demon
adored under the name of Venus.”3

Whatever related to purity of morals was considered of the first importance by the early
Christians, and we can understand the light that Christian virtue shed upon nations sunk in the
mire of sensuality, and with what satisfaction the imperial orders, which had for their object
the dispersion of the infamous pagan priests and the destruction of the altars of
libertinism, were obeyed.

Respect for woman, which Christianity placed in relief, in contradistinction to all the
ancient creeds, had been recognized as of superhuman origin, and it helped in some degree to
annihilate paganism. It was one of the virtues of the barbarians of the North who menaced
the Empire, and was one of the most powerful reasons that induced them to embrace
Christianity. 2

Evagrius, Look r. cli. 16.

2 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book III. ch. 55.