Section: 2E3 - Holy Sites.
Number of quotes: 206
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 116
Section: 2E3,2E6
Procopius himself applied his pen to celebrate the beauties of their little homeland. As for the outcome of his teaching, one can understand why in the tenth century the patriarch Photius grumbled on reading what one of Procopius’ disciples wrote: “He is devoted to the true religion; he respects the rites and sacred places of Christians. Nonetheless, for whatever reason of negligence or thoughtlessness, he mixes into his writings ill-suited pagan fables and stories, at times even when treating sacred subjects.”{27}
Quote ID: 53
Time Periods: 67
A History of the Arab Peoples
Albert Hourani
Book ID: 7 Page: 7
Section: 2E3
...the sixth century, ......memories of the pagan gods still haunted the temples turned into churches
Quote ID: 107
Time Periods: 456
A History of the Arab Peoples
Albert Hourani
Book ID: 7 Page: 15
Section: 2E3
...the first biographer whose work we know did not write until more than a century after Muhammad’s death.
Quote ID: 108
Time Periods: 7
A History of the Arab Peoples
Albert Hourani
Book ID: 7 Page: 55
Section: 2B2,2E3
Although Muslims regarded Muhammad as a man like others, the idea became accepted that he would intercede for his people on the Day of Judgement, and Muslims would visit his tomb in Madina during the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Shi’i imams, particularly those who had suffered, attracted pilgrims from an early time; the tomb of ‘Ali at Najaf has elements dating from the ninth century. Gradually the tombs of those who were regarded as being ‘friends of God’ and having powers of intercession with Him multiplied throughout the Muslim world; no doubt some of them grew up in places regarded as holy by earlier religions or by the immemorial tradition of the countryside.
Quote ID: 110
Time Periods: 7
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 21
Section: 2E3,3C
Constantine devoted large sums of money to the rebuilding of churches after the ravages of the persecutions, and he financed the copying of the Scriptures in the aftermath of the widespread destruction of sacred texts.
Quote ID: 130
Time Periods: 4
A Public Faith: From Constantine To The Medieval World AD 312-600 Vol. 2
Ivor J. Davidson
Book ID: 10 Page: 23
Section: 2E3,3C
While he had shown tolerance to Christians before and after 313 and had taken a Christian wife, Licinius did not share Constantine’s enthusiasm for wholehearted favoritism towards the churches, and once the two had parted company, Licinius came to regard Christian leaders as partisans of his enemy. He was not mistaken, for Constantine actively sought to enlist Eastern bishops in support of his political cause.Licinius’s anti-Christian measures slowly became intense, and in the end, they provided Constantine with a pretext for a showdown.
….
Constantine had achieved his self-professed mission as one called by God to reunite the empire. All the imperial subjects were called upon to worship the one true God.
The new city would contain no temples but was to have a number of churches, the most splendid of which would be the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Sancta Sophia), adjacent to the imperial palace, symbolizing the essential relationship between the emperor and the church.
Quote ID: 131
Time Periods: 4
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 48
Section: 2E3,3C
The one consistent theme in Constantine’s policy towards Christians is that he, rather than the Church, defined the relationship. He was, after all, offering a persecuted minority full membership of Roman society and he knew it would be dependent on him. More than this, he proclaimed that the clergy would now be exempt from taxation and civic duties so that ‘they shall not be drawn away by any deviation and sacrifice from worship due to the divinity …for it seems that, rendering the greatest possible service to the deity, they most benefit the state’. This is Constantine not so much humbling himself before God, as using the power of the Church to sustain his own rule.….
Constantine fostered the process by granting immense patronage to the Church in the shape of buildings,
….
In this way a pagan custom, the worship of gods through impressive buildings, was transferred successfully into Christianity.
Quote ID: 182
Time Periods: 4
A.D. 381 Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 11 Page: 76/77
Section: 2E3,3C
The founding of Constantinople illustrates how Constantine, whatever his personal commitment to Christianity, distanced himself from the Church. The emperor himself inaugurated the building programme by marking the new limits of the city with a spear as in traditional Greek ritual.
Quote ID: 196
Time Periods: 4
Ananias of Shirak upon Christmas
Ananias
Book ID: 537 Page: 4/5
Section: 2A4,2E3
But in regard to the apostolic canon, the Greeks argue thus: that the Apostles had no leisure to narrowly seek out feast days, for their occupation was in preaching, and in separating and holding [men] aloof from heathen festivals. Will any one really be content to hear such a thing said of the Apostles as that they were certainly so careless as this about the appointing of festivals? Why, in that case, did they teach us to worship turning towards the east? Why, also, to meet together and feast Sunday, to honour it and be idle on it? Or to fast on the fourth day of the week and on Fridays? For all these are lesser points than the festivals of the birth and baptism.Source: "Ananias of Shirak, On Christmas," The Expositor, 5th series vol. 4 (1896), pp. 323–337.
Quote ID: 9177
Time Periods: 7
Ananias of Shirak upon Christmas
Ananias
Book ID: 537 Page: 10
Section: 2E3
I am persuaded by the holy Polycarp, for he was a pupil of John the Evangelist, and heard with his own ears all the history of the Saviour. And he declares that the birth happened on the first of the week. And it was fitting that on this day on which was the beginning of creation----it was indeed portended----that on this day the Saviour of all should come into the world by being born, but keeping the virginity intact. And [he said] that the resurrection after the stay under the seal of the rock [was on the first day of the week], as also prior to that the entrance into Jerusalem on the day of the palms, and subsequently thereto the descent of the Spirit on the Apostles. But he (i.e. Polycarp) declared “that the day of the baptism fell, after thirty years, on the same number of day in the month, only on the fourth day of the week. And he declares that the creation of the sun on the fourth day was for a mystery and foretype.”{19}
Quote ID: 9179
Time Periods: 27
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 34
Section: 2E3
The Romans always regarded this sanctuary as the most sacred of all: it was the true habitation of Jupiter, the most powerful of the gods . . .
Quote ID: 263
Time Periods: 0
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 51
Section: 2E3
The temple on the Captoline, then, was the focus of the state religion, the place from which divine power was believed to radiate. There the pontiffs, who supervised all sacred observances under the ponitfex maximus, and the augurs, who examined the entrails of sacrificial victims or the play of lightning to foretell the will of the gods, had their priestly colleges and pronounced their verdicts.PJ: – until Augustus.
Quote ID: 268
Time Periods: 0
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 153
Section: 2E3
To accomplish his aim, Augustus enlarged Rome’s central meeting area by adding a third forum next to the one built by Caesar. He turned his attention to an important element in “useful” building - the basilica, or the assembly hall, of which a number had been rising in Rome as well as in other cities of importance.They were both governmental and social meeting places, protected against summer’s heat and winter’s storms; in time the Christians would adapt the design of the basilica, transforming the hall into a church and placing an altar where the dais had been.
Quote ID: 282
Time Periods: 04
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 257
Section: 2E3,4B
Tertullian, in the second century, had believed that Rome would last as long as the world, enduring until the Day of judgment. A special sanctity was attached to the inviolate city. But Alaric had proved that it was a city like any other, only too vulnerable. In far-off Bethlehem, Saint Jerome lamented: “The entire human race is implicated in the catastrophe. My voice is choked, and my words are broken with sobs while I write: The city now is taken that once held the world.”
Quote ID: 325
Time Periods: 245
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 258
Section: 2E3
. . . the greatness of Rome was no more. Attila the Hun - He intended to attack Rome, but his army was racked with disease, and Alaric’s death, shortly after the sack of the city by the Goths in 410, had filled the barbarians with superstitious horror. When Pope Leo I came to him to ask his leniency, therefore, Attila was ready to grant it. Attila turned back and Rome was saved. Three years later, in 455, Leo confronted Gaiseric, the Vandal, whose armies were camped outside the walls. Once again the pope was able to save Rome from destruction. Gaiseric wanted to plunder, and this was given to him on condition that there would be no rape, no murder, no firing of houses, churches, and ancient palaces.For Leo it was pure victory; he had exchanged the gold tiles of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline and all the baubles of pagan Rome for a Christian peace.
Quote ID: 326
Time Periods: 5
Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii A Day
Philip Matyszak
Book ID: 17 Page: 19
Section: 2A3,2E3
It is illegal to bury corpses within the sacred city of Rome itself, though the privilege may be granted to an extremely distinguished individual. Only Rome’s great Valerian family, Vestal Virgins and the Caesars themselves have this as a right, and the Valerians choose not to exercise it.
Quote ID: 345
Time Periods: 3
Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii A Day
Philip Matyszak
Book ID: 17 Page: 104
Section: 2E3
April The month of blossoming (from Latin aperio, ‘opening’). On 4 April there are banquets in honour of the Magna Mater (the Great Mother – an Asiatic cult).
Quote ID: 351
Time Periods: 0
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 128
Section: 2E3
Early Christians undoubtedly met in private homes (Colossians 4:15; White, I, 103-10, Reumann, 109), though it should not be forgotten that Christians, like the Jews (Acts 16:13), also met in open places (Pliny, Letters, 117), markets, and hired halls (Acts 20:8). There is neither literary evidence nor archaeological indication that any house church was converted into an extant church building. Nor is there any extant church or basilica that certainly was built prior to Constantine (White, I, 3-10). Consequently, we have no evidence regarding the intentional builtform of a Christian meeting place prior to the “peace”. There were homes that were restructured to accommodate the Christian assembly (White, I, 111-123).. . . .
It is amazing that we do not have more remains of such house churches. In reality, we probably do have the remains of such house churches but cannot recognize them. As it now stands we have only one edifice we can confidently categorize as a pre-Constantinian domus ecclesiae, the church at Dura-Europos.
Quote ID: 452
Time Periods: 123
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 129
Section: 2E3
In 1928 Dura-Europos was excavated by the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters and by Yale University. In the first report involving the Christian building, the report of the 1930-1931 season, the field director mentioned an “edifice of Tower 17.” In the 1932 the pictorial nature of the Baptistery made it clear that a domus ecclesiae had been discovered.. . . .
. . .it is one of a kind.
The excavators of the Christian church have reported finding three stages of development on the site: an earlier dwelling, a private house, and the house adapted for use as a domus ecclesiae. Since the private house itself shows no history as a location for Christian activities, ….
Quote ID: 453
Time Periods: 234
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 131/132
Section: 2E3
If one accepts the graffito (#10 in the collection, p. 264) found on the first layer of plaster in room 4 as the date of the building of the house, then sometime between 232-233 and 256 the house was converted or adapted for use as a Christian meeting place.Pastor John’s note: even to date this house, one has to rely on graffiti!
Quote ID: 454
Time Periods: 3
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 133
Section: 2E3
. . .the small, irregular room of the female servant {6} was totally transformed to become the baptistery.
Quote ID: 455
Time Periods: 23
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 199/200
Section: 2E3
If there had been a cult of Peter at the Vatican one would also expect that the graves of Christians would have been assembled around the aedicule. As can be seen in figure 42, there were a number of graves in Campo P. Not one shows signs of a Christian burial. On the other hand if they were of the second century, there would have been no distinctive signs or symbols available!. . . .
Kirshbaum was at first convinced that the bones discovered under the wall at N{1} were those of Peter. They had been gathered there during the construction of the Red Wall. Some reports, as well as his own, still carry this thesis, but anatomical analysis indicates that the bones were those of a young woman. In summary, there was no grave of Peter at the aedicule and none of the graves there appear to us to be Christian.
Quote ID: 457
Time Periods: 34
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 288/289
Section: 2E3
D. LIST OF BUILDINGS298-341; Panopolis
Edition: P Gen inv. 108
In the list of buildings of Panopolis, there is a οἰκία ἢτοι ἐκκλισία[ς?] (column d, line 11), which could very likely be a house church. Church professions are also listed for the house owners. At the time of this document, house churches could have been publicly recognized as such.
Quote ID: 474
Time Periods: 34
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 289
Section: 2E3
A certain Aurelius Ammonius made a declaration of possessions for the ἐκκλησία (a church building, not a faith community). He certified under oath that the church possessed “neither gold nor silver nor money nor clothes nor beasts nor slaves nor lands nor property either from grants or bequests” except for a bronze gate that had been delivered for shipment to Alexandria. One would assume the list consists of standard items the officials expected to find in a church. If so, the poverty reflected in the declaration would not necessarily be normal.
Quote ID: 475
Time Periods: 4
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 299
Section: 2E3
The New Testament Church began as a small group house church (Col. 4:15) and it remained so until the middle or end of the third century. There are no evidences of larger places of meeting before 300. Actually, evidence of any kind remains surprisingly sparse. Christians must have met in homes or other small edifices without sufficiently altering the structures to leave traces of their presence. What we have as evidence points only to the house church. At mid-third century we have in Dura-Europos a house remodeled to function as a church; in Rome we have in SS. Giovanni e Paolo a single room serving as the church meeting place until near the turn of the century, when a larger complex was formed. Street lists in Egypt indicate some homes were used as churches. Thousands of Christians met throughout the Mediterranean basin for two centuries without leaving us solid data regarding their places of assembly. Those places of assembly must have been private homes not owned by the “church” and, therefore, not remodeled.
Quote ID: 480
Time Periods: 123
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 300
Section: 2E3
Not until the end of the fourth century can we find church edifices with a choir or confession.
Quote ID: 481
Time Periods: 4
Ante-Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine
Graydon F. Snyder
Book ID: 25 Page: 304/305
Section: 2E3
The Christianity made official by Constantine had already developed public structures. The “conversion” of Constantine must have also included a consciousness of the political usefulness of these structures.
Quote ID: 7420
Time Periods: 234
Arnobius, ANF Vol. 6, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts
Book ID: 659 Page: 434
Section: 2E3
“But He did not permit men to make supplication to the lesser gods. . . . ‘This’, my opponent says, ‘is the temple of Mars, this that of Juno and of Venus, this that of Hercules, of Apollo, of Dis.’ What is this but to say this is the house of Mars, this of Juno and Venus, Apollo dwells here, in this abides Hercules, in that Summanus? Is it not, then, the very greatest affront to hold the gods kept fast in habitations, to give to them little huts, to build lockfast places and cells, and to think that the things are necessary to them which are needed by men, cats, emmets, and lizards, by quaking, timorous, and little mice?”PJ footnote reference: Arnobius, Against the Heathen, II.2–3.
Quote ID: 9464
Time Periods: 4
Arnobius, ANF Vol. 6, Fathers of the Third Century
Edited by Alexander Roberts
Book ID: 659 Page: 507
Section: 2E3
For do we honour Him with shrines, and by building temples? {8} Do we even slay victims to Him? Do we give Him the other things, to take which and pour them forth in libation shows not a careful regard to reason, but heed to a practice maintained {9} merely by usage?
FOOTNOTE {8} Arnobius here expressly denies that the Christians had any temples. There has been some controversy on the subject (Mosheim, book i. cent. I, ch. 4, sec. 5, Soames’ ed.), surely as needless as controversy could be; for as the Christians must at all times have had stated places of meeting (although in time of persecution these might be changed frequently), it is clear that, in speaking thus, the meaning must be only, that their buildings had no architectural pretensions, and their service no splendour of ritual. [Diocletian’s mild beginning suffered Christians to build costly temples in many places. These he subsequently destroyed with great severity.]
PJ footnote reference: Arnobius, Against the Heathen, VI.3.
Quote ID: 9476
Time Periods: 34
Art in the Roman Empire
Michael Grant
Book ID: 30 Page: 67
Section: 2E3
Here the Romans come very easily into the centre of the picture, because the basilica was their invention (even though it harked back, in some respects – as its name suggests – to the Greek peristyle and colonnaded piazza). The Roman basilica was essentially a large building used for official purposes.
Quote ID: 519
Time Periods: 0
Art in the Roman Empire
Michael Grant
Book ID: 30 Page: 75
Section: 2E3
In particular, Constantine adapted the old pagan basilica (which has been discussed in Chapter 9) so as to make it the model of his great Christian churches.Indeed, these new Christian buildings owed these pagan Basilicas the main lines of their entire structure, including the arrangement of the windows.
Quote ID: 520
Time Periods: 4
Art in the Roman Empire
Michael Grant
Book ID: 30 Page: 82
Section: 2E3
The early Christians were also concerned to erect memoriae or martyria, in honour of their saints, either as extensions and end-pieces of longitudinal basilicas or independently, on their own, as free-standing buildings. These last were centralized structures, which were not an altogether novel idea.
Quote ID: 522
Time Periods: 4
Art in the Roman Empire
Michael Grant
Book ID: 30 Page: 88
Section: 2E3,3A3A
But let us consider, finally, the aims of Constantine, who inspired its construction, and the possibilities open to him. He was accustomed to insist on monumental public structures, adorned with a great quantity of precious objects. And, as we said earlier, he placed churches at the very summit of public monumental architecture, employing modified versions of classical, pagan traditions in their design. However, he also had to bear in mind local requirements and resources, which were duly set out in writing by the bishop of the region, just as the provincial governor or his delegate set out those of secular buildings.
Quote ID: 523
Time Periods: 4
Augustine, NPNF1 Vol. 2, St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 653 Page: 21
Section: 2E3
It is said that Romulus and Remus, in order to increase the population of the city they founded, opened a sanctuary in which every man might find asylum and absolution of all crime,—a remarkable foreshadowing of what has recently occurred in honor of Christ. The destroyers of Rome followed the example of its founders.PJ book footnote reference: Augustine, The City of God, I.34.
Quote ID: 9431
Time Periods: ?
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 177
Section: 2A3,2E3,3A3A
The legal difficulty remained, at least in theory. Under Roman law, temples and their sites were res sacrae, consecrated to the gods by the authority of the Roman people, by a law or a decree of the senate; but the “houses” of the church were not temples. Tombs and cemeteries were res religiosae, consecrated to the gods below (dis Manibus) by legal burials made by persons competent to make them. Christian cemeteries could not be dedicated to the dii Manes.{29}[Footnote 29] Cf. M. Kaser, Das romische Privatrecht I (Munich, 1959), 105-7, 175-76.
In 321 Constantine insisted that property could be left by will to “the most holy and venerable council [concilium] of the Catholic church,” presumably with individual churches in view.{30}
[Footnote 30] Cod. Theod. 16, 2, 4; cf, Kaser, op cit., 348; H. Dorries, Das Selbstzeugnis Kaiser Konstantins (Gottingen, 1954)m 183.
Quote ID: 646
Time Periods: 14
Basilica
R.A. Scotti
Book ID: 39 Page: 7
Section: 2E3
Named for the vati, or “soothsayers”, who argued there in classical times, the Vatican field lay on the west bank of the Tiber River,…[To 2E3]
Quote ID: 823
Time Periods: 01
Basilica
R.A. Scotti
Book ID: 39 Page: 21
Section: 2E3
* As he lay dying, Nicholas V explained his building philosophy to his cardinals: “A popular faith, sustained only on doctrines, will never be anything but feeble and vacillating. But if the authority of the Holy See were visibly displayed in majestic buildings, imperishable memorials, and witnesses seemingly planted by the Hand of God Himself, belief would grow and strengthen like a tradition from one generation to another, and all the world would accept and revere it. Noble edifices, combining taste and beauty with imposing proportions, would immediately conduce to the exaltation of the Chair of St. Peter….”
Quote ID: 827
Time Periods: 7
Basilica
R.A. Scotti
Book ID: 39 Page: 133
Section: 2E3
Raphael’s plan had an aisled nave, an impressive, double-storied facade, and a piazza with the obelisk of Caligula in the center—very much as it is today.
Quote ID: 840
Time Periods: 17
Book Of The Popes (Liber Pontificalis), The
Louise Ropes Loomis
Book ID: 200 Page: 47
Section: 2E3,3C
In his time Constantine Augustus built the following basilicas and adorned them.
Quote ID: 4521
Time Periods: 4
Book Of The Popes (Liber Pontificalis), The
Louise Ropes Loomis
Book ID: 200 Page: 48
Section: 2E3,3C
4 crowns{3} of purest gold with 20 dolphins, weighing each fifteen lbs;A vaulting for the basilica of polished gold, in length and in breadth 500 lbs.;{4}
7 altars of purest silver, weighing each 200 lbs.;
7 golden patens, weighing each thirty lbs ;
16 silver patens, weighing each thirty lbs.;
7 goblets of purest gold, weighing each 10 lbs. ;
Pastor John’s note: etc.
Quote ID: 4522
Time Periods: 4
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 109
Section: 2E3
“An ‘accidentally preserved notice of a flood at Edessa in AD 201 mentions the “temple of the Christians” as an important building’.”
Quote ID: 999
Time Periods: 3
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 110
Section: 2E3
gradually the houses in which the church met ceased to belong to an individual but to the church itself.
Quote ID: 1000
Time Periods: 34
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 128
Section: 2E3
Origen speaks of burning Christian buildings.
Quote ID: 1008
Time Periods: 23
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 168
Section: 2E3
Christians basilica in Tyre described by Eusebius is the earliest description of a Christian building. It was built so that the rays of the morning sun could brighten the richly adorned sanctuary. The “presidents” sat on thrones, with benches for the congregation.
Quote ID: 1035
Time Periods: 4
Canons of Elvira, The – 305 or 306 A.D. (Internet article)
http://www.awrsipe.com/patrick_wall/selected_documents/309~council~of~elvira.pdf Accessed 3/22/2017
Book ID: 382 Page: 1
Section: 2E3
Ca. 33. Bishops, presbyters, and deacons and all other clerics having a position in the ministry are ordered to abstain completely from their wives and not to have children. Whoever, in fact, does this shall be expelled from the dignity of the clerical state.Can. 34. Candles shall not be burned in a cemetery during day, for the spirits of the saints are not to be disturbed. Those who do not observe this are excluded from the communion of the church.
Quote ID: 8285
Time Periods: 4
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 33
Section: 2E1,2E3
A humorous story is told of St Martin of Tours, who travelled through northern Gaul in the late fourth century, destroying Pagan shrines - and trees in particular. In one place, the local people made a deal with him: he could cut down their holy tree only if he would stand beneath it as it fell. Sensibly, Martin declined their challenge and went elsewhere. (Section called Fairy Thorns and Sacred Places)
Quote ID: 1134
Time Periods: 4
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 34
Section: 2E3
A similarly miraculous bush was the origin of the veneration of Our Lady at the pilgrimage shrine of Ave Maria at Deggingen in south Germany. In the fourteenth century, a rose-thorn bush of ancient veneration was about to be cut down when it was noticed that each leaf bore the words ‘Ava Maria’. Thereafter, the bush was venerated, and later a chapel, now called Alt-Ave, was erected on the site. (Section called Fairy Thorns and Sacred Places)
Quote ID: 1135
Time Periods: 7
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 39
Section: 2E3
The ancient philosophers, among them Iamblichus, Porphyry and Proclus, stated that gods and demons, when attracted to stone images through rituals, take up residence in them, using them as media for their manifestations.
Quote ID: 1136
Time Periods: 345
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 64
Section: 2E3
Making offerings to the gods and spirits of rivers and lakes is a venerable Celtic tradition.The necessity of observing a lake-offering is recorded in medieval Arthurian legend. The magic sword Excalibur was taken by King Arthur from a holy lake (said to be Dozmary Pool) with the permission of its spirit, the Lady of the Lake. But once its destiny in this world was fulfilled, it was essential that Excalibur should be returned to the waters.
Quote ID: 1139
Time Periods: 17
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 65
Section: 2E3
Where Celtic lands came under Roman rule, the major Celtic water-shrines were incorporated into fully fledged temple complexes. Religious practices became increasingly sophisticated as certain aspects of Roman civilization were introduced. Later, when polytheism gave way to monotheism, many such shrines were occupied by churches.One of the most important holy places in Germany, the Imperial Cathedral at Aachen, stands over the Celtic curative sacred wells of Aquae Granni. To the Celts, it was a sacred place of the solar deity Grannos. To the Romans, he was Grannus, equated with the sun-god Apollo.
Quote ID: 1140
Time Periods: 01234
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 66
Section: 2E1,2E3
The hot springs at Buxton, known to the Romans as Aqueae Arnemetiae, were sacred to the goddess of the grove, and those at Bath, Aquae Sulis, to Sul, whose name means ‘sun’, but who, as a goddess, was assimilated with the Roman Minerva. Red wells, whose water is coloured by iron deposits, were seen as symbolizing the menstrual blood of the goddess. Later, under Christian influence, the ‘blood’ was transferred to Christ or his martyrs.
Quote ID: 1141
Time Periods: 01234
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 68
Section: 2E3
Caption The little shore chapel of St Trillo at Llandrillo-yn-Rhos in north Wales is built over the saint’s holy well, beneath the altar upon which devotees place their prayers and offerings of thanksgiving.Although the great water-shrines are no more, holy wells remain in all Celtic lands. Many are venerated still, continuing to acknowledge their Niskai or sprites. Almost every saint in Irish, British and Breton tradition has a holy well named after him or her. It is clear that many holy wells existed before the introduction of Christianity, and that this renaming was a monotheistic reinterpretation of the spirit that dwells within and guards the often healing waters.
Almost identical practices can be seen at the Liebfrauenbrunnen Chapel at Werbach in Germany. Like St Trillo’s, it is built over a Celtic holy well which rises on the bank of a stream bridged by the chapel.
Quote ID: 1143
Time Periods: 0123456
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 69
Section: 2E3
It is customary to make a pilgrimage on the holy day of the well’s saint.
Quote ID: 1144
Time Periods: 7
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 71
Section: 2E3
Also part of the Celtic well-head mythos are the legends that relate how many a healing or prophetic source sprang up spontaneously when someone was beheaded. This is recalled in The life of St David, where a spring wells up in a hazel grove at the place where a damsel is decapitated. The Celtic sacred springs of Alesia in Burgundy, in use long before the Christian religion, are said to have been the result of the beheading of St Reine. The identical legend is claimed by St Jutwara, St Lludd, St Noyala and St Tegiwg. Naturally, the most famous Welsh holy well of them all, that at Holywell, is said to have sprung forth when St Gwenfrewi (Winefride) was beheaded. When her head touched the ground, the waters burst forth.
Quote ID: 1146
Time Periods: 067
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 166
Section: 2E3
These holy loci gradually acquired a patina of the newer creed, whilst retaining the essence of the older faith. A syncretic ‘dual faith’ came into being, in which an official Christian liturgy was supplemented by vernacular Pagan customs and usages.Page 165
The Bards believed that all things were tending toward perfection; when, therefore, they embraced Christianity, they must on their own principles have viewed it as a stage in advance of their former creed. (Quoting Barrdas, John Williams ab Ithel).
Quote ID: 1151
Time Periods: 234567
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 175
Section: 2E1,2E3
Head-shrines in Catholic churches in Celtic and former Celtic lands perpetuate the practice of preserving and venerating the heads of ancestors and heroes.
Quote ID: 1154
Time Periods: 7
Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Book ID: 51 Page: 177
Section: 2E1,2E3
Paradoxically, it was not Celtic or even Catholic Christianity that led to the comprehensive destruction of Celtic sacred places, rather it was the Reformation. When the Roman Catholic Church was suppressed in Britain, sacred places were deliberately destroyed for being alleged objects of superstition. Both Catholic and Pagan observance were extirpated together. A Scottish Parliamentary Act of 1581, epitomizes the attitude of the Puritans:The Dregs of Idolatry yet remain in divers Parts of the Realm by using of Pilgrimage to some Chapels, Wells, Crosses, and such other Monuments of Idolatry, as also by observing the Festal days of the Saints sometime Named their Patrons in setting forth of Bon-Fires, singing of Carols within and about Kirks at certain Seasons of the Year.
Quote ID: 1155
Time Periods: 7
Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical
Frank C. Senn
Book ID: 54 Page: 213
Section: 2E3
The floor plans of early medieval church buildings followed those of the ancient basilicas: a central nave leading to an apse or a choir, with side aisles. The major difference is that the altar was pushed farther into the apse, sometimes butting up against the east wall, in order to accommodate a choir section in which monks or canons could gather to sing the divine office. In cathedrals this also displaced the bishop’s throne to the side. Thus, the defining liturgical characteristic of the basilican plan – the centrality of the bishop’s chair with the surrounding benches of presbyters – was lost in the medieval churches.
Quote ID: 1226
Time Periods: 7
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 133
Section: 2E3
Similarly around the empire, a number of sites—Athens, Carthage, Menuthis, Philae—have been mentioned where a temple was made into a church; many other examples might easily be added to the list.{107} To some degree, the pagan past thus determined the distribution of points of worship for the Christian future.
Quote ID: 1356
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 155/156
Section: 2E3
In the same way, the choice of where to build shrines for Christian worship was dictated by the location of the antecedent pagan ones. They must be challenged and resanctified, if not rather destroyed.
Quote ID: 1395
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 156
Section: 2E3
It is really no wonder that so many worshipers who flocked to them should continue in their old habits of mind, the time and place so reminding them of traditions.
Quote ID: 1396
Time Periods: 456
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 39
Section: 2E3
A particularly striking example is the meeting-place Christians bought or leased in the western basement rooms of a building in Rome, now Santa Prisca, toward the start of the second century, adjoining which were other rooms already in use by a non-Christian group,{12}.
Quote ID: 1435
Time Periods: 2
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 49
Section: 2E3,3C
Best known are the extraordinary number, size, and grandeur of the basilicas with which Constantine enriched the church in Rome, many of them also assigned great endowments of land and other wealth, others in Aquileia to the north, Trier, Antioch, Nicomedia, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Cirta, and Savaria. In some now-lost decree, he exempted church lands from taxation; he ordered provincial officials to make available materials and labor for construction; set up a system of gifts of food to churches, grain allowances to nuns, widows, and others in church service; excused clerics from shouldering onerous, sometimes ruinous, civic obligations, indeed, saw that they were given regular “contributions” from the fiscus; and, in short and in sum, “presented the churches with many things.” Overnight, it seemed, he created “a Christianity whose bishops and clergy had had their social horizons blown wide open by finding the open-handed Constantine in their midst.”
Quote ID: 1446
Time Periods: 4
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 58 Page: 97
Section: 2E3
This is only an exaggerated illustration of a common fact: temples were centers of commerce. Their porticoes were also commonly used as classrooms by grammar-school teachers and professional rhetors and lecturers; and in Rome the physicians customarily met daily for professional discussions in the shadow of Pax - the closest thing there was to a medical school. Sometimes there were local senate meetings in the porches, banquets of workers’ fraternal associations, and so forth. The most used, and ordinarily the most handsome and central, facilities in the empire’s cities really could not be declared off-limits. Reality was acknowledged in the careful wording of later laws specifying “loitering with intent” (as our laws say, meaning intent to commit a crime) - that is, no walking about or frequenting temples for worship.
Quote ID: 1488
Time Periods: 012
Clement of Alexandria, ANF Vol. 2, Fathers of the Second Century
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 665 Page: 290
Section: 2E3
Going to Church.
Woman and man are to go to church decently attired, with natural step, embracing
silence, possessing unfeigned love, pure in body, pure in heart, fit to pray to God.
Out of Church.
Such ought those who are consecrated to Christ appear, and frame themselves in their whole life, as they fashion themselves in the church for the sake of gravity; and to be, not to seem such—so meek, so pious, so loving. But now I know not how people change their fashions and manners with the place. As they say that polypi, assimilated to the rocks to which they adhere, are in colour such as they; so, laying aside the inspiration of the assembly, after their departure from it, they become like others with whom they associate. Nay, in laying aside the artificial mask of solemnity, they are proved to be what they secretly were. After having paid reverence to the discourse about God, they leave within [the church] what they have heard.
PJ footnote: Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, III.xi.
Quote ID: 9495
Time Periods: 47
Clement of Alexandria, LCL 092
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 140 Page: 99
Section: 2A3,2E3
Exhortation to the Greeks - Chpt. IIIWe must not then be surprised that, once daemon-worship had somewhere taken a beginning, it became a fountain of insensate wickedness. Then, not being checked, but ever increasing and flowing in full stream, it establishes itself as creator of a multitude of daemons. It offers great public sacrifices; it holds solemn festivals; it sets up statues and builds temples. These temples - for I will not keep silence even about them, but will expose them also - are called by a fair-sounding name, but in reality they are tombs.
In the temple of Athena in the Acropolis at Larissa there is the tomb of Acrisius; and in the Acropolis at Athens the tomb of Cecrops, as Antiochus says in his ninth book of Histories. {a} And what of Erichthonius? Does not he lie in the temple of Athena Polias? And does not Immaradus, the son of Eumolpus and Daeira, lie in the enclosure of the Eleusinium which is under the Acropolis? Are not the daughters of Celeus buried in Eleusis? Why recount to you the Hyperborean women? They are called Hyperoche and Laodice, and they lie in the Artemisium at Delos; this is in the temple precincts of Delian Apollo.
Quote ID: 3022
Time Periods: 23
Clement of Alexandria, LCL 092
Loeb Classical Library
Book ID: 140 Page: 101
Section: 2A3,2E3
Exhortation to the Greeks - Chpt. III.40But really, if I were to go through all the tombs held sacred in your eyes,
The whole of time would not suffice my need.{b}
As for you, unless a touch of shame steals over you for these audacities, then you are going about utterly dead, like the dead in whom you have put your trust.
Quote ID: 3023
Time Periods: 2
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 161
Section: 3C,2E4,2E3
In the fifth century, Pope Leo was to rebuke Christians at St. Peter’s for turning their backs on St. Peter’s tomb and standing on the front steps of the basilica to worship the rising sun. Remarkably, the main festival of Sol Invictus was the day of winter solstice, December 25, adopted by Christians in the fourth century as the birthday of Christ. In short, the sun was a symbolic image through which Constantine could be presented effectively to both Christian and non-Christian audiences, thus maintaining his neutral position between opposing faiths.
Quote ID: 4825
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 198
Section: 2E3
Picture: One of the major developments of fourth-century Christianity was the adoption of the pagan custom celebrating God through magnificent buildings, many of them of great beauty, as the simple basilica of Santa Sabina (top) in Rome (c.420) suggests (credit:Scala). In a lovely seventh-century mosaic in her church outside Rome (above), Saint Agnes has been transformed by her martyrdom into a Byzantine princess and set against a background of gold (credit: Scala). Two of the popes responsible for building her church (one of the most atmospheric in Rome) surround her.
Quote ID: 4889
Time Periods: 457
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 206
Section: 2E3,3C,4B
It was an ancient tradition that a city should glorify itself through its temples. Aristotle suggested in his Politics that a quarter of the revenues of a city’s territory ought to be dedicated to the gods; others proposed as much as a third. Since Hellenistic times kings and emperors had showered their patronage on favoured cities. Many temples were crammed with gold and silver statues, and imperial patronage was a means of raising support for the gods.
Quote ID: 4900
Time Periods: 014
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 206
Section: 2E3,3C,4B
Constantine followed in this tradition and concentrated his patronage on the building and adornment of churches. As, unlike pagan temples, which were primarily designed to house cult statues, churches needed to house congregations, Constantine adopted the basilica as the most appropriate form. Yet as basilicas were now also used as the audience halls of the emperors (that surviving at Trier, although stripped of its original opulent decoration, gives some idea of the model), it is arguable that Constantine was stressing in yet another way the close links between the state and Christianity. It is hard for us to grasp the sheer scale of this imperial patronage. It was so lavish that Constantine had to strip resources from temples to fund it.
Quote ID: 4901
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 207
Section: 2E3,3C
Everything in these new churches had to be of the highest quality. While early Christian decoration, in the catacombs or house churches, for instance, had consisted of painted walls, now nothing less than mosaic was appropriate.
Quote ID: 4902
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 208
Section: 2E3,3C
The gold of churches was necessary to give the believer a stepping stone to a full appreciation of the glories of heaven. Once a rationale had been created to divert the most precious of materials and the finest of buildings to Christian use, the old reservations were largely dissolved.
Quote ID: 4903
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 208
Section: 2E3,3C
If a church had now become a symbol of heaven, how were figures to be shown? The answer was to model them on the imperial court, the closest model for heaven on earth.
Quote ID: 4904
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 208
Section: 2E3,3A1,3C
Sabine MacCormack notes how once Christ was represented with such imperial imagery, the emperors ceased to make use of it: “Once an image of majesty had been applied to Christ it was impossible to apply it again to the emperor.”{15.} S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkely and London, 1981), p. 130
Quote ID: 4905
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 267
Section: 2E3
In the early fifth century laws were passed transferring the income from properties owned by temples to the church, which thereby consolidated its economic position. By the end of the century gifts or bequests to temples were forbidden altogether, resulting in a natural atrophy as buildings fell into disrepair. The process was hastened by deliberate destruction.
Quote ID: 4967
Time Periods: 5
Constantine the Great
Michael Grant
Book ID: 66 Page: 189
Section: 2E3
However, his most conspicuous achievement was the creation of Christian churches.
Quote ID: 1772
Time Periods: 4
Constantine the Great
Michael Grant
Book ID: 66 Page: 192
Section: 2E3,3C
.....It was usual, moreover, for a Constantinian basilica to be entered from the west, so that the rising sun poured its rays of light upon the celebrating priest as he stood in front of the altar facing the worshippers.
Quote ID: 1773
Time Periods: 4
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews
James Carroll
Book ID: 68 Page: 196
Section: 2E3
Perhaps the most visible part of Constantine’s Christianizing program was a hurried campaign to build large and resplendent churches everywhere, a strategy of demonstrating the triumph of Christianity over paganism.
Quote ID: 1839
Time Periods: 4
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 65
Section: 2B2,2E3
At Senj the cathedral dedicated to the Virgin approximately occupies a site formerly consecrated to the Great Mother.
Quote ID: 5145
Time Periods: 457
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 1, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 320 Page: 416
Section: 2E3
The spot on which Rome was founded had been consecrated by ancient ceremonies and imaginary miracles. The presence of some god, or the memory of some hero, seemed to animate every part of the city, and the empire of the world had been promised to the Capitol.² The native Romans felt and confessed the power of this agreeable illusion. It was derived from their ancestors, had grown up with their earliest habits of life, and was protected, in some measure, by the opinion of political utility.….
² Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject (v. 51-54), full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a design of removing the seat of government from Rome to the neighboring city of Veii.
Quote ID: 7725
Time Periods: 0
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 2, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 210 Page: 18
Section: 1B,2E3
…Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious.
Quote ID: 5190
Time Periods: 147
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 2, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 210 Page: 48
Section: 2E3,3B
But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the authority of that emperor; and the Christians, after this accidental tempest, enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years.{2} Till this period, they had usually held their assemblies in private houses and sequestered places. They were now permitted to erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of religious worship;{3} to purchase lands, even at Rome itself, for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of their ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time in so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention of the Gentiles.{4}
Quote ID: 5194
Time Periods: 3
Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology?
Thomas E. Gaston
Book ID: 418 Page: 16
Section: 2E3
Paul of Samosata was bishop of the church at Antioch from c.260, when he succeeded Demetrian. In 268 he was condemned at the synod of Antioch but refused to surrender the church buildings until forced to do so by the Roman Emperor, Aurelian.{8}
Quote ID: 8586
Time Periods: 3
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 127
Section: 2E3
By AD 300 there were even as many as forty basilicas in Rome.
Quote ID: 5288
Time Periods: 4
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 153
Section: 2E3
“Appoint the places for the brethren with care and gravity. And for the presbyters let there be assigned a place in the eastern part of the house; and let the bishop’s throne be set in their midst, and let the presbyters sit with him. And again, let the laymen sit in another part of the house toward the east.” Didascalia (After Constantine
Quote ID: 5304
Time Periods: 3
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 199
Section: 2E1,2E3,3C
In the year 326 or 327 Constantine wrote to Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, concerning his projected church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the following terms:“I desire, therefore, especially that you should be persuaded of that which I suppose is evident to all beside, namely, that I have no greater care than how I may best adorn with a splendid structure that sacred spot...a spot which has been accounted holy from the beginning in God’s judgement, but which now appears holier still, since it has brought to light a clear assurance of our Saviour’s passion.”
Quote ID: 5328
Time Periods: 4
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 199
Section: 3C,2E3
This is only one of the many churches, in Palestine and elsewhere, for which the emperor was responsible, and the erection of these large and imposing buildings necessarily had an effect upon Christian worship. Whereas hitherto the gatherings of the faithful had preserved their domestic character, which went back ultimately to the Last Supper, henceforth the worship was public worship and that which had been suitable for a dining-room at Dura Europos or Cirta required adaptation if it were to be fitting for a great hall. Moreover the semi-converts who now thronged the churches were in need of instruction and so worship became more elaborate, not only to express the community’s devotion but to impress the large congregations. A comparison therefore of the forms of worship in the fourth century with those existing previously reveals a development which, while preserving the basic patterns, seeks to make them more imposing and to bring out their meaning, with the concomitant risk of obscuring the primitive emphases.
Quote ID: 5329
Time Periods: 4
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 210
Section: 2E3
The sexes were strictly separated, with either the men in front and the women behind, or the men on the right and the women on the left. Seating was negligible, since the worshippers were expected to stand for most of the service, but some few benches were provided for the aged and infirm.
Quote ID: 5336
Time Periods: 345
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 228
Section: 2E3
In city after city, Christians, assisted by a detachment of soldiers, attacked and destroyed the ancient temples, the most famous to suffer this fate being the Serpeum at Alexandria. In other centres temples were not razed but were transformed into Christian churches, e.g. the basilica of Junius Bassus on the Espuiline became the church of St Andrew in 470, while the Parthenon was eventually dedicated to all the martyrs under Boniface IV (608-15).
Quote ID: 5346
Time Periods: 4567
Ecclesiastical History, The, Socrates Scholasticus
Socrates Scholasticus
Book ID: 217 Page: 29
Section: 2E3
Chapter IX. The Letter of the Synod, relative to its Decisions: and the Condemnation of Arius and those who agreed with him.Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus, to Eusebius.
Since an impious purpose and tyranny have even to the present time persecuted the servants of God our Saviour, I have been credibly informed and am fully persuaded, most beloved brother, that all our sacred edifices have either by neglect gone to decay, or from dread of impending danger have not been adorned with becoming dignity. But now that liberty has been restored, and that persecuting dragon Licinius has by the providence of the Most High.....??
. . . .
Wherefore enjoin the churches over which you yourself and deacons whom you know, to be diligent about the sacred edifices, either by repairing those which remain standing, or enlarging them, or by erecting new ones wherever it may be requisite. And do you yourself ask, and the rest through you, the necessary supplies both from the governors of the provinces, and the officers of the praetorian prefecture: ….
Quote ID: 5388
Time Periods: 4
Enactments of Justinian, The: The Novels
S. P. Scott
Book ID: 539 Page: ?
Section: 2E3
Novel LVIII.“We forbid the inhabitants of this great city, as well as all others in Our Empire, to have any kind of chapels in their houses, or to celebrate sacred mysteries there, and to do nothing which may be opposed to Catholic and Apostolic tradition. Where, however, any person desires to have an oratory in his residence without the celebration of the sacred mysteries, We hereby authorize him to do so. There is no objection to anyone having a private place for prayer, as in holy places, provided he abstains from doing anything else there…. The owners of houses are hereby notified that if they do not obey these rules they will incur the anger of the Emperor, and that the buildings in which anything of this kind takes place will become public, and be confiscated to Our Imperial Treasury.”
Quote ID: 9185
Time Periods: 67
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 141
Section: 2E3
The Christians’ God was wholly present everywhere at once, allowing no site, no building or space any privileged share of holiness. True worship had no relation to any particular place. Until the fourth century Christians inhabited a spatial universe spiritually largely undifferentiated.By contrast, the world in which Christianity established itself was full of holy places. The Roman town, which is where Christianity first took root, was itself a sacred enclosure, marked off from its environment by a foundation-rite which made the space enclosed by the town walls sacred, inviolable to defilement,equipped with gates for commerce with the outside world and for the elimination of pollution by the corpses of its dead. The urban space as such was sacred: its site determined by sacred ritual.
Quote ID: 5438
Time Periods: 14
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 141
Section: 2E3
All public and much private life was channelled through a system of sacred spaces in the Roman town. Walls, temples, circuses, palaces defined the Late Antique town as a network of holy places.A wealth of learning had been deployed by Christian chronographers and chroniclers to establish synchronisms between their own history and the history of the various nations or kingdoms of Antiquity. In that way they could relate their own sacred time-scheme to the chronologies of the world around. An analogous task had to be carried out for geography;
Quote ID: 5439
Time Periods: 4567
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 142
Section: 2E3
the territory of the empire had to be colonised like a foreign land not long conquered.
Quote ID: 5440
Time Periods: 4567
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 142
Section: 2E3
By the end of the fourth century, however, the Christians had acquired their own sacred topography. It was a spatial projection of their sacred history. A place could become holy through some historical event, real or invented, the memory of a work of God done at a site at some particular moment of time. The primary holy sites were thus necessarily the places referred to in the scriptural narratives; a small region on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean had a monopoly of these. Another category of sites that plainly qualified for holiness was that of the more ubiquitously distributed holy burials (it was these, rather than the actual sites of martyrdom that were venerated), the memorials of those who had borne faithful witness to the Lord and triumphed over death and the persecuting world. The martyrs’ burials had the great further advantage of being capable - once the custom of transferring, and of dividing, relics had taken root - of being multiplied.
Quote ID: 5441
Time Periods: 4
End of Ancient Christianity, The
Robert Markus
Book ID: 219 Page: 149/150
Section: 2A3,2E3
‘Here’, the actual spot, was ‘the place’ of the martyr’s concrete immediacy in space as in time. Every church was a direct gateway to heaven; no longer, as it had been from the beginning, only a building to house the worshipping community, it became a shrine housing the holy relic.
Quote ID: 5450
Time Periods: 4567
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 286
Section: 2E3
Canterbury, itself a former Roman city of regional importance, was the centre from which the earliest missionaries worked. Here, Augustine and his fellow Roman monks made for themselves a home from home.Pastor John note: Canterbury built an imitation of Rome
Quote ID: 2208
Time Periods: 67
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 286
Section: 2E3
Rome’s cathedral, the Lateran, lay within the city walls and was dedicated to Christ the Saviour, and its adjacent baptistery church was dedicated to St John: thus Augustine built his cathedral, Christ Church, within Canterbury’s Roman defences, next to which his successor Cuthbert (760-60) added the church of St. John the Baptist. At Rome, the papal basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul both lay outside the city walls: at Canterbury, Augustine founded an extramural burial church, dedicated to Sts Peter and Paul together.. . . .
…the ruins of Roman-era Canterbury had been transformed into a replica of Christian Rome.
Quote ID: 2209
Time Periods: 67
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 287
Section: 2E3
To achieve this, he imported stonemasons and glaziers to build his churches ‘in the Roman style he had always loved so much’ and stocked them with the books, liturgical vestments, and pictures he had brought back with him.{54} He fetched a Roman singing master to teach his Northumbrian novices to sing Roman chant and dedicated his churches to Rome’s two most important patrons, Wearmouth to St. Peter and Jarrow to St. Paul.PJ: Who is "he"?
Quote ID: 2210
Time Periods: 67
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 288
Section: 2E3
The replication of Rome through name transference, building forms, liturgy, dedications, and imported martyrial relics signaled a strong desire for attachment to authoritative narratives of Christian origins and apostolic authenticity in the absence of locally available proofs.The main other region where Christian communities found imaginative ways to import Rome to their own locality was Germany. In the ninth century, abbots and bishops sometimes went to great lengths to acquire corporeal relics of Roman martyrs as one expression of this. Some also directly copied the most distinctive feature of Rome’s ecclesiastical architecture: the ground plan of St. Peter’s, with its unusual western orientation and circular crypt around the apostle’s tomb. To build such a crypt was to build in a deliberately Roman style.
Quote ID: 2211
Time Periods: 67
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
Julia M. H. Smith
Book ID: 83 Page: 291
Section: 2E3
Through architectural analogy, saints’ relics, and Episcopal liturgy, the holiest places in Christendom could be rebuilt and the events associated with them reenacted elsewhere. In the early Middle Ages, Rome was the ideal type of a Christian holy place.
Quote ID: 2212
Time Periods: 67
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 253
Section: 3B,2E3
With what favour one might note that the rulers in every church were honoured by all procurators and governors! And how could one fully describe those assemblies thronged with countless men, and the multitudes that gathered together in every city, and the famed concourse in the places of prayer; by reason of which they were no longer satisfied with the buildings of olden time, and would erect from the foundations churches of spacious dimensions throughout all the cities?
Quote ID: 8542
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 379
Section: 3B,2E3
Book IX chapter XAnd permission has also been granted them to build the Lord’s houses.
Quote ID: 3115
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 379
Section: 3B,2E3
Book IX chapter X. . . were godless and wicked, these he now allows both to observe their form of worship and to build churches;
Pastor John’s note: Greek for Lord’s houses. This is an Ordinance of Maximinus. Notice the mis-translation of that word!!!
Quote ID: 3116
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 397
Section: 2E3
Book X chapter III. . . most excellent and beloved of God, by whose zeal and enthusiasm the temple in Tyre, surpassing in splendour all others in Phoenicia, had been erected: . . . .
Pastor John’s note: not “church”
Quote ID: 3122
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 407
Section: 2E3,4B
Book X chapter IV. . . all and of themselves they recognize as the one and only God, and confess that Christ the Son of God is sovereign King of the universe, and style Him as Saviour on monuments, inscribing in an imperishable record His righteous acts and His victories over the impious ones, in imperial characters in the midst of the city that is Empress among the cities of the world.
Quote ID: 3125
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 421
Section: 2E3
Book X chapter IV“Thus, then, the whole area that he enclosed was much larger.{2} The outer enclosure he made strong with the wall surrounding the whole, so that it might be a most secure defence thereof; while he spread out a porch, great and raised aloft, towards the rays of the rising sun, and even to those standing far outside the sacred precincts supplied no scanty view of that which is within; thus, one might say, turning the gaze, even of strangers of the faith, towards the first entrances, so that none might hastily pass by without first having his soul mightily struck . . .
. . . .
. . . and in the midst thereof he hath left an open space where men can see the sky, thus providing it with air bright and open to the rays of light. And here he hath placed symbols of sacred purifications, by erecting fountains right opposite the temple, whose copious streams of flowing water supply cleansing to those who are advancing within the sacred precincts.
{Footnote 2} i.e. than that occupied by the previous church. The description here given (?? 37-45) is the earliest account that we possess of the structure and furniture of a Christian church.
Quote ID: 3126
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 425
Section: 2E3
Book X chapter IV“Now as to the royal house, {1} he hath builded it of abundant and still richer materials, eagerly desiring to spare no expenses.
Quote ID: 3127
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 427
Section: 2E3
Book X chapter IVNevertheless, having thus completed the temple he adorned it with thrones, very lofty, to do honour unto the presidents, and likewise with benches arranged in order throughout in a convenient manner; and after all these he hath placed in the midst the holy of holies even the altar, and again surrounded this part also, that the multitude might not tread thereon, with a fence of wooden lattice-work, delicately wrought with the craftman’s utmost skill, so as to present a marvelous spectacle to those that see it.
Pastor John’s note: disgusting
Quote ID: 3128
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 427
Section: 2E3
Book X chapter IVThese also were wrought by our most peaceful Solomon, who builded the temple of God, for those who still have need of cleansing and sprinkling with water and the Holy Spirit, . . .
Quote ID: 3129
Time Periods: 34
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 125
Section: 2E3
“He was holy from his mother’s womb; and he drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. No razor came upon his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, and he did not use the bath. He [James the Lord’s brother] alone was permitted to enter into the holy place; for he wore not woolen but linen garments. And he was in the habit of entering alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his knees begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like those of a camel, in consequence of his constantly bending them in his worship of God, and asking forgiveness for the people.”Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, II.xxiii.5–6.
PJ Note: Quoting Hegisippus.
Quote ID: 9524
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 526
Section: 2E3
How he ordered the Erection of a Church at Jerusalem, in the Holy Place of our Saviour’s Resurrection.
After these things, the pious emperor addressed himself to another work truly worthy of record, in the province of Palestine. What then was this work? He judged it incumbent on him to render the blessed locality of our Saviour’s resurrection an object of attraction and veneration to all. He issued immediate injunctions, therefore, for the erection in that spot of a house of prayer; and this he did, not on the mere natural impulse of his own mind, but being moved in spirit by the Saviour himself.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, The Life of Constantine the Great, III.xxv.
Quote ID: 9591
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 527
Section: 2E3
How Constantine commanded the Materials of the Idol Temple, and the Soil itself, to be removed at a Distance.
Nor did the emperor’s zeal stop here; but he gave further orders that the materials of what was thus destroyed, both stone and timber, should be removed and thrown as far from the spot as possible; and this command also was speedily executed. The emperor, however, was not satisfied with having proceeded thus far; once more, fired with holy ardor, he directed that the ground itself should be dug up to a considerable depth, and the soil which had been polluted by the foul impurities of demon worship transported to a far distant place.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, The Life of Constantine the Great, III.xxvii.
Quote ID: 9592
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 529
Section: 2E3
This was the emperor’s letter; and his directions were at once carried into effect. Accordingly, on the very spot which witnessed the Saviour’s sufferings, a new Jerusalem was constructed, over against the one so celebrated of old, which, since the foul stain of guilt brought on it by the murder of the Lord, had experienced the last extremity of desolation, the effect was opposite this city that the emperor now began to rear a monument to the Saviour’s victory over death, with rich and lavish magnificence. And it may be that this was that second and new Jerusalem spoken of in the predictions of the prophets, concerning which such abundant testimony is given in the divinely inspired records.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, The Life of Constantine the Great, III.xxxiii.
Quote ID: 9593
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 530
Section: 2E3
Of the Erection of Churches in Bethlehem, and on the Mount of Olives.
In the same country he discovered other places, venerable as being the localities of two sacred caves; and these also he adorned with lavish magnificence. In the one case, he rendered due honor to that which had been the scene of the first manifestation of our Saviour’s divine presence, when he submitted to be born in mortal flesh; while in the case of the second cavern he hallowed the remembrance of his ascension to heaven from the mountain top. And while he thus nobly testified his reverence for these places, he at the same time eternized the memory of his mother, who had been the instrument of conferring so valuable a benefit on mankind.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, The Life of Constantine the Great, III.xli.
Quote ID: 9594
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 533
Section: 2E3,3C
The place itself we have directed to be adorned with an unpolluted structure, I mean a church; in order that it may become a fitting place of assembly for holy men.Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, The Life of Constantine the Great, III.liii.
Quote ID: 9595
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 555
Section: 2E3
Concerning the Building of a Church in Honor of the Apostles at Constantinople.
After this he proceeded to erect a church in memory of the apostles, in the city which bears his name. This building he carried to a vast height, and brilliantly decorated by encasing it from the foundation to the roof with marble slabs of various colors. He also formed the inner roof of finely fretted work, and overlaid it throughout with gold. The external covering, which protected the building from the rain, was of brass instead of tiles; and this too was splendidly and profusely adorned with gold, and reflected the sun’s rays with a brilliance which dazzled the distant beholder. The dome was entirely encompassed by a finely carved tracery, wrought in brass and gold.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, The Life of Constantine the Great, IV.lviii.
Quote ID: 9604
Time Periods: 4
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 555
Section: 2E3
He also erected his own Sepulchral Monument in this Church.
All these edifices the emperor consecrated with the desire of perpetuating the memory of the apostles of our Saviour. He had, however, another object in erecting this building: an object at first unknown, but which afterwards became evident to all. He had in fact made choice of this spot in the prospect of his own death, anticipating with extraordinary fervor of faith that his body would share their title with the apostles themselves, and that he should thus even after death become the subject, with them, of the devotions which should be performed to their honor in this place. He accordingly caused twelve coffins to be set up in this church, like sacred pillars in honor and memory of the apostolic number, in the center of which his own was placed, having six of theirs on either side of it. Thus, as I said, he had provided with prudent foresight an honorable resting-place for his body after death, and, having long before secretly formed this resolution, he now consecrated this church to the apostles, believing that this tribute to their memory would be of no small advantage to his own soul.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, The Life of Constantine the Great, IV.lx.
Quote ID: 9605
Time Periods: 4
Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Brittain
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Book ID: 234 Page: 125
Section: 2E3
Once the holy missionaries had put an end to paganism throughout almost the whole island, they dedicated to the One God and His Blessed Saints the temples which had been founded in honour of a multiplicity of gods, assigning to them various categories of men in orders.
Quote ID: 5848
Time Periods: 2
Greek Anthology, The, LCL 086: Greek Anthology V, Books 13-16
W. R. Paton, trans.
Book ID: 136 Page: 5
Section: 2E3,4B
5.---On the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle in the property of AmantiusTHIS house thou didst make for God, Amantius, in the middle of the sea, combating the swirling waves. Nor south nor north wind shall shake thy holy house, guarded as it is by this divine temple. May thy days be many; for thou by invading the sea hast made New Rome more glorious.
Quote ID: 2981
Time Periods: 5
Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Book ID: 101 Page: 76
Section: 2E3
The sanctity of the hearth was great, and we rightly speak of a cult of the hearth because certain sacred acts were performed there. But there were no prayers, no images, and no gods, for Hestia herself was not a full-fledged personality but only a pale personification. The cult consisted in acts. The place was sacred in itself according to the ideas of the ancients. For us it is not so. Nowadays a place is made sacred by erecting a house of God on it. Sanctity is conferred upon the building by its consecration as a church. In antiquity sanctity was inherent in the place. The place was not made holy by building a house for god on it, but a house for a god was built on a certain place because the place was holy.
Quote ID: 2551
Time Periods: 0
Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Book ID: 101 Page: 86
Section: 2E3
The sanctuaries described by Homer were simple rustic sanctuaries--an altar in a grove, on the trees of which votive offerings were suspended. Great temples were erected at the earliest in the seventh century B.C.Pastor John’s note: but...Judges - Dagon temple
Quote ID: 2553
Time Periods: 0
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 44
Section: 2E3,4B
The owner of a church building claimed and exercised the right of appointing and dismissing its ministers at his pleasure and without reference to any other authority. In the city churches the ancient rule remained; their officers were appointed by the bishop with the approval of his council and of the whole community.
Quote ID: 5779
Time Periods: 47
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 45
Section: 2E3,4B
It must be remembered that the mass of country churches were not, in the modern sense of the term, consecrated, and that those who had built them retained over them the same right of ownership which they had over other buildings on their estates. They could sell, alienate, or destroy them. They appointed officers to them as they appointed farm-bailiffs. There was no right of interference, either ecclesiastical or civil. It is obvious that in such cases discipline was impossible.
Quote ID: 5780
Time Periods: 47
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 50
Section: 2E3
The Roman law continued to be of force. Indeed, it is probable that the Germans had no precedent or rule for the holding of property by what we should now call, “spiritual corporations.” That is to say, the bishop’s church continued to hold its property because it was governed by Roman law; the country churches could not hold property because neither in Roman nor in German law was there any precedent for their doing so.
Quote ID: 5782
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 52
Section: 2E3,3A1B
When country churches began to receive gifts of land, the city bishop was the only person who could legally hold them. In some cases he was not slow to claim them. However strongly a man might desire to specially benefit the church of his own district, and however much the ministers of such a church might need support, the city bishop was legally entitled to claim whatever was offered.
Quote ID: 5783
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 82
Section: 2E3
The rrapolkia was thus not a local area, but an aggregate of persons. It does not appear to have been applied to a local area until the Church was fully organised, and it was then applied to the area over which a bishop presided, that is to say, to what is now call a “diocese.”
Quote ID: 5784
Time Periods: 4
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 85
Section: 2E3
But although the basis of the arrangement had been laid in Teutonic lands by pre-Christian agencies, the superstructure is wholly Christian, and may be traced mainly to the operation of two sets of causes, that is, partly to the regulations respecting the celebration of baptism, and partly to the regulations respecting the payment of tithes.
Quote ID: 5786
Time Periods: 7
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 86
Section: 2E3
The regulation took the form of requiring that baptisteries should only exist in places in which the bishop appointed them. It was first made in one of the earliest councils of the Carlovingian Reformation, that which was held by Pippin at Vernon, Normandy, in 755.{1} The regulation had the effect of dividing all churches outside the bishop’s own church into two classes, those in which baptisms could be performed and those in which they could not.
Quote ID: 5787
Time Periods: 7
Hadrian
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 103 Page: 67
Section: 2E3,4B
The last two chapters have shewn, it is hoped, that Hadrian was an innovator, that he had conceived a new form of polity, namely the empire as a family of provinces, the happy and prosperous children of the Mother City, and that he intended that the veneration of that city, and of himself as its lord, should be the spiritual bond of empire.
Quote ID: 2573
Time Periods: 2
Harlot Church System: “Come out of her, My people”, The
Charles Elliott Newbold, Jr.
Book ID: 231 Page: 15
Section: 2E3
The earliest church buildings are believed to have been built after the pattern of the Roman basilica—architecture that was firmly rooted in the traditions of the Roman empire and has no basis in scripture. Church buildings became more elaborate with the Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic influences. The layout of these cathedrals often hid the monks and choirs from the people, advancing the idea of the separation of clergy from laity which is unfounded in scripture.
Quote ID: 5813
Time Periods: 4
John Cassian - Ancient Christian Writers, The Conferences
John Cassian
Book ID: 14 Page: 119
Section: 2E3
He had, however, moved a little closer so that when he was burdened with age he would not be troubled by such a long distance when he went to church on Saturday and Sunday.
Quote ID: 222
Time Periods: 45
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 335
Section: 2E3
No pre-Constantinian literary evidence describes the buildings in which early Christians gathered for common prayer, beyond occasional glancing reference, such as the “upper room” in Acts or the preaching of Paul in the house of Onesiphorus as mentioned in the Acts of Paul and Thecla.
Quote ID: 2784
Time Periods: 1234
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 336
Section: 2E3
It is well known that the archaeological record holds virtually no evidence for Christian use of buildings before the fourth century, and what little there is, is increasingly disputed. The churches had no legal right to hold title to property since they did not exist as legal personalities under Roman law.{21} Logic would suggest that, across the first three centuries, Christians continued to meet on an informal basis in spaces made available to them by the private owners of those spaces.{22}
Quote ID: 2785
Time Periods: 1234
Journal of Early Christian Studies Volume 19 / Number 3 / Fall 2011
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 122 Page: 338
Section: 2E3
From the early fourth century, the changed legal status of the churches meant that they could begin to acquire rights and privileges on an institutional basis rather than depending on the goodwill of individual members....
Quote ID: 2786
Time Periods: 4
Journal of Early Christian Studies: Journal of the North American Patristics Society Volume 20 / Number 1 / Spring 2012
The John Hopkins University Press
Book ID: 121 Page: 63
Section: 2A3,2E3
Yasin/Salona’s ChurchesThe accepted model for the birth of Christian sacred architecture traces a line of evolution marked by successive stages of increasing monumentality: martyrs’ tombs were transformed from “ordinary” graves to small shrines, and then from modest cult centers to focal points of large, communal basilicas.
Quote ID: 2774
Time Periods: 4
Julian’s Against the Galileans
R. Joseph Hoffmann
Book ID: 123 Page: 54
Section: 2E3
Plotinus himself had been contemptuous of religious externals and rituals (“It is for the tokens to come to me, not for me to go to them,” he is reported to have said about religious ceremony){143} and therefore contemptuous equally of the accoutrements of pagan, Jewish, and Christian liturgies.{144}
Quote ID: 2834
Time Periods: 3
Landscape with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare Built Christianity in Barbarian Europe
Lisa M. Bitel
Book ID: 125 Page: 32
Section: 2E3
…At Grand, the healing spring of Grannus Apollo became the well of Saint Libaria (Libaire), a statue-bashing patrician virgin who was supposedly beheaded with her siblings at the order of Emperor Julian 362. Christians continued to leave ex-votos at the saint’s well into the nineteenth century.
Quote ID: 2856
Time Periods: 01234
Landscape with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare Built Christianity in Barbarian Europe
Lisa M. Bitel
Book ID: 125 Page: 33
Section: 2E3
The goal of northern church leaders, except Martin, was not to destroy old sacred sites but to reconceive both pagan and Christian places and their visible markers. Both architectural remains and written texts suggest that Parisians and their northern Gaulish neighbors constantly and creatively renegotiated their sacral sites and monuments.
Quote ID: 2858
Time Periods: 456
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: 40
Section: 2E3,3C
The Christian sacralization of space was not as old as Christianity itself. For the first two or three centuries, Christians met in private houses, which were not sacred buildings.
Quote ID: 2877
Time Periods: 123
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 124/126
Section: 2E3
4) Xn buildings, monuments. “Every bishop wanted to build a worthy monument.”….
“The scale of some major churches was impressive, as with Ambrose’s Basilica Ambrosiana in Milan [the de facto head of the Western Empire at the time], to which he transferred the opportunely discovered relics of the two local martyrs Gervasius and Protasi in AD 386, in the presence of a large crowd.”
Quote ID: 6151
Time Periods: 4
Later Roman Empire, The
Averil Cameron
Book ID: 243 Page: 57e
Section: 2E3,3C
Few pagan temples were closed by C and late in his reign he even allowed a new one to be built in Italy in honor of the imperial family. (Pg. 74 at Hispellum)
Quote ID: 6115
Time Periods: 4
Lives of the Twelve Caesars, The
Suetonius
Book ID: 246 Page: 55
Section: 2E3,2E6
Laetorius further urged upon the Senators that he was the possessor and as it were the warden of the spot which the Deified Augustus first touched at his birth, and begged that he be pardoned for the sake of what might be called his own special God. Whereupon it was decreed that that part of his house should be consecrated.A small room like a pantry is shown to this day as the Emperor’s nursery in his grandfather’s country-house near Velitrae, and the opinion prevails in the neighborhood that he was also born there. No one ventures to enter this room except of necessity and after purification, since there is a conviction of long standing that those who approach it without ceremony are seized with shuddering and terror; and what is more, this has recently been shown to be true.
Quote ID: 6202
Time Periods: 0
Lollards of the Chiltern Hills: Glimpses of English Dissent in the Middle Ages, The
W. H. Summers
Book ID: 248 Page: 15/16
Section: 2E3
The old Paganism, however, had died hard, and traces of it were to be found at a much later date than is commonly supposed. As late as the reign of Henry II., St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, had complained that he found many relics of heathenism in his diocese. (Vita Sancti Hugonis, Bolls Series, 348). Amongst others, it is recorded that he suppressed the worship of a certain “fountain” at Wycombe. This, it seems, was the spring at the east end of Wycombe Rye, by the piece of ground still known as Halliwell (Holy Well) Mead. But the worship of sacred springs was carried on, if in a modified form, for at least a century after the time of St. Hugh. In 1299 Bishop Sutton forbade the resort of pilgrims to the “holy well at Linslade,” alleging that it had become a public scandal, and that the vicar had encouraged it for his own emolument.page 34-35 of new book.
Quote ID: 6231
Time Periods: 7
Material Evidence for Early Christian Groups during the First Two Centuries C.E.
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 455 Page: 298/299
Section: 2E3
The earliest archaeologically attested Christian house-church able to be dated accurately thus far is the famous one at Dura-Europos, which was built as a dwelling in ca. 231/2 and adapted for Christian liturgical use some years before 256, when the building was destroyed.{57} Sometime during the middle of the third century a room in a house underneath what is now the Church of Saints John and Paul in Rome was also adopted for Christian use,{58} but how early in the century that occurred is unclear.
Quote ID: 8960
Time Periods: 3
Material Evidence for Early Christian Groups during the First Two Centuries C.E.
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 455 Page: 299
Section: 2E3
Purpose-built “churches” were generally not constructed until the Constantinian era, although a stone and mud-brick basilica-style building, dated ca. 290, in Aqaba (ancient Aila) may be the “oldest known church actually constructed for a Christian congregation”{60} of which parts still survive.
Quote ID: 8961
Time Periods: 3
Material Evidence for Early Christian Groups during the First Two Centuries C.E.
William Tabbernee
Book ID: 455 Page: 299
Section: 2C,2E3
Even for Jerusalem, Judaea, Galilee and the whole of Syria Palaestina―the area where Christianity originated—indisputably Christian material evidence from the first two centuries simply does not exist.
Quote ID: 8962
Time Periods: 12
Minor Latin Poets, LCL 484: Minor Latin Poets II
Minor Latin Poets
Book ID: 153 Page: 769
Section: 2E3
Rutilius NamatianusA Voyage Home to Gaul Book I
Line 65
. . . thou hast made a city of what was erstwhile a world.
Quote ID: 3274
Time Periods: 5
Minor Latin Poets, LCL 484: Minor Latin Poets II
Minor Latin Poets
Book ID: 153 Page: 771
Section: 1B,2E3
Rutilius NamatianusA Voyage Home to Gaul Book I
Line 79-80
Thee, O goddess, thee every nook of the Roman dominion celebrates, beneath a peaceful yoke holding necks unenslaved.
Quote ID: 3275
Time Periods: 15
Minor Latin Poets, LCL 484: Minor Latin Poets II
Minor Latin Poets
Book ID: 153 Page: 771
Section: 1B,2E3
Rutilius NamatianusA Voyage Home to Gaul Book I
Line 89-90
By wars for justifiable cause and peace imposed without arrogance thy renowned glory reached highest wealth.
Quote ID: 3276
Time Periods: 15
Minor Latin Poets, LCL 484: Minor Latin Poets II
Minor Latin Poets
Book ID: 153 Page: 775
Section: 1B,2E3
Rutilius NamatianusA Voyage Home to Gaul Book I
Line 139-140
That same thing builds thee up which wrecks all other realms: the law of thy new birth is the power to thrive upon thine ills.
Quote ID: 3277
Time Periods: 17
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 341
Section: 2E3
Why have they no altars, no temples, no recognized images?. . .
The miserable Jewish nationality did indeed worship one God, but even so openly, in temples, with altars, victims, and ceremonies; yet one so strengthless and powerless that he and his dear tribe with him are in captivity to Rome.
Quote ID: 8091
Time Periods: 23
Minucius Felix, Octavius, LCL 250: Tertullian, Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix
Book ID: 332 Page: 413
Section: 2E3
“Do you suppose we conceal our object of worship because we have no shrines and altars?. . .
What temple can I build for him, when the whole universe, fashioned by his handiwork, cannot contain him? Shall I, a man, housed[?] more spaciously, confine within a tiny shrine power and majesty so great? Is not the mind a better place of dedication? our inmost heart of consecration? Shall I offer to God victims and sacrifices which he has furnished for my use, and so reject his bounties? That were ingratitude, seeing that the acceptable sacrifice is a good spirit and a pure mind and a conscience without guile. He who follows after innocence makes a prayer to God; he who practises justice offers libations; he who abstains from fraud, propitiates; he who rescues another from peril, slays the best victim. These are our sacrifices, these our hallowed rites; with us justice is the true measure of religion.
Quote ID: 8104
Time Periods: 23
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
E.R. Dodds
Book ID: 167 Page: 108/109
Section: 2E3,4A
It was in this interval, probably in 270, that Porphyry produced his bitter book Against the Christians, which found many imitators in the following years but also provoked many replies from the Christian side. In it he expressed the alarm which was now felt by all religious-minded pagans. He speaks of Christianity as a doctrine which is preached in the remotest corners of the world; he notes how at Rome the cult of Jesus is replacing that of Asclepius; and he notes also a new sign of Christian confidence and Christian wealth--they are building themselves large churches everywhere. {1}
Quote ID: 3513
Time Periods: 3
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 99/100
Section: 2E3
Strikingly, nowhere in the NT do we find the terms “church” (ekklesia), “temple,” or “house of God” used to refer to a building. To the ears of a first-century Christian, calling a building an ekklesia (church) would be like calling a woman a skyscraper! {14}The first recorded use of the word ekklesia (church) to refer to a Christian meeting place was penned around A.D. 190 by Clement of Alexandria (150-215). {15} Clement is the first person to use the phrase “go to church”—which was a foreign thought to first century believers. {16}
Pastor John’s Note: Oh no! (in reference to not finding the term “church” in the NT)
Quote ID: 3544
Time Periods: 2
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 100
Section: 2E3
Footnote 19 Graydon F. Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine (Mercer University Press/Seedsowers, 1985), p. 67. Snyder states, “There is no literary evidence nor archaeological indication that any such home was converted into an extant church building. Nor is there any extant church that certainly was built prior to Constantine.” In another work Snyder writes, “The first churches consistently met in homes. Until the year 300 we know of no buildings first built as churches (First Corinthians: A Faith Community Commentary, Macon: Mercer University Press, 1991, p. 3).
Quote ID: 3545
Time Periods: 1234
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 102
Section: 2E1,2E3
When Christianity was born, it was the only religion on earth that had no sacred objects, no sacred persons, and no sacred spaces. {28} Although surrounded by Jewish synagogues and pagan temples, the early Christians were the only religious people on earth that did not erect sacred buildings for their worship. {29} The Christian faith was born in homes, out in courtyards, along roadsides, and in living rooms. {30}
Quote ID: 3548
Time Periods: 123
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 103
Section: 2E3
As Christian congregations grew in size, they began to remodel their homes to accommodate their growing numbers. {35} One of the most outstanding finds of archeology is the house of Dura-Europos in modern Syria. This is the earliest identifiable Christian meeting place. {36} It was simply a private home remodeled as a Christian gathering place around A.D. 232. {37}The house at Dura-Europos was essentially a house with a wall torn out between two bedrooms to create a large living room. {38}
PJ Note:
FN 35 quote taken from
FN 36 quote taken from Everette Ferguson, Early Christians Speak: Faith and Life in the First Three Centuries, 46, 74.
FN 37 quote taken from
Quote ID: 3549
Time Periods: 3
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 105
Section: 2E3
Third-century Christians had two places for their meetings: Their private homes and the cemetery. {47} They met in the cemetery because they wished to be close to their dead brethren. {48} It was their belief that to share a meal at a cemetery of a martyr was to commemorate him and to worship his company. {49}Since the bodies of the “holy” martyrs resided there, Christian burial places came to be viewed as “holy spaces.” {50} The Christians then began to build small monuments over these spaces—especially over the graves of famous saints. {51} Building a shrine over a burial place and calling it “holy” was also a pagan practice. {52}
Quote ID: 3552
Time Periods: 3
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 107/108
Section: 2E3
The story of Constantine (285-337) fills a dark page in the history of Christianity. Church buildings began with him. {67} The story is astonishing.. . . .
By 324, he became Emperor of the entire Roman Empire. {68} Shortly afterward, he began ordering the construction of church buildings. He did so to promote the popularity and acceptance of Christianity. If the Christians had their own sacred buildings—as did the Jews and pagans—their faith would be regarded as legitimate.
Quote ID: 3554
Time Periods: 4
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 111
Section: 2E3
Truly, a pagan magical mind was at work in Emperor Constantine. Behold, the father of the church building.
Quote ID: 3561
Time Periods: 4
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 111
Section: 2E3,2E5
Interestingly, he named his church buildings after saints—just as the pagans named their temples after gods. Constantine built his first church buildings upon the cemeteries where the Christians held meals for the dead saints. {98} That is, he built them over the bodies of dead saints. {99} Why? Because for at least a century beforehand, the burial places of the saints were considered “holy spaces.” {100}Many of the largest buildings were built over the tombs of the martyrs. {101} This practice was based on the idea that the martyrs had the same powers that they had once ascribed to the gods of paganism. {102} Although pagan, the Christians adopted this view hook, line, and sinker.
Quote ID: 3563
Time Periods: 34
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 112
Section: 2E3
Because the church building was regarded as sacred, congregants had to undergo a purification ritual before entering. So in the fourth century, fountains were erected in the courtyard so the Christians could wash-up before they entered the building. {108}
Quote ID: 3564
Time Periods: 4
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 113
Section: 2E3
Let us explore the inside of the Christian basilica. It was an exact duplicate of the Roman basilica that was used for Roman magistrates and officers.
Quote ID: 3565
Time Periods: 4
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 115
Section: 2E3
Interestingly, most modern church buildings have special chairs for the pastor and his staff situated on the platform behind the pulpit. (Like the bishop’s throne, the pastor’s chair is usually he largest of them all!) All of this is a clear carry over from the pagan basilica.
Quote ID: 3567
Time Periods: 07
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 117
Section: 2E3
The first-century Christians saw themselves as set over against the world and avoided any contact with paganism. This all changed during the fourth century when the church emerged as a public institution in the world and began to “absorb and Christianize pagan religious ideas and practices.” {147}
Quote ID: 3571
Time Periods: 14
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 118
Section: 2E3
As with other pagan customs that were absorbed into the Christian faith (the liturgy, the sermon, clerical vestments, the hierarchical leadership structure, etc.), third and fourth-century Christians incorrectly attributed the origin of the church building to the Old Testament. {153} But this was misguided thinking.The church building was borrowed straight from pagan culture as we have seen. “Dignified and sacramental ritual had entered the church services by way of the mysteries [the pagan cults], and was justified, like so many other things, by reference to the Old Testament.” {154}
To use the Old Testament as a justification for the church building is not only inaccurate, but self-defeating. The old Mosaic economy of sacred priests, sacred buildings, sacred rituals, and sacred objects has been forever destroyed by the cross of Christ. In addition, it has been replaced by a non-hierarchical, non-ritualistic, non-liturgical organism called the ekklesia (church). {155}
Pastor John’s note: What????? (In reference to church here)
Quote ID: 3572
Time Periods: 034
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 119/120
Section: 2E3
The term “cathedral” is derived from cathedra. It is the building that houses the cathedra, the bishop’s chair. {163} It is the church which contains the “throne” of the bishop! {164}Pastor John’s note: the seat of the whore
Quote ID: 3573
Time Periods: 4
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 120/121
Section: 2E3
As is the case with the Constantine basilicas, the root of the Gothic cathedral is completely pagan. Gothic architects relied heavily on the teachings of the pagan Greek philosopher Plato. Plato taught that sound, color, and light have lofty mystical meanings. They can induce moods and help bring one closer to the “Eternal Good.” {170} The Gothic designers took Plato’s teachings and set them to brick and stone. They created awe-inspiring lighting to elicit a sense of overwhelming splendor and worship. {171}. . . .
So with its cunning use of light, color, and excessive height, the Gothic cathedral fostered a sense of mystery, transcendence, and awe. {175} All of these features were borrowed from Plato and passed off as Christian. {176}
Quote ID: 3574
Time Periods: 04
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 124
Section: 2E3
As the years passed, Gothic architects (enamored with verticality) sought to add a tall spire to every tower. {193} Spires (also called steeples) {194} were a symbol of man’s aspiration to be united with His Creator. {195} In the centuries that followed, the towers grew taller and skinner.
Quote ID: 3575
Time Periods: 4567
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 125
Section: 2E3
In the year 1666, something happened that changed the course of tower architecture. A fire swept across the city of London damaging most of its 97 church edifices. {196} Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was then commissioned to redesign all the churches of London. Using his own stylistic innovations in modifying the Gothic spires of France and Germany, Wren created the modern steeple. {197}
Quote ID: 3576
Time Periods: 7
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 126
Section: 2E3
As early as A.D. 250, the ambo was replaced by the pulpit. Cyprian (200-258) speaks of placing the leader of the church into public office upon the pulpitum. {206} Our word “pulpit” is derived from the Latin word pulpitum which means “a stage!” {207} The pulpitum, or pulpit, was propped up in the highest elevated place in the congregation. {208}In time, the phrase “to ascent the platform” (ad pulptium venire) became part of the religious vocabulary of the clergy. {209} By A.D. 252, Cyprian alludes to the raised platform which segregated the clergy from the laity as “the sacred and venerated congestum of the clergy!” {210}
Quote ID: 3578
Time Periods: 3
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 127/128
Section: 2E3
The word “pew” is derived from the Latin podium. It means a seat raised up above floor-level or a “balcony” {218} Pews were unknown to the church building for the first thousand years of Christian history. In the early basilicas, the congregation stood throughout the entire service. {219} (It is this way today among many Eastern Orthodox.) {220}
Quote ID: 3579
Time Periods: 7
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 129
Section: 2E3
Over the last 200 years, the two dominating architectural patterns employed by Protestant churches are the divided chancel form (used in liturgical churches) and the concert stage form (used in evangelical churches). {238} The chancel is the area where the clergy (and sometimes the choir) conduct the service. {239} In the chancel-style church, there still exists a rail or screen that separates the clergy from the laity.
Quote ID: 3581
Time Periods: 7
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 134
Section: 2E3
To state it differently, the very architecture prevents fellowship except between God and His people via the pastor!
Quote ID: 3582
Time Periods: 4567
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 136
Section: 2E3
There does not exist a shred of Biblical support for the church building.
Quote ID: 3583
Time Periods: 1
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 137
Section: 2E3
The emergence of the church building is nothing more than Judaism and paganism breaking forth in a new guise.
Quote ID: 3584
Time Periods: 4
Paganism and Christianity 100-425 C.E. a Sourcebook
Ramsay MacMullen and Eugene N. Lane
Book ID: 170 Page: 31
Section: 2E3
The Asclepius-sanctuary, Asklepieion, of Pergamon was of exceptional size, grandeur, and fame. Through excavation as well as ancient descriptions, it is also relatively well known today. Surviving inscriptions include some that tell of cures wrought by the god and commemorated by grateful patients, of which the following three are examples.
Quote ID: 3678
Time Periods: 0
Philosopher and the Druids (A Journey Among The Ancient Celts), The
Philip Freeman
Book ID: 263 Page: 164/165
Section: 2E3
The Carnutes, in whose lands the annual meeting was held, occupied the area to the southwest of Paris, around the town of Chartres. In fact, there’s a case to be made that Chartres Cathedral, a soaring monument of medieval architecture, was built on the very site of the Gaulish Druids’ holy gathering. Early Christians often took over the sacred places of earlier pagan religions as a way of easing the transition to their faith by using locations long considered holy.
Quote ID: 6678
Time Periods: 0234
Porphyry’s Against the Christians
R. Joseph Hoffman
Book ID: 181 Page: 85
Section: 2E3
“The Christians, imitating our ways, erect temples and build great houses, houses in which they assemble for prayer, even though they are enjoined to do this in their own houses––since the Lord can hear them wherever they are.”
Quote ID: 9323
Time Periods: 34
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire
Peter Brown
Book ID: 183 Page: 147
Section: 2E3
A few years later, armed guards entered Ambrose’s basilica and snatched an offender out from among the bishop and clergy, among whom he had taken cover.{138} Only two decades later was the sacred nature of the church building itself deemed to confer protection on a fugitive.
Quote ID: 4086
Time Periods: 4567
Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and Charismatic in the Early Church
Henry Chadwick
Book ID: 378 Page: 150
Section: 2E3
In parts of Spain, especially in Galicia, Priscillian was jubilantly celebrated as a martyr. The bodies of all those executed at Trier were lovingly recovered and taken to Spain for burial. They became deeply valued as relics of holy men. Oaths were solemnly sworn at Priscillian’s shrine,{1}….*John’s note: Phalaris – cruel Greek, had a brass bull made to roast his victims on. Also a cannibal.*
Quote ID: 8275
Time Periods: 4
Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, The
Edited by J. A. North and S. R. F. Price
Book ID: 166 Page: 10
Section: 2E3
Roman religion, on the other hand, is essentially or even exclusively the religion of a single city, the religion of Rome itself.
Quote ID: 3489
Time Periods: 17
Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, The
Edited by J. A. North and S. R. F. Price
Book ID: 166 Page: 10/11
Section: 2E3
A term such as Romanism, denoting the historical effects of the encounter with Roman religion, could only be applied, if at all, to Latin Christianity – and the centre of that was the city of Rome.
Quote ID: 3490
Time Periods: 47
Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, The
Edited by J. A. North and S. R. F. Price
Book ID: 166 Page: 12
Section: 2E3
the religion of the city of Rome, which disintegrated when the city itself fell.
Quote ID: 3492
Time Periods: 456
Rise of Western Christendom, The
Peter Brown
Book ID: 265 Page: 330
Section: 2E3,3A1
In a land without large conglomerations of population, great monasteries were the nearest things to cities. Paradoxically, it was Christian poetry written in Irish that celebrated the pagan high places of Ireland. Many of these had ceased to function for centuries before the coming of Christianity. Only the outlines of their earthworks and the great burial mounds containing prehistoric passage graves survived. But the landscape was still charged with their mute presence. The glories of these places were now evoked, as if they had only recently passed away.….
The bishops and abbots who entered into this competition for the ecclesiastical equivalents of high kingship in Ireland were as intensely aware of their social status as were any of their near contemporaries, the aristocratic bishops of Gaul.
Quote ID: 6728
Time Periods: 7
Roman Empire, The
Colin Wells
Book ID: 266 Page: 243
Section: 2E3
For Minucius Felix in the Octavius and Tertullian in the Apology, the pagans were all too sincere in their beliefs. The belief in the numinous, the association of certain places with the holy, was very powerful. The Christian church was later to try to capture such places for itself by promoting the cult of some appropriate saint in place of the pagan divinity.
Quote ID: 6731
Time Periods: 34567
Rome 1300: On The Path of the Pilgrim
Herbert L. Kessler and Johanna Zacharias
Book ID: 189 Page: 45
Section: 2E3
Picture - Although the inscription above the apse, NON EST IN TOTO SANCTIOR ORBE LOCUS (there is no holier place in all the world), was introduced only during the sixteenth-century renovations, it expresses the medieval belief, as well, that the Sancta Sanctorum was Christianity’s most sacred building.
Quote ID: 4189
Time Periods: 7
Rome 1300: On The Path of the Pilgrim
Herbert L. Kessler and Johanna Zacharias
Book ID: 189 Page: 115
Section: 2E3
The Heavenly Jerusalem, then, is Rome, where the martyred saints are honored. The church that harbors their earthly remains, “decorated with gold and silver, in honor of the saintly Praxedes,” as the apse inscription declaims, is the city’s image. A hymn to Rome, the Urbs Beata Hierusalem, when sung during the Mass, reminds the faithful of this relationship:Urbs beata Hierusalem, dicta pacis visio,
Quae construitur in caelis vivis ex lapidu,
Plateae et muri eius ex auro purissimo;
Portae nitent margaritas.
(Blessed city, you holy Salem, named the place of peace, which is erected of living
stones in heaven. . . your walls are built of the purest gold. Pearls shine on your
doors.)
Quote ID: 4195
Time Periods: 7
Rome 1300: On The Path of the Pilgrim
Herbert L. Kessler and Johanna Zacharias
Book ID: 189 Page: 189
Section: 2E3
Obelisk. A trophy set up along the spine of the spine of the hippodrome of Gaius and Nero, this Egyptian obelisk remained in place even after the racetrack was demolished for the construction of St. Peter’s. In 1586, it was moved to a few meters north, into the piazza before today’s St. Peter’s.
Quote ID: 4201
Time Periods: 17
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 59
Section: 2E3
Gothic warriors were disgusted with Theodahat’s incompetence and willingness to trade the Gothic kingdom to Justinian for “eastern ease and wealth.”
Quote ID: 4262
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 196
Section: 2E3
The ancient buildings that were preserved owed their survival to their adaptation to Christian uses. The Pantheon was granted to Boniface IV by the Emperor Phocas in 608 and was dedicated by that pope as the church of S. Maria ad Martyres; its roof was stripped by Constans II but its use as a church saved it from utter decay - Gregory II re-roofed it with lead. It may have been dedicated on 1st November 609, an ancient feast of Isis and the later feast of All Saints.
Quote ID: 4364
Time Periods: 67
Saints and their Symbols: Recognizing Saints in Art and in Popular Images
Fernando Lanzi and Gioia M.G. Lanzi
Book ID: 594 Page: 61
Section: 2E3,2E7
A reliable tradition that is both literary and archeological says his [Paul’s] martyrdom took place in 67 and at the present-day Tre Fontane on the Laurentian Way; he was beheaded with a sword because this was the only death worthy of a Roman citizen. His head bounced three times when separated from his body and gave rise to the three springs from which the place takes its name.
Quote ID: 9328
Time Periods: 17
Secret Archives of the Vatican, The
Maria Luisa Ambrosini & With Mary Willis
Book ID: 269 Page: 46
Section: 2E3
Alaric had promised Pope Innocent to respect the persons and property that were gathered in the basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul, and to order that churches not be sacked. Even though the basilicas and the buildings around them were crowded beyond capacity, most of the population and treasure had to remain outside. The basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul were respected – Alaric said he didn’t want to quarrel with the apostles – but the Lateran was sacked and partly destroyed. And the Lateran held much of the archives.
Quote ID: 6793
Time Periods: 5
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 253
Section: 2E3
Mark well, O Christian, how many unclean names have made the circus their own. It is an alien religion, none of thine, possessed by all those spirits of the devil.And speaking of places, this will be the place for some words to anticipate the question that some will raise. What, say you, suppose that at some other time I approach the circus, shall I be in danger of pollution? There is no law laid down for us as to places. For not merely those places where men gather for the shows, but even temples, the servant of God may approach without risk to his Christian loyalty, if there be cause sufficient and simple, to be sure, unconnected with the business or character of the place.
Quote ID: 8074
Time Periods: 23
Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, LCL 250
Translated by T.R. Glover
Book ID: 134 Page: 255
Section: 2E3
Places do not of themselves defile us, but the things done in the places.
Quote ID: 8075
Time Periods: 23
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 121
Section: 3A1B,2E3,4B
Private houses increasingly became the locations of pagan worship, just as they had once been for Christian. Sincere pagans such as Symmachus and Libanius, after all, believed that the gods required incense, libations and other offerings, and would hardly abandon these rituals provided they could be enacted discreetly.{20}
Quote ID: 7144
Time Periods: 45
Urban Religion in Roman Corinth
Daniel N. Schowalter and Steven J. Friesen
Book ID: 283 Page: 111
Section: 2E3
That freshwater springs were considered sacred in the Greco-Roman world...
Quote ID: 7181
Time Periods: 0
Urban Religion in Roman Corinth
Daniel N. Schowalter and Steven J. Friesen
Book ID: 283 Page: 112
Section: 2E3
...yet for the Roman period, neither archaeology nor history provides evidence that springs were a focus of organized religious activity.
Quote ID: 7182
Time Periods: 012345
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 11
Section: 2E3
To climb the Capitoline Hill is to enter Rome’s past which was transformed into a Christian future.. . . .
Today the hill is crowned by the town hall complex around Michaelangelo’s piazza and the church of Aracoeli, built above the ruins of a temple dedicated to a pagan mother-goddess.
Quote ID: 6965
Time Periods: 047
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 23
Section: 2E3
The first church to be built in Rome was St John’s, the cathedral of the bishop of Rome (the Pope). It marked the beginning of an ambitious church-building programme by Constantine - a startling change, as previously there had been no recognizable church buildings.
Quote ID: 6971
Time Periods: 4
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 24
Section: 2E3
Constantine’s churches were by or beyond the city walls, while the centre remained persistently pagan. Now, of course, there is a plethora of churches in central Rome, but for many years after Constantine’s conversion its civic (and pagan) core remained intact. To make a Christian capital, he transferred to Constantinople.
Quote ID: 6972
Time Periods: 4
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 143
Section: 2E3
. . .bishops from Asia Minor appealed to Aurelian to arbitrate in a dispute with a certain Paul, who became bishop of Antioch in 260. In 268 a synod in Antioch declared Paul a heretic for this teaching on the person of Christ. But it was easier to condemn him than to expel him from his church, where his loyal congregation would wave their handkerchiefs enthusiastically and applaud him. The bishops appealed to Aurelian, claiming legal right to the church building. They were onto a sure thing: Aurelian’s decision was a foregone conclusion because Paul, as well as being bishop, had held high civil office in the local Palmyrene kingdom, which had unsuccessfully fought the emperor. The episode showed that an alliance between Church and Emperor was possible.
Quote ID: 6992
Time Periods: 3
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 167
Section: 2E3
Shortly after the Milivian bridge victory, Constantine gave his second wife Fausta’s lateran Palace, where Marcus Aurelius had been born, to Bishop Melchiades as his residence. It enabled the bishop to live in a style to which he was not accustomed and put a greater distance than before between him and his flock. It was a startling change, which was reinforced when Constantine began building churches which made the Church visible.
Quote ID: 6994
Time Periods: 4
Vigilantius and His Times
William Stephen Gilly
Book ID: 284 Page: 250
Section: 2E3
Another suspicion also crossed the young Presbyter’s mind, viz. that, after all, Palestine was no longer the holy ground which Jerome himself had represented it to be; that pilgrimages thither were not so very desirable;
Quote ID: 7226
Time Periods: 5
End of quotes