Discovery of a 3rd-century C.E. synagogue at the ancient site now known as Dura-Europos (in modern Syria) in 1932/1933 shocked the scholarly world. To that point, many had assumed that Jews would never create such an elaborately painted structure for worship—in antiquity or otherwise—because of traditional interpretations about prohibitions against making figural images in the second biblical commandment.

Yet, extensive representations of biblical figures and scenes on the walls of the synagogue’s assembly hall dispel this notion. Moreover, the presence of Hebrew and Aramaic writing on the walls and the ceiling, paired with an additional Persian inscription on the murals that explicitly describes the space as dedicated to the “God of Gods of the Jews,” collectively confirmed its use by Jewish worshippers. [1] Combined, these elements of the synagogue offer rare documentation of Jewish life and devotional space in a 3rd-century frontier town, situated within a multilingual and multicultural society.

The Dura Synagogue and the circumstances of its preservation

Decades before the construction of the synagogue, sequences of conquest, destruction, and rebuilding had already shaped Dura into a politically, culturally, and demographically complex town. Roman soldiers fortified Dura in the mid-250s C.E., inadvertently protecting the synagogue (their efforts included back-filling buildings along the defense walls of the town, including the synagogue, to bolster their resistance to demolition by the enemy’s battering rams).

Phasing and architecture

Yale University’s excavations in the 1930s revealed that the original synagogue building was probably constructed in the late 2nd century or early 3rd century C.E. While much remains unknown about this earlier structure, its foundations are partly documented and indirectly preserved.

The final phase of the synagogue, which was completed in the 240s, is its best understood. The synagogue was primarily composed of an assembly hall and a forecourt (with entry through the adjacent building). The assembly hall may have accommodated up to 120 people. Opposite the entryway, a sculpted aedicula occupied a central position along the western wall of the assembly hall, accessed by several steps from the floor. The Torah (a scroll containing the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) might have been stored and read possibly in or around the aedicula on this wall.

Wall paintings

The extensive decorative program on the walls of the final phase of the synagogue included roughly 70 panels depicting stories from the Hebrew Bible. The murals were originally applied to dry, rather than wet plaster (using al seccotechniques). [2]

Scenes on the walls were presented, out of chronological sequence, in three registers; black rectangular borders divided each panel from others. The lowest decorative band (dado) was distinctive; its colors and decorative program, representing exotic animals and women’s faces or masks in the middle of a black background, separated the biblical panels—both spatially and stylistically—from the floor below.

Similar artisans might have painted the walls of several buildings in Dura, including the synagogue, Christian building, and mithraeum. Nonetheless (and for multiple reasons) the Dura synagogue is exceptional, both locally and regionally; it boasts the most well-preserved decorative program of any Durene building and it contains the only fully decorated walls to survive from any known ancient synagogue.

The west wall

Remaining portions of the west wall, which faced the hall entrances, remain among the best preserved. The aedicula was elaborately and brightly painted. We see a large yellow menorah (a candelabrum with seven branches topped with individual oil lamps), beside which other implements associated with the Temple in Jerusalem also clustered, including a shofar (ram’s horn used as a ritual wind instrument) and ethrog (citron fruit, used by Jews during the festival of Sukkot).

In the center is an indeterminate architectural structure—perhaps the Holy of Holies from the temple or the Temple itself. On the other side appears an aqeda scene that represents the sacrifice of Isaac. A tiny Isaac appears already on the top of the altar, awaiting his (averted) sacrifice and Abraham appears from behind, and a descending divine hand or the hand of an angel appears to intervene directly from above.

Scholars have offered many theories to explain why these images appear together and in this precise location. Scenes which render cultic implements from the Temple (such as the menorah, shofar, and, ethrog), images of architectural structures, and aqeda scenes appear frequently in mosaic floors of synagogues of Roman Palestine from the fourth and fifth centuries C.E., often closest to where the Torah was likely stored and read. Some scholars have argued that this iconographic and spatial pairing might simultaneously evoke and memorialize the cultic activities of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, depict Abraham’s consummate act of piety (his willingness to sacrifice Isaac to demonstrate his obedience to God), and, perhaps, create visual continuity between the destroyed Temple and the liturgical practices conducted within the Dura synagogue centuries later.

Images on the west wall surrounding the aedicula similarly depict biblical stories about the history and key leaders of ancient Israel. Scenes from Moses’s life are particularly abundant; they include representations of Pharaoh’s daughter rescuing him as an infant from the Nile River and Moses’s leadership of the Israelites miraculously crossing the Red Sea to escape from slavery. Images of the Jerusalem Temple, of Aaron as High Priest, and of the  sacrificial activities associated with the Temple cult also recur on the wall.

Paintings on that wall also depict events of divine intervention, during which Jews were miraculously saved from certain destruction at the hands of their enemies; scenes of the miraculous parting of the Red Sea and the scene depicting Esther enthroned in Persia, collectively function in this way. The positioning of these particular scenes on the same wall that the Torah might have been stored and read appears deliberate.

Moreover, more than serving as mere illustrations of the stories which were recited from the Torah (perhaps with the exception of the Esther story), these representations may play didactic roles, while constituting visual forms of textual interpretation (or midrash). They also serve as spatial and chronological anchors, linking the locations of prayer and recitations of liturgy inside the synagogue to the geography of events within Jews’ historical and religious past.

The other walls

The other walls are more poorly preserved because they were either partly demolished in antiquity or were badly supported by the fill and thus more susceptible to collapse and destruction. The south wall depicts Elijah and the prophets of Baal; the north wall includes scenes of Bethel and Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones; and images of David and Saul in the wilderness appear on the east. Some of these, as scholars have argued, may depict additional messianic themes.

Function of the paintings

These paintings likely served multiple functions for synagogue visitors. They visually conjured and memorialized the greatness of the Jewish God, Jewish heroes and ancestors, and they reminded visitors of a proud lineage that extended back to ancient Israel. Images of the Temple itself, as well as representations of stories in which God saved the Jews from danger, also projected important ideas for their audience, reminding them of God’s power, munificence and protection. Scholars have argued that some images, such as those rendering the vision of dry bones’ in Ezekiel, 37, might suggest God’s promises of future salvation. These images thus simultaneously performed familial, historical, messianic, polemical, and liturgical functions for their ancient viewers. However, the exact relationship between the placement and narrative of many these images remains unclear, because the details of scenes are sometimes abstract and challenging to contextualize.

Ceiling

Until recently, the ceiling had been a neglected feature of the Dura synagogue. The ceiling was originally framed on joists and supported by wooden beams inset with painted terracotta tiles to suggest a coffered ceiling.

More than 400 square tiles once comprised the ceiling. Most bore figural decoration, including stylized portraits of benignly smiling women, animals, grains, and fruit. They also incorporate fantastical images of composite creatures that may evoke zodiac signs, such as goat-fish, centaurs, and bird-fish; these were joined by at least two representations of the evil or “good” eye, being assailed by weapons and enemies. Some of these images recur in other buildings from Dura, but most do not; this is the only synagogue ceiling to survive from antiquity and scholars are uncertain why these images were selected.

Inscriptions and graffiti

Also painted on some of the ceiling tiles were multiple dedicatory inscriptions, which documented the donations of men to the reconstruction of the final synagogue in 244/5 C.E. Three of the tiles from the Dura ceiling included Greek inscriptions, neatly painted, and surrounded by foliate wreaths, which honored individuals named Abram, Arsaces, Silas, and Salmanes; Samuel son of Yeddayah (“Presbyter of the Jews”); and Samuel son of Saphara (Barsaphara) for their generosity. Two Aramaic tiles described the process of the synagogue’s renovation and were unusually presented in two continuous parts. These inscriptions document the final date of the reconstruction of the synagogue, the synagogue officials who supervised the renovation, records of the hard work undertaken, and honor the participation of unnamed women and children. These also record activities associated with the celebration of the sabbath.

In other synagogues, donor plaques were more commonly placed in areas of synagogues where visitors could view them more easily, such as in floor mosaics and on lower portions of walls. Any explanation for the choice to place donor inscriptions in the ceiling at Dura necessarily remains speculative: these tiles possibly may have been inscribed on the ceiling to bring the donors closer to the higher power of God.

Inscriptions were also found in other areas of the building. An Aramaic dedicatory text was lightly scratched above the aedicula, which attributes the donation of the Torah shrine to a certain “Joseph son of Abba.” The dominance of Aramaic inscriptions inside the synagogue is significant, because, while Aramaic dialects were likely spoken in Dura by Jews and non-Jews alike, Greek is the best documented language in local inscriptions and dedications. Aramaic thus appears to have fulfilled a cultural or ritual importance for Jews who used the synagogue, which is unmatched in other buildings from the town.

Several other types of official inscriptions were also found in the building. Some of these were tituli, or labels, found upon the paintings themselves. Ancient people carefully applied these in paint—in Greek or Aramaic—directly to the paintings. Their work appears to reflect concerns that some of the images were sufficiently ambiguous or difficult for audiences to decipher that they required verbal clarification. Aramaic name labels include those that identify individuals, such as King Solomon (with the Queen of Sheba), Esther, Ahashverosh, and Elijah; a label in Greek identifies the figure of Aaron, the High Priest, who presides over a sacrificial scene. Still panels incorporate fuller captions to help viewers interpret surrounding scenes, such as the label for “Moses when he went out from Egypt and parted the Sea”; or “Samuel, when he anointed David.”

Nearly 70 graffiti were also found inside the synagogue. These include visitor’s unofficial drawings and writings that they applied to the surfaces of the synagogue, during their visits through time. Some record activities of various sorts, such as a carving of an aedicula. Textual graffiti are most abundant. Most textual graffiti are in Aramaic and suggest that writing and carving inside the synagogue was a respectful activity, rather than one of defacement. Examples include the names of individual writers or their families, or several requests that writers should “be remembered,” or “be remembered for good” by future readers and passersby. [3]

One last form of writing—usually called dipinti because they are painted, rather than carved as are graffiti— was also found upon certain murals from the synagogue—particularly around the so-called “Purim panel” on the west wall, and around the Elijah and Ezekiel panels on the south and north walls. These are distinctive because they are applied in Middle Persian and Parthian scripts and express visitors’ appreciation for the magnificence of the building and its walls. Most writers identify themselves as scribes, which explains their facility with writing in ink. [4]

Henry Pearson, one of the excavators at Dura, personally supervised the excision of the synagogue walls and their installment inside a special room constructed for their display inside the Damascus Museum, where they still remain. The precarious military situation of Dura—situated along the Euphrates and the Syrian/Iraqi border in the modern town of Salihiyah—currently precludes visitation. While political factors inhibit direct access to the wall panels of the synagogue in Damascus and to the original archaeological site itself, scholars can continue to study the Dura synagogue and other buildings at the site, through digital projects such as the International Digital Dura-Europos Archive (IDEA) and through the photographic archives and collections of the Yale Art Gallery. The unparalleled richness of elements from the Dura synagogue reminds us of the complex nature of architecture diversities in religious practice, and variabilities in the population in Dura-Europos in the middle of the 3rd century C.E.

Notes: 

[1]  Aramaic inscriptions on the hall’s coffered ceiling call the space a house (of prayer).

[2] The original colors of the wall paintings are somewhat uncertain. The murals faded rapidly after their excavation and initial exposure. The excavators then painted a shellac on the walls to protect them from further deterioration, but this inadvertently caused the opposite effect: in the decades following synagogue’s discovery the coated surface degraded and darkened considerably. The original black-and-white photographs and negatives captured on site, therefore, offer some of the best documentation of the original appearances of the murals. The colorized images, which are often reproduced, were subsequently painted by Herbert Gute and offer an artistic impression of the ancient colors.

[3] Many such examples were preserved on broken plaster, but their adherence to architectural elements (including door jambs) suggests that most originally appeared around the doorways of earlier and later phases of the structure. The discovery of graffiti containing comparable messages (if not in identical languages) in other Durene buildings confirms the regional convention of writing these types of messages (personal names and remembrance requests) on walls of religious buildings and spaces; most graffiti from other cultic contexts, however, appeared in distinctive locations around shrines and altars.

[4] Some have argued that the scribes who visited the structure were Persian Jews; others have argued for the opposite view, based on Zoroastrian terminology embedded in some of their dipinti. Regardless, the presence of these painstakingly painted messages, which respectfully conform to the contours of specific figures, suggests that Persian visitors to the synagogue, like their local Jewish counterparts, wrote their messages inside the synagogue as a respectful activity, to express their appreciation of the space and of devotional activities conducted inside it.

Additional resources

Dura-Europos on Smarthistory.

The Torah and its adornment on Smarthistory.

Dura-Europos: Excavating Antiquity.

International Dura-Europos Archive.

Jewish Art

How is it that the Jews, called by Scripture “the smallest of all the nations” (Deut. 7:7) merit a section on religious architecture placed alongside the glories of Christendom, Islam, and Buddhism? After all, the Jews today number something around fourteen million, the same number that existed before the massacre of six million in Europe and the dissolution of communities across Europe and the Arab world during the 1940s. This is a numerical highpoint. In previous centuries, the numbers were far smaller. Just on the basis of demography, then, it would be hard to justify the inclusion of Judaism in this history of art and architecture.

A National Style?

More difficult, perhaps, from the first century through the establishment of modern Israel in 1948 Jews could not claim (or assert, as new European nations states did) a “national” identity or a “national” style of art based upon landed nationalism—categories that were of central importance to nineteenth and twentieth-century constructions of architectural history and style. Theirs was a minority architecture, reflecting a minority existence.

The Temple of Solomon (c. 900 BCE), modern scholars tell us, was a typical near-eastern temple, while the great synagogues constructed at the turn of the twentieth century were art deco palaces. Even on a quality level, it is hard to include Jewish architecture among the great religious architecture of the world.

The greatest of Jewish building, the temples of Solomon (destroyed 586 BCE) and Herod in Jerusalem (destroyed 70 CE) are long gone, and never again have Jews controlled extensive resources for building, nor land for construction. There is no Jewish parallel to Saint Peter’s (neither the “Old” one built by Constantine nor Julius II’s), nor Hagia Sophia, the temples of Varanasi, nor the Forbidden City. Small Jewish communities, stretched across the world from late-antique Palestine to Kaifeng in 17th century China to contemporary America and Israel built synagogues—often buildings of great beauty and historical significance, but mostly pretty limited from an architectural standpoint. There were no Jewish benefactors to compete with Justinian or Saladin or the della Rovere; and virtually no government sponsorship of magnificent synagogues. Jewish architecture is always derivative of local styles and patterns and responds to the needs of local minority communities. It never drove those styles. Jewish “architecture” through the ages was a hybrid architecture—a term scorned by nineteenth and twentieth-century racial and national purists but celebrated in our own “post-modern” age.

Longevity

What Jews lacked in territory, wealth and numbers, they made up for in longevity. Jews—short for “the Judeans,” trace their cultural heritage, and sometimes their physical lineage, to the biblical patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and to the land of Israel (called in Roman times Judaea)—an unbroken chain of 3000 years. This is not just an “imagined” history. No other western community can assert—based upon rich documentary and physical evidence—to have encountered both Cyrus the Great and Innocent III, Caligula and Mohammed, Victoria, Stalin and Rembrandt. Though a minority, Jews maintained rich mimetic traditions across the empires that make up the “Western world,” and an astonishingly complex book culture that has sustained their sense of group cohesion. From antiquity to modern times, it was (and in many ways, still is) possible to travel from Jewish community to Jewish community from Persia to Spain and beyond—as travellers did—and find Jews who shared an all-encompassing religious culture—even if they ate “strange” (though always kosher) foods, dressed “funny” (though males still wore the biblically mandated ritual “fringes”) and practiced “strange” local liturgical customs. Not speaking the same vernacular language, a visitor from, say, Germany might have communicated with his hosts in, say, Egypt, by drawing upon a mix of “peculiarly pronounced” Hebrew and Aramaic gained through exposure to vast quantities of canonical religious texts.

Jews and their texts—not always together—have been active in what some textbooks still call “the Western Experience” from its beginning. The religious traditions associated with Jesus and Mohammed both assert that Jewish scripture, and interaction with Jews, is essential to their own revelations, both of which assert relationship by virtue of having “superseded” the revelation of Moses. In other words, Jews “matter” to Christians and to Muslims, and by virtue of living among them, Christians and Muslims “mattered” to Jews.

The Study of Jewish Art and Architecture

The academic study of Jewish architecture developed from the eighteenth century onward, when Christian Hebraists and bible scholars developed interests in biblical architecture—the Mosaic Tabernacle, the Solomonic Temple and the Herodian Temple—the latter visited by Jesus, who according to the Gospels predicted its destruction in 70 CE under emperor Vespasian. Post-“biblical” Jewish architecture did not become a focus of research until discoveries by the Palestine Exploration Fund of late antique synagogues during the 1860s. Medieval and early modern buildings took a bit longer to occasion scholarly interest. Jews in 19th century Europe, America and to some degree Islamic lands and south Asia, were engaged in a full-scale building boom; the largest since Herod the Great’s rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple beginning 20-19 BCE. Newly emancipated and emancipating communities asserted their presence by building huge synagogues, experimenting with a wide range of forms, from neo-Egyptian to neo-classical and neo-Moresque, eventually settling upon the modern yet traditionalist tones of art deco.

Only at the end of the 19th century did scholars begin to look back and study “Jewish art,” including Jewish architecture; often looking—whether intentionally or not—for roots for the contemporary boom in earlier periods. Hoping to prove that “Jews do art too,” Jews of all stripes hoped to prove their humanity through the creation and study of Jewish art. It was only in post-war New York that the first—and perhaps still the best—comprehensive surveys of Jewish religious architecture were written, both by art historian/architect Rachel Wischnitzer. These were entitled European Synagogue Architecture and Synagogue Architecture in America. By then, the State of Israel had been established, and “Jewish art”—including architecture—became the national art.

The canonical book of this process was Cecil Roth’s Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, first published in Hebrew in 1958 and still in print in Hebrew. This anthology brought together scholars who had been scattered throughout the world due to the War to present a comprehensive history, from Solomon to the present. Architecture—until the modern period, all of it “religious” appears in every period and in almost every article, with some articles dedicated to this subject. The study of Jewish architecture has been of particular interest to Israeli scholars, but also to Americans and Europeans, and the Hebrew University’s Center for Jewish Art has sent teams across the world to document historical synagogues—most no longer used. In Europe, this work takes on additional significance, as it has been spawned by a real interest to regain a now-lost heritage—particularly in the East, as Europe, particularly since the fall of Communism, has sought to develop a more tolerant European tradition and usable history.

In recent years, Jewish visual culture has been deeply assimilated into the academic study of Judaism, really for the first time. Cultural historians, working with art historians and architectural historians, have begun to focus upon the very elements of Jewish “minority” architecture that in previous generations were often spurned. The process by which a small minority group melded with its general environment, transforming and being transformed within that environment has become the stuff of contemporary scholarship. In many ways, the Jews have been the “canary in the coal mine,” the test case for theoretical discussion of what it means to live in a diaspora and to be Europe’s first, earliest and most intimate—colonized people.

How little we know

Almost nothing is known about Jesus beyond biblical accounts, although we do know quite a bit more about the cultural and political context in which he lived—for example, Jerusalem in the first century. What follows is an introductory historical summary of Christianity. It hardly needs stating that there are many interpretations and disagreements among historians.

Jesus v. Rome

The biblical Jesus, described in the Gospels as the son of a carpenter, was a Jew and a champion of the underdog. He rebelled against the occupying Roman government in what was then Palestine (at this point the Roman Empire stretched across the Mediterranean). He was crucified for upsetting the social order and challenging the authority of the Romans and their local Jewish leaders. The Romans crucified Jesus, a typical method of execution—especially for those accused of crimes against the government.

Jesus’s followers claim that after three days he rose from the grave and later ascended into heaven. His original followers, known as disciples or apostles, traveled great distances and spread Jesus’s message. His life is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are found in the New Testament. “Christ” means messiah or savior (this belief in a savior is a traditional part of Jewish theology).

Old and New Testaments

Early on, there were many ways that Christianity was practiced and understood, and it wasn’t until the second century that Christianity began to be understood as a religion distinct from Judaism (it’s helpful to remember that Judaism itself had many different sects). Christians were sometimes severely persecuted by the Romans. In the early fourth century, the Roman Emperor Constantine experienced a miraculous conversion and made it legally acceptable to be a Christian. Less than a hundred years later, the Roman Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official state religion.

The first Christians were Jews (whose bible we refer to as the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh). But soon pagans too converted to this new religion. Christians saw the predictions of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible come to fulfillment in the life of Jesus Christ—hence the “Bible” of the Christians includes both the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament) and the New Testament.

In addition to the fulfillment of prophecy, Christians saw parallels between the events of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. These parallels, or foreshadowings, are called typology. One example would be Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and the later sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  We often see these comparisons in Christian art offered as a revelation of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind.

Different Christianities

Unlike Greek and Roman religions (there was both an official “state” religion as well as other cults), Christianity emphasized belief and a personal relationship with God. The doctrines, or main teachings, of Christianity were determined in a series of councils in the early Christian period, such as the Council of Nicea in 325. This resulted in a common statement of belief known as the Nicene Creed, which is still used by some churches today.

Nevertheless, there is great diversity in Christian belief and practice. This was true even in the early days of Christianity, when, for example, Arians (who believed that the three parts of the Holy Trinity were not equal) and Donatists (who held that priests who had renounced their Christian faith during periods of persecution could not administer the sacraments), were considered heretics (someone who goes against official teaching). Today there are approximately 2.2 billion Christians who belong to a multitude of sects.

The two dominant early branches of Christianity were the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, rooted in Western and Eastern Europe respectively. Protestantism (and its different forms) emerged only later, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Before that there was essentially just one church in Western Europe—what we would call the Roman Catholic church today (to differentiate it from other forms of Christianity in the West such as Lutheranism, Methodism etc.). Christianity spread throughout the world. In the sixteenth century, the Jesuits (a Catholic order), sent missionaries to Asia, North and South America, and Africa often in concert with Europe’s colonial expansion.

Doctrines

Christianity holds that God has a three-part nature—that God is a trinity (God the father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ) and that it was Jesus’s death on the cross—his sacrifice—that allowed for human beings to have the possibility of eternal life in heaven. [1] In Christian theology, Christ is seen as the second Adam, and Mary (Jesus’s mother) is seen as the second Eve. The idea here is that where Adam and Eve caused original sin, and were expelled from paradise (the Garden of Eden), Mary and Christ made it possible for human beings to have eternal life in paradise (heaven), through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Christian practice centers on the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is sometimes referred to as Communion. Christians eat bread and drink wine to remember Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of humankind. Christ himself initiated this practice at the Last Supper. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox believe that the bread and wine literally transform into the body and blood of Christ, whereas Protestants and other Christians see the Eucharist as symbolic reminder and re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice.

Christians demonstrate their faith by engaging in good (charitable) works (works of art were often created as good works). They often engage in rituals (sacraments) such as partaking of the Eucharist or being baptized. Traditional Christian churches have a hierarchical structure of clergy. Devout men and women sometimes become nuns or monks and may separate themselves from the world and live a cloistered life devoted to prayer in a monastery.

Notes:

[1] There are also nontrinitian Christians.

See also:

The Christian Bible

The life of Christ in medieval and Renaissance art

How to recognize saints

Source:  Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Nancy Ross, “Christianity, an introduction,” in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015, accessed October 7, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/christianity-an-introduction/.

An illusion of reality

Classical art, or the art of ancient Greece and Rome, sought to create a convincing illusion for the viewer. Artists sculpting the images of gods and goddesses tried to make their statues appear like an idealized human figure. Some of these sculptures, such as the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, were so lifelike that legends spread about the statues coming to life and speaking to people. After all, a statue of a god or goddess in the ancient world was believed to embody deity.

URL: https://youtu.be/z_5AAk1jABI

Additional resource: Catacombs of Priscilla website

Rome becomes Christian and Constantine builds churches

In 312, the Emperor Constantine defeated his principal rival Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Accounts of the battle describe how Constantine saw a sign in the heavens portending his victory. Eusebius, Constantine’s principal biographer, describes the sign as the Chi Rho, the first two letters in the Greek spelling of the name Christos.

After that victory Constantine became the principal patron of Christianity. In 313 he issued the Edict of Milan which granted religious toleration. Although Christianity would not become the official religion of Rome until the end of the fourth century, Constantine’s imperial sanction of Christianity transformed its status and nature. Neither imperial Rome or Christianity would be the same after this moment. Rome would become Christian, and Christianity would take on the aura of imperial Rome.

The transformation of Christianity is dramatically evident in a comparison between the architecture of the pre-Constantinian church and that of the Constantinian and post-Constantinian church. During the pre-Constantinian period, there was not much that distinguished the Christian churches from typical domestic architecture. A striking example of this is presented by a Christian community house, from the Syrian town of Dura-Europos. Here a typical home has been adapted to the needs of the congregation. A wall was taken down to combine two rooms: this was undoubtedly the room for services. It is significant that the most elaborate aspect of the house is the room designed as a baptistry. This reflects the importance of the sacrament of Baptism to initiate new members into the mysteries of the faith. Otherwise this building would not stand out from the other houses. This domestic architecture obviously would not meet the needs of Constantine’s architects.

Emperors for centuries had been responsible for the construction of temples throughout the Roman Empire. We have already observed the role of the public cults in defining one’s civic identity, and Emperors understood the construction of temples as testament to their pietas, or respect for the customary religious practices and traditions. So it was natural for Constantine to want to construct edifices in honor of Christianity. He built churches in Rome including the Church of St. Peter, he built churches in the Holy Land, most notably the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and he built churches in his newly-constructed capital of Constantinople.

The basilica

In creating these churches, Constantine and his architects confronted a major challenge: what should be the physical form of the church? Clearly the traditional form of the Roman temple would be inappropriate both from associations with pagan cults but also from the difference in function. Temples served as treasuries and dwellings for the cult; sacrifices occurred on outdoor altars with the temple as a backdrop. This meant that Roman temple architecture was largely an architecture of the exterior. Since Christianity was a mystery religion that demanded initiation to participate in religious practices, Christian architecture put greater emphasis on the interior. The Christian churches needed large interior spaces to house the growing congregations and to mark the clear separation of the faithful from the unfaithful. At the same time, the new Christian churches needed to be visually meaningful. The buildings needed to convey the new authority of Christianity. These factors were instrumental in the formulation during the Constantinian period of an architectural form that would become the core of Christian architecture to our own time: the Christian Basilica.

The basilica was not a new architectural form. The Romans had been building basilicas in their cities and as part of palace complexes for centuries. A particularly lavish one was the so-called Basilica Ulpia constructed as part of the Forum of the Emperor Trajan in the early second century. Basilicas had diverse functions but essentially they served as formal public meeting places. One of the major functions of the basilicas was as a site for law courts. These were housed in an architectural form known as the apse. In the Basilica Ulpia, these semi-circular forms project from either end of the building, but in some cases, the apses would project off of the length of the building. The magistrate who served as the representative of the authority of the Emperor would sit in a formal throne in the apse and issue his judgments. This function gave an aura of political authority to the basilicas.

The basilica at Trier (Aula Palatina)

Basilicas also served as audience halls as a part of imperial palaces. A well-preserved example is found in the northern German town of Trier. Constantine built a basilica as part of a palace complex in Trier which served as his northern capital. Although a fairly simple architectural form and now stripped of its original interior decoration, the basilica must have been an imposing stage for the emperor. Imagine the emperor dressed in imperial regalia marching up the central axis as he makes his dramatic adventus or entrance along with other members of his court. This space would have humbled an emissary who approached the enthroned emperor seated in the apse.

Additional resources:

Dura Europos (Yale University)

Dura Europos: Crossroads of Cultures

Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus (Sarcophagus with philosopher, orant, and Old and New Testament scenes), c. 270 C.E., marble, 23 1/4 x 86 inches (Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris  URL: https://youtu.be/x4WzBbdG9lU

Early Christian and Roman (pagan) art

This third century sarcophagus from the Church of Santa Maria was undoubtedly made to serve as the tomb of a relatively prosperous third century Christian. As we will see below, Early Christian art borrowed many forms from pagan art.

The male philosopher type that we see in the center of the Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus (above) is easily identifiable with the same type in another third century sarcophagus (below), but in this case a non-Christian one.

The female figure beside him in the Santa Maria Antiqua sarcophagus who holds her arms outstretched combines two different conventions. The outstretched hands in Early Christian art represent the so-called “orant” or praying figure. This is the same gesture found in the catacomb paintings of Jonah being vomited from the great fish, the Hebrews in the Furnace, and Daniel in the Lions den.

The juxtaposition of this female figure with the philosopher figure associates her with the convention of the muse in ancient Greek and Roman art (as a source of inspiration for the philosopher). This convention is illustrated in a later sixth century miniature showing the figure of Dioscorides, an ancient Greek physician, pharmacologist, and botanist (left).

On the left side of the sarcophagus (below), Jonah is represented sleeping under the ivy after being vomited from the great fish. The pose of the reclining Jonah with his arm over his head is based on the mythological figure of Endymion, whose wish to sleep for ever—and thus become ageless and immortal—explains the popularity of this subject on non-Christian sarcophagi (see the detail from a Roman sarcophagus below).

Cite this page as: Dr. Allen Farber, “Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus,” in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015, accessed October 4, 2023, https://smarthistory.org/santa-maria-antiqua-sarcophagus/.

A conversation with Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker in front of Christ as the Good Shepherd, 300–350 C.E., marble, 39 inches high (Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican Museums, Rome)