Table Of ContentFrom Synagogue to Church
The Traditional Design
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From Synagogue to Church
The Traditional Design
Its Beginning, its Definition, its End
John Wilkinson
I
~ ~~O~~~~~~~UP
LONDON AND NEW YORK
To Kalliope Theoharidou
with great gratitude
First published 2002
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
Transferred to Digital Printing 2010
© 2002 John Wilkinson
Typeset in Stone by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBNlO: 0-7007-1320-4 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-415-59265-8 (Pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-7007-1320-2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-59265-9 (Pbk)
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
The Documents ix
List of Illustrations xi
1 The Shape of the Question 1
2 The Philosophy 14
3 God-Given Buildings 23
4 Synagogues and their Liturgy 37
5 Heaven and Earth 51
6 Synagogue Proportions 70
7 The Mosaic Floors of Synagogues 88
8 Christian Dedication Services 114
9 The First Part of the Eucharist 129
10 The Second Part of the Eucharist 149
11 The End of the Tradition 162
Documents 177
Appendices 221
Chronological List of Sources 251
Bibliography and Abbreviations 253
Synagogue Sample Plans 259
Church Sample Plans 261
Index 265
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Acknowledgements
The design of synagogues and churches first interested me during the
1970s, when I was living in Jerusalem. Between then and now lowe
more than I can say to my wife Alix. When I was visiting sites she has
helped me observe them, and when I came home she improved my
interpretation. When I came back to London I studied the subject in the
Courtauld Institute, with my supervisor and friend Professor Robin
Cormack. I am grateful to another Professor at the Courtauld, Peter
Kidson, for his criticism of some of my mistaken analyses of plans, and
to my examiners, Professor Eric Fernie and Professor Stuart Hall. After a
time I went to Dumbarton Oaks, and had the happy experience of
learning from the scholars there. I cannot name them all, but lowe most
gratitude to Dr Kalliope Theoharidou for encouraging me to persevere
with this book, and I am delighted to dedicate it to her.
I am most grateful to the British Academy and to the Georgian
Academy of Sciences, who have helped me visit churches in the Republic
of Georgia.
I would like to thank the following friends for their valuable help with
work in the field: Robert and Caroline Scallon, John and Julie McCarthy,
Philip Benson, Alistair Killick, Stephen Morris, Tom Shaw, Mzia Janjalia,
Nana Khuprashvili and Giorgi Gogashidze.
lowe a great deal to my colleagues in the British School of Archaeology
in Jerusalem, Alan Millard, Denis Pringle and the School's architects,
Michael Burgoyne and Richard Brotherton. I thank the School's Council
for the grants I received towards research. I am extremely grateful to Dr
Judith Mackenzie for all her time and skill in assisting me.
My gratitude is also due to the Directors and Staff of the Departments
of Antiquities in Greece, Israel, Jordan and Tunisia, and particularly to
Dr Avi Eitan, Dr Adnan Hadidi and Mme Riahi.
My gratitude also goes to those who allowed their texts to be used in
this book: to the translators of the Revised English Bible, on which most
of the texts are based, to Professor Brevard S. Childs for his translation of
Exodus, and to Professor Kathleen McVey for her translation of the
poem about the New Church in Edessa.
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am also grateful to the Hebrew University Expedition to Sepphoris
for their kind permission to reproduce as Figures 5.9 and 7.10 the
drawing of the nave mosaic of Sepphoris synagogue.
I have been so long in producing this book that some of the people
who have helped me have died. While they were still living I had already
expressed my gratitude to them: Herr Ernst Kruger, Dr Hugh Plommer,
and Pere Benoit OP. I now express equal gratitude, and my hopes for a
long and fruitful life to Professors Dan Barag, John Callahan, Giles
Constable, Mariette Devos, Gideon Foerster, William Loerke, Zwi Ma'oz,
Svetlana Moysievic, Abraham Negev, Ehud Netzer, John Onians, Asher
Ovadiah, Padre Michele Piccirillo, Malcolm Quantrill, David Sheerin,
Robert Thomson, Yoram Tsafrir, Ephraim Urbach and Frank Vande
velder; to Doctors Christian Braw, Doron Chen, Robert Edwards, David
Jacobson, J0rgen Kjaergaard, James V. Lowe, Frank Trombley, Natalia
Teteriatnikov, Ute Wagner-Lux, Archie Walls and Ze'ev Yeivin.
I would like to say that when the captions say 'after' whatever
scholars drew the plan of the building, they are responsible only for the
plan, and not for any interpretations I may have added.
I am also most grateful to the publisher's reader, who must remain
anonymous, for his thoroughness in saying where the text should be
corrected.
Eighteen years of research is a long time. No doubt I have forgotten
some of those people to whom I am indebted. I hope they will forgive
me.
To my Jewish readers I would like to say that mine is a Christian
religious vocabulary, and my references to Christ are in no way intended
to affect their religious belief.
The Documents
After the last chapter of this book come some extracts from ancient
documents which concern the traditional design. One of the purposes of
printing them is to make this important evidence available, so footnotes
referring to these documents start with the symbol 'd-' (for instance
'd-Eusebius').
The selection includes two extracts from sCripture, of which the
complete text is confusing. The documents include Plato's account of
the Cave, and the Mishnah account of the Ma'amad. There are two
Christian services to do with buildings. The first one, 'Laying the
Foundations', is illustrated by early Armenian and Greek services, and
the second, the 'Dedication of a Church', is given both in its Greek
version and also in some Nestorian notes on the service.
The documents include the dedication sermon of Eusebius of
Caesarea in Tyre, and a section based on this sermon, from the
Testamentum Domini. There is a sixth-century poem about a new church
in Edessa, and in the seventh century Maximos the Confessor gives a
theology of church building. A classic explanation follows of the church
and the liturgy, probably by Germanus, the eighth-century Patriarch of
Constantinople.! The list so far has included only eastern authors, and
the first western writer is one of Charlemagne's scholars in the ninth
century, Amalarius of Metz. Three more eastern authors are included,
Thomas, an Assyrian Bishop in Afghanistan, an unnamed Nestorian,
and a Jacobite, Yahya Ibn Jarir. They all described churches with bemata
in the nave. These documents take us up to the eleventh century.
Two famous liturgical writers come next, the Roman prelate William
Durandus, and Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonika.
Alberti's question about the church and the basilica comes next, The
collection ends with two Sixteenth-century texts. The one written by
Philibert de l'Orme showed that the traditional ecclesiastical explana
tion of church architecture was still continuing.
