discovered shew a division of the interior into three or five aisles with
three entrance doors in the façade. A description of the synagogue
at Alexandria calls it a basilica, and speaks of its colonnades; it probably
had an apse as well.
The earliest special places of assembly were the holy sites and the burial chapels of the martyrs. The subterranean chapels in the catacombs, already mentioned, belong to this class. Probably the 'first specifically Christian buildings were Martyria—tomb chambers, usually round, which were practically memorial churches. During the course of the third century a large number of churches were built in Syria, Asia Minor, Armenia, and North Africa. An ancient church at Edessa is said on good authority to have existed before 201 ; but Edessa was then a Christian city. A document of 308 mentions “the house where the Christians assemble,” together with its library and triclinium, at Cirta in North Africa. And another document of 305 says that, as the “basilicas” had not been repaired, the bishops met in a private house. An episcopal election, however, was held in area martyrum in casa majore.
An inscription from the tomb of Bishop Eugenius of Laodicea Combusta has lately been published. He held the see immediately after the cessation of Diocletian’s persecution and speaks of rebuilding the whole of his church from its foundations, together with the colonnaded court which surrounded it. Eusebius speaks of such rebuilding as general, but says that the new churches were larger and more splendid than those that had been destroyed. Of the churches built after the imperial adoption of Christianity only a few of the most famous can be mentioned here. In and near Jerusalem three churches were built in association with the sacred sites of the Holy Sepulchre, the Nativity, and the Ascension. All three are mentioned in 333 as basilicas by a pilgrim from Bordeaux. At the Holy Sepulchre there was a memorial above the tomb called the Anastasis; and a basilica called the Great Church, or Martyrium, both included in a precinct called New Jerusalem. According to Eusebius Constantine first adorned the sacred cave, the chief point of the whole, with choice columns and other works. The Great Church rose high within a large court surrounded by porticoes. It was lined within with marble, the ceiling was carved and gilt woodwork, the roof was covered with lead. The body of the church was divided by rows of columns into five aisles. It was entered from the east by three doors; and opposite to these, continues Eusebius, was the Hemisphere, the crown of the whole work, containing twelve columns bearing bowls of silver (probably lamps). This “Hemisphere” would seem to be the dome-building over the tomb, which first was spoken of as the chief point of the whole. That the anastasis and basilica were separate buildings is made clear by the account of Etheria (formerly known as St Sylvia) who, about 380, described the sacred sites. The churches at Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives were, says Eusebius, built over
