Lectures on Church Architecture
Saint Bernadette, Linville NC
(Material will most likely be used in a podcast in the future)
The great writer and essayist G. K. Chesterton was once writing a short fictional detective story involving a chase of the mischievous criminal Flambaeu being chased by the French detective Valentin. During one point of the story, G. K. Chesterton reflected on chase: "He had come to the end of his chase; yet somehow he had missed the middle of it" (1). When admiring pictures and even visiting the great cathedrals of Italy, France, and Germany, for example, we undoubtedly see the finished product. There is something hidden in that magnanimous foundation, those high walls, and the gorgeous decoration that we can't really seem to put our finger on. And, using the quote from Chesterton, we can say: "He had come to the end of his journey in the great cathedral, yet somehow he had missed the middle of it." And the "middle of it" is what we will be discussing tonight.
Most of the material I will be using tonight comes from Jean Hani's The Symbolism of the Christian Temple and other works related to this book.
Sacred Art seems no longer to exist anymore in modern Catholic Churches. Jean Hani muses that "We can perhaps speak of a religious but certainly not a sacred art; indeed, between these two notions lies a radical difference than a nuance" (2). Religious art carries tones of sentimentalism, moralism, and 'aestheticism': an individualistic and 'literary' twist on sacred art (3). On the other side, sacred art is not "sentimental or psychological, but of an ontological and cosmological nature" (4). Now, the dignity of art is the sensible plane of the ideal Beauty, which is an divine attribute of God, a "reflection of the Divine Beatitude" (5). The ultimate end of art is to "reveal the image of the divine Nature imprinted but hidden in creation, by producing visible objects capable of being symbols of the invisible God" (6). The Second Council of Nicea states: "The indefinable Word of the Father is Himself defined in becoming flesh….Reinstating the soiled image in its original form, He penetrates it with divine Beauty. Confessing this, we reproduce it in works and actions" (7). Therefore, an artist cannot be guided by his own inspirations, since his work is not conveying his personality, but rather looking for the perfect form of the sacred prototypes in the mind of God (8).
One last point: Jean Hani outlines two separate orders of symbols that we will be working with tonight: theological and cosmological (9). Theological symbols are based upon the very nature of their objects (10). What does this mean? This phrase is talking about, for example, church of stone is the heavenly Jerusalem, or the faithful soul: these symbols are theological, almost as if it were solely dealing with those things given by Revelation (11). On the other hand, cosmological symbols are a unity existing that unites the diverse pats of the universe, using analogies and correspondences, almost as if they were found by natural reason. In cosmological symbolism, there are two hierarchical levels. First, there is the symbolism of the part that is being examined with the whole of the universe. Second, there is the symbolism of the universe and its parts with respect to the divine world (12).
The Church in General
The purpose of the Church is not simply to "assemble the faithful', as is only done in the heretical churches of the protestants, but rather to manifest an ambiance through the flux of sensations, feelings, and ideas (13). Put quite simply, this is an attempt to better manifest grace (14). Grace is participation in the Divine Life of God. The church's goal, then, is to lead one toward "communion with the Divine" (15).
How can such a church be constructed so well as to lead one toward communion with the Divine? What rules would we even use, they have to go beyond our reason, since it is dealing with heavenly realities. It is almost as if God Himself would have to give us these guidelines. Which, in fact, he does. We see in the Old Testament that not only one but multiple sanctuaries were built from directions given by God. Moses gave detailed prescriptions of what God said (16). God prefaced it with: "And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. According to all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it" (Ex. 25:8-9). David, Solomon, and Ezekiel in turn were given descriptions by God of how they should design their temples (1 Chron. 28:11, 19; Wisd. 9:8; and Ezek. 43:10-11).
Some will argue that the only true temple, however, for the Christian people, is the spiritual temple made up of the community of the faithful (17). But in the consecration ritual of church, there is an unceasing parallel given between the Christian church and that of Solomon (18). Further, the medieval term for 'House of God', which people often take for the is the exact word for the egyptian temple (hat-neter or pet-neter) (19).
The Foundation of the Church
Every sacred edifice is made of cosmological symbolism–going back to that distinction we made between theological symbolism and cosmological symbolism (20). The church is an image of the world viewed as made by the hand of God (21). The church is not simply a realistic image, but even a structural image of the world: this means that it reproduces the innermost and mathematical structure of the universe (22). To this end, we look at the foundation of the building.
All sacred architecture comes back to this idea: "quadrature of the circle", or the transformation of the circle into a square (23). On a cosmological level, the circle is the form of heaven, more specifically the activity of heaven, the instrument of Divine Activity (24). The circle symbolizes, on a metaphysical level, the "unity of God, His infinity, and his perfection” (25). Life on earth is encased in the figure of the square (26). Now the way in which is the foundation was made of a church desribed by Vitruvius and pracitced until the end of the medieval ages was as follows.
"The foundations of the building wre oriented that to a gnomon enabling one to mark the axes (cardo, north-south, and decumanus, east-west)" (27).
Figure 1.a
"At the center of the chosen site a pole was erected around which a large circle was traced; then the following are noted: the shadow of cast upon the circle, and the maximum difference between the morning and evening shadows indicating the east-west axis."
"Finally, two circles centered on the cardinal points of the first indicate by their intersection the angles of the square."
Furthermore, the garden of Eden, being a direct reflection of Heaven, was circular. It was divided by the cross of four rivers, the center being marked by the Tree of Life (28).
Transitioning Into Three Dimensions
While passing into the three-dimensional structure of the church, we see the same results reflected in the cube and the dome. The cube is the nave of the church, while the dome is placed on top of it (29). Just as the physical sky is placed above the earth, so too is the dome or vault placed above the cube symbolizing the earth (30). An effect of this is that the majority of vaults were painted blue and covered with stars (31). As man passes from the cube to the sphere, he passes from earthly realities to heavenly realities, with ascending vertically symbolizing the direction of heaven.
(1) Chesterton, The Complete Father Brown Stories, 27
(2) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 1
(3) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 1
(4) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 1
(5) F. Schuon, found in Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 2
(6) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 2
(7) Second Council of Nicea
(8) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 3
(9) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 9
(10) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 9
(11) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 9
(12) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 10
(13) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 3
(14) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 3
(15) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 3
(16) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 13
(17) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 15
(18) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 15
(19) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 15, footnote 3
(20) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 18
(21) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 18
(22) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 18, footnote 1
(23) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 19
(24) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 20
(25) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 20
(26) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 20
(27) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 19
(28) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 21
(29) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 22
(30) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 22
(31) Hani, The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 22
