Building God's House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians (review)

L. Michael White presents a well-written and cogent description of the evolution of the church from its beginnings to the basilica. White appropriately uses a multi-disciplinary approach, examining not only the archaeological and architectural data, but also literary and social evidence. Recognizing that the environment of the Roman world provided a template for adaptation which crossed religious lines, White describes and assesses evidence from the cult of Mithra and Jewish synagogues in formulating the pattern he recognizes.

The foundation for this study is White's Yale University dissertation, "Domus Ecclesiae—Domus Dei: Adaptation and Development in the Setting for Early Christian Assembly," a collection of archaeological and documentary materials, now published as The Christian Domus Ecclesiae and Its Environment.

This is a thorough, well-documented work containing extensive and copious footnotes which both provide sources and give additional analysis. Twenty-seven plans illustrate the archaeological/architectural features of sites which figure most prominently. The book's six chapters include an introduction, a survey of theories and models of Christian architecture, the examination of "private" cults (viz., Mithra), the evidence of the diaspora synagogue, the data for the church itself, and, finally, a succinct conclusion. My one regret is the lack of a bibliography.

White is particularly skillful at balancing the various types of data—all of them unfortunately fragmentary and incomplete—to create out of them a whole piece. He provides a corrective to earlier understandings which saw the Roman atrium house as the model for the basilica and then read back this information to an understanding of liturgical development. Instead, he follows the view that the basilical form was one imposed on, rather than evolving from, earlier church buildings. White, therefore, isolates four stages: the house church (unrenovated houses); the domus ecclesiae("house of the church," a specially adapted building); an intermediate stage; and the aula ecclesiae("hall of the church").

None of the religious construction can be evaluated outside of its cultural environment. As White reminds us, construction was the order of the day in the Roman world. Indeed, the pace of church building seems to be paralleled and not preceded by changes in synagogue architecture. Furthermore, while one can isolate and describe general trends, these are tempered by local conditions. A significant conclusion of this investigation is that the archaeological and prosopographical evidence also necessitates a reevaluation of the social status of the early Christian community. Rather than being a lower-class group, the church included an important element of social standing and wealth. And like Roman imperial buildings, collegial associations, and other cults, the Christian community gained in stature from public benefactors and patrons.

It is important to remember "architectural adaptation was a dynamic process geared to both the social and physical needs of the community" (147). In particular, White stresses that the house church setting shows the social organization and nature of assembly which occurred in it. At that time the gathering was largely for a meal, and therefore domestic architecture was suitable. The domus ecclesiaeunderwent functional renovation. Around the beginning of the third century Christian buildings became more recognizable as well as more regularized. The change in the nature of worship, where the eucharist no longer was part of the meal but had become symbolic, a ritual, and the form of the liturgy yielded a rigid sense of order in the articulation of space. Social factors, such as size and the standing of the community, also necessitated growth. Thus the fourth-century Constantinian innovation of basilical architecture was "less abrupt. . . . The basilica may be seen as a further adaptation, monumentalization, and ultimately a standardization of diverse pre-Constantinian patterns of development" (138-139).

This book is a welcome addition for the understanding of church architecture and the emergence of the church which it offers as well as...