CATHEDRALS IN ANCIENT CRETE: by a Student
GREAT as is the reverence which we have for our religion, we scarcely realize how much more ancient and venerable it is than is usually supposed. But archaeology is doing much to enlighten opinion on that point. For instance, we read in The Discoveries in Crete, by Ronald M. Burrows, that
It was long ago suggested that the Roman Basilica, which formed the earliest type of Christian church, was derived both in structure and in name from the "Stoa Basilike" or King's Colonnade at Athens. This was the place where the King Archon, the particular member of the board of nine annual magistrates who inherited the sacred and judicial functions of the old kings, tried cases of impiety. It had further seemed possible that the building as well as the title was a survival from some earlier stage, when a king was a king in more than name. What we have found at Knossos seems curiously to confirm this suggested chain of inheritance.
At one end of a pillared hall, about thirty-seven feet long by fifteen wide there is a narrow raised dais, separated from the rest of the hall by stone balustrades, with an opening between them in which three steps give access to the center of the dais. At this center point, immediately in front of the steps, a square niche is set back in the wall, and in this niche are the remains of a gypsum throne.... We seem to have here ... a pillar hall with a raised "Tribunal" or dais bounded by "Cancelli" or balustrades, and with an "Exedra" or seated central niche which was the place of honor. Even the elements of a triple longitudinal division are indicated by the two rows of columns that run down the Hall. Is the Priest-King of Knossos, who here gave his judgments, a direct ancestor of Praetor and Bishop seated in the Apse within the Chancel, speaking to the people that stood below in Nave and Aisles?
The antiquity and universality of the doctrinal basis of Christianity forms the subject of frequent remarks in Theosophical writings, as it is a topic much to the fore in religious circles just now. But here the question is of ecclesiastical architecture; and that too, as we see, is ancient and pre-Christian. Little do many people seem to suspect that the grand cathedral, with its nave and aisles, its transept, its chancel, and its altar, are founded on such ancient models. While such facts are for the most part unknown or deliberately ignored, there are some Christian writers who admit them, but are disposed to regard Christianity as a capstone to the entire edifice of ancient wisdom, a final and complete revelation. Whether or not Christianity really occupies or can occupy such a commanding position is of course a question of fact; the proofs must be practical; by results we must judge.
Mere claims will not replace actualities, nor would claims be needed where actualities were present. If Christianity can maintain such a position, it will doubtless win the respect it so yearns for.