—and representing our Lord, with the Virgin and St. John the Baptist on either hand, in the act of giving with uplifted right hand his benediction to an emperor (no doubt Justinian) prostrate at his feet. This group is represented in one of M. Salzenberg's plates; and it is specially interesting for the commentary, explanatory of the attitude of our Lord, given in the poem of Paul the Silentiary, according to whom the position of our Lord's fingers represents, in the language of signs then received, the initial and final letters of the sacred name,
:
.
The outstretched forefinger meant I; the bent second finger, C or Σ; the third finger applied to the thumb, X; and the little finger, Σ. It may also be noted that Justinian in this curious group is represented with the nimbus. During the progress of the restoration of the building in 1847, this mosaic was uncovered, and exactly copied; but like all the other mosaics which contain representations of the human form, it has been covered with canvas, and again carefully coated with plaster. It was on the phiale or fountain of the outer court of this narthex that the famous palindromic inscription was placed:
.
"Wash thy sins, not thy countenance only."
The interior of St. Sophia, exclusive of the women's choir, consisted of three great divisions—the nave, which was the place of the laity; the soleas, or choir, which was assigned to the assisting clergy of the various grades; and the bema, or sanctuary, the semi-circular apse at the eastern end in which the sacred mysteries were celebrated, shut off from the soleas by the inconastasis or screen, and flanked by two smaller, but similar, semicircular recesses; the diaconicon, corresponding with the modern vestry; and the prothesis, in which the bread and wine were prepared for the eucharistic offering, whence they were carried, in the procession called the "Great Entrance," to the high altar within the bema.
The position of these several parts is still generally traceable in the modern mosque, although, the divisions having been all swept away, there is some controversy as to details.
The nave, of course, occupies the western end, and is entered directly from the porch. It was separated from the soleas, or choir, at the ambo—the pulpit, or more properly gallery, which was used not only for preaching, but also for the reading or chanting of the lessons and the gospel, for ecclesiastical announcements or proclamations, and in St. Sophia for the coronation of the emperor. The ambo of St. Sophia was a very massive and stately structure of rich and costly material and of most elaborate workmanship; it was crowned by a canopy or baldachin, surmounted by a solid golden cross a hundred pounds in weight. All trace of the ambo has long disappeared from the mosque; but from the number of clergy, priests, deacons, subdeacons, lectors, and singers (numbering, even on the reduced scale prescribed by Justinian, 385) which the soleas was designed to accommodate, as well as from other indications, it is believed that the ambo, which was at the extreme end of the soleas, must have stood under the dome, a little to the east of the centre. The seat of the emperor was on the left side of the soleas, immediately below the seats of the priests, close to the ambo, and opposite to the throne of the patriarch. The seats assigned in the present patriarchal church to the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia correspond in position to those formerly occupied by the throne of the emperor and are directly opposite that of the patriarch. Beside its sacred uses, the ambo of St. Sophia was [{653}] the scene of many a striking incident in Byzantine history. The reader of Gibbon will recall the graphic picture of Heracleonas compelled by the turbulent multitude to appear in the ambo of St. Sophia with his infant nephew in his arms for the purpose of receiving their homage to the child as emperor; [Footnote 143] or his still more vivid description of the five sons of Copronimus, of whom the eldest, Nicephorus, had been made blind, and the other four had their tongues cut out, escaping from their dungeon and taking sanctuary in St. Sophia. There are few more touching stories in all the bloody annals of Byzantium than that which presents the blind Nicephorus employing that faculty of speech which had been spared in him alone, by appealing from the ambo on behalf of his mute brothers to the pity and protection of the people! [Footnote 144]
[Footnote 143: "Decline and Fall," vol. iv.. p. 403. ]
[Footnote 144: Ibid., vol. iv., p. 413. ]