“When the temple and the sacred vessels had been all completed, on the 24th of December he marched in solemn pomp from the palace to the Gate of the Augusteum, opening into the Horologium; and he killed 1,000 oxen, 6,000 sheep, 500 deer, 1,000 pigs, 1,000 fowls, and gave them to the poor and needy, as well as 30,000 measures of wheat. And the distribution of these on that day took three hours, and then the emperor entered with the cross, and the patriarch Eutychius, and at the royal entrance he left the patriarch and walked alone to the ambo; then, stretching out his hands to heaven, he cried, ‘Glory be to God who has thought me worthy to finish this work. Solomon, I have surpassed thee.’ And when the ceremony was over he distributed largesse, and with the help of Strategius gave away three hundred pounds of gold. But on the following day he solemnly opened the temple, and killed even more oxen, and feasted every one for fifteen days until the feast of Epiphany, praising God. In such a way as this was the great work completed.
“Now the new dome which was built by Justinian, and the gorgeous and wonderful ambo, with the solea, and the patterned pavement of the nave, lasted seventeen years. But after the death of Justinian, his nephew Justin succeeded, and in the second year of his reign, and the fifth day, at the sixth hour the dome fell, and destroyed the wonderful ambo with the golden supports, and the solea, and all the sardonyx, and choice pearls and sapphires. But the arches, and the columns, and the rest of the building remained unhurt. Then the emperor summoned the skilful mastermen, and inquired what had caused the fall of the dome. But they answered and said to the king, ‘Your uncle took away too quickly the supports (antinux) for the dome, which were of wood, to cover it with mosaic; and made it too high so that it should be seen from everywhere, and thus the craftsmen, by destroying the scaffolding (skalosis) before the foundations had been sufficiently set, caused the fall of the dome.’ Thus spake they to the king, and they added that if he wished to build a dome like a hollow cymbal he should follow his uncle’s example, and send to Rhodes, and should order bricks made in the same way and of the same weight as the previous ones. The emperor gave the order, and bricks were brought from Rhodes, similar to the previous ones. So once more the dome was built, with fifteen fathoms taken from its height, and formed like a drum so that it should not again fall. The supports were left for a year, until they knew that the dome had become well set. But the ambo and solea, which they were not able to build of an equal magnificence to the former ones, they are made of marble, with columns covered with silver, and there was a silver inclosure (stethos), round the solea. But the dome of the ambo he did not build again, frightened by the expense. And for the pavement, as he was not able to find slabs of such beauty and size as heretofore, he sent Manasses, a Patrician and Praepositus, to Proconnesus, and marble was worked there as is seen now, of a green colour, like rivers flowing into a sea.
“But when they wished to cut away the scaffolding of the dome, and to take away the timbers, they filled up the church with water to a height of five cubits, and threw down the beams into the water, and thus the lower parts of the walls were uninjured. And he covered it all with mosaic. Hence there are some who say that Justin, Justinian’s nephew, built the church, but in this they lie. Let us rather give thanks to our God who has willed that the great structure should remain untouched, so that we can enter it, and give the praise that is due to Christ; for He is worthy of all glory, honour, power, and worship, now and for ever, Amen.”
§ 3. LEGENDS.
Many of the points in this celebration of the wonders of S. Sophia seem to be traceable to the writer’s absorbing traditions of the work of Basil—who built like a goldsmith at his new church—into his account. In the destructive rapacity of the Crusaders and the interregnum that followed while they occupied S. Sophia we find such a satisfactory cause for this half-mythical retrospect undertaken in all good faith that we cannot think it was written until after the Frankish ascendency.
We need not suppose that the Anonymous invented even the wildest of these stories; such stories grow up as a matter of course, and to-day various forms of some of them are told within the walls of many other buildings. The accounts given by the Russian pilgrims (see Chapter [VI]) agree so closely in many respects with the Anonymous description that we might think the writer had been their guide in the church. That the stories were widely told in Constantinople at this time is proved by the account of S. Sophia given by El Harawi, an Arab traveller, who visited the city in the thirteenth century. “Here is also Agia Sophia, the greatest church they have. I was told by Yakub Ibn Abd Allah that he had entered it: within are 360 doors. And they say one of the angels resides there; round about this place they have made fences of gold, and the story they relate of him is very strange.”[230]
This story of the angel recalls the Wingless Victory of the Athenian acropolis, but it is probably more closely related to the “Angels of the Churches” in the Revelation. An interesting reference to this thought is made by Palladius in his Life of Chrysostom. Before he left S. Sophia for ever the patriarch entered it saying, “Come let us pray and say farewell to the Angel of the Church;” but, adds his biographer, “the Angel departed with him.” We give here an account of the church from a thirteenth-century English MS., in the British Museum, Vit. A. xx. 14, which refers to the more commonplace part of the story as told by the Anonymous. “That famous city is endowed with wonderful and inestimable wealth. In it may be seen the famous church Agia Sophia, that is the Holy Wisdom; an angel of God appeared and taught the workmen as they were building. Underneath the church in its cisterns there is refreshing water, some of which is salt and some of it rainwater. The church below is borne on one hundred and seventy-three columns of marbles, and above on two hundred and forty-six. Round the choir from the top to the bottom it is covered with silver gilt. And this same choir has an altar ‘starred’ (stellatum) all over with most wonderful and precious stones. In the church are lamps of the purest silver and gold, and their number cannot be counted. The church is opened and closed by seven hundred and fifty-two double doors, and there are windows innumerable. There are seven hundred prebendary priests, of which three hundred and fifty take each week in turn. Now the Patriarch of Agia Sophia has in that city one hundred metropolitans and archbishops, and each metropolitan has seven suffragans in the same city.”
The idea of competition with Solomon’s Temple and the Tabernacle would be sure to suggest itself, and, once received, it would be justified by many assertions; indeed a tendency to imitate the biblical accounts may be detected in the Anonymous author. For instance, we have Justinian’s intention to cover the floor with silver, the description of the gold vessels for the altar, and the “sea” for the priests. Justinian’s oft-quoted speech on entering the completed church may be assigned to this leading idea, which we find expressed as early as the sixth century by Corippus, the poet-bishop, who says, “Praise of the temple of Solomon is now silenced, and the Wonders of the World have to yield the preeminence. Two shrines founded by the wisdom of God have rivalled Heaven, one the sacred Temple, the other the splendid fane of S. Sophia, the Vestibule of the Divine Presence.”[231] Glycas, who tells many of the stories given by the Anonymous, continues the idea further. Justinian, he says, set up a statue “representing Solomon as looking at the Great Church and gnashing his teeth with envy.”[232]
In the Book of Proverbs we read, “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.” This was also seized upon, and Michael Psellus speaks of S. Sophia as “the very beautiful temple, the incomparable home which the Divine Wisdom built in His own name and which He raised on seven pillars.”[233] Modern writers, Tournefort, Von Hammer, &c., have delighted to point out that the church has 107 columns; indeed, with a little humouring, 108 may be counted. The symmetrical number of the workmen employed according to the Anonymous may be matched in a legendary account of the building of S. Luke’s, according to which there were twenty-four protomaistores, each of whom had twenty-four workmen under him.
The story of Justinian mixing money with the earth is parallel to the account, given by Vasari, of Brunelleschi’s scheme for building the dome of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence. It is impossible that the church should have been flooded with water, as described by the Anonymous. There appears to be no basis for the supposition that the great dome was gilt outside. In the texts of Codinus the dome is said to be of ivy-wood (κισσηρίνος): this is evidently somebody’s misreading for pumice-stone (κισήριον).