CHAP. XVII.

"PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN," GREEK AND GOTH.

THE terms "Pagan and Christian

were not first

applied to classic and Gothic architecture by Mr. Ruskin, but he has emphatically adopted them, applied them to Art in general, and enforced them by anathemas that go far beyond the artistic conscience. Let us endeavour to ascertain their value.

The matter is not determined by saying that Greeks were Pagans, and that Goths were Christians. Were that all, the practical issue were simple enough. If Greeks were Pagans, Goths were Papists.

But the appeal to history has another aspect. For some centuries before Gothic had an existence, and for some centuries since the Middle Ages, Christians have built their churches of classic architecture. Have all such churches been Pagan churches? Is St. Peter's at Rome a Pagan church? Is our own St. Paul's a Pagan church?

If it be said that these fabrics, by whomsoever built, were built on principles essentially Pagan, and that the principles of Gothic architecture are essentially Christian, let us endeavour to ascertain what is meant by architectural principles essentially Christian and Pagan.

And here we may dismiss all reference to parties building; all mere association of ideas; and all mere adventitious adjuncts- bulls' heads of Classic, and Bishops' and angels' heads of Gothic architecture. Such things may serve to mark appropriation, but can have nothing to do with essential principles.

And we may dismiss, also, all notice of such general form and arrangement of parts, as had, notoriously, no Christian origin. The normal churches were, in fact, Roman Basilica, or Halls of Justice, whence both the ground-plan and the name. The very chancel was but the Bμx, or place of the magisterial judgment-seat. Nor is even the cruciform plan of any force in the present inquiry. It was neither essential to Gothic churches, nor peculiar to them.

Nor are towers and spires any more discriminative. Mr. Ruskin has himself taken great pains to remind us that the tower had an essentially secular origin, and that the spire was characterised by "a complete domesticity." (Edin. Lect., pp. 48, 49.)

Nor need any one be told who has seen the Coliseum, that the piling of story upon story, however characteristic of Gothic architecture, had neither object nor origin we can pretend to call Christian.

Such things as ornamented seats in the wall, called Sedilia," or a hole in the wall called a "Credence table," can scarcely be quoted as inspirations essentially Christian. The very stoop for holy water was but the adoption of the Pagan περιρραντήριον. The principle of orientation also was copied (as the English reader may find in Potter's Grecian Anti

WHAT ARE, WHAT NOT, ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 185

quities) from the Pagan practice of looking eastward on entering the temple.

If, from such seeming results of Christian usage, we turn to what may be more properly called architectural features, we are equally far from any warrant for the terms in question.

The real pedigree of architecture is, in point of fact, as clear as it is concise. Wide as are the differences between the distant links, it is but a continuous chain from first to last. How far there was a conscious compromise between invention and precedent; how far a blind, imbecile, or stupid servility; how far an intelligent consciousness that the early builders had struck out the master lines, I am not careful to determine. It is enough to say (not entangling ourselves, of course, in collateral influences), that Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Saxon, Norman, Transitional, Early English, Decorated, Perpendicular, are so many successive stages of development, of whose genealogical connection there can be no defensible doubt.

The origin of the arch does not affect even the question of hereditary descent, much less that of Pagan and Christian." With that of the pointed arch we may trouble ourselves when it has been proved that "Norman " and "Lombard" are Pagan architecture.

One really distinguishing feature has been observed by Rickman, that in Classic architecture the column is for use and beauty; in Gothic for beauty only. I presume none will say it was Christianity which dictated the conversion of use to ornament.

I

suppose nothing more decisive can be affirmed of another Gothic feature, "the high embowed roof.” We need not speak of Druid or Pagan groves: the thing has obviously no more to do with anything properly called Christian, than the Satellites of Jupiter, or the Zodiac of Denderah.

Foliage is an unmistakeable creature of ancient art. Rudely natural in Egypt, elegantly conventionalised in Greece, debased in Rome, barbarised in darkened Europe, we find it, like a flower "whose seed is in itself upon the earth," still betraying its origin, beneath the culture of those exquisitely artful and æsthetic monks who interwove all the worship of God with the worship of beauty, - abjured the world, and brought it into the church, made long prayers, and set them to ravishing music,- professed asceticism, and painted their oratories with gorgeous legends, and overlaid the Word of God itself, when they chanced to get it, with all sorts of amusing, sometimes not over delicate, things they called " Illuminations."

Nor can we make much of the greater appropriateness of Gothic architecture to religious purposes. Not only do men differ as to what is, or what is not appropriate, but the question before us is not one of ¿" or more or less appropriate, but of "Christian" "Pagan."

When we speak of "sacred architecture," we have no right to mean a building appropriated de facto to a sacred purpose; nor a building with certain doctrinal truths superficially symbolised or written upon its walls. We should mean a style which is itself,—

SENSUOUS IMPRESSIONS.

187

in its essential principles, or pervading aspect, the direct and peculiar expression of religious feelings.

But all this has to do with sensuous impressions, not particular doctrines. Till it can be shewn that faith has originated a distinct order of emotions expressible by architectural language, or a distinct order of sensuous impressions that may serve as the elements of that language, it may be soberly asked, What is there in the Christian religion that should make one particular style Pagan, and another Christian? In other words, what element of religious feeling, presentable by an architectural medium, is so peculiar to Christian worship as to have no place in a Grecian temple? Is it fixedness? gravity? solemnity? majesty? stability? eternity? Is it verend gladness or awful fear?

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I have said, we have nothing to do here with more or less. I should never think of comparing the Parthenon, in point of solemnity, with our Westminster Abbey. But then I should no more think of comparing York Minster, save the " Early English part of it, with the artistic purity, the simple grandeur, the chaste magnificence of the Acropolis. All this, however, is short of the mark. We speak not of more or less, but of Christian and Pagan.

Of pure adjuncts, also, I have said enough, the Ilissus and the Theseus are not the Grecian Doric. Take them away; make your building like those at Postum, or fill metope and tympanum with Christian figures: you have not touched a feature of all we mean by "Greek and Gothic." As to essential character, who ever read a line or letter of Minerva