The Veil is Rent in Two

by Michael Bursch

In this powerful book, Rev. Stefan Heid, rector of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archeology, boldly refutes modern assumptions about the liturgy and architecture of early Christianity, including commonly held errors about the “dining table” altar, domestic “house churches,” and the “versus populum” position of the priest during the Mass. With a background in archeology, Church history, and liturgical praxis, Heid is uniquely poised to address the panoply of ideas that have been taken for granted in much of contemporary Catholic scholarship. Through a systematic confrontation of these assumptions, Heid deconstructs the façade of much that has passed as “expert opinion” in modern Christian archeological and liturgical thought.

One of the first arguments Heid addresses is the twentieth-century idea of an early Church that was thoroughly domestic, with the Eucharistic liturgy celebrated among a small group of people in the Roman dining room (triclinium) of Christian homes. This  theory had a powerful impact on the liturgy and liturgical design, resulting in the commonly held notion that the altar should look like a dining table and be located in the center of the people, with the priest celebrating Mass facing toward the people, to emphasize the “meal-like” and “communal” aspects of the liturgy.

Heid argues, to the contrary, that in its liturgical re-presentation of the Last Supper, early Christians would not have used their profane dining tables for the liturgy, but instead would have adopted the precedent of “sacred tables”: cultic furniture used for offerings to the gods in antiquity. “Sacred tables” were present both in paganism and  Judaism. In Judaism, the “sacred table” was the table of the Showbread in the Tabernacle and Temple. In paganism, these sacred tables would have been common to both temples and homes, not given over to profane uses but only to be used in sacred rituals. Heid then systematically walks through Pauline epistles and patristic writings, noting that references to the “table of the Lord” are always found within a cultic and ritualistic context. This would indicate a special reverence for such a furnishing, making it incapable of being understood as a profane table occasionally borrowed for sacred use.

So too, Heid refutes the related theory that up until the fourth century, Christians gathered in a number of residential homes in the city. Heid argues, to the contrary, that, for the first several centuries of Christianity, every city had but one church: the bishop’s church. Heid cites numerous biblical and patristic texts, all of which point to the unity of a local church community around its bishop, thus emphasizing “one church building,” “one altar,” one liturgy, and one presider, the bishop, with his priests concelebrating. Heid acknowledges that there were houses that were converted into churches, but these private, secular buildings were wholly transformed into sacred buildings, such as at the famous site in Dura Europos. These wholly transformed, former “houses” were never used as both a church and a residence at the same time. Just as there is no evidence for multiple churches in a city, so too, there is no textual or archeological evidence for residential houses being used as a church. The notion that the dinner table of the house was simply cleared away for the liturgy is a romantic illusion painted onto the past.

Heid then focuses on liturgical praxis, tackling questions such as prayer posture, offertory gifts, and perhaps most interestingly, orientation of prayer. This last item is explored at length, both in the general Christian practice and in a closer look at Saint Peter’s Basilica, Saint John Lateran, and Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls. Heid argues that an eastward orientation of prayer was undoubtedly the norm for Christian churches, with a few special exceptions, each of which had their own “liturgical east” that superseded geographical east, whether it was a miraculous mosaic or the bones of a saint. Heid then takes a closer look at the orientation and furnishing of the three Roman basilicas. Detailed studies of the architectural and liturgical arrangements of altars, confessio   (lowered area for a shrine or tomb), barriers, and stairs provide abundant evidence that prayer in the early Church was always done ad orientem.

After a discussion of the role of images in sacred space, including the delineation of “devotional” versus “liturgical” art and the differences between art located in the nave and the sanctuary, Heid concludes his work by highlighting the lack of evidence for circular altars and altars oriented to face the laity. This latter discussion is, however, treated relatively briefly and relegated to an epilogue.

Altar and Church is a must-read for any priest, liturgist, or architect involved in church architecture or renovation. The veil of twentieth-century theory, too often taken as historic fact, is rent in two, as Heid showcases with thorough evidence the continuity of Christian tradition, architecture, and praxis from the very beginning of the Church. Though the chapters are solid enough to stand by themselves as thorough pieces of academic literature, the book at times reads more like a collection of articles than a single scholarly work. This does not detract from the work, however, whose overall thesis and rediscovered understanding of early Christianity is clearly supported throughout, with a masterful interweaving of textual and archeological sources. It represents a significant contribution to the fields of Christian archeology and liturgical theology, a tour-de-force that should not be ignored. It will likely come to be seen as the most important twenty-first-century corrective of the liturgical mistakes of the twentieth, a definitive work on early Church architecture and liturgy for the next generation.