From Schola to Cathedral A Study of Early Christian Architecture and its Relation to the life of the...

Excerpt from From Schola to Cathedral: A Study of Early Christian Architecture, and Its Relation to the Life of the Church
The history of Christian architecture can be traced in existing monuments as far back as the fourth century. We find it then already represented by imposing buildings, with a distinct plan and an elaborate system of decoration, presupposing a period of tentative efforts. The record of these efforts lies however beneath the surface. The monumental evidence of them is but slight, and it is only by a search into literary records that we can discern their form and character.
It is the object of the present study to bring together this literary material into a shape convenient both for the general reader and the architectural student. The old theory which derived the forms of the Christian church from those of the pagan basilica no longer satisfies the inquirer. The pagan basilica, it is now seen, accounts for several features of the Christian meeting-place, but not for all. For the origin of some of the most important of these we must seek elsewhere, and this search carries us back to the primitive times of the Church. Halls of meeting were used by the Christians of the 'ages of persecution, ' long before there can have been any question of copying pagan basilicas, and it is to these that the student of the beginnings of Christian architecture must in the first place direct his attention.
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