master, still, as the right of access to those monuments which from the peculiar object of Christian veneration is practically undisturbed, they are spared the double indignity of religious profanation superadded to social wrong. But the mosque of St. Sophia is, in Christian eyes, a standing monument at once of Moslem sacrilege and of Christian defeat, the sense of which is perpetuated and embittered by the preservation of its ancient, but now desecrated name. To an imaginative visitor of the modern mosque it might seem as if the structure itself were not unconscious of this wrong. The very position of the building is a kind of silent protest against the unholy use to which its Turkish masters have perverted it. Like all ancient Christian churches, it was built exactly in the line of east and west; and, as the great altar, which stood in the semicircular apse, was directly at the eastern point of the building, the worshipers in the old St. Sophia necessarily faced directly ea: twards; and all the appliances of their worship were arranged with a view to that position. Now, in the exigencies of Mahometan ecclesiology, since the worshiper must turn to the Kibla at Mecca (that is, in Constantinople, to the southeast,) the mihrab, or sacred niche in the modern St. Sophia, is necessarily placed out of the centre of the apse; and thus the mimber (pulpit,) the prayer-carpets, and the long ranks of worshipers themselves, present an appearance singularly at variance with every notion of architectural harmony, being arranged in lines, not parallel, but oblique, to the length of the edifice, and out of keeping with all the details of the original construction. It is as though the dead walls of this venerable pile had retained more of the spirit of their founder than the degenerate sons of the fallen Rome of the East, and had refused to bend themselves at the will of that hateful domination before which the living worshipers tamely yielded or impotently fled! The mosque of St. Sophia had long been an object of curious interest to travelers in the East. Their interest, however, had seldom risen beyond curiosity; and it was directed rather towards St. Sophia as it is, than to the Christian events and traditions with which it is connected. For those, indeed, who know the grudging and capricious conditions under which alone a Christian visitor is admitted to a mosque, and the jealous scrutiny to which he is subjected during his visit, it will be easy to understand how rare and how precarious have been the opportunities for a complete or exact study of this, the most important of all the monuments of Byzantine art; and, notwithstanding its exceeding interest for antiquarian and artistic purposes, far more of our knowledge of its details was derived from the contemporary description of Procopius* or Agathias,† from the verses of Paulus Silentiarius, from the casual allusions of other ancient authorities, and, above all, form the invaluable work of Du Cange, which is the great repertory of everything that has been written upon ancient or mediæval Byzantium, than from the observation even of the most favored modern visitors of Constantinople, until the publication of the works named at the head of these pages. For the elaborate account of the present condition of the mosque of St. Sophia which we now possess, we are indebted to the happy necessity by which the Turkish officials, in undertaking the recent restoration of the building, were led to engage the services of an eminent European architect, Chevalier Fossati, in whose admirable drawings, as lithographed in the "Aya Sofia," every arch and pillar of the structure is reproduced. The archæological and historical details, which lay beyond the province of a volume mainly professional in its object, are supplied in the learned and careful work of M. Salzenberg, who, during the progress of the restoration, was sent to Constantinople, at the cost of the late King of Prussia, for the express purpose of copying and describing exactly every object which might serve to throw light on Byzantine history, religion, or art, or on the history and condition of the ancient church of St. Sophia, the most venerable monument of them all. Nor is it possible to imagine, under all the circumstances of the case, a combination of opportunities more favorable *De Edificiis, lib. i. c. i. † Pp. 152-3. A very good German version, with most valuable notes, is appended to the text of Saltzenberg's "Baudenkmale." traced, at present, in the living system of her degenerate representative. To all these researches the wider cultivation of art and of history, which our age has accepted as its calling, ought to lend a deeper significance and a more solemn interest. St. Sophia ought no longer to be a mere lounge for the sight-seer, or a spectacle for the lover of the picturesque. for the purpose. From long neglect and injudicious or insufficient reparation, the mosque had fallen into so ruinous a condition, that, in the year 1847, the late Sultan, Abdul Medjid, found it necessary to direct a searching survey of the entire building, and eventually a thorough repair. In the progress of the work, while engaged near the entrance of the northern transept, M. Fossati discovered, be- The history of this venerable church neath a thin coat of plaster (evidently may be said to reach back as far as the laid on to conceal the design form the first selection of Byzantium by Constaneyes of true believers,) a beautiful mosaic tine as the new capital of his empire. picture, almost uninjured, and retaining all Originally, the pretensions of Byzantium its original brilliancy of color. A further to ecclesiastical rank were sufficiently examination showed that these mosaics humble, its bishop being but a suffragan extended throughout the building; and, of the metropolitan of Heraclea. But, with a liberality which every lover of art from the date of the translation of the seat must gratefully applaud, the Sultan at of empire, Constantine's new capital beonce acceded to the suggestion of M. gan to rise in dignity. The personal imFossati, and ordered that the plaster portance which accrued to the bishop should be removed throughout the inte- from his position at the court of the emrior; thus exposing once more to view peror, was soon reflected upon his see. the original decorations of the ancient The first steps of its upward progress are basilica. It was while the mosque was unrecorded; but within little more than still crowded with the scaffolding erected half a century from the foundation of to carry on this most interesting work, the imperial city, the celebrated fifth canthat M. Salzenberg arrived in Constanti- on of the council which was held therein nople. He thankfully acknowledges the in 381, not only distinctly assigned to the facilities afforded to him, as well by the Bishop of Constantinople "the primacy Turkish officials as by the Chevalier Fos- of honor, next after the Bishop of Rome," sati; and, although the specimens of the but, by alleging as the ground of this purely pictorial decorations of the ancient precedence the principle "that Constanchurch which he has published are not as tinople is the new Rome," laid the founnumerous as the reader may possibly ex-dation of that rivalry with the older pect, yet they are extremely characteristic, and full of religious, as well as of historical and antiquarian interest. Notwithstanding the beauty and attractiveness of M. Louis Haghe's magnificent lithographs of Chevalier Fossati's drawings published in the "Aya Sofia," the subject has received in England far less attention than it deserves. There is not an incident in Byzantine history with which the church of St. Sophia is not associated. There is not a characteristic of Byzantine art of which it does not contain abundant examples. It recalls in numberless details, preserved in monuments in which time has wrought little change and which the jealousy or contempt of the conquerors has failed to destroy or even to travesty, interesting illustrations of the doctrine, the worship, and the disciplinary usages of the ancient Eastern Church, which are with difficulty Rome which had its final issue in the complete separation of the Eastern from the Western Church. The dignity of the see was represented in the beauty and magnificence of its churches, and especially of its cathedral. One of the considerations by which Constantine was influenced in the selection of Byzantium for his new capital, lay in the advantages for architectural purposes which the position commanded. The rich and various marbles of Proconnesus; the unlimited supply of timber from the forests of the Euxine; the artistic genius and the manual dexterity of the architects and artisans of Greece-all lay within easy reach of Byzantium: and, freely as Constantine availed himself of these resources for the establishment of the new city in its palaces, its offices of state, and its other public buildings, the magnificence which he exhibited in his churches outstripped all his other undertakings. Of these churches by far the most magnificent was that which forms the subject of the present notice. Its title is often a subject of misapprehension to those who, being accustomed to regard "Sophia" merely as a feminine name, are led to suppose that the church of Constantine was dedicated to a saint so called. The calendar, as well of the Greek as of the Latin Church, does, it is true, commemorate more than one saint named Sophia. Thus one Sophia is recorded as having suffered martyrdom under Adrian, in company with her three daughters, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Another is said to have been martyred in one of the later persecutions together with St. Irene; and a third is still specially venerated as a martyr at Fermo (the ancient Firmum.) But it was not any of these that supplied the title of Constantine's basilica. That church was dedicated to the ATIA ZOPIA,the HOLY WISDOM; that is, to the Divine Logos, or Word of God, under the title of the "Holy Wisdom," borrowed by adaptation from the well known prophetic allusion contained in the eighth chapter of Proverbs, and familiar in the theological language of the fourth century. The original church, however, which Constantine erected in 325-6 was but the germ out of which the later St. Sophia grew. The early history of St. Sophia is marked by many vicissitudes, and comprises, in truth, the history of four distinct churches, that of Constantine, that of Constantius, that of Theodosius, and finally that of Justinian. Thirty-four years after the foundation of St. Sophia by the first Christian emperor, his son, Constantius, either because of its insufficient size, or owing to some injury which it had sustained in an earthquake, rebuilt it, and united with it the adjoining church of the Irene, or "Peace" (also built by his father), forming both into one grand edifice. And, although the church of Constantius was not much longer lived than that of his father, it is memorable as the theatre for several years of the eloquence of St. John Chrysostom, while its destruction was a monument at once of the triumph and of the fall of that great father. It was within the walls of this church that his more than human eloquence was wont to draw, even from the light and frivolous audiences of that pleasure-loving city, plaudits, the notice of which in his own pages reads so strange to modern eyes. It was here that he provoked the petty malice of the imperial directress of fashion, by his imitable denunciation of the indelicacy of female dress. Here, too, was enacted that memorable scene, which, for deep dramatic interest, has seldom been surpassed in history,-the fallen minister Eutropius clinging to the altar of St. Sophia for protection against the popular fury, while Chrysostom, in a glorious exordium on the instability of human greatness, disarms the rage of the populace by exciting their commiseration for their fallen enemy. Nor can we wonder that those who had hung entranced upon that eloquent voice should, when it was silenced by his cruel and arbitrary banishment, have recognized a Nemesis in the destruction of the church which had so often echoed with the golden melody of its tones. St. Sophia, by a divine judgment, as the people believed, was destroyed for the second time in 404, in the tumult which followed the banishment of St. John Chrysostom. * The third St. Sophia was built in 415 by Theodosius the Younger. The church of Theodosius lasted longer than either of those which went before it. It endured through the long series of controversies on the Incarnation. It witnessed their first beginning, and it almost survived their close. It was beneath the golden roof of the Theodosian basilica that Nestorius scandalized the orthodoxy of his flock, and gave the first impulse to the controversy which bears his name, by applauding the vehement declaration of the preacher who denied to the Virgin Mary the title of Mother of God. And it was from its ambo or pulpit that the Emperor Zeno promulgated his celebrated Henoticon the "decree of union" by which he vainly hoped to heal the disastrous division. The St. Sophia of Theodosius was the scene of the first act in the long struggle between Constantinople and Rome, the great Acacian schism; when, at the hazard of his life, an impetous monk, one of the fiery "Sleepless Hom. in Eutropium Patricium. Opp. tom. iii. p. 399 et seq. (Migne ed.) |