A Sacred Contest in a Contested Space: A Case Study of the Appropriation and Reuse of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma

Daniel C. Cochran University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Art History

The Life of St. Porphyry paints a vivid picture of the bishop of Gaza leading his band of Christians in the destruction of the Great Temple of Zeus Marnas. After they tore the temple to its foundations, Porphyry ordered the marble slabs from the temple’s sacred cella be used to pave the forecourt in front of the church “so that the stones would be permanently desecrated by men, women, dogs, and pigs.” Although scholars have long recognized the polemical nature of such hagiographic texts, the ubiquitous descriptions of aggression and hostility towards pagan structures continue to engender a simplistic and inaccurate picture of appropriation, as if a church served as a lifeless marker of Christian territory.

Individual case studies of temple appropriation that take seriously how churches functioned as sites of liturgical worship reveal that this was instead an incredibly complex phenomenon that was conducted and understood by its perpetrators and victims in a wide variety of ways depending on local and regional contexts. This scholarship has emphasized the complex and often ambiguous relationship between

Christianity and paganism, revealing that pagan practices and beliefs survived alongside

Christianity far into the late antique world, heavily influencing Christian ritual, art, and theology.

These new insights have radical implications for the study of temple appropriation. Rather than focusing on the appropriated building as a product of

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Christian triumphalism, it is now possible to examine how the placement and design of a temple-church, along with the performance and interpretation of its liturgy, shaped what

Alexei Lidov calls “a vivid, spiritually intensive, and concretely influential environment.”1

As part of a larger project, this paper attempts to contribute to this exciting area of research by presenting a case study of the appropriation of the Didymaion—the great oracular sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma in southwest Turkey (Figure 1). My objective today is twofold: first, I argue that the church constructed on the site of the Didymaion was designed to accommodate the processional liturgy that originated in Constantinople and eventually spread south to the Aegean coast of Asia Minor during the mid-sixth century. Second, I suggest that the performance and interpretation of this liturgy provides a convincing explanation for why the church was constructed in this particular location. While traditional academic studies tend to view examples of temple appropriation as simply displays of Christian power, my conclusion suggests that the

Christians at Didyma appreciated the temple in which they built their church as a powerful, living monument that was incorporated into their liturgical worship and sense of communal identity.

The historian Procopius writes that during the reign of Justinian it was impossible either to build or restore a church except with imperial support, not only in

Constantinople but elsewhere in the empire. While surely exaggerated, this claim reflects

1 Alexei Lidov, “Hierotopy: The Creation of Sacred Spaces as a Form of Creativity and Subject of Cultural History,” in Hierotopy: The Creation of Sacred Spaces in Byzantium and Medieval Russia, (Moscow: Indrik, 2006): p. 39.

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Justinian’s aspirations for unity in church design, liturgical practice, and theological belief.

Justinian’s efforts are particularly apparent along the Aegean coast in the southwest of Turkey. Prior to the sixth century, the majority of Christian churches in this region were built in either Western, Syrian or Greek architectural styles. In addition to a sense of political and economic stability, Justinian introduced into this region the unique ecclesiastical architecture that had developed in Constantinople. Richard Krautheimer was the first to provide a survey of the numerous churches sponsored or commissioned by Justinian, but his work focused almost exclusively on the provincial capitals of

Ephesus, Sardis and Aphrodisias.

I suggest that the church built within the Didymaion, while certainly lesser known than Justinian’s church of St. John outside Ephesus, is yet another product of the emperor’s massive building campaign. While a small Christian presence at Didyma is reported as early as the second century, it was not the reign of Justinian that this community emerged as a powerful religious, political and artistic center. It was Justinian who promoted Didyma to civic status, bestowed upon them the new name of

Justinianopolis, and, most importantly, awarded them the status of bishopric.2 Shortly thereafter, Didyma successfully petitioned the emperor to permanently relieve them of an expensive land tax, and an inscription honoring Justinian excavated near the apse of the church suggests that this monetary stimulus allowed for the construction of the church itself (Figure 2).

2 Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire AD 284-641: The Transformation of the Ancient World, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007): p. 177.

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Clear similarities in architectural design further connect the church at Didyma with the basilicas of Constantinople (Figures 3-5). The two most significant similarities are the axial alignment of the main entrances into the church and the absence of barriers separating the aisles and the nave. Both of these features originated in Constantinople alongside the city’s unique processional liturgy.3 Christian communities throughout the

Mediterranean incorporated processions into their liturgical worship, but most excluded the laity and the catechumens from participation. These individuals were often relegated to the aisles of the church by means of a raised stylobate or a screen, behind which they awaited the procession of the clergy into the nave.

In contrast, the early-Byzantine liturgy that developed in Constantinople encouraged the laity to process into the church alongside the clergy. The nature of this procession, aptly known as the First Entrance, required the portal leading from the atrium into the narthex of the church be aligned with the entrance into the nave so that the procession could proceed into the church uninhibited. Furthermore, this unique liturgy required a relatively open floor plan, allowing the laity to disperse from the nave into the aisles as they followed the clergy into the church. From Hagia Sophia and Eirene in

Constantinople to San Vitale in Ravenna and the church of St. John in Ephesus, the transplantation of these architectural features was accompanied by the implementation of this processional liturgy, allowing of course for slight local and regional variations.

Thus, the political and religious resurgence of Didyma as a direct consequence of

Justinian’s patronage and the structural similarities between the churches of these two

3 Thomas Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy, (London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971): p. 133.

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I argue that it is precisely this processional liturgy and its immense theological significance that allows us to reconsider how the church at Didyma functioned as a

Christian place of worship. This question of functionality is particularly perplexing in this case because the church was built not high on the temple’s platform but rather deep within its inner sanctuary. While the ancient Didymaion was constructed to resemble the external appearance of its greatest rival—the nearby Temple of Artemis at Ephesus—the façade obscured from view a massive open-aired inner courtyard, or adyton, measuring

45 meters long and 21 meters wide (Figure 1 and 6). This peculiar design is the result of an ingenious effort to preserve the ground level at which the oracle’s sacred spring bubbled forth. To this day, anyone wishing to access this recessed area must traverse one of two narrow tunnels 21 meters long and just over 1 meter wide that descend from the outer pronaos to the floor of the adyton. It was within this highly inaccessible space, sunk an incredible 4 meters below the level of the platform and more than 28 meters below the temple walls, that the Christians constructed their cathedral complex, complete with a baptistery. Surprisingly, the Christian community preserved the full height of these walls, even though they completely obscured the church from being seen by anyone standing outside the temple.

The choice to appropriate this site stands in stark contrast to most examples of this phenomenon, such as the temple-church at Aphrodisias or the much later appropriation of

Cochran 5 the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina on the Roman Forum (Figure 7).4 In these two examples, the resulting temple-church achieved maximum visibility, effectively advertising to the local community the power of the church. Moreover, such a platform allowed the laity to flood into the church from all directions in anticipation of the clergy’s processional entrance.

It was, therefore, far more usual to build a church (or rather, just a martyr’s shrine) within the temenos or perhaps at the edge of the temple platform, like at Sardis, than it was to make use of the main central rooms of the former temple (Figure 8).

Constructing a church within the adyton of the Didymaion was particularly problematic, since every stone and piece of equipment needed to build the church had to be hauled up the steps of the temple and down through the narrow tunnels leading to the adyton floor

(Figure 9). This must have been an incredible challenge for what was a relatively small

Christian community. A host of other religious, civic, and domestic structures outside the temple would have served as far more practical solutions if the primary desire of the

Christian community were for visibility, notoriety and accessibility. Thus, the relative inaccessibility of the church at Didyma and the fact that it was obscured from view suggests that the Christian community chose this location for reasons other than to express a sense of triumph.

One possible explanation lies in the performance and interpretation of the processional liturgy described above. The writings of theologians from Chrysostom and

Socrates of Constantinople to Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor reveal significant changes during late antiquity in the ways in which Christians expressed and

4 For a thorough dissertation on the temple-church at Aphrodisias, see: Laura Hebert, The Temple-Church at Aphrodisias, (NYU: UMI Microform, 2000).

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Thus, while the individual’s struggle was increasingly internalized, the forces against which they fought were projected onto the built environments of the city and the countryside.

The extent of this practice has been obscured by the persistent belief that

Constantinople and the late antique empire were recognized as safely Christianized.

Sarah Bassett’s extensive study on the architectural program of late-antique

Constantinople demonstrates that, in fact, the so-called new Christian Rome was anything but Christian.5 Even the emperor Justinian himself diligently maintained the imperial fora, monuments, and traditional Greco-Roman structures, such as porticoed streets, theaters, bath complexes, and gymnasiums, that Pseudo-Dionysius called the embodiment of the “forces of death and destruction.”6 The importance of such monuments for the city was not challenged until long after Justinian’s reign. For many citizens of

5 Sarah Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge University Press, 2004). 6 Pseudo-Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, trans. Karlfried Froehlich(New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1987): p. 207.

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Constantinople, churches were seen as a new kind of monumental building, adding to the traditional types and not as a substitute for them.

Greco-Roman temples, which continued to dot the urban and rural landscapes, were particularly notorious sites of contest, even after they were abandoned and left to the natural elements. One of the earliest and perhaps best known accounts of the

Christian struggle against demons comes from the Life of St. Anthony, in which

Athanasius records the many nights that the beloved hermit wrestled emotionally, spiritually and physically with the demons that inhabited the tombs and stone dwellings of the Egyptian desert (Figure 10). The Life of St. Theodore, who was born during the reign of Justinian, records how the saint went boldly to a “location in the countryside where none could approach, because Artemis [the twin sister of Apollo], along with many other demons, were making noise, causing harm, and even death.”7 The Life of St.

Hilarion tells of the saint’s search for “a quiet place to retreat in Cyprus. He found an abandoned temple in which numerous demons were dwelling…In order to frighten him, the demons did not cease to shout at him day and night, but the saint enjoyed being ready for battle against them.”8 Hilarion continued to dwell there with the demons for five long years.

The belief that demons persisted in the decaying temples of the empire and that the civic structures of the city tempted individuals into lives of vice and licentiousness encouraged a strict dichotomy between the security and sanctuary offered by the church building and the world outside. The late antique Christian, in the poetic words of Peter

7 A. J. Festugiere, Vie de Theodore de Sykeon (Brussels, 1970): pp. 13-14; see also, Helen Sardi, “The Christianization of Pagan Temples,” in From Temple to Church (Boston: Brill, 2008): p. 131. 8 Sardi, “The Christianization of Pagan Temples,” p. 116.

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Brown, “was identified with Daniel, standing peacefully, his arms outstretched in prayer, in the middle of the lions’ den.”9

Pseudo-Dionysius, writing in the early sixth century, calls on his contemporaries to embrace their role as the new martyrs and to go out into the world as if it was their arena.10 This form of role-playing granted the participant the opportunity to engage in a personal sacred contest that was believed to imitate God’s own waging battle against evil.

It was precisely by “fighting bravely for truth” in a world that was considered truth-less that the mettle of the late antique disciple was tested and their place in the future kingdom of God secured.

This metaphor is taken up with enthusiasm in the Mystagogia of Maximus who describes the world outside of the church as full of confusion and temptation capable of luring Christians away from discipleship.11 His writings emphasize that the procession of the laity from the streets of the city into the sanctuary of the church had profound theological and moral significance for the individual:

“The entrance of the people into the church with the bishop represents the conversion of the unfaithful from ‘faithlessness to faith’ and from sin and error to the recognition of God, as well as the passage of the faithful from vice and ignorance to virtue and knowledge. For the entrance into the church signifies…the amendment of each one of us who believe but who yet violate the Lord’s commandments under the influence of a loose and indecent life.”12

9 Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1971): p. 56. 10 Pseudo-Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, p. 210; Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, (New York: Knopf, 1987): pp. 441-445. 11 Maximus the Confessor, The Church, the Liturgy, and the Soul of Man: The Mystagogia of St. Maximus the Confessor, trans. Dom Julian Stead (Massachusetts: St Bede’s Publications, 1982): chapter 23. 12 Maximus the Confessor, Selected Writings, trans. George C. Berthold (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1985): pp. 198-199.

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Throughout his work, Maximus compares the processing clergy and laity to martyrs and athletes engaged in contest within the arena or, in clear reference to the work of Origen, within a great theater filled with spectators. He describes participants as

“fighting bravely for the truth against opposing forces” in order to be “judged worthy of the victorious crowns of Christ’s kingdom.”13

The excavated remains of the church at Didyma suggest that this Christian community employed these same metaphors to describe those who participated in their

First Entrance procession (Figure 11). Archaeologists discovered several marble blocks of spolia embedded in the walls of the church inscribed with the names and accomplishments of victorious Greek athletes. These inscriptions honored men who had competed in the famous athletic festival that was hosted every four years within the temenos of the ancient temple.14 The victors were rewarded with statues that were placed on the temple platform and that recalled the trails and tribulations associated with their victory. In late antiquity, the inscriptions were carefully cut from their respective monuments and incorporated into the interior decorative program of the church in highly visible locations: several were found near the door from the narthex into the nave and others in the curve of the apse.15

On the one hand, these inscriptions appear to serve a commemorative function, possibly recalling those who were martyred after the Didymaion oracle sanctioned the

Great Persecution of Diocletian in 303. On the other hand, when read within the context

13 Maximus, Selected Writings, p. 199. 14 Joseph Fontenrose, Didyma: Apollo’s Oracle, Cult, and Companions, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988): pp. 68-69. 15 T. Wiegand and H. Knackfuss, Didyma, (Berlin: Mann, 1941-1958); see also Fontenrose, Didyma, pp. 71-73, 115.

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The performance of the First Entrance provided the participants with an opportunity to engage in a new, sacred contest with the demons and spirits that were believed to inhabit the ancient temple. By boldly processing through such hazardous spaces as the Didymaion, participants in the liturgy’s First Entrance demonstrated the strength of their faith in the face of adversity. In a time in which they were untested by persecution, this performance served as their contest. The ancient but living temple was their arena, and in the words of Maximus, the church within was the final resting place or reward of the truly faithful and the lone bastion of holiness in the midst of a profane and dangerous world.

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Figure 1: Aerial photograph of the excavated Temple of Apollo at Didyma, the Didymaion

Figure 2: Fragment of an inscription, found near the apse of the basilica, honoring the emperor Justinian (photograph from Wiegand, T. and Knackfuss, H., Didyma, (Berlin: Mann, 1941-1958): abb. 108).

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Figure 3: Plan of the Basilica at Didyma (note the alignment of the door leading into the narthex and the door leading into the nave; this feature is shared with many basilicas of Constantinople. This basilica also allowed access between the nave and the aisles; the shaded material in this location indicates a later addition to the church)

Figure 4: Plan of Hagia Eirene, Constantinople (rebuilt by Justinian in 548 CE)

Figure 5: Plan of the Basilica of St. John Studios, Constantinople (c. 463 CE)

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Figure 6: The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (above) compared with the Temple of Apollo at Didyma (below). Note the similarities in design but also the unique inclusion at Didyma of a recession inner courtyard or adyton

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Figure 7: Many temple-churches, like San Lorenzo in Miranda on the site of the Temple of Antonius and Faustina in Rome, were designed to take advantage of the temple’s platform, resulting in a highly visible and easily accessible place of worship. The temple- church at Didyma defies this norm

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Figure 8: A late-antique Byzantine church constructed alongside the platform of the Temple of Apollo in Sardis, Turkey

Figure 9: (left) Wiegand’s excavation of one of the two tunnels leading from the temple platform to the adyton floor; (right) the author’s photograph of the tunnel’s entrance

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Figure 10: The Tribulation of St. Anthony, a 15th century engraving by Martin Schongauer, famously depicts a common theme in late-antique hagiographies: personal spiritual and physical combat with demons

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Figure 11: A photograph from the reports of Wiegand and Knackfuss showing the church in the midst of excavation and in the process of being dismantled (in order to excavate the ancient temple itself). The apse of the church rested on the staircase in the background while the doorways to the two tunnels can be seen to the right and the left

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Bibliography

Bassett, Sarah, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Brown, Peter, The World of Late Antiquity (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1971). Festugiere, A. J., Vie de Theodore de Sykeon (Brussels, 1970): Fontenrose, Joseph, Didyma: Apollo’s Oracle, Cult, and Companions, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). Fox, Robin Lane, Pagans and Christians, (New York: Knopf, 1987). Hebert, Laura, The Temple-Church at Aphrodisias, (NYU: UMI Microform, 2000). Lidov, Alexei, “Hierotopy: The Creation of Sacred Spaces as a Form of Creativity and Subject of Cultural History,” in Hierotopy: The Creation of Sacred Spaces in Byzantium and Medieval Russia, (Moscow: Indrik, 2006). Mathews, Thomas F. The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy, (London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971). Maximus the Confessor, The Church, the Liturgy, and the Soul of Man: The Mystagogia of St. Maximus the Confessor, trans. Dom Julian Stead (Massachusetts: St Bede’s Publications, 1982). Maximus the Confessor, Selected Writings, trans. George C. Berthold (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1985) Mitchell, Stephen, A History of the Later Roman Empire AD 284-641: The Transformation of the Ancient World, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007). Pseudo-Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, trans. Karlfried Froehlich(New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1987). Sardi, Helen, “The Christianization of Pagan Temples,” in From Temple to Church (Boston: Brill, 2008). Wiegand, T. and Knackfuss, H., Didyma, (Berlin: Mann, 1941-1958).

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