Editorial note — Chapter III · OF PICTURES, AND IMAGES, AND CURTAINS, AND THE ORNAMENTS OF CHURCHES

[Footnote 316: Exodus xxxiv, 33.] [Footnote 317: 2 Corinth, iii, 15.] [Footnote 318: There is much difficulty in this passage. We conceive that Durandus while writing it had in his mind's eye the arrangement of many of the Basilican churches, in which the choir was raised over the crypt (called Confessio, or Martyrium), in which the ashes of the saints were laid, and was detached from the nave by two flights of steps, one on each side of the descent to this undercroft. In this case the appodiation would mean the elevation of the choir, itself considered as a sufficient distinction from the nave. The usual representations of Basilican churches, however, always show some rails, or cancelli, besides this appodiation. The learned Father Thiers devotes the third section of his 'Dissertation sur la Clôture du Choeur des Eglises' to the consideration of this passage. 'Guillaume Durand, Evêque de Mande, assure que dans la Primitive Eglise, le choeur etait séparé de la Nef par une muraille d'appui, afin que le peuple voiant la Clergé chanter les louanges de Dieu en fût édifié. Mais comme il parle d'un fait beaucoup éloigné de son tems, et qui n'est attache par aucun ancien auteur, je ne pense pas que l'on doive faire grande fonds sur son temoignage.' We suspect that Thiers is wrong in construing appodiatio by muraille d'appui: the latter would well express the real Basilican arrangement, with which the translator was probably acquainted. Durandus, therefore, is wrong in his fact; and Thiers wrong in his understanding of Durandus, as well as in the theory stated in the next section, that 'Depuis Constantin le choeur de quelques Eglises etoit distingue de la Nef par des tapisseries ou des voiles.' For he grounds this chiefly on the next assertion of Durandus about the use curtains, 'hoc tempore, vers la fin du 13 siecle.' If we did not know from facts that before this time roodscreens were in ordinary use, the words of Durandus velum aut murus would show us that he means the wall to be taken metaphorically for a veil. And so Thiers may have seen, since he concludes his section thus—' Mais peut être que Theodoret parle des tapisseries et Durand des voiles qui convroient la Clôture du Choeur par le dedans, et que sous ces tapisseries et ces voiles il y avoit une veritable clôture de balustres, ou de muraillcs pleines.'] [Footnote 319: Psalm cxix (Beati immaculati), 37.]