In Bronze Age Weirdness I spoke about the ease with which we assign interpretations to the archaeological record. In the absence of written records, anyone digging up the Christian churches of Europe in the future would note that the entrance is usually in the west while the altar is in the east. It would be easy to conclude, and some early non-Christians did, that this has something to do with the sun and worship of the sun. There is likely something to this, but echoing the Jewish custom of facing toward the Temple in Jerusalem, and then just Jerusalem in general, is more clear from the record. Yet the unimportance is more important to notice. The orientation is there and common enough that it would seem automatic to conclude this must have been important to them. Yet there isn't much mention of east-ness or west-ness having much significance in Christianity in general in any era. It isn't in the creeds. No one seems to have split off from anyone else over the deal. It's almost entirely just leftover custom. Even though the Church grew up in many places where the orienting of buildings and customs to the sun was of enormous importance, so that we would expect that this would bleed over into our faith at every turn, it mostly doesn't. A few places at the edges and that's it.
Many burials in groups in the Indo-European tree have both men and women lying on their sides, facing east. I read repeatedly that this means it was very important to them and likely had large religious significance. Well, maybe. Yet even if it had large original significance, there is no way of concluding definitely from that that a thousand years later they cared about any of the same things. In most cultures of the world, doing things "the correct way," such as getting married, getting buried, or celebrating Arbor Day is a collection of unrelated and misunderstood things. Brides in out culture did not originally wear white to signify virginity, but wealth. Daddy could afford to buy a fancy dress that couldn't be used again for anything else. (They often did, though, for christenings.) Who remembers that now? And why should they? It's recent, and maybe will change soon. First-time brides wear white, because that is the correct way to do things. Trying to dig too deeply into what this "means" for our whole society is ridiculous.
Worth remembering whenever they dig something up. Even very important rituals can have confusing, mixed meanings in our day, why not theirs?
7 comments:
I remember looking at drawings of some small "votive" arrangements and thinking "I've seen kids make things like that." Kids with no tradition of shrines, that is.
I knew it would come to me if I did something else. "False etymology" -- just applied to customs instead of words.
Similar to "folk etymology," which may be even closer.
Like "sparrow grass," which is what they called asparagus in rural Maine in my youth. Reportedly, Andy Wyeth got laughed at in artistic circles for innocently using that once.
The insight about the East/West church tradition is very nice. It was important to the specialists for a long time, for reasons that have nothing to do with doctrine or faith. These days, most Americans seem not to know East from West at all.
My guess on the east-west orientation is for getting sun into the church, and some heat as a bonus.
That's a good point. It would be good to have a light shining in over the altar, and if the most important service is in the morning, that would put the altar east. If nothing else, the priest could see what he was doing better.
Of course, that "folk etymology" presumes that most churches had windows. Later churches did, but the first small mission churches in an area? No idea.
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