EDIT
Hello Xun-
— Do you not see how what you suggested in 1 (that humans gather in Basilicas to worship) disagrees with what 5 says, that Basilicas were originally designed as houses of man. It is precisely that shift, the shift in humans notion of God away from the more impersonal temples of the past to the Basilica-form ones. It was a concious architectural choice. While I agree that they were probably partially designed to cement church authority in the secular world. But I think the other aspect also is worth considering.
O- First let me clarify something. In my mind 5 and 1 do not contradict because while the building was originaly designed with a secular purpose of a public character, after Constantine, these buildings then are appropiated by the Catholic church. That does not mean that all Basilicas had in mind being public buildings alone, but that the designed was appropiated from Roman architecture for a public building. But consider the original placement of some Basilicas. The Basilica of the Annunciation in Israel was placed where tradition believes the annunciation of Jesus occured. St Peter’s in Rome of course is built where tradition believes Peter was martyred and buried. This is just not some caprice. Relics were venerated and believed to possess supernatural qualities, and the same, I believe, held true for holy places, just as certain places are valued over others in Islam and in Judaism. As once temples were believed to be the dwelling of Gods, in Basilicas, Churches and Cathedrals built in intended places the same relation is made of a locality of power, withing the walls, around, under, above etc.
Could we really say that temples were “impersonal”? That is where I am doubting. To me it seems that they remained as personal as they ever were. They were and continued to be marked places for religious activities, for worship, and other rites. The building did not shift into being personal. It already was.
It should have changed, based on the dogma of the Catholic Church but it had to instead absorb paganism and the already established traditions within it’s own narrative. That is why while God is omnipresent and it really should not matter where you are, Churches are still considered “holy” ground in early catholicism. I think that a notable event has been the abandonment of churches. After all the crucial or special locations had a cathedral or church or basilica, rulers who still wished to leave their mark in beautiful architecture and win the favor of a christian population continued to build more churches to the extreme that in Catania a strech of less than a mile has seven churches within. Nowdays, these are protected by iron fences and are pretty much desolated. Holiness is not as powerful as a concept as it used to be and I think that is the result of the enlightment. Could that be said to be the same as man superceding Zeus, or is it that man does not believe in Zeus? Zeus superceded Cronos, but he still believed in Cronos; Cronos was in fact still alive. For us, the most defining phrase of the enlightment is that:“God is dead”.
Cronos was a sky god as his father Uranos, so was Zeus a resemblance of his father Cronos, but what are we? Are we a resemblace of Zeus or is Zeus a resemblance of us?
Still, one must say that holiness is not lost completely in our cynical age, and that people still hold on to the belief in relics…at least around the southern part of Sicily where I’ve been.
— Exatically! It is a very different concept of magic and religious authority, wouldn’t you agree?
O- Different from what? I believe that such activities reflect the pagan remains within catholicism and a connection to the past traditions which is why I used as an example that belies any presumed shifts.
— Yes, and we see a collapse back inward in many protestant communities, don’t we?
O- That is based on the distinct tradition of predestination which individualizes the congregation and society as a whole. This may not represent a shift but a consequence of economic structures of a specific society. Protestanism is more prevalent in Capitalistic countries and in Luther’s time and after, they never quite gained the same reception in the mediterrean. Because of this, I see the shift, if any, as a decline in power of the Holy Roman Empire and the destabilizing influence of the wealth comming from the new world in that society.
— Exatically! But what was the focal point within the temple?
O- The altar.
— That is the notion of the Basilica and ship-based designs.
O- Same thing; only that now the rite requires only wine and bread where once it required fire and flesh. Why do you think that basilicas are ship-based designs?