Buildings as symbols

THE FIRST BUILDINGS to be interpreted in the Christian tradition in a spiritual manner seem to be those which appeared in the Bible. ¹ Thus a commentary on Exodus would talk about the Tabernacle, or on I Kings (III Regum) about the Temple, or on Ezekiel his vision of the Temple. So it is useful to discuss the symbolism of churches under the Biblical interpretative categories. The spiritual or symbolic tradition of interpreting buildings goes back behind the Christian Church. Many Greek philosophers right back to the sixth century bc had interpreted texts allegorically. They provided a model for Philo, a Jewish philosopher in Alexandria, a somewhat older contemporary of Jesus Christ, to interpret the Temple. For him, the Temple represented the whole Universe, ‘which in the truest sense was the Temple of God, having Heaven as its sanctuary, the stars as its votive ornaments and for its priests the angels.’ ² In his life of Moses, written in Greek as were all his works, he wrote: ³

But in choosing materials for the woven work [of the Tabernacle], he selected the best four out of the vast number that was possible, as equal to the number of the elements… For it was necessary that in framing a temple of man’s making, dedicated to the Father and Ruler of All, he should take substances like those with which the Ruler had made All.