ABSTRACT
Individual understanding of the ritual performances displayed in Late Antique cultic spaces was mediated through a number of perceptual filters. Typology was used to present the sacraments as re-enactments of moments from the divinity's life (baptism) or enactments of heavenly actions. The favouring of Christianity by Roman emperors beginning with Constantine the Great allowed the Church to acquire and display riches. In Late Antiquity, social structure was made visible through deportment and dress. The regular person was used to 'reading' status in the texture and, especially, colourfulness of a person's attire. Imagining ideal matter as transparent and pervaded by the light of God, Late Antique theologians created the context for gold glass mosaic to be perceived as reproducing the substance of Heaven. In virtue of light being considered the main vehicle of theophany in the period, the creation of a luminous atmosphere inside cultic spaces functioned as a substantiation of the divine.
