7V. Household Renovations

"Without altering the exterior, a house with eight ground floor rooms, a staircase to the roof, and a central courtyard was converted before the middle of the third century into a building better suited for group worship and activities. The new room, sixteen by thirty seven feet, could have accommodated perhaps sixty-five to seventy five people. A built-in baptistery with canopy supported by columns was also added in yet another room."(7)

House Renovations

When the house was renovated by the Christians, several major changes were introduced.

First, the wall dividing the dining and the adjoining room was removed, thereby creating a large assembly hall.
At the east end of the room there was a small platform, or dais, which was likely used during the reading and teaching.
A smaller room was transformed into a baptistery. In it stands a shallow stone bath. Anyone to be baptized stood there, while water was poured over him or her. A canopy was also installed, and the walls were decorated with frescoes.
The central courtyard was tiled and benches (eighteen inches wide and fifteen inches high) were built around the walls.
All of these renovations suggest a developed and organized Christian community. It is difficult to determine, however, whether communal meals were eaten in this particular "domus ecclesiae." (5)

Size of Christian Communities

Among the reasons for the transition from the house church to the "domus ecclesiae" were the size of the community and diversification of activities. By 250, for example, the believers in Rome numbered approximately thirty thousand. Growth such as this necessitated the remodelling of existing structures. The need to accommodate a diversity of activities left its impact on architectural features. For example, the separation of Eucharist from the agape meal meant that dining setting and culinary facilities were no longer needed. Instead, a formal seating was implemented (including a "throne,") with the orientation toward the dais. A distinction was made between the catechumens and full members, and particular features, such as baptismal fonts, were added. In this way the transition was made from the house church to the "domus ecclesiae."(5)

Peter's House at Capernaum

The archaeological excavations at Capernaum suggest that the former house of Peter was later transformed into a "domus ecclesiae" and may well be the most ancient evidence of an original house church. Unlike the remains at Dura-Europos, the remains at Capernaum do not allow an unambiguous reconstruction of the original building and its history of structural development. This is due to the fifth century construction of an octagonal Byzantine church on the same site and the subsequent invasion by the Persians in A.D. 614, which resulted in the end of Byzantine Christian rule and the demolition of Christian places. But with renewed interest in Galilee and detailed archaeological field reports, a satisfying reconstruction is possible.(5)

Octagonal Byzantine Churches

Beneath the octagonal Byzantine church lie the remains of two earlier building campaigns. The earliest remains testify to a common insula, or joined buildings, which were domestic habitations characteristic of the small fishing community at Capernaum. Within this complex, dating to the first century A.D., is a large hall twenty one feet by nineteen feet (400 square feet) that was venerated by Christians as the house of Peter. This hall was likely used by the local community of Jewish Christians while the other rooms of the building continued to function as part of the domestic residence. This partial adaptation of a house, with the surrounding rooms continuing to throb with daily life, continued into the late Roman period when the community enlarged the primitive house church by adding to the hall a main room on the east and dependencies on the north and by enclosing the entire small insula of the house of Peter within a sacred precinct in order to serve the needs of the community and pilgrims. Subsequently this entire complex was superseded by the octagonal church of the fifth century.(5)

Bibliography

(5.) Selections from "Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Development" editors Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids. A Compendium of Contemporary Christian Scholarship Copyright All rights reserved.

"You are fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household." Ephesians 2.19

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