Basilica,
just for illustration, credit to Romewise
Christianity
has strong relationships with the Roman empire at early stage of
developments, and even beyond.
At
the first century, slow but sure, Christian faith to be adapted by
Romans world; many Romans converted to Christianity.
In
terms of art, Romans then bring their own art heritage to their new
faith; Christian. Roman’s artistic (motif, form and architecture)
was applied with new meaning to a new faith and to a new god.
One
of Basilica plan, credit to Amundson (2016)
Christian
had adopted classical Rome architectures after becoming legal faith
in 313 CE. Christian built the early churches by mimicking the
basilica (please see above Figure).
As
mentioned by writer873 (2012) that basilica is used as a court of law
or for public assemblies, and even as marketplaces in ancient Rome.
Thus,
basilica is evolved as a symbol of authority in Roman empire to be
symbol of worship in early Christians.
Other
unique things in early Christianity that they borrowed many artistic
motifs from the Romans, some of them are philosopher figure; shepherd
figure and festive meal motif.
Christ
and his apostles are depicted as a philosopher figure with
characterized by a teacher wearing a toga and holding a scroll.
Then,
Christians adopted the shepherd figure to portray Christ; a young man
with a sheep on his shoulders. In respect to the festive meal motif,
Christians adopted the theme for celebration symbol.
References
Amundson,
JA. 2016. ARC 231: image collection for Jewish & Early Christian. Retrieved
from
http://jhenniferamundson.net/arc-231-2/arc-231-image-collection/arc-231-image-collection-for-jewish-early-christian/
Writer873.
2012. Basilicas of the Roman Forum. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/article/24/