If we scan the pages of works on ecclesiology and symbolism we shall find hypotheses regarding orientation in great abundance. Whether or not the Christian practice came directly from Jewish antecedents, concerning which question, as we have seen, there is a doubt, its ultimate origin must be sought among pagan peoples. Yet the old authors were mainly unaware of these beginnings, and they, like the common folk, were driven to invent secondary explanations. And it may well be that the subsidiary beliefs were, at certain periods, fully effective--that builders did orient churches for this or that symbolical reason, unconscious meanwhile of a deeper cause which lay behind, rooted in past heathenism and strengthened by long prescription. As we follow the tortuous threads of Mediaeval and later traditions, it becomes plain that some of the clues may be dropped as valueless. Thus, because the Tabernacle and the Temple had each the Holy Place towards the West, and because the Jews turned their faces thitherward in prayer, some writers have ingeniously supposed that the early Christians adopted the opposite arrangement, in order to mark the advent of the new Gospel. In like manner, urge these writers, the Day of Rest was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week[549]. This hypothesis respecting orientation, born in the study of the mystic, is too whimsical and lacking in proof to be seriously considered. Two of the early Fathers submit that, since Christ, while on the Cross, looked towards the West, His followers should therefore turn towards the East to seek His face[550]. Another view is that, at the Second Advent, Christ will appear from the East, hence worship and regard should be paid towards that point of the heavens. The East was the traditional cradle of the human family; the Magi came from the East; in that quarter, relatively to Western Christendom, Christ was born, and from that quarter He ascended to heaven. To the East lies the traditional land to which we return after life’s pilgrimage[551]. St Basil had a curious theory that ancient churches were built towards the equinoctial East in order that worshippers might face the Garden of Eden, the terrestrial Paradise. As Reusens puts it, “_nous devons tourner nos regards vers le paradis terrestre que Dieu planta à Eden vers l’orient_[552].” The last of these esoteric explanations worth mentioning is that the devout have always been anxious to look towards Jerusalem in prayer; hence altars are built to face that quarter. To this plea, Dr Neale replies that orientation in the Eastern Church is as distinctly an Asiatic as a European practice, hence the idea is self-contradictory[553].