_Pavement of the Court._--When the Anonymous tells us that the four boundaries of the church were called after the rivers that flowed from Paradise, it is quite evident from the context that he is speaking of the atrium; and it seems probable that immediately before, where he speaks of “ever flowing waters of great rivers,” he is describing the pavement of the court as figuring four streams. This certainly would furnish a reason for the walks taking their names from the four rivers of marble which flowed towards them, like the four real streams flow in the court of the Alhambra. There is much to countenance this theory. For instance, the atrium of old St. Peter’s was called Paradise: Simeon of Thessalonica tells us the part outside the doors of a church represented the creation, as the bema symbolised heaven; and the idea might easily be referred to the words used in the service for blessing the waters of the phiale. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--Phiale Bowls from Ephesus.] This custom of blessing the waters on the eve of Epiphany, to which Paulus the Silentiary alludes (see page 44), was practised as early as the end of the fourth century.[321] Goar gives the ritual.[322] After the evening service the priest with the censer and candlestick proceeds to the “_luter_ of the _mesaulion_,” chanting “the voice of the Lord is upon the waters.” Part of the ceremony of blessing included a prayer, “We beseech thee, O Almighty Father ... who fixed Paradise in Eden and bade its quadruple spring flow far and wide ... who blessed the waters for Jacob, and hast bidden us, through thy prophet Isaiah, to draw water in gladness from the fountains of the Saviour.” The account of the Anonymous may be a duplication of his description of the interior, but outside Charlemagne’s church at Aix there is a pine cone which formerly belonged to a phiale; the water rained from it through little holes, and about the foot are verses referring to the rivers of Paradise and Baptism.