In the first his knowledge of the actual state of the church seems to have been limited to the description of Gyllius unassisted by any plan. Drawings of S. Sophia were desiderata at that time, and Grelot tells us how he was induced to attempt to make them by a knowledge that others who had been commissioned by the King of France had failed. Before the publication of his revised edition of 1680 Du Cange had obtained a plan. This appeared in the same year as Grelot’s work, and divergences seem to show that the plans were, in great measure at least, independent of one another. The main text of his commentary however remained the same, and the alterations, although crucial, were mostly made by the omission of a few lines here and there without any attention being specially called to the fact. This has been the cause of much confusion, as it has unfortunately happened that the first edition has been reproduced without remark in the series of Byzantine texts published at Bonn and in Migne’s _Patrologiae Cursus Completus_. In this Du Cange placed the iconostasis “under the great eastern arch which supports the dome,” and thus included the whole eastern hemicycle in the bema. He devoted the whole central square under the dome to the “priests and singers,” separating it from the western hemicycle by “marble columns,” which were obtained by a curious misreading of Gyllius’ description of the verde antique columns in the western opening on the _first_ floor. In the centre between these “marble columns” he placed the “Beautiful” or “Royal Gate,” and the western hemicycle outside this was alone allotted to the people. In the corrected edition of 1680 the bema is confined to the eastern extension, the eastern hemicycle became the solea, and the central area and western hemicycle are given to the people. There is actually very little diversity of opinion in regard to the main divisions of the church between Du Cange, Neale,[97] and Salzenberg, but Rohault de Fleury has been misled into making an engraving of the iconostasis, stretching across the whole hundred feet of the hemicycle. _Bema._--A church, as Simeon of Thessalonica writes, is properly “divided into three parts, the pronaos, the naos, and the bema.” The bema (see Plan, Fig. 5) is the raised part within the screen or iconostasis included by the apse. This was the place set apart for the priests, who are hence sometimes called “they of the bema.”[98] Decrees were passed from time to time to enhance its sacred character; as that no member of the laity should pass beyond the screen, except with the consent of a bishop. Even the emperor was only allowed there during a few portions of the liturgy.