Whatever may be the authority allowed to the Apostolical Constitutions, the fact that they touch at some length upon the form of churches is enough for our purpose. 'The church,' [Footnote 27] they say, 'must be oblong in form, and pointing to the East' The oblong form was meant to symbolise a ship, [Footnote 28] the ark which was to save us from the stormy world. It would be perfectly unnecessary to support this obvious piece of symbolism by citations. The orientation is an equally valuable example of intended symbolism. We gain an additional testimony to this from the well-known passage of Tertullian, [Footnote 29] (a.d. 200,) about 'The house of our Dove.' Whether this corrupt extract be interpreted with Mede or Bingham, there can be no doubt that its {lxvii} _in lucem_ means that the church should face the East or dayspring. The praying towards the East was the almost invariable custom in the Early Churches, and as symbolical as their standing in prayer upon the Festivals of the Resurrection. [Footnote 30] So common was orientation in the most ancient churches, that Socrates [Footnote 31] mentions particularly the church at Antioch as having its 'position reversed; for the altar does not look to the east but to the west.' This rule appears to have been more scrupulously followed in the East than in the West; though even in Europe examples to the contrary are exceptions. [Footnote 27: Apost. Const, 2, 57, (61.)] [Footnote 28: See also what is said on this point by Buscemi, in his Notizie della Basilica di San Pietro, ch. iii, p. 7. The church of SS. Vincenzo and Anastatio at Rome, near S. Paolo alle Tre Fontane, built by Honorius I, (A.D. 630) has its wall _curved_ like the ribs of a ship. The constitution itself refers to the resemblance of this oblong form to a ship. See also S. Clem. Alex., _Paedag_, iii, 246.] [Footnote 29: Tertull. advers. Valent., cap. 2.] [Footnote 30: See Origen, _Hom_. 5, in _Numer_. cap, 4. Tertull. _Apol_. cap. 16, and _Ad Nation_, i, 13. S. Clem. Alex. _Strom_, vii, _ante med._ quoted by Mede.] [Footnote 31: Hist. Eccles. Lib. v, cap. [Greek text].] The Apostolical Constitution in its other directions about the position of the bishop, priests, and deacons, and the separate stations for the sexes, shows (as Father Thiers [Footnote 32] has remarked) that there was even then a marked distinction between the clergy and laity though the method of division is not described. At any rate, what has been here adduced--compiled from notes taken some time since for another object, and without access (from accidental circumstances) to a library--seems enough to show that in the earliest notices of Christian churches there is distinct intimation of at least three particulars of intended symbolism. [Footnote 32: Thiers, _Dissert, de la Clôture du Choeur des Eglises._cap. 2.]