Altar. An altar (from the Latin altar) or ara is a mound , stone or construction consecrated to worship or devotion. The Altar (from Latin, altar, from altum) was, in Antiquity, either a high place (originally simple mounds of earth or stones ), or a table placed on some steps, in which some offerings were deposited and / or sacrifices (bloody or not) to the divinity were celebrated.
Summary
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- 1 Description
- 2 Catholic altars
- 3 High altar
- 4 External links
Description
For centuries the altar was the most important element of the house, before which the family carried out their devotions and, progressively, they settled in places dedicated to worship and became centralized.
In principle, it consisted of a kind of wooden furniture, more or less worked, that could be moved for jobs (the first places of worship were not necessarily specific places dedicated to it).
It was from the 4th century when the altars began to be placed in the apse, later, towards the 12th century , the altar remained immovable, using stone or noble materials such as marble for its making. Generally, the altar covered a sealed sepulcher containing the relics of the martyrs.
The altars always had to have, in the place where the host or the chalice were kept, a consecration stone (ara). The Main Altars are generally decorated with more or less elaborate altarpieces, which acquired their greatest relevance during the Gothic period.
In the first centuries the altar was in the center of the presbytery and the officiant was facing the faithful; it served (serves) to arrange, on it, the ritual and cult objects and to give greater importance to the officiant (usually a priest) so that he was separated from the rest of the assistants to the office and underlined his most direct contact with the divinity.
In the Christian religion, for example, it normally consists of a table where the priest prays and a series of symbolic elements such as a Latin cross (with or without the figure of Jesus Christ), or a candle representing the beginning and the end with the alpha and omega letters. An altar can be dedicated to a god, saint or relevant person of a belief or to a person.
Catholic altars
The Catholic Church adopted them from their origin for the celebration of mass but until the 3rd century it should have used common wooden tables (although not exclusively), according to historians, and it is inferred from the two that are said to have been used by Saint Peter in Rome .
At the end of that century, if not before and without abandoning the original uses at all, the altar was set up with the grave of some martyr, placing a large gravestone as a table on top of it.
In the catacombs of Rome there are signs of four forms of altars:
- Portable or movable, as a tripod or table
- Fixed and isolated, consisting of a headstone on a right foot in the middle of a cubicle
- Attached as a sarcophagus applied to a wall
- Arcosolios or tombs of distinguished martyrs whose cover served as a table, under an arch or vault in a decorated niche.
Since the Constantinian peace, altars of greater dimensions than the movable and attached ones were built, giving them the rectangular table shape supported by a central column or by four at the ends and placing them in the middle of the apse or presbytery of the basilicas, always on some tomb of a martyr, until in the 7th century only a few relics of different martyrs began to enclose themselves in them, as is the custom today.
With some frequency the same aras that belonged to the Gentiles were taken advantage of, putting them as the support of Christian altars, as shown by some specimens that exist today.
During the Middle Ages the altar continued with the same forms already described as prismatic, already imitating a sepulcher already on the table with one or more small columns and almost always carved in stone, at least, since the 4th century .
From the next one, the crypts were made rare under the altar and then relics were placed in a small open cavity in the central support of the table or in this one, wrapping them before in a fine canvas and enclosing them in a glass bottle or small box. wood, sealed by the consecrating bishop of the altar.
High altar
The Catholic liturgy allows masses to be celebrated in each of the chapels of a church, each with its own altar, so the main one is called the high altar.
The main altar of each church continued located in the main apse or head and in an isolated position. But when the altarpieces were adopted in the Romanesque period and above all, when they took great development in the fourteenth and following centuries, the altar had to be attached to most of the churches, ceasing to be accessible on all sides.
