BEMA. — From the Greek βῆμα (βλῆμ = to go, to walk). The meaning of the term B. is quite different in ancient Greece and Rome, in the Christian churches, and among the Manichaeans.
In ancient Greece, in fact, the word B. could mean: a) a linear measure used to verify the length of roads (βῆματισταί); b) a raised step on which orators and singers stood (as can be seen in many Attic vases); c) a platform for the judge (Mt. 27:17; Jo. 19:12; Sibyllina, VIII, 242); d) a simple wooden or stone elevation in theaters or elsewhere. In Rome, the word b. denoted the raised platform in the Roman Forum from which the praetors addressed the people; consequently, the rostra were also called b. The curule chair for the tribune was placed on a similar elevation called the “tribunal.”
In Christianity, among Eastern Christians, b. denoted both the elevated apse and the raised, enclosed space containing the altar, as well as the dividing wall between the presbytery and the central nave, or even the pulpit.
In the West, b. sometimes denoted the elevated apse, or its front part, or a platform for the speaker (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., X, 9), or the bench for the presbyters (Hefele-Leclercq, I, 1023); it also denoted the pulpit for readings (Sozomeno, Hist. eccl., IX, 2: PG 67, 1600). Among the Manichaeans, b. was the name given to the feast celebrated in honor of Mani, because the Manichaeans venerated an empty, veiled chair placed on a raised tribunal (s. Agostino, Contra epistolam Manichaei: PL 42, 177).
V. in Real
Euc. d. christl. Altert., I, pp. 43-46; R. Hultsch, s. V. in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., III, pp. 264-65; U. E. Paoli, s. V. ENOCH. Ital., VI, pp. 588-89; L. Eisenhofer, s. V. in LThK, II, col. 134. Ludovico VoelklBEMA: V. MANIERISMO.