In Greece the bema was the general name of any raised platform.
Again in the Athenian law court counsel addressed the court from such a platform: it is not known whether each had a separate bema or whether there was only one to which each counsel (?
The bemais generally ascended by steps, and railed off.
Another bema was the platform on which stood the urns for the reception of the bronze disks ([Greek: psiaephoi]) by means of which at the end of the 4th century the judges recorded their decisions.
In an ideal point of view only the centre of the whole space was suitable for the bema with the altar, bishop’s throne, etc.
In the later ecclesiastical buildings, therefore, of the cupola style the ground plan of the basilica was adopted, with atrium and narthex at the west end and bema and apse at the east end.
From the 5th century the pillars running down the length of the house were not carried on to the eastern gable, and thus a cross passage or transept was formed, which was raised to the level of the Bema and added to it.
With an affectation of carelessness, AEschines ascended the bema and plunged at once into his argument, like a man who speaks what first occurs to his mind.
The priests then slowly withdrew, and a herald mounted the bemato announce, on behalf of the Proedri, the occasion of the Assembly.
On the rest of the vaults is the life of Christ, ending at the Bema with the Ascension; in the apse is the Virgin above, the Divine Liturgy lower, and the four doctors of the church below.
The two smaller compartments and apses at the sides of the bema were sacristies, the diaconicon and prothesis.
Different from the man of unruffled brow who ruled from the bema was he who paced the state cabin of the Nausicaä a few nights after the evacuation.
The whole of the wretched story I fear I must tell on the Bemato all Athens.
Then a voice close to the Bema rang out loudly:— “And is this all the message, Callias?
The position of the Bema commanded a view of the Propylaea and the other magnificent edifices of the Acropolis, while beneath it was the city itself studded with monuments of Athenian glory.
Projecting from the hill and hewn out of it, still stands a solid rectangular block, called the Bema or pulpit, from whence the orators addressed the multitude in the area before them.
His perseverance was crowned with success; and he who on the first attempt had descended from the bema amid the ridicule of the crowd, became at last the most perfect orator the world has ever seen.
His first attempt to speak in public proved a failure, and he retired from the bema amidst the hootings and laughter of the citizens.
In the chord of the bema stood the holy table with its ciborium or canopy of gold.
The bema was divided from the soleas by the iconostasis, or screen, made of silver, and exhibiting in oval medallions the icons or pictures of Our Lord, His Virgin Mother, the prophets and apostles.
The niches in the bemaonly rise to a short distance above the floor, not, as on the opposite side, to above the cornice.
Freshfield thinks these frames formed part of the eikonostasis, but on that view the bema would have been unusually large.
On the east side the dome arch is open from floor to vault, and leads by a shortbema to a five-sided space covered by a dome and forming a kind of triangular apse, on the south-eastern side of which is the mihrab.
The bema is rectangular, and sometimes has concave niches on each side (p.
Sometimes, however, it does not extend round the bema and apse but is confined to the central part of the church, as in the Myrelaion, S.
The chamber in the south-eastern pier is lighted by a window looking northwards, and has a door in the east side of the passage from the bema to the south-eastern chapel.
The bema is almost square and is covered by a barrel vault formed by a prolongation of the eastern dome arch; the apse is lighted by a lofty triple window.
The bema is usually a bay added to the eastern arm.
The bema and the two lateral chapels have cross-groined vaults.
These frames are distant from the eikonostasis, which stretched across the front of the bema arch, nearer to the apse.
As already stated, they do not now communicate with the bema, although the position of the old passages between them and the bema is marked by niches in the marble revetment.
The arms of the cross, the chambers at the angles, and the bema are all covered with cross-groined vaults that spring, like those in the chapel of the Pammakaristos (p.
The eastern dome arch is prolonged into a barrel-vaulted bema, flanked by shallow niches leading to the prothesis and diaconicon, and beyond the bema is the semicircular apse.
Once Timon, egged on by many supporters, tries to gain the Bema a second time, but is told by the president that one cannot speak twice on the same subject.
From a place directly before theBema a well-known figure, the elderly general, Iphicrates, is rising.
In front of the Bema there is a small portable altar for the indispensable sacrifices.
When Iphicrates quits the Bema there is little left of Timon's fine "Earth, Sky and Justice.
At a nod from the president, he mounts the Bema and assumes the myrtle.
There is a handsome chair for the presiding officer upon the Bema itself.
Iphicrates, whose words have carried such weight now, may soon be howled down and driven from the Bema much as was the unfortunate litigant in the jury court.
Until this is understood, the Bema and its neighborhood form one of the hardest things in Athens to reconstruct in memory.
The Bema is still in place, backed by a wall of huge “Cyclopean” masonry.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "bema" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
