There may well be good booty at Nisibin for an archæologist with a turn for excavation, for the mounds and hillocks which encircle it are manifestly piled on ancient walls. But there is little enough above ground--a bridge which is so badly battered that the carts prefer fording the river; a fragment or two of old walling; and a group of five monolithic columns, about two-fifths buried in débris, which are known as the columns of weighing, and which probably formed part of the peristyle of the forum. There remains, however, one special monument of even more interest to the ecclesiologist than to the antiquarian--the Church of St. James of Nisibis, one of the oldest Christian edifices in the world.
[Illustration: _CHURCH OF SAINT JAMES AT NISIBIS_]
Few indeed are the Christian churches of earlier date than the fifth century. Even the famous basilicas at Ravenna and Parenzo were only erected in the sixth. With the possible exception of Sta. Pudentiana at Rome there is no fourth-century church remaining in Europe, and even in Asia and Africa the examples may be counted on the fingers of the hand. But the date of St. James' church at Nisibis cannot possibly be later than the year 363, when the city was ceded to the Persians; and as it was built to receive the tomb of the saint (who died shortly after 350), it may be not improbably regarded as the citizens' thank-offering for their deliverance from the great siege.
The church was originally triple, dedicated no doubt to the Holy Trinity, and consisting of three square _cellæ_ placed side by side. Each _cella_ measured about twenty-five feet in width, and had a small semicircular recess in the centre of the eastern wall. A pair of arched openings, each about four feet wide, gave access from _cella_ to _cella_; and a wider archway in each of the western walls opened into a triple narthex, furnished with three double doorways which opened into a courtyard.
The central _cella_ is almost perfect as high as the cornice; but is roofed with a modern dome and pendentives, and has nothing to indicate conclusively the form of the original roof. The northern _cella_ has been more damaged and restored; but still retains the narthex doorways (now blocked) which the central narthex has lost. The southern _cella_, with its narthex, has been entirely destroyed.