In an age of steel and reinforced concrete, columns are usually viewed as “merely decorative”. The purpose of decoration is certainly an important consideration, but it does not explain what sets columns apart from other “merely decorative” items that we use to grace our churches. The deeper meaning of columns or pillars in sacred architecture goes all the way back to the days of Moses, who set up twelve pillars to represent the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Ex 24:4). “Already in Exodus, then, columns represented something other than themselves and something other than mere structural support. They represented people and groups of people. And the inspiration for this action was God himself” (Denis McNamara, Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy, 123). Pillars that symbolize people appeared in other parts of Scripture: the two great bronze columns on the front of Solomon’s Temple had names (Jachin and Boaz) as if they were people. The symbolism also worked in reverse: people are spoken of as being “like columns” (cf. Gal 2:9 and Psalm 144:12). This symbolism was by no means confined to the Israelites, but found expression in other parts of the ancient world. In Ancient Greece in particular, columns explicitly represented people: the proportions of the various kinds of columns were actually taken from the proportions of the human body, and some columns were made to look like statues of people. The parts of columns were called by the same names as parts of the body: capital (from caput, Latin for head) and base (from basis, Greek for foot). In fact, as architect Denis McNamara puts it, columns were “architectural people.” All of this was taken up by the Early Church and absorbed into the tradition of Sacred Architecture, which comes down to us today. The original function of columns as building supports lends further emphasis to this symbolism: “The Church is composed of the earthly people united with the heavenly citizens, all with Christ as their head. These beings ‘support’ the Church (ekklesia) as a holy enterprise. But the church building is a symbol of the Church, not merely as the earthly gathering, but the Church’s participation in the glory of heaven through an anticipated eschatology. So if the building represents the glorified people in union with heaven, and in scripture people are called pillars, why not use the column as the architecture symbol of the saints? Here we see Providence at work, as history has provided a glorified expression of structural necessity and poetic overlay as conventions developed in time and place” (McNamara, 124).