BEMA, in ecclesiastical architecture, the semi-circular recess or apse (q.v.) in the basilica, where later the altar was placed.
It generally is roofed with a half dome. In early Christian churches the seats of the priests were against the wall, looking into the body of the church, that of the bishop being in the centre. The bema is generally ascended by steps and railed off. In Greece the bema was the general name of any raised platform. Thus the word was applied to the tribunal from which orators addressed assemblies of the citizens at Athens. That in the Pnyx, where the Ecclesia often met, was a stone platform io to 1 1 ft. high. 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 and the witnesses in turn ascended (cf. . W. Wyse in his edition of Isaeus, P. 440) . Another bema was the platform on which stood the urns for the reception of the bronze discs (1/i4ot) by which at the end of the 4th century B.C. the judges recorded their decisions.