[a. Gr. βῆμα, lit. ‘a step’ (f. βα- go); hence, a raised place to speak from, the tribune, or rostrum; whence, the apse or chancel of a basilica, in which sense it first appears in Eng.]
1. Eccles. Antiq. ‘The altar part or sanctuary in the ancient churches’ (Chambers); the chancel.
1683. T. Smith, Observ. Constantinop., in Misc. Cur. (1708), III. 46. I observed but one step from the Body of the Church to the Bema or place where the Altar formerly stood.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Bema made the third, or innermost part of the church, answering to the chancel among us.
1861. Beresf. Hope, Eng. Cathedr. 19th C., 148. At Torcello the episcopal cathedra is raised aloft in the bema, or apse.
2. Grecian Antiq. The platform or tribune from which an Athenian orator addressed the assembly.
1820. T. Mitchell, Aristoph., I. 225. The most worthless of those who mount the bema.
1864. Lewes, Aristotle, 9. For sixty years Pericles had ceased to thunder from the bema.
