Biesen 1121-1142

The Eucharist – Its Origins
and Contexts
Sacred Meal, Communal Meal, Table Fellowship in
Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity
edited by
David Hellholm and Dieter Sänger
Old Testament, Early Judaism,

New Testament
Mohr Siebeck
e-offprint for the author with publisher´s permission

Organizing and Publishing Committee
David Hellholm (Oslo, chair), Anders Ekenberg (Uppsala), Felix John (Kiel/Greifswald), James A. Kelhof-
fer (Uppsala), Øyvind Norderval (Oslo), Enno Edzard Popkes (Kiel), Dieter Sänger (Kiel), and Tor Vegge
(Agder/Kristiansand)
Sponsors
Germany
Volkswagen Stiftung, University of Kiel, Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Norddeutschland, and Förder-
verein der Theologischen Fakultät Kiel (Societas Theologicum Ordinem Adiuvantium).
Norway
Faculty of Theology at The University of Oslo, The Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of
Agder, and The Research Council of Norway.
Sweden
The Faculty of Theology at the University of Uppsala (Societas Soederblomiana Upsaliensis), and The New-
man Institute in Uppsala.
ISBN 978-3-16-153918-3
ISSN 0512-1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament)
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bib-
liographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2017 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de

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Printed in Germany.

Table of Contents
Volume I
Old Testament, Early Judaism, New Testament
Preface................................................................................................................................. XXXIII
Ulrich Körtner
Zur Einführung: Das Herrenmahl, Gemeinschaftsmähler und Mahlge-
meinschaft im Christentum: Ursprünge, Kontexte, Bedeutung und Praxis
in Geschichte und Gegenwart aus systematisch-theologischer Sicht ................................... 1
1. Ausgangslage der Diskussion und Grundsatzfragen .................................................. 1
2. Heilige Mähler .................................................................................................................. 7
3. Theologie und Praxis christlicher Mahlfeiern in Geschichte und
Gegenwart – systematisch-theologische Gesichtspunkte .......................................... 9
4. Mahlgemeinschaft und Ethos im Christentum .........................................................14
5. Ursprung, historische Kontexte und Praxis des Herrenmahls ............................... 16
6. Theologische Deutungen des Herrenmahls in frühchristlicher Zeit ..................... 18
Peter Altmann
Sacred Meals and Feasts in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and its Envi-
ronment: A ‘Treasure Chest’ for Early Christian Practice and Reflection ......................... 23
1. Definition of “Sacred Meal” .......................................................................................... 25
2. Meals and Hunger .......................................................................................................... 27
3. Priestly and Sacrificial Meals ........................................................................................ 31
4. Elite Feasts .......................................................................................................................34
5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 38
Göran Eidevall
From Table Fellowship to Terror: Transformations of zebaḥ in the Hebrew Bible........... 43
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 43
2. The zebaḥ: Sacrifice and Festive meal.......................................................................... 43
3. The zebaḥ Feast in the Hebrew Bible: A Joyous Social Event................................... 45
4. The Sacrificial Feast as a Metaphor in the Prophetic Literature.............................. 47
4.1. Invitation without Information: Zeph 1:7 ........................................................... 49
4.2. A Feast without Commensality: Jer 46:10 ........................................................... 51
4.3. Meal as Metaphor for Massacre: Isa 34:5–8 ......................................................... 53
4.4. A Victory Feast with Role Reversals: Ezek 39:17–20.......................................... 54

VI Table of Contents
5. Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................................... 57
Hermann Lichtenberger
Jüdisches Essen: Fremdwahrnehmung und Selbstdefinition ............................................... 61
1. Jüdisches Essen in paganer antiker Sicht .................................................................... 61
1.1. Jüdisches Essen im Rahmen des Bildes des Judentums in der Antike ............ 61
1.2. Allgemeines Essen ................................................................................................... 62
1.3. Verbot des Schweinefleischgenusses ..................................................................... 62
1.4. Sabbatessen...............................................................................................................64
1.5. Passamahl .................................................................................................................66
1.6. Sukkot .......................................................................................................................66
1.7. Weingenuss ............................................................................................................... 67
1.8. Vegetarismus ............................................................................................................ 67
1.9. Kannibalismus .........................................................................................................69
2. Jüdische Reaktion auf die pagane Verzeichnung der
Mahlgebräuche: Josephus, contra Apionem ............................................................... 71
2.1. Der Vorwurf, Juden würden andern Völkern heilige Tiere
braten und essen ...................................................................................................... 72
2.2. Die Vorzüge der Juden nach Josephus ................................................................. 73
3. Abschließende Reflexionen ........................................................................................... 74
Cecilia Wassén
Common Meals in the Qumran Movement with Special Attention to
Purity Regulations ......................................................................................................................77
1. Ideas about Purity in the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism......................................78
2. Ideas about Purity in the Dead Sea Scrolls ................................................................. 82
3. The Make-up of the Sectarian Communities .............................................................84
4. The Connection Between ‘the Purity’ and Common Meals .................................... 87
5. Food for the Impure: 4QTohorot A (4Q274) 4QOrdinancesc (4Q514)................... 91
6. Pure Meals in the Sect ...................................................................................................94
7. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................96
Jörg Frey
Die Zeugnisse über Gemeinschaftsmähler aus Qumran.................................................... 101
1. Die qumranischen Gemeinschaftsmähler in der Forschung................................. 102
2. Die Quellen über die essenischen Mähler ................................................................ 107
3. Die Mahlordnungen des yaḥad aus dem Qumran-Corpus ................................... 110
3.1. Die Mahlanweisungen in der Gemeinderegel 1QS VI 2–8 ............................. 112
3.2. Das sogenannte ‚messianische Mahl‘ nach der
‚Gemeinschaftsregel‘ 1QSa II 17–22 ................................................................... 117
4. Konsequenzen und Ausblick: Die Mähler des yaḥad und das Herrenmahl .......124
Jodi Magness
Were Sacrifices Offered at Qumran? The Animal Bone Deposits Reconsidered ............ 131
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 131

Table of Contents VII
2. A Description and Analysis of the Animal Bone Deposits from Qumran ......... 132
3. Current Interpretations of the Animal Bone Deposits ........................................... 134
4. Sacrificial Refuse and Consumption Debris from Ancient Sanctuaries .............. 137
5. L130 at Qumran ............................................................................................................142
6. Animal Bone Deposits Elsewhere at Qumran .........................................................146
7. An Altar at Qumran? ...................................................................................................147
8. Biblical and Qumran Legislation Concerning the Disposal of
Sacrificial Refuse...........................................................................................................149
Naomi Jacobs
Biting Off More Than They Can Chew: Food, Eating and Cultural Integra-
tion in Tobit and Letter of Aristeas ........................................................................................ 157
1. Introduction: Food, Fantasy, and Hybrid Literature .............................................. 157
2. Tobit and Aristeas as Different Kinds of Fantasy .................................................... 158
2.1. Tobit: The Obvious Choice ................................................................................... 158
2.2. Aristeas: Also a Fantasy, Akin to Oral Folklore ............................................... 159
3. Background Information: Tobit and Aristeas Compared ......................................160
4. Role of Food/Eating and Connection to Cultural Integrations ............................ 161
4.1. Tobit ......................................................................................................................... 161
4.2. Aristeas.................................................................................................................... 168
5. Conclusion: Both Works Compared.......................................................................... 176
Dieter Sänger
‚Brot des Lebens, Kelch der Unsterblichkeit‘: Vom Nutzen des Essens in
‚Joseph und Aseneth‘ ................................................................................................................ 181
1. Einführung: Die erzählte Geschichte ........................................................................ 181
2. Zur JosAs-Interpretation – ein methodenkritischer Zwischenruf ....................... 183
3. Vorklärungen ................................................................................................................ 185
3.1. Der Text................................................................................................................... 185
3.2. Herkunft, Primäradressaten, Ort, Datierung, literarische Integrität ........... 187
4. Die sog. Mahlformeln .................................................................................................. 193
4.1. Struktur und Kontext ........................................................................................... 193
4.2. Zum Verständnis der Trias Brot – Kelch – Salbe ............................................. 195
4.3. Das topische Gepräge der Trias ...........................................................................201
4.4. Die eschatologisch-soteriologische Perspektive ...............................................202
5. Der religiöse und soziokulturelle Kontext: Ein jüdisches Kultmahl? ..................206
6. Ergebnisse ...................................................................................................................... 211
7. Ausblick: Die Mahlformeln und das Herrenmahl .................................................. 212
8. Nachtrag......................................................................................................................... 213
Kirsten Marie Hartvigsen

The Meal Formula, the Honeycomb, and Aseneth’s Transformation .............................. 223
1. Introduction to the Storyline of Joseph and Aseneth ..............................................224
2. Overview of the Text, Provenance, and Date ........................................................... 225

VIII Table of Contents
3. Synopsis of the Occurrences of the Meal Formula in the Longer

Version of Joseph and Aseneth ....................................................................................226
4. Previous Interpretations of the Meal Formula.........................................................228
5. Introduction to the Theoretical Backdrop of the Study.......................................... 230
5.1. Blending Theory .................................................................................................... 230
5.2. Cognitive Theory of Rituals and Magic/Ritual Efficacy ................................. 232
6. Some Identity Markers in Joseph and Aseneth:
Bread, Cup, Ointment, Honeycomb, and Kisses .................................................... 237
7. The Function of the Meal Formula in Different Contexts and Its
Association with the Honeycomb .............................................................................. 239
7.1. The Function of the Meal Formula in JosAs 8:5: Accentuation
of the Contrast between a Man Who Blesses the Living God
and a Woman Who Blesses Dead and Dumb Idols ......................................... 239
7.2. The Meal Formula in JosAs 8:9: Joseph’s Blessing and
Intercessory Prayer for Aseneth’s Transformation ...........................................240
7.3. The Meal Formula in JosAs 15:5: The Heavenly Visitor’s Predic-
tion of Aseneth’s Transformation ........................................................................241
7.4. The Meal Formula in JosAs 16:16: Its Association with the
Honeycomb Which Transforms Aseneth’s Essence and
Initiates Her Novel Perceptual Appearance......................................................242
7.5. The Meal Formula in JosAs 19:5: The Outcome of Aseneth’s
Transformation ......................................................................................................245
7.6. The Meal Formula in JosAs 21:21: Aseneth’s Recapitulation of
the Elements Constituting Her Transformation ..............................................246
8. Further References to Meals in Joseph and Aseneth................................................246
9. Conclusion .....................................................................................................................247
Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer
Die Funktion des Mahles für die Gemeinschaft bei Philo und Josephus ........................ 253
1. Das antike Mahl............................................................................................................ 253
2. Das Mahl bei Philo ....................................................................................................... 257
2.1. Das Mahl im Allgemeinen ................................................................................... 257
2.2. Gastmähler ............................................................................................................. 258
2.3. Therapeuten ............................................................................................................ 259
2.4. Mahl und Gemeinschaft bei Philo......................................................................262
3. Mahl bei Josephus.........................................................................................................263
3.1. Mahl im Allgemeinen ...........................................................................................263
3.2. Gemeinschaftsmähler ...........................................................................................263
3.3. Essener .....................................................................................................................267
3.4. Mahl und Gemeinschaft bei Josephus ............................................................... 271
4. Die soziale Funktion des Mahls ................................................................................. 271
Clemens Leonhard
Pesach and Eucharist ................................................................................................................ 275
1. The Last Supper and Exodus 12.................................................................................. 276

Table of Contents IX
1.1. Sources and Approaches.......................................................................................277

1.2. No Script of a Domestic Pesach but an Etiology of the Temple Cult ............282
2. Rabbinic Texts and the Haggadah of Pesach............................................................287
2.1. Deipnon-Literature Instead of Scripts for Sacred Rites ...................................290
2.2. In Every Generation One is Obliged to Regard Oneself as if
One Went out of Egypt .........................................................................................292
2.3. This is the Bread of Affliction – This is my Body ..............................................294
2.4. Another Piece of Bread – the Afikoman............................................................297
2.5. He Who Tells Many Stories About the Exodus from Egypt
Shall be Praised .....................................................................................................299
2.6. Hymnēsantes – Singing the Hallel? .................................................................... 301
2.7. Blessings and Cups ................................................................................................304
3. Meals Resembling the Last Supper ............................................................................305
3.1. A Formal Analogy Between the Eucharist, the Institution Nar-
ratives, Exodus 12, and Pesach ............................................................................305
3.2. Calendars ................................................................................................................306
3.3. Pesach in First Century Jerusalem ......................................................................307
4. Summary .......................................................................................................................309
James Kelhoffer
John the Baptist as an Abstainer from Table Fellowship and Jesus as a
‘Glutton’: (Non-)Participation in Meals as a Means for Gaining Social
Capital That Can Confirm or Jeopardize a Person’s Standing in Society
(Luke 7:31–35∥Matt 11:16–19) ............................................................................................... 313
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 313
2. John’s Eating in the Synoptics: A Case against Harmonization ........................... 314
3. Whom You Know Matters: Bourdieu on Social Capital......................................... 316
4. Analysis of Luke 7:31–35∥Matt 11:16–19 ................................................................. 317
4.1. Children Who Refuse To Play (Luke 7:31–32∥Matt 11:16–17) ...................... 319
4.2. The Interpretation of the Parable: Children Who Cease To
Invite John and Jesus To Play (Luke 7:33–34∥Matt 11:18–19b) ....................322
4.3. Wisdom Promises a Future Vindication (Luke 7:35∥Matt 11:19c)...............326
5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 327
Jostein Ådna
Jesus’ Meals and Table Companions ...................................................................................... 331
1. Meals with the Disciples .............................................................................................. 332
2. Jesus’ Table Companions ............................................................................................. 333
2.1. The tax collectors (οἱ τελῶναι) ............................................................................ 334
2.2. Attitudes to Ritual Purity in Palestinian Judaism in the Late
Second Temple Period .......................................................................................... 336
2.3. Jesus’ Attitude to Ritual Impurity ....................................................................... 337
2.4. The Sinners (οἱ ἁμαρτωλοί) ................................................................................. 337
2.5. Conclusion ..............................................................................................................341
3. Jesus’ Meals with Tax Collectors and Sinners ..........................................................342

X Table of Contents
3.1. A Challenge to the Longstanding Consensus regarding the

Historicity of Jesus’ Table Fellowship with Outcasts .......................................342
3.2. “A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sin-
ners” (Matt 11:19/Luke 7:34)................................................................................344
3.3. Levi’s party (Mark 2:15–17 [with parallels in Matt 9:10–13; Luke 5:29–32]).346
3.4. A “sinner in the city” (Luke 7:36–50) and the chief tax collector
Zacchaeus in Jericho (Luke 19:1–10) ..................................................................347
4. Table Fellowship and the Kingdom ...........................................................................349
5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 352
Jonas Holmstrand
The Narratives of Jesus’ Feeding of the Multitudes Functions in Early
Christian Literature .................................................................................................................. 355
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 355
2. The feeding narratives in Mark .................................................................................. 357
2.1. The structure of Mark ........................................................................................... 357
2.2. The purpose of Mark.............................................................................................360
2.3. The feeding narratives in the context of Mark 6:6b–8:26 ................................362
2.4. The function of the feeding narratives in Mark ...............................................369
2.5. Excursus: The symbolic meanings of the numbers in the
feeding narratives.................................................................................................. 370
3. The feeding narratives in Matthew ............................................................................ 371
3.1. The purpose of Matthew and his use of Mark .................................................. 371
3.2. Differences from Mark 6:6b–8:26 ....................................................................... 372
3.3. Consequences for the function of the feeding narratives................................ 375
4. The feeding narrative in Luke..................................................................................... 375
4.1. The purpose of Luke and his use of Mark ......................................................... 375
4.2. Differences from Mark 6:6b–8:26 ....................................................................... 376
4.3. Consequences for the function of the feeding narrative ................................. 378
5. The feeding narrative in John ..................................................................................... 378
5.1. The purpose of John and his use of Mark .......................................................... 378
5.2. The new context in John 1–12 ..............................................................................380
5.3. The feeding narrative in the context of John 6 .................................................. 381
5.4. The function of the feeding narrative in John .................................................. 382
6. The feeding narratives in other early Christian literature ..................................... 382
6.1. Epistula Apostolorum ........................................................................................... 383
6.2. Tertullian ................................................................................................................384
6.3. Origen ......................................................................................................................384
7. Summary ....................................................................................................................... 385
Jerker & Karin Blomqvist

Eucharist terminology in Early Christian Literature: Philological and
Semantic Aspects ......................................................................................................................389
1. Texts Investigated .........................................................................................................389
2. The (socio)linguistic Landscape .................................................................................390

Table of Contents XI
2.1. Greek: a Supra-regional Linguistic Medium .....................................................390

2.2. Multilingualism .....................................................................................................390
2.3. Greek Learnt at School.......................................................................................... 391
2.4. The Koiné ................................................................................................................ 392
2.5. Atticism ................................................................................................................... 393
2.6. Diglossia..................................................................................................................394
2.7. Septuagintal Greek ................................................................................................ 395
2.8. Summary ................................................................................................................396
3. Creating Technical Terms in Ancient Greek ............................................................396
4. The Eucharist Vocabulary ...........................................................................................398
4.1. Categorisation of the Vocabulary .......................................................................398
4.2. The Technical Terms .............................................................................................399
4.3. The Substances Consumed ...................................................................................405
4.4. General Words for ‘Meal’ ..................................................................................... 410
4.5. Utensils Used when Performing the Ritual: ποτήριον .................................... 415
5. Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 418
Samuel Byrskog
The Meal and the Temple: Probing the Cult-Critical Implications of the Last Supper..423
1. The Focus of the Debate ..............................................................................................423
2. Two Hypotheses on the Meal and the Cult ..............................................................424
2.1. Joachim Jeremias ...................................................................................................425
2.2. Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz ........................................................................426
2.3. Two Hypotheses Compared .................................................................................427
3. Symbolic Actions and Cryptic Sayings about the Temple .....................................428
3.1. The Entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11:1–11 pars.; John 12:12–15) ......................428
3.2. The Cursing of the Fig Tree (Mark 11:12–14, 20–25 par.) ...............................428
3.3. The Temple Incident (Mark 11:15–19 pars.; John 2:13–16) ...............................429
3.4. Symbols of Cultic Disappointment .................................................................... 432
4. Teaching in and about the Temple ............................................................................. 432
4.1. The Authority of Jesus (Mark 11:27–33 pars.) ................................................... 433
4.2. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12:1–9 pars.; Gos. Thom. 65) ..... 433
4.3. The Question about David’s Son (Mark 12:35–37a pars.) ................................ 434
4.4. The Denouncement of the Scribes (Mark 12:37b–40 pars.) and
the Widow’s Offering (Mark 12:41–44 par.)...................................................... 434
4.5. The Destruction of the Temple Foretold (Mark 13:1–2 pars.) ......................... 435
4.6. A Crisis of National Covenantal Identity .......................................................... 435
5. Texts and Memories of the Last Supper .................................................................... 436
5.1. Two Forms of Memories ....................................................................................... 436
5.2. Six Points of Comparison..................................................................................... 439
5.3. The Earliest Memory in Greek.............................................................................444
6. The Meal and the Temple ............................................................................................446
6.1. Modifying the Proposal of Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz ........................446
6.2. The Significance of the Meal ................................................................................446

XII Table of Contents
Karl Olav Sandnes

Jesus’ Last Meal According to Mark and Matthew: Comparison and Interpretation ... 453
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 453
2. Mark’s Gospel ............................................................................................................... 456
2.1. The Narrative Setting ............................................................................................ 456
2.2. Structuring the Marcan Eucharistic words ....................................................... 456
2.3. Act: A Prophet Miming His Message ................................................................. 458
2.4. Dicta ........................................................................................................................460
2.5. Eschatological Prospect — A Synoptic Perspective .........................................464
3. Matthew .........................................................................................................................466
3.1. The Narrative Setting ............................................................................................466
3.2. Structuring the Matthean Eucharistic words ...................................................466
3.3. Interpreting Matthew............................................................................................466
4. Comparison ...................................................................................................................467
4.1. A Passover Setting? ...............................................................................................469
4.2. Covenant? ............................................................................................................... 472
4.3. Eschatology ............................................................................................................. 472
5. Summary ....................................................................................................................... 473
Thomas Kazen
Sacrificial Interpretation in the Narratives of Jesus’ Last Meal .........................................477
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................477
2. Two versions .................................................................................................................. 479
3. Mark, the covenant, and the many ............................................................................481
4. Matthew and the forgiveness of sins..........................................................................486
5. Luke and the new covenant.........................................................................................489
6. Paul ................................................................................................................................. 491
7. What about Passover? ..................................................................................................493
8. Jesus’ last meal ..............................................................................................................496
Enno Edzard Popkes

Die verborgene Gegenwärtigkeit Jesu: Bezüge zu eucharistischen Tradi-
tionen in Lk 24* und in den johanneischen Schriften ........................................................ 503
1. Bezüge zu eucharistischen Traditionen in Lk 24* und Joh 21* ............................. 503
2. Bezüge zu eucharistischen Traditionen in den johanneischen Schriften ............507
Daniel Marguerat
Meals and Community Ethos in the Acts of the Apostles ................................................. 513
1. A community ethics (Acts 2:42–47) .......................................................................... 514
1.1. Community of goods ............................................................................................ 514
1.2. Sharing food at home ............................................................................................ 516
2. Breaking the bread ....................................................................................................... 519
3. Eating with Jesus in the Gospel of Luke ................................................................... 521
4. The meals in Acts.......................................................................................................... 523
4.1. Crossing the border (Acts 10) .............................................................................. 523

Table of Contents XIII
4.2. Crisis about table fellowship (Acts 15:1–35).......................................................524

4.3. Ethics of conversion (Acts 16:11–40) ..................................................................528
4.4. Table fellowship and the Word (Acts 20:7–12).................................................. 529
4.5. Shared meal on the ship (Acts 27:33–38)............................................................ 530
5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 532
Peter Müller
‚Streitet nicht über Meinungen‘: Römer 14,1–15,7................................................................ 537
1. Beobachtungen und Zugänge ..................................................................................... 538
2. Aussagen und Argumente in Röm 14f. .....................................................................544
3. Folgerungen ................................................................................................................... 551
Paul Duff
Alone Together: Celebrating the Lord’s Supper in Corinth (1 Cor 11:17–34) ................. 555
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 555
2. Scholarship from Theißen to the Present.................................................................. 557
3. Factions at the Meal: 1 Cor 11:17–22 .........................................................................564
4. The Paradosis .................................................................................................................568
5. Risky Behavior: The Consequences of “Not Discerning the Body” ...................... 571
6. Unintended Consequences: The Hermeneutics of Infirmity ................................. 574
7. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................................... 575
Mikael Winninge
The Lord’s Supper in 1 Cor 11 and Luke 22: Traditions and Development ..................... 579
1. The Challenge of Comparison ....................................................................................580
1.1. Diachronic Considerations ..................................................................................580
2. The Lord’s Supper in First Corinthians: Text, Literary Context, and
Social Setting ................................................................................................................. 581
2.1. The Text of 1 Cor 11:23–26 ................................................................................... 581
2.2. Possible Influence from the Mystery Cults........................................................ 582
2.3. Comparing Socio-Religious Groups in Antiquity ............................................ 582
2.4. The Passage about the κυριακὸν δεῖπνον in 1 Cor 11:17–34........................... 583
2.5. The Interpretation of the paradosis in 1 Cor 11:23–25..................................... 585
3. The Last Supper in Luke: Text, Literary Context, and Narrative ..........................586
3.1. The Text of Luke 22:17–20 ....................................................................................586
3.2. The Text Critical Problem in Luke 22:19–20 .....................................................586
3.3. The Structure of Luke 22:14–20 ...........................................................................588
3.4. The Narrative of Luke ...........................................................................................589
3.5. The Pesach Connotations in Luke 22:17–20 ......................................................590
3.6. The Interpretation of the Institution of the Lord’s Supper in
Luke 22:17–20 ........................................................................................................590
4. The Eucharistic words in 1 Cor 11 and Luke 22 ...................................................... 591
4.1. The Eucharistic Words in English (NRSV) ....................................................... 591
4.2. The Eucharistic Words in Greek ......................................................................... 592
4.3. A Closer Look at the Details ................................................................................ 592

XIV Table of Contents
4.4. “In Remembrance of Me” (εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν)........................................ 594

4.5. “After Supper” (μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι) .................................................................... 595
4.6. “The New Covenant” (τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη) ..........................596
5. Traditions and Development ......................................................................................596
6. Summary .......................................................................................................................600
Felix John
Gal 2,11–21: Eine Ritual- und Identitätskrise.......................................................................603
1. Einführung ....................................................................................................................603
2. Der Kontext im Gal ......................................................................................................603
3. Der rituelle Kontext......................................................................................................605
4. Eine Identitätskrise ......................................................................................................609
5. Ausgang und Bedeutung des Konflikts ..................................................................... 617
Hermut Löhr
Vom Gemeinschaftsmahl zur Mahl-Gemeinschaft: Überlegungen zum
sakramentalen Charakter des Herrenmahls bei Paulus ..................................................... 625
1. Einführung .................................................................................................................... 625
2. Anteilhabe und Gemeinschaft in 1Kor 10,14–22 und in 1Kor 11,17–34 .............. 627
2.1. 1Kor 10,14–22......................................................................................................... 627
2.2. 1Kor 11,17–34 ......................................................................................................... 633
3. Die paulinische Kollekte als κοινωνία ....................................................................... 635
4. κοινωνία κτλ. in Phil .................................................................................................... 637
5. Ergebnis..........................................................................................................................641
Tor Vegge
Meals in the Context of the Deutero-Pauline Letters, and the Letter of Jude ................. 645
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 645
2. Questions and theoretical considerations ................................................................646
2.1. Expectations and findings ....................................................................................646
2.2. A semiotic approach .............................................................................................647
2.3. Literary texts and ritualised actions ...................................................................648
3. Colossians ...................................................................................................................... 652
3.1. Line of argument ................................................................................................... 653
3.2. The criticised philosophy and food rules ........................................................... 653
3.3. Colossians and Pauline teaching on bodily expressions of belief .................. 655
3.4. Food and bodily experiences in the arguments ............................................... 657
4. The Letter of Jude.......................................................................................................... 659
4.1. Genre and line of argument ................................................................................. 661
4.2. The communal meal – Agape ..............................................................................663
4.3. The meal in the arguments...................................................................................666
5. Concluding remarks.....................................................................................................667

Table of Contents XV
Håkan Ulfgard
Sharing with the Divine in the Apocalypse: Meals as Metaphors – Con-
cepts and Contexts .................................................................................................................... 673
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 673
2. Meals, eating, and drinking as expressions for sharing with the divine ............. 678
2.1. The meal shared with the risen Jesus (3:20) ...................................................... 679
2.2. The marriage supper of the Lamb ....................................................................... 683
2.3. Other references to eschatological food/eating/drink/drinking
in a positive setting ...............................................................................................684
2.4. Anti-divine meal, food and drink imagery in Revelation ..............................690
3. Concluding remarks.....................................................................................................692
Lukas Bormann
Das Abendmahl: Kulturanthropologische, kognitionswissenschaftliche
und ritualwissenschaftliche Perspektiven .............................................................................697
1. Einleitung ......................................................................................................................697
2. Ritualtheorien und deren Kritik ................................................................................698
3. Ritualwissenschaftliche Analysen des neutestamentlichen Gemein-
schaftsmahls ..................................................................................................................704
3.1. Wayne A. Meeks (1983) .........................................................................................704
3.2. Margaret Y. MacDonald (1988) ...........................................................................705
3.3. Christian Strecker (1999/2011).............................................................................706
3.4. Gerd Theißen (2000) .............................................................................................707
3.5. Risto Uro / Kimmo Ketola (2007/2011) ..............................................................708
3.6. Richard E. DeMaris (2008) .................................................................................. 710
3.7. Soham Al-Suadi (2011).......................................................................................... 711
3.8. Zwischenbilanz ...................................................................................................... 712
4. Handlungselemente und Handlungsskript des Rituals Abendmahl ................... 713
5. Analyse des Handlungsinventars des Rituals Abendmahl .................................... 719
5.1. Ritualmedien ..........................................................................................................720
5.2. Grundfunktionen des Rituals ............................................................................. 721
5.3. Ritualhandlungen .................................................................................................. 723
5.4. Performative Äußerungen ...................................................................................724
5.5. Räume und Zeiten ................................................................................................. 725
5.6. Akteure des Rituals ............................................................................................... 725
5.7. Exklusion und Inklusion ......................................................................................726
5.8. Fazit ......................................................................................................................... 727
Hans-Ulrich Weidemann
Vom Wasser zum Brot: Die Verbindung von Taufe und Mahl in Texten
des Neuen Testaments .............................................................................................................. 733
1. Einleitung ...................................................................................................................... 733
2. Die Tischgemeinschaft von Juden mit getauften Heiden bei Lukas und Paulus 735
2.1. Jüdische Gäste in nichtjüdischen Häusern: Lukas ........................................... 735
2.2. Das συνεσθίειν in Antiochia: Paulus ................................................................. 743

XVI Table of Contents
3. Taufe, Eucharistie und der Leib Christi:

1Kor 10,16f. und 12,13 .................................................................................................. 749
3.1. Taufe und Leib: 1Kor 12,13................................................................................... 751
3.2. Eucharistie und Leib: 1Kor 10,16f. ...................................................................... 753
4. Wolke, Manna und Felsenwasser: 1Kor 10,1–4 und Hebr 6,4–6 ........................... 755
4.1. Wolke und Meer, Geistspeise und Geisttrank (1Kor 10,1–4) ......................... 757
4.2. Erleuchtung und Himmelsgabe (Hebr 6,4–6) .................................................. 759
5. Ausblick..........................................................................................................................765
Volume II
Patristic Traditions, Iconography
Gerard Rouwhorst
Frühchristliche Eucharistiefeiern: Die Entwicklung östlicher und
westlicher Traditionsstränge ...................................................................................................771
1. Ein Paradigmenwechsel: antike Mahltraditionen als Ausgangspunkt ................771
2. Einheit oder Vielfalt? ...................................................................................................772
3. Methodische Ausgangspunkte ................................................................................... 774
4. Das Herantragen und die Darbringung der Gaben ................................................ 774
5. Die Geistepiklese ..........................................................................................................777
6. Strukturen eucharistischer Gebete ............................................................................778
7. Das Brotbrechen ...........................................................................................................780
8. Zwei Traditionsstränge ................................................................................................ 782
Reinhart Staats
Das Blutverbot im Aposteldekret und seine Wirkungsgeschichte ....................................787
1. Das Aposteldekret in der Apostelgeschichte ............................................................787
2. Die neuere Forschung zum Aposteldekret ............................................................... 791
3. Widerspruch zu Biographie und Theologie des Paulus? ........................................ 793
4. Acta 15 und Galater 2 bei Adolf von Harnack, Emil Schürer und Karl Holl ......796
5. Der Kompromisscharakter des Aposteldekrets und sein möglicher
liturgischer Ort .............................................................................................................800
6. Das Aposteldekret im ersten Jahrtausend ................................................................802
6.1. Katechetische Dokumente: Didache und Kyrill von Jerusalem. ....................804
6.2. Justin .......................................................................................................................805
6.3. Die Märtyrer von Lyon .........................................................................................805
6.4. Irenäus (vor 185 n. Chr.).......................................................................................805
6.5. Tertullian (vor und nach 200 n.Chr.)..................................................................807
6.6. Makarios-Symeon (um 380 n.Chr.) .................................................................... 810
7. Schlussbemerkungen ................................................................................................... 812

Table of Contents XVII
Candida Moss
Christian Funerary Banquests and Martyr Cults ................................................................ 819
1. The Occasion of Celebratory Meals and the Memorialization of Saints .............820
2. Eucharist, Funerary Meal, or Both?........................................................................... 821
3. Heavenly Banquets ....................................................................................................... 823
4. Fasting ............................................................................................................................824
5. Celebratory Meals and Local Economics ................................................................. 825
6. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................826
Andrew B. McGowan
Feast as Fast: Asceticism and Early Eucharistic Practice ................................................... 829
1. Asceticism ...................................................................................................................... 829
2. Eucharist and Asceticism: Bread and Wine ............................................................. 830
2.1. Asceticism and Christian Eating ........................................................................ 830
2.2. Bread and Wine: Ancient Staples ........................................................................ 831
2.3. Bread, Wine and Asceticism ................................................................................ 832
3. Ascetic Eucharists and the Cuisine of Sacrifice ....................................................... 833
3.1. Bread and Water .................................................................................................... 833
3.2. Ascetic Theologies ................................................................................................. 834
3.3. Meat and Wine ....................................................................................................... 835
3.4. The Cuisine of Sacrifice ........................................................................................ 836
4. Beyond Bread, Wine and Water ................................................................................. 838
4.1. Eucharistic ὄψα ...................................................................................................... 838
4.2. Milk and Honey..................................................................................................... 839
4.3. Fish ...........................................................................................................................840
5. Conclusion .....................................................................................................................841
Dietrich-Alex Koch
Eucharistievollzug und Eucharistieverständnis in der Didache ....................................... 845
1. Einführung .................................................................................................................... 845
2. Der Aufbau der Didache.............................................................................................. 850
3. Der Aufbau von Did 9 und 10..................................................................................... 851
3.1. Übersicht ................................................................................................................. 851
3.2. Erläuterung: Die verschiedene Textebene ......................................................... 853
4. Die Funktion der Mahlgebete und der rituelle Charakter des
Gemeindemahls ............................................................................................................ 857
5. Der Ablauf des rituellen Mahls .................................................................................. 858
6. Die Abfolge von Brot- und Becherhandlung ............................................................ 859
7. Der traditionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund: Die jüdischen Mahlgebete...............862
8. Die Verwendung von εὐλογεῖν und εὐχαριστεῖν in den früh-
christlichen Mahlgebeten und die Bezeichnungen ‚Eucharistie‘ und
‚Brotbrechen‘ .................................................................................................................863
8.1. Die allgemeine Form des Lobgebets (berakha/εὐλογία) .................................863
8.2. Das Lobgebet in der Mahlsituation ....................................................................864
8.3. Die Verwendung von εὐλογεῖν und εὐχαριστεῖν in den Mahlgebeten ..........864

XVIII Table of Contents
8.4. Εὐχαριστία als Bezeichnung des frühchristlichen Mahlritus ........................866

8.5. ‚Brotbrechen‘ als Bezeichnung des frühchristlichen rituellen
Gemeindemahls ....................................................................................................867
9. Die Inhalte der Mahlgebete ........................................................................................868
9.1. Die paulinischen Mahlgebete ..............................................................................868
9.2. Die Mahlgebete von Did 9–10 .............................................................................868
10. Die Frage des traditionsgeschichtlichen Zusammenhangs des
eucharistischen Mahl von Did 9–10 .......................................................................... 872
11. Die Eucharistie als ‚reines Opfer‘ in Did 14 ............................................................. 875
Lothar Wehr
Die Eucharistie in den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien ............................................. 883
1. Die Datierungs- und Echtheitsfrage ..........................................................................884
2. Eine Eucharistiefeier oder mehrere religiöse Mähler? ............................................887
3. Die Eucharistielehre des Ignatius...............................................................................889
4. Kirche, Amt und Eucharistie bei Ignatius ................................................................ 891
5. Weitere mögliche Bezugnahmen auf die Eucharistie .............................................897
6. Zusammenfassung .......................................................................................................898
Andreas Lindemann
Die eucharistische Mahlfeier bei Justin und bei Irenäus ....................................................901
1. Einleitung: Die Abendmahlsfeier im „Gespräch“ ...................................................901
2. Die Aussagen zum Abendmahl bei Justin ................................................................902
2.1. Die Schilderung der Mahlfeier in der „Apologie“ ............................................902
2.2. Hinweise auf die Mahlfeier im „Dialog mit dem Juden Tryphon“ ................ 916
2.3. Ergebnis: Die Mahlfeier bei Justin ......................................................................920
3. Das Abendmahl (Eucharistie) bei Irenäus................................................................921
4. Die eucharistische Mahlfeier bei Justin und bei Irenäus........................................929
Øyvind Norderval
The Eucharist in Tertullian and Cyprian .............................................................................. 935
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 935
1.1. Tertullian ................................................................................................................ 936
1.2. Cyprian ................................................................................................................... 936
1.3. The problem of sources ......................................................................................... 937
2. The development of the Eucharistic liturgy ............................................................. 939
3. Tertullian’s Eucharistic theology ...............................................................................942
4. Cyprian’s Eucharistic theology...................................................................................947
5. Concluding remarks..................................................................................................... 953
Anders Ekenberg
The Eucharist in Early Church Orders .................................................................................. 957
1. Introductory remarks .................................................................................................. 957
2. The texts ......................................................................................................................... 958
2.1. Didache ................................................................................................................... 958

Table of Contents XIX
2.2. Apostolic Tradition ............................................................................................... 959

2.3. Didascalia Apostolorum....................................................................................... 961
2.4. Apostolic Constitutions ....................................................................................... 961
3. The shape of the Eucharist ..........................................................................................962
3.1. Didache ...................................................................................................................962
3.2. Apostolic Tradition ...............................................................................................965
3.3. Didascalia Apostolorum .......................................................................................969
3.4. Apostolic Constitutions .......................................................................................970
4. The meaning(s) of the Eucharist ................................................................................ 973
4.1. Didache ................................................................................................................... 973
4.2. Apostolic Tradition ............................................................................................... 974
4.3. Didascalia Apostolorum.......................................................................................976
4.4. Apostolic Constitutions ....................................................................................... 979
5. Conclusion .....................................................................................................................982
6. Appendix: The Apostolic Tradition 4, 9.3–4, 21.25–37, 22 and 36–38:
preliminary reconstruction ........................................................................................ 983
6.1. On the offering .......................................................................................................984
6.2. The prayer of thanksgiving .................................................................................985
6.3. On the handing over of holy baptism .................................................................986
6.4. Communion ...........................................................................................................987
6.5. One is to receive the Eucharist before eating anything else............................988
6.6. The Eucharist must be treated properly .............................................................988
6.7. One must not let anything from the cup fall to the ground ............................988
Gunnar af Hällström
A Spiritual Meal for Spiritual People: The Eucharist in the Theology of
Clement and Origen of Alexandria ........................................................................................993
1. The Challenge ................................................................................................................994
2. Methodological Considerations .................................................................................995
3. Terminology ..................................................................................................................996
4. Alternative Interpretations .........................................................................................997
5. Starting from Anthropology.......................................................................................999
6. The Logos as Nourisher .............................................................................................1000
7. Defining the Body ......................................................................................................1004
8. Analogous Cases .........................................................................................................1005
9. The Benefit of the Eucharist ......................................................................................1006
10. Conclusions .................................................................................................................1008
Joseph Verheyden
Eating with Apostles: Eucharist and Table Fellowship in the Apocryphal
Acts of the Apostles – The Evidence from the Acts of John and the Acts of Thomas .... 1011
1. Introduction: a Brief Survey of Some Problems and Issues ................................. 1011
2. The Acts of John .......................................................................................................... 1015
2.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1015
2.2. Acts of John 46 ..................................................................................................... 1017

XX Table of Contents
2.3. Jo 58–86 .................................................................................................................1020

2.4. Jo 106–115 .............................................................................................................1029
2.5. Jo 93 and 94–96 ....................................................................................................1034
3. The Acts of Thomas .................................................................................................... 1036
3.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1036
3.2. Th 6–9.................................................................................................................... 1037
3.3. Th 17–29 ................................................................................................................ 1039
3.4. Th 42–50(51) .........................................................................................................1042
3.5. Th 76 ......................................................................................................................1048
3.6. Th 119–133 ............................................................................................................1048
3.7. Th 150–158 ............................................................................................................. 1052
3.8. Th 159–170 ............................................................................................................ 1055
4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 1056
Jürgen Wehnert
Mahl und Mahlgemeinschaft in den Pseudoklementinen ............................................... 1061
1. Zur Entstehung des pskl. Romans ...........................................................................1063
2. Das Mahlverständnis in den pskl. Literarschichten .............................................1065
2.1. Mahltraditionen in der Petrus/Simon-Novelle ...............................................1065
2.2. Mahltraditionen im pskl. Roman ..................................................................... 1071
2.3. Mahltraditionen in der Redaktionsschicht Ad Jacobum .............................. 1079
2.4. Mahltraditionen in den Homilien .................................................................... 1081
2.5. Mahltraditionen in den Rekognitionen ........................................................... 1082
3. Resümee .......................................................................................................................1084
Michael Lattke
Einsetzung und Vollzug der christlichen Paschafeier bei Aphrahat .............................. 1091
1. Aphrahats aty\wjt (taḥwyāṯā) im Rahmen des syrischen Christen-
tums der ersten vier Jahrhunderte ........................................................................... 1091
1.1. Syrische Autoren und Werke ............................................................................. 1091
1.2. Aphrahats aty\wjt (taḥwyāṯā) und seine Quellen .........................................1092
2. Aphrahats ajxpd atywjt (taḥwīṯā ḏ- eṣḥā) ........................................................1095
2.1. Terminologisches.................................................................................................1095
2.2. Inhalt und Struktur von Dem. 12 .....................................................................1096
3. Einsetzung und Vollzug der christlichen Paschafeier ..........................................1099
3.1. Der Einsetzungsbericht in Dem. 12,6 ...............................................................1099
3.2. Vollzug der christlichen Paschafeier ................................................................ 1101
3.3. Aphrahat und der altkirchliche Paschastreit .................................................. 1103
Kees den Biesen

‘A Drop of Salvation’: Ephrem the Syrian on the Eucharist ............................................. 1121
1. Poetry, performance and ritual ................................................................................ 1123
2. Ritual and the physical presence of God.................................................................1126
3. Liturgical acts, artefacts and attitudes ....................................................................1129
3.1. The church building and its altar ...................................................................... 1131

Table of Contents XXI
3.2. The ‘fluttering’ of the priest’s hands ................................................................. 1133

3.3. The ‘signing’ of the broken bread with the consecrated wine ....................... 1133
3.4. The communion .................................................................................................. 1134
4. Sacred ritual and symbolical thought ..................................................................... 1135
5. The Table of the Kingdom ......................................................................................... 1137
6. Summary ..................................................................................................................... 1139
Juliette Day
The Eucharist in Jerusalem: A Brief Survey of Some Problems and Content
of the Eucharistic Prayers of the Mystagogical Catecheses .............................................. 1143
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1143
2. The liturgical context of the MC anaphora ............................................................1144
3. The Eucharistic Prayer (Anaphora) of MC 5 ..........................................................1149
3.1. The Dialogue ........................................................................................................1149
3.2. The Preface ........................................................................................................... 1151
3.3. The Sanctus ........................................................................................................... 1152
3.4. The Epiclesis ......................................................................................................... 1154
3.5. The Missing Units: Anamnesis, Institution Narrative and Oblation .......... 1155
3.6. Intercessions ......................................................................................................... 1159
3.7. The Lord’s Prayer ................................................................................................. 1161
4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 1161
Ilaria Ramelli
The Eucharist in Gregory Nyssen as Participation in Christ’s Body: and
Preparation of the Restoration and Theōsis ........................................................................ 1165
1. Gregory’s Interest in the Eucharist as Anticipation of the Restora-
tion and Deification ................................................................................................... 1165
2. Transformation of the Food into the Form of a Person’s Body.
Philosophical Roots.................................................................................................... 1167
3. The Divine Logos Makes People Incorruptible: The Role of “Mingling”........... 1169
4. The Resurrecting Power of Christ’s Body ............................................................... 1173
5. Interpretation: Physical and Spiritual Resurrection and Restoration ................ 1175
6. The Last Supper as First Eucharist and the Necessity of a Pure Soul ................. 1177
7. Mystic Eucharist: Theōsis, the Spirit, Worthiness, Present and Future Life...... 1180
Rudolf Brändle
Eucharistie und christliches Leben bei Johannes Chrysostomos und
Theodor von Mopsuestia........................................................................................................ 1185
1. Hinführung zum Thema ........................................................................................... 1185
1.1. Theodor von Mopsuestia und Johannes Chrysostomos. Ihre Beziehung ... 1186
1.2. Ihr Werk ................................................................................................................ 1187
2. Eucharistie im Verständnis von Johannes Chrysostomos und
Theodor von Mopsuestia ........................................................................................... 1187
2.1. Taufe und Eucharistie ......................................................................................... 1187
2.2. Verschiedene Formen ......................................................................................... 1190

XXII Table of Contents
2.3. Zur Feier der Eucharistie .................................................................................... 1191

2.4. Christus als Spender der Eucharistie ............................................................... 1198
2.5. Gegenwart Christi in der Eucharistie...............................................................1200
2.6. Opfer......................................................................................................................1201
2.7. Eucharistie als geistliche Speise .........................................................................1202
2.8. Ethische Implikationen der Eucharistie. Eucharistie und
christliches Leben ...............................................................................................1203
3. Summary .....................................................................................................................1206
Allan Fitzgerald
Eucharist and culture in Ambrose and Augustine ............................................................ 1211
1. Introductory remarks ................................................................................................ 1211
1.1. Participants rather than observers.................................................................... 1211
1.2. Methodological considerations .........................................................................1212
2. Ambrose .......................................................................................................................1214
2.1. The manna in the desert ..................................................................................... 1215
2.2. Christ is truly bread ............................................................................................ 1217
2.3. “The cup that inebriates” (Psalm 22[23]:5) ....................................................... 1218
3. Augustine.....................................................................................................................1220
3.1. Monica...................................................................................................................1220
3.2. Ambrose................................................................................................................1221
3.3. Augustine’s experience .......................................................................................1222
3.4. Eat and be satisfied (Ps 21:27) ............................................................................1224
3.5. Eucharist: hunger for the justice of God ..........................................................1226
3.6. Daily Eucharist in Hippo – growth ..................................................................1228
3.7. Celebrating community ......................................................................................1229
4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 1230
Hugo Lundhaug
Shenoute’s Eucharistic Theology in Context ...................................................................... 1233
1. Shenoute’s Writings ....................................................................................................1234
2. Alexandrian Archbishops and Anti-Heretical Polemics ...................................... 1236
3. Rules and Regulations................................................................................................ 1238
4. Food and Drink ..........................................................................................................1240
5. The Real Presence .......................................................................................................1242
6. Transformation of the Elements...............................................................................1244
7. Shenoute and the Pachomians ..................................................................................1245
8. Summary and Conclusion.........................................................................................1247
Andreas Müller
Die ‚Mysterien des Herrn‘ bei Johannes von Damaskos ................................................... 1253
1. Die Biographie des Damaskeners............................................................................. 1254
2. Die Gliederung des Eucharistiekapitels in der Ekdosis pisteos ............................ 1255
3. Zentrale theologische Aussagen zur Lehre von der Eucharistie ......................... 1258
4. Fazit ..............................................................................................................................1262

Table of Contents XXIII
Nils Arne Pedersen

Holy Meals and Eucharist in Manichaean Sources: Their relation to
Christian Traditions ...............................................................................................................1265
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................1265
2. The imprisoned substance of Light and the goal of the elect’s meal...................1267
3. Eucharistic interpretations of the elect’s meal .......................................................1269
4. The various kinds of food at the elect’s meal .......................................................... 1275
5. Manichaean agape meals? .........................................................................................1280
6. Meals for the dead ......................................................................................................1282
7. Religio-historical origins...........................................................................................1284
Ulrich Kuder
Die Eucharistie in Bildwerken vom frühen 3. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert:
Beispiele und Probleme ..........................................................................................................1297
1. Der Priester am Altar.................................................................................................1298
2. „… extensis manibus, quasi missas canit …“. S. Giovanni Evange-
lista in Ravenna ...........................................................................................................1299
2.1. Die Stiftung der Kirche S. Giovanni Evangelista und die Quel-
len zur Rekonstruktion ihres Bildprogramms ...............................................1299
2.2. Die oberen Zonen des Triumphbogens und der Apsis .................................. 1300
2.3. Das Mosaik eines Bischofs, der gleichsam die Messe singt .......................... 1303
2.4. Die beiden Gaben darbringenden Kaiserpaare .............................................. 1311
2.5. Die Eucharistie und der Zusammenhang der Bilder und der Inschriften ..1313
3. Der Fisch – Symbol Christi und der eucharistischen Speise ................................1315
3.1. Der Fisch im Aberkiosepigramm ......................................................................1315
3.2. Der Fisch in der Pektoriosinschrift in Autun ................................................. 1319
3.3. Der Fisch in Tertullians ‚De baptismo‘ ............................................................ 1319
3.4. Der Ursprung des Fischsymbols als Christus- und als
Eucharistiesymbol .............................................................................................. 1320
4. Darstellungen des letzten Mahls Jesu mit seinen Jüngern ................................... 1320
4.1. Elfenbeindiptychon im Mailänder Domschatz .............................................. 1320
4.2. S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna....................................................................... 1322
4.3. Hauptaltarciborium von S. Marco in Venedig, unterste Zone
der südwestlichen Säule ..................................................................................... 1322
4.4. Codex purpureus Rossanensis fol. 3r ............................................................... 1323
4.5. Evangeliar des hl. Augustinus fol. 125r ............................................................ 1324
5. Apostelkommunion ................................................................................................... 1324
5.1. Rabbulaevangeliar fol. 11v ................................................................................. 1324
5.2. Codex purpureus Rossanensis fol. 3v/4r .......................................................... 1325
5.3. Die Patenen von Rîha und Stûma ..................................................................... 1326
6. Vermehrung der Brote und Fische, Weinwunder und Eucharistie .................... 1327
7. Opferszenen ................................................................................................................. 1331
7.1. Abraham opfert seinen Sohn Isaak ................................................................... 1331
7.2. Melchisedech mit Brot und Wein in der Wiener Genesis fol. 4r.................. 1332
7.3. Der Ashburnham-Pentateuch ............................................................................ 1333

XXIV Table of Contents
8. Mahlszenen in christlichen Katakomben und auf christlichen Sarkophagen ...1335

8.1. Bilder in christlichen Katakomben, die eucharistisch gedeutet wurden .... 1336
8.2. Mahlszenen auf christlichen Sarkophagen......................................................1344
9. Eucharistische Implikationen des Bildprogramms von Kirchengebäuden ....... 1345
9.1. S. Maria Maggiore in Rom ................................................................................. 1345
9.2. S. Vitale in Ravenna ............................................................................................ 1346
9.3. S. Apollinare in Classe .........................................................................................1355
9.4. Kirchen des Paulinus von Nola ......................................................................... 1357
9.5. Die Marienkirche des Katharinenklosters auf dem Sinai ............................. 1360
10. Ergebnis........................................................................................................................ 1362
Volume III
Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Traditions, Archeology
Andrea Kucharek
Profan – kultisch – funerär: Mahlkontexte im Alten Ägypten ....................................... 1375
1. Das „profane“ Mahl.................................................................................................... 1376
1.1. Das Mahl als Spiegel sozialer Kompetenz ....................................................... 1376
1.2. Das Festmahl........................................................................................................ 1378
2. Das kultische Mahl..................................................................................................... 1380
2.1. Das sakrale Mahl ................................................................................................. 1380
2.2. Kultgemeinschaften ............................................................................................ 1382
3. Das funeräre Mahl ..................................................................................................... 1382
3.1. Totenopfer ............................................................................................................. 1382
3.2. Gastmahl .............................................................................................................. 1384
Gunnel Ekroth
Sacred Meals in Ancient Greece?: Dining in Domestic Settings as Com-
pared to Sanctuaries ............................................................................................................... 1389
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1389
2. The Sacrificial Scene ................................................................................................... 1390
3. Sacrificial Meat, Sacred Meat .................................................................................... 1391
4. Animal Sacrifice in the Oikos? ................................................................................. 1393
5. Sacred Meals at Home................................................................................................ 1399
6. Hestia and the ritual use of the hearth....................................................................1403
7. Communal meals and the role of Hestia ................................................................1404
8. Concluding remarks...................................................................................................1406
Markus Öhler
Mähler und Opferhandlungen in griechisch-römischen Vereinigungen:
Das frühchristliche Herrenmahl im Kontext ..................................................................... 1413
1. Opferhandlungen in Vereinigungen .......................................................................1416
2. Die Verbindung von Opfern und Mählern in Vereinigungen .............................1421

Table of Contents XXV
3. Die Mahlbestandteile in Vereinigungen .................................................................1425

3.1. Wein.......................................................................................................................1426
3.2. Brot ........................................................................................................................1429
3.3. Fleisch ....................................................................................................................1430
4. Die Verteilung von Mahlanteilen.............................................................................1432
5. Gemeinschaftsmähler von Christusgläubigen .......................................................1434
5.1. Die Elemente ........................................................................................................1434
5.2. Die Verteilung ...................................................................................................... 1435
5.3. Christliche Mähler waren kultische Mähler ...................................................1436
Knut Usener
Symposion und Sexualität in der griechischen Antike: Privates Bankett
und Symposion ........................................................................................................................1441
1. Das antike Mahl..........................................................................................................1441
2. Symposion und Sexualität .........................................................................................1446
3. Päderastie ..................................................................................................................... 1456
4. Die religiös geprägte Gesellschaft und der Rahmen des Symposions ................ 1459
4.1. Rahmenbedingungen und Formen des griechischen Symposions.............. 1459
5. Das Symposion als Ort sozialer Strukturierung....................................................1463
6. Zusammenschau und Ausblick ................................................................................1465
Gerhard Baudy
Sakrales Gebäck in attischen Kulten (Athen und Eleusis) ...............................................1469
1. Einleitung ....................................................................................................................1469
2. Die ‚Schlange‘ in der Mysterienpraxis der Ophiten ..............................................1470
3. Genitalgebäck im attischen Demeterkult ...............................................................1472
4. Sexuelle Gebildbrote im athenischen Arrhephorenritual ....................................1480
5. Religöse Codierungen der Mensch-Getreide-Symbiose.......................................1482
Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser
Ab ovis ad mala: Tafelluxus und Semantik der Speisen im 1. Jh. v. Chr. .......................1489
1. Einleitung: Kulinarische und literarische Delikatessen .......................................1489
2. Einladung zum epikureischen Freundschaftsmahl ..............................................1492
2.1. Zeitliche Prämissen fürs convivium .................................................................1493
2.2. Philosophische Färbung des convivere .............................................................1494
2.3. Konkurrierende Bankettzirkel und Tischkulturen ........................................1497
2.4. Meta-konviviale Freundschaftsbriefe............................................................... 1500
3. Katalogdichtung und Kochschule für Catius ......................................................... 1501
3.1. Zeitordnung und Mnemotechnik ..................................................................... 1503
3.2. Räumliche und soziale Konkurrenzen ............................................................ 1505
3.3. Philosophische Färbungen und Gastrosophie ................................................ 1507
3.4. Kochkunst und Satirendichtung....................................................................... 1508
4. Fazit .............................................................................................................................. 1511

XXVI Table of Contents
Lutz Käppel
The Philosophical Banquet in Greek Literature ..................................................................1515
1. Introductory remarks .................................................................................................1515
2. Plato’s Symposium....................................................................................................... 1516
3. Xenophon’s Symposium ............................................................................................. 1518
4. Aristotle and the Peripatetics ................................................................................... 1519
5. Plutarch ........................................................................................................................ 1519
6. Later Examples of ‘Philosophical Banquets’........................................................... 1521
Jörg Rüpke
Römische Priestermähler ...................................................................................................... 1525
1. Problemstellung .......................................................................................................... 1525
2. Ein Toast für den Augurn: Hor. carm. 3,19 ............................................................ 1526
3. Essen für den Flamen: Macrob. Sat. 3,13,10–12 ..................................................... 1529
4. Vergleich und Widersprüche .................................................................................... 1531
5. Zur Konstruktion des römischen Priesterbanketts .............................................. 1533
Konrad Vössing
Öffentliche Bankette und Bankette in der Öffentlichkeit................................................. 1537
1. Einleitung .................................................................................................................... 1537
2. Begriffe ......................................................................................................................... 1538
3. Typen ............................................................................................................................ 1540
4. Hierarchien.................................................................................................................. 1548
Anja Bettenworth
Die Begegnung von Gott und Mensch beim Mahl im Bibelepos des Sedulius ..............1555
1. Einleitung .....................................................................................................................1555
2. Die Struktur epischer Gastmahlszenen .................................................................. 1557
3. Gott und Mensch in vorchristlichen epischen Mahlszenen ................................ 1558
3.1. Philemon und Baucis bewirten Iupiter und Mercur (Ov. met. 8,626–720) 1558
3.2. Falernus bewirtet Bacchus (Sil. 7,166–204) ..................................................... 1563
4. Mahlszenen in der christlichen Bibelepik: Sedulius ............................................. 1567
4.1. Die Hochzeit von Kana....................................................................................... 1568
4.2. Das letzte Abendmahl ........................................................................................ 1575
4.3. Die Mahlszenen nach der Auferstehung .......................................................... 1579
5. Zusammenfassung ..................................................................................................... 1585
Peter Ruggendorfer
Das Mahl zu Ehren der Verstorbenen: Bankette im funerären Kontext im
antiken Griechenland und Kleinasien ................................................................................. 1589
1. Einleitung .................................................................................................................... 1589
2. Zur Terminologie ....................................................................................................... 1590
3. Perideipnon und Kommemoration in den schriftlichen Quellen ....................... 1591
4. Materielle Evidenz: rituelle Speisung der Toten und Bankette an
den Gräbern der Heroen und Herrscher ................................................................ 1595

Table of Contents XXVII
5. Das Darstellungsschema des Banketts im Kontext der Grabmonumente......... 1601

5.1. Athen und griechisches Mutterland im 5. und 4. Jh. v. Chr. ........................ 1601
5.2. Kleinasien bis zum Ende des 4. Jhs. v. Chr. .....................................................1604
5.3. Griechisches Mutterland und Kleinasien in hellenistischer Zeit .................1608
6. Zusammenfassung .....................................................................................................1609
Norbert Zimmermann
Archäologische Zeugnisse von Gemeinschafts- und Kultmählern aus
römischer Zeit: Am Beispiel von Ephesos ........................................................................... 1615
1. Einleitung .................................................................................................................... 1615
2. Das Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos ...................................................................................... 1617
2.1. Das Triklinium der WE 2 .................................................................................. 1618
2.2. Das sog. Theaterzimmer der WE 1 ...................................................................1620
2.3. Bankette im Hof der WE 4 und in ihren Obergeschossen ............................ 1621
2.4. Der „Marmorsaal“ der WE 6 ............................................................................1624
2.5. Weitere Räume für Mähler ................................................................................1626
2.6. Mahl und Kult: Bauopfer ................................................................................... 1627
3. Das Prytaneion von Ephesos ....................................................................................1628
4. Zusammenfassung ..................................................................................................... 1629
Bernhard Domagalski
Antike Mähler in archäologischen Zeugnissen ................................................................. 1633
1. Ein Befund in Köln-Müngersdorf............................................................................ 1633
2. Das Mahl in den Wohnhäusern ............................................................................... 1635
2.1. Triklinien .............................................................................................................. 1635
2.2. Stibadium/Sigma ................................................................................................. 1636
3. Das Mahl im Freien .................................................................................................... 1639
3.1. Biklinien und Triklinien im Freien .................................................................. 1639
4. Das Mahl im Sepulkralbereich .................................................................................1642
4.1. Triklinien im Sepulkralbereich ......................................................................... 1643
4.2. Stibadien im Sepulkralbereich ..........................................................................1646
5. Das Mahl im christlichen Sepulkralbereich........................................................... 1652
5.1. Refrigerien ............................................................................................................ 1652
5.2. Ikonographie der Triklinien im christlichen Sepulkralbereich ................... 1653
5.3. Stibadien im christlichen Sepulkralbereich .................................................... 1653
Vemund Blomkvist
The Pagan Cultic Meal in Early Christian Literature........................................................ 1667
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1667
2. New Testament Texts .................................................................................................1668
2.1. The Book of Revelation .......................................................................................1668
2.2. The First Letter of John....................................................................................... 1672
2.3. The First Letter to the Corinthians ................................................................... 1673
2.4. Acts ........................................................................................................................ 1677
3. Later Development of Christian Polemics .............................................................. 1678

XXVIII Table of Contents
3.1. Imitation ............................................................................................................... 1678

3.2. Possession ............................................................................................................. 1679
3.3. Infanticide and cannibalism .............................................................................. 1681
4. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................................. 1682
John G. Cook
Reactions to the Eucharist in Paganism ..............................................................................1685
1. Petronius ......................................................................................................................1686
2. Pliny’s Letter to Trajan...............................................................................................1687
2.1. The Text .................................................................................................................1687
2.2. Cannibalism? .......................................................................................................1688
2.3. Nocturnal Rites, Magic, and Poison .................................................................1690
2.4. Conclusion............................................................................................................1692
3. Irenaeus: A Lost Text in Ps. Oecumenius ...............................................................1693
4. Tertullian .....................................................................................................................1697
5. The Philosopher of Macarius of Magnesia .............................................................1699
6. Salvian of Marseilles .................................................................................................. 1706
7. Cannibalism and the Persecutions .......................................................................... 1707
8. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 1709
Anders Hultgård
Religious Communal Meals in Iranian Tradition and the
Hellenistic-Roman World ...................................................................................................... 1715
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1715
1.1. Purpose and Problems ........................................................................................ 1715
1.2. Theoretical Remarks ........................................................................................... 1716
2. Religious Communal Meals in Ancient Iran ......................................................... 1717
2.1. The Question of Priestly Prerogative and Community Participation ......... 1717
2.2. The Use of Contemporary Zoroastrian Practices........................................... 1718
2.3. Types of Iranian Rituals ..................................................................................... 1718
2.4. Greek Authors on Iranian Sacrifices ................................................................ 1720
2.5. Animal Sacrifices and Communal Meals ....................................................... 1720
2.6. Character of Iranian Communal Meals .......................................................... 1721
3. Iranian Religious Meals and the Hellenistic-Roman World................................ 1721
3.1. The Ruler Cult of Commagene .......................................................................... 1721
3.2. Roman Mithraism ............................................................................................... 1723
4. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................................ 1729
Christa Müller-Kessler
Sacred Meals and Rituals of the Mandaeans ...................................................................... 1731
1. The Mandaeans and Their Background .................................................................. 1731
2. Setting of the Mandaean Sacred Meals ................................................................... 1734
3. Literature on Mandaean “sacred meals” ................................................................. 1735
4. Mandaean Priesthood and Religious Literature .................................................... 1737
5. Mandaean Sacred Meals ............................................................................................ 1737

Table of Contents XXIX
5.1. The Five Sacred Meal Components of the Mandaean

Sacraments and Rituals ...................................................................................... 1737
5.2. Pihta and Mambuha ........................................................................................... 1738
5.3. paṭira “small unleavened bread” ....................................................................... 1738
5.4. ṭabutha — goodness —permitted food for rituals ......................................... 1738
5.5. ṣa – special form of bread ................................................................................... 1739
5.6. hamra “wine” ....................................................................................................... 1739
6. Rituals and Sacred Meals .......................................................................................... 1739
6.1. maṣbuta “baptism” .............................................................................................. 1740
6.2. zidqa brikha — “blessed charity” — ritual meal for the dead ...................... 1741
6.3. masiqta .................................................................................................................. 1741
6.4. Lofani or Laufa “burial ritual with integrated sacred meal” ........................ 1742
Fritz Graf
Sacred Meals in the Cults of Isis and Sarapis ..................................................................... 1747
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1747
2. Literature and Epigraphy .......................................................................................... 1749
3. Sarapis Meals at Oxyrhynchos ................................................................................. 1752
4. Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 1757
Benedikt Eckhardt
Eating and Drinking (with) Dionysus ................................................................................. 1761
1. The manifest god ........................................................................................................ 1761
2. The wine god ............................................................................................................... 1762
3. The mystery god .......................................................................................................... 1766
4. The god tartare? .......................................................................................................... 1771
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 1774
Benedikt Eckhardt
Meals in the Cults of Cybele and Attis ................................................................................ 1779
1. “A sort of eucharistic meal”?..................................................................................... 1779
2. Meals in Greek and Roman festivals for Cybele and Attis................................... 1781
3. The σύμβολα τῆς μυήσεως according to Clement of Alexandria........................ 1784
4. Two different kinds of magic: Firmicus Maternus, Attis, and the Eucharist .... 1788
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 1792
Hans Dieter Betz

Unique by Comparison: The Eucharist and Mithras Cult................................................ 1795
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1795
2. Justin Martyr............................................................................................................... 1797
2.1. The author ............................................................................................................. 1797
2.2. The name Eucharist and what it stands for .....................................................1800
2.3. Justin’s texts in manuscripts and traditions ....................................................1802
2.4. The aims and purposes of comparison ............................................................1803
3. Tertullian ..................................................................................................................... 1814

XXX Table of Contents
3.1. The author ............................................................................................................. 1814

3.2. De praescriptione haereticorum 40 ................................................................... 1815
3.3. De corona 15.3–4................................................................................................... 1818
4. Clement of Alexandria...............................................................................................1820
4.1. The author.............................................................................................................1820
4.2. The texts ................................................................................................................ 1822
4.3. Clement and the mystery-cults.......................................................................... 1823
5. Firmicus Maternus .....................................................................................................1824
5.1. The author .............................................................................................................1824
5.2. The text De errore profanarum religionum ...................................................... 1825
Einar Thomassen
The Eucharist in Valentinianism .......................................................................................... 1833
1. The “Gnostics” and the Eucharist ............................................................................ 1833
2. Irenaeus and Valentinian Eucharist ........................................................................ 1835
3. The Gospel of Philip ................................................................................................... 1836
3.1. The Eucharist and the Bridal Chamber............................................................ 1836
3.2. The Flesh and the Blood ..................................................................................... 1837
3.3. The Resurrection of the Flesh ............................................................................1840
3.4. The Value of Ritual..............................................................................................1842
3.5. Sacraments and Incarnation ..............................................................................1844
3.6. The Eucharist and Crucifixion ..........................................................................1844
4. The Eucharist of Marcus............................................................................................1846
David Hellholm
Aliments of Immortality in the Afterlife: Apocalyptic and Eschatological
Notions of Eternal Life ........................................................................................................... 1851
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1851
2. Heavenly Journeys – Round Trips ........................................................................... 1852
2.1. A Mesopotamian Text ........................................................................................ 1852
2.2. Iranian Texts ........................................................................................................ 1854
2.3. Jewish Texts .......................................................................................................... 1861
2.4. Greek Texts...........................................................................................................1864
2.5. Jewish and/or Christian Texts ........................................................................... 1873
3. The Destiny of the Soul (and Body) after Death – One Way Trips .....................1877
3.1. Iranian Texts ........................................................................................................1877
3.2. Jewish/Jewish and Christian/Christian Texts ................................................ 1882
3.3. New Testament Texts .......................................................................................... 1891
4. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................1898
Images and Illustrations

Ulrich Kuder, “Die Eucharistie in Bildwerken vom frühen 3. bis zum 7.
Jahrhundert” ............................................................................................................................ 1911
Andrea Kucharek: “Profan – kultisch – funerär” ..............................................................1999

Table of Contents XXXI
Peter Ruggenddorfer: “Das Mahl zu Ehren der Verstorbenen” .......................................2001

Norbert Zimmermann: “Archäologische Zeugnisse von Gemeinschafts-
und Kultmählern aus römischer Zeit” ................................................................................ 2013
Bernhard Domagalski: “Antike Mähler in archäologischen Zeugnissen” .....................2025
Christa Müller-Kessler: “Sacred Meals and Rituals of the Mandaeans” ........................2041
Abbreviations
Abbreviations ..........................................................................................................................2045
1. Abbreviations of Biblical and Other Ancient Writings ........................................2045
2. General Abbreviations ...............................................................................................2045
3. For the abbreviations of Periodicals, Reference Works, Series et cet-
era the systems of the IATG3, SBL Handbook and OCD have been
adopted for all essays. ................................................................................................2046
4. Abbreviations of Periodicals, Reference Works, and Series not
available in IATG3, SBL Handbook, and OCD ......................................................2046
Indices and Contributors

Index auctorum nostri temporis ..........................................................................................2049
Index rerum et nominum ......................................................................................................2081
Index locorum .........................................................................................................................2121
Index graecitatis ...................................................................................................................... 2187
Editors and Contributors ....................................................................................................... 2193

‘A Drop of Salvation’
Ephrem the Syrian on the Eucharist
Kees den Biesen
Abriss
Ephrem der Syrer (ca. 300 – 9 Juni 373) war Theologe und Dichter. Er lehrte an der christ-
lichen madrastā oder Schule seiner Heimatstadt Nisibis im nördlichen Mesopotamien,
schrieb aber auch hunderte Madrāšē oder Lehrgedichte, die während den Gottesdiens-
ten von einem Frauenchor gesungen wurden, den Ephrem eigens für eine solche litur-
gische Aufführung ins Leben gerufen hatte. Obwohl diese Madrāšē deutlich die Lehre,
die Ephrem als Theologe entwickelte, in die Liturgie hinübertragen, beschränkt sich ihre
rituelle Rolle nicht auf des Lehrelement. Mittels nuancierter rhetorischer Strategien und
einer einzigartigen liturgischen Choreographie verwandelt Ephrem seine Kompositionen
in vollwertigen liturgischen Formen (Abschnitt 1). Diese Eigenschaft seiner Madrāšē zeigt,
dass Ephrem die Liturgie als eine Begegnung mit Gott betrachtet, die sich innerhalb der
Grenzen von Raum und Zeit entfaltet: materielle Elemente wie Körper, Stimmen, Worte,
Artefakte, Bewegungen und Räume schaffen in einem einzigen, allumfassenden Kunst-
werk ein rituelles hic et hodie von sakralem Raum und sakraler Zeit (Abschnitt 2). Von den
materiellen Elementen des eucharistischen Rituales, so wie Ephrem es kannte, können nur
wenige einigermaßen rekonstruiert werden (Abschnitt 3). Die intellektuelle Dynamik, die
Ephrems Verständnis der Eucharistie zugrunde liegt, ist jedoch ein wesentlicher Bestand-
teil seiner symbolischen Theologie als ganzer (Abschnitt 4). Die Eucharistie ist Teil einer
lebenslangen Initiation in die christliche Weltsicht und als solche die Vorwegnahme von,
und Vorbereitung auf, einer eschatologischen heiligen Mahlzeit in “am Tisch des himmli-
schen Königreichs” (Abschnitt 5).
Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 300–373), the great poet-theologian of Syriac Christianity, lived
most of his life in Nisibis, the largest Roman stronghold on the Persian border. It was an
important commercial center in northern Mesopotamia with a mixed population and a
somewhat cosmopolitan character. Jacob, the first bishop of Nisibis (active between ca.
303 and 338), founded a Christian school that was probably modeled after the Jewish
schools of Mesopotamia, one of which had been founded in Nisibis about two hundred
years earlier. Ephrem grew up as a pupil of Jacob, who perhaps ordained him a dea-
con and then appointed him as mfašqānā or ‘explainer’ of the Scriptures at his school.
Ephrem praises Jacob, one of the signatories of the Council of Nicea (321), as the father
of the small orthodox community of Nisibis who gave it a strong orientation towards the

1122 Kees den Biesen
church of the Roman Empire.1 After Jacob, Ephrem served his community under bishops
Babu (338–350), Vologeses (350–361/362) and Abraham (361/362-?). Some time after the
Romans handed the town over to the Sassanians in 363, Ephrem left Nisibis along with
most of the Christian population and moved to Edessa, where he died in 373.
Deploying his literary and poetic gifts in the service of his community, Ephrem be-
came the driving force of the school and produced a literary corpus that has only partially
been preserved. He wrote in Syriac, a form of Aramaic that originated in the area around
Edessa and developed into the common literary, intellectual and liturgical language of
Mesopotamian Christianity. A small number of dense, yet well-written exegetical and
philosophical-theological treatises meant for his students testify to Ephrem’s teaching
activities.2 While his prose works freely combine straight prose with artistic or rhythmic
prose,3 Ephrem’s poetry can be divided into two distinct categories: mēmrē or ‘verse hom-
ilies’ that typically employ a meter of seven plus seven syllables per verse and two verses
per stanza, and madrāšē or ‘teaching songs’ that have a strophic structure and employ a
great variety of meters.4 Of the latter, some four hundred have been preserved.5
Ephrem’s writings, especially his madrāšē, are among our earliest sources for the
study of ritual and sacrament in the Syriac tradition. They have often been quoted in his-
torical surveys6 and topical studies,7 in introductory articles regarding Ephrem’s under-
standing of the Eucharist,8 and, most extensively, in several monographs dedicated to his
sacramental theology.9 Most of these studies antedate a recent development in Ephrem
studies, thanks to which scholars of various disciplines have started to contribute to an
interdisciplinary approach to Ephrem’s writings.10 The combination of the customary
descriptive-analytical method with literary criticism, poetical and rhetorical analysis,
philosophical hermeneutics and theological reflection has opened new perspectives on
the ritual Sitz im Leben of Ephrem’s poetry and on his understanding of the importance
of liturgical celebration for the social, spiritual and intellectual life of his community. It
1 See Sidney H. Griffith, “Ephraem, the deacon of Edessa” and Paul S. Russell, “Nisibis as a back-
ground to the life of Ephrem the Syrian”.
2 See especially his Commentary on Genesis and Commentary on Exodus, in Raymond M. Tonneau,
Sancti Ephraem Syri in Genesim et in Exodum commentarii, and the rich collection of polemic treatises in
Charles Wand Mitchell, S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations.
3 Beautifully demonstrated by his Letter to Publius, in Sebastian P. Brock, “Ephrem’s letter to Publius”.
4 See Sebastian P. Brock, “Poetry and Hymnography” for an introduction to Syriac poetry.
5 For an overview of the collections in which these madrāšē have reached us, see Kees den Biesen, Anno-
tated Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian, 22–33 (§§ 17–47).
6 E.g. in Johannes Quasten, Monumenta eucharistica (1935–1937); J. Solano, Textos Eucaristicos Primi-
tivos (1952–1954); Jean-Marc Dufort, Le symbolisme eucharistique (1969).
7 Like Johannes Petrus de Jong, “La connexion” (1957); Franz Joseph Dölger, “Die Signierung
des eucharistischen Brotes” (1976); Pierre Yousif, “Typologie und Eucharistie” (1982) and Gerard A. M.
Rouwhorst, Les hymnes pascales d’Éphrem de Nisibe (1989).
8 Most notably Edmund Beck, “Die Eucharistie bei Ephraem” (1954); Francois Graffin, ‘L’Eucharistie
chez saint Éphrem’ (1973); Joseph P. Amar, “Perspectives on the Eucharist” (1987) and Sidney H. Griffith,
“Spirit in the Bread” (1999).
9 George Saber, La théologie baptismale de S. Éphrem (1974); Edmund Beck, Dorea und Charis. Die Tau-
fe (1984); Pierre Yousif, L’Eucharistie chez S. Éphrem (1984); Elena Narinskaya, The Poetic Hymns of Saint
Ephrem (2013). See den Biesen, Annotated Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian, 105 (§ 291), for a list of studies
concerning Ephrem’s ecclesiology and sacramental doctrine.
10 See Kees den Biesen, Simple and Bold, IX–XI, XIV–XVI, 9–46, 93–95 and especially 279–319; also, for
a summary, Kees den Biesen, “Ephrem the theologian”.

‘A Drop of Salvation’ 1123
is from this interdisciplinary angle that the present article endeavors to draw an overall
picture of Ephrem’s understanding of the Eucharist, which can serve as an introduction
to further research.
The first section, “Poetry, performance and ritual,” shows that Ephrem intended his
madrāšē or ‘teaching songs’ to be sung during the liturgy. He understood them to be
more than poetic and musical embodiments of his teaching, suitably used to embellish
the worship of his Nisibene community; he wrote them for a liturgical performance that
revealed them to be integral parts of the ritual as such.
The second section, “Ritual and the physical presence of God,” analyses the various
ways in which Ephrem considers the Incarnation of God to be the key to a right under-
standing of the Christian liturgy, which is all about the encounter with the divine within
the limits of space and time. Through the ritual itself, space and time are experienced as
‘sacred’, as a single hic et hodie, in which the invisible becomes visible and the immanence
of the transcendent God is directly experienced.
In the third section, “Liturgical acts, artefacts and attitudes,” a closer look is taken at
a few tangible elements of the Eucharistic ritual or Qurbānā as Ephrem knew it. Since he
never wrote a systematic explanation of the liturgy of the church of Nisibis, only a patchy
picture of its practice can be reconstructed.
The article ends with two short sections. The fourth, “Sacred ritual and symbolical
thought,” continues the line of thought of sections 1 and 2 to briefly explore the intellec-
tual dynamism underlying Ephrem’s understanding of the Eucharist; the fifth section,
“The Table of the Kingdom”, finally shows this very dynamism to be an anticipation of
and preparation for an eschatological sacred meal.
1. Poetry, performance and ritual

Both the content of Ephrem’s madrāšē and their rhetorical strategies as well as their use
of refrains suggest that most were meant for liturgical performance. Thus the yulpānā or
‘doctrine’ of the Nisibine madraštā or ‘institute of teaching’ seems to have spilled over
into liturgical poetry. According to later tradition, most notably Jacob of Sarug (ca. 451
– 521), Ephrem wrote many of his madrāšē for a performance by the women’s choir he
had established. These women, and almost certainly Ephrem himself, belonged to the
‘Sons and Daughters of the Covenant’ (bnay wa-bnāt qyāmā), married and unmarried lay
people who dedicated their lives to God, living in small celibate communities and serving
the local Christian church. Together these btule or btuloto, ‘male and female virgins’, and
qaddīše and qaddīšoto, ‘male and female saints’ or ‘continents’, represented the distinctive
Syriac form of asceticism that was found all over fourth-century Syria and Mesopotamia,
on both Roman and Persian territory.11
According to Jacob of Sarug’s Mēmrā on St. Ephrem, Ephrem instituted a women’s
choir in order to introduce the female voice into the liturgy and to emphatically assert his
11 Recent studies include Edward George Mathews, “Saint Ephrem the Syrian” (2001–2002); Naomi
Koltun-Fromm, Hermeneutics of Holiness (2010); Dmitrij Bumazhnov, “Qyāmā before Aphrahat” (2011);
see also Robert A. Kitchen, “Bnay Qyāmā” (2011).

understanding of the equal rank men and women should occupy in society and church
because they will do so in the Kingdom of God:12
“Our sisters were strengthened by you to give praise;
for women were not allowed to speak in church.
Your instruction opened the closed mouth of the daughters of Eve;
and behold, the gatherings of the glorious church resound with their voices!
A new sight of women uttering the proclamation;
and behold, they are called teachers among the congregations!
Your teaching signifies an entirely new world;
for yonder in the Kingdom, men and women are equal.”
Jacob calls these women malfānyātā, the female plural of malfānā, the much respected
title early Syriac tradition gave to Ephrem himself. To be called ‘teachers’ in church and
perform their role as teachers during ritual meant a world of difference, not only for the
women involved, but for all female members of Ephrem’s community. Susan Ashbrook
Harvey’s studies of a variety of madrāšē have analyzed the astute, yet effective and con-
vincing ways in which Ephrem employs rhetorical, conceptual and performative strat-
egies in order to challenge the established civic and social order of his times with its
patriarchal structure and ensuing sexist values and constraints.13
This issue is part of Ephrem’s overall effort to draw a clear distinction between a
worldly understanding of life and the Christian faith’s perspective. In some of his Teach-
ing Songs on the Nativity, for example, he introduces Mary, the mother of Jesus, singing
nuṣrātā or lullabies to her little baby. One of the most important themes she thus medi-
tates upon is the mysterious preference that God has for all that is poor and weak:14
“Amazed at me are all the chaste
daughters of the Hebrews and the virgin
daughters of rulers. Because of you is begrudged
a daughter of the poor; because of you, is envied
a daughter of the destitute: who gave you to me?
“Son of the Rich One, who despised the womb
of rich women, what drew you
toward the poor? For Joseph is needy
and I am destitute. Your merchants15
brought gold to the house of the poor!
“See, I am oppressed and slandered,
yet serene. My ears are filled
with reproach and derision, yet it is a small matter to me
how much I have to bear, for thousands of afflictions
are chased away by a single consolation from you.”
Ephrem not only puts these words into Mary’s mouth as the writer he is; as the choirmas-
ter and liturgical choreographer he is, he also puts Mary’s speech into the mouths of his
12 Stanzas 40–44 in Jospeh P. Amar, A Metrical Homily on holy Mar Ephrem, 35. All translations from
Syriac and Armenian are mine.
13 See especially “Spoken words, voiced silence”; “Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant”; “On Mary’s
voice”.
14 Teaching Song on the Nativity 15:2–3 & 7 in Edmund Beck, Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), 83–84.
15 An allusion to the Magi, who are mentioned at the beginning of stanza 4 (not quoted here).

singing women. He thus realizes a strategy within a strategy: in and through their voices,
Mary “offers her own voice for teaching the faithful”16 about the incompatibility between
the way individual people and society at large consider material wealth and poverty, and
the way God does. Ephrem does not just place Mary, as an object of devotion, within
the context of the biblical world that belongs to the past and is poetically retold during
the ritual performance, as most authors do after him.17 She is presented as a subject who
participates in, and actually leads, the Nativity liturgy thanks to the mediation of the
physical presence and energy of his singing women.
There is a precise theological reason for this. In fact, whose voice can better celebrate
the Incarnation than the voice of the woman who is most intimately involved with the
paradoxes of God Incarnate and who is full of paradoxes herself?18
Your mother, Lord, no one knows
what to call her: call her ‘virgin’,
her child is right there! or ‘married woman’,
no man has known her! If your mother
is incomprehensible, who can understand you?
For she was betrothed according to nature
before you came, yet conceived
outside of nature after you came,
o Holy One, and was a virgin
when she gave birth to you in a holy way.
Through you, Mary underwent all that
married women undergo: conception in herself
without intercourse; milk in her breasts
in an unusual way: you all of a sudden
made the thirsty earth19 into a fountain of milk!
A wonder is your mother: the Lord entered her
and became a servant; the Eloquent entered,
and became silent in her; the Thunder entered her,
and silenced his voice; the Shepherd of all entered,
became a lamb in her, and came forth bleating.
Because of her deep involvement with, and understanding of, the paradoxes of the Incar-
nation, Mary’s voice is wonderfully suited to express theological considerations that play
upon these paradoxes. Yet, a woman’s proclamation of the mystery of the Nativity, put
into her mouth by a male poet, can go much further than that. By having Mary’s imaged
speech performed by his women’s choir as part of a liturgical celebration, Ephrem makes
sure the paradoxes of the Incarnation “become embodied rather than observed, enact-
ed rather than considered … Voiced by Ephrem the hymnographer, these paradoxes are
proclaimed as observations whose contemplation elicits our astonishment … Voiced by
Ephrem’s Mary, these same paradoxes become encountered experiences:”20
16 Susan A. Harvey, “Mary’s voice”, 64.

17 Cf. Harvey’s analysis of several anonymous madrāšē and Jacob of Sarug’s mēmrē, ibid. 72–81.
18 Teaching Song on the Nativity 11:1, 3–4 & 6 in Beck, Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), 69–70.
19 Cf. Isa 53:2.
20 Harvey, “Mary’s voice”, 68. The following quotation is from Teaching Song on the Nativity 16:2–3 in
Beck, Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), 83–84.

“While you were dwelling in me, your Majesty dwelt

both in me and outside of me; and while I gave birth to you
in a visible way, your hidden power
did not leave me: you are inside of me
and outside of me – you who confuse your mother!
“When I see your exterior image, that is
before my eyes, your hidden image
is depicted in my mind: in your visible image
I have seen Adam, and in the hidden one
your Father, who is united with you.”
Mary’s reflections upon the child that she carried in her womb and now holds in her
arms, are constructed around two polarities. The first, ‘inside–outside’ (bi wa-lbar meny),
directly expresses her physical experience of pregnancy and birth. The second polarity,
‘visible – hidden’ (galyā w-kasyā), by contrast, expresses her insight into the mystery of
her child. Both polarities establish her presence in the middle of the Christian commu-
nity as a young mother who, precisely because she is “materially poor, vulnerably young,
and scandalously female,”21 reverses all accepted standards and becomes the model be-
liever and theologian. In fact, the binomial ‘visible–hidden’ constitutes one of several
polarities that form the poetical, rhetorical and intellectual foundation of Ephrem’s the-
ology, in which also concepts like ‘image’ (ṣalmā), ‘eye’ (‘aynā) and ‘seeing’ (ḥzā) play a
fundamental role. In the few words she speaks here, Mary is actually expressing the core
movement of Ephrem’s thought, which, as we will see in the fourth section of this article,
passes from the outside to the inside of things, from the visible to the invisible, from the
human to the divine, in order to always return to the exterior, physical and tangible as the
only point of access to meaning, redemption, life and divine fulfillment.
2. Ritual and the physical presence of God

Through the voices, bodies and emotional energy of the singing women, both btuloto,
‘virgins’ and qaddišoto, ‘married women living in sexual abstinence’, the presence of the
young virgin mother crooning to her baby boy becomes the focal point of the whole cel-
ebration.22 Thus, for Ephrem, ritual seems to involve embodiment, enactment, encounter
and experience. It does not come as a surprise, then, that the next stanzas of this Teaching
Song on the Nativity draw a parallel between Christ’s physical body and his sacramental
body:23
“Was it only to me, through these two images,
that you showed your beauty? May also bread
and mind depict you! Dwell in the bread
and in those that eat it! Hidden and visible
may your church see you, just as I, who bore you, do!”
Just as Mary perceives two images of Christ—since his presence is visible and invisible,
physical and divine, outside of her and in her—she invites the worshippers to perceive
21 Harvey, “Mary’s voice”, p. 69.
22 See further, den Biesen, Simple and Bold, 325–329.
23 Teaching Song on the Nativity 16:4–7 in Beck, Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), p. 84. Only stanza 4
is quoted here.

his double presence in the bread and in themselves. Yet through the ritual performance
of her words another striking convergence arises, i.e. between Mary’s physical presence,
mediated by the singing women’s voices and bodies, and the physical presence of Christ,
mediated by the sacramental ministry of the bishop or priest.
One of Ephrem’s favorite images for this physical presence of the divine in Mary’s
womb, in Jesus’ body, in the sacred bread and wine, and in the faithful’s lives, is that of
‘Fire and Spirit’ (nurā w-ruḥā),24 which he also applies to the ritual of Baptism:25
See, Fire and Spirit in the womb that bore you!
See, Fire and Spirit in the river in which you were baptized!
Fire and Spirit in our Baptism!
In the bread and cup: Fire and Holy Spirit!
In your bread is hidden the Spirit who cannot be eaten;
in your wine dwells the Fire that cannot be drunk:
Spirit in your bread, Fire in your wine —
an awesome wonder, that our lips have received!
In a similar passage Ephrem adds to the bread (laḥmā) and wine (ḥamrā) of the Eucharist
and to the water of Baptism (ma‘mudītā) the sacramental ointment with the oil (mešḥā):26
In the bread is eaten the Force (tuqpā) that cannot be eaten,
in the wine is drunk the Strength (‘uzā) that cannot be drunk,
and in the oil we anoint with the Power (ḥaylā) with which cannot be anointed.
Instead of using the image of Fire and Spirit, Ephrem here employs three more or less
synonymous terms, the latter of which, ḥaylā, he frequently employs as an epithet of God.
Through the rituals of the immersion in sacred water, the anointment with sacred oil and
the consumption of sacred bread and wine, this divine force of Fire and Spirit enters into
human existence as a source of renewal:27
When the Lord came down to earth, to the mortal ones,
he created them into a new creation, similar to the Watchers:28
for Spirit and Fire he mingled in them,29
so that in a hidden way they might be of Fire and Spirit.
In the ritual celebrations, the same creative force of God that brought forth everything
out of nothing, is at work in order to recreate mortal creatures in view of an immortal life
like that of angels. The comparison of the faithful with the ever wake Watchers probably
refers to Luke 20:35–36, where the life of the resurrected is compared to that of angels.
Evidently, the comparison falls short because of the central role performed by matter,
24 See Phil J. Botha, “Fire mingled with Spirit”, Griffith, “Spirit in the Bread” and Cornelia Horn,
“Fire and Holy Spirit”. For the wider Syriac context of this theme, cf. Sebastian P. Brock, “Fire from Heaven”
and The Holy Spirit.
25 Teaching Song on Faith 10:17 & 8 in Edmund Beck, Hymnen de Fide, 50–51.
26 Teaching Song on Faith 6:4,1–6, ibid. 25.
27 Teaching Song on Faith 10:9, ibid. 50.
28 Besides mallākā, ‘messenger’ or ‘angel’ in general, Ephrem often uses the term ‘īrā, ‘the watcher, wake-
ful one’, cf. Robert Murray, “The origin”.
29 The verb mzag, ‘mix, mingle’ is one of Ephrem’s favorite terms to indicate the union of two disparate
elements, that have no common denominator and whose union is a mysterious synthesis of visible and invis-
ible, material and spiritual, created and uncreated, human and divine. In “Spirit in the Bread,” 230, 232 and
234, Griffith translates the verb with ‘knead into’, which beautifully expresses the physical dimension of the
union.

body and senses in the process of human redemption—a role that was only weakly hinted
at by the prefigurations in the Jewish Scriptures:30
The Seraph could not touch the fire’s coal with his fingers:
he just brought it close to Isaiah’s mouth.31
He did not hold it, the other did not eat it,
yet to us our Lord granted to do both!
Abraham brought the food of bodily beings
to the spiritual Watchers who ate.32 The new wonder
is that our mighty Lord made bodily beings
eat and drink Fire and Spirit!
During ritual the physical presence of the divine is manifested by means of those material
elements that constitute the very basis of human nourishment: water and oil, wheat and
wine. If one adds to these elements the physical presence of Ephrem’s singing women and
the architectonic space in which their voices resound, the liturgical encounter with God
can been seen to comprehend both space and time and all they contain.
This immanence in space and time of the transcendent God constitutes a liturgical
hic et hodie, that is, a single point both within and outside of ordinary space and time,
to which all places in three-dimensional space and all moments of linear time converge.
While space may be experienced as that which separates the human from the divine, the
‘below’ of earthly existence from the ‘above’ of heaven, the continuous sequence of time
is often experienced as a separation from the timeless ‘now’ of eternity. Yet in Ephrem’s
thought, both space and time are full of tangible manifestations of God, which he in-
dicates with terms like rāzā, ‘symbol’, dmūtā, ‘image’ and ṭupsā, ‘prefiguration’.33 As a
faithful heir of the Jewish and earliest Christian traditions, he expresses the cosmological
dimension of God’s presence in the human world through a symbolism of nature (kyānā)
or creation (brītā), its temporal dimension by means of a symbolism of typology.34
The Incarnation of Christ is the focal point of both space and time: as God made hu-
man and as the Alpha and Omega, he encompasses all of space and time, constituting the
total and final revelation of God in both creation and Scripture. In this human appear-
ance of God in the conditions of space and time, the very purpose of the world’s creation
and of humanity’s history is fulfilled:35
Anywhere you look, his symbol is there;
and wherever you read, you will find his prefiguration.
For by him were created all creatures
and he engraved his symbols upon his possessions.36
See, when he created the world,
he gazed at it and it was adorned with his images.
30 Teaching Song on Faith 10:10–11 in Beck, Hymnen de Fide, 50.

31 Cf. Isa 6:6–7.
32 Gen 18:8–9.
33 While rāzā is a Persian loanword, ṭupsā is derived from the Greek exegetical term τῦπος. Cf. Tanios
Bou Mansour, La pensée symbolique, 23–70, for an extensive analysis of Ephrem’s terminology in this field.
34 Cf. the first part of section “4. Sacred ritual and symbolical thought” below.
35 Teaching Song on Virginity 20:12,1–6 in Edmund Beck, Hymnen de Virginitate, 70–71.
36 Ephrem refers here to the ancient custom of marking one’s belongings, cf. Teaching Song on the Nativity
1:99, 12:3 and 28:7; see also Thomas Koonammakkal’s remarks in “Self-revealing God”, 245–246.

“Anywhere” (b-kul duk) and “wherever” (aykā) refer to the whole of creation and the
whole of Scripture respectively. Every aspect of creation (including the world of human
culture) and every moment in history is a potential, distinct and unique revelation of
him who encompasses all of space and time and constitutes a single hic et hodie. Ephrem
especially uses the term rāzā to indicate any thing or person or event in which God thus
appears and acts.
It is in sacred space and time, therefore, that the whole of creation and Scripture is
gathered to realize its very purpose. And it is the specific function of Christian initiatory
rituals to grant access to this sacred space and time. For Ephrem, God’s work among hu-
mans is an on-going process that starts with one’s initiation in Baptism, is continuously
nourished by the Eucharist, and is meant to affect every single moment of one’s individu-
al life. Sebastian Brock calls this “a continuous metanoia, … ceaselessly striving to make
sacred and historical time effectively one.”37
Especially in madrāšē celebrating the Incarnation, Ephrem explicitly points out how
a liturgical celebration transcends the limits of space and time, grounds the celebrating
individuals and their community in the divine dimension of both space and time, and
profoundly impacts their daily lives:38
Your birth, Lord, became mother of all creatures,
since she conceived and bore anew humanity that bore you.
She bore you physically, you gave birth to her spiritually.
You came to birth, only in order to give birth to humankind in your image.
See, your birth gave birth to the universe: blessed is he who became young and restored youth
to all!39
The day of your birth resembles you, for it is desirable and lovable like yourself:
we, who have not seen your birth, love it as if we were its contemporaries.
On your day we gaze at you, for it is a small child just like you,
loved by everyone: see, the churches rejoice in it!
Your day adorns and is adorned: blessed is your day that came to be for our sake!
That generation was delighted by your birth, our generation by your day.
Doubled was the bliss of the generation of those who saw your birth and your day;
smaller is the bliss of those who came later and only saw the day of your birth.
But since those who were near doubted, bliss increased for those who came later:
they believed in you without seeing you:40 blessed is your bliss that increased for us!
3. Liturgical acts, artefacts and attitudes

Like Christ’s birth from Mary, also the truths expressed by his long speech in John 6 and
the celebration of the Last Supper are recreated in whatever place and time the Chris-
tian community performs its rituals. All gaps in space and time are bridged, historical
moments are commemorated and actualized, the inner eyes are enabled to see the invis-
37 “The poet as theologian’, 247.

38 Teaching Song on the Nativity 23:5, 7 & 9 in: Beck, Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), 118–119.
39 The baptismal undertones of this stanza cannot be overheard, nor the references to John 3:2–6.
40 Cf. John 20:29.

ible, and new life is given to those who receive the rāzē or ‘symbols’ of Christ’s body and
blood:41
Our Lord said in the Gospel: “If someone does not eat the Son of Man’s body
nor drink his blood, he does not have the promised life.”42
Let us do our best, brothers, to become worthy to receive his Medicine of Life,
for everyone who does not receive it worthily, equals him who does not receive it.
At the moment the holy body is broken, we commemorate his sacrifice:
let all the body’s limbs tremble at the moment of the Only-Begotten’s sacrifice.
While his symbol is distributed, it is right that we should gaze on his death:
greater than all other moments is this moment of his sacrifice.
Let us look on with our inner eye, beholding him as he hangs from the Tree;
let our eyes gaze upon that blood which flowed from his side.
The ritual ‘symbols’ of Christ’s historical body and blood constitute the ‘Medicine of Life’
(sam ḥayye),43 i.e. the sacramental ‘fruit’ plucked from ‘the Tree’ of the Cross as antidote
for the death caused by the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which Adam and Eve ate be-
fore they were ripe for it.44
The physical acts of seeing, receiving, eating, and drinking on the part of those who
participate in the ritual, correspond to the physical acts performed by those who lead the
ritual and have been invested with the priesthood:45
If from the fringe of his garment a great healing force issued,46
how much more will issue from his body the reconciliation of the defiled!
In this moment the priest and he who receives it are one:
he is greater than us when he breaks it—when he receives it, he is equal to us.
He who offers has to be vigilant, and become smaller than he who receives;
and he who receives has to try to become bigger than he who offers.
They break the body by virtue of their [priestly] dignity;
people receive the body not on account of their ranks, but their deeds!
In poetic texts such as these it obviously is not Ephrem’s intention to comment on the
Eucharistic liturgy as a whole; in fact, also among his prose works there is no explanation
of the ritual as the Christian community of Nisibis celebrated it. The genre of liturgi-
cal commentaries would be developed only much later by Syrian Orthodox authors like
Gewargi, bishop of the Arab tribes († 724), Iwannis of Dara (fl. first half of ninth century),
41 Armenian Teaching Song 47,1–4 and 49,3–10 in Louis Mariès/Charles Mercier, Hymnes de saint
Éphrem, 218 and 266; the references give the verses according to the numbering of the text edition, since the
metrical structure of these texts, preserved only in Armenian translation, is not clear. For reasons of clarity,
this and the following quotations are divided here in stanzas of two verses each.
42 A paraphrase of John 6:53.
43 This characteristic expression is the Syriac equivalent of the Greek formula φάρμακον τοῦ βίου. See
Aho Shemunkasho, Healing in the Theology of Saint Ephrem, 147–151; Sebastian P. Brock, The Luminous
Eye, 99–114 and Yousif, L’eucharistie chez saint Éphrem, 317–319.
44 In Ephrem’s understanding, this never was a ‘forbidden fruit’: it was guarded by the ‘commandment’ of
Gen 2:16–17 for the time that Adam and Eve needed to learn how to approach it with discernment and humil-
ity. God intended by all means to grant them access to not only this fruit, but to that of the Tree of Life as well.
Cf. Teaching Songs on Paradise 3:6–12 and 12:15–18 in Edmund Beck, Hymnen de Paradiso, 9–11 and 53–54.
45 Armenian Teaching Song 47,31–39 in Mariès/Mercier, Hymnes de saint Éphrem, 220.
46 Cf. Matt 9:20–22, Mark 5:25–34 and Luke 8:43–48.

Muše bar Kifo († 903) and Dionysius bar Ṣalibi († 1171).47 Ephrem’s main concern in the
texts quoted above is to stress the right attitude required from both priest and congrega-
tion while celebrating the Eucharist—a theme we will shortly turn to at the end of this
section. At this point it is worth noting the fine distinction he draws between hierarchical
rank and ethical excellence: the priest derives his dignity from the service he renders to
the religious life of his fellow believers, a life of faith to whose moral requirements he is as
much subjected as they are.
There are a number of passages in Ephrem’s works that allow us to catch a glimpse
of some important elements of the Eucharistic ritual or Qurbānā as he knew it.48 Only a
patchy and quite dissatisfactory picture of the liturgical practice of his Nisibene commu-
nity can be reconstructed around the following themes: (1) the church building and its
altar, (2) the ‘fluttering’ of the priest’s hands over the bread and the wine, (3) the rite of the
‘signing’ of the broken bread with the consecrated wine, and (4) the communion.
3.1. The church building and its altar

Particularly relevant for our purpose are the following verses from Teaching Song on the
Crucifixion 3, in which Ephrem directly addresses the Upper Room of the Last Supper
and lists what seem to be fundamental components of the Eucharist:49
Blessed are you, room, for no one ever saw
what you saw nor will ever see it—
our Lord, while he became true altar,
priest, bread, and cup of salvation.
He himself, in his own person, could be all this,
for there was no one else who could be all this:
altar and lamb, sacrifice and sacrificer,
priest and food.
Christ himself was priest, altar, sacrifice, bread and cup, and thus made the Upper Room
into the first Christian church building in which his sacrifice was for the first time offered
to God on the first Christian altar:50
Blessed are you, room, for never among kings
was there a table set like yours,
not even in the tent of the Holy of Holies,
in which the bread of proposition was set.
In you was broken for the first time
the bread whose church building you became:
the firstling of altars, the first to offer it,
was first seen in you.
47 Introductions to these authors are found in Sebastian P. Brock/Aaron M. Butts/George A.

Kiraz/Lucas van Rompay, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary. Translations are found in Andreas Heinz, Die
Eucharistiefeier and Baby Varghese, Dionysius bar Salibi and John of Dara.
48 The following is largely based on Yousif, L’Eucharistie chez saint Éphrem, 146–156; for the Eucharist cel-
ebrated at Easter, see Rouwhorst, Les hymnes pascales d’Éphrem de Nisibe, 85–93 & 114. As the proper name
of the Eucharist, Ephrem uses the term qurbānā, whose meanings range from ‘offering’ and ‘gift’ to ‘oblation’
and ‘sacrifice’; see Yousif, ibid. 217–218.
49 Stanza 10, in Edmund Beck, Paschahymnen, 52.
50 Stanza 12, ibid., 53

Undoubtedly, all of this directly reflects the central roles played in Ephrem’s Qurbānā by
the church building and its altar – with on it bread and cup – and its bishop and priests.
Although he does not mention the anamnesis of the death and resurrection of Christ as
part of the Eucharistic prayer or anaphora,51 it is obvious that Ephrem considers the prac-
tice of the church to correspond to Jesus’ invitation to “do this is memory of me,”52 i.e. to
faithfully repeat what Jesus did:53
At the moment that the holy Body is broken, we commemorate his sacrifice.
Just as a door-curtain separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy in Moses’ Tabernacle,
the altar space of the Christian temple is closed off from the nave of the church building
by a curtain or veil.54 The spatial interplay between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ symbolizes the
relationship between ‘invisible’ and ‘visible’, that is, between the ‘hidden’ dimension of
God’s mystery and its ‘revealed’ dimension. Similarly, a veil on which a paten with the
bread and a cup with the wine are placed covers the altar, indicating the presence of a
invisible power:55
See, there is a hidden power in the sanctuary’s veil,
a power that even the mind has never confined:
it bent down its love and descended to hover
over the veil on the altar of reconciliation.56
Interestingly, Ephrem reconnects the play of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ between the sanctuary
with its altar on the one hand and the nave of the church building on the other, with the
primordial play of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ between the church building as a whole and the
immense space of creation:57
No one ever saw a ship at sea
going around by itself without a helmsman,
steering itself and fixing its own course.
Like ships they are all in need:
the soul of freedom, the creation of the Creator,
the church building of the Redeemer and the altar of the Holy Spirit.
While the Father is the all-encompassing Creator of the universe, the Son is the corner-
stone of the church building that embraces all of humankind within its walls, and the
Spirit the one who hovers over the altar on which Christ’s sacrifice is offered to the Father
51 According to the Chronicle of Seert I.26 (PO IV.17, p. 295), Ephrem “wrote a mass that is still used by
the Melchites. The Nestorians too celebrated this mass in Nisibis until the days of metropolitan Yešu‘yahb
who, when he organized the prayers, chose three masses and forbade the others” (Išo‘yahb III of Adiabene was
partriach of the Church of the East from 649–659). Yousif, L’Eucharistie chez saint Éphrem, 146–150, without
casting any doubt on the correctness of this information, suggests that some elements of this unknown text
may perhaps be found in the prayers with which the Commentary on the Diatessaron ends; cf. Louis Leloir,
Saint Éphrem. Commentaire de l’Évangile Concordant. Texte syriaque (Manuscrit Chester Beatty 709), Dublin:
Hodges Figgis & Co., 1963, 240–250.
52 Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24.
54 Cf. Exod 26:31–37, 35:12 and 39:34.
55 Teaching Song on Faith 10:16 in Beck, Hymnen de fide, 51.
56 The concept of reconciliation is particularly involved with another liturgical attribute, the incensory
(pirmā), cf. Teaching Song on Nisibis 17:4,5 where Ephrem addresses Abraham, the fourth bishop of Nisibis:
“May your incensory bring about reconciliation” in Edmund Beck, Carmina Nisbina (erster Teil), 46.
57 Teaching Song against Heresies 5:20 in Edmund Beck, Hymnen contra Haereses, 22–23.

in order to reconcile humanity with its Creator. Thus the altar is not only the focal point
of the church building, but also the center of the infinite space of nature. The architecton-
ic disposition of space allows Ephrem to relate three distinct spaces to each other—the
‘outside’ of natural space, the ‘inside’ of the church building, and the ‘even-more-inside’
of the sanctuary—and to use their relationships as the basis of an analogy with the three-
fold presence of the triune God in this world.
3.2. The ‘fluttering’ of the priest’s hands

Ephrem mentions only a few of the actions performed by the priest during the Qurbānā,
one of which is based on the same interplay between ‘invisible’ and ‘visible’. This is the
so-called ‘fluttering’ (ruḥḥāfā) of the priest’s hands over the paten and the cup. Through
a visual representation of an invisible descent, the priest invites ‘Fire and Spirit’ (nurā
w-ruḥā)58 to enter into the gifts of bread and wine:59
While the right hand gently calls her, she descends without changing place.
‘She/her’ is the Spirit, ruḥā being a feminine word. In accordance with biblical symbolism
and early oriental Christian liturgy, Ephrem visualizes her descent as that of a bird, unit-
ing this image with that of the hovering (ruḥḥāfā) of the Spirit over the primordial waters
of Gen 1:260 and that of the dove coming down upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan.
He nowhere actually identifies the bird with a dove, yet it is significant that also yawnā,
‘dove’ is a feminine noun. Whether this invocation by means of a movement of the hand
accompanied a prayer of epiclesis remains unclear.
3.3. The ‘signing’ of the broken bread with the consecrated wine
After the breaking of the consecrated bread another symbolical gesture is performed by
the priest:61
See, your image is drawn with the blood of grapes62
on the surface of the bread, as it is drawn on the heart
by the finger of love with the colors
of faith…
A form of this gesture is still found in both the West-Syrian and East-Syrian liturgies,
which use a small piece of bread dipped in the wine to draw the sign of the cross on the
main Eucharistic host.63 Without speaking of a piece of bread or of the sign of the cross,
Ephrem’s words seem to imply that the priest dips his finger in the chalice and simply
puts some of the wine on the bread. “Your image is drawn … on the surface of the bread”
58 See section “2. Ritual and the physical presence of God”.

59 Armenian Teaching Song 48,27–28 in Mariès/Mercier, Hymnes de saint Éphrem, 224. The priest thus
marks what Western tradition later came to consider the defining moment of the Qurbānā. In the Latin tra-
dition the consecration is considered to happen at the moment the priest pronounces the words of the Eucha-
rist’s institution.
60 The verb is used in the quotation of Teaching Song on Faith 10:16 above.
61 Teaching Song on the Nativity 16:7, 1–4 in Beck, Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), 84.
62 Cf. Gen 49:11 and Deut 32:14.
63 Dölger, “Die Signierung des eucharistischen Brotes”.

most probably refers to what Mary said in an earlier stanza of this Teaching Song on the
Nativity:64
… “May also bread and mind depict you!
Dwell in the bread and in those that eat it!”
Instead of some image, literally drawn upon the bread, a little wine on the surface of the
bread has to be seen as a symbol of Christ’s real presence in both species. This is per-
haps confirmed by an expression used in Teaching Song on Faith 10:16, which instead of
mentioning the bread speaks of ‘a drop’ of the wine that is handed to women receiving
communion over an outstretched veil:65
From the cup of salvation, a drop of salvation
your mothers receive, over the veil.
In Teaching Song against Heresies 45:1 Ephrem points out the inconsistency of the Eucha-
ristic rituals of the Marcionites, who, though they deny the importance of the historical
body of Christ and thus his real presence in the bread and wine, nevertheless perform the
same symbolical gesture:66
Children of truth, sing praise!
For your persecutors are your heralds
and your enemies your warrantors,
who warranted and wrote and autographed
that it truly is the life-giving body of Christ.
They wrote, not on parchment but on the bread they broke;
without ink, they signed it with wine:
an embarrassment for them, for you a victory!
The signing of the bread with the wine is thus compared to a hand-written signature,
authenticating the belief that in the Eucharistic bread the body of Christ is truly received.
3.4. The communion

The faithful receive communion on their hands, that is, with their fingers they take the
bread that is signed with the blood and put it into their mouths:67
Our mouth is too small to give thanks, our tongue too small to praise,
for he, for whom the heavens are small, became small so as to dwell in our hands!
Mount Sinai, on which he descended, shook with great thudding;
the power that subdued the mountain, our fingers receive and hold!
He encloses earth, sea and heaven as in the palm of a hand,
yet for him, for whom the creatures are too small, our feeble mouth is big enough.
It is a wondrous gift, that the Lord should forever dwell among us;
see, he left heaven and descended: let us sanctify the bridal chamber of our hearts!
64 Stanza 4,2–3 quoted above.

65 Verses 3–4 in Beck, Hymnen de Fide, 51.
66 Beck, Hymnen contra Haereses, 177–178.

The “bridal chamber of our hearts” is a recurrent theme in Ephrem’s writings and one of
several that he shares with Origen of Alexandria (ca.185–253/254).68 Here it is an image
of the inner shrine of the heart—after nature, church building and sanctuary the fourth
space into which God enters.
In many instances Ephrem stresses the attitude that is required to receive this com-
munion with the body and blood of Christ. One has to examine one’s conscience in order
to see if there is any serious impediment to approach the sacrament, and thus avoid re-
ceiving it in an unworthy way; one has to repent of one’s sins, ask God for forgiveness, and
then approach communion with reverence and a pure heart.69
The required moral attitude is, of course, the means to an end—not an end in itself, as
if it were possible to adequately respond to the presence of God in creation, in the ritual,
and in oneself. What is required, however, is a conscious response to a reality that is expe-
rienced and acknowledged as a mystery. The ever profounder perception of that mystery
is the true object of Ephrem’s admonitions and relates to one of the fundamental concepts
of his symbolical theology, puršānā or ‘discernment’:70
With fear and love let us approach the Medicine of Life, as people gifted with discernment;
let our heart hold in awe his death, let our soul yearn for his mystery.
This is more than a simple referral to the discernment required by Paul in 1 Cor 11:29.
The polarity between ‘fear’ (deḥltā) and ‘love’ (ḥubbā), between awe and yearning for
God’s presence, is one of several fundamental binomials constructed by Ephrem in order
to highlight the tensions inherent in a Christian world view.71 A strong, fine-tuned and
delicately balanced intelligence is required to understand the symbolical relationships
between matter and spirit, visible and invisible, life and death and life beyond death,
time and eternity. In all liturgical acts, artifacts and attitudes, the one and same ‘discern-
ment’ is required in order to be able to perceive and understand their symbolical nature:
puršānā is the ability to perceive in the material, physical and sensory elements of the
ritual the divine ‘Fire and Spirit’.
4. Sacred ritual and symbolical thought

In Ephrem’s understanding, only the material conditions of space and time give access
to this ‘Fire and Spirit’, as a direct consequence of the Father’s on-going creation of the
world, of the Incarnation of the Son, and of the Spirit’s presence in daily life. Who is
unable to first clearly distinguish and then intimately relate the transcendent and the
immanent—either by reducing the one to the other or by simply keeping them separate
from each other—will misunderstand the nature and purpose of the Christian ritual.
Ephrem’s understanding of the liturgy is, in fact, a condensation of his whole poetical
and theological vision. He explains the relationship between God, creation and human-
68 See Brock, The Luminous Eye, 115–130 for an overview of the various ways in which Ephrem uses this
image; Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 254–262, provides an introduction to its eschato-
logical application in the early Syriac tradition as a whole. Especially in his Commentary on the Song of Songs,
Origen develops a bridal theology or theology of the mystical union of God and man.
69 Armenian Teaching Song 50, passim, in Mariès/Mercier, Hymnes de saint Éphrem, 232–236. Cf.
Yousif, L’Eucharistie chez saint Ephrem, 307–316 for many more quotations.
71 See the examples given at the end of section “1. Poetry, performance and ritual”.

kind by means of an integration of two Christian axioms: while there is an ontological

gap between Creator and creation, all of created reality constitutes a potential revelation
of God that is waiting to be perceived by the human consciousness, insight and heart.
The invisible (kasyā) is fundamentally different from the visible (galyā), yet at the same
time reveals itself in and through the visible, that is, through the symbol (rāzā). All of
visible creation is, in an ontological sense, ‘symbolical’: it is in and through the visible re-
ality of creation that the human creature meets its invisible Creator. Applied to Ephrem’s
thought, the Greek term ‘symbol’ regains its original meaning: in the σύμβολον, Creator
and creation ‘fit together’ (συμβάλλειν) as two entirely distinct realities, that entertain a
most intense and intimate relationship. In many ways, rāzā is close to other early Chris-
tian terms like μυστήριον and sacramentum.
Ephrem’s symbolic vision can be illustrated by means of a figure with a horizontal and
a vertical axis intersecting at midpoint.72 The vertical axis represents the ontological dis-
tance between the Creator and creation, while the horizontal axis expresses the distance
in time between the primordial and the final Paradise. The cosmological axis connects
the ‘below’ to the ‘above’ and represents the dimension of space, in which God is revealed
through the symbolism of nature or creation. The historical axis runs from the ‘before’
to the ‘after’ and represents the dimension of time, in which God is revealed through the
symbolism of biblical typology. The intersection of the two axes represents the Incarna-
tion of Christ who, as God made human and as the Alpha and Omega, unites the ‘below’
with the ‘above’ and the ‘before’ with the ‘after’ and thus constitutes the all-encompassing
rāzā or revelation of God.73
Ephrem expresses the tensions inherent in this dynamic and kaleidoscopic vision by
means of a variety of images, all of which employ binomials like ‘majesty and lowliness’,
‘hidden and revealed’, ‘eternal and mortal’, ‘holy and sinful’, ‘foreshadowing and fulfill-
ment’, ‘temporary and lasting’, et cetera. Each of these polarities embodies the primordial
polarity between Creator and creation and at the same time expresses an aspect of God’s
historical self-revelation through which the Invisible is seen, the Unknowable known,
and the Omnipresent and Eternal experienced within the very limits of space and time.
This vision yields poetry of great originality and astounding creativity. Yet, however
exuberant Ephrem’s imagination may be, none of it is mere wordplay. To his mind, the ex-
istential experience, intellectual perception and literary expression of all these symbolic
relationships are founded on the ontological order. God created the world as a vast treas-
ure house of symbols and the human being as the one creature that is able to comprehend
all these revelatory relationships between the Invisible and the visible:74
See, intelligent reflection resembles a treasurer
who, on his shoulders, carries the keys of doctrine
and for each locked door makes a key
that effortlessly opens what is difficult,
instructs in what is revealed and teaches about what is hidden,
training souls and enriching creatures.
72 This figure was designed and described by Robert Murray in “The theory of symbolism”. Cf. den
Biesen, Simple and Bold, 22–27.
73 Cf. the second half of section “2. Ritual and the physical presence of God”.
74 Teaching Song on Paradise 15:6 in Beck, Hymnen de Paradiso, 63.

Based on the discernment (puršānā) of the Christian faith, this intelligent reflection
(buyyānā) develops a doctrine (yulpānā) that literally and figuratively opens our eyes for
the symbolical structure of the world.
Since creation—that is, space and time and all they contain—is by its very nature sym-
bolic, the only appropriate way (and not, as is often said, the least inappropriate way) to
reflect and speak about the mystery of God and human salvation may be called ‘symbol-
ical thought’. This thought operates through the artistic construction of polarities, that
is, through the arrangement of words whose relationships create spaces and silences in
which the unknowable and ineffable can enter and reveal itself to human experience and
understanding. The concepts developed by symbolical thought therefore always remain
‘open’, since they are like windows that disclose infinite horizons.75 Ephrem’s symbolical
theology aims at setting people free to explore the mysteries of faith on their own initia-
tive, not impeded but rather stimulated by the clear and subtle dogmatic views that con-
stitute its foundation. Doctrine (yulpānā) is not meant to monopolize or manipulate the
believers’ intelligence and imagination by means of a closed system of abstract notions
and thus preclude independent reflection and wisdom based on experience. It is meant
to facilitate and guide a personal and communal heuristic process, the outcome of which
is always a gift of God that transcends whatever form of human control, either personal
or ecclesial.
Yet none of this happens on paper alone. Poetry has to be performed, just as sacred
space and time are not thought about but experienced. The celebration of the initiatory
rituals of Baptism and Eucharist is actually the locus theologicus par excellence, since it
constitutes both the origin and the fulfillment of all theological reflection and teaching.
The poetic and playful character of Ephrem’s writings is an accurate reflection of the sym-
bolic nature of the human being, which Johan Huizinga has christened homo ludens—the
being that re-enacts the cosmic drama through archetypal rituals that are played out
in sacred space and sacred time according to the rules of pure play.76 Whereas rational
thought tends to subject itself to mechanical rules of literalism and logic, and risks cre-
ating a form of idolatry that is celebrated above the eyebrows, symbolic thought obeys
the rules of authentic play, which it takes seriously precisely because they empower it to
freely explore reality, experience its mystery and enjoy its beauty. In this sense, Ephrem’s
symbolic theology is profoundly liturgical. Its aim is initiation through a sacred drama,
performed and celebrated as a feast, that is, played out within the limits of sacred space
and time. And it was in view of such a ritual performance that Ephrem instituted his
women’s choir and wrote his madrāšē.
5. The Table of the Kingdom

Precisely because initiation into the mystery of divine and human existence is open-
ended, the ritual performance of Ephrem’s writings and the liturgical celebration of the
75 Cf. den Biesen, Simple and Bold, 316–319.

76 The Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) developed an anthropological theory of play
in his famous Homo ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, originally published in Dutch in 1938.

symbolical vision they express, open upon a divine horizon that is seen and felt and put
into words, yet always remains beyond the grasp of our feelings and understanding:77
Who will not be amazed at your ever-changing garment?
See, the body hid the radiance of your awesome nature,
while clothes hid your feeble human nature
and the bread hid your Fire that dwells within it.
Never indeed did the mind of mortals explore him.
For who has a hand of fire and a finger of spirit
and is thus able to touch him, for whose hidden nature
even our mind is like a body!
Even the revealed knowledge does not suffice
with regard to the Pure one who is inside and outside of all.
He is the knowledge of our very knowledge;
he is the life of the soul that dwells in us.
Who will thank the Hidden One, most hidden of all,
who came to a visible revelation, most visible of all?
Because he put on a body, other bodies touched him,
while no mind ever grasped the Hidden One himself!
Thus the experience of the physical nearness of God opens up perspectives that transcend
every measure and comprehension. Therefore, the ritual ‘here and now’ has to wisely hold
its balance on the infinitely fine line between the visible and the invisible, between the
past and the future.
Within its boundaries of space and time, the celebration of the Eucharist reconnects
the present with the primordial Paradise and at the same time projects it onto a future
Paradise. Because in the sacred space and time of Paradise Adam and Eva “rebelliously”
grabbed the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and “ate in sin,” they were denied the fruit of
the Tree of Life, i.e. “immortal life,” and “thrown out of the Garden.”78 The Lord of both
Trees enter the space and time of this world in order to die on the Tree of the Cross and
become the new fruit of Life.79 Through his resurrection, he removed “the blade of the
sword” that guarded the entrance to Paradise80 and re-entered the sacred space and time
of the eschatological Paradise. It is from there that he reaches out to people of all places
and all times to offer them his own body and blood as their food:81
With the blade of a sword the road to the Tree of Life was shut off,
whereas to the Nations the Lord of the Tree gave himself as food.
For the trees of Eden were given as food to the first Adam,
whereas for us the Planter himself became the food for our souls.
Whereas we left that Garden along with Adam, who left the Garden,
now that the sword has been removed through the lance, let us prepare ourselves to go there!82
77 Teaching Song on Faith 19:3–5 & 7 in Beck, Hymnen de Fide, 72–73.

78 Teaching Song on Paradise 3:7,1; 3:8,3; 12:16,6 and 4:4,3 in Beck, Hymnen de Paradiso, 10, 53, 13.
79 Cf. the last line of the quotation from Armenian Teaching Song 49 and the ensuing explanation at the
beginning of section “3. Liturgical acts, artefacts and attitudes”.
80 Gen 3:24.
82 The Armenian text literally says: “now that the lance has been removed with the lance, let us prepare
ourselves and go there.” The first ‘lance’ certainly points back to the sword of Gen 3:24, mentioned in line

Wherever Christians gather to celebrate the Eucharist, the ritual allows them to enter
Paradise there and then:83
The assembly of the saints is a prefiguration of Paradise:
the fruit of Him who gives life to all is plucked in it every day;
in it, brothers, the Grape is pressed which is the Medicine of Life.84
Just as the Eucharist is meant to nourish all of humankind during its course through
history, its Medicine of Life is meant to heal all of humankind and lead everyone into Par-
adise.85 Ephrem, in fact, conceives of eschatological Paradise as the universal salvation of
all people. After death all are gathered in Šeol, the reign of Death, where none can convert
from their harmful ways or further progress in virtue. All await the resurrection of their
bodies and the Final Judgment. Those worthy of directly entering Paradise,86
…the righteous, … awake as from sleep to discover Paradise,
the Table of the Kingdom all set for them!
Whoever is as yet deemed unfit to enter Paradise, is sent to Gehenna, the reign of Satan
and his demons: there, the risen body is kept intact, while the soul can repent and purify
itself for as long as is necessary. Also in Gehenna, the mysterious interplay between the
grace of God and human freewill continues, until, at last, they are free to enter Paradise.
Ultimately, the ritual of the Eucharist is an ever-ongoing initiation into this perspective
and into the consciousness, understanding, inner attitude and way of life it requires from
those who participate in it and, already, get a first sniff of its delightful scents:87
Make me worthy through your grace to attain to Paradise’s gift
—this treasure of perfumes, this storehouse of scents.
My hunger takes delight in the breath of its fragrance,
for its scent gives nourishment to all at all times,
and whoever inhales it, is overjoyed and forgets his earthly bread;
this is the table of the Kingdom88—blessed is He who prepared it in Eden!
6. Summary
The bulk of the works of Ephrem the Syrian consists of some 400 madrāšē or ‘teaching
songs’, most of which he wrote for a liturgical performance by the women’s choir he had
instituted for precisely this purpose. Although Ephrem’s madrāšē clearly carry over into
23, and is an obvious mistake; the second ‘lance’ is the lance that pierced the side of Jesus (cf. John 19:34 and
Ephrem’s explanation in Teaching Song on the Nativity 8:4 and Commentary on the Diatessaron 21:10–11). Cf.
Robert Murray, “The lance which re-opened Paradise”. Mariès and Mercier translate: “now that the lance
has been removed, with the lance let us clothe ourselves and go there,” which does not make much sense.
83 Teaching Song on Paradise 6:8,1–3 in Beck, Hymnen de Paradiso 21.
84 Cf. ‘Christ the Grape and the Tree of Life’ in Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 113–129.
85 The following remarks are mostly based on Ilaria Ramelli, “La centralità del mistero di Cristo”, who
points out a fundamental convergency between Ephrem, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa with respect to an
apokatastasis or universal redemption; see also her contribution on Gregory of Nyssa and the Eucharist in
this volume.
86 Teaching Song on Paradise 2:5,5–6 in Beck, Hymnen de Paradiso 6.
87 Teaching Song on Paradise 11:15 in Beck, Hymnen de Paradiso 49. After all the rather literal translations
found above, it seems appropriate to quote Brock’s beautiful translation in St. Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on
Paradise, 159.
88 Luke 22:30.

the liturgy the teaching he developed at the Christian madrastā or ‘school’ of his home-
town, Nisibis in northern Mesopotamia, their ritual role comprises a lot more than simply
conveying doctrine. Through subtle rhetorical strategies and a unique liturgical choreog-
raphy, Ephrem turns his composition into full-fledged liturgical forms (section 1). This
characteristic of Ephrem’s madrāšē reveals that he considers liturgy as an encounter with
the divine within the limits of space and time, in which material elements like bodies,
voices, words, artifacts, movements and space creates a single hic et hodie of sacred space
and time (section 2). As for the tangible elements of the Eucharistic ritual as Ephrem
knew it, only a few can be somewhat reconstructed (section 3). The intellectual dynamism
underlying Ephrem’s understanding of the Eucharist, however, is an integral part of his
symbolical theology as a whole (section 4). The Eucharist is part of the life-long Christian
initiation into the Christian world view and as such an anticipation of and preparation for
an eschatological sacred meal at ‘the Table of the Kingdom’ (section 5)
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The Eucharist – Its Origins

Old Testament, Early Judaism,

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© 2017 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de

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5. Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................................... 57

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Kirsten Marie Hartvigsen

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3. Synopsis of the Occurrences of the Meal Formula in the Longer

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1.1. Sources and Approaches.......................................................................................277

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3.1. A Challenge to the Longstanding Consensus regarding the

Jerker & Karin Blomqvist

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2.1. Greek: a Supra-regional Linguistic Medium .....................................................390

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Karl Olav Sandnes

Enno Edzard Popkes

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4.2. Crisis about table fellowship (Acts 15:1–35).......................................................524

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4.4. “In Remembrance of Me” (εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν)........................................ 594

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3. Taufe, Eucharistie und der Leib Christi:

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8.4. Εὐχαριστία als Bezeichnung des frühchristlichen Mahlritus ........................866

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2.2. Apostolic Tradition ............................................................................................... 959

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2.3. Jo 58–86 .................................................................................................................1020

Kees den Biesen

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3.2. The ‘fluttering’ of the priest’s hands ................................................................. 1133

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2.3. Zur Feier der Eucharistie .................................................................................... 1191

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Nils Arne Pedersen

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8. Mahlszenen in christlichen Katakomben und auf christlichen Sarkophagen ...1335

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3. Die Mahlbestandteile in Vereinigungen .................................................................1425

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5. Das Darstellungsschema des Banketts im Kontext der Grabmonumente......... 1601

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3.1. Imitation ............................................................................................................... 1678

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5.1. The Five Sacred Meal Components of the Mandaean

Hans Dieter Betz

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3.1. The author ............................................................................................................. 1814

Images and Illustrations

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Peter Ruggenddorfer: “Das Mahl zu Ehren der Verstorbenen” .......................................2001

Indices and Contributors

Index rerum et nominum ......................................................................................................2081

Index locorum .........................................................................................................................2121

Index graecitatis ...................................................................................................................... 2187