L’eucharistie des origines: datation et déroulement, à la lumière des sources syriaques

Abstract

A comparative study of documents on the Eucharist from the first three centuries (New Testament manuscripts in Syriac, Greek, Latin, the Codex D, and the Vetus latina), extended from the use of rituals of both Jewish Sabbath meals (as described in the Talmud of Jerusalem), complemented by their gradual implementation in the Aramaic Church on the Judeo-Christian side, and by the Church of the Greco-Roman Empire on the Gentile side, and reviewed within the Roman liturgy, gives way to the following conclusions: Jesus’ Last Supper was not a Passover meal; the chronologies of John and the Synoptic Gospels on the Last Supper are consistent; receiving the Eucharist, according to the Acts of the Apostles and in first century, called the ‘breaking of bread’, was designated as the Body of Christ (which was not the case concerning the wine becoming the Blood of Christ, as is found in the Codex D); the Sabbath meals served as a model for the weekly ritual: the Assyrian Church upholds two days, Friday and Saturday, as being holy (the Anaphora of Adai and Mari for the Aramaic Church); this text and the Didache, tailored for Greco-Latin Christians, were written before the publication of the Gospels. The former is used for both days, but according to the Jewish model, the Didache presents two Eucharistic celebrations: one for the eve of the Sabbath, with the cup preceding the bread and the meal, and the other in reverse order, with the bread preceding the wine; derived from former uses of the Sabbath, churches in the West gradually combined the two rites into one weekly Sunday celebration, consisting of the bread and the wine; therefore, by symmetry, the declaration of the wine as being the Blood of Christ was introduced, eventually abandoning Eucharistic celebrations with water, which had been tolerated at the closing of the Sabbath. This work reminds us that the use of Syriac, the first language of Christianity, is essential in understanding the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, and that Judaism is at the roots of the Christian liturgy, the Sheqinah becoming somewhat Maranatha.