Notes on the Byzantine Synapte

Abstract

These Notes are the result of a protracted study in the course of which the Byzantine synapte has been examined in more than fifty manuscripts, each of which has again and again for this and other purposes been closely scrutinized. The text which precedes the Notes includes a distinctive —and, as far as I know, entirely new — feature, viz., a twofold recension of the synapte which is explained and justified in the Concluding Remarks following Note II. Immediately after the text itself and the brief comments which have appeared desirable or necessary, there is an Excursus on saints' names in the Τῆς παναγίας bidding at the very end of the synapte. This subject is part of a much larger one, viz., lists of saints' names in liturgical prayers. One thinks first of all of the list which appears in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon and of parallel lists in the East. It is interesting to note, however, that whereas the lengthened medieval lists failed to establish themselves permanently within the framework of the Anaphora in the East or of the Canon in the West, they did succeed in maintaining themselves in the East in certain prayers still found in the Euchology and Horologion.