The Anaphora and the Thanksgiving Prayer from the Barcelona Papyrus: An Underestimated Testimony to the Anaphoral History in the Fourth Century

Abstract

New critical text edition (with translation and a commentary) of the oldest extant manuscript containing a complete set of prayers, P.Monts.Roca inv. 154b-157b. This text is of prime importance for liturgical studies, especially of anaphoral development. A 4th-century papyrus codex, P.Monts.Roca inv.128-178, 1 now in the library of the Abbey of Montserrat but originally in the possession of Ramón Roca-Puig, is yet to receive the scholarly attention it merits. The 1) The manuscript comes either from Dishna (see Robinson J.M. The Pachomian Monastic Library at the Chester Beatty Library and the Bibliothèque Bodmer, in: Manuscripts of the Middle East. Vol. 5 (1990-1991). P. 26-40) or from Thebaid (see Tovar S.T., Worp K.A. To the Origins of Greek Stenography: P.Monts.Roca I. Barcelona, 2006. (Orientalia Montserratensia; 1) P. 15-211). A small piece of this codex is now a part of the Duke papyri collection (P.Duk.inv. 798, formerly P.Rob.inv. L 1; J.M. Robinson is incorrect in calling this piece "P. Duke inv. L 1" (Robinson. Op. cit.). See a short description and an image of the latter piece in the Internet

Between Anamnesis and Praise: The Origin of Oblation in Syro-Byzantine Anaphoras

“…67 Remaining in the fourth century, the Anaphora of Barcelona places the oblation in the transition from the post-Sanctus to the epiclesis but the object is no longer the anaphora but "these creatures, the bread and the chalice." 68 The surviving folio 465, at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, ascribed to the sixth century, contains MK starting from the post-Sanctus and there we find a [second] oblation, this time between the anamnesis and the second epiclesis, in the form ἐκ τῶν σῶν προεθήκαμεν ἐνώπιών σου. 69 In a Coptic Sahidic version of MK coming from the seventh to eighth century, Tablet 54036 of the British Library, the oblative formula, by now fixed between the anamnesis and the second epiclesis, appears as follows: "we offer you, in your presence, these gifts from that which is yours, this bread and this cup."…”