The anaphorae of the liturgy of Sts. Addai and Mari and the Byzantine liturgy of St. Basil the great: a comparative study

Abstract

While all Eucharistic anaphoras derive their primary significance from the Christ- event and Last Supper, each one also reflects and expresses a particular liturgical tradition within Christianity. Two important liturgies from antiquity that share several common similarities are the Anaphora of Sts. Addai and Mari and the Byzantine Anaphora of St. Basil the Great. A detailed analysis of the historical and linguistic idiosyncrasies of the two anaphoras shows that Addai and Mari is clearly the more ancient Eucharistic prayer, a product of an East Syrian environment with distinctive Semitic elements, that has led scholars to claim possible apostolic antiquity. On the other hand, Byzantine-Basil belongs to a larger family of anaphoras attributed to the Cappadocian Father himself or to some redactor(s) within his liturgical tradition, and primarily reflects hellenistic ideas. St. Basil's journeys to Egypt and Syria seem to be responsible for the production of a Coptic version of Basil, which shares some common elements with Addai and Mari. Also, the two 'hellenized' East Syrian liturgies of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius (including the Maronite anaphora Sharar), which are very similar to the content of Addai and Mari, may be partially credited for identifying points of contact between the East Syrian and Byzantine prayers. The purpose of this thesis is to analytically examine the Eucharistic prayers of Addai and Mari and Byzantine-Basil by breaking down both anaphoras into their constitutive sections (through textual juxtaposition) in order to determine and affirm their mutual influence. The methods used are verbal and structural comparison, historical contextualization, and theological comparison. Where applicable, sections from other related anaphoras are also compared against the two main texts. The study concludes that despite Addai and Mari and Byzantine-Basil's individual uniqueness in style and content, both nonetheless are representative of the original Christian Eucharistic tradition and have seemingly influenced each other's development throughout history.