<i>Mensa</i>, θυσιαστήριον, and <i>madbḥā</i>: The Evolution of the Permanent Altar in the Early Christian ChurchSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/I22S8MJM/tei
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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Marica ChristineCassis<i>Mensa</i>, θυσιαστήριον, and <i>madbḥā</i>: The Evolution of the Permanent Altar in the Early Christian Churchhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/I22S8MJMhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/I22S8MJMhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/I22S8MJM2007The Christian altar is an element of liturgical furnishing that has long been assumed to be a regular part of early Christian architecture. Its symbolic and practical necessity in the Christian liturgy is well attested, both as a symbol of Christ and as a vessel for the bread and wine of the Eucharist. However, based on an examination of the archaeological and literary evidence, it appears that the altar is not as ubiquitous as previously believed. Rather, the development of the altar mirrors theological and practical architectural designs specific to individual regions. Further, although long assumed to have developed from the Torah ark or shrine of the early synagogue, the evidence indicates that origins of the altar also vary according to geographical location.
Both the literary and the archaeological evidence in three geographical contexts illustrate this conclusion. The Greek tradition indicates that the permanent altar was not an original part of the early church. Only by the end of the sixth century does the altar become permanent, a process which is mirrored in the use of different terminology representative of the sacrifice of Christ. The Syriac church, on the other hand, has a more varied archaeological acceptance of the altar, with some regions possessing permanent altars as early as the late fourth century, and others adopting them much later. Although the language of the sacrifice of Christ is consistent in the Syriac church, the difference for this tradition lies in their complete rejection of the cult of relics in relation to the altar. In the Latin church, the origins of the altar do not lie in the Jewish past as they do in the other two traditions, but rather in the pagan Roman past. The altar can be most clearly connected to the funerary mensae of the Roman tradition of the care for the dead. While the permanent altar does not appear in any numbers until the end of the fifth century, there is a clear association of this structure with the cult of the dead (and consequently relics) which separates it from the other two traditions.
Cassis, Marica Christine. “Mensa, Θυσιαστήριον, and Madbḥā: The Evolution of the Permanent Altar in the Early Christian Church.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 2007.
Marica Christine Cassis, Mensa, Θυσιαστήριον, and Madbḥā: The Evolution of the Permanent Altar in the Early Christian Church” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 2007).altararchaeologyarchitecturechurchesliturgicsrelics