“Behold the Bridegroom”: The Liturgy of the Bridal Chamber in Third Century Texts and in the Dura-Europos Christian House Chapel

“Behold the Bridegroom”: The Liturgy of the Bridal Chamber in Third Century Texts and in the Dura-Europos Christian House ChapelSyriaca.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/I45GM4HL/tei

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2024-08-15-04:00

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Gerasimos P.Pagoulatos“Behold the Bridegroom”: The Liturgy of the Bridal Chamber in Third Century Texts and in the Dura-Europos Christian House Chapelhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/I45GM4HLhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/I45GM4HLhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/I45GM4HL2000This dissertation studies the liturgy of the bridal chamber in the third century sources, that is the Gospel of Philip , the Acts of Thomas, the Symposium by Methodius of Olympus and the chapel room of the Dura-Europos Christian House. The main argument of my thesis is that the bridal chamber is a liturgy that includes initiation, uses the arts and culminates at the image of Christ. I also argue that the Dura-Europos Christian chapel served as a liturgical space for a type of liturgy congruent with the synchronous bridal chamber liturgical traditions described in the textual sources. None of the liturgical scholars have analyzed this liturgy. Theologians who dealt with the bridal chamber have not indicated that this liturgy uses the arts and human senses, and culminates at Christ's image. Art historians think that images were not used in the liturgy before the sixth century and it was not until after 843 CE, that is, the end of Iconoclastic debate, that the Byzantine Church began to use them liturgically. Archaeologists are not certain of what the real function of the Dura-Europos Christian chapel was because they have not studied the literary evidence sufficiently. My study of the bridal chamber liturgy is interdisciplinary. I bring historical, literary, theological, archaeological, and art historical research to bear on the interpretation of a major image of early Christianity. This dissertation proves that the liturgy of the bridal chamber is the earliest instance of an Eastern Christian proper liturgy that employed the arts and human emotions as the major means of communicating divine knowledge to its participants. The latter acquire divine knowledge by looking at Christ the Bridegroom and creating an emotional bond with Him. Thus, the chapel of the Dura-Europos Christian House is the earliest instance of a Christian edifice that hosted an artistic proper liturgy. Pagoulatos, Gerasimos P. “‘Behold the Bridegroom’: The Liturgy of the Bridal Chamber in Third Century Texts and in the Dura-Europos Christian House Chapel.” Ph.D. dissertation, Saint Louis University, 2000. Gerasimos P. Pagoulatos, ‘Behold the Bridegroom’: The Liturgy of the Bridal Chamber in Third Century Texts and in the Dura-Europos Christian House Chapel (Ph.D. dissertation, Saint Louis University, 2000).Acts of ThomasDura EuroposGospel of PhilipI-III CEIII CENT apocryphaartliturgicsliturgymarriagesacraments