A New Perspective on the Relationship between Ambrose’s De sacramentis and the Roman Canon Missae / Matthew S. C. Olver in Journal of Early Christian Studies, n°3 (2025)

Public ISBD [article]  inJournal of Early Christian Studies > n°3 (2025) . - pp. 431-465 Titre : A New Perspective on the Relationship between Ambrose’s De sacramentis and the Roman Canon Missae Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Matthew S. C. Olver, Auteur Année de publication : 2025 Article en page(s) : pp. 431-465 Langues : Anglais (eng) Résumé : The earliest certain witness to an anaphora that bears many obvious similarities to the Roman Canon Missae is found in Book 4 of Ambrose’s De Sacramentis. Scholars have characterized the relationship between the two texts, however, in remarkably contradictory ways. In this article, I demonstrate that Ambrose and the Roman Canon contain both earlier and later versions of a shared, core text. Through a careful examination of these two texts, I demonstrate that in each section of the respective anaphoral texts, distinct developments are clearly evident. This can be seen most clearly in the institution narrative, where there is a move to make the bread and cup narratives more symmetrical, but in ways that show both continuity and discontinuity to each other. We can no longer simply treat the text provided by Ambrose in De sacramentis as the earlier version of what became the Roman Canon. Instead, it is evidence of what was likely a wider phenomenon: the parallel development of Latin anaphoral texts that are based on both Greek Alexandrian sources and different biblical manuscripts. The evolution and redaction of the individual sections of each anaphora underwent independent redactions. [article] A New Perspective on the Relationship between Ambrose’s De sacramentis and the Roman Canon Missae [texte imprimé] / Matthew S. C. Olver, Auteur . - 2025 . - pp. 431-465. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Journal of Early Christian Studies > n°3 (2025) . - pp. 431-465 Résumé : The earliest certain witness to an anaphora that bears many obvious similarities to the Roman Canon Missae is found in Book 4 of Ambrose’s De Sacramentis. Scholars have characterized the relationship between the two texts, however, in remarkably contradictory ways. In this article, I demonstrate that Ambrose and the Roman Canon contain both earlier and later versions of a shared, core text. Through a careful examination of these two texts, I demonstrate that in each section of the respective anaphoral texts, distinct developments are clearly evident. This can be seen most clearly in the institution narrative, where there is a move to make the bread and cup narratives more symmetrical, but in ways that show both continuity and discontinuity to each other. We can no longer simply treat the text provided by Ambrose in De sacramentis as the earlier version of what became the Roman Canon. Instead, it is evidence of what was likely a wider phenomenon: the parallel development of Latin anaphoral texts that are based on both Greek Alexandrian sources and different biblical manuscripts. The evolution and redaction of the individual sections of each anaphora underwent independent redactions.

The “Missing” Oblation and the Problem of Sacrifice in Early Antiochene Anaphoras: A Reconsideration of John Fenwick and Stefano Parenti / Matthew S. C. Olver in Harvard Theological Review, 117/3 (2024)

Public ISBD [article]  inHarvard Theological Review > 117/3 (2024) . - 475 - 505 Titre : The “Missing” Oblation and the Problem of Sacrifice in Early Antiochene Anaphoras: A Reconsideration of John Fenwick and Stefano Parenti Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Matthew S. C. Olver, Auteur Année de publication : 2025 Article en page(s) : 475 - 505 Langues : Anglais (eng) Résumé : There is a wrinkle in the story of common features in West Syrian anaphoras, which John Fenwick called “the Missing Oblation.” In this article, I argue that the importance of the “missing oblation” highlighted by Fenwick, Robert Taft, Stefano Parenti and others needs to be balanced against the verbs of oblation that are present. The emphasis on the missing oblation, combined with the tendency to summarize the Antiochene structure with little reference to the importance of these verbs, results in an inaccurate and unbalanced sense of the degree to which the anaphora expresses the belief that the action of offering bread and wine is constitutive of the eucharistic action. This should lead to a caution with the unhelpful heuristic about the spiritualization of sacrifice in contemporary scholarship and the underemphasis of the belief in the materiality of the eucharistic sacrifice in writers such as John Chrysostom and earlier anaphoras. [article] The “Missing” Oblation and the Problem of Sacrifice in Early Antiochene Anaphoras: A Reconsideration of John Fenwick and Stefano Parenti [texte imprimé] / Matthew S. C. Olver, Auteur . - 2025 . - 475 - 505. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Harvard Theological Review > 117/3 (2024) . - 475 - 505 Résumé : There is a wrinkle in the story of common features in West Syrian anaphoras, which John Fenwick called “the Missing Oblation.” In this article, I argue that the importance of the “missing oblation” highlighted by Fenwick, Robert Taft, Stefano Parenti and others needs to be balanced against the verbs of oblation that are present. The emphasis on the missing oblation, combined with the tendency to summarize the Antiochene structure with little reference to the importance of these verbs, results in an inaccurate and unbalanced sense of the degree to which the anaphora expresses the belief that the action of offering bread and wine is constitutive of the eucharistic action. This should lead to a caution with the unhelpful heuristic about the spiritualization of sacrifice in contemporary scholarship and the underemphasis of the belief in the materiality of the eucharistic sacrifice in writers such as John Chrysostom and earlier anaphoras.

---

1 (1 - 2 / 2) Par page : 25 50 100 200