The Strasbourg papyrus is a

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...

made of six fragments on a single leaf written in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and conserved at the National Academic Library in Strasbourg, cataloged Gr. 254. It was first edited in 1928. The Strasbourg papyrus contains an ancient Christian prayer, probably an Anaphora, similar to the first part of the

Alexandrine Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French '' Ro ...

Anaphora of Saint Mark (later known also as Anaphora of Saint Cyril). The Papyrus was probably written in the fourth or fifth century, but it may present an older text, resulting to be one of the older Eucharistic Prayer known. Since the 1970s many scholars started to think that this prayer is in itself a complete anaphora, R.C.D Jasper, G.J. Cuming ''Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and reformed'', (1987), pag 52 even if this assumption has been challenged after the publication of the Barcelona Papyrus. The structure of such a prayer is very different from the thanksgiving over the wine and bread as found in chapter 9 and 10 of the

Didache The ''Didache'' (; ), also known as ''The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations'' (), is a brief anonymous early Christian treatise ( ancient church order) written in Koine Greek, dated by modern scholars to the first or (l ...

. Actually there is not even a mention of any food; nor does it present the

Sanctus The ''Sanctus'' (, "Holy") is a hymn in Christian liturgy. It may also be called the ''epinikios hymnos'' (, "Hymn of Victory") when referring to the Greek rendition and parts of it are sometimes called "Benedictus". ''Tersanctus'' (Latin: "Thr ...

, nor an anamnesis nor an

epiclesis The epiclesis (also spelled epiklesis; from , ) refers to the invocation of one or several gods. In ancient Greek religion, the epiclesis was the epithet used as the surname given to a deity in religious contexts. The term was borrowed into the Ch ...

and not even the Words of Institution. This text is anyway considered to include the base structure that we can find later in many other famous anaphoras.

Content

The Strasbourg Papyrus starts with a praise the

Father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. A biological fat ...

for the creation of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, quoting as usual in the

anaphoras. It continues with a reference to Jesus Christ the Saviour, followed by ''we offer the reasonable (λογικὴν) sacrifice and this bloodless worship'' (ref. ) and by the quotation of . The second part starts with the simple sentence ''Sacrifice of incense and offering.'', and it is followed by an

intercession Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of prayer, praying on behalf of others, or Intercession of saints, asking a saint in heaven to pray on behalf of oneself or for others. The Apostle Paul's exhortation to Saint Timothy, Timothy speci ...

prayer for many different subjects, as the Church, the army, the princes, the souls of those who have fallen asleep, the orthodox fathers and the bishops. Unlike the intercessions in the

, here the prayer is not only for those who participated the liturgy, but it intercedes more generally. The Papyrus leaf ends with a

doxology A doxology (Ancient Greek: ''doxologia'', from , ''doxa'' 'glory' and -, -''logia'' 'saying') is a short hymn of praises to God in various forms of Christian worship, often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns. The tradition derives ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strasbourg Papyrus Anaphoras (liturgy) Greek-language papyri