Per Christum and Ad Christum : a historical-theological analysis of Ethiopic anaphoras

This study revisits Jungmann’s thesis that prayers addressed to Christ are sequels of the Christological controversies of the fourth century in the Ethiopic anaphoras. The study began with a historical-theological analysis of early Christian literature to trace the antecedents of praying to Jesus in a eucharistic context. It also examined the Coptic liturgical texts and the Ethiopic Anaphoras to test Jungmann’s thesis. The study does not modify Jungmann’s thesis that the earliest form of addressing prayer was to the Father through the Son; however, it shows that, unlike Jungmann’s suggestion, no single phenomenon explains the antecedent for the practice of praying to Jesus. Regarding the Ethiopic anaphoras, the earliest form of praying, as attested in the text of Anaphora of the Apostles found in the ‘Axumite Collection’ was indeed praying to the Father through the Son, and it is only in later versions of the anaphora that the Ad Christum becomes apparent. Even if praying through Jesus is still the most frequent form in the Ethiopic anaphoras of indigenous origin, the ad Christum also exists in a remarkable amount. However, the prayers to Christ in these anaphoras result from multiple political, social, and theological factors. The most notable reason was the desire of the Solomonic dynasty to increase their prestige through the acquisition of ecclesial and liturgical objects and literature that led to massive literary production and translation. In the meantime, the theological controversies of the time have played an essential role as newly translated Christian literature, such as the writings of the Syrian Fathers, were pulled to defend a particular theological idea. These make it sufficiently clear that we are dealing here with a phenomenon which must be very differentiated, and which does not permit a global consideration and evaluation and that Jungmann’s depiction of the ad Christum in Ethiopic anaphoras as a manifestation of Monophysite Christology is inaccurate.