Prior to Canon 26 of Gabriele ii in the twelfth century, which limited the Coptic liturgical use to St Cyril (= Greek St Mark), St Basil and St Gregory, the Coptic Church had a much wider anaphoral tradition, as witnessed by the Euchologion of Serapion and the anaphoras in the Grand Euchologion of the White Monastery, as well as many anaphoral fragments. Centre-stage in current discussions of Egyptian anaphoral development are both the Aksumite collection from Ethiopia, and the Egyptian Greek Barcelona anaphora. This latter, which was first published only in small extracts at a time, was finally published in full by Roca-Puig in 1994. It has been discussed by Paul Bradshaw and Michael Zheltov in extended articles, but this book by Nathan Chase is the first to give a full and extended examination of this important Egyptian anaphora.

In the introductory chapter Chase notes that amongst the many Egyptian anaphoral fragments, two (the now lost Louvain Papyrus 27, and P.Vindob. Gr 41043) witness to anaphoras similar to Barcelona. He then presents his work in three parts. The first part outlines a methodology; the actual Barcelona text and its background; and, using the similar fragments and other anaphoral parallels, a suggested earlier text of the Barcelona anaphora. The second part is a thorough analysis and discussion of the various parts of the anaphora useful for modern scholars, such as the Preface, Pre-Sanctus and Sanctus and through to the final doxology. The third part offers a conclusion as well as important appendices.

This is an incredibly well-argued work, and a fine example of the ‘Notre Dame’ school of thought. Although it has been suggested that the Barcelona anaphora was authored by Athanasius, Chase is rightly sceptical of such a claim, though he believes that Barcelona originated in the environs of Alexandria, and it has parallels with the anaphora of St Cyril/St Mark. In the introduction Chase outlines the various approaches that scholarship has used to assess historical texts, and he particularly highlights the importance of orality which Achim Budde had championed in his work on Egyptian Basil, and which Juliette Day has agued for in a wider context, but with the Euchologion of Serapion as an example. Chase also finds the ritual studies approach of Tambiah useful and, where relevant, he uses the work of Ágnes Mihálykó on the Christian liturgical papyri. Drawing on the work of Budde and Day, Chase posits three stages of development from oral prayer to written liturgical text: (1) a prayer tradition was passed on orally, like a story, through the use of unit structuring phrases (USPs); (2) the production of an aide-mémoire, structured by the USPs which introduced the various units in the anaphora; and (3) fully written texts, codifying (1) and (2). This of course is helpful, though since we have only the written texts, identifying USPs and link words is a very subjective exercise, however rational the argument. There is a tendency here to regard third- and fourth-century authors/scribes of written texts as working with the mindset of twenty-first century liturgical scholars, and to rationalise accordingly. A good example is when Chase suggests that the compiler inserted an institution narrative in the middle of the epiclesis, resulting in a split-epiclesis. While it is generally accepted in current liturgical scholarship that the institution narrative makes its appearance as part of the anaphora only in the fourth century, that does not mean that even in the oral tradition, a celebrant worked with smooth transitions, and had a rule that an epiclesis should not be split. Here it might have been prudent to draw on the doctoral work of David Holborn on ‘extemporary prayer’ in the United Reformed Church. Oral prayer does not always flow, and has awkward transitions, and can repeat earlier themes. While culture changes, human ability in orality probably stays uniform. Sharp transitions in the text may witness to a faithful codification of the oral tradition, whereas a seamless text probably indicates that the rhetorician has been hard at work ironing out the creases. Also, the implications of Budde's work on Egyptian Basil surely suggests that the Louvain and P.Vindob parallels are just that, and like parallel lines do not meet? Are they not variants, and should not be used to attempt corrections of Barcelona and vice-versa? Since it would seem that early celebrants worked with a common Vorlage, then we can only ever suggest the material of the Vorlage, but never know the ‘exact’ words. This would apply also to the Mystagogical Catechesis 5 attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem; although he moves from one theme to the next, we have no idea that he cites verbatim what was prayed by the celebrant, but only some of what was prayed.

Chase argues, along with Zheltov, that the Barcelona anaphora is the oldest Egyptian anaphoral text, and may be the oldest datable anaphoral text from the ancient Christian world. It is clearly an important text. In his examination of the Sanctus, Chase argues that, as Winkler and I have done so for the Syriac tradition, the Egyptian tradition shows the influence of merkavah mysticism. What we do not have so far, though (to my knowledge), is evidence in the writings of Egyptian Fathers reflecting this influence, as counterparts to Aphrahat and Jacob of Serug in the Syrian tradition. Chase's arguments for the merkavah influence support Mary Farag's arguments for the influence in the anaphora of St Thomas of the White Monastery.

This book is an exemplar in current methodology, though not all the methodologies identified by Chase have relevance to the Barcelona text. An Alexandrian provenance may be correct, but we have no idea about the building(s) in which it was used, and so the liturgical space is a complete unknown. Given what has been said about the transition from oral to aide-mémoire, it seems to me that any attempt to re-create an ‘original text’ (as Chase does, for example, for the preface) is not only subjective, but also probably unnecessary. It is a little different where scholars are comparing complete manuscripts – such as identifying the York Use addition to the Memento, Domine of the canon missae, but in the early texts and with fragments, Budde's idea of regional variants rather than an Urtext seems to be a safer method. Chase's knowledge of the field is extraordinary, and his book will become the standard on Barcelona and the Egyptian anaphoral tradition for a long time to come.