Replies

anamnesis = greek for remembrance

zikaron = hebrew for memorial

You’ll notice that in the passage quoted the word for begins verse 26 just after the phrase containing the term anamnesis. Verse 26 explains the meaning of doing this in memory. It says that anamnesis involves a proclamation of the Lord’s death in this act of consecration. But how does eating and drinking proclaim the Lord’s death as verse 26 says? Proclaiming a message usually involves preaching, teaching or speaking in some form. But recall the old saying that "actions speak louder than words." I suggest that it is through anamnesis that the Lord’s death is proclaimed. The eucharistic actions of the Church proclaim the Lord’s death by making the Lord present to the worshiping community of faith.

In Greek culture, anamnesis was a term used to denote the movement of an abstract idea into this material world. Plato, for example, used it as one of his key ideas. For him, knowledge was an act of anamnesis, or "remembering," whereby the realities of the world of forms (ideas) came to people in this world. So, anamnesis meant more of a process in which something in another world came to be embodied in this physical world.

The Corinthians lived in a Greek culture and it would have been natural for them to understand anamnesis as describing this transfer from the heavenly world to the material world. Even more importantly, if Jesus used Hebrew or Aramaic at the Last Supper, Paul (or whoever first translated the words of consecration into Greek) chose the term anamnesis. By doing so, he was allowing that anamnesis could have the meaning that Greek-speaking people associated with that term, namely, a transfer from the heavenly world to this earthly, material world.

Remember that Paul was a Jewish Pharisee (cf. Phil. 3:5), and very possibly a rabbi (cf. Acts 22:2) before his conversion. All this means that when he used anamnesis, he may have used it with a Hebrew meaning as well as a Greek one. The Hebrew word for "memorial" is zikaron and it has a similar connotation to anamnesis in Greek culture. It is more than mental recollection. The celebration of the Passover was believed to involve a participation in the original exodus from Egypt. The purpose of this being an annual and perpetual event for the children of Israel was that every generation could experience the liberation from slavery that the first generation in Egypt had experienced. Thus, zikaron connotes a participation in an event of the past rather than simply a mental recollection of that event.

Whether you approach this question from the Greek or Hebrew side, the result supports the notion of the Real Presence. When Paul quotes Jesus as saying eis ten emen anamnesin, he understands the meaning both in Greek and Hebrew senses. When Jesus said, "do this eis ten emen anamensin," he was not saying to simply remember him. He was telling his twelve apostles to perform the same actions that he did in order to bring the reality of him back to this world.

BTW, to practice the presence of The Risen Lord is not the same as practicing cannibalism. In breaking and eating the bread and drinking the wine, the remembrance is practicing the presence of Him Who gave Himself for us. And because our Lord is risen and dwells now across the many dimensions/variables of time and space He can be just an arm’s length away, like in Daniel 5, and can hear our pleading to Him from many voices simultaneously and individually ... the Presence of The Lord is a reality Jesus was teaching His disciples with the bread and wine ‘in remembrance of Him’. He IS our Great High Priest and the Veil has been removed which could spearate us. It is up to us to practice His presence and He IS with us always, even to the ends of the earth.

Hey all y’all . . .

I realize Alamo-Girl’s preferred font is all nice and clean, lean and pretty . . .

However, one of the reasons she uses it is to make it easy to scroll through and find her own posts.

GIVEN that she posts substantive posts rarely, I’d love to make it easy for her to navigate the Rel Forum in her preferred ways in the hopes that she might post more often.

I realize it’s a free font freely available to one and all . . . just stating MY preference about her preference.

There are lots of other fonts to use instead of her preferred one.