Cenacle

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A view of the "Cenacle" in the building on Mount Zion as it exists today
"Upper Room" redirects here. For other uses, see Upper Room (disambiguation).
This article is about the location of the Last Supper. For the Parisian literary group, see Cénacle.

The Cenacle (from Latin cenaculum), also known as the "Upper Room", is the site of The Last Supper. The word is a derivative of the Latin word cena, which means dinner.

In Christian tradition, based on Acts 1:13,[1] the "Upper Room" was not only the site of the Last Supper (i.e. the Cenacle), but the usual place where the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem, and according to the Catholic Encyclopedia[2] "the first Christian church".

Thus the Cenacle is considered the site where many other events described in the New Testament took place,[3][4] such as:

The site

Since at least the fourth century CE a structure identified as the Cenacle, the site of the Last Supper, has been a popular Christian pilgrimage site on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. It is documented in the narratives of many early pilgrims such as Egeria, who visited it in 384.[12] The building has experienced numerous cycles of destruction and reconstruction, culminating in the Gothic structure which stands today.

While the term “Cenacle” refers only to the “Upper Room,” the site is connected to other sites of interest, including a large cenotaph-sarcophagus located on the lower level of the same building, said first by 12th century Crusaders to be the tomb of King David. However, most scholars consider this attribution to be incorrect; 1 Kings 2:10[13] says that David was buried “in the City of David,” an area of Jerusalem geographically disparate from Mount Sion. The Cenacle is also connected to the Church of the Dormition.

History

A view of The Cenacle as it exists today.
Another view of the cenacle today
See also: Jerusalem in Christianity

The early history of the Cenacle site is uncertain; scholars have made attempts at establishing a chronology based on archaeological evidence and historical sources. Biblical archaeologist Bargil Pixner[14] offers these significant dates and events in the building's history.

The original building was a synagogue later probably used by Jewish Christians. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the building was spared during the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus (AD 70),[15] though Pixner thinks it was likely rebuilt right after the war, and claims three walls of that structure are still extant: the North, East and South walls of the present King David's Tomb. Roman emperor Theodosius I built an octagonal church (the "Theodosian Church" or "Holy Zion Church") aside the synagogue (that was named "Church of the Apostles"). The Theodosian Church, probably started on 382 AD, was consecrated by John II, Bishop of Jerusalem on 394 AD. Some years later, c. 415 AD, Bishop John II enlarged the Holy Zion Church transforming it in a large rectangular basilica with five naves, always aside the Church of the Apostles. This building was later destroyed by Persian invaders in 614 AD and shortly after partially rebuilt by patriarch Modestus. In 1009 AD the church was razed to the ground by the Muslim caliph Al-Hakim and shortly after replaced by the Crusaders with a five aisled basilica named for "Saint Mary". It is thought that the Cenacle occupied a portion of two aisles on the right side of the altar.[16]

While the church was destroyed sometime after 1219, the Cenacle was spared.[16] In the 1340s, it passed into the custody of the Franciscan Order of Friars, who maintained the structure until 1552, when the Ottoman Empire took possession of it. After the Franciscan friars' eviction, this room was transformed into a mosque, as evidenced by the mihrab in the direction of Mecca and an Arabic inscription prohibiting public prayer at the site. Christians were not officially allowed to return until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Architecture

Scholars offer wide-ranging dates and builders for the surviving Gothic-style Cenacle. Some believe that it was constructed by Crusaders just before Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187, while others attribute it to Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, after he arrived in the city in 1229. Still others hold that it was not built in this form until the Franciscans acquired the site in the 1330s.[17] Scarce documentation and disturbed structural features offer little strong support for any of these dates.[18]

In its current state, the Cenacle is divided into six rib-vaulted bays. The bays are supported by three freestanding columns which bilaterally divide the space, as well as six pillars flanking the side walls. While the capital of the westernmost freestanding column is flush with the Cenacle’s interior wall, the column shaft itself is completely independent of the wall, leading scholars to consider the possibility that this wall was not original to the building.[19]

An analysis of the column and pillar capitals offers clues, but not a solution, to the mystery of the current building’s origin. The Corinthianesque capital between the second and third bays of the Cenacle is stylistically indicative of multiple geographical regions and chronological periods. This capital’s spiky leaves, which tightly adhere to the volume of the column before erupting into scrolls, are in congruence with common outputs of the 12th century sculpture workshop at the Temple site in Jerusalem in the last years before Saladin’s conquest in 1187.[20] The workshop also frequently utilized drilling as an ornamental device. The Jerusalem workshop included artists from diverse regions in the West, who brought stylistic traits with them from their native countries. The workshop produced sculpture for many Crusader projects and other structures, such as the al-Aqsa mosque.

This comparison allows for the support of the 12th century date of the Cenacle. There are also, however, similar capitals which originated in workshops in southern Italy, a draw for scholars who wish to associate the building with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and the Sixth Crusade in 1229. Examples can be seen in the Romanesque cathedral in Bitonto, a small city near Bari, in southern Italy, and on column supports of the pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery, carved by Apulian-born sculptor Nicola Pisano around 1260.

The capitals of the freestanding columns are not identical. The capital between the first and second bays seems either severely weathered or shallowly carved, and its volume is a marked contrast from the others. It rises from the shaft in a straight cylinder, rather than in an inverted pyramid, and then flares only just before it intersects with the abacus. The third capital, which now flanks the Cenacle’s western wall, is also unique among the three. It is not decorated with a floral motif, rather, scrolling crockets spring from the base of the volume. Enlart has proposed a comparison to buildings constructed by Frederick II in Apulia.[21]

Analysis of these column capitals does not yield significant evidence to link them to the 14th century and a potential Franciscan construction, nor does it definitively date them to the 12th or 13th century. The building remains a frustrating, but intriguing, mystery.

Other sites

The Syriac Orthodox Church monastery of Saint Mark near the Armenian Quarter, in the Old City of Jerusalem, is sometime considered as alternative place for the cenacle.[22]

References

Notes
  1. ^ 1:13
  2. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia: Jerusalem (A.D. 71–1099): "During the first Christian centuries the church at this place was the centre of Christianity in Jerusalem, "Holy and glorious Sion, mother of all churches" (Intercession in "St. James' Liturgy", ed. Brightman, p. 54). Certainly no spot in Christendom can be more venerable than the place of the Last Supper, which became the first Christian church."
  3. ^ "The Cenacle". Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  4. ^ "The Coenaculum". www.goisrael.com. Israel Ministry of Tourism. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  5. ^ 13:4–11
  6. ^ 16:14
  7. ^ 24:33
  8. ^ John 20:19
  9. ^ Acts 1:13
  10. ^ Acts 1:15
  11. ^ Acts 2:1–4
  12. ^ Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Vol. 3. The City of Jerusalem (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
  13. ^ 1 Kings 2:10
  14. ^ Bargil Pixner, The Church of the Apostles found on Mount Zion, Biblical Archaeology Review 16.3 May/June 1990 [1]
  15. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia: Jerusalem (A.D. 71–1099): "Epiphanius (d. 403) says that when the Emperor Hadrian came to Jerusalem in 130 he found the Temple and the whole city destroyed save for a few houses, among them the one where the Apostles had received the Holy Ghost. This house, says Epiphanius, is "in that part of Sion which was spared when the city was destroyed" — therefore in the "upper part ("De mens. et pond.", cap. xiv). From the time of Cyril of Jerusalem, who speaks of "the upper Church of the Apostles, where the Holy Ghost came down upon them" (Catech., ii, 6; P.G., XXXIII), there are abundant witnesses of the place. A great basilica was built over the spot in the fourth century; the crusaders built another church when the older one had been destroyed by Hakim in 1010. It is the famous Coenaculum or Cenacle — now a Moslem shrine — near the Gate of David, and supposed to be David's tomb (Nebi Daud)."; Epiphanius' Weights and Measures at tertullian.org.14: "For this Hadrian..."
  16. ^ a b Pringle 262
  17. ^ Hugh Plommer has written in favor of a date prior to 1187. See “The Cenacle on Mount Sion,.” in Crusader Art in the Twelfth Century, edited by Jaroslav Folda (Oxford: B.A.R., 1982) pp. 139–166. Camille Enlart supports a date after 1229. See Les monuments des croisés dans le royaume de Jérusalem; architecture religieuse et civile (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1925). Peter Fergusson believes that the structure dates from the 12th century but was heavily modified by the Franciscans in the 14th century. See “The Refectory at Easby Abbey: Form and Iconography.” In The Art Bulletin, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Sep., 1989), pp. 334–351. The Franciscans themselves take credit for the building. See Fr. Eugene Hoade, Guide to the Holy Land (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1971).
  18. ^ Pilgrimage accounts are vague. See the accounts of Daniel the Abbot and John of Werzberg in Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185, edited by John Wilkinson, Joyce Hill, and William H. Ryan (London: Hakluyt Society, 1988). Each describes the Cenacle simply as an “upper room” with no precise architectural consideration.
  19. ^ Plommer 169
  20. ^ See Zehava Jacoby, “The Workshop of the Temple Area in Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century: its Origin, Evolution, and Impact,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 45 Bd., H. 4 (1982), 325–394. Drilling is discussed on 362.
  21. ^ Enlart 258.
  22. ^ "Saint Mark's Syrian Orthodox Church". www.goisrael.com. Israel Ministry of Tourism. Retrieved 20 June 2009.

External links

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