Theses Duke University, N.C. / Bibliogr.: p. 183-195.

In this thesis one can see footwashing from different perspectives even though the focus is from a liturgical and patristic perspective. Using the liturgical dialectical method, I put the liturgical text in a dialectical relationship with the wider patristic context. Footwashing in this thesis is approached from four angles. Chapter Two: An historical overview and a background regarding. Chapter Three: The Syriac Orthodox Footwashing rite. Chapter Four:The Commentary of Bar Salibi on Foot Washing. Chapter Five: A comparison between the Syriac Orthodox ordo and the commentary. In the second chapter one explores the development of footwashing, both in the west and the east in patristic and canonical sources.The ongoing discussion in the west seems to be whether the footwashing is considered as a sacrament or not, while the fathers in the east interprets footwashing as explicitly revealing the cross for his disciple. In this chapter one gets to know the views of the fathers such as Augustine, Ambrose, John Chrysostom etc. The Syrian fathers make the same connection as the eastern fathers but connects it however to baptismal theology which is found in Rom 6:4.The fathers of the Syrian Orthodox tradition presents also an allegorical and symbolic interpretations of the footwashing, especially during the early Middle Ages and later Middle Ages. The canonical sources presents two views 1. Canonical. 2. Monastic. The canonical sources are Elvira 305-6. And Toledo 694, Elvira does not encourage the practice of the footwashing due to it being practiced after the baptism. In Toledo footwashing is encouraged and it seems that this praxis was discouraged according to the canon itself, the monastic was seen all through the subchapter. It was the custom for the brothers to greet a guest by washing their feet. The third chapter is about the footwashing rite and its theological contrasts and the contemplation which makes it a rite itself. Chapter Four is divided in three commentaries. The three different gospel narratives exist in 1. Jn 12:1-11. 2. Lk 7:36-50. 3. Jn13:1-20. The different use of this commentary reveals for the reader how Bar Salibi conducted biblical theology and how these different biblical stories reveal his view on the footwashing in contrast with John 13. The Fifth chapter concern the differences and similarities between the footwashing rite and the patristic by comparing the structures and the main focus of the texts, differences and similarities between the theologies of the two texts become clearer. The two main questions in this thesis is 1. Is the first-hand source (footwashing rite) compatible theologically with the second-hand source (Dionysius Bar Salibi`s biblical commentaries The second question is how much Greek influence has influenced the footwashing rite in contrast to the biblical commentaries?

This study brings excerpts from the Acts of Thomas (Act 1.11-16 and Act 3.30-33) together with two Buddhist jātakas (Udaya Jātaka - #458 and Visavanta Jātaka -#69) to consider how stories might have been transmitted in the early centuries of the common era in a milieu of mercantile exchange on the Indian Ocean. The Acts of Thomas is a 3rd century CE Syriac Christian text concerned with the apostle Thomas proselytizing in India. The jātakas are popular didactic narratives with a pronounced oral dimension that purport to be accounts of the Buddha’s previous lives. Syriac Christians possessed knowledge about Indian religious practices linked to renunciation, and it is plausible that they adapted Buddhist jātakas to convey Christian ideas in the account of Thomas journeying to India and converting people there. Epigraphic evidence from the western Deccan in India attests to yavana, or Greek, patronage of Buddhist institutions in cosmopolitan settings where ideas and commodities circulated. Against the grain in scholarship on early Christianity that tends to privilege Latin and Greek sources, this project moves the lens of analysis eastward to consider Indian influence on early Christianity as expressed in the Acts of Thomas. A literary comparison of the texts under consideration with reference to the historical and cultural context of exchange reveals similar models of renunciant practices in Buddhism and Christianity that establishes new grounds for consideration of interconnectivity across ‘East’ and ‘West.’ / Religion