PISSIDE. — A liturgical vessel for the preservation of the Eucharist for Communion, from πυξις, πύξος, Lat. pyxis, box, a round or polygonal little container for medicines, ointments, perfumes, etc., made of boxwood, other wood, metal, but especially ivory. The oldest known specimens date from the 4th century and continue through the 9th century. It is obvious that Christians must have had some object or container with which to carry the Eucharist to their homes or to the faithful detained in prisons. Damasus recalls Tarsicium sanctum Christi Sacramenta gerentem; and St. Cyprian an ark, in qua Domini sanctum fuit (De lapsis, 26: PL 4, 501).
In the first centuries of Christianity, and also after the Peace, for perhaps two centuries, pyxes were made with mythological scenes, and belonged among the toilet objects of the mundus muliebris, intended to contain jewels or perfumes. These pyxes subsequently became part of the liturgical furnishings and were used to preserve the consecrated bread. Nevertheless, owing to the lack of documentary evidence, it is impossible to determine the precise time at which the use of pyxes for preserving the Body of the Lord began. The Liber Pontificalis (I, pp. 176, 220, 243), which uses the word turris, on account of the shape of these objects intended for the Eucharist, mentions them in the biographies of Sylvester (314–35), Innocent I (401–17), and Hilary (461–68). A small box (5th century), formed of two very thin bronze sheets, may plausibly be regarded as a Eucharistic pyx: on one of them a scene of martyrdom is represented, and on the other Christ with the jars from the wedding at Cana, together with the Greek word εὐλογία.
The pyx of St. Mark of Thebes in Egypt is noteworthy. It was discovered in an abandoned Coptic village at the time of the Arab invasion (mid-7th century); it is a circular bronze vessel, with three supporting feet, a handle and an opening, surmounted by a cross, which seems to have served to carry consecrated wine to the sick, for Communion under both kinds. Another bronze specimen may have been the pyx of which only the lid remains, surmounted by a dove, in the Château-Borely Museum in Marseille. The ivory pyxes preserved in various museums, with mythological decorations, show their original profane purpose; but in others, which may also date from the 4th century, Christian subjects are evident. The oldest specimen (4th century) is the pyx in the Berlin Museum, on which are Christ teaching among the twelve Apostles and the Sacrifice of Abraham. However, the carving and execution of ivory pyxes are almost always very rough and display Byzantine influences. Among these is the so-called Carthage pyx, now in the Civic Museum of Livorno, which has been dated to the 4th century. Here the Lord is seated, with two baskets of bread at his feet, which he distributes to the disciples, who receive it with their hands covered by the edge of the pallium. Another ivory pyx is preserved in the cathedral of Pesaro, variously attributed to the 4th–6th centuries; it depicts Jesus healing the man born blind and the woman with the issue of blood, and the resurrection of the son of Jairus. Other ivory pyxes are in the museums of Berlin, London (with stories of St. Mena), Bonn, Cologne, and Leningrad (Basilewsky collection), displaying both mythological subjects and Gospel scenes; noteworthy is that of Brioude (4th century), with Orpheus. In Italy there are specimens at Bobbio, in S. Colombano; in the Civic Museum of Bologna; in Florence; and in Rome, in the Christian Museum of the Vatican Library (from the treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum of the Lateran), with the healing of the man born blind, in a still classicizing style; in the same museum, a cylindrical box with the healings of the blind man and the paralytic and the resurrection of Lazarus; in the Museum of the Baths (from the Kircherian Museum), a fragment of a pyx with the haloed Lamb between two lambs; and another bone pyx, of barbarian art, with the sacrifice of Abraham and Gospel scenes, found in the burial ground of Nocera Umbra. Among the oldest pyxes to have survived, mention must also be made of the beautiful and very large one that forms part of the Eucharistic treasure of Canoscio (Città di Castello), a work of the 5th century.
The pyxes of the early Middle Ages, like others of later periods, have the appearance of cylindrical boxes protected by a lid, and their decoration reflects the modes proper to the taste of the periods in which they were created, both in the more or less figurative reliefs and in the repoussé or enamel decoration. In the course of time the pyx was then provided with a tall stem, likewise adorned according to the period and regional taste.
Among the medieval examples, the pyx of St. Cunibert of Cologne, adorned with filigree and precious stones, is particularly beautiful; another, very elegant in the slender forms of its tall stem, is in the Cluny Museum in Paris, a work of the 13th century; another, adorned with Limoges enamels, is in the Germanic Museum of Nuremberg, and so forth.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, with the development of Gothic architectural forms and their incorporation into the goldsmith’s art, metal pyxes often themselves assumed the appearance of little temples set upon a tall stem, at times confusing their character with that of monstrances (Cologne—Schnütgenmuseum).
Nevertheless, the type later revived and maintained throughout the Renaissance, and then the Baroque and modern periods, was that of a chalice surmounted by a lid and adorned on the foot, stem, cup, and lid itself—which was always surmounted by a cross—with ornamentation, symbolic images, or allegorical representations alluding to the Eucharist.