Pyxides

PYXIDES. - A liturgical vessel for the reservation of the Eucharist for Communion, from πυξις, πύξος, Latin pyxis, a box, a small round or polygonal jar for medicines, ointments, perfumes, etc., made of boxwood, other wood, or metal, but more especially of ivory. The oldest known examples date back to the 4th century and extend to the 9th century. It is obvious that Christians must have had some object or receptacle for carrying the Eucharist to their homes or to the faithful detained in prisons. Damasus recalls Tarsicium sanctum Christi Sacramenta gerentem; and St. Cyprian mentions an arca, in qua Domini sanctum fuit (De lapsis, 26: PL 4, 501).

In the first centuries of Christianity, and even after the peace, for perhaps two centuries, pyxides were made with mythological scenes, which belonged to the category of toilet articles of the mundus muliebris, intended to hold jewels or perfumes. Such pyxides later became part of the liturgical furnishings and came to be used for reserving the consecrated bread. It is not possible, however, for lack of documents, to determine the precise time at which the use of pyxides for reserving the Body of the Lord began. The Liber Pontificalis (I, pp. 176, 220, 243), which uses the word turris, because of the shape of such objects destined for the Eucharist, mentions them in the biographies of Sylvester (314-35), of Innocent I (401-17), and of Hilary (461-68). One may plausibly regard as a eucharistic pyx a small box (5th century) formed of two very thin sheets of bronze, on one of which is represented a scene of martyrdom, on the other Christ with the jars of the wedding at Cana, and the Greek word εὐλογία.

Noteworthy is the pyx of St. Mark of Thebes in Egypt, discovered in a Coptic village abandoned at the time of the Arab invasion (mid-7th century); it is a circular bronze jar, with three supporting feet, with a handle and an orifice, surmounted by a cross, which seems to have served for carrying the consecrated wine to the sick, for Communion under both kinds. Another bronze example may have been the pyx of which only the lid survives, surmounted by a dove, in the Museum of Château-Borely at Marseilles. The ivory pyxides preserved in the various museums, with mythological decorations, show their original destination for profane use; but in others, which may also date back to the 4th century, the Christian subjects are evident. The oldest example (4th century) is the pyx of the Berlin Museum, in which are Christ teaching among the twelve Apostles and the Sacrifice of Abraham. However, almost always the modelling and execution of the ivory pyxides are very summary and display Byzantine influences. Among these is the so-called pyx of Carthage, now in the Civic Museum of Livorno, which has been dated to the 4th century, where the Lord is seated and at his feet has two baskets of bread which he distributes to the disciples, who receive it with their hands covered by the edge of the pallium. In the cathedral of Pesaro another ivory pyx is preserved, variously attributed to the 4th-6th centuries, in which one sees Jesus healing the man born blind and the woman with the issue of blood, and the raising of the son of Jairus. Other ivory pyxides are in the Museums of Berlin, London (with stories of St. Menas), Bonn, Cologne, Leningrad (Basilewsky collection), with both mythological subjects and Gospel scenes; noteworthy is that of Brioude (4th century) with Orpheus. In Italy there are examples 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 treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum of the Lateran) with the healing of the man born blind, of a still classicizing type; in the same Museum, a cylindrical box, with the healings of the blind man, of the paralytic, and the resurrection of Lazarus; in the Museum of the Terme (from the Kircheriano) a fragment of a pyx with the nimbed 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 pyxides that have come down to us, one should also note the very beautiful one, of ample form, which is part of the eucharistic treasury of Canoscio (Città di Castello), a work of the 5th century.

Carlo Carletti

The pyxides of the early Middle Ages, like others of later date, have the appearance of cylindrical boxes protected by a lid, and in their decoration they reflect the modes proper to the taste of the epochs in which they were created, both in the more or less figured reliefs and in the decorations in repoussé or enamel. In the course of time the pyx was then provided with a tall stem, this too adorned according to the epoch and regional taste.

Among the medieval ones of particular beauty, one recalls the pyx adorned with filigree and precious stones of St. Cunibert of Cologne; a very elegant one, in the slender forms of its tall stem, in the Cluny Museum in Paris, a work of the 13th century; another adorned with Limoges enamels in the Germanic Museum of Nuremberg, and so on.

During the 14th and 15th centuries, with the development taken on by Gothic architectural forms and their introduction also into goldsmithing, metal pyxides often themselves assume the appearance of little temples placed on a tall stem, sometimes confusing their character with that of ostensories (Cologne-Schnütgenmuseum).

Nevertheless, the type later taken up and maintained throughout the Renaissance and then the Baroque and modern age has been that of a chalice surmounted by a lid and adorned in the foot, the stem, the bowl and the lid itself — always surmounted by the cross — with friezes, symbolic images or allegorical figurations alluding to the Eucharist.

Emilio Lavagnino

LITURGY

From the 12th century the p. was given a foot with a knop; its form gradually came to resemble that of the chalice, with the cup at first polygonal, then round. This form is still preserved; but after the Council of Trent, when the use of private Communion outside holy Mass increased, especially after the decree of Blessed Pius X, the cup became wider. As for the material there are no prescriptions; it must be of metal; only the cup and the lid must be gilded on the inside. St. Charles Borromeo mentions a cross surmounting the lid. The p. need only be blessed; a formula of blessing is already found in the so-called Missale Francorum (entitled Praefatio chrismalis). To carry the Viaticum to the sick, a small round p. in the form of a pyx is used today. Out of reverence for the holy Eucharist contained therein, the p. is covered with a conopeum of white silk. - See plates CIX-CX.

Pietro Siffrin