Barry Craig: His multi-lauded hands: origin and evolution of the hand element in liturgical Institution Narratives

While the biblical accounts of the loaf ritual do not mention hands the majority of institution narratives in anaphoras do (and a few in the cup unit), most being embellished by an array of adjectives. It is then noted or dismissed as a non-scriptural addition to the text. Why did it become so predominant, and why in these specific forms? This paper, adding to my previous research on the development of the institution narratives, explores this element from its first appearance in Patristic commentaries on the feedings of the multitudes and in the anaphoras from Apostolic Constitutions, revealing yet again the influence of the feedings in the Eucharistic texts.