The Cenacle (from the Latin , "dining room"), also known as the Upper Room (from the Koine Greek anagaion and hyperōion, both meaning "upper room"), is a room in Mount Zion in Jerusalem, just outside the Old City walls, traditionally held to be the site of the Last Supper, the final meal that, in the Gospel accounts, Jesus held with the apostles.
According to the Christian Bible, the Cenacle was a place in which the apostles continued to gather after the Last Supper, and it was also the site where the Holy Spirit alighted upon the twelve apostles on Pentecost, Matthias having been "numbered with the eleven apostles" to replace Judas in Acts 1:25.Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on Acts 1, accessed 24 September 2016: "The eleven were the tenants of the upper room, to which the other disciples resorted for conference and communion".
The site is administered by the Israeli authorities, and is part of a building holding what is known as "David's Tomb" on its ground floor.
Etymology "Cenacle" is a derivative of the Latin word , which means "I dine". Jerome used the Latin coenaculum for both Greek words in his Latin Vulgate translation.
"Upper room" is derived from the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke, which both employ the Koine Greek: (, Mark 14:15 and Luke 22:12), whereas the Acts of the Apostles uses the Koine Greek (, Acts 1:13), both with the meaning "upper room".
Overview
The building has experienced numerous cycles of destruction and reconstruction, culminating in the Gothic structure which stands today.
Foundational events from the Gospels The Cenacle is considered the site where many major events described in the New Testament took place, such as: preparation for the celebration of Jesus's final Passover meal the washing of his disciples' feet the Last Supper certain resurrection appearances of Jesus (, , ) the gathering of the disciples after the Ascension of Jesus () the election of Saint Matthias as apostle () the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost (). As a result, Peter and the other apostles went out, converted to their faith and baptised 3,000 people in one day ().
In Christian tradition, the room was not only the site of the Last Supper, i.e., the Cenacle, but the room in which the Holy Spirit alighted upon the twelve apostles and other believers gathered and praying together on Pentecost. Acts 1-2 tell us that Judas had been replaced by Matthias, and 120 followers of Jesus gathered in this room after his ascension.
Theories regarding Apostolic Age It is sometimes thought to be the place where the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. The language in Acts of the Apostles suggests that the apostles used the room as a temporary residence (Koine Greek: , ), although the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary disagrees, preferring to see the room as a place where they were "not lodged, but had for their meeting place".Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary on Acts 1, accessed 24 September 2016Fortescue, A. (1910). "Jerusalem (A.D. 71-1099)". In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved January 26, 2020 from New Advent. "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."
Dormition of Mary The general location of the Cenacle is also associated with that of the house where the Virgin Mary lived among the apostles until her death or dormition, an event celebrated in the nearby Church of the Dormition.
Early building Pilgrims to Jerusalem report visiting a structure on Mount Zion commemorating the Last Supper since the 4th century AD. Some scholars would have it that this was the Cenacle, in fact a synagogue from an earlier time. The anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux, France reported seeing such a synagogue in 333. A Christian synagogue is mentioned in the apocryphal 4th-century ("Report of Pilate"); although the depiction is fantastic and of questionable reliability (the report claims that all of the other synagogues were destroyed by divine wrath immediately after Jesus's death), a Jewish origin for the building has come under serious question.
The "Tomb of King David" While the term Cenacle refers only to the Upper Room, a niche located on the lower level of the same building is associated by tradition with the burial site of King David, marked by a large cenotaph-sarcophagus that dates to the 12th-century, but earlier mentioned in the 10th-century .Vita Constantini 11. Most accept the notice in that says that David was buried "in the City of David", identified as the Eastern hill of ancient Jerusalem, as opposed to what is today called Mount Sion, the Western hill of the ancient city.
History
Theoretical pre-Byzantine building The early history of the Cenacle site is uncertain; scholars have attempted to establish a chronology based on archaeological, artistic and historical sources.For example: Bargil Pixner, "The Church of the Apostles found on Mount Zion," Biblical Archaeology Review 16.3 May/June 1990 (http://www.centuryone.org/apostles.html ); David Christian Clausen, The Upper Room and Tomb of David: The History, Art and Archaeology of the Cenacle on Mount Zion (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016).
Based on the survey conducted by Jacob Pinkerfeld in 1948,Jacob Pinkerfeld, "'David's Tomb': Notes on the History of the Building: Preliminary Report," Bulletin of the Louis Rabinowitz Fund for the Exploration of Ancient Synagogues 3, ed. Michael Avi-Yonah (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1960): 41-43. Pixner believes that the original building was a synagogue later probably used by Jewish Christians. However, no architectural features associated with early synagogues such as columns, benches, or other accoutrements are present in the lower Tomb chamber.Clausen, 168-175 According to Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis writing towards the end of the 4th century, the building and its environs were spared during the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus (AD 70).Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 14 (54c). Pixner suggests that the Mount Zion site was destroyed and rebuilt in the later first century.Bargil Pixner, Paths of the Messiah and Sites of the Early Church from Galilee to Jerusalem: Jesus and Jewish Christianity in Light of Archaeological Discoveries, ed. Rainer Riesner, trans. Keith Myrick and Sam and Miriam Randall (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), 332-3. The lowest courses of ashlars (building stones) along the north, east and south walls are attributed by Pinkerfeld to the late Roman period (135-325).Pinkerfeld, Notes. Pixner believes that they are Herodian-period ashlars, dating the construction of the building to an earlier period.Pixner, Paths 333.
Byzantine-period building or buildings Many scholars, however, date the walls' earliest construction to the Byzantine period and identify the Cenacle as the remains of a no-longer-extant Hagia Sion ("Holy Zion") basilica.Joan Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 215; Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 189; Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, Vol. 3, The City of Jerusalem (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 272. Emperor Theodosius I constructed the five-aisled Hagia Sion basilica, likely between 379 and 381.David Christian Clausen, The Upper Room and Tomb of David: The History, Art and Archaeology of the Cenacle on Mount Zion (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), 36.
6th-century artistic representations, such as the mosaics found in Madaba, Jordan (the "Madaba Map") and at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, depict a smaller structure to the south of the basilica. Some have identified this smaller structure as the Cenacle, thus demonstrating its independence from, and possible prior existence to, the basilica.Pixner, Paths 349; Clausen, 49; Richard Mackowski, Jerusalem - City of Jesus: An Exploration of the Traditions, Writings, and Remains of the Holy City from the Time of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 146. The basilica (and possibly the Cenacle) was later damaged by Persian invaders in 614 but restored by the patriarch Modestus.
In 965 the church was burned down after a Muslim mob killed patriarch John VII and then again in 1009 when Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim ordered the destruction of all Christian churches in Jerusalem, an event lamented by Arab Christian poet Sulayman al-Ghazzi.
Crusader-period building
After the First Crusade, the leader of the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon, re-founded the church as a Latin abbey and in the twelfth century the basilica was rebuilt.
Under renewed Muslim rule Monastery Syrian Christians maintained the Cenacle until 1337 when it passed into the custody of the Franciscan Order of Friars who managed the structure for almost two centuries.
Mosque In 1524, during Suleiman the Magnificent's rule, Ottoman authorities took possession of the Cenacle, converting it into a mosque: the ( ). By 1551 the Franciscans had been fully evicted from their surrounding buildings. Non-Muslims were banned from entering though it was possible by bribing the custodians of the Dajani family.
Only in 1831 were Christians again allowed to celebrate mass in the cenacle though visits, such as that of Melchior de Vogüé, were dependant on the goodwill of the guardian.
British Mandate and Israel During the British Mandate, Christians and Jews were allowed greater freedom in visiting their respective holy sites in the complex. The historical building is currently managed by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior. Pope John Paul II celebrated mass in the Cenacle during his pilgrimage to Israel in the year 2000.
Historical worship and relics Column of the Flagellation Pilgrim Egeria, who visited the site in the 4th century, described the presence in the Cenacle of the Column of the Flagellation, which was venerated there at dawn on Good Friday.Holy Wednesday in Jerusalem: veneration of the holy Column at the website of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. Accessed 6 Oct 2023. In the 14th century, the Column of the Flagellation was removed from the Cenacle and taken to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Architecture and date (12th, 13th, 14th c.?)