ANDRE DE HALLEUX, Ministers in the Didache
MINISTERS IN THE DIDACHE
+ ANDRE DE HALLEUX
Louvain-la-Neuve In 1884, less than a year after the editio princeps of the Didache,
Harnack thought he had discovered in this testimony the missing link between | Corinthians and the Pastorals in the evolution of the spiritual and ecumenical ministries of the Word towards the local monarchical episcopate. It thus provided an unexpected confirmation of the current consensus among historians of primitive
Christianity about the theory elaborated by Lightfoot and Hatch to explain the birth of the "Catholic" institutional system. More recently, the theses of Kasemann, Bornkamm and their disciples on prophetic ministry in the New Testament have brought to the fore the opposition of the charismatic and the hierarchical, and the ecclesiology of H. King has contributed to it.
But what of the interpretation of the Didache? This "spoiled child of criticism", which Harnack imprudently announced would finally make all things clear, has itself long ago been transformed into such an irritating "enigma" that few researchers flatter themselves any more that they can elucidate it. On the question of ministries, however, the critiques which could have been addressed from Hort to Audet, to the advocates of the received opinion, do not appear to have shaken the assurance of those who continue to seek in this "first Christian catechism" a master key to the initial developments. Let us read, for example, the pages dedicated to the subject in the remarkable introduction to the recent Sources chrétiennes edition.!
We are led to believe that the apostles, prophets and teachers in the Didache represent the itinerant and charismatic ministries which essentially formed the hierarchy of the first Christian assemblies, according to the tradition of Antioch and western
Syria, in the first century of our era.2 Chapters 11-13 do not know of the existence of a ministerial hierarchy properly speaking, that is to say, of fixed ministers in the local church.3 The election of bishops and deacons does not occur until ch. 15, which is a later addition to the disciplinary part of the Didache.* The innovation of local ministers, who needed to be substituted because of the decline in the quality and numbers of itinerant ministers, did not ! W. Rordorf & A. Tuilier, La Doctrine des Douze Apétres (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1978 [SC 248)).
2 Ibid., pp. 57, 60, 62.
3 Ibid., pp. 63-64.
+ Ibid., pp. 49-64.
MINSTERS IN THE DIDACHE
happen without a struggle, but still needed to be done quickly.5
Therefore he also dates ch. 15 early, especially as it does not yet mention the monarchical episcopate, but comes from the same geographical milieu as the authentic letters of Ignatius of Antioch.¢
Setting aside the date, place of origin and dual authorship, this essentially repeats the theory of Harnack on the evolution of ministers in the Didache. The exegesis has become so natural that it is no longer distinguished from the text itself, onto which it was imposed on the basis of other presuppositions. Would it be possible to dispel the misunderstanding by a demystificatory reading?
Let us force ourselves to go back to the passages of the disciplinary section where ministries are spoken of (10:7-15:2), without the distorting spectacles of received opinion. When we allow the texts to speak for themselves, excluding all other extraneous data, the historical picture no doubt loses its neatness, but the critical foundations of the evidence perhaps gain in solidity.
However, two other methodological options suggest themselves at the outset. First: can one trust the text of the sole manuscript of the Didache, duly restoring the evident lapses of the copyist? It is true that the value of this witness of the eleventh century has been diversely appreciated. For if some consider it as an authority superior to the great biblical uncials of the fourth and fifth centuries,' or at least as a very good popular edition, unpretentious but careless,® others do not wish to see here any more than a late recension, intentionally amplified, abridged or corrupted.° Yet even to take the worst case, the ancient versions of the Didache and the parallel Duae viae do not permit us to reconstitute the archetype of the former with a reasonable degree of assurance, and the sceptical philologist is reduced, in spite of himself, to the ingenuity of conjecture. It is better then to respect the only known text than imprudently to forge an amalgam which probably never existed in the tradition.!° In any case, no major textual correction has been proposed for the section in hand.
It is true that the critical literature raises questions of a very serious complexity. The author of the Didache has undeniably also
5 Ibid., pp. 72-73.
6 Ibid., p. 78.
7 Ibid., pp. 104-107.
8 J.-P. Audet, La Didaché (Paris: Gabalda, 1958) pp. 77-78.
9B. H. Streeter, "Origin and Date of the "Didache"", in The Primitive Church:
Studied with Special Reference to the Origins of the Christian Ministry (London:
Macmillan, 1930), pp. 281-3; E. Peterson, "Uber einige Probleme der DidacheUberlieferung", in Friihkirche, Judentum und Gnosis: Studien und Untersuchungen
(Rome: Herder, 1959) pp. 146-182, esp. 146, 181-2.
10 §. Giet, L'Enigme de la Didaché (Paris: Ophrys, 1970 [PFLUS 149]) pp. 3233.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
used sources, not necessarily written ones. But, unlike the Duae viae of ch. 1-6, for which there are related witnesses, the analysis of 7-16 can only rest on internal criticism, that is to say on indices of style, which are rarely decisive, and on the criteria of content, where the preconceived idea that the interpreter has of the institutional development of primitive Christianity plays a key rdle. It is not surprising then that the dissections into redactional stages which have been proposed so far often appear very artificial."!
With the undeniable mark of robust health, the Didache has always resisted these successive and contradictory attempts to coopt one or another of its sections. The author was certainly not the creator of the traditions that he reports; but interpretation cannot confer on those heterogeneous elements a higher significance than the Didachist conferred on them when he collected them. A respectful approach to the unity of the writing could then prove the more plausible by virtue of its economy. Recent editors have wisely refused to retain in the Didache any addition, revision or interpolation other than the work of the continuator that they believe they can discern in ch. 14-15.12 However, the reading which is proposed here shows that this last concession to hypercriticism is not necessary either: the whole of 11-15 can be read, without internal contradiction, as a product of the same historical situation.
10.7 As for the prophets, let them give thanks as much as they will.
This instruction follows immediately on from the famous thanksgiving prayers of 9-10, on whose nature there is very little agreement. But it does not matter whether they accompanied the agape, the eucharist, or both together: what we should explain here is the presence at the same time of the identity and of the distinction, suggested respectively by the use of the same verb (9:1; 10:1;
10:7) and by the particle 5g (10:7), between the thanksgiving of the prophet and that of the preceding prayers.
The prophets of the Didache are often considered as the presidents of the cultic assembly!3 and some find this confirmed in the name "high priests" which they are given in 13:3.!4 But this
'1 Audet, Didaché, pp. 104-115; Giet,-L'énigme, pp. 234-236, 239-244, 260263; G. Schille, "Das Recht der Propheten und Apostelgemeinderechtliche Beobachtungen zu Didache Kapitel 11-13" in P. Watzel and G. Schille (eds.), Theologische Versuche | (Berlin: Evangelische Verlag-Anstalt, 1966) pp. 84-103.
2 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 49, 63-4, 72-8.
13 Tbid., p. 41 n. 2.
'4 Schille, "Das Recht", p. 93.
MINSTERS IN THE DIDACHE
implies that the prayers of 9-10—taken as a whole, however much they may represent the reworkings of sources—represent the "part" of the assembly of the faithful. It is true that they are composed in the first person plural; but must one infer their collective recitation?
What more natural, on the contrary, than that a 'delegate, a president, should have pronounced in the name of all!
One might object to this that the Didachist has not mentioned any minister for baptism (ch. 7) nor for the agape/eucharist (ch. 910); but this is an unacceptable argument from silence. In fact, the disciplinary directives of the Didache are addressed to the community as a whole, without distinction of laity and clergy; but they do not presuppose a disorganized assembly, since the instructions concerning the dominical synaxis allow one to see the bishops and the deacons as those responsible for its good order (chs. 14-15:2).
Why then should the prayers of chs. 9-10 not have been compiled for the use of the presidents of the agape/eucharist? From this point of view, one can easily see the contrast and the similarity between their thanksgiving, presented as fixed formularies, and that of the prophets who are allowed an unconstrained liberty. The right accorded to the prophets corresponds, indeed, to the spontaneity of unpredictable inspiration, whereas the preceding formularies are normally addressed to the ministers charged with assuring the regular unfolding of the cultic weekly meeting (ch.14-15:2). Nothing would have prevented a bishop having been a prophet as well, certainly; but the. way in which these two functions are contrasted in ch.15:1-2 discourages us from thinking that such a casé was common in the community of the Didachist. The latter then tried, so to speak, to prevent the "institution" from suppressing the "event", so as not to "quench the Spirit".
Nothing designates the prophets of 10:7 as itinerant ministers, passing guests rather than permanent members of the community. And their free thanksgiving can hardly be imagined to be ecstatic prayer. Indeed, if the prophetic act par excellence that constitutes the "eulogy", is given under the inspiration of the Spirit (cf. Lk 1:67-8), it is not that the mvedpua eclipses the vodc, for the Amen of the listeners implies that they were aware of the sense of the prayer (cf. 1 Cor 14:16). One can then think of a "eucharist" intelligibly pronounced by the prophet, fully conscious and in possession of himself, but with "inspiration", in the sense given to this word today to describe an orator or an authentic poet, and of which the first Christian hymns have left some traces
(cf. Eph 5:19). oR OK RK
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
11.1 If then someone comes and teaches you all these things which have been said, receive him. 2. But if he who teaches changes and teaches another teaching to destroy, do not listen to him; but if it is to add to righteousness and fear of the Lord, receive him as the Lord.
The author again wishes to speak about the prophets, if the "then" of v.1 refers back to 10:7. This of course presupposes that the prayer over the perfume, or myrrh, inserted at the corresponding point of the Coptic version and the Apostolic Constitutions (7:27) is not the original text,!5 but is a later addition to this.!° In fact, we shall soon discover (10:10) that besides his role in the eucharistic prayer, the prophet exercised a teaching function as well.
However that may be, nothing allows one to read here (11:12) the specific designation "teacher",!7 which will appear only later (13:2; 15:1-2), since the subject given for v.2, 6 dudcoKwy only repeats the indeterminacy of v.1, 6¢ Gv éAav didacEn. The words of the é:5cdoxerv family accumulated in these two verses go back to the instruction of the Duae viae (2:1; 6:2), and they have perhaps contributed to the inspiration of the title of the Didache.
Doubtless "the one who teaches", at7éc 6 duddoKwy (11:2), has acquired a right to teach in the community, but this function could very well belong to the persons who will be presented in what follows in ch.11. And this is already a rule of dokimasia which the Didachist expresses here, of the same order as that which he will establish for prophets: for how should one discern the intention
(sic) of the teaching, whether it is destructive or edifying (11:1-2), other than by examining the "way of life" of the one who teaches
(11:8)?
The second part of v.2 should not be taken as a simple repetition of v.1. It is therefore striking that the author does not monopolize the didache to his profit, however confident he may be, incidentally, of his rectitude (6:1), but, on the contrary, he orders the community to receive the person who teaches something different as if he were the Lord, provided that this teaching has in mind the building up of the Church. By whom should "the one who teaches" be dispensed from the doctrine of the Didachist
(11:1), if not by spiritual authority? Nothing then prevents us from seeing the persons in vyv.l-2 as prophets, enjoying the same privilege in their activity as teacher as they were accorded in prayer (10:7). And the Didachist could well have intended to indicate, at the same time, that he himself should not be considered a 1S Peterson, "Probleme", pp. 156-68. ees Adam, "Erwagungen zur Herkunft der Didache" ZKG 68 (1957) pp. 1-47, esp.
8-11.
'7 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 54, 183.
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charismatic; the use of the verb o7pédexv (11:2), which serves him elsewhere to refer to false eschatological prophets (16:3), then shows the extent of the respect with which he circumscribes the freedom of the authentic prophet.
The teaching prophets in view here are presented as coming from outside (é\@av 11:1), but nothing allows us to consider them as itinerant ministers, like the apostles or ordinary guests (épx6pevog 11:3; 12:1). The necessity of discernment normally concerns strangers, not members of the community known to all.
Unless, however, the latter changes his teaching, as is envisaged by v.2, which seems then to imply that the one who teaches has already been adopted by his church.
ORK 11.3 As regards the apostles and prophets, according to the precept of the gospel, act in this way: 4. let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord. 5. But he shall [only] stay one day and, if it is necessary, the following [day]; if he stays three [days], he is a false prophet. 6. When he leaves, let the apostle not receive anything except bread for the day's journey; if he asks for money, he is a false prophet.
!® The way apostles are treated here shows that it is no longer a matter of the Twelve Apostles, as in the second title of the Didache, chosen by Jesus and envoys after his resurrection, but of itinerant ministers as the ones who are attested in the most ancient Christian literature,!° and which have sometimes been considered as the ministerial model of the former,2° sometimes on the contrary as their successors.2! One could think, mutatis mutandis, of the preachers of the "popular mission" of yesterday, visiting the communities of those already converted. The author gives nothing concrete on the function of these missionaries, not so much because he no longer knew their apostolate? as because he knew that his public was warned and because his only concern was to unmask the false prophets.
The evangelical norm to which v.3 looks back recalls the mission discourse in Mt 10:9-14. But the "dry little code"?3 of the Didachist aims less to instruct the missionaries than to warn the 18 Cf. Tuilier in Rordorf & Tuilier, La doctrine, p. 185.
19 Ibid., pp. 58-9.
; 20 G. SaB, "Die Apostel in der Didache" in W. Schmauch, In memoriam Ernst Lohmeyer (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1951) pp. 233-239.
21 R.A. Kraft, "Yom Ende der urchristlichen Prophetie" in J. Panagopoulos (ed.), Prophetic Vocation in the New Testament and Today (Leiden: Brill [NT.E
45]) pp. 162-185, esp. 172.
22 Streeter, The Primitive Church, p. 147; Schille, "Das Recht", pp. 85, 88.
23 "Petit code assez sec", Hemmer, p. liv.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
communities. The principle of a favourable disposition towards apostles certainly continues to hold for him, since they must be given the assistance due to those who come in the name of the Lord (11:4; 12:2). Having said this, the two criteria of parasitism and self-interest distinguish the charlatan: to stay longer than two days contravenes the rules of hospitality (11:5; 12:2-3); to ask for money would be contrary to the evangelical precept (11:6; cf. Mt
10:9-10).
These two rules presuppose a certain degree of nomadism and poverty; but one should not twist their sense by interpreting them as an ascetic life4 or as asocial vagabondage.*
Could the haziness which has shrouded the silhouette of the apostle in the Didache have arisen because it really only referred to the appearance of one ministry, because it only described one function exercized in many ways??6 Among other indications which lead one to think so, one notes first that the order to receive him as the Lord, applied to the apostle in v.4, takes up again the same things that v.2 has said of "the one who teaches". The apostle, then, would here have a responsibility of teaching, but without any fixed attachment, as an itinerant teacher.
In the second place, it is striking that the apostle who abuses the hospitality or the generosity of a church is described twice not as a false apostle, but as a false prophet (11:5-6). The explanations that have been given for this anomaly?' are not fully convincing; for, even if the words made up with Wevdohad become interchangeable,28 how can one prove that the term Wevdompodyjrnc has momentarily prevailed to the point of excluding the wWevédamdoToXos attested by 2 Corinthians 11:13 (cf. Rev 2:2) and by the Fathers of the second century like Justin and Hegesippus?
It is important, finally, to notice in v.3 the absence of the repetition of the article in the clause mepi 68 Tav &ToOTOAWY Kat mpooynTav. If this fact is often hidden by the translation "the prophets and the apostles"
,29 it is perhaps because of the unconscious influence of the prejudice in favour of the ministerial trilogy of apostles, prophets and teachers. To suppose that the for24 G. Kretschmar, "Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem Ursprung friihchristlicher
Askese", ZThK 61 (1964) pp. 27-67, esp. 36-7.
25 G. Theissen, "Wanderradikalismus. Literatursoziologische Aspekte der UberPeach von Worten Jesus im Urchristentum", Z7hK 70 (1973) pp. 245-271, esp.
26 Streeter, The Primitive Church, pp. 146-7; G. Dix, "The Ministry in the Early Church c. A.D. 90-410", in K. E. Kirk (ed.), The Apostolic Ministry, Essays on the History and the Doctrine of the Episcopacy (London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1946) pp. 240-1.
27 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 52.
28 J. Reiling, Hermas and Christian Prophecy. A Study of the Eleventh Mandate (Leiden: Brill, 1973 [NovTest.S 37]) pp. 60-61.
29 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 185.
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mula of the Didachist is inspired by Ephesians 2:202° is a gratuitous hypothesis and cannot settle anything, since Ephesians itself can oscillate between distinct characters
(4:11) and functions united in the same person (3:5). That the latter case is exactly that of the Didache in ch. 11:3 as well as in 15:1-2, is confirmed by the fact that the author repeats the article where he designates two clearly distinct persons (7:4; 11:8), whereas when he does not repeat it the things he describes are contained in a hendiadys, however different they remain in themselves (9:3; 10:2). One must then doubtless understand the xai of 11:3 in the explicative sense and not the additive sense: "On the subject of the apostles who are also prophets", that is to say on the subject of the prophets of the apostolic genre.
So then the Didachist only seems to be interested in the missionary itinerants insofar as their function bore in a certain way on "inspired" teaching, able to build up but also to "destroy" the community. After all, the remainder of ch 11 and 13 deals exclusively with prophets, beginning immediately (11:7) without any of the particles which would normally suggest a change of subject, if there had been one, as one would be led to think by the "par ailleurs" of the translation of Tuilier.3!
RR 11:7 And you shall not tempt or discern any prophet who speaks in a spirit. For every sin will be forgiven, but this sin will not be. 8. Whoever speaks in a spirit is not a prophet, unless he has the way of life of the Lord. So one recognizes the false prophet and the prophet by their way of life. 9. Every prophet who orders a table in a spirit shall abstain from eating from it, or else he is a false prophet. 10. And every prophet who teaches the truth, without doing what he teaches, is a false prophet. 11.
But every prophet proven, true, who acts with a view to the mystery of the Church in the world, but who does not teach anyone to do everything which he does himself, shall not be judged by you; for it is with God that he has [his] judgment. For it is so that the prophets of old acted. 12. But whoever says to you in a spirit: Give me money, or anything else, you shall not listen to him;-but if he tells you to give for others, who are in need, let no-one judge him.*?
This pericope contains many obscurities, which the most ingenious hypotheses have not sufficed to explain convincingly.
What is shown clearly by the whole passage, is the high esteem the Didachist held for the prophet, an opinion all the more unselfish as we have already seen (11:2) that he probably did not 30 G. Schille, "Das Recht", p. 88.
31 Rordorf & Tuilier, La doctrine, p. 185.
32 Cf. Tuilier in Rordorf & Tuilier, La doctrine, pp. 185-187.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
consider himself one. If it is again a matter of distinguishing the true prophet from the false, it is done, it seems, with more sympathy than in the case of the apostle (11:3-6). The author appears concerned to save the prophetic "institution" by disentangling it from its counterfeits, so that it would not be discredited by its abuses.
Its general principle does not have the incoherence which it has often been taken to show.33 It seems to be the case that if the community had to authenticate the prophet by means of his behaviour (11:8), it had no right to inspect the doctrinal content of his message (11:7). It is by the "way of life" that one discerns the false prophet from the true, who is only authenticated as such if he has the tp6mouc kupiov (11:8), that is to say if he "does" the truth that he teaches (11:10). The parallelism in the sequence of ideas of vv.7-8 and Mt 12:31-33 allows us, perhaps, to infer that the Didachist knew the saying that the tree is judged by its fruit (cf.
Mt 7:15-16).
The examples of vv.9-12 concretize the ethic of the prophet in the sense of the disinterest required of the "apostles" (11:5-6).
But this test, this dokimasia one could say (11:11; cf. 1 Thess 5:21), has nothing to do either with a "temptation", nor even with the discernment of the prophet speaking in a spirit (11:7). One can understand that once tested by his conduct, the authentically spiritual prophet, was not under any other jurisdiction, except perhaps that of another spiritual person (cf. 1 Cor 2:15); far from contradicting 1 Cor 14:29,34 where oi GAAou could incidentally designate prophets,>>5 the Didachist could then be functioning here in a Pauline way. So great is his respect for the charism, that the diakrisis of any true prophet is held to be unforgivable sin, that is to say that it represents the sin against the Spirit (11:7; cf. Mt
12:31).
The interpretation according to which the Didachist simply wished to prevent one from interrupting an inspired prophet¢ does not take proper account of such a solemn warning.
This respect for the Christian prophets is confirmed in v.11, which sets them on the same footing as their Old Testament predecessors. The sense of the expression movety sig pwwoThp.ov
KooplKov &kKAnoiac, related to Eph 5:32, has not ceased to intrigue exegetes,37 in which some have seen a symbolic action or 33 Ibid., pp. 87-8; Kraft, "Vom Ende", p. 181.
34]. Panagopoulos, "H "ExxAnoia tav xpodntav. Td xpodnrixdy xa propa év TH "ExkAnoia Tev 660 TedTwy aidvwv (Athens, 1979) p. 284.
4 35 H. Greeven, "Propheten, Lehrer, Vorsteher bein Paulus.
Zur Frage der "Amter" im Urchristentum", ZNW 44 (1952-1953) pp. 1-43, esp. 6. a "
Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 53 n. 3; cf. Greeven, "Propheten", pp.
37 Cf. Rordorf, La Doctrine, pp. 186-188 n. 5.
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an acted-out apocalyptic drama, others have seen an ascetic and celibate life, anticipating the eschatological kingdom in this world, others on the contrary have seen spiritual syzygy of the prophet with a sister, recalling the celebrated case of Hosiah, of Moses and Rahab. What the text shows, in any event, is that not "doing"
'the truth which one teaches is the same as being a false prophet (11:10); the true prophet, morally tested, can be permitted a symbolic action which might be shocking for some reason, and this action cannot be judged by any human tribunal, as long as the prophet does not teach anyone to imitate it (11:11). In other words, since the mission of the true prophet places him outside the communal norms, he has the right to originality, even to a certain lawlessness, like his predecessors of the Old Testament, without being subject to anyone other than God.
Everything indicates that the Didachist roots the authority of the prophet in his "spiritual" being. But what is meant by speaking év mvevpare (11:7-12)? It is apparently not the Holy Spirit, warranted by the tradition, that he designates by this formula,?8 since he also affirms that the false prophet speaks in a spirit in the same way (11:8; 11:12), perhaps under the inspiration of demons who knew the future and the hidden things;39 hence the caution of the translators, who write here "esprit" ("spirit") without a capital.49 Does it then mean a state of unconsciousness and ecstatic agitation, midway between glossolalia and prophecy in the Pauline sense?4! The examples of v.9-12 are certainly not very clear.
However, if v.9 envisages the organization of a meal for the poor,*? or even a eucharistic meal,43 one cannot very well see the prophet acting, in this event, in somnambulance or ecstasy.
Likewise, the enigmatic symbolic action of v.11, able to be taught and liable to judgment before the divine tribunal, is likely to cover a conscious and voluntary proceeding. Again, it would be hard to imagine the false prophet unconscious of all trickery when he asks for a gift of money év mvetpar (11:12). If one adds this case to that of the liturgical thanksgiving called for earlier (10:7), one envisages a particular authority, either explicitly claimed in the name of the spirit, or simply marked by the inspired tone of the discourse or by the assurance of the action.
38 Panagopoulos, "ExxAnoia, p. 284.
39 Reiling, Hermas, p. 69.
40 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 185-9.
41 A. yon Harnack, Die Lehre der zwblf Apostel nebst Untersuchungen zur dltesten Geschichte der Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts (Leipzig: Hinrich's, 1884, pp. 122, 40-3.
42 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 186 n. 3.
43 Schille, "Das Recht", p. 93.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
The prophet is not an ecstatic mystic; he has a message to communicate.+ His functions, such as we can reconstruct them from the examples of 10:7 and 11:7-12, consisted of prayer, teaching and charity. All of this accords ill with an itinerant ministry; clearly the author was not thinking any more here of the "apostles" of 11:3-6, and if ch.12 repeats the law of Christian hospitality, the return to prophets in ch.13 explicitly presupposes them to be settled.
KEK 13.1 But every true prophet, who wishes to settle down among you, is worthy of his food. 2. aoatrwc didcoxahog adnOwog éoTw afL0¢ Kall avréc Goxep 6 EpyaTns THiS TpedA¢ avTov. 3. You shall take, therefore, all the firstfruits of the produce of the winepress, of the threshingfloor, of cattle and of sheep, to give them as firstfruits to the prophets, for they indeed are your high-priests. 4. And if you do not have any prophet, give them to the poor. 5. If you make bread, take the first=fruits of it and give them according to the commandment. 6. In the same way, if you make a jar of wine or oil, take the first-fruits of it and give them to the prophets.
7. Of your money and of your clothing and of all your goods, take the first-fruits, as it seems good to you, and give them according to the commandment.*5
Ch.12 presupposed that the ordinary visitor, who wished to settle in a community had to exercise his trade and in no way live in idleness. Here (13:1) it is stipulated, on the contrary, that every true prophet, that is to say every prophet tested by the way he lives (cf. 11:8; 11:11), deserves to be supported by the community in which he has decided to settle. It would be a false interpretation to see 6€\wv KxaeOHofoe as inferring a nomadic prophetic ministry in the process of settling down. If the Didachist only mentions prophets who are strangers to the community, it is because the question of whether they should earn their keep was only posed in their case.
The apostle-prophet of ch.11:3-6 was itinerant inasmuch as he was an apostle, and his character as a true prophet must again be submitted to the ethical test of the evangelical rule.
Here the prophet is no longer a missionary, he is already assumed to have been tested, and the only thing which remains to be regulated by the community of his adoption is the way he should be treated.
But aside from the prophet, does the Didachist not present the teacher as a distinct ministry? This is how v.2 has been understood, "In the same way [as every true prophet] the true
# Reiling, Hermas, p. 18.
45 Cf. Tuilier in Rordorf & Tuilier, La doctrine, p. 191.
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teacher also deserves his food, like the workman"
.46 This translation, the most obvious one, requires an interruption in the teaching of ch.13, which is entirely devoted to the prophets; therefore some critics, noting that the noun d:ScéoKadog is only found here and in ch.15:1-2, that is to say in a section which they regard as the work of a continuator, are led to consider the verse in question as an interpolation by the same hand.47
However, the unity of ch.13 can be saved by means of another reading of v.2, which is only surprising at first sight, for it is grammatically correct and offers a perfectly satisfying sense.
We understand the adverb woatitw¢o as announcing not the addition of a parallel case (cf. 13:6), but the simple explication of what precedes (cf. 11:11); we interpret the words d:d&o0Kadoc
&AnOvdg, which occur without any specification and at the head of the proposition, as an attribute and not as the subject; and we relate kai avrdc, taken as the subject of v.2, to the subject of v.1,
"every true prophet". We then translate as follows: "It is for this reason that [inasmuch as he is] a true teacher, [the prophet] also is worthy of his food, like the workman". The Didachist did not wish then at all to enumerate a second category of pensionaries of the church; he simply indicated the reason that the prophet deserved to be supported, namely in virtue of his "social utility", of the service that he provided as teacher. Put another way, it is the teaching of the didache which puts the prophet in the category envisaged by the evangelical principle, "the workman is worthy of his food" (cf. Mt 10:10). Is not every "true" prophet indeed a "true" teacher, inasmuch as he "teaches the truth" (11:10)?
The sequence of ch.13:3-7 specifies the rules of the first fruits, &mapxyH, which the author does not call a tithe, dexdrn, perhaps because the amount was left to the estimation of the donor
(13:7). These verses seem to be composed as a doublet, in which some have believed they can discern a trace of an evolution in the condition of the prophet from ancient domestic catechist (vv.5-7) to ecclesiastical functionary (vv.3-4).48 This is an over-subtle interpretation, since it could be that we simply have, for that matter, a double gloss on the traditional references to Deut 14:22-29.
The transition from "you" (sg.) to "you" (pl.) does not force one to think of v.4 as an interpolation (of the second degree according to Audet#?), since it is possible that the first-fruits were not taken individually to their beneficiaries, but collected together and shared out in the name of the church.
46 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 191.
47 Giet, L'énigme, pp. 227-8; Rordorf, La Doctrine, p. 190 n. 2.
48 Schille, "Das Recht", pp. 90-1, 100.
49 Didache, p. 458.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
One notices that v.3 and 4 presuppose, like 10:7, the existence of several prophets in one community (v.3), while others did not have any (v.4). From the fact that the first fruits must then be distributed to the poor, people often infer that the churches of ch.7-13 did not yet have fixed local ministries of the kind spoken of in ch.15.5° In fact, nothing prevents one from thinking that these ministers, where they had traditionally existed, could not have had their subsistence assured in another way, as we shall see, so that the author did not have to mention them here.
The description of the prophets as &pxepeic in v.3 does not necessarily envisage a liturgical function.*! It can be just a simple implicit, purely formal, comparison:52 in the same way that the first fruits were due to the priests, so this same commandment
(13:5; 13:7) of the Old Testament or, perhaps, an evangelical ordinance (cf. 1 Cor 9:14), demands of Christians that they give them to their prophets. Nevertheless the transposition of the title of "priests" and of "high priests" remains intriguing. The Apostolic Constitutions identify, in an analogous context (2.26.3), the high priests with the bishops, the priests with the presbyters and the Levites with the deacons. Perhaps the Didachist thought, for his part, of the charismatic prophecy with which Jewish tradition credited the high priest (cf. Jn 11:51; Josephus, AJ 13.229 etc.).
KEKE 15.1 Elect for yourselves, therefore, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are gentle, not anxious for gain, honest and tested; for they indeed replenish for you the service of the prophets and teachers 2.
Therefore do not scorn them, for these are the people to whom you owe honour, together with the prophets and teachers.*3
Does this pericope present us with the birth certificate of the local ministries of bishops and deacons, successors of the three ancient universal ministries of apostles, prophets and teachers—at least for the poorly evolved churches addressed by the Didachist5+?
And is it necessary, consequently, to attribute ch. 14-15 to a continuator of the Didache, who described a more developed institutional state of affairs than ch. 11-13?55
It is, in any case, not possible that the "bishops" of ch. 15 already reflect the system of the monarchical episcopate, as the 5° Giet, L'énigme, p. 262; Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 191 n. 5.
5! Schille, "Das Recht", p. 93; Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 53.
52 Giet, L'énigme, p. 229.
53 Cf. Tuilier in Rordorf & Tuilier, La doctrine, pp. 193-195.
54 Streeter, The Primitive Church, pp. 144-145; 149-152.
55 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 63-4.
MINSTERS IN THE DIDACHE
paraphrase in the Apostolic Constitutions supposed (7.31.1) by inserting presbyters between bishops and deacons. The Jewish roots of the Didache make it indeed a little strange that presbyters do not appear in place of bishops. Does this indicate Paulinism,5 or that the author wrote for Christians coming out of paganism and not for converted Jews?' The fact remains that the repeated plural of vv.1-2 presupposes an episcopal college. Like the deacons, the bishops are elected democratically, by a vote of hands raised in the assembly (15:1), which does not exclude however a consecration of the newly elected by the laying on of hands by their peers. In short, everything leads one to believe that the bishops and deacons of the Didache reflect a very ancient situation, perhaps analogous to that attested by Philippians 1:1.
But it is not necessary to interpret the text as if it required the churches to begin a tradition of designating its ministers, still less as if it required the prophets to consecrate them.58 The emphasis rightly falls on the qualities of the bishops and the deacons who are needed for a "liturgy" (15:1), and accords them the same honour (15:2) as the prophets and the teachers.
One notices here, as above for the apostles and prophets (13:3), but this time at second hand, that the article is not repeated in the phrase 7@v rpodnrav kai didaoxadwv, which dissuades us from distinguishing between these different titles. In fact, it is striking to confirm that the virtues required of the bishops and deacons (15:1) are the same ones that ch.11 required of the prophet. First, summarized in the expression wéiouvg Tov xupiouv, which recites the tpémouc xupiov'(11:8) characteristic of the true prophet, those qualities are specified in the four adjectives which follow. The last two, &AnOeic Kai dedoxipaopévouc, repeat almost to the letter the qualification of the ampog¢yrng dedoxtpaopévocg
GAnbivdg (11:11). With respect to the second, ddiAapytpouc, it reminds one that the question of money also constituted one of the criteria for discerning the false prophet (11:6; 11:12). As for gentleness, evoked above all by the adjective mpwetc, it appears in the Duae viae (5:2) as a virtue leading to the defence of the poor and the oppressed, and then particularly appropriated for the bishops and deacons in their social activity; but this was also one of the attributes of the prophet (11:9; 11:12). Finally, one notes that if ch.15:1 seems to relate the election of bishops and deacons to the dominical synaxis mentioned in ch.14, where one imagines that the bishops presided served by the deacons,°? ch.
10:7
56 Greeven, "Propheten", pp. 40-1, 43 n. 103.
57 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 75-6.
58 Panagopoulos, 'ExxAnoia, p. 407.
59 Dix, "The Ministry", pp. 246-7; Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 74.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
allowed the prophets to give thanks freely. The common "liturgy"
(15:1) then was as much cultic as charitable; these two dimensions were also perhaps found linked in the practice of the weekly agape/eucharist.
Nothing then supports the thesis that a continuator of ch.1113 required, in ch. 15, the same duties and the same respect for the two types of ministry, because that of the bishops and deacons was in the process of replacing an ancient itinerant hierarchy of apostles, prophets and teachers. The historical context of the Didache appears, on the contrary, perfectly homogeneous and does not require dual authorship. What seems to be causing problems for the Didachist, was rather the simultaneous exercise (kat avroi 15:1) of a similar "liturgy" by two categories of ministers.
Even excellent pastors, the bishops and deacons, can be despised because they are non-charismatic, vis-a-vis the prophets, who gave thanks, taught and acted "in the spirit". The author, who shows the highest respect for the prophetic charism, is none the less anxious for the good order of the community. That is why he takes up here the defence of the bishops and the deacons, by ordering them to make sure after their election that they present the same moral guarantees as the true prophets (15:1), and by requiring that they be shown the same honour as the latter.
It would be interesting to note that in the only other place where the Didachist has used the verb 7.u@v there is an echo of the Jewish principle of honouring the one who speaks the word of God (4:1; cf. 11:2; Heb 13:7). The honour due to the bishops and deacons would come to them because they also announce the word, even if it is not with the spiritual authority of the prophets.
Could one think here, among other things, of the "eucharist" of ch.9-10 provided for the presidents of the assembly, and which, in its turn, he now found himself defending as equal to the free inspiration of the prophets (10:7)?
DEORE Did the above reading of ch.10:7-15:2 of the Didache, interpreted in the final stage of its redaction, confirm the existence of the charismatic and itinerant ministries, "characteristic of the missionary centre of Antioch and of its period of full activity, around the years 50-60",*! if not even of the primitive community of Jerusalem?® Nowhere does the Didachist unite the titles of 60 Kraft, "Vom Ende", pp. 178-179.
6! "Charactéristiques du centre missionnaire d'Antioche et de sa période de pleine activité, aux environs des années 50-60"; A. Lemaire, Les ministéres aux origines de l'Eglise (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1971 [Lectio divina 68]) p. 182.
62 Kraft, "Vom Ende", pp. 166, 168-9.
MINSTERS IN THE DIDACHE
oul} apostle, prophet and teacher in a trilogy. This can only be found by combining the two pairs "apostles and prophets" (ch.11) and "prophets and teachers" (ch.13 & 15). But these two pairs could be reduced, in their turn, to a single figure, that of the prophet,® considered occasionally in his itinerant or missionary form in the apostle (11:3-6), but essentially in his praying (10:7; 15:1-2) and above all, teaching réle (11:1-2; 11:7-12; 15:1-2).
It is, therefore, with very great circumspection that we come to treat the other witnesses cited to support the "Antiochene trilogy" (if not Palestinian) by those who try and trace it not only in Acts (13:1; 14:4, 14) but also in the Matthean tradition (Mt
10:40-1; 23:34). The New Testament evidence never requires that the apostolate, prophecy and teaching constituted specialized ministries which could not be held by the same person, at least for two of them. The text seemingly most favourable to separating the three functions, that of 1 Corinthians 12:28-30, which incidentally needs to be corrected by Romans 12:6-8, was intended perhaps less to enumerate a list of distinct ministers than to show the rich variety of the gifts of the Spirit, of which each member of the ecclesial body has received his share. The titles of apostle, prophet and teacher could then always have been applied to three modes of exercise of the same gospel ministry.
The prophets-teachers of the Didache hardly resemble the Syrian charlatans of the second century caricatured by Lucian and Celsus, and the Didachist was attempting to defend their reputation.©*© Nowhere are they presented as the marginals of society, ascetic vagabonds and sexual ascetics, idealists of Wanderradikalismus .*7 Nothing more suggests that he wished to encourage the itinerant prophets to settle down in the communities in order to become the equivalent of a monarchical bishop.*®' Rather, the prophets whom he has in mind appear to be already normally resident in their churches, even if he was particularly interested in the case posed by the installation of a non-local prophet. And their ministry seems to constitute a permanent office in these churches, so that one would willingly speak of an institutional order, were it not for its exclusively personal nature; indeed it could be that the choice of the Spirit, manifested by the prophetic charism, has dispensed the community from all need for ordination®? and succes63 Dix, "The Ministry", pp. 241-2.
64 Cf. E. Cothenet, "Le prophétisme dans le Nouveau Testament" in Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible VIII (Paris, 1971) cc. 1222-1337, esp. 1271-1275.
65 Dix, "The Ministry", p. 239; Greeven, "Propheten", pp. 28-9, 31, 38.
66 Dix, "The Ministry", p. 241.
67 Theissen, "Wanderradikalismus", pp. 252-3, 262.
68 Streeter, "The Primitive Church", pp. 150-1.
69 Dix, "The Ministry", p. 238.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
sion,?° so that in the end they only needed the guarantee of the "way of life".
Were these prophets living in the local churches without ministerial responsibility for pastoral organization?
Actually, the author never suggests that the bishops and deacons did not coexist traditionally with the prophets-teachers (15:1-2). The charismatic type of ministry exercised "in the spirit" sufficiently explains the eventual disappearance of the prophets-teachers in certain communities, where their absence could not have provoked any crisis of structure. So nothing suggests a situation of institutional transformation from ch. 11-13 to ch. 15 and, consequently, nothing requires us to see ch. 15 as the addition of a continuator.
One could not fail to be struck by the positive attitude of the Didachist with respect to the prophet. Whatever his requirement for order in the "liturgy" of the community, he refuses to constrain the liberty of prophecy (10:7), in which he sees the model for pastoral ministers (15:1-2). Once tested by the moral criterion, the prophet must not only be fed by the community (ch.13), but the contents of his teaching and his action, even if they scandalize, are to be exempt from all criticism (11:7; 11:11). The reason for this singular respect lies clearly in the spiritual dignity of the prophet: it is because he speaks and acts "in a spirit" that any attempt to anticipate his judgment by God (11:11) constitutes the unforgivable sin (11:7) KKK However, this evidence about the prophetic ministry would radically change in its significance if the author only depicted an archaizing utopia. But, if there is no longer any suggestion today that the Didache is a later imposture, some critics continue to interpret it as the apology of a Montanist around the year 200, who was trying to convince the Great Church of the apostolic character of the "New Prophecy" by composing a fictitious picture of the primitive community from a florilegium of the New
Testament and other early Christian writings.7!
The partisans of this interpretation have clearly seen the central role of prophecy in the disciplinary section of the Didache, but their theory is none the less difficult to sustain, because of the incredible success that it attributes to a vulgar trickery.72 One of their major reasons consists in the date to which they assign the 70 Panagopoulos, "ExxAnoia, pp. 305-6.
71 F. E. Vokes, The Riddle of the Didache: Fact or Fiction, Heresy or Catholicism (London: SPCK, 1938) pp. 7-8, 136-145, 161-5, 209-19.
72 Streeter, The Primitive Church, pp. 284-6.
MINSTERS IN THE DIDACHE
writing, on the basis of a dependence on Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas and Justin, and the utilization of just about the whole
New Testament canon.73 But the most careful analyses tend to explain the literary parentage of the Duae viae of 1-6 by a descent from common ancestors' and to attribute the supposed citations of the New Testament to a gospel writing close to the Matthean tradition, but at a stage earlier than the form in which we know it.> An "antiquary" of the end of the second century would have cited the received texts in a more servile manner.
But the inner coherence of the writing similarly resists the hypothesis of a forger, however clever one might think him to be.
For if the supposed "antiquary" created his "montage" starting from the Pastoral Epistles, fully cognizant already of the system of the monarchical episcopate with apostolic succession," why did he not speak of the bishop in the singular (1 Tim 5:17; Tit 1:7) and why did he not treat the apostles with more reverence (13:36)? And what archaizing scruple would have led him to join to the prophets, whom alone he wished to set in honour, the apostles and teachers of 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11,77 since he does not understand these three titles as a trilogy of separate ministries?
Finally, and above all, the two major indications that could have given credence to a Montanist origin of the Didache give every indication themselves of being authentically ancient traits.
What is extraordinary in the existence of stipendiary prophets"® in certain churches of a sub-apostolic period, since prophecy is already more than sufficiently attésted! There is nothing suspect in the instruction to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays (8:1)79, far from it! The Jewish fast on Mondays and Thursdays is attested in the Mishnah, which codified the earlier customs at the end of the second century; one easily understands then that in a region where
Christians were in contact with the "hypocrites"
(8:1-2), they wanted to distinguish themselves, in fasting as in prayer.®° This detail joins itself to many other traces of Jewish halakah that one can discover in the content, the form and the structure of the Didache: two ways, baptism of proselytes, berakot, casuistic style, the sequence of the grand mishnaic "orders"
,®! as one of the 73 Vokes, The Riddle of the Didache, pp. 27-119.
74 Giet, L'énigme, pp. 71, 152. d 75 H. Késter, Synoptische Uberlieferung bei den apostolischen Vatern (Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag, 1957) pp. 159-241.
76 Vokes, The Riddle of the Didache, pp. 164, 171, 215.
77 Tbid., pp. 117, 142, 154, 166.
78 Ibid., pp. 171, 164-5, 172.
79 Ibid., pp. 136-145.
80 Adam, "Erwagungen", p. 42.
81 F. Manns, Essais sur le judéochristianisme (Jerusalem, 1977 [SBFA 12]) pp.
117-129.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
best indicators of the authentic archaism of the writing, and perhaps also of its links to Palestinian, Antiochene or Mesopotamian
Syria, even if Egypt cannot be entirely excluded,*around the end of the first century of our era.
KKK One then has every reason for considering the Didache to be true to life, and not a nostalgic idealization of the ministerial structures that it intended to codify. But here a last objection arises from the picture that certain contemporary exegetes have drawn of prophets as heads of the first communities of which they would have elaborated the tradition and formulated the law.8? Could one not perhaps imagine that the Didachist, a "prophet" himself but already acting as an official, only published his code to take away from the communities their traditional right to test and judge the spiritual leaders democratically, so as to place himself beyond any control?&4 In that case his testimony, however ancient it might be, still shows the evolution of prophecy towards monarchical episcopate.§
Such a reading rests on a subtle reconstruction of redactional stages, in part determined by the strange theory of the prophetic functionary, ancient itinerant catechist and domestic become subsidized ecclesiastical agent.%° It also presupposes that the prophet installed himself in an anarchic—in the etymological sense of the word, i.e. ruling itself in a purely spontaneous democracy—community, to take control of it, whereas the churches addressed by the Didachist doubtless traditionally contained bishops and deacons.
In fact, the coexistence of the "ancient rules" (11:3-6; 11:910), recognizing the right of the assembly to test its charismatics, and the new norms, dispossessing them of this privilege,87 would have been a strange thing; for why would the functionary prophet have preserved the denunciatory procedure of the ancient custom which he wished to abolish? After all, the "recent layers" (11:1-2;
11:8-10; 11:12) also afford to the community the moral dokimasia or testing of the prophet-teacher; and we have seen how the latter would not have been opposed to the prohibition of the diakrisis of the tested prophet (11:7; 11:11).88
82 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 97-9.
83 Cothenet, "Le prophétisme", cc. 1265-7; 1285-7.
84 Schille, "Das Recht", pp. 97-8, 102-3.
85 Streeter, The Primitive Church, pp. 150-1.
86 Schille, "Das Recht", pp. 86, 90-1, 100.
87 Tbid., p. 88.
88 Jbid., pp. 87-8.
MINSTERS IN THE DIDACHE
Is it then conceivable that the Didachist would have tried to monopolize to his profit the right of discernment which he denies to the community? This implies that he would have exempted himself from the "unforgivable sin" (11:7) and given himself the power. of judgment reserved for God (11:11). But such audacity fits ill with the modesty with which he instructs the churches to receive another teaching than his own, if it is to add to righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord (11:2).
The Didache represents, in primitive Christian literature, perhaps a unique case of discretion: the author does not try to build up his authority, either by apocalyptic scenery setting or by an apostolic pseudepigraphy. To be sure, the presentation of the writing as "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" must have been very ancient to guarantee it, perhaps from the second century, a quasi-canonical reception in Egypt and Syria.8? Yet, even if one retains only the shorter of the two titles, correcting it in accordance with the Patristic tradition to d6axai Tay a&TooT6AwY," this design again contrasts too much, for a conception of apostolic authority inspired by Acts 2:42, with the low esteem accorded itinerant apostles in 11:3-6%!, for one could consider it as authentic and for the apostolate thus to correspond to the Didachist's own view of himself.% But what the titles rightly understood is that the writing does indeed represent a didax7H, which implies that it properly has a Didachist for its author, i.e. a ds6@o0xadoc. And indeed, as soon as the compilator emerges timidly from the traditions which he transmits and betrays something of his identity, it is in order to appear as the messenger of a "teaching", in other words as a teacher (1:3; 2:1; 6:1; 11:1-2). However, unlike the prophet, an inspired teacher who receives revelations from on high and penetrates the secrets of the heart, the humble teacher is a man of tradition, of halakah, only concerned with faithfulness in the transmission of the past.°? That our Didachist fits into this last category, stands out clearly from the content-and style of all he has written, and the appeal to the prophet as guardian of the traditional doctrine of the church, sanctioned by the Spirit,94 would not here be an abuse of language. In removing the authentic prophet from every human tribunal, he paid him a homage more sincere
89 Streeter, The Primitive Church, pp. 284-6.
9 Audet, Didaché, pp. 91-103; 116-120.
91 SaB, "Die Apostel", pp. 233-6; 238-9.
92 P. Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975) pp. 723-5.
93 Greeven, "Propheten", pp. 9-10, 17, 29.
94 Panagopoulos, "ExkAnoia, p. 286.
ANDRE DE HALLEUX
because he knew himself to be without this charism; and could one not find a supplementary indication of his complete impartiality in the fact that he has not thought it necessary to make any law on the subject of his peers, the teachers to whom he perhaps addressed his writing as a testament?
The Christian teacher who composed the Didache around the end of the first century, perhaps having in mind certain communities in the hinterland of Antioch, does not show the anxious zeal of orthodoxy and of its norms, which already characterized his contemporaries: the false prophets whom he denounced are not false teachers (2 Pe 2:1), that is to say that their falsehood is not a matter of their teaching but of their pretension to a title for which their conduct disqualifies them (11:10). But the halachist, this ancestor of the canonists, uniquely preoccupied by the orthopraxis of the moral and disciplinary way (4:13), is not in love with law and order to the point of quenching the Spirit by condemning any other didache than his own (11:2). On these two points, his attitude contrasts with the dogmatism and intolerance of the Johannine author who takes up the criterion of the dokimasia in the christological confession, and who demands that anyone who does not carry this didache to the community should be expelled as the Antichrist (1 Jn 4:1-6; 2 Jn 7-10).