KURT NIEDERWIMMER, An Examination of the Development

KURT NIEDERWIMMER, An Examination of the Development

AN EXAMINATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND

TRADITION OF THE DIDACHE

KURT NIEDERWIMMER

Vienna There are grounds for assuming that the beginning of post-Easter Christianity manifested itself in certain areas of the PalestinianSyrian area in two very different social forms: besides local

Christians we find groups of homeless missionaries and prophets of the new movement who travelled from place to place. Without exaggerating, it might perhaps even be stated in the opposite manner: besides the itinerant charismatics, as the real bearers of the new movement, individual groups of settled Christians formed, from whom, in the course of development, the local communities originated.

Recently, the phenomenon of the "itinerant charismatics" or "itinerant ascetics" has repeatedly been the subject of research.! It is likely that the origin of this phenomenon is to be found in the early Palestinian church among missionaries and prophets who, in their own way, attempted to develop an analogous continuation of discipleship in the changed conditions of the post-Easter period.?

In my opinion, the first "enthusiastic" mission in the PalestinianSyrian region was also related to the itinerant charismatics. After this, the movement appears to have continued in rural and small1G. Kretschmar, "Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem Ursprung friihchristlicher

Askese", Z7hK 61 (1964) pp. 27-67; now also in: K. S. Frank, Askese und Monchtum in der alten Kirche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,

1975 [WdF 409]) pp. 129-179 (The following is cited according to the first edition);

G. Kretschmar, "Das christliche Leben und die Mission in der friihen Kirche", in H. Frohnes & U. W. Knorr (eds), Kirchengeschichte als Missionsgeschichte I: Die

Alte Kirche (Miinchen: Kaiser, 1974) pp. 94ff; G. Theissen, "Wanderradikalismus.

Literatursoziologische Aspekte der Uberlieferung von Worten Jesu im Urchristentum", Z7hK 70 (1973) pp. 245-271 (Eng. "Itinerant Radicalism: The Tradition of Jesus Sayings from the Perspective of the Sociology of Literature", trans. A. Wire,

RadRel 2 [1976] pp. 84-93); G. Theissen, "Legitimation und Lebensunterhalt: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie urchristlicher Missionare", NTS 21 (1974/75) pp. 192-221

(Eng. "Legitimation and Subsistence: An Essay on the Sociology of Early Christian

Missionaries" in G. Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth, trans. J. H. Schiitz [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982] pp. 27-67).

2 G. Theissen ("Wanderradikalismus", p. 252 n. 20) takes the position of Kretschmar one step further and raises the question as to the true identity of those tradents of Jesus-tradition propagating ethical radicalism.

For Theissen these itinerant ascetics are the tradents; in their own way they attempt literally to fulfil

Jesus' demand for homelessness, renunciation of marriage and renunciation of possessions ("Wanderradikalismus", pp. 249ff). Theissen conceives of the itinerant charismatics' asceticism as an authentic continuation of the tpé7o xvpiov and Jesus himself as the first itinerant charismatic (p. 257).

KURT NIEDERWIMMER

town areas of Syria. From that point there appears to have been a development leading finally to the early east Syrian church, or at least to particular traditions within it. In this fashion an independent branch of early Christianity's developmental history emerges,* important among other things for casting light upon the transition, in this region delayed for a particularly long time, from the original atmosphere of eschatological immediacy to the early catholic mentality.

Within this development, the relevant sayings of the Didache's community rule assume a key position. Can a picture be drawn of the developmental stage depicted by the rules of the Didache?+ In my opinion, to this end an attempt must be made to distinguish clearly between traditional material and _ the "Didachist" even within the community rule.

That will be attempted in the following. That all assertions about the Didache bear merely hypothetical character, in view of the condition of our

Didache tradition, has rightly been emphasized time and again. It goes without saying that this applies in even stronger measure to tradition-historical differentiations, which are, of course, unavoidable.

3 As far as the ascetic motives at work are concerned, it is necessary to remember that here only one particular aspect comes to light, only one of the lines of development of the history of the primitive and early Christian asceticism.

4 This presupposes that the composer of the Didache wrote at the beginning of the second century C.E. for Syrian communities in the village or small town milieu.

For the arguments about the date, see J. Quasten, Patrology I: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature (Utrecht: Spectrum, 19755) p. 36-7; B. Altaner, Patrology, trans. H. C. Graef (Freiburg: Herder, 19607) p. 51; P. Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur. Einleitung in das Neue Testament, die Apokryphen und die

Apostolischen Vdter (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975) p. 737. An early date is not justified, in my opinion. For the arguments about the place, cf. Quasten, Patrology, p.

37 (probably Syrian); O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur 1 (Freiburg, 19132; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1962 [Reprint]) p. 96 (probably Syrian or Palestinian); Altaner, Patrologie, p. 81 (SyrianPalestinian); with caution Vielhauer, Geschichte, p. 737. For the arguments about a rural or small town milieu cf. 13:3-7; R. Knopf Die Lehre der zwilf Apostel. Die zwei Clemensbriefe (Tiibingen:

Mohr,

1920 [HNT.E

1]) p. 34; Kretschmar, "Askese", p. 41 n. 35; Vielhauer, op.cit., p. 737.—A. Adam, "Erwagungen zur

Herkunft der Didache", ZKG 68 (1957) pp. 1ff, 37ff and passim argues for a Syrian origin. His thesis: the primitive form of the Didache was written as a church order for the young communities in east Syria toward establishing their community life.

Hypothetical conclusion concerning the date: between 90 and 100; as place of composition Adam suggests Pella.

There is a critique of Adam in Vielhauer (Geschichte, p. 737).

> Vielhauer, Geschichte, pp. 734, 737. Instructive (but excessive in its overall judgment of the Bryennios text) is the scepticism of E. Peterson, "Uber einige

Probleme der Didache-Uberlieferung", now in Friihkirche, Judentum und Gnosis.

Studien und Untersuchungen (Rome: Herder, 1959) pp. 146-182. (He argues that the Bryennios text is merely a late recension of the Didache, p. 181!).

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

ki The literary analysis, with which we begin, presents the following picture: 11:1f concludes the section 7-10 (instructions about the cult) and introduces the following community rule (11-15). In my opinion the Didachist is at work in 11:1f, for 11:1f forms the transition® to the new theme: the community's attention is brought to teachers arriving from without, who are consequently to be tested as to whether they teach what has been set forth in the preceding text or not. In the negative case the community should not listen to them, in the positive case the teachers should be received. Thus the subject of the following section is set forth.7

The composition of the following is not, of course, immediately transparent.' In 11:3 a section is introduced mepi 58 Tav

6 Vielhauer, Geschichte, p. 735, rightly contra J.-P. Audet, La Didaché.

Instructions des apotres (Paris: Gabalda, 1958 [EBib]) p. 111, who understands 11:2 as the conclusion of D1. Audet distinguishes between D1, D2 and the Interpolator. He argues that D2 was only added after the conclusion of D1 and under the pressure of recent conditions (p.

111), but probably derives from the same—apostolic!—author (cf. pp. 104ff, 110ff, 119f). Vielhauer (Geschichte, p.

735) is critical of Audet's distinction of D1 and D2.

7M. Dibelius, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975 [ThB 58]) pp. 151f, and also, Die Pastoralbriefe (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1966 [HNT

13]}) pp. Sf (Eng. The Pastoral Epistles, trans.

P. Buttolph & <A. Yarbro {Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972]). The edition of the latter completed by H. Conzelmann, wants to see in Didache 7-15 a scheme of composition present also in 1

Tim 2 and 3. What is characteristic of this scheme, he maintains, is the sequence of instructions on prayer (cf. Did 7-10; 1 Tim 2:1ff), ethical conditions for the worship service (Did 14; 1 Tim 2:8ff) and community organization (Did 15:1f; 1 Tim

3:1ff). The instructions of Did 11-13 then depart from this scheme: according to Dibelius, they must have been from a later date, inserted at this point for the occasion. There is agreement from Vielhauer (Geschichte, p. 727). But the thesis is not compelling, the parallels are not exact, and the wholesale assumption that Did 11-13 was from a later date is, in my opinion, unjustified. Even supposing that the Didachist really broke a pre-existing literary scheme in 11-13, he could nevertheless have worked also with older traditional material in dealing with the question at hand; i.e. in 11-13 can be found both old and redactional material. And that is in fact the case, as I hope to show.

8 Tt has often been suggested that Did 11-13 does not represent a unity. Cf.

Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 33; according to Audet (Didache pp. 111f) 11:3ff comes from D2 (cf. also Didaché p. 435); 13:3, 5-7 is attributed to the Interpolator (pp. 105ff,

457; cf. p. 453), 13:4 is a gloss (p. 458). W. Schmithals (Das Kirchliche Apostelamt. Eine historische Untersuchung [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,

1961 (FRLANT 79)] p. 171 n. 373) thinks that the tradition taken over in 11:3-6 could be older than the final redaction (Eng. The Office of Apostle in the Early

Church, trans.

J. E. Steely (London: SPCK, 1971). According to Schmithals (Apostelamt, p. 172) "diirfte das von der Didache verwertete Material, in dem von

Aposteln die Rede ist, noch im 1.Jahrhundert fixiert worden sein." G. Schille tries to provide our text with a (somewhat over-complicated) history of tradition, in "Das

Recht der Propheten und Apostel—gemeinderechtliche Beobachtungen zu Didache Kapitel 11-13" in P. Watzel & G. Schille (eds.), Theologische Versuche I (Berlin:

KURT NIEDERWIMMER

&rooTé\wy Kol tpodntav, which, strictly speaking, can only extend to 11:12. Besides apostles and prophets, chapter 12 names a third group for which we are not prepared by the superscript in 11:3: ordinary itinerant Christians. Chapter 13 returns once again to the prophets, whose case had seemed extensively and finally treated in 11:7-12. One cannot, however, make

13:1 follow 11:12, since chapter 13 is too clearly bound to 12:3ff by the catch-phrase 0éAwv Kabjobar mpdc¢ bpac. 13:1 is thus the logical

Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1966) pp. 84ff. In the beginning, according to him, it was the right of the community to test the charismatics; this right of the community was gradually eroded; finally the author (=the Didachist) forbade the testing of the charismatics (who meanwhile had become community officials). Schille tries to support his concept of the history of the tradition by distinguishing between casuistical tules, apodictic decrees and declarative formulae (pp. 89ff). Important decisions he makes on the basis of the history of tradition are: 11:4-6, framed in the style of the declarative formula, belongs to old tradition (4 is of course explained as "die anredende Gesetzesparanese des Autors", p. 92 n. 31; here a decree has intruded into a declarative formula, p. 91 n. 25,5); likewise 11:9f belongs to old tradition.

The remarks on testing (11:1la; 13:1f; p. 88) demonstrate a later stage (although the rule 11:11 may still be older than the "Anstellungsformel" in 13:1f; cf. Schille, p. 101). 11:12 "ist eine erweichte Spatform der Apostel-Unterhaltsregel 11:6 ohne

Titel" (!? p. 88). The author of the Didache marks the final stage, forbidding the testing of the charismatics attempting to justify this in 11:8 (p. 87).—The proposal for the tradition history of chapters 12 and 13 is just as complicated: for 12:la, 2b,

5a (!) Schille proposes older tradition (p. 95 n. 53); 13:3-7 consists (p. 90f) of an older executive formula (5-7) and a later introductory formula (3f). He argues that this section contains casuistical rules; one can, however, no longer speak of a purely casuistical style. "Die kasuistische Form ist in den dekretalen Bereich eingeschmolzen" (p. 91). Cf. further under n. 60—The main considerations speaking against the analysis of Schille (though he makes valuable observations with respect to detaiis):

1. The prohibition against the testing charismatics (11:7) is certainly not the latest tradition, but on the contrary the oldest tradition. It is found already in 1 Cor 2:15 (to which Schille himself, with restrictions, refers: p. 87 n.

11). The proximity of the prohibition against testing and the formation of criteria need not be separated out into different temporal stages of the tradition (cf. under n.

37). Therefore I cannot follow the notion that the right to test the charismatics was successively taken away from the community either, during the development of the Didache tradition. 2. The distinction made among text types of a legal character fit the text itself only laboriously. Schille has to concede that in part mixed forms are present (pp. 91, 94). 3. The subject of the Didache tradition is not the successive

"Entmiindigung der Gemeinde" (p. 102), but the co-existence of two different social forms of the Christian life, which led at the time of the Didachist to the attempt to integrate the itinerant charismatics.—After the conclusion of this manuscript, G.

Kretschmar, kindly made available to me the text of his contribution to the Festschrift for Rousseau, "Die innerkirchlichen Dienste und das Amt der Kirche in der Welt. Strukturen der friihen Christenheit". Kretschmar distinguishes different layers of the Didache (cf. already his "Askese", p. 37). For our context it is also significant among other things that he attributes the instruction of 15:1 to the last layer of the Didache and sets it off against the preceding elaborations about the itinerant charismatics.

; ° As Knopf (Die Lehre, p. 33) does.

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

sequence to 12:3-5 and presupposes this section. Neither may 13:1f together with 12:1-5, be immediately subsumed under the catch-phrase "Brethren, who wish to settle" ,!° for 12:1f does not treat this question yet. Furthermore, it is conspicuous that in the superscript 11:3 only apostles and prophets are mentioned and in the following only their situations are dealt with; there is no mention of the d:dc&oxador.!! In spite of this, the teachers emerge in 13:2 (even if only tangentially), and form in 15:1f (together with the prophets) the complement to the local church officials (there, on the other hand, the apostles are missing completely from the ranks of the charismatics).!2

These observations might be explained by assuming that an older tradition was available to the author of the Didache in 11:4ff. This older tradition speaks of itinerant apostles and itinerant prophets (and only of these), and in particular of how such charismatics are to be received by local

Christians (11:4-12). The itinerant teachers are not yet mentioned here. The Didachist has (for this occasion) reproduced this older material, though it may remain open whether the author had formulated material before him or whether he formulated the wording of the elements of tradition himself in archaizing fashion, the latter being less likely. In any case, the section 11:4-12 represents a situation older than that of the author of the Didache and which must differ substantially in certain respects from conditions in the 10 Audet, Didaché, p. 453. For Audet 12:1-5 and 13:1f belong together. The caesura lies between 13:2 and 3. Audet attributes the section 13:3, 5-7 to the Interpolator. Cf. above n. 8.

11 Audet (Didaché, p. 442) explains it as follows: the teachers were most probably not itinerant teachers, and for this reason are missing in 11:3-12, but are present on the other hand in 12:1-13:2. Hardly correct.

12 So too Schille, "Recht", p. 85: the title of apostle is limited to 11:4-6 and absent in the further rules—Another question is whether one can make an argument on the basis of the dissent between the term apostle in 11:4ff and the title of the Didache, especially considering that the wording and genuineness of the title are contested. Audet (Didaché, pp. 91ff) has good grounds for making the assertion that the Didache originally only had the shorter wording as title, in which the mention of the Twelve is missing. Audet sees no dissent between the superscript (the short title) and 11:3-6 (p. 119). Cf. also G. Klein, Die zwélf Apostel. Ursprung und

Gehalt einer Idee (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961 [FRLANT 77]) pp.

80ff. According to J. Roloff, Apostolat-Verktindigung-Kirche. Ursprung, Inhalt und

Funktion des kirchlichen Apostelamtes nach Paulus, Lukas und den Pastoralbriefen

(Giitersloh: Mohn, 1965) p. 82 n. 138, a dissent still, of course, remains, inasmuch as Roloff assumes that the title refers to a limited number of apostles, even if the Twelve are not mentioned, and thus apparently contradicts the usage of "apostle" in chapter 11. Vielhauer (Geschichte, pp. 723ff), on the other hand, sees the problem differently. Vielhauer emphasizes the material difference between the short title and the apostle concept in chapter 11. "Die "Apostel' in 11,3-6 sind keine unbestrittene

Lehrautoritat wie die 'Apostel' im Titel" (p. 724). Vielhauer concludes from this, that even the short title does not come from the Didachist, but rather from a later hand.

KURT NIEDERWIMMER

author's day. In reproducing the tradition, the author provided it with an introduction (11:3; the expression of d6yua Tod evayyediou is certainly typical of the redaction of the Didache)'3 and accommodated it to the circumstances of his time by constructing two appendices (12:1-5; 13:1ff). That 13:3, 5-7 is a later interpolation, as argued by Audet,'* is not in my opinion demonstrable. On the other hand, Audet is correct in his assumption that a later gloss is present in 13:4,!5 revealing a later time when local prophets have also become scarce. Incidentally, the reference to the év7oAj (the évtod} xupiov which the author quotes in 13:1 and repeats in 13:2 is probably meant) is characteristic of the redaction. And lastly the mention of du6@oxaXor (13:2) in this section is no accident, since we know from 15:1f that they are present next to and after the prophets as charismatics in the communities of the Didachist.

If these assumptions are correct, then we have to reckon with the following structure for the section:

11:1f Transition (redactor) eS Introduction to the ancient tradition (redactor) 11:4-12 Concerning the reception of itinerant apostles and itinerant prophets (tradition)!® 13 11:3 is a rubric from the pen of the Didachist, cf. H. Késter, Synoptische

Uberlieferung bei den Apostolischen Vatern (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1957 [TU 65]) p. 10; Schille, "Recht", p. 88. The reference to the "gospel" (four times in Did 8:2; 11:3; 15:3, 4) is, in my opinion, typical of the redactor. On ebaryyéor in Didache, cf. JDNT Il, p. 736 (Friedrich); K6ster, Synopt. Uberl. pp. 10f, 209ff; H. von Campenhausen, Die Entstehung der christlichen Bibel (Tibingen: Mohr, 1968

[BHTh 39]) pp. 142ff (Eng. The Formation of the Christian Bible, trans. J. A.

Baker [Philadelphia: Fortress]); P. Stuhlmacher, Das paulinische Evangelium I:

Vorgeschichte (Gdttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968 [FRLANT 95]) pp. 60f; A. Sand, Kanon. Von den Anftingen bis zm Fragmentum Muratorianum (Freiburg:

Herder, 1974 [HDG I, 3a,1}) pp. 55f. As KGster (pp. 10f, 209ff, 239f) has shown,

"Evangelium" means for the Didachist a written gospel, referring his readers to it without citing it literally. Oral and written gospel tradition did not compete with one another at the time of the Didache (more precisely: even into the Didachist's day). See also von Campenhausen, Entstehung, p. 144.—In terms of content,

"gospel" for the Didache consists of a collection of rules and instructions. In the "gospel" the reader finds the commands of the Lord—and indeed in respect of right prayer (8:2), right almsgiving (15:4), in respect of conduct with the erring brethren

(15:3)—and even in respect of the pressing questions for the area in which the Didache-tradition arose, namely concerning proper conduct toward itinerant charismatics (which 11:3 proposes)—{According to the as yet unpublished paper of G.

Kretschmar, cf. above n. 8, it is assumed that all of the layers of the Didache were reworked, presumably in the second half of the second century [?]; for this reworking the reference to "the gospel" is typical).

14 Didache, pp. 105ff, 457; cf. 453.

'S Didaché, p. 458. The gloss must of course be old. Const 7:29 appears already to presuppose it.

16 In terms of genre, the piece of tradition belongs to the "Gemeinderegeln fiir den Umgang mit wandernden Charismatikern" (Theissen, "Legitimation", p. 192;

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

12:1-5 First appendix: Concerning the reception of noncharismatic travelling brethren (redactor)

1G EAE ts Sy Second appendix: Concerning the duty to support prophets | (and teachers), who wish to settle in the community (redactor)!7

(13:4

Later gloss) The Didachist returns to the subject of the prophets and teachers in 15:1ff—characteristically in the context of the question about the right relation between local church officials and those charismatics who have settled in the community. The tendency is the same as the one dominating chapters 11-14 (and which in fact the older tradition 11:4ff also already displays): the aim is to establish an intelligible relation between the two groups

(the itinerant charismatics and the local Christians).!8 The standpoint of the Didachist (and already of the tradition) is that of the local Christians. It is not a representative of the itinerant charismatics speaking here, but a representative of those Christians bound to a particular place.!9 With that observation, however, we have already arrived at the question of content. yet Theissen applies these sayings to Didache 11 as a whole; cf. Mt 10:40-42 on the matter).—The inner structure of the section is apparent:

(1) 11:4-6 Concerning itinerant apostles (a) 11:4 The dignity of the apostle (b) 11:5f Criteria for distinguishing the true apostle from the false prophet

(2) 11:7-12 Concerning the itinerant prophets (a) 11:7 The dignity of the prophet, (b) 11:8 The criterion for distinguishing the true prophet from the false prophet (c) 11:9-12 Three particular cases !7 Structure:

(1) 12:1-5 First Appendix: Concerning the reception of non-charismatic brethren who arrive (a) 12:1a The right of the arrivals to hospitable reception

(b) 12:1b The testing of immigrants (c) 12:2 Those travelling through (d) 12:3-5 The new arrival who wishes to settle

(2) 13:1-3, 5-7 Second Appendix: Concerning the duty to support prophets (and teachers), who wish to settle in the community

(a) 13:1f The right of the prophets (and teachers) to settle (b) 13:3, 5-7 The duty of the community to provide support

18 The Christians in the area of the Didachist's tradition lived in two social forms, as itinerant charismatics and as local communities of Christians. Within the structure of the Didache this is reflected by the fact that the community rule consists of two parts: instructions about the conduct toward itinerant Christians (chapters 1113), instructions about the conduct of the local community (chapters 14-15). It should also be noted, however, that the first of the two parts is determined from the standpoint of the local Christian community.

19 The occasion for the reception of the old tradition (11:4-12) by the Didachist was thus provided by the fact that even in his time the institution of the itinerant charismatics still existed—even if (as we will see) in an altered form. The Didachist also still knew the two forms of Christian existence: the mapocxodyTec, living in an

KURT NIEDERWIMMER

Il.

First we will try to recognize the situation presupposed by the old tradition in 11:4-12.

At first glance, it appears that itinerant charismatics and local Christians represent two independent forms of Christian existence clearly distinguished from each other. The problem is the relationship of the two groups to one another.

We learn little about the local Christians from 11:4-12. 11:5 presupposes a dense network of individual Christian houses already existing in the area for which the tradition speaks: the itinerant apostle can thus reckon with arriving at the next Christian house, or in the next Christian group, in a day's journey

(probably in one of the neighbouring villages or in one of the small towns).

Itinerant Christians sought accommodation with these local Christians for a short time. What is envisaged is-obviously not an isolated event, but a repeated and regular one. The arrivals are themselves without permanent residence, without a living, they are dependent on the support of the local Christians.2° The arrivals are characterized as charismatics.2! The two titles used (apostle and prophet) point to two different forms of itinerant charismatics.

Peregrinatio is common to both. It is clearly an intrinsic requirement of the apostles in Didache 11:4ff. It is unthinkable for an apostle to take up permanent residence, since his stay with the local brethren is limited to one day, or two at need (11:5)." eschatologically stringent manner, and the local Christians. However, the two groups did not co-exist without conflict: there were also false prophets, swindlers and frauds among the visiting itinerant charismatics, against whom the communities must be warned; furthermore, at the time of the Didachist the itinerant charismatics also came into conflict with the local officials. In this situation the author of the Didache returned to the old traditional elements and adapted them for his own time by additions.

20 Cf. 3 Jn 7f, where it says of the itinerant brethren: izép yap Tod dvéuaToc ef7pav wndéry NapBavortec aNd Tov EOviKav. Hueic ody ddeidouev bToAapBaveLY

TOUS ToLOUTOUC.

21 Note that they are neither community founders nor community organizers.

Their interest does not lie with the historical existence of a Christian group within the framework of existing society, but rather with the eschatological exodus out of the society of their day. Thus, they can hardly be conceived of as the charismatic

"officials" of the global church as compared with the local officials; rather they conceive of themselves as the consistent followers of Jesus in conspectu regni coelorum.—On the differentiation between the two types of primitive Christian itinerant preachers (the type of itinerant preacher presented here that was at home in the rural milieu and the type of the church organizer, doing mission work in the cities) cf. Theissen, "Wanderradikalismus", pp. 264ff; Theissen, "Legitimation" , pp. 193ff.

F 2 H reads: od pevel 68 hugpav pia. ei pi should be inserted before qugpav (A.

Harnack, Lehre der zwoélf Apostel nebst Untersuchungen zur dltesten Geschichte der

Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts (Leipzig: Hinrichs (Reprint), 1893 (TU

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

Moreover, the prophet (despite the absence of a similarly rigorous instruction concerning the length of their stay) is also thought of as a homeless charismatic, travelling from place to place. Next to homelessness we find renunciation of property, which again is conceived of particularly stringently in the apostle's case. The apostle lives exclusively from the support of local Christians.

When the apostle comes, he is of course a guest; if he continues his journey on the following day, then he has a claim to a daily ration for the coming day;?3 if, however, he demands money, he is immediately unmasked (11:6).24 It is not directly stated that the prophet of Did. 11:7ff lived without any possessions. Nevertheless the warnings in 11:9, 12 show that the true prophet also knows poverty and need. Renunciation of marriage is not mentioned here verbo tenus, nevertheless one may confidently assume it to be the rule. On the other hand, 11:11 appears to allude to the custom of matrimonium spirituale. We know from Ps.Clem, AdVir 1:10 that this custom was widespread among the later forms of itinerant asceticism in Syria.?5

Didache 11:3ff clearly distinguishes between itinerant apostles and itinerant prophets.2° The instructions concerning the 2,1-2)] p. 39).

3 tov &prov AapBdvew = to receive rations (BAGD, s.v. &ptoc). wc ob avdo6% shows that by &pto¢ is meant simply the ration for the coming day.—Incidentally, the instruction 11:6a contradicts Mt 6:8.

24 Cf. Lk 10:4 (Q?): pH Baorétete Baddavriov, Mk 6:8: pH eic THY Cdvnv xadkov, Mt 10:9: pA xrhonofe xpvodv wndé &pyvpov pndé xadxov eic Tac (Hvac bpar.

25 The practice is there condemned; here (Did. 11:10f) it is defended with reservations.

26 It is certainly right to draw together closely the apostles and prophets of Did.

11:3-12 (a strict distinction of "offices" on the basis of "canonical law" is, of course, not present, cf. Audet, Didaché, pp. 440f). Yet neither can one equate a&méaTodoc and mpodyry¢ (as in Kretschmar, "Askese", p. 37; Roloff, Apostelamt, p. 82; more differentiated: Schille, "Recht", p. 86; he holds that "prophet" designates the charisma, "apostle" the function; primarily only the matter of the prophet is being discussed here: p. 93). On the other hand, the use of the term Yevdorpodnrne in the section on apostles (11:6) is not conclusive (Roloff, p. 82, note 139; Schille, "Recht", p. 93). For the use of the term in 11:6 is simply a verbal improvisation! The word YevdardoTodoc is apparently unknown to the tradent.

It is not attested prior to 2 Cor 11:13 and there probably represents an ad hoc creation of Paul (cf. TDNT I, p. 446, line 1ff [Rengstorf]; Schille, "Recht", p. 93 n.

33). It was probably formed on the analogy to Yevdompopyrnc. The apostolic fathers do not have the word Wevdanéorodoc. It first emerges again in Hegesippius

(Eusebius, HE 4.22:6), Justin, Dial 35:3 and Ps.Clem., Hom 16:21,4; after that frequently. (It is typical that when the same subject is mentioned in Rev 2:2, the word is missing!) The term WevdorpopArnc, on the other hand, was common

(LXX, Philo, NT; HermMan 11:1, 2, 4, 7; the term then naturally plays a role in the quarrel between the catholic church and the montanist prophets; TDNT VI, pp.

860f [Friedrich].

KURT NIEDERWIMMER

apostles are by far the more rigorous. Unfortunately there is no discussion about the term "apostle". It is clear that a delineated circle of apostles, that is the d@dexa, is not being referred to here.27 What is meant here is a numerically unspecified group of itinerant charismatics and missionaries, who sojourn with local resident sympathizers. Didache 11:4ff appears not to know any other kind of apostles than itinerant ones. This much is clear: the apostle of the Didache appears as emissary, as representative of the Kyrios (for which reason he is also to be received like the Kyrios: 11:4).28 The background is provided by the first, enthusiastic mission in the Palestinian and Syrian region. Only from this perspective, only as a later derivative of this movement, can one understand the apostle of Didache 11:4ff, in my opinion— whereby it cannot be ascertained to what degree the expectation of the imminent end still plays a key rdle. We can assume the function of the apostle according to the Didache tradition: eschatological proclamation, call to repentance, exorcism.

Just like his proclamation, so too the life-style of the apostle is eschatologically motivated. Homelessness, renunciation of possessions and renunciation of marriage (?) represent the eschatological existence. The apostle proclaims and intentionally lives the radical renunciation of the world. According to his self-understanding, his rdle as social outsider2? manifests the eschatological @m6Taétc.3°

27 The question as to the historical setting of the concept of the apostle present here within the framework of the general history of the primitive apostolate cannot be discussed here, and has not yet, in my opinion, been convincingly solved. Cf. only G. Sass, "Die Apostel in der Didache", in W. Schmauch (ed), Jn memoriam

Ernst Lohmeyer (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1951) pp. 235ff; Klein, Zwolf Apostel, pp. SOff, 80ff; Schmithals, Apostelamt, pp. 42f, 170ff, 212ff, 242;

F. Hahn, "Der Apostolat im Urchristentum. Seine Eigenart und seine Voraussetzungen", KuD 20 (1974) pp. 54ff, esp. 60f.

28 SexOnTw aco Kbptoc is, of course, not attested in the Ethiopian and Coptic versions, but the Coptic does not offer a reliable witness for the assumption that dex07Tw wo Kipioc is a later interpolation. For more precise information on the problems of the Coptic text in this passage see L.-Th. Lefort, Les péres apostoliques en copte (Louvain: Durbecq, 1952 [CSCO 135 (ScrCop 17)]) p. 33 n. 15;

(Louvain: Durbecq, 1952 [CSCO 136 (ScrCop 18)]) p. 27 n. 19. The expression (attested: H georgian) is probably original—By xép.o¢ naturally Jesus is meant

(Audet's scruples are unnecessary, Didaché, p. 443).—By the way, it should not be ruled out that the redactor anticipated the use of the expression dexO4jTw co Kbptoc in his transition (11:2). What the tradition relates specifically to the apostles, the redactor then generalized.

2° See Theissen, "Wanderradikalismus",-pp. 261 ff.

3° Concerning the social and economic factors of primitive Christian itinerant radicalism, see Theissen, "Legitimation", pp. 193ff. In this case it is indeed not a matter of explaining origins in a reductionist manner, but of analyzing mutual relationship between a social situation and religious motivation.—On the phenomenon of the similarity of the primitive Christian itinerant charismatic to the Cynic itinerant philosopher, see Theissen, "Wanderradikalismus", pp. 255ff; esp. concerning the difference, pp. 258f.

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

The other groups of itinerant ascetics (next to and following the apostles in rank)?! are the prophets, itinerant spirituals, whose gift is the Aadely év mvebpare (cf. 11:7, 8), that is, ecstatic speech.*? It should be noted that the prophets of the Didache are itinerant pneumatics who come from outside. The Didache does not mention prophets who come from the local community. The prophets of the tradition in 11:7-12 are wanderers, who temporarily make their home among the local Christians and then continue on afterwards. Of significance is the remark that one recognizes the genuine prophets by the rpézox xupiov (11:8).33 We do not obtain a more exact picture of the manner and content of their spiritual, ecstatic speech from 11:7ff, since what we learn from 11:9 and 12 is perhaps not representative.

In the first instance apocalyptic, esoteric proclamation should be assumed. A reference to this is perhaps made in 11:11.34 If the prophet lives in 31 Although the ranking should, of course, not be viewed as one already firmly established according to canon law.

Audet's polemical elaborations (Audet, Didaché, pp. 439ff) are instructive (even if Audet here—differently from ourselves—still thinks of the triad, apostle-prophet-teacher).

32 Glossolalia is apparently not intended (cf. 11:9f, 12).

33 Obviously Jesus is intended. The deliberations of Audet (Didaché, p. 450) are unnecessary.

34 The well-known crux (moi@v eic pvotipiov KoopKdy &xxAnoiac) is still best understood, if one accepts the interpretation of Harnack: it was a matter of sexual asceticism, probably of "spiritual marriages" in particular (Lehre, pp. 44ff). So also

Knopf, Die Lehre, pp. 32f; TDNT IV, p. 824 lines 40ff (Bornkamm); H. 'von Campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt und geistliche Vollmacht in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1963? [BHTh 14] p. 78 n. 10 (Eng. Ecclesiastical

Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries, trans. J.

A. Baker [London: Black, 1969]); Adam, Herkunjft, p. 20; Kretschmar, "Askese", p. 34 n. 18; K. Niederwimmer, Askese und Mysterium. Uber Ehe, Ehescheidung und Eheverzicht in den Anftingen des christlichen Glaubens (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975 [FRLANT 113]) p. 191. This behaviour is then probably motivated by syzygy speculations, alluded to by the text. The nearest parallel to the current speculation is provided by 2 Clement 14. On syzygy speculation in general, cf. Niederwimmer, Askese, pp. 186ff and passim.—The belief underlying our passage would then be this: the earthly spiritual marriage (the pvorip.ov KoopiKdv) is a reflection and re-enactment of the heavenly syzygy between Christ and the Church

(It is to be understood in this way and stands as a correction to my mistaken interpretation in Askese, 191). The tradent is determined to justify, under certain conditions, the spiritual marriage of prophet and prophetess, which clearly gave offence to the local Christians in some cases (on the other hand cf. Ps. Clem de vir. and the later development!).—Other, older interpretations of the passage in F. X. Funk,

Patres apostolici 1 (Tiibingen: Laupp, 19012) pp. 28f.—Adam begins from the Coptic text (cf. Lefort, CSCO 135, p. 34), which differs strongly from H, as is well known. Adam translates, "Jeder Prophet, wahrhaftig, der erprobt, der lehrt und bezeugt eine weltliche Uberlieferung in der Kirche, der soll bei euch nicht gerichtet werden..." ("Herkunft", p. 6). Adam posits ("Herkunft", p. 7) a Syrian original:

Both the aoveiy of the Greek version and the IIAPAAOZIE of the Coptic version can be explained, he argues, from the Syriac 'as/em. The assumption that the Coptic version no longer understood or no longer wanted to understand the Greek text (as generally also the Ethiopian) seems to me to be simpler. One must start, in my

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matrimonium spirituale with the tpodfric (a surprising innovation over against the original tradition!), then this is (apparently) based on esoteric speculation.*5 Yet neither the apostle nor the prophet is described in 11:4ff.

Whatever an apostle or prophet was, in the sense of the speech usage of the group addressed, is clearly presupposed as known.

The intention of the rules of 11:4ff pursues a quite different direction. The local Christians are threatened by impostors and swindlers, who represent themselves as apostles and prophets, without being such.3¢ One must bear in mind that the wanderers arriving in the community could have been unknown to the local Christians at first, and indeed this was probably the usual case. It became necessary to establish criteria for distinguishing the true apostle from the impostor, the propheta verus et probatus from the propheta falsus. A dominant catch-word of the section is consequently Wevdorpodyrns (11:5, 6, 8, 9, 10). Yet the dominant intention is not of a polemical, but rather of an-apologetic nature.

The instructions follow the same scheme in both cases: first the right and the dignity of the charismatics is set out (11:4 for apostles, 11:7 for the prophets),37 and only then are particular criteria formulated which serve to distinguish the genuine apostles from the false, the true prophets from the pseudo-prophets.38 Or opinion, from the Greek text of H, which is confirmed by the Georgian text (apart from two small, unimportant changes). Audet, Didaché, p. 451.—Audet's own attempt at interpretation is not very convincing.—Harnack's explanation leaves open the sense of the expression woattwo yap émoinoav Kai oi &pxator TpOPATAL

(11c). Here it is best to understand the Old Testament prophets (cf. also Funk, Patres apostolici, pp. 29f and Knopf, Die Lehre p. 33). AJ 12:413; Lk 9:8; TDNT

I, p. 487 (Delling).

35 The foundation for such speculation was provided by Gen 1:27; 2:24. Cf.

Niederwimmer, Askese, Index.

36 By way of illustration: Mt 7:15ff; HermMan 11; with differences: Lucian, PergMort 11-13; Origen, Cels 7:9, 11. On the decline of primitive Christian prophecy in the first half of the second century: M. Dibelius, Die Apostolischen

Vater IV: Der Hirt des Hermas (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1923 [HNT.E 4]) pp. 538ff.

37 The dignity of the apostle is based on his r6le as representative of the Kyrios

(11:4), the dignity of the prophet on his inspiration (11:7). The structure of 11:4/5f and 11:7/8ff is, in my opinion, parallel. Traditio-critical distinctions are not appropriate (contra Schille, cf. above n. 8).—Is there a contradiction between 11:7 and 11:8? The tradent wishes to hold on to both, to the unimpeachableness of the prophets (11:7) and to the need to be able to distinguish the true prophets from the false. Similarly Paul, cf. 1 Cor 2:15 with 14:29, 37f. The tradent's solution: the unimpeachableness is valid only for the propheta verus (11:8a). Harnack, Lehre, p.

43; von Campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt, p. 78.

38 Tt is noteworthy that the pseudo-prophets are nowhere expressly branded as false teachers.

Cf., on the other hand, the characterisation in the concluding apocalypse 16:3! (Schmithals, Apostelamt, p. 171, has in mind gnostic pneumatics).

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

stated differently: despite the signs of decay that had set in within the institution of itinerant charismatics, the local Christians should not doubt the institution of itinerant charismatics itself.3? The independence and special rank of the itinerant charismatics (inasmuch as it is a matter of genuine apostles and true prophets!) is un- 'contested in the tradition.

Then again, both groups, the "itinerant" and the "settled"

Christians, are undoubtedly dependent on each other.

The itinerant charismatics cannot maintain their lifestyle without the permanent support of the brethren in the villages and small towns.

They are dependent on lodging with them, on being provided with the most basic and meagre necessities and on being equipped by them for the following day (as far as the prophets are concerned: for the day of their onward travel). What they offer the local

Christians, or for that matter the local communities, in exchange, is—not a material gift, but the charisma which has been given to them. It is questionable, in my opinion, whether one should really speak of a "leadership" of the "community" by the itinerant ascetics (in the case of the circumstances presented in 11:4ff).

Itinerant charismatics are eo ipso not suitable for the leadership of a local community, nor are they predestined for it by virtue of their self-understanding. Beyond this it is even questionable to what extent we may already speak of constituted local communities for the relations presupposed by Didache 11:4ff. Then again, while present as guests, the charismatics would naturally have dominated the smaller or larger Christian groups in which they were received. Moreover, the Kyrios himself appears in the apostle (11:4) and the spirit-inspired word of the pneumatic is regarded as a command (11:9, 12). What the local Christians do for the itinerant charismatics is not to be understood as reward or payment. The local Christians only do their duty of supporting the itinerant ascetics by offering the Lord's emissary shelter, a place to sleep and food as he passes through on his "holy journey". It is more a matter of "archaic" motives, transformed by the motivational horizon of eschatological motivation, playing a rdle here.

Il.

The situation presupposed by the Didachist (11:1-3; 12; 13; 15), paints a quite different picture.

Firstly, in view of 11:4ff, doubt remains whether clearly delineated local communities are already being presupposed (or whether one should not think rather of isolated groups not yet constituted into communities); for the situation of the redactor, 39 yon Campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt, p. 78.

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however, all such doubt is ruled out. 15:1f presupposes constituted local communities, which are on the point of choosing functionaries out of their own ranks. In the following we shall discuss what consequences that has for their relation to the itinerant charismatics.

Furthermore, just as the groups of local Christians changed, so also did the groups of the peregrini. Among other things, attention needs to be drawn above all to the fact that, besides the itinerant charismatics, "ordinary" itinerant brethren are also visiting the community (12:1ff), that is, Christians who make no charismatic claim—whereby some of them come intending to settle? in the new place with the support of the communities

(12:3-5).

Here too the community has to be protected from impostors. The instructions of the Didachist seek in a casuistic manner to counteract the danger of exploitation by dubious elements.*!

Yet the immigration of itinerant charismatics did not cease.

The fact that the Didachist takes up the tradition of 11:4ff at all, implies indeed that the problem it addressed still existed, in one form or another, in his situation. In fact the institution of itinerant charismatics is as alive for the Didachist as it ever was. Of course fundamental changes have taken place. No mention is made of itinerant apostles. The group of spirituals no longer consists of apostles and prophets together (as in 11:4-12), but of prophets and teachers (13:1-7; 15:1f). Within that group, the Didachist's chief interest clearly lies with the prophets.

The teachers*? are only mentioned beside and after them in 13:2, merely, in a hasty and somewhat incidental manner (13:3

40 H reads xaO7o8ou in 12:3. Harnack, Lehre, p. 49, emends: xadicar. So too 13:1 "Lehre, p. 50). Yet xa@joGa can also have the reflexive meaning in LXX and primitive Christian literature. BAGD s.v. xa@jofar; BDF §100.101.

41 12:1 formulates the basic rule: before any testing, the newcomer claiming to be a Christian is to be accorded the right to hospitality. Only after the primitive duties of initial hospitable reception have been fulfilled, should the new arrival be tested (Emerta dé ...

1b). 12:2ff then goes into various cases. In the first case (12:2): the guest is travelling through; he is to be received, to be supported, yet he should make the claim to hospitality for no longer than two to three days (and that only in case of need). In the second case (12:3-5): the new arrival wishes to settle.

The relevant instructions allow one to see something of the bad experience of the local communities with various strange "brethren". The instruction deals with three possibilities: (a) if the arrival has learnt a trade (in this case the community has no duty to support him, he can take responsibility for himself: 12:3); (b) if the new arrival has not learnt any trade, that is (as we are to understand) he is a day labourer or a beggar (in this case the community should clearly try to find a job for him: 12:4); (c) if the arrival is not prepared to take a job (in this case a harsh refusal is given to him: 12:5).

42 Most likely itinerant teachers are meant. Audet (Didaché, pp. 442, 456) thinks otherwise.

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

immediately returns once again to the prophets).43

In addition, in the Didachist's day (and in his area) a change took place in the institution of itinerant prophecy.4+ 13:1ff deals with the case where a prophet (of course a propheta verus!) expresses the wish to settle, not temporarily but permanently, i.e. to give up his homelessness (the case is dealt with following another in which a non-charismatic Christian is desirous of permanent residence in the local community:

12:3ff).

The Didachist considers it necessary to regulate the question as to what should happen if a previously homeless prophet wants to become resident—apparently this is not a run of the mill case, and apparently no consensus prevails as to what the local community should do. As the context shows, the special problem which surfaces in this is not that of becoming resident as such, but the question of the community's duty to support the prophet! For there is no doubt that the itinerant prophets have the right to reception and support. There were, however, certain doubts as to whether the prophet (like the ordinary Christian), who became resident, was exempted from the rule épyaféo8w kai dayérw (12:3) or pi apyos we" vudv (hoeTar Xprotiavéc (12:4). The decision which the Didachist arrives at, is of great significance for the definition of his position. The settlement of the propheta verus is accepted, although his original exceptional situation is preserved.

The TpopynTns &AnOvdcg (just like the dudc@oxadoc &AnOLv6c¢) should not be constrained to live from the work of his own hands

(13:1f),45 rather he is privileged with the right to the first fruits (13:3; applied to the small town situation in 13:5-7).46 The 43 As far as the d.d6c&oxador are concerned, the text only reveals this much: (1)

They were missing in the old traditional material 11:4ff. (2) They play, on the other hand, a r6le in the conditions which the Didachist presupposes. (3) They are probably itinerant teachers; they belong in any case together with the prophets, form together with them a group standing over against the group of locally resident

"clerics". (4) The teachers come in the rank after the prophets.

44 Audet, Didaché, pp. 455f, thinks otherwise; Schille, "Recht", p. 86, correctly.

Yet it seems to-mé that the expressions "Gemeinde-Beamtete" and "Anstellungsregelung" (with respect to 13:1) are not entirely appropriate.

45 Cf. Mt 10:10b/Lk 10:7b (Q?). It cannot be proven that the redactor cites a written gospel. See Koster, Uberlieferung, pp. 212f. Cf. further 1 Tim 5:18. Perhaps

Paul in 1 Cor 9:14 also plays on the word. Originally it was a matter of a general maxim of Jewish chokma (Billb. I, p. 569; Ill, pp. 379ff, 400f), that was received by the Christian tradition and used particularly to justify the duty of supporting the apostle (Q), the prophet (Did.), the presbyter (1 Tim). It is to be noted that, in terms of the history of development (though not necessarily chronologically!), the use of the logion in the Didache represents an older stage than the use in | Tim.

46 13:5-7 extends the thinking of 13:3. The question of the offerings is more closely elaborated in a circumstantial manner. The content of 5-7 does not completely agree with 3. Knopf (Die Lehre, p. 35): "Offensichtlich werden jetzt auch die beriicksichtigt, die keine eigene Landwirtschaft haben, sondern ihre Vorrate einkaufen, die von Handwerk, Gewerbe und Handel leben." Another interpretation

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rationale for the decision is characteristic. It is given, on the one hand, by a recourse to the Old Testament tradition (13:3: the amapxy4 belongs to the prophets, because they assume the same position of honour as the &pxvepetc received in the old covenant; 47 it is difficult to reconcile a munus sacerdotale of the prophets with that!); and, on the other hand, the decision is justified by an appeal to the Jesus tradition (cf. the logion which he cites in 13:1f, framing it as a command of the Lord in 13:5, 7).48

Lastly, the changed situation shows itself in a still further, yet just as significant, place. In connection with instructions concerning the regular community gathering (chapter 14), the Didachist commands that the communities should elect out of their midst émioxomo. Kol dudKovot,*? after which the conditions, which a candidate in order to assume such a function must bring, are enumerated (15:1).5° This is not the place to go into the involved history of the development of these two terms;5! for our context it suffices for the moment to recognize that the named officials (or better: functionaries) are representatives of the local communities.52 This evidences once more the changed situation as is given by Schille, "Recht", pp. 90f, 99f; cf. above n. 8. The (older) usage (13:57) represents, according to Schille ("Recht", p. 100), "eine Unterhaltsregelung fiir beschrankte Zeit"; and in particular the temporary stay of the catechist in the catachumen's home is being referred to. The later formula (3f) indicates "einen tiefgreifenden Wandel". The prophets are now employees of the local communities, and the transitory duty to support the prophets has, he argues, been raised to a standing duty (/bid.). Lastly, the double rule 13:1f attests "das werdende Anstellungsrecht" (p. 100).

47 The allusion is to the levitical gifts: Dt 18:4 cf. 16:2,10f; Num 18:8ff; Neh

10:32ff; Ez 45:13-16.

48 A later glossator (cf. above n. 15) has interpolated the text in 13:4. The development has proceeded in the meantime. Now there is already an occasional lack of prophetic charismatics. In this case the community should bestow their contributions on the poor.

49 The officials were apparently chosen by the whole community. xe:poroveiv refers here to a "democratic" election in contrast to an authoritarian appointment.

Cf. 2 Cor 8:19; Ign. Phid 10:1; Smy 11:2; Pol 7:2.—xetporoveip is used differently in Acts 14:23; cf. Tit 1:9 vl. Here the term means not "elect" but "nominate",

Lohse, TDNT IX, p. 437.

50 Did. 15:1 names four conditions: &rdpac mpaeic Kai adidapyipouc Kat aAnbetc kai dedoxtwaopevouc. The instructions belong in the same literary genre as 1 Tim 3:1 ff; Tit 1:5ff; 1 Pet 5:1ff; Ign. Polyc 5:2; 6:1. It is noteworthy how brief the elaborations in the Didache are.

5! We can also not here go into the subject of the transition to the title "presbyter", which is not omitted here by co-incidence (in Const 7.31.1 it is has been added).

52 The bishops and deacons are in any case no itinerant charismatics, but members of the local community. They were not called to discipleship in the narrower sense (like the charismatic apostles and prophets), but chosen and appointed by the community for a particular function in the regions of the local community.

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

compared to 11:4ff, not only in respect of the groups of local Christians (whose advanced stabilization resulted in the need for functionaries to lead and serve the community!), but also in respect of the réle of the charismatics. For not only the local group of Christians appears in opposition to the charismatics, but also the charismatics who were in the process of settling must compete with the representatives and functionaries of the local community.>3 In 11:4ff we find the following dialectic: itinerant charismatics vs. the local Christians; here, however: charismatics in the process of settling vs. the functionaries of the local community. The expression Agvtoupyeiv, Aectovpyiav (15:1)54 alludes perhaps to the matter of carrying out and conducting the community worship service. The somewhat obscure text does not allow an accurate picture of the situation with any certainty. Only the intention of the Didachist is clear: the instruction in 15:1f obviously attempts to clarify the relationship of the two leading groups to the local community (and so naturally to each other).

The Didachist is clearly intent on reconciliation. He does not wish to oust the charismatics, who are in the process of settling, from their dominant position; at the same time, however, he awards the same right to the emerging local "clergy" (sit venia verbo).55 Both groups (the local functionaries as well as the pneumatics, who have become resident in the community) serve the local church by carrying out the "holy service".5* The bishops and deacons are those honoured (by God!)57 together with (15:2) the prophets and teachers.5* That obviously means that the execution and the lead53 The development which emerges here is valid initially only for the area of the tradition of the Didache. Generalizing hypotheses are not justified in my opinion.

54 The expression is not unequivocal. For general observations on the wordgroup, see TDNT IV, pp. 226ff (Strathmann), where reference is made to Did. 15:1 only in passing (p. 229 line If).

, 55 The way of the pneumatics (as far as the tradition area of the Didache is concerned) thus begins with a relative independence apart from the local Christians (as _Still in 11:4ff), leads to the incorporation into the local community (in which only they at first played a dominant réle), and ends up in equality status with the local office-bearers (15:1f). In the end, the local clerics came to take over their functions entirely, and the idea and reality of the itinerant spirituals slip into the heterodox milieu.

56 Harnack depicted it in this way: the bishops and deacons, originally active mostly in organization and administration, assume the teaching réle of the charismatics as the latter recede or die out (Lehre, pp. 56ff, 137ff). Similarly: R. Knopf,

Das nachapostolische Zeitalter. Geschichte der christlichen Gemeinden vom Beginn der Flavierdynastie bis zum Ende Hadrians (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1905) pp. 156ff;

Dibelius, Geschichte, p. 152. Against the idea of the rise of the stewards to spiritual functions: von Campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt, p. 79 n. 6. It is, in fact, a question whether the bishops and deacons called for in Did.

15:1f exercised merely organizational-practical functions.

57 Harnack, Lehre, p. 58; Knopf, Die Lehre, pp. 37f.

58 They stand on the same level as the charismatics—Typically, there is, however, no obligation to support the local functionaries. The duty to support is

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ership of the worship service, functions which had Jain in the hands of the pneumatics since the establishment of spirituals in the community, should now be shared by the groups of functionaries coming from the local communities themselves.*° Or expressed differently, the charismatics are being integrated into the local community (without losing their exceptional status), while the local community is producing functionaries who are assuming the leadership functions of the charismatics. Incidentally, all of this does not necessarily imply that the "officials" had come to restrict or even rob the community of its autonomy. The warnings and instructions are still directed to the whole community.© It is the community that is called on to conduct itself properly toward the different groups of immigrants (12:1 oiveow yap &ete de€vav

Kai wptoTepav!);®! it is considered capable of deciding for itself (12:4) in cases which cannot be determined casuistically from the outset, and it is the community, finally, which must elect functionaries out of its ranks (15:1). still limited to the charismatics.

59 That this was to occur in proportion to the failure of prophets in the communities (Harnack, Lehre, p. 58; cf. p. 146; ZDNT VI, p. 859 [Friedrich];

Kretschmar, "Askese", p. 38 n. 26) is of course not alluded to in 15:1f and can only be concluded from 13:4—yet the latter probably depicts later conditions.

60 Cf. von Campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt, pp. 78ff.—Schille ("Recht", pp.

102f and passim) judges otherwise, indeed he also reconstructs a quite different history of development and history of tradition. Cf. above n. 8. According to Schille, his reconstruction is based on "die Diskussion um zwei entgegengesetzte GeistKonzeptionen"

(p. 102), namely "die tauferische Behauptung einer vollgiiltigen Geistbegabung aller Getauften", on the one hand, and "der Glaube an die hervorgehobene Stellung des Propheten als des Charismatikers im Vollsinne" on the other (/bid.). "Das deklarative Rechtsgebaren" (Jbid.) is characteristic of the first group, "die dekretale Aufrichtung des eschatologischen Rechtes" is typical of the second (p. 103.). In the area of the tradition of Did. 11-13, the prophetic charisma was originally subordinate to the baptismal charisma, according to Schille; only later, according to Schille, has the charisma of office, "kraft der angestammten

Selbstandigkeit die Fesseln zerrissen und das Taufcharisma zur Laienbegabung herabgewiirdigt" (p. 103). While this interpretation clearly recognizes that two different groups stood opposed to each other, it fails, in my opinion, to see the social dialectic separating the two groups (itinerant charismatics—local Christians) and the course of the development.

$l The phrasing in 12:1b is abbreviated (cf. Jonah 4:11 LXX), the use' of yveoeove without an object is striking. Perhaps otiveow yap éteTe is to be understood here parenthetically (Harnack, Lehre, p. 48). The sense is, however, clear. On the terminology cf. TDNT II, p. 38 lines 19ff (Grundmann).

ITINERANT RADICALISM IN THE DIDACHE

IV.

Obviously the stages of development indicated here are none other than stages in the development of the "process of catholicization", though at the time of the composition of the Didache this process has not been finalized, but is still completely in flux (It was first concluded in characteristic manner in the course of reworking of the Didache in the Apostolic Constitutions!).

With respect to Didache 11-13, 15, the process of catholicization presents itself as a process of successive incorporation of eschatologically motiyated itinerant asceticism into the association of "settled" Christians, the local communities that are in turn becoming successively stabilized. The dialectic evoked by the development is here (as elsewhere) that of the eschatological @mé6rTaéic on the one hand and accommodation to the prevailing historical-social conditions on the other. What leads to the early catholic solution, is the trend towards the stabilization of the group. One should note, moreover, (once again, here as elsewhere) that the early catholic solution (in this case the integration of the itinerant charismatics into the local communities) is not willing to surrender the eschatological motivation. The solution does not lie in the disappearance of the eschaton as motivation, but in finding ways of living that allow for eschatological motivation on the one hand and life under the conditions of social reality on the other hand. It is clear that the otherworldly charismatic institution of the itinerant apostles and prophets corresponds more closely to the original eschatological immediacy than the lifestyle of the local communities; it is just as clear that with the loss of the original immediacy, the institution of itinerant charismatics also must either become perverted or transformed into another social form. For the eschaton can only become a historical force if it is communicated historically. The future of the Church did not lie with the itinerant charismatics but with the individual local communities—but that does not mean, conversely, that a Church in the process of stabilizing itself rejected the charisma of the itinerant prophets. Rather the communities in the process of stabilization sought to integrate the charismatics, thus aiding not only the old institution of itinerant charismatics but also themselves in developing a new structure.

The subsequent history of itinerant radicalism has shown that (in this case) no conclusive solution was found.

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES IN THE

DIDACHE COMMUNITY!

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

Pietermaritzburg

I. INTRODUCTION

The Didache has long been one of the most puzzling of the early Christian writings. It is routinely left out of consideration when an analysis of the evolution of early Christianity is attempted. Alternatively, it is relegated to some rural backwater out of the mainstream of development. J.P. Meier, for instance, throws in the towel and declines to use the Didache at all in his reconstruction of the development of Antiochene and Syrian Christianity, concluding that:

We are left with something of a paradoxical situation: while some of the theological and liturgical traditions of the Didache show expansion upon and perhaps decline from those of Matthew's gospel, the church structure remains more primitive than that of Ignatius."

Meier sees the Didache as the product of an isolated rural community, yet its influence is too widespread and early for this marginal origin3. J.-P. Audet's* attempt at a redactional analysis of the Didache is more convincing5, as is his early dating for the writing, although his reconstruction is speculative and unlikely. In this paper, I will be attempting to follow one trajectory through 1 This is a development of a paper presented to Dr. E. Bammel's Seminar on Christian Origins in Cambridge, while the author was on sabbatical leave sponsored by the Human Sciences Research Council.

2 J.P. Meier & R.E. Brown, Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Christianity (London: Chapman, 1983) p. 84.

3 Even the textual evidence argues against this, since texts or fragments of the Didache, have been found in Egypt, Ethiopia, Asia Minor and Syria. It has been used by a wide variety of secondary authors and was by some regarded as "Scripture".

4 J.-P. Audet, La Didaché: Instructions des Apétres (Paris: Gabalda, 1958). The multi-layered redactional nature of the Didache has been accepted also by R.A.

Kraft (Barnabas and the Didache [New York: Nelson, 1965 (AF 3)] pp. 1-3, 76), M. E. Boring (Sayings of the Risen Jesus: Christian Prophecy in the Synoptic

Tradition [Cambridge: University Press, 1982] pp. 47-48), and W. Rordorf & A.

Tuilier (La Doctrine des Douze Apétres [Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1978 (SC 248)] pp. 17-21).

5 It is in the nature of a community rule to be constantly updated, in accordance with the changing situation of the community. The manifest redactions of the Manual of Discipline are a contemporary example of such an ongoing process. For a convincing analysis of this process in 1QS, see J. M. O'Connor's analysis ("La

Genése Litteraire de la Régle de la Communauté", RB 76 [1969] pp. 528-549).

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

the Didache, namely the question of false apostles, and the threat they posed to the community. This represents the situation of the community at a particular stage of its development, which has been superseded by the final redaction of the text.

Form criticism seeks, by isolation and delineation of a literary form, to determine the life situation of the community which uses the form. On the other hand, since it is in the redaction of a text or tradition that the developing interests of a community at any particular stage of its history can be determined, particular care needs to be taken to map out the different layers of a developing tradition.° This article seeks, on the one hand, to make certain deductions concerning the Sitz im Leben of the Didache on the basis of the form of instructions given in a community rule, and on the other hand, to draw conclusions on the basis of the redaction of this form and its contents in the face of changing circumstances and controversy. The tradition concerning apostles and its redaction represent a historical dynamic, which is analysed in terms of its relation to the use of the same traditional material in Matthew's gospel.

Il. THE FORM AND REDACTION HISTORY OF DIDACHE

11:1-6 While, as we have seen, it has often been noted before that Didache 11 is a patchwork of differing redactional stages', the process of development it represents needs further examination.

The recent commentary by K. ,Niederwimmer® rightly sets a redactional analysis at the centre of its interpretation, but envisages the redaction in terms of composition by a single

6 H. Conzelmann succinctly sums up the methodology with regard to the gospel material in Theology of St. Luke, trans. G. Buswell (San Francisco: Harper & Row,

1960) p. 12: "The first phase in the collection of the traditional material ...has been clarified by form criticism. Now a second phase has to be distinguished, in which the kerygma is not simply transmitted and received, but itself becomes the subject of reflection...

This new stage is seen both in the critical attitude to tradition as well as in the positive formation of a new picture of history out of those already current, like stones used as parts of a new mosaic".

7 Failure to take account of these stages has created confusion in the use G.

Theissen makes of this passage in his theory of Wanderradikalismus (The First Followers of Jesus (London: SCM, 1978] pp. 7-30). This confusion is present also in the study of G. Kretschmar ("Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem Ursprung friihchristlicher Askese", ZTK 61 (1964) pp. 27-67, esp. 37-38), who sees apostles, prophets and teachers all as charismatics, who can be subsumed under the generic title "prophet".

8 Die Didache (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989). This builds on his important article, "Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Wanderradikalismus im Traditionsbereich der Didache", Wiener Studien 11 (1977) pp. 145-167, esp. 148Lees

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

author. This seems to fly in the face of the way a community rule evolves by trial and error, by erasing words or phrases, by inserting new words or phrases above the line or in the margin, which are later incorporated into the text. This process is graphically displayed in the manuscript of the Community Rule from Qumran.?

Certainly whole new sections may have been added from time to time, but one should not hypothesize a wholesale, consistent composition for every change.

C.N. Jefford!® also sets out a consistent redactional theory, in which an original core of 1-5(6) was revised by a first correction consisting of 7-10, and then by 11-15 as a second correction.

However, he also notices contradictions in the instructions on apostles and prophets, which he attributes to "an even later hand".

The result of this overview is that Jefford sees the final version of the Didache as reflecting "a mixture of world-views that ultimately were deemed to be useless by later religious communities" which "soon led to its rejection within the evolving church".11

It seems, however, that the Didache continued to be modified and used, particularly by the communities of the Apostolic Constitutions, the Liber Graduum and the Coptic and Ethiopic churches.

Jefford sees Matthew and the Didache as representing divergent trends from a common starting point. This article argues for a closer dialectic between the two texts, in which Matthew utilizes and ultimately undermines the need for the community rule, by taking up key elements of the community rule into the gospel form. The rule is then subordinated in the community to "gospel".

A certain perplexity also results from a fallacious use of the concept of "decline" which seems to influence many New Testament scholars, who view the Didache as a "decline" from the heights of Matthew's gospel.!2 This begs the question in assuming that a work inside the canon of Scripture must be prior to a work outside it. It is more likely that teachings emerge out of the concrete life-situations of a community in a rudimentary and unattractive form, and are later developed and refined theologically into a consistent whole.

The confusion over the Didache is also partly due to the failure to see that the instructions on the prophets represent the latest

° See especially 1QS 7 and 8, where numerous erasures, additions and corrections have been made. E.g. increasing problems in the community lead to the increase of a penalty from six months to one year, written above the line.

Ky The Sayings of Jesus in the Teachings of the Apostles (Leiden: Brill, 1989) p.

'l Jefford, Sayings of Jesus, pp. 117-118.

12 E.g. E. Peterson, "Uber einige Probleme der Didache-Uberlieferung", in Frithkirche, Judentum und Gnosis (Rome: Herder, 1959) pp. 146-182.

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

redactional phase of the text, and not the earliest.13 The instructions concerning the apostles show a different formal construction and a different temper to those concerning the prophets. I have argued elsewhere'4 that the instructions concerning apostles in 11:3-6 are from the earliest stage of the text. It is no accident that the Didache is associated with "the apostles" in its title uniformly through the tradition.!5 It is not that apostles are a thing of the past when the instructions were written.!° There would be no need to write instructions regulating a dead institution, unless one posits an elaborate fraud to reconstruct an archaic document.

Moreover, this instruction concerning apostles corresponds to the form of the instructions which precede it. Each set of instructions is prefaced by the same formula: wept 58 Tv...o07w mwotmoarte.'8 Only one subject appears in the title of each section

13 This is related to the idea of "decline", in that it is assumed that the earliest

Christian communities were "free and spontaneous" in their patterns of life and worship, and that this then declined into the formalism and authoritarianism of Frithkatholizismus.

This is more a product of the Reformation and Liberal Protestantism than of historical verification. There is little evidence that a Jewish group in Palestine in the first century, nor its first successors in Syria, would have worshipped in such a manner. Pneumatic or ecstatic worship was more widely known and practised in the Hellenistic cults and may well have influenced the development of Christian worship as it moved out from its Palestinian heartland

(Cf. Kretschmar, "Friihchristliche Askese", p. 38 n. 26). It is significant that it is above all Luke's picture of the development of the Church that supports such a picture.

'4 This is the subject of a paper presented at the 1989 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Anaheim, entitled "Weber, Theissen and the Wandering Charismatics of the Didache", which is as yet unpublished.

15 See Audet, La Didaché, pp. 91-103.

16 Niederwimmer ("Entwicklungsgeschichte", pp. 149-150) argues that the "Didachist" composed the section out of older traditions. However, if the Didache is indeed a community rule, there would be no "Didachist", but only an ongoing process of correction and updating by a community.

17 Such an elaborate process is posited by F. E. Vokes (Zhe Riddle of the Didache. Fact or Fiction, heresy or Catholicism? (London: SPCK, 1938); cf. J. A.

Robinson, Barnabas, Hermas and the Didache (London: SPCK, 1929), and R. H.

Connolly, "The Didache in Relation to the Epistle of Barnabas", JTS 24 (1923) pp.

147-157. However, late pseudonymous works usually mention the apostles by name and add biographical detail real or invented to support the fiction. The Ecclesiastical Cannons, with their attribution of individual sayings to each of the apostles, or the Didascalia, with its elaborate description, show how such a "fraud" would operate. There is nothing in the Didache which indicates such a dynamic. Few critics today follow the "English School" in their radical rejection of the authenticity of the work.

18 Compare mepi 58 THSo Bowoews, 6 Sivacc Ba&otaoov (6°3); mepi bé Tov Bantiopatoc, o'tw Bantioate (771); mpd 5é Tov Bantiopatos mpovnoTevodTw

(7:4); mept 68 Tio edxapiotinc, ottwo edxapioTioate (9'1); peT& 5é 76 éumdnobavon, o¥two ebxaprornoate (101); mepi b& Tio ebwoiacg, o¥rwc edyapiornoare (10:8, in Const and the Coptic version, but absent from H). For a thorough examination of the Hellenistic background to the use of epi dé, see M.

M. Mitchell, "Concerning ITEPI AE in 1 Corinthians", NovT 31/3 (1989) pp. 229-

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

introduced in this way, with the exception of 11:3, where the introduction of prophets into the title seems to be a redaction made at a time when instructions concerning prophets were added. The reference to the 56yua Tod evayyediov also marks this as a later interpolation, as we have seen.

The original title probably read mept d& TOV &TOOTOAWY, OTW TovhoaTe.

The instructions of 11:3-6 show the same casuistic development and the same brevity as the other instructions in the section 6:2-10:6. The instructions on prophets are in marked contrast: detailed, self-contradictory in places and vivid.

The instructions concerning prophets have tended, for this reason, to dominate discussion on the Didache.

Nevertheless, there are signs of controversy surrounding the institution of apostles in the Didache too.!° Here I wish to focus particularly on 11:1-2. K. Niederwimmer sees this passage as a composition of the "Didachist", connecting the liturgical tradition of 9-10 with further traditional material concerning apostles.?°

However, the form of instructions does not require such connecting links between sections, which are simply introduced by epi

5€. Thus 11:1-2 should not be seen as a connecting link but as a later redaction, modifying the instructions on apostles in 11:3-6 in the light of new circumstances in the community:

11.1 "Oc Gv ovv éOdov SidhEN Das 3. Ilepi 58 Tov &tooTOdwv [Kat TAVTA TAVTA TA Tpoeipnuéva, b&Eaobe TpoontTav, KATA TO SOypLa TOV autor" evayyeriov] ovTwo roinoaTte' 4. mag [i 2. éav dé avToc 0 SiddoKwY OTpAdgElC

Q@TOOTONOS EPXOpMEvOS TPOS LLAS

dudaoKn AAAnY didaxTV Eic TO dexOqTw [ao Kvptoc]* 5. [ov pevet ei uA KATAAVOAL, LN AUTOU @KovoNTE sic ETO NuEepav piav' éav dé N XpEla, KO THY Tpoobetvat SiKaLoovynY Kal yvaow

QAANV. TpEi¢ 5& EQ ELV,

kupiou, d€€aabe avTov Go KUpLOP.

WevdoTpodytnc éoTiv.

6. &epxopuevog 5& 0 ATO0TONOS pNndév AapBavEeTw Ei UN ApTov Ewo ov avdiohy éav 5& apyipiov aithn, YevdorpodoHnTyns éori.

256. Note also, however, the Semitic background in the use of 9y or 9yi in CD 9:8; 10:10, 14; 16:10, 13, and Py ,qxX2 AT Dy in the Rabbinic writings (W.

Bacher, Die exegetische Terminologie der jiidischen Traditionsliteratur [Darmstadt,

1899] Vol. I, pp. 5f; Vol. II pp. 148).

19 Contra K. Wengst (Didache (Apostellehre) Barnabasbrief, Zweiter Klemensbrief Schrift an Diognet (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984] p.

37), who argues that the problem here is not dogmatic but one of charlatans. This comes from confusing the instructions concerning apostles with those concerning prophets.

20 Die Didache, pp. 212-214. Niederwimmer recognizes that the formula is itself part of the tradition. On the other hand, he rightly observes that the reference to the "gospel" is characteristic of the last stage of the redaction, so that he sees the whole section coming from the pen of the redactor. We argue here that if the introduction and the following instructions are both provided by the tradition, then the work of the redactor is more likely to be in the form of an interpolation between the introduction and the instruction, to link this traditional instruction on apostles with

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

The text presents several problems. In particular, the phrase ac koptov in 11:4 is missing in the Coptic and Ethiopic versions.

However, the omission in the Coptic occurs in the break between folio I and II, where the manuscript contains five indecipherable

'letters. This indicates that the scribe was aware of making an omission.2! The Ethiopic omits not only wo xtéptog but dexOATw and ov...gi 4 as well, which seems to indicate a deliberate revision. The text given above is found in the Jerusalem manuscript, and is supported by the revision found in the Apostolic Constitutions, a¢ Xp.oTod} wabynrHv. The latter indicates a smoothing over of a theological problem which may also be behind the omission of w¢ xupiog in Coptic and Ethiopic, namely the scandal of according the same treatment to a human teacher as to the Lord.

The Apostolic Constitutions takes the teaching as referring to the correct way to say the eucharist, and proceeds to omit the whole of 11:2-6. Clearly the idea of receiving anyone "as the Lord" was problematic, given the development of a heightened Christology and the experience of imposters. The Coptic retains the phrase in 11:2, in agreement with the Jerusalem text. Thus wo xipioc should be retained in 11:4.22 5¢ is present in 11:4 in the Jerusalem text, but absent in Coptic and Ethiopic and should be omitted.

Its absence is a further indication that at one stage there was no mention of prophets in the superscription.

The passage 11:1-2, then, is connected to what follows by the Stichwort @¢ xipiov. The problem relates to the instruction that the apostle is to be received "as if he were the Lord himself".

This is, of course, the proper function of an apostle, according to the Jewish legal institution of the n?9v.23 The instructions in 11:1instructions on prophets.

21 See L. T. Lefort, Les Péres Apostoliques en copte (Louvain, 1952 [CSCO]) p.

33; contra C. Schmidt, "Das koptische Didache-Fragment des British Museum", ZNW 24 (1925) pp. 81-99, esp. 87.

22 As in Rordorf & Tuilier, Doctrine, p. 184; contra Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), p. 82.

23 The principle is that "A man's shaliach is as himself" (In OFX 9 m.Ber 5:5; b.Ned 72b; b.Qid 41b; b.Hag 10b; b.Naz 12b; b.BM 96a; b.Men 93b).

The Christian apostle's function is essentially representative of the Lord who sends him, whereas the prophet claims direct revelation through the Spirit. This is argued in detail in my SBL paper "Weber, Theissen and Wandering Charismatics".

Whether or not a Jewish office of apostle existed in Jesus' lifetime is, of course, a matter of dispute. J. B. Lightfoot ("The Name and Office of an Apostle" in St.

Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (London: Macmillan, 1865] pp. 93-94]), A. Harnack

(The Mission and Expansion of Christianity 1 [London, 1908] pp. 327ff) and K. H.

Rengstorf ("*AITOLTOAOL", Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G.

Kittel, trns. G. W. Bromiley [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964] pp. 407-447; cf.

Niederwimmer, Die Didache, p. 213) argue for the existence of such an office.

Against its existence are A. Ehrhardt (The Apostolic Succession in the First Two

Centuries of the Church [London: Lutterworth, 1953] p. 17), W. Schmithals (The

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

2 do not relate to anything in the instructions concerning prophets, but only to those concerning apostles. This is significant, in light of our contention that the instructions concerning prophets come from the latest phase of the text's development. Moreover, 11:1-2 must have been written after 11:3-6, since this formula introduces the instruction on apostles (repi 5é). Here in 11:1-2 we have to do with an intermediate phase, a redaction of the instruction concerning the reception of apostles by the community at a time when they were a very real institution, but apostles had come to feature in doctrinal dispute(s).

The problem with which the instructions deal is that of false teaching given by people claiming to be apostles. This teaching is fundamentally subversive of the foundational instruction of the community, reflected in Didache 1-10 (ratta mavTa 7a Tpoeipnéva). We would be in a position to know a lot more about the mysterious Didache community if we could only know what dispute is hidden behind this brief redactional insertion in 11.1-2. To paraphrase a German proverb, "Tell me who you're fighting, and I'll tell you who you are"4.

Ill. THE THREAT TO THE COMMUNITY OF THE

DIDACHE The Relation between Didache and Matthew Fortunately, there is a clue provided by Matthew's Gospel, to which the Didache is closely related. The Didache is a "Q" community, and draws on the same traditions as does Matthew, although it cannot be shown to be dependent on Matthew as we have it.25 The relationship of the Didache with the "Q" tradition is

Office of Apostle in the Early Church (London: SPCK, 1971] pp. 98-110) and J. H.

Schiitz (Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority [Cambridge: University Press,

1975] pp. 28-29). The argument in favour of its existence seems strong, and it may be that the evidence against it is artificially strengthened by Paul's statements, when

Paul himself is concerned to play down the significance of the "office" of apostle for his own reasons. In any case, for the purpose of this paper, it is only necessary to establish that the function of apostle is clearly differentiated from the function of prophet.

24 My translation. Taken from E. Bammel, "Sadduzier und Sadokiden", ETL 55 (1979) pp. 107-115, esp. 107.

25 See J. A. Draper, "The Jesus Tradition in the Didache", in Gospel Perspectives V: The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels, ed. D. Wenham (Sheffield:

JSOT, 1985) pp. 269-289; cf. R. Glover, "The Didache's Quotations and the Synoptic

Gospels", NTS 5 (1958-1959) pp. 12-29. The opposite view is held by H. Koster (Synoptische Uberlieferung bei den Apostolischen Vater (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,

1957 (TU 65)] pp. 159-241), B. Layton ("The Sources, Dates and Transmission of Didache 1:3b-2:1", HTR 61 [1968] pp. 343-383) and E. Massaux (The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on Christian Literature before Saint Irenaeus, trns. N.

: mets & S. Hecht [Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 1990-1993 (NGSt 5,1-

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

complex. It appears as if this "Q" material gradually penetrated an existing community rule, especially in the catechetical section of chapters 1-6, where 1:2-6 is clearly an insertion. Chapters 8 and 15 also seem to be a later layer in the tradition, in which " gospel" gradually comes to replace "didache". In particular, 15:4 is subversive of the whole community rule, since it subordinates its teaching to the emerging gospel tradition, which may, perhaps, already be a written document at this stage2°: rag 68 evyac bud

Kal T&S EXEnuoobvac Kai TOUS TAS TOGEELC OTW TOLHOUTE, GC ExeTe év TO evayyediw Tod xvpiov hudv. One may well ask, if all of this teaching is already in a written gospel, what need of the Didache.

On the other hand, while the Jesus tradition of "Q" represents a gradual intrusion, other points of contact between Matthew and the Didache are not related to "Q", but seem to have their original Sitz im Leben in instruction concerning community problems and discipline. Other factors apart, it would seem more likely that these points of contact originate in a community rule, which then influence the arrangement of the "Q" material in Matthew's redaction, since the Sermon on the Mount is that writer's own creation, ordering originally independent material (found partially scattered in Luke) according to a grand design.27 In this study the attempt will be made to show that the Didache, at least in an early form, lies behind the composition of parts of Matthew.

Like Audet?8, I believe that the Didache comes from the same community as Matthew, namely from Antioch??, although this is not the place to argue that in detail.3° If both documents emerge

Cf.

Késter, "Uberlieferung und Geschichte der friihchristlichen Evangelienliteratur" (in W. Haase, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Riémischen Welt:

Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der Neueren Forschung 11.2, ) pp. 14631542, esp. 1466.

- 27 This design may well have been catechetical, which would provide a further link with Didache. See the discussion on dixaroabvn below.

28 La Didaché, pp. 211-219.

29 For a summary of the evidence, see W. D. Davies & D. C. Allison, The Gospel according to Matthew | (Edinburgh: Clark, 1988 [JCC]) pp. 143-147). A Syrian background to Didache is also accepted, with variations, by E. Peterson

("Einige Probleme", pp. 146-182), A. Adam ("Erwagungen zur Herkunft der Didache", Zeitschrift fir Kirchengeschichte 68 [1957] pp. 1-47) and G. Kretschmar

("Friihchristliche Askese", pp.29-32).

30 | have studied this connection more thoroughly in The Didache: its Text, its Nature and its Community. A Study in the Relationship of Literary Form, Redaction and Society. Final Report to the Human Sciences Research Council on Specialized

Research Abroad, at Cambridge University, September 1988 to January 1989 (Unpublished).

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

from the same community, one need not see the relationship between them as a one way literary dependence, but as a dialectic in which each influenced the development of the other. In the end, however, the gospel genre replaced the genre of the community rule. The genre of the community rule or church order did survive on the periphery, but without the authority of Scripture.

The Instructions of Didache 11:1-2 and Matthew 5:17-20 The implication of the instructions in 11:1-2 is that some (apostles) are going around teaching something different to what is contained in Didache 1-10. What is particularly interesting here, is the close relationship of the language of Didache 11:1-2 to the polemic in Matthew 5:17-20:

Didache 11:1-2 Matthew 5:17-20 M2?) vopionte S71 nABor KaTeeADoo TOY vopov 7 TOVC TPoSHTAC™ ovK HAGor KaTadvoat GAAG TANPGoat. anny yap Aéyo bpiv" Ewe Gv TapENOy 6 OVPAVOC KQi 7) 'Y7], \@Ta Ev 7 pia KEepaia ov nH

TApéEdOyn ATO TOV vOLOV, Ewe AY TAVTO yévntat. d¢ av ovv ALON pinY TOP

EVTON@V TOUT TOP EAAXLOTAP Kai

b6aEN OVTWS TOUS aVOpazoUC, EAGXLOTOS KANOHGETAL Ev TH BaciAsia T@P ovpavav' Oc S av Toon Kat dde08 ovTo¢ péyac KAnOjosTat év TH Bacodsi TQv ovpavav. A&ya yap vpiv O71 éav p TEptoosvon veer 7H dixarocvry TAsior 7 yeapLpaTéwv Kai Papioaiwr, ov py eioéhOnte sic THY Bacivsiav TOP ovpavar. o¢ Gv ovy Oe Sid5KEN bas TadTa TAVTA TA TooEipnpeva, d&aobEe avTov.

&Qv 5& AUTOS O SLOGoKwY OTPAdeEiC ddaoKyn GAAHY SidaXTY Ei¢ TO KATAAVOAL, 7] AUTOU aKOvONTE, Eig bE TO Tpoobeivon Sixaoovrny Kal yvaow kuplov, d& aoe avTov wo KUpLOV The wording is so close that some kind of literary relationship between the two writings seems to be required. The problem seems to be the same in both. In Matthew, the problem is the abiding validity of the Torah3!: heaven and earth will pass away, but not one least part of the Torah %a¢ Qv ravra yévnrou. R.

Bultmann sees reflected here the debate between Matthew's community and the Hellenistic church.32 E. Schweizer takes fwo Gv

31 Cf. W. G. Kiimmel, "Jesus und der jiidische Traditionsgedanke", ZNW 33 (1934) pp.

129f; G. Barth, "Matthew's Understanding of the Law", in G.

Bornkamm, G. Barth & H. J. Held, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (London: SCM, 1960) pp. 58-164, esp. 62-73.

32 R. Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1972) pp.

146f. Cf. G. Barth, who argues that "one cannot therefore avoid seeing behind the opponents attacked here the apostle Paul, whatever the distance" ("Matthew's

Understanding", p. 161).

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

mavTa yévnTar, seen as the work of the evangelist redacting received tradition, as the key to understanding the passage. The phrase then makes the validity of the Torah conditional and points forward to its fulfilment in God and neighbour love in the teaching of Jesus.33

W.D. Davies** sets these words solely on the lips of the historical Jesus, so that they refer to the death of Jesus and the inauguration of the new Covenant. According to him, the legalism belongs to Jesus and not to Matthew, so that any reference to Paul and legal controversy in the community is ruled out. However, we shall argue that this passage draws its meaning from the whole context of 5:17-48, and is intended to function as instruction for Matthew's community.

For Matthew, the man who teaches one to break the Torah (didn o'Two) is the least in the kingdom, although with this, he is still recognized as a fellow Christian. Clearly this is the language of internal polemic in the Christian community. In the Didache, the one who is teaching claims to be an apostle, but must not be received by the community. Still further detail is provided concerning this kind of apostle: he is one who has "turned"

(otpadeic).

He once was acceptable, but his present teaching makes him unacceptable, because it is regarded as threatening the foundational norms of the community.

The uncommon word xataddoa seems to have a technical reference to undermining Torah>°, as it is used in Matthew (kaTaddoa Tov vopov). This is confirmed by its use in 2 Maccabees

2:22

(katadieoba wvopmouvc), Josephus

(AJ XVI.35

KaTandoai Tt Tav Tatpiwv; BJ 11.393 oxovdy yap buty pia 76 pH TQv TaTpiwvy mT KaTaddoa; cf BJ IV.382) and Philo (SpecLeg

II. 182).37

A further parallel with the Didache injunction comes in the demand that Christian righteousness (6.xexoovvn) must exceed that of the Pharisees and Scribes (zepioceton ...adetov). Since G.

33 E. Schweizer, "Matth. 5,17-20: Anmerkungen zum Gesetzesverstandnis des Matthaus" in Neotestamentica (Stuttgart: Zwingli Verlag, 1963) pp. 399-406. Cf.

G. Bornkamm, "End-Expectation and Church in Matthew" (in Bornkamm, Barth & Held, Tradition and Interpretation, pp. 31-32, 70-71; J. Gnilka, Das Matthdusevangelium (Freiburg: Herder, 1986) pp. 140-149.

34 W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge:

University Press, 1964) pp. 334-336.

35 Note the ironic interplay between "least commandment" and "least in the kingdom" observed by J. Gnilka, Matthdus-evangelium, pp. 195-196.

36 Cf, F. Biichsel "ATQ" (7DNT IV) pp. 335-338, esp. 336, 338.

37 See also Tatian, resident of Antioch from AD c166 until his death, cited by Clement of Alexandria, Stromata IlII.12 (81.2ff), also in connection with the debate over the Law: mA ody 7H Botderau exeivog KaTadbwy Tov vpov wo WAdov Geod.

Cf. Gnilka, Matthdus-evangelium, p. 143.

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

Strecker38, it is widely agreed that duxcvoodvy reflects a particular redactional emphasis in Matthew, occurring at seven key points

(3:15; 5:6, 10, 20; 6:1, 33; 21:32).3° The use of duxavoobvy in 5:20 and 6:1 is particularly emphatic, in that it introduces and concludes a section of legal interpretation. In particular, 6:1 refers to actual conduct which can be observed or not observed.

This indicates that an ethical interpretation of the term is correct, and that it has its basis in observation of the Torah according to its interpretation within the Christian community.4° So the Didache suggests that one should receive the teacher who interprets the Torah in this way, who "adds to righteousness", but not one who advocates the abolition of the Torah! Matthew amplifies what this means, since the following verses (5:21-47) take the five commandments of the second tablet of the Decalogue and heighten each of them in turn, to "add to righteousness".*! This procedure is then summarized by the injunction to perfection, a key word also for the Didache: foeo8e obv ipeic TéXELOL WS O TATHP LpaV O ovpaviog TéAEL6g got (Mt 5:48; cf Did 1:4; 6:2; c.f. in verbal form 10:5; 16:2). The whole section shows Matthew collecting together catechetical material into a carefully constructed unit, in a way which matches the much briefer statement of the Didache.

Nothing in all of this suggests that the Didache is drawing on the text of Matthew. There is no mention of the "gospel" until

11:3, and here in what we have argued is a redactional insertion linked to the material on prophets. On the other hand, there are some features which suggest that Matthew may be drawing on Didache 11.1-2. Here it occurs in the form of instruction, where it has a clear setting in life in the community. Gnilka argues that the dispute over the Torah was a past debate by the time of the final redaction of the tradition in Matthew's gospel, although the text shows signs of the debate in different redactional layers.42 In the final resolution, the Law is re-affirmed, but subordinated to the organizing principle of God and neighbour love, or the Golden

Rule. It is important to note that the same solution is adopted by the Didache, where these very things are inserted into the Two

Ways (1:2) and become the first principle of the Way of Life 38 Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966

[FRLANT 82]). Cf. G. Bornkamm, "End-Expectation", pp. 30-31.

3° The debate, which is well summarized by W. Popkes recent article ("Die Gerechtigkeitstradition in Matthaus-Evangelium", ZNW 80 [1989] pp. 1-23, esp. 13), has largely concerned whether Matthew holds a view of "righteousness" as grace or works or both.

40 See, for example, Phil 3:6, xara dcxavoodvny Ti év vopw yevdpevoc &peuttoc. Cf. Bornkamm, "End-Expectation", p. 25.

41 Cf. Gnilka, Matthdus-evangelium, p. 141.

42 Thid., pp. 147-148.

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

(prov). The original interpretation of the Two Ways consisted of haggadic expansion of the moral sections of the Torah, especially the Decalogue. This now becomes the second principle

(2:1).43 The new "first" interpretation is then further defined by the addition of material drawn from the "Q" tradition in 1:3-6.44

'Seemingly, in the Didache we can observe the development still in process, which comes to full theological expression in Matthew.

A recent contribution to the d:caoodry-tradition within Matthew by W. Popkes, taking up a suggestion of G. Braumann,45 has argued persuasively that the Sitz im Leben of the tradition lies in instruction for neophytes.46 If he is correct, then this would tend to highlight the cnnection of the tradition in Matthew with the Didache, which contains such catechetical instruction in chapters

1-6, followed by instructions concerning baptism.

Matthew represents a development of the material by means of theological reflection, and its authority is guaranteed by setting it on the lips of Jesus himself.47 The development is essentially

Christological, in that the material on the abiding validity of the Torah is bracketted between the "I"-Sayings of vv 17 and 20.

"The consistent and radical acceptance of the law (in its actual intention) thus stands for Matthew in the closest connexion with his Christology"

.48 The Didache, on the other hand, shows little, 43 Cf. Draper, "Jesus Tradition", pp. 271-272.

44 The relegation of this material to the footnotes by Wengst (Didache (Apostellehre), pp. 66-68), while he retains the insertions of the Jesus tradition in chapters 8 and 15, seems to me to be inconsistent dnd misleading. No-one would deny that the passage was missing in the original Two Ways teaching, but it is present in every witness to the Didache which we possess.

45 "Zum traditionsgeschichtlichen Problem der Seligpreisungen Mt V 3-12", NT 4 (1960) pp. 253-260.

46 Popkes states the problem in helpfully precise terms, "Zudem fallt auf, daB Matthaus das Wort nirgendwo naher erlautert oder kommentiert, vielmehr als Interpretament verwendet und somit offenbar als bekannt voraussetzt. Es signalisiert anscheinend fiir Matthdus und seine Leser eine spezielle Vorgeschichte. Die Frage ist: welche?" ("Die Gerechtigkeitstradition", pp. 4-5). J. Jeremias raises the same question, with his insistence that particular sayings in the Sermon on the Mount can only be understood on the presupposition that "it was preceded by something else"

(The Sermon on the Mount, trns. N. Perrin [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963] p. 26).

Didache, it seems, offers the social historian a glimpse of that particular pre-history of the tradition in Matthew. More recently, Gnilka (Matthdus-evangelium, p. 142) argues that the mention of entry into the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 5:19 indicates a catechetical Sitz im Leben.

47 Although it is hazzardous to make comparisons, one might say of Matthew, as Bultmann says of Paul's relation to the Hellenistic church, that he "raised the theological motifs that were at work" in the Antioch community "to the clarity of theological thinking" (Theology of the New Testament 1, trans. K. Grobel [London:

SCM, 1952] p. 187).

Bornkamm, "End-Expectation", p.

37.

Cf.

Barth, "Matthew's Understanding", pp. 147-153.

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

if any, interest in Christological speculation, which is usually seen by critics as a sign of late development of the tradition. The quarrel within the Christian community concerning the observation of the Torah seems to have receded somewhat in Matthew, and to be replaced by hostility to the Scribes and Pharisees. Didache 8:1-2, on the other hand, while it advocates separation of its community from other Jewish groups, whom it describes as boxpiTay, shows no other trace of hostility towards them. Yet it shows great hostility towards Christians who advocate the abolition of the Torah. These two features in Matthew represent a movement towards rapprochement between his community and the Pauline churches, and a corresponding movement away from the Jewish community, a movement which is more fully represented by Luke-Acts.

Increasingly, the abiding validity of the Torah is related to Jesus Word as interpretation and fulfilment. In Matthew

24:35, the words of Jesus (oi 5 A6you pov) replace the Torah in the same saying in 5:18. The Didache seems to represent the earlier stage of development.

In Matthew it is not false apostles who represent a threat, but false prophets (7:15-20). This would, according to the redactional analysis offered above, align Matthew with the latest redaction of the Didache instructions, where prophets replace apostles as the burning issue in the community.

IV. THE "WHOLE YOKE OF THE LORD" (DIDACHE 6:2)

A further identifying mark of the Didache community, which relates to the instructions on false apostles in 11:1-2, and provides a clue to the solution of the puzzle, is Didache 6:1-3:

6:1 "Opa, wy tic ce TAAVIRON ATO TAVTHS THS 0500 THC SibaxHS, éTEt TOapEKtoc Yeov oe Sidaoxet.

2. Ei pév yap Sivacat BaoTraoat Sdov Tov fvydv Tov Kupiov, TEAELOS Eon* el & ov dvvacat, 0 dvvn, TOUTO Tole.

3. Ilepit 5& tH¢ Boaoews, 0 Stvacat Baotacov' ad Sé TOV EidwAObiTOV Nav mpocEexe ANaTPEia yap éoTt Bev vexpav.

Here again, there is a concern to preserve the foundational teaching of the community against false teachers. The perspective is markedly different, however, in the absence of a Christological reference: it is not a matter here of &¢ kipioc, but of tapeKtic

Geod. 6:1 is part of the Two Ways teaching and acts as a final warning to preserve its integrity.49 11:1 represents a later stage of :

49 Contra Jefford (The Sayings of Jesus, pp. 93-96), who sees it as a late transitional section by "some redactor other than the Didachist".

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

the redaction of the Didache, and shows a significant Christological development.

Although traces of 6:2-3 remain in the Two Ways tradition, it is only in the Didache that this text occurs in this formS°, This is an indication that it was found to be objectionable by redactors and compilators. A. von HarnackS! and, after him, R. Knopf, have seen here the teaching of Christian asceticism, which divided

Christians into the "perfect", who abstain from carnal pleasures, and the bulk of Christians, who do the best they can. There is certainly evidence that the passage came to be used in this way, indeed, it may be that the text only survived at all because Tatian introduced encratism into Antioch, but there is no evidence that this is its original meaning.s+ There is little, if any, trace of asceticism in the rest of the document, except for the lifestyle of the prophets, which reflects a later state of development in the community. Even here, the evidence for asceticism is implied rather than stated.55

Moreover, 6:3 clearly refers to the question of idol worship and belongs in the realm of Jewish ritual food laws. The sub-title of the Didache in the Jerusalem manuscript gives the setting: "The 5° Although note the presence of at least 6:3 in the Ethiopian Church Order in a garbled form (G. Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles {[London: Williams &

Norgate, 1904] p. 129 lines 4-6). Textual critics of the Didache do not seem to have noticed this fact.

51 Die Lehre der Zwolf Apostel (Leipzig: Hinriche, 1896 [TU 2/1-2]), pp. 19-22.

52 Die Lehre der Zwélf Apostel. Die Zwei Clemensbriefe (HzNT. Die Apostolischen Véter 1, Tiibingen: Mohr, 1920), pp. 20-21.

; 53 The sermon De Centesima, published by R. Reizenstein ("Eine fruhchristliche

Schrift von der dreierlei Fruchten des christlichen Lebens", ZNW 15 [1914] pp. 6090), uses the passage in this way. Eusebius uses similar language in Demonstration

1.8 concerning the dvo Giov of the "more perfect form (évrTe\jc) of the Christian life". Above all, it is the Fourth Century Liber graduum (ed. M. Kmosko,

Patrologia Syriaca Il [Paris:

Firmin -Didot, 1926]), for which Didache is "Scripture" (kthib, e.g. VII.20), which best reflects this trend.

Its compatibility with this ascetic usage is probably the reason for the survival of the Didache.

Cf.

Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, pp.

32-33) and Kretschmar ("Friihchristliche Askese", pp. 61-62).

55 Unless the pvoripiov Koopxdy éxxAnoiag (11:11) is taken to refer to "syzygy", the ascetic union between a prophet and a virgin, as suggested by Harnack (Die Lehre, pp. 44-48), Adam ("Erwagungen zur Herkunft", pp. 20f), H. von Campenhansen ("Early Christian Asceticism" in Tradition and Life in the Church [London: Collins, 1968] pp. 90-122, esp. 117 n. 190) and Kretschmar

("Friihchristliche Askese", p. 34), or ascetic renunciation of marriage, as suggested by Knopf (Lehre der Zwolf Apostel, pp. 32-33). The evidence for such an assumption is slight, and the reference could also be to unconventional symbolic actions of the prophets (Audet, La Didaché, pp. 451-453; cf. Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 187). The contention of A. Broek-Utne ("Eine schwierige Stelle in einer alten

Gemeindeordnung, Did. 11:11", ZKG 54 [1935] pp. 576-581) that it refers forward to almsgiving in 11:12, is possible but unlikely.

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

Teaching of the Lord through the twelve apostles to the Gentiles".

This title implies the teaching of a basically Jewish church to Gentile converts, and there is no reason to doubt that it is intended literally. A. Stuiber5* has argued convincingly that the reference of "the whole yoke of the Lord" is to the Torah as the yoke of Yahweh, which is the final step for the Gentile proselyte, although he sees this as a purely Jewish text. C. Deutsch, in a recent study of Matthew 11:25-30,57 has re-affirmed the necessary connection between the metaphorical use of "yoke" and Torah (or at least of "Wisdom...which is to be equated with Torah"5') in Jewish thinking.

If, however, Didache 6:2 were a "purely Jewish text", the problem would be: why should any Christian document continue to advocate such a Jewish teaching? The reference certainly seems to be to the Torah as the "yoke", but understood now as the yoke

"of the Lord". There is no example of such terminology in the Jewish texts, where it is "the yoke of Heaven" or "the yoke of the kingdom". If the reference'of "yoke" in the Didache is to the Torah, as seems likely, it refers to the Torah as interpreted by the Lord, i.e. by the Christian community under the influence of the Jesus tradition.

The use of §vyé¢ in the New Testament A study of the expression dtvacat Baotdoat dAov Tov fvydr TOD xupiov confirms this background to the text. Of the five occurrences of fvyd¢ in the New Testament, one refers literally to a yoke (1 Tim 6:1), and the others all relate to the Torah.

In Acts 15:10, the question concerns the obligation of the Gentiles to accept the full Jewish Torah, arising out of the crisis in Antioch:

36 See A Stuiber, "Das ganze Joch des Herrn (Did. 6:2-3)" in Studia Patristica IV (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1961 [TU 79]) pp. 323-329. Stuiber sees the passage as Jewish in origin, rather than Jewish Christian, but this cannot explain the continuance of such a passage in an early Christian text, if it refers so unequivocally to the Jewish Torah. Audet (La Didaché, pp. 352-357) also sees the reference to the Torah, though as the work of a Christian interpolator who reflects the situation of Acts 15. Cf. also G. Kretschmar, "Friihchristliche Askese", pp 47-48.

57 C. Deutsch, Hidden Wisdom and the Easy Yoke: Wisdom, Torah and Discipleship in Matthew 11.25-30 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1987 [JSNT Supp. 18]) esp. pp.

126-128; 133-135.

38 Ibid., pp. 115-116.

°° This connection between 6:3 and the-Council of Jerusalem was explored by W. Telfer ("The Didache and the Apostolic Synod of Antioch", JTS 40 (1939) pp.

133-146, 258-271; cf. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, p. 163), who sees Didache as relaxing the severity of Acts. See more recently, Jefford's similar suggestion that Didache may reflect the Council decision independently of Acts (The Sayings of Jesus, pp. 96-98).

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

Now then, why do you test God, by laying a yoke ({vyéc) on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we ourselves have been able to bear (ioxtoapunv Baoraoat).

Note here the same combination of fvyé¢ and being able to bear, Baordoa, and a solution similar to that in the Didache: If the Gentiles are not "able" to "bear the yoke" of the Torah, the minimum obligation laid on them largely concerns ritual food laws

(despite the ethicising attempt of the Western Text!): keep from what has been offered to idols, from what has been strangled, and from [meat which has] blood.® Although Luke suggests that the argument at the "Jerusalem Council" was over "circumcision" only, Paul makes it quite clear in Galatians 2:11-13, that the observation of the food laws was at the heart of the problem. The minimum requirement was intended to enable the Gentile Christians to continue worshipping with Jewish Christians, avoiding ritual impurity which could render them unclean. This probably continues the practice of the Diaspora synagogue. The language is certainly to be found in Rabbinic texts, for example the saying of Nehunya b. Ha-Kanah (T 1-2):

He that takes upon himself yoke of the Law (A71n Diy v2y Dapnn-r>), from him shall be taken the yoke of the kingdom and the yoke of worldly care (m.Abot 3:5)® Acts links this solution to the problem of relationships between Jewish and Gentile Christians with Antioch, after the intervention of emissaries from Jerusalem. What must be questioned in Luke's account is his contention that Paul was present at the "Jerusalem

Council" and was party to the agreement.® This creates almost insuperable problems in understanding Paul's letter to the Galatians—except, of course, by juggling the timing of it all.

60 kai TiC Topveiac seems a little out of place in this theory. It is omitted by P45, while the Syriac Didascalia reads wopxeiac; either of these would retain the sole reference to the food laws. If the original reading were indeed "pork", then this would explain both the other readings. However, the external evidence is very slight. In view of the manifest ethicising tendency of the tradition, the introduction of "fornication" could be seen as an early scribal gloss. Certainly there is evidence that Christians in the second and third centuries were still observing the prohibition against food offered to idols and meat with the blood in it. See also the Martyrs of Lyons. On the other hand, the confusion may have been introduced into the evidence by Luke himself, who was concerned to downplay observance of the food laws, since, for him, God had declared all foods clean (Acts 10:9-16).

61 Compare m.Abot 6:2; b.BM 85b.

62 P. Achtemeier, Zhe Quest for Unity in the New Testament Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

Paul uses the word ¢vyéc¢ polemically in Gal 5:1, against those Gentile Christians who want to be circumcised and keep the Torah: pi T&A vy Sovdsiag évéxeobe. The context is an attempt by envoys from outside the community, probably from Jerusalem, to persuade Gentiles in Paul's communities to keep the Law. Interestingly, Paul's defense against them is a rehearsal of the events of the Antioch crisis, in which he defends his own role.

Peter and Barnabas succumb to pressure from James and the Judaizing party. Part of Paul's polemic seems to be a reworking of the Two Ways teaching—both parenesis and the schema in which the two ways become the way of flesh (presumably associated with the way of circumcision) and the way of the Spirit (the way of salvation by faith apart from works of Torah).

The image of the yoke recurs in Matthew 11:29-30, where again the symbolism probably relates to the Torah®, with Jesus as the new Law-giver like Moses, as in the Sermon on the Mount.

The new law of Jesus is an easy yoke to bear, unlike the oral Torah of the Pharisees who "tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them" (23:4). This is how it was understood by Cyprian (ad Quirinum III.119), who argues: "That the yoke of the Law was heavy, which is cast off by us, and that the Lord's yoke is easy, which is taken up by us" .® The "yoke" in the Fathers In the early Christian writings outside the New Testament, most occurences of fvyéc¢ simply reflect the influence of Mt 11:29-30.

Otherwise the metaphorical use of fvyé¢ is not common. Those texts which do use the word use it to refer to the Torah. In particular, Barnabas 2:6 rejects the Torah as fvyév &va@yxKnye and in its place puts the "new law of our Lord Jesus Christ" (6 Kawvidc vopuoc). Justin, Dial 53:1, also refers to the Torah as the yoke of the Jews, who are like a harnessed ass (6vov broftyov), contrasted with the Gentiles who are like an unharnessed foal until they receive the yoke of the Word (rév fvyév Tod Ndyou). So too

Didascalia LII.17-35 differentiates between the Torah given on 63 Deutsch, Hidden Wisdom, pp. 40-44.

64 The background to this concept is well depicted by W. D. Davies (Setting of the Sermon on the Mount, pp. 25-108), although he denies that Mt. envisaged Jesus unambiguously as a new Moses giving a new Torah. His caution is taken further by T. L. Donaldson, Jesus on the Mountain: A Study in Matthean Theology (Sheffield:

JSOT, 1985 [ JSOT Supp. 8]) pp. 111-118. Donaldson argues that Moses typology is absorbed by "christologically re-interpreted Zion eschatology" (Ibid., p. 118).

65 My translation.

66 Translation from A. Roberts & J. Donaldson, The Ante-Nicene Fathers V [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957] p. 556.

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

a57 Sinai, which remains binding on the Church, and is the fuydsg of the eternal Law, and the laws given after the golden calf as a punishment for idolatry, which are the "Deutero Legislation", no longer binding. Justin takes a similar line in his Dialogue.

All of this seems to confirm the supposition that the "yoke of 'the Lord" in the Didache refers to the Torah, as maintained and interpreted in the Christian community.

V. BECOMING "PERFECT" ACCORDING TO DIDACHE 6:2

The word réAetog also has its roots in Jewish debate concerning the Torah.® In particular the Dead Sea Scrolls use 0°%N as the qualification of the Way of Light. "Perfection" means keeping the Torah according to the community halakoth (e.g. 1QS 1:8f; 2:2;

3:9f; 8:1f). So here in the Didache, it is only by keeping the whole Torah, according to the Christian halakoth (the new law of Christ, which is an "easy yoke"), that one would become perfect in the way of life. Presumably, then, if Paul was understood as advocating the abolition of the Torah, he would be understood as teaching contrary to God's will (tapexrtdc¢ Oe0d 6:1). This is the whole issue of Galatians writ large from the other side.

The use of the word 7réXetoc in Matthew 5:48 confirms this reference to Torah. For, after the passage concerning the abiding application of the Torah, which must mean greater d:cavoobvn for the Christian than for the Scribes and Pharisees, Matthew gives an example of what he means by this. Each of the five ethical commands of the Decalogue are given a more stringent application in 5:21-47. The concluding comment, which recaps and restates the principle, is &oe08e ovv vpeic TédELOL WS O TATHP VuaV oO ovpavioc TéXELd¢ éoTtv. For Matthew, at least, the word 7éXevocg summarizes the Christian approach to Torah®: the Torah remains intact and the Christian halakah represents a legal "righteousness" which exceeds that of the Scribe and Pharisee!

Matthew 19:16-22 has often been used to argue for an ascetic background to the word 7éAevoc, since the rich young man is asked by Jesus to sell his possessions and give to the poor.

67 See also M. Simon, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire, 135-425, trans. M. McKeating (Oxford: University

Press, 1986) pp. 114-117.

68 Cf.-Kretschmar, "Friihchristliche Askese", pp. 49-54.

69 See G. Barth, "Matthew's Understanding", pp. 97-103. Barth, however, seems unaware of the parallel to Matthew's usage in the Didache, since he argues that, "This use of 7éXetoc is found nowhere else in the LXX, the New Testament or the post-New Tstament writings" (bid., p. 98). Cf. Gnilka (Matthdus-evangelium, p. 141), who claims that, "Man darf vermuten, da} die Volkommenheit am Ende des 5. Kapitels ein Zielpunkt is, auf den hin die Gedankenfiihrung verlauft".

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

However, the context again indicates that Matthew understands the term as a reference to Torah in Christian interpretation ("adding to righteousness").70

Where Mark 10:17-22 makes the pericope revolve around the Christological question of who Jesus is, "Why do you call me good? No-one is good except God alone", Matthew makes the pericope revolve around the correct fulfillment of the Torah. The man asks, "What good thing must I do?" and receives the answer, "Why do you ask me concerning what is good? There is only One who is good...Keep the commandments!" (ripnoov Taco évToAdc).

The question is pushed further, "Which commandments?" The answer is the five ethical commandments of the Decalogue, together with the golden rule

(found also in Didache 1:2) which Matthew adds to Mark.

Finally, when the man claims to have kept all these, Jesus responds to the question of what is still "lacking" with the statement about how to be "perfect"—again a Matthean addition ei

O€detg TEAELOG Elva.

The "perfect"

(7éAevog) or complete Christian in the Didache, then, is the one who keeps the whole Torah according to Christian halakah.

The food laws were the minimum legal requirement to ensure table fellowship between the "perfect" and the uncircumcised Gentiles.71 The community of the Didache remains within the ambit of faithful Torah-observant

Jewish Christianity ,72 but takes an understanding line on the problems of Gentile believers, who are not excluded from the Christian community, just relegated to the status of second class Christians."

On the other hand, the Didache takes a harsh line on those who oppose this instruction: anyone who teaches differently is teaching contrary to God himself! Didache 6:1 is connected to 6:2 by yap, indicating a causal connection. The implication is that there are people who teach that one can be "perfect" without taking up the whole yoke [of the Torah], and these must be understood as teaching contrary to God's will. Further, the emphasis in the instruction seems to fall on SAov, which has a 70 Cf. Kretschmar, "Friihchristliche Askese", pp. 54-61.

71 Cf P. J. Donahue, "Jewish Christianity in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch"

(VigChr 32 [1978]) pp. 81-92, esp. 90.

" Kretschmar sees Mt as remaining within the ambit of the Synagogue and Jewish people, but the Didache as presupposing a separation, but does not argue for this beyond a general supposition that no community rule would be necessary if Christians remained within Judaism. However this idea that a community mule would only be needed after a separation from Judaism is based on a naive picture of a monolithic Judaism. Qumran, at least, saw the need for a Manual of Discipline.

73 G. Barth ("Matthew's Understanding", pp. 99-102) argues persuasively that the use of réevog by Matthew does not imply a two-level ethic, but the way the term is used in Didache must raise questions about this assertion.

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

polemical edge. This teaching on the Torah was an inseparable part of what was taught to all converts before their baptism: sere said all these things [beforehand], baptize in this way"

In any case, their baptism would admit them only to partial fellowship with Jewish Christians, and they would know from the start that the goal of the Christian life was full compliance with the Jewish Torah, under the aegis of the Messiah. The question of admission to table fellowship in the Christian eucharist is raised in 9:5, where baptism not Torah is affirmed as the criterion, so the debate seems to have continued. This passage reflects the same world of Jewish ritual concern as 6:2-3.

VI. THE ESCHATOLOGICAL TEACHING OF DIDACHE 16

The full implications of this understanding of the Torah as the goal of the Christian life for Gentile converts may be gauged from the eschatological exhortation in 16:2. The whole time of the proselyte's life will not avail unless he/she be found "perfect" or "perfects him/herself" (7eXevw6A7e) in the last time! The word

TedewwhATe is commonly used in the mystery religions to mean "to be consecrated" or "initiated"74.

The connection of the noun TéXeLog with Torah, which has been examined above, seems to indicate that final acceptance of the Torah by Gentiles is at issue here, as the final mark of initiation.

In other words, the Didache allows the proselyte flexibility about the timetable, but at the end of the day, it is required of him/her that he/she become a full Jew in order to attain salvation. Of course, the way this was understood would have been modified in the course of time, but this may well have been its original reference.

A parallel to this attitude is provided by the words of a Jew to the godfearer Flavius Clemens, who faces martyrdom for his conversion to Judaism: "Pity the ship that sails [towards the harbour] without paying the tax" (b.AZ 10b; DeutR ii.24). The demand is that the godfearer be circumcised before he dies or forfeit his right to eternal life. When Flavius is circumcised, Ketiah b. Shalom says, "Thou has paid the tax, thou wilt enter [paradise]". This puts maximum pressure on the Gentile Christian to become a Jew. Meanwhile he/she must keep a minimum ritual purity, particularly with regard to the food laws. The Law was given to Israel, and only Israelites were obligated to keep it; the 74 W. Bauer, W. F. Arndt & F. W. Gingrich,

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago: University Press, 1957) p. 818.

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

moral law was sufficient for God-fearing Gentiles who wished to attend the worship of the community, but the hope was that eventually the Gentile would become a Jew. This is the environ of the Diaspora Jewish synagogue, where a 2¥1N 13 7 is admitted to worship in the hope that he/she will eventually become a PT 13.

The close connection of Didache 16 with Didache 6:2 and 11:1 has not been noticed before. Certain features indicate that it has an underlying thread of polemic. In the first place, the negative formulation of oi Adxvor buav pH OBeobjTwoav Kai ai dodbesg ipav uh éxAvéoOwoay (16:1) differs from the positive formulation of Luke 12:35, which follows Exodus 12:11 (LXX). The positive form derives from Passover tradition, but the negative form indicates a community facing a threat. This threat could be interpreted in terms of a waning of eschatological ardour certainly, but what makes this less likely is that the threat concerns their "life" (b1&p

Tic fwiic bur, 16:1), which ties the thinking to the Two Ways teaching of 1-6. It concerns the individual's faithfulness to the teaching of the Way of Life, which includes faithfulness to the Torah. Thus the warning re-iterates 6:1 dpa pH Tic oe TAAVHON

16 THC Od00 Tic dtdaxX7HC.

16:2 urges frequent meetings to inquire about 7&@ avynKovTa Taig Wvxoit¢ budv, although it does not specify further what the things required might be. The context suggests that they are the things which would make it possible for the reader to be "perfect", since the warning which follows is connected to it by yap. The whole time of faith will be of no avail unless on the last day he/she is "perfected". This would seem to imply that 7a avykovTa refers to instruction in the Christian halakah.

The threat to the community does not come from outside but from within, from false prophets (zAnOvvOjoovTar oi yWevdoTtpod7tat) and corrupters, from sheep who have turned into wolves (kai otpadjoovTat Ta Tpd6BaTa sic NdKOUC, Kai h ayaTy oTpadHoeTtat eic ioo¢)—those who were once seemingly faithful members have turned against the community.

The word Yevdotpod7jtar could well refer to the false apostle(s) of 11:1-2, since the instructions of 11:3-6 call false apostles Yevdotpodfrau.

Notice also the link with orpadeic in 11:2.

The perspective of the Matthew 7:15 is somewhat different, since the wolves come from outside the community clothed as sheep (otzwvec XpxovTat

Tpdg vuas év Evdtpaow Tpo8aTwr). The memory of the concrete 75 See Tractate Gerim 3:1, "What is a "resident proselyte"? Whoever undertakes to abstain from idolatry, in the view of R Meir: R Judah said, "Whoever undertakes not to eat flesh that has not been ritually slaughtered"" (Translated by A. Cohen,

The Minor Tractates of the Talmud [London: Soncino, 1965]).. Cf Juvenal, Sat.

14:96-106; ApocZeph. 10:8f.

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

origin of the saying in a betrayal by a particular member(s) of the community found in the Didache (otpadjoovrat) is absent in Matthew. This seems to be parallel to the softer line taken by the Gospel on the apostle who teaches that one need not keep the Torah.(5:19), and to indicate a development of the tradition. In the Didache \ove, which once existed between the false apostles / prophets and the community, is turned into hatred.

The reason is again given in what follows, connected by a causal yap: avfavovons yap Tic dvopiag pLojoovaty &AAHAOUG kat du@fovor kal Tapadaoover. The disastrous betrayal by former members is caused by an increase in "lawlessness", avopia. The signs are that @vopia should be given a more specific reference than general license. It refers here to those who put aside the vomog and advocate xataddoa (11:1). Again, Matthew 7:23 preserves the tradition that the root of the conflict over true and false prophecy is avopia, since Jesus says dToxwpetre aT' épod ol Epyafopevor THY Qvopiav.

At this time the "world deceiver" is to appear (16:4), into whose evil hands the world has been given (for a time). Significantly, he is described as vid¢ #e03 who even does signs and wonders, like the false prophets of Matthew 7:21-23. This seems to indicate that the title "world deceiver" is polemical and linked to the disputes within the Christian movement. The temptation to c&vopuia, under the influence of false teaching by former members of the community subjects present members to a fiery ordeal and many will stumble and be lost (oxavdadoOjoovTat woddol Kai amoNXodrTat).

In this situation those who endure in their faith will be saved vm' avtod Tod KaTabépatos (16:5). This strange phrase has never been satisfactorily explained. The word kataééuatog is a rare word found only in Christian writings, usually in the context of polemic against heretics (apart from the cursing of Peter in Mt

26:74 and those writings dependent on it'), There is an interesting use of the verbal form in Justin's depiction of Jews and Jewish

Christians in Dial 47:4, where cursing is the means by which such people hope to escape from the fire (6mw¢ Tixwor TH¢ owTynpiac

Kal THS Tiuwpias Tic Ev TO Tupi &TaddAayouv).

Another echo in this passage of Justin is found in the strange phrase ém' avtév TobTov Tov XpioTdv, which is reminiscent of v7' avtod Tod Katabépatos in Didache 16:5. It is likely that the same context of Judaizing polemic lies behind both passages.

It has often been suggested that the expression means "by him who was cursed", ie by Jesus who became a curse by "hanging upon a 76 Perhaps, even here, there is an implication of apostasy in the community forming the Sitz im Leben of the story as Mt. tells it.

JONATHAN A. DRAPER

tree" (Dt 21:23). That is the argument of Paul in Galatians 3:13f, that the goal of this curse was "that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus". But Paul is here engaging in polemic against Judaizing Christians. He argues that "all who rely on observing the law are under a curse (070 xaTaépav)" (3:10) and that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (éx Tic xaT&pac Tod véuouv) by becoming a curse for us"

(3:13). If the Didache is in some way connected with the conflict between Paul and the Judaizing party at Antioch, and originates in Antioch, then it could be that the phrase ia' avrod Tod xeeT@ebsuceroc is a polemic against Paul and refers to the "curse of the Law". This may have been a proverbial expression. The date of the Rabbinic proselyte tractate Gerim is uncertain, but it may contain ancient material. Here the proselyte is first initiated into the disadvantages of the Torah:

If a man wishes to become a proselyte he is not accepted at once but they say to him, "Why do you want to become a proselyte? Do you not see that this people are debased, oppressed and degraded more than all other peoples, that diseases and chastisements come upon them and they bury their children and children's children, that they are slaughtered for [observing] circumcision, immersion and the other precepts [of the Torah] and cannot hold up their heads like other people". If he says, "I am not worthy to place my neck under the yoke (7192 "INTE J7)..."77

The instruction in the Didache would then remind the community that they are saved by the very thing which they find brings a curse on them, namely the Torah. It is to this that they must hold fast if they are to be perfect on the last day.

VII. CONCLUSION

A study of the enemies of the Didache community seems to indicate that it is a community still living within the ambit of the Torah, though threatened by those former members of the community who are, in its view, advocating the abolition of the law.78

If our redactional study is accepted, then 11:1-2 represents a development of the original instructions on apostles found in 11:36, under the pressure of historical developments. The one(s) who 7 Translation from A. Cohen, The Minor Tractates of the Talmud (London:

Soncino, 1965) p. 603; Hebrew text from G. Polster, "Der kleine Talmudtraktat tiber die Proselyten (Text und Ubersetzung)", Angelos 2 (1926) pp. 2-38. Compare the different, but perhaps not unrelated idea of the "curses of the Covenant" at Qumran, based on Dt 30.

78 Although, if the Pauline mission is in mind, it would refer rather to his tuling that Gentiles should not observe the Torah. In the view of the Didache community this was nothing less than avopia.

TORAH AND TROUBLESOME APOSTLES

is advocating abolition of the Torah claim(s) to be an apostle. He is to be excluded from the community. He is like a sheep who has turned into a wolf and will destroy the community if left inside it.

This is to be compared with the position of Matthew that such a one is "least in the Kingdom", but not outside of it. In comparison to this, the Didache represents the more severe ruling, Matthew indicates the beginning of rapprochement.

It is not difficult to extrapolate from the scenario which has emerged from our study, that the false apostle who advocates abolition of the Torah is Paul, and that the community of the Didache is Antioch. This clearly calls for further investigation.

What has also emerged from this study is that this redactional stratum of the text of the Didache shares with Matthew's gospel not just the "Q" sayings of the Jesus tradition, but also a common theological and structural conception. That they originate in the same community is hard to deny; they breathe the same air and reflect the same historical development. What must remain a matter of debate is the question of priority. Our contention here is that the Didache is the community rule of the Matthean community, constantly in process of development. Naturally, if this is so, some of its parts will reflect a situation pre-supposed by Matthew's gospel, other parts may reflect a situation after its composition. Only a careful redactional analysis can indicate in which way the influence runs in a specific instance. In the matter of the instructions on apostles, however, it seems that the text of the Didache forms the source of the material in Matthew.

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