ERNST BAMMEL, Pattern and Prototype of Didache
PATTERN AND PROTOTYPE OF DIDACHE 16
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Cambridge The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles or Didache consists of three scarcely connected parts, a Two-Ways-Schema, a community manual of discipline and an eschatological conclusion. The first complex dates back—there is broad consensus about this—to a particular textual pattern or schema and in the end back to a Jewish prototype (Vorlage).1 While the direct and indirect witnesses for Two-Ways-Catechisms reach up to chapter 6, only uncertain traces of the following chapters have been found.?
Hence the maximal extent of the schema seems to be precisely delineated. Only A. von Harnack, taking up certain suggestions of C. Taylor3, considered whether the Jewish model might have contained more material which would be analogous to what is found in the second part of the Didache, but he did not follow up this consideration on the grounds that it was too hypothetical.* Harnack argued on the basis of the content, and it is in fact possible to draw connections between the first and the second part. A continuation of the one into the other is easily conceivable. But in that case the third part appears to be all the more mysterious.
What is an eschatological perspective doing at the end of a manual of discipline for life and community?
But the situation is not unique. Comparable formations are recognizable in the Jewish tradition. Pseudo-Phocylides, at the end of his admonitions, describes the gate of life through which the approved one will walk.5 The Testament of Asher, probably the oldest testimony to the two ways, ends® with a short description of ! For a recent contrary opinion, see W. Michaelis, TDNT V, 58-60, 93-96. The German word Vorlage in the original paper is particularly difficult to translate, but has been rendered consistently by the English word "prototype".
2 On the quotation contained in the Pseudo-Cyprianic tract De aleatoribus (Hartel III, 92f), read Didache 14:2 and compare A. Harnack, Die Lehre der zwolf
Apostel (Leipzig: Hinrichs 1884 [TU 2,1-2]) pp. 20f. Number 9 of the Teaching of the Eleven Apostles reconstructed by T. Schermann (= prototype of the Apostolic
Church Order) perhaps presupposes a knowledge of Didache 10:3.
: z The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Cambridge: Deighton Bell, 1886), pp.
49ff.
= 4 ve ees und die jiidischen beiden Wege (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 18962), p.
Ch. ps 30) 5 Contained in SibOr 2.149-54. Concerning the priority of this version over against the one printed by J. Bernays (Uber das phokylideische Gedicht (Berlin,
1856] reprinted in Gesammelte Abhandlungen 1 [Berlin:Hertz, 1885 (reprinted Hildesheim: Olms, 1971)] pp. 192-261), cf. A. Kurfess, "Das Mahngedicht des sogenannten Phokylides", ZNW 38 (1939) pp. 171-181.
6 Ts ch.7 a later addition?
PATTERN AND PROTOTYPE OF DIDACHE 16
the reception of the righteous by an angel of peace at the door to heaven, and of the remainder by an evil spirit.?7 The Damascus
Rule ends in the Cairo recension with a description of the future victory of the faithful of the sectarian community and the expected redemption.' However, remains of a similar ending are also recognizable in Rabbinic literature.
In the Tosephta tractate t.Berakoth, a passage which supplements the rules in the mishnaic material follows this pattern; it concludes as follows: the angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.°
The quotation from Psalm 34:8 is not connected to what precedes, it has been added as an eschatological conclusion.
The passage has been included as a whole in the Jerusalem Talmud, j.Berakhoth 9. But the closing quotation is drawn into the text as a secondary addition to another quotation that serves as a scripture reference, and says nothing in that context. Instead a different ending has been abruptly added,!° that deals in a quite uneschatological way with peace, in that it proceeds from the Rabbis. Its purpose is obviously to take the place of the original ending, either because it was not understood any more or, more probably, to neutralize it.—In the Babylonian Talmud b. Berakoth
64a, the sentences found in the Tosephta 7:24-25 are missing as a whole; only the last sentence of the Jerusalem Talmud has been taken in and has been paraphrased and extended by means of additional sentences. !!
The complex from Tosephta ¢.Berakoth 7:25 is taken into b.Menahoth 43b as a Baraitha. Yet the closing Psalm quotation is missing in this later version. This ending may have been intentionally omitted, but it is more likely that it still belonged to the Baraitha and from there was placed at the end of a saying which was added only during the final redaction of the Talmud. This saying originates from the same period as the saying of Meir and is identical with part of it, as far as its meaning is concerned.
In the Midrash Tehillim to Psalm 6, par. 1 (29b), the development of j.Berakoth 9 has continued in that Psalm 34:8 appears
7 t.Ash 6:4-6.
8 CD 20:27ff.
9 ¢. Ber 7:25 (Zuckermandel, p. 17 lines 26ff). See the way of life also in the Targum to Dt 3:15.
10 R. Eleazar says in the name of R. Hanina: "The wise bring much peace into the world. Why? All your sons are scholars of God and overflowing is the peace of your sons."
~ 11 Perhaps the last of them has an eschatological component. Yet it is more likely that this one also was already meant to be understood as edifying.
12 The ending did not originally belong to this saying ascribed to Eleazer b.
Jacob, for that is established adequately by the quotation of Ec 4:12. In the present context therefore it seems to be an addition.
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altogether in place of 119:164, and hence is used in a different way. A new ending is not added, since the passage is fitted firmly into the whole context.
Outside of the context of Tosephta tractate ¢.Berakoth, Ps 34:8 is only quoted in the Babylonian Talmud tractate b.Jebamoth
102b. There the liberation is referred to the Judgment of Gehinnom, hence it is interpreted in an individualized eschatological way.!3
In m.Sota a list of apocalyptic signs follows the regulations for divorce (up to 9:8 [10]) which ends!4 in the threefold formula: on whom else shall we depend than on our Father who is in Heaven.!5 And the corpus of the Mishnah is closed with the saying of Simeon b. Halafta that originates from Psalm 29:11: "the Lord will give power to his people, the Lord blesses his people with peace."
These single references!7 are confirmed by the fact that the Jewish proselytic catechism had an eschatological ending, which has been discovered by Alfred Seeberg!® and clarified by G.
Klein!9 and D. Daube?°. Its structure may be controversial,?! but there are no disagreements about the ending. Hence one may conclude that, in contemporary Judaism, there was already a com13 Here it must be considered that the individual interpretation developed from yon = "to pull" is stressed for the sake of the argument. Hence the eschatological relation of the verse seems to be the precondition of the specific interpretation.
14 m. Sot 9:15.
15 Attributed to Phinehas b. Jair or Eliezer the Great. This text has made its way into the Sefer ha-Likkutim, cf. G. Klein, Der dlteste christliche Katechismus und die jiidische Propagandaliteratur (Berlin: Reimer, 1909), p. 238.
16 m. Uktzin 3:12. It is clear that 17° ay? Ty has an eschatological meaning from the preceding saying of Joshua b. Levi ("then will the Holy One, blessed be He, give 310 worlds to every single just person"). The passage is missing in a part of the textual tradition (as in the Munich manuscript). But the saying as such is old
(read b.San 100a: cf. Jub 32:18; SibOr 3.769) and a later suppression of the passage from this striking position is more likely than an addition.
17 An eschatological reference for the Two Ways is a precondition in the two stories attributed to Eliezer and Johanan b. Zakkai. as well—To what extent pretalmudic material is present in Tanna debe Eliahu, a medieval text with an eschatological ending (as Klein, Katechismus, pp. 66ff), or whether it expresses nothing more than the new apocalyptic wave of the Islamic period, cannot be discussed further here.
18 Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit (Leipzig:
Andreas Deichert, 1903; reprinted, with an introduction by F. Hahn, Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1966); Die
Didache des Judentums und der Urchristenheit (Leipzig: Andreas Deichert, 1908).
' oa Studien iiber Paulus (Stockholm, 1918 [Beitrige zur Religionswissenschaft }), p. 20.
20 The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London: University of London, Athlone Press, 1956), pp. 118ff, 135ff.
21 Cf. the different prototypes suggested by Seeberg (op.cit. fn. 18) and by Daube in NT and Rabbinic Judaism.
PATTERN AND PROTOTYPE OF DIDACHE 16
parable scheme: a rule of conduct with an eschatological ending.
Did this scheme play a role in the past history of the Didache?
___ It is significant that, the Two-Way-Catechisms show connections precisely to chapter 16. The Freising Fragment found by Schlecht closes with an apostrophe to spes.22 Didache 16:2 is quoted in the Doctrina Severini: (Lauda veritatem et) quae animae prosint discere elabora.23 Maybe in the fifteenth speech of Bonifatius another part of the same verse has been taken up: Ad ecclesiam convenite orantes.24 What is important, is that these forms are not found in the witnesses of the stylized Instruction of the Eleven Apostles, but in the real representatives of the Two
Ways-Teaching.
Similar things show up in the treatment of the Two-WaysCatechism. The form taken up in the Apostolic Church Order closes with a reference to the nearness of the End, which means both judgment and reward. In the edition of Barnabas?® this is
22 J. Schlecht, Doctrina XII Apostolorum, die Apostellehre in der Liturgie der katholischen Kirche (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1901) pp. 104f; cf. p. 65.
Close to it is the fragment of the Arabic version, a previously unknown version of the first part of the Teaching of the Apostles, discussed by L. E. Iselin and translated by A. Heusler (Eine bisher unbekannte
Version des ersten Teiles der "Apostellehre" [Leipzig: Heusler, 1895 (TU 13,1b)] p. 9). Admittedly there it deals with the end of the Way of Life (a very short summary of the way of death follows).
23 Schlecht, Doctrina XII Apostolorum, p. 93.
24 Tbid., p. 78. Schlecht notes as a parallel only Didache 14:1 and hesitates to draw conclusions from that—unlike J. 'R. Harris, The Teaching of the Apostles
(London: Clay/ Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1887), p. 60: "The Teaching must have been his (Bonifatius') text-book". Only tangentially, the enigmatic Cod. papyr. Vatican. 146 may be noted, although it contains an individual eschatological ending (text in Schlecht, Doctrina XII Apostolorum, p. 96); this has nothing in common with Didache 16.
25 1:14. It is interesting to note that in Cod. Mosquensis, one of the oldest of all the witnesses to the Two-Ways-Schema, this chapter follows ch. 11, i.e. it is at the end of the chapters taken from the positive part of the Two-Ways-Schema. Ch. 12 and 13 contain parts of Didache 4:1f, 3-8; 10:3; 13:1f. Apparently the character of the old ending as a conclusion was still so clear when they were inserted that it was relocated accordingly. The version of the Cod. Ottonianus then represents the final stage of the textual history, where the eschatological passage has fallen away altogether, in favour of a full recital of the Way of Life in the form it takes in the Didache (cf. the omission of nearly the whole of ch. 8!).—If this is correct, then the order of Cod. Mosq. is at the same time an indication for an older form, in which the subdivision into individual discourses by each of the apostles had not yet taken place (for a different point of view see T. Schermann, Die allgemeine Kirchenordnung II (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schéningh, 1916 (SGKA.E)], p. 599) and which is highly significant for the reconstruction of the Jewish archetypes (for a different point of view see Harnack, Die Lehre der zwoif Apostel, p. 221f, whose solution seems simple, but is actually problematic)
26 Probably only 21:1ba belongs to the text Barn draws from the tradition.
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intensified still further.27
These are only traces. In assessing them one must consider: a) the common tendency to modify final sentences or directly change them, b) a certain restraint with respect to eschatological descriptions after the end of the second century.?® Therefore one must assume that the ending would have changed in any case
(where changes could still have been made much later), so that only edited forms of the ending have been passed on to us. But still the facts of the matter remain remarkable. For, in any case, a totally different and, in fact, secondary development is perceivable, namely the tendency to insert eschatological expressions into the rules themselves?9, or to insert them at the beginning.*° So one can state almost definitely: the Two-Ways-Catechism had an eschatological ending right from the beginning. Does it follow that Didache 16 belongs to the schema of the Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles? Not necessarily. Because what is ancient as a fype can be fairly late in its actual form. The previous-research does not provide a clue as to how things really stand in this matter. The chapter is felt by some to lack any specifically Jewish characteristics3! and by others to be totally Jewish.32 Hence argumentation on basis of the content does not get one very far. But still, perhaps one can gain some circumstantial evidence for the origin of the chapter.
If one takes a closer look at the endings of the Two-WaysCatechisms it becomes clear that they do not all have the same structure, but go back to two different types. The one type is directed towards the blissful goal, the other points to judgment and only in that context to the y.o@6c¢. The former has its natural position as the conclusion of the description of the Way of Life—and it does in fact occupy this position in the Arabic fragment.33 The latter would be most likely to be found at the end of a 27 The structure of the Syriac Didascalia is probably comparable: it concludes with an ecclesiastical form of eschatology (ch. 25).—Ch. 26 is a postscript, as the distinctive preaching style and the special form of address proves (cf. also the almost complete absence of parallels to the Didache in ch. 26; the material is from C. Holzhey, "Die Abhangigkeit der syrischen Didaskalie von der Didache", in: pe rendu du 4° congr. scient. des Catholiques [Freiburg-im-Uchtland, 1898], passim).
Cf. Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte I (Tiibingen: Mohr, 19094), p.
29 Barn 19:10; 20:2.
30 Barn 18:2; 20:1.
31 Harnack, Beiden Wege, p. 15.
32? Harris, Teaching of the Apostles, p. 90: "Judaic in matter and manner".—Cf. also the interesting theory of V. W. H. Tubesing, Die 656¢ der Apostelgeschichte
— bes pee et &noorTo\wy (Leipzig: Péschel & Trepte, 1902), p. 17f.
PATTERN AND PROTOTYPE OF DIDACHE 16
Two-Ways-Schema. So it is in Barnabas. So it was apparently also in the prototype of the Apostolic Church Order:
The beginning (chapter 4) and—this is little less certain—the ending4 show, that the excerpt did not include the teachings of the Way of Death. One can only think that the first type was added sec- -ondarily at the end of each of the ways.35
Didache 16 belongs without doubt to the second type. The literal correspondence between Did. 16:2 and Barn. 4:8 marks the common affiliation. But on the other hand the chapter contains passages which have no parallels in the related texts: the information on the koopotAavig and the coming of the xipiog. And yet indeed this special material again breathes the Jewish atmosphere in a special way. Surely it is related to Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2. But both these passages seem to be taken from a Jewish prototype. Again the facts of the matter are ambivalent at first glance.
A glance at the joint between the two passages takes us further. Verse 2b év 7@ éoxa&Tw katp@ leads to verse 3a év yap (!)
Tals &oXaTALS HuEpaic TANOvVOHoorTaL; the importance of the last time for the verdict obviously requires a description of the judgment itself, to provide direction in the decisive hour.36 This is the bridge from eschatologically determined ethics to a description of the cosmic eschatology. But which one, then, is primary?
Both are old. But verse 2b is throughout materially the most thorough and obvious?' development of the predominant type of conclusion.?8 So one must look at it also as the foundation for Did
16. The material logic of the thought in 2b, namely that ethical righteousness is to be determined only in the time of the apocalyptic events, led then to a digression®® (first signs of the same
34 zovnp@ (ACO 14) is probably to be taken substantively and can only be understood against the background of Barn 4:10; 18:1, 2; 20:1; i.e. the representation of a metaphysical determination of this Way. Did Did 5:1 originally have
Tovnpov?
35 Did this happen only at the time of the redaction of the Didache? 6:1 fits well after 4:13 (v.14 is a later addition).
36 The motif of the last hour as the decisive moment is paralleled by the assumption, present in James in 2:10, that a deviation from the law in one particular point implies the trespassing of the whole law.
37 Ez 33:17ff; m.Both 2:10. Cf. H. Windisch, Die Barnabasbrief (Tiibingen:
Mohr, 1920 [HNT.E 3]), p. 324, on Barn 4:9.
38 Harnack could not know that and therefore saw v.2b as an isolated sentence, which he was only able to explain as taken directly from Barn and which in that way became the main point for his theory of the dependency of Did on Barn
(Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur V1.1
[Leipzig:
Hinrichs, 1958], p.
436).—H adds that the logical connection with Barn 4:9 would be better. This is correct, but the overlapping of the thoughts in Did 16 only results because in v.2a a motif has been included that follows Barn 4:10b.
39 Tt is however not an inclusion en-bloc of an eschatological saying. As single characteristics—like v.5c (év 7H miorec aitav)—prove, neither has the catechetical
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process can be seen in Mt 7:13ff).4° It remains predominant until the end. The description of the eschatological events has thus prevailed over the ethical teaching and supplanted the representation of the eschatological goal. The proper conclusion, which takes up again the ethical thread and which still appears in a reworked form in Barn 21:1ba, 3, has fallen out of the Bryennios text.
One would have to see in this deviation from the Two-WaysSchema the characteristic of the Didache, if it were not for the fact that the conclusion of the prototype of Bryennios was so altogether puzzling*! and that the Georgian version'? offers a text which is fully connected to the thought process of the Two-WaysSchema. Since it can be derived neither from Mt 2443 nor from 2
Thess 2, nor does it show recognizable signs of a secondary origin,'4 one must seek the original conclusion in a formula close to the Georgian version.45 A specifically theological understanding situation been lost sight of here. However, that no original connection to the first part exists, is shown by the different use of @@opeic in 5:2 and Yevdorpodyrat in HT25.
40 The eschatological conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount begins with the picture of the gates current from the Two Ways-Literature (cf. SibOr 2.150) and thus appears to correspond entirely to the Jewish prototype. Yet, in actual fact, it is not at all unified. V.22f is a matter of a reworking of the ethical content of v.21 with reference to magical speculation about names (in the eschatological period?).
V.15 has no inherent connection with the preceding, but is a warning description of apocalyptic abuses. V.16 (17)-20; v.13 (v.14 is an augmentation) reflects an older layer. Only v.21 reflects an original saying of Jesus (without of) and perhaps vv.24-27 (in which the Lucan version is to be preferred). In a comparable way, the redactor of SibOr has connected the ethical eschatology of Ps.Phocylides with an apocalyptic description (2.154ff), which for its part derives from a Jewish prototype, though without being entirely Jewish (cf. 2.242f).
41 See J.-P. Audet, La Didaché: Instructions des Apétres (Paris: Gabalda, 1958) 73f. Did the scribe of the Bryennios text know of two versions and does this explain the striking omission on p. 80b of his script (cf. the photographic plate provided in the edition of J. R. Harris, Teaching of the Apostles, plate X)? A. J.
McLean (editor of second edition of C. Bigg, The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles
{London: SPCK, 19227] p. 46) thinks that a page went missing from the archetype.
_ * Edited by G. Peradse, "Die "Lehre der zwélf Apostel" in der georgischen Uberlieferung." ZNW 31 (1932) pp. 111-116. The text is also provided by F. E.
Vokes, The Riddle of the Didache (London: Church Historical Society, 1938 [ns.
32]) 25f and by Audet, La Didaché, p. 49.
43 Where the xpovitery is the problem.
* Christian insertions are: "our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Son of God", "before the whole human race and before the angels."
*5 Cf. Const 7.32: &rododvou éxdoTe xaT& Tiv Te&EwW adtod, a formulation in agreement with the Georgian text. The compilator of the Const had a version of the whole of the Didache before him. That accounts for the fact that his conclusion departs entirely from the Two-Ways-Schema and instead of this a new conclusion emerges at the end of the description of the Way of Life (ch. 17).
PATTERN AND PROTOTYPE OF DIDACHE 16
of the eschatological events, as it is already expressed in Phil 2:11; Col 2:15, has then given the text a different direction, perhaps receiving occasion from v.8.46 It comes close in this way to the type of liturgical conclusion beloved from an early time.47
If verses 3-8 are almost entirely Jewish in content, nevertheless it is a matter here of a Christian intersertion.48 Despite the common origin, the taking over also means a material shift. In other words, this apocalyptic propping up stands in a certain tension with another development which is already demonstrable in Judaism.
The Manual of Discipline (1QS 4) deals with the metaphysical predetermination of the final destinies of human beings. From this the Ways developed very quickly.4? The TwoWays-Schema is taken up in this way in in Barnabas 18:1f.5°
However this does not mean that the predominantly ethical tone of the Two-Ways-Catechism is abolished, but rather is endangered.
It is significant that one does not meet a particular doxtpoaoia in the texts which have been reworked in this way. Didache 16 is free from such speculative elaboration.
For this reason, the apocalyptic material is taken up in a variant reading, in which the evil culminates in a historical appearance, which becomes an ethical problem. To this extent, the ethical theme of the Two WaysTeaching is preserved more purely in the reworking it has received in the Didache 16, than was the case in the parallel reformulations.
The Jewish form of conclusion>! underwent a double development in the first century: national eschatology emerged in place of individual eschatology. But this developed schema is only just
46 Kéapoc refers to a world hostile to God, as in John, which allows itself to be described as the consequence of a demonstrative act like that in Phil 2:10f.
47 Harnack thought that the eschatological conclusion did not show the ardour demonstrated by the composer of the prayers which have been handed on ("Die
Apostellehre und die beiden jiidischen Wege" [RE] p. 24; similarly in Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur I1.1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1958] p. 435). One would have to explain this as a secondary reworking.
48 V.7 perhaps followed first. Cf. the absence of 7a in Const. Concerning a Christian element in v.6f, see E. Stommel, "Lnyeiov éxmet&oews (Didache xvi,6)."
RQ 48 (1953) pp. 21-42, esp. 39.
49 Briefly formulated in 1 En 91:18f; 94:1, 3; cf S. Wibbing, Die Tugendund Lasterkataloge im Neuen Testament und ihre Traditionsgeschichte unter besonderer
Beriicksichtigung der Qumran-Texte (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1959 [BZNW 25)]) p. 39.
50 Cf. HermMan 6.
Jt entirely possible, that as G. Klein thought (Der dlteste christliche Katechismus und die jiidische Propagandaliteratur (Berlin: Reimer,
1909] pp.
137ff), the use of Psalm 34 was important for the edification of Catechism and its conclusion. It appears that for the concluding section v.23 was exegeted directly and after the destruction of the Temple v.8 emerged at this point. Cf. the striking use of Psalm 34 in 1 Pet, concerning which see W. Bornemann,
"Der erste Petrusbrief—eine Taufrede des Sylvanus", ZNW 19 (1919-1920): 143-165, esp. 146ff.
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recognizable.52 The tendency is overpowered by another, namely to be silent altogether about eschatology.53 (The peace formula at the end is introduced as a substitute). For this process, besides opportunistic considerations, the controversy with Christianity has been especially relevant.>4 It was in two stages that the old schema was reshaped in the sphere of Christianity as well. The outlook on the fate of the individual is completed or replaced by a universalistically oriented apocalyptic description. And the success of this change was favoured by another restraining interest in a shaping out of eschatology generally. The stages of development are still visible in the elements of Didache 16, in the different versions of the conclusion to the Two Ways-Teaching which have come down to us.>> 52 Therefore the rabbinic evidence, introduced, is secondary to that of the Two
Ways-Teaching. Also in bYeb 47, the form of eschatology indicated by the formula for Proselyte baptism, is already reworked in this direction and therefore cannot without more ado be viewed as characteristic for the New Testament period.
53 Hence the brevity of the formulation which has come down to us. Hence the attempt to move it to less exposed positions. From this tendency one can explain the history of the use of the last section of Tosephta Berakoth in rabbinic literature (see above). R. Lowe (Oxford) directed me to b.Shab 31a. In this saying attributed to Rabbah, the national hope emerges in another form.
54 See Daube, NT and Rabbinic Judaism, p. 135.
55 The author had the opportunity to discuss particular questions with Professors
E. Stauffer and D. Daube.