GEORG SCHOLLGEN, The Didache as a Church Order:
THE DIDACHE AS A CHURCH ORDER: AN EXAMINATION
OF THE PURPOSE FOR THE COMPOSITION OF THE
DIDACHE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR
INTERPRETATION
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
Aachen Despite the intensive investigation the Didache has undergone since its editio princeps in 1883, it has remained an object of many controversies. Beside the question of its place and time of origin, this is true especially concerning the literary integrity and state of development of the church constitution which is mirrored in the writing.
Among the few points of consensus in research one may mention the formal structure: "Uber die literarische Gattung der
Did(ache) herrscht im iibrigen Einigkeit: die Did(ache) ist eine Kirchenordnung, und zwar die Alteste ihrer Art."! A first glance at the text already confirms this conclusion: catechesis, liturgy and church offices with very detailed rules are its main subject, generally typical themes of ancient Christian church orders. In addition there is an absence of any interest in dogmatic questions: the text deals with the external ordering of the community, not its theology.2
The obvious plausibility of this conclusion concerning the formal limitation of the thematic field has, however, misled most interpreters not to examine more,closely the purpose for the composition of the text, and consequently to be in danger of working unconsciously with assumptions which correspond to modern conceptions of a church order, but are not applicable without further qualification to ancient representatives of this form, like the Didache, the Apostolic Tradition, the Syriac Didascalia and the Apostolic Constitutions.
Along with the question of the scope of the regulations, which is closely bound up with questions concerning the purpose of composition, one of these premises will be more closely examined here. The great majority of the interpreters of the Didache—seldom explicitly as in Vielhauer and Harnack, more often implicitly as in the newer commentaries of Rordorf and 1 P. Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1975) p. 725; compare also A. Harnack, Die Lehre der zwolf Apostel nebst Untersuchungen zur dltesten Geschichte der Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1884 [TU 2,1/2]), Prolegomena, p. 32.
2 Cf. K. Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), Barnabasbrief, Zweiter Klemensbrief, Schrift an Diognet (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984 [SUC 2]) pF.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
Wengst—assume that the Didache proceeded, according to its self-understanding, to regulate comprehensively the institutional life of the church in its essential areas, and did not simply deal with isolated contentious questions of community discipline.
In my opinion, the consequences of this unfounded assumption in the previous literature are more far-reaching than may appear at first sight. If one follows the understanding of the Didache as a comprehensive church order, then the text—as the only source from the post apostolic period—is in the position to give an untruncated picture of the whole external life of an early
Christian community.
In other words, the criterion of comprehensiveness allows one not only to utilize the positive provisions which the text gives its addressees, but also allows the interpreters to go beyond this to the rare opportunity of a methodically legitimate use of the otherwise rightly rejected argument from silence: if the Didache is a comprehensive church order, then one can conclude—at least in the areas with which it deals more closely (eg. catechesis, liturgy and church offices}—that whatever it does not deal with was not practiced at the time of its composition. The reverse conclusion from the argument from silence raises the value of the text as a source considerably.
Most of the literature has eagerly seized on this possibility and given the argument from silence in the Didache more room than for any other pre-Constantinian text; moreover, most interpretations cannot do without this presupposition—which is not usually acknowledged.
The value of the Didache as a source would, however, be much reduced if it was not a comprehensive, but simply a selective church order, if it was thus not a matter of a regulation of the general institutional life of the community, but only of the clarification of contested particular issues from the thematic field
"external rule of the community" and remained without reference to the wide area of uncontested praxis. In this case, completeness
3 A. Harnack, Die Apostellehre und die jiidischen beiden Wege? (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896) p. 6: "Alles is darauf angelegt, in iibersichtlicher, leichtfasslicher leicht behaltlicher Form die wichtigsten Regeln fiir das christliche Leben, die d:da@ypaTa
Tov kupiov, zusammenzustellen. In dem, was die Schrift enthalt und was sie nicht enthdlt, ...ist sie ein kostbarer Kommentar zu den dltesten Zeugnissen, die wir fiir das Leben, den Interessenkreis und die Ordnungen, die sich als niitzlich erwiesen und als notwendig herausgebildet hatten, zu kodifizieren." Cf. as well J.-P. Audet,
La Didache. Instructions des apétres (Paris: Gabalda, 1958) pp. 436-9, who Tejects the title "Church Order" for the Didache and already discerns the essentially more modest goal of the writing, without proposing an exact designation of form. The objections of W. Rordorf & A. Tuilier (La doctrine des douze apotres (Didaché)
[Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1978 (SC 248)] p. 21 n. 2) against the designation
"Church Order" do not affect the definition of Vielhauer. In what follows the text will be cited according to this edition.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
would not have been not intended, the argument from silence would thus be worthless to a large extent, and the interpretation would have to limit itself to positive regulations which are rather rare, as closer observation reveals.
In the following study, the question of the extent of the rules will be examined in the details of the text. Attention will be drawn to five aspects or questions in particular:
1. the Didache is structured into a large number of clearly separated thematic sections, which as a rule put forward one essential argumentation. To determine the extent of the rules it is necessary first to work out the respective goals of the argumentation of these single sections.
2. Since the text often rejects deviant practices, it must be asked whether its regulation is directed against a recognizable abuse or dissent, which may be attested elsewhere as well.
3. Is it clear from the context whether the text reacts to changed circumstances, in that it modifies the previously valid praxis in the sense of an adaptation?
4. To what extent is the particular area of the life of the community regulated? Is it restricted to the problematic, contentious issues or also to what no-one contests?
5. In what manner are the particular sections of argumentation connected to each other? Does the text have a tight construction, or do the sections stand next to each other in a merely associative or unconnected manner?
1. Chapters 1-6 We can dispense with a closer consideration of 1-6 in the present context, since it offers a piece of tradition. It is widely recognized today* that it represents a widely disseminated pre-existing Christian Two Ways teaching with few additions,> which possibly
4 Of the more recent literature, one only need mention: J.-P. Audet, "Affinités littéraires et doctrinales du "manuel de discipline"", RB 59 (1952) pp. 219-238; also Didaché, pp. 121-163; S. Giet, L'énigme de la Didaché (Paris: Ophrys, 1970
(PFLUS 149]) pp. 39-170; R. A. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache (New York:
Thomas Nelson, 1965 [AF 3]) pp. 4-16; W. Rordorf, "Un chapitre d'éthique judéochretienne. Les deux voies", RSR 60 (1972) pp. 109-128; also Rordorf & Tuilier,
La Doctrine, pp. 22-34; Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), pp. 20-22.
5 It is hard to determine whether these additions derive from the composer of the nucleus of the Didache; cf. on this B. Layton, "The Sources, Date and Transmission of Didache 1,3b-2,1", H7hR 61 (1968) pp. 343-383, esp. 380-382; Giet,
Enigme, pp. 189-191; A. Stuiber, ""Das ganze Joch des Herrn" (Didache 6,3-3)" in F. L. Cross (ed.), Studia Patristica 4 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961 [TU 79]) pp. 323-329; W. Rordorf, "Le probléme de la transmission textuelle de Didache
1,3b-2,1" in F. Paschke (ed.), Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1981 [TU 125]) pp. 499-513; Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), pp. 18f; K. Niederwimmer, "Textprobleme der Didache", WSt 95 (1982)
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
goes back to a Jewish prototype. It is uncertain whether it was included with the rest of the Didache from the beginning, or was added only later.
In any case the transition, tadra ma&v7a mpoetm6vrTec,® is intended to integrate the Two Ways teaching into the context of the prescription for baptism in such a way that it had to precede the baptismal ceremony as_pre-baptismal catechesis.7
2. Chapter 7:1-4 The first two sections deal with themes from the sphere of baptism.® a. The main issue in the first three verses is the kind of baptismal water to be used. In accordance with local conditions, the author determines what kinds of water could be used for baptism.
He shares the high preference of his Jewish and pagan environment and the early church for living (=flowing) water in rivers, springs and sea? and prescribes it as baptismal water.!°
In vv.2-3 he nevertheless deems it necessary to make a series of qualifications. In accordance with local or seasonal circumstances,!! he permits also water of a lesser quality'? and finally pp. 116-119.
6 Did 7:1; with good reasons P. Nautin ("La composition de la "Didaché" et son titre", RHR 78 [1959] pp. 206f) and Rordorf ("Chapitre", pp. 116f) reject the conjecture of Audet (Didaché, p. 58) that rat7a xa&vTa xpoerxévTec was a late interpolation which had its origin in the praxis of the Egyptian church, to utilize the Two Ways Teaching as the foundation for pre-baptismal catechesis.
7 azpodéyewv is here better translated "explain" than "say beforehand", i.e. it is rather to be thought of as a pre-baptismal catechesis than as a recitation in the baptismal liturgy; cf. in this regard Rordorf, "Chapitre", pp. 115-122; A. Védbus,
Liturgical Traditions in the Didache (Stockholm: Estonian Theological Society in Exile, 1968 [PETSE 16]) PP. 17-20; A. Benoit, Le baptéme chrétien au second siécle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953) pp. 6f, 21-23.
8 Cf. in this connection W. Rordorf, "Le baptéme selon la Didaché" in Mélanges liturgiques offerts au R. P. Dom Bernard Botte O.S.B. (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont César, 1972) pp. 499-509; VGdbus, Liturgical Traditions, pp. 17-60;
Benoit, Le baptéme, pp. 5-33; S. Giet, "Coutume, évolution, droit canon. A propos de deux passages de la Didaché", RDC 16 (1966) pp. 118-132; R. Pillinger, "Die
Taufe nach der Didache", WSt 88 (1975) pp. 152-160, whose inference about Didache 7-10 as a baptistry in in any case very questionable.
° Cf. in this regard T. Klauser, "Taufet in lebendigem Wasser! Zum religionsund kulturgeschichtlichen
Versténdnis von Didache 7,103" in E. Dassmann, Gesammelte Arbeiten zur Liturgiegeschichte, Kirchengeschichte und Christlichen
Archdologie (Miinster in Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1974 [JAC.E 3]) pp. 177-183; Rordorf, "Baptéme", pp. 505-507; V6dbus, Liturgical Traditions, pp. 22-27:
Benoit, Le baptéme, pp. 8f.
10 Did. 7:1.
1! Possibly the rule that warm water may also be used refers not so much to the cold season but rather to sick baptisands; cf. F. J. Délger, "Nilwasser und Taufwasser", ACh 5 (1936) pp. 175-183 and Benoit, Le baptéme, p. 8.
12 Cf. in this regard the detailed argument in Rordorf, "Baptéme", p. 506.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
even allows baptism by the threefold sprinkling of water over the head in place of immersion, though only when there is a great shortage of water.!3 The argument of the section is clear: while adhering strictly to the preference for flowing water and baptism by immersion, necessary concessions are made to local circumstances. One must assume that the author wants to solve a particularly pressing question for the communities in waterless regions. It is striking that, as the only other element of baptismal liturgy, the threefold baptismal formula is introduced. Whether the author—as is often assumed—turns against another formula,!4 remains uncertain. Perhaps one must assume that a second concern, albeit of subordinate significance, underlies the argument. b. The fourth verse is devoted to the pre-baptismal fast.15
Here the fast has clearly a higher level of obligation for the baptismal. candidate than for the other participants: the baptisand is obliged to fast for one or two days,!® while the baptizer and other congregands are merely recommended to fast for an unspecified period of time. The express requirement, expressed by the term kedevetc, Suggests that the author wants to oppose with his regulation a neglect of the baptismal fast.
In the four verses referred to, the instructions of the Didache concerning baptism are exhausted. The reader learns nothing about the actual rite of baptism, about the baptismal confession, about the person of the baptizer, about the conditions of admission of candidates (age, occupation etc.) or about the baptismal day.
We do not argue that all of these questions—widely contested!"
—were already regulated in detail at the time of the composition of the Didache. This is still very controversial.!8 Yet it is certain
13 G. Kretschmar, Die Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes in der Alten Kirche (Kassel, 1970 [Leiturgia 5]) p. 47, understands the different kinds of water as equally graded alternatives and so misunderstands the~argumentational goal of the text.
14 Cf. in this regard Védbus, Liturgical Traditions, pp..35-39; Audet, Didache, p. 352; Rordorf, "Baptéme", p. 504f; the theory that Did. 9:5 preserves an (older) baptismal formula, remains hypothetical; cf. Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 44, n. 2.
15 Cf. Rordorf, "Baptéme", pp. 503f; Védbus, Liturgical Traditions, pp. 20f; J.
Schiimmer, Die altchristliche Fastenpraxis mit besonderer Berticksichtigung der Schriften Tertullians (Minster, 1933), p. 165.
16 According to the thrust of the argument, xededer¢ must express a higher grade of duty than the imperative xpovnorevocdtw; otherwise the necessity of the continuation in v.4b would be scarcely comprehensible.
17 The datings extend from the apostolic time (Audet, Didaché, pp. 187-210) into the late second century: e.g. R. H. Connolly, "Agape and eucharist in the Didache", DRev 55 (1937) p. 489.
18 One can be sure that there already was a baptismal confession; cf. in this regard A.
Stenzel, Die Taufe: eine genetische Erkldrung der Taufliturgie (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1958 [FGThUL 7/8}) p. 41.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
that, in the case of concern with the baptismal water and the requirement of the pre-baptismal fast, matters of secondary importance are discussed and that the decisive questions, which a comprehensive church order would have had to settle with respect to baptism, are not dealt with, with the exception of the baptismal formula.!° On these grounds any argument from silence?° is forbidden, such as, for example, one which concludes from the fact that nothing more is specified about who conducts baptism, that the community has formed no rules or even preferences in the matter.?!
With vv.2, 3, 4b, which differ from the context in their use of the second person singular address, the author may well have worked in pre-existent traditional material.22 The comparison with ch.13 makes it probable that this is not a later interpolation, since in that case four verses which are written in second person singular are clearly to be identified as traditional material which has been worked in.?3
3. Chapter 8:1
The pre-baptismal fast is connected with the stationary fast by conceptual association."4 In this it is exclusively a matter of the specification of fast days in polemical differentiation from Jewish® or Jewish Christian? practice. Against members of the 19 Similarly also Benoit (La baptéme), who points out that the Didache overlooks "certains éléments essentiels et constants du baptéme chrétien" WV6dbus
(Liturgical Traditions, p. 25): "Nothing is recorded about the way in which the act itself was conducted."
20 Rordorf, for example, violates this principle ("Baptéme", p. 509), and concludes from the absence of different elements of the baptismal liturgy, that they were unknown to the author, which he considers to be an argument for the "archaic character" of the Didache; similarly also Védbus (Liturgical Traditions, p. 26).
21 So e.g. Rordorf, "Baptéme", p. 502, for Did. 7:1, 4a; Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), p. 97, n. 62; more cautiously VGébus, Liturgical Traditions, pp. 26f and Benoit, Le baptéme, pp. 9f.
22 Nevertheless, V6dbus (Liturgical Traditions, pp. 34f) expresses himself sceptical; besides the change of number, the repetition of the triadic baptismal formula also speaks for the separation of sources.
23 Cf. below [p. 16, n. 88] with a comment on Audet's interpretatio nof the passages in the second person plural; Giet Le Enigme, p. 195f wants to distinguish inside vv.2 and 3 different "redactional touches", which is not necessary in my opinion.
4 Cf. in this regard Schiimmer, Altchristliche Fastenpraxis, pp. 82-150; R.
Arbesmann, Art. "Fasttage", RAC 7 (1969) pp. 500-524.
25 So the majority of commentators: e.g. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, p.
164; R. Knopf, Die Lehre der zwélf Apostel; Die zwei Clemensbriefe (Tiibingen:
Mohr, 1920 [HNT.E 1]) p. 23; Harnack, Die Lehre, Text p. 25; Audet, Didaché, p. 368; Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), p. 97, n. 64.
26 So Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 36f; in any case the argument that the Didache could not express itself very strongly against Jews, because it owes so
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
community who continue to keep the Jewish fast days?"—Monday and Thursday—the Didache 8:1 asserts Wednesday and Friday as the Christian fast-days.
Again only one aspect of the practice of fasting in the ancient church is regulated. The reader learns nothing e.g. about the length,?8 intensity or even the degree of compulsion of the stationary fast, the extent of its applicability to people (with exemptions for sick, aged and children) and the Paschal fast.29 All this is assumed as known.
4. Chapter 8:2-3 Again with the help of conceptual association,3° the transition is made to a further differentiation against a Jewish or JewishChristian praxis. The prayer practice of the baoxpitai, which is not described in more detail, is replaced by the Lord's Prayer as a obligatory prayer.
The occasion is clearly the practice of Christians using the prayer formulae of Jewish?! or JewishChristian origin for private prayer,32 which is regarded by the author as an abuse. Based on the authority of the Lord, he prescribes instead the Lord's Prayer, which must be prayed three times a day analogously to the Jewish custom.33
5. Chapter 9:1-10:7
The question as to which kind of community meals the "eucharistic" prayers, which chs.9-10 make obligatory, are designed to regulate does not need to be discussed here. The controversies over this, which have not yet reached final consensus,4 much to the Jewish tradition, bears little weight. he 27 Cf. Schiimmer, Altchristliche Fastenpraxis, pp. 51-81; Arbesmann, pp. 512f.
28 Cf. Ibid., pp. 100-105; the theory of Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 173, n. 6, that the accusative, retpdda xou mapaoxevny could refer to a continuation for a whole day, dispenses with the fundamentals.
29 Cf. Schiimmer, Altchristliche Fastenpraxis, pp. 51-81; Arbesmann, pp. 512f.
30 Why Giet (L'énigme, p. 203) attributes chapter 8 to a "section consacrée a l'initiation baptismale", remains unclear; Pillinger ("Die Taufe", p. 156) also gives no evidence for this opinion.
31 Cf. in this regard P. F. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (London:
SPCK, 1981) pp. 1-22.
32 So too Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 23; P. Drews, "Untersuchungen zur Didache", ZNW 5 (1904) p. 74.
33 Cf. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer, p. 2; Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 37; J.
Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (London: SCM [StBTh 2,6]), pp. 69-72.
34 A detailed summary of the discussion is provided by W. Rordorf, "The Didache" in W. Rordorf et al (eds.), The Eucharist of the Early Christians (New
York: Pueblo, 1978) pp. 1-23, esp. 3-9.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
are already an indication that this section, even if one adds chapter 14, is not designed to provide a comprehensive regulation of the liturgical communal gathering.* Instead, only three points are explained: ot 1. Provision of binding formulae for three "eucharistic" prayers: a. first, prayer?¢ over the cup (9:2) b. then over the broken bread (9:3-4) c. finally after the ending of the meal (uwev& 6& 70 éuTAnoOjvon 10:2-6) 2. Prohibition of the consumption of the wine and bread of the "eucharist" by unbaptized persons (9:5).
3. Instruction to give the prophets the right to formulate and use "eucharistic" prayers themselves without limitation (10:7).
It is clearly the chief intention of the passage to prescribe as binding the given "eucharistic" prayers, which probably do not originate from the pen of the author.37 Possibly the communities had at their disposal formulae which were aberrant or insufficient; many perhaps had no fixed formulae, and the author considered it necessary to change this situation, which he considered an abuse.38 The high valuation of talking in the Spirit, which ch.11 attests, however, makes it necessary to make an exception in the case of the prophet.39 Didache 10:7 thus stands in direct connection with the chief intention of the passage.
This is not the case with the limitation of the consumption of the "eucharist" to the baptized, a prescription which the author has put immediately after the prayers over wine and bread. The harsh formulation of the reason: "Since the Lord has said about this: "Do not give what is holy to the dogs!" indicates that nonbaptized*° also participated at the "eucharistic" meals and the author wishes to reject this abuse.*!
Since further regulations in the area of community meals follow in ch.14, we will only address the issue of whether the 35 This becomes clear, e.g. if one assumes, with Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, pp. 40f) among others, that Did 10:6b announces a continuation of the "Eucharist", which is not regulated by the Didache.
36 For the Jewish origin of the sequence of the first three prayers, cf. Rordorf,
"Didache", pp. 8f.
37 Cf. in this regard Rordorf, "Didache", 9-14; Audet, Didaché, p. 375; Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre, p. 23.
38 Similarly also Drews, "Untersuchungen", p. 74.
3° That the prophets presided over the "Eucharist", cannot simply be asssumed from this passage; it remains unclear who possessed the presidency; so too Vddbus,
Liturgical Traditions, p. 111.
40 Similarly also Drews, "Untersuchungen", p. 77; Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 27.
4! Similarly also Drews, "Untersuchungen", p. 77; Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 27.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
Didache offers a consistent, comprehensive, regulation of this area of community life at that point.
Chs.11 and 12 address themselves to a further problematic area.
Common to them is that they provide regulations for the handling of Christians arriving from outside, who seek reception in the community as strangers. Christian and non-Christian sources of especially the second century give a graphic picture of the extent to which the well-known Christian hospitality was exploited.42 The Didache now seeks to give the community criteria with which they can separate out the impostors, without having to abandon the institution of hospitality, and without cutting off the rights of particular church offices. Since the different offices were allocated differential qualifications and rights, they must be dealt with one by one.
6. Chapter 11:1-2 The Didache has a fairly simple solution for "those who teach" .43
Although the term d:ddoxadog is not used in the present passage,** one could well agree with Rordorf, among others, that it deals with the office of teacher.45 The criterion for their acceptance is the agreement of their teaching with that of the Didache.
Tatra mavTa T& Tpoe_pnuéva probably refers rather to the Two Ways teaching than to the detailed community rules of 7-10. If the new arrival teaches another 6dax7% which contradicts the latter, which is liable to destroy the community, one must refuse him a hearing and indeed also accommodation; but if he teaches in the sense of our text "to add to righteousness and to the knowledge of the Lord", then he must be received as the Lord himself.46
42 Cf. in this regard the collection of references in Harnack, Die Lehre, Text, pp. 43f; Prolegomena, pp. 125-127; K. Niederwimmer, "Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Wanderradikalismus im Traditionsbereich der Didache", WSt 90 (1977)
. 158, n. 36.
: 43 Cf. in this regard H. A. Stempel, "Der Lehrer in der "Lehre der zwélf Apostle", VigChr 34 (1980) p. 209; A. von Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des
Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten | (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 19244) ppl 365377; also Die Lehre, Prolegomena, p. 131-137.
44 Cf. however Did 13:2; 15:1-2, where d:5déoxadog is explicitly used as a designationfor a church office.
45 Did 11:2 6 6:6c&oxwy is translated by Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, p. 183) as "docteur"; so too Stempel ("Der Lehrer", pp. 210, 213); hesitantly Harnack (Die
Lehre, Text, p. 37). This interpretation is likely, because in the development of the chapter the question of conduct is directed to arrivals of the two remaining statuses which are not bound to the community; differently Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre),
See : 46 Cf, Mt 10:40; Lk 10:16.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
The subject of the short passage is thus simply the criteria which allow one to discern the true from the false teacher in the understanding of the Didache. There is no regulation, one would expect from a comprehensive community rule, of the organizational scope of his activity: does he operate in baptismal preparation, or does he only take care of the catechesis of the candidates, or of the homily in the service?47 Later in the Didache, in another context, we meet the simple claim of the true teacher to provision from the community, if he settles.48 Further, in yet another context, he is numbered next to the bishops, deacons and prophets among the retipnpévor bud, the honoured of the community.# A concrete description of his activity, which made him worthy of his wages,°° is absent.>!
7. Chapter 11:3-12 In v.3 two further groups of arrivals are singled out, whose condition demands individual treatment: apostles and prophets.*? For instructions about conduct with them, the Didache explicitly appeals to the d6ypa 70d evayyediov.53 The author must clearly
47 How Stempel ("Der Lehrer", p. 212) concludes from Did 15:1f about the leadership of the liturgy by the teacher, remains unclear. Similarly also H. von
Campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt und geistliche Vollmacht in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Tiibingen: Mohr, 19632 [BHTh 14]) p. 79.
48 Did 13:2; one need not necessarily conclude from this that they were without possessions or even that they were required to be so; differently Stempel, "Die
Lehre? pa2i2:
49 Did 15:1-2.
50 Did 13:2.
5! Stempel ("Die Lehre", p. 210) relates a passage from the Two Ways teaching, Did 4:1, to the office of the teacher. That remains still uncertain. It could be related to the other offices in the context of the Didache just as well, especially the apostle and the prophet. That the writing had a teacher as author, as Stempel ("Die Lehre", pp. 210-212) suggests, remains in any case uncertain.
Impermissible is the thorough-going identification of the teacher with the prophets, which Stemple ("Die
Lehre", p. 213) proposes it in conjunction with Kraft. Likewise there is no certain evidence that "die Lehrer als die reguldren geistlichen Fiihrer einer Gemeinde angesehen werden" (Stempel, /bid.). The attempt of A. de Halleux also ("Les ministéres dans la Didaché", Jrenikon 53 [1980] pp. 10f) to relate the two verses to the prophets, is not convincing, since other distinguishing criteria are given for them in the space of the same unit of argumentation (Did 11:7-12). Moreover, their speaking in the Spirit is not permitted to be tested—unlike the d:dax7) discussed here.
52 Cf. in this regard esp. G. Sass, "Die Apostel in der Didache", in W.
Schmauch (ed.), Jn memoriam E. Lohmeyer (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1951) pp. 233-239, esp. 235 on the differentiation of the title of apostle in chp. 11 of the Didache from the Twelve Apostles of the title; G. Schille, "Das Recht der
Propheten und Apostel—gemeinderechtliche Beobachtungen zu Didache Kap. 1113", in P. Watzel & G. Schille (eds.), Theologische Versuche (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1966) pp. 84-103; Niederwimmer, "Entwicklungsgeschichte", pp. 145-167.
3Cf. also Did. 8:2 with a similar formulation; the question as to whether this implies one of the synoptic gospels, cannot be discussed here.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
cite this high authority, because, as a result of the high prestige of the two offices, the limitation of hospitality he is seeking will be hard to implement. a. The Apostles (11:4-6) As with the teachers, the duty to receive each apostle as the Lord stands at the beginning of the section.
Yet the goal of the argumentation is to put an end to the obvious abuses to which the exploitation of this hospitality has led, while preserving the duty.
First the stay of the travelling apostle is limited to one, at most two days; a third day, which was granted to a normal
Christian arrival,54 already shows him to be a false prophet.55 The short stay makes it impossible for the apostle to teach in the community or to do any other work.5¢
The author confronts the practice of false apostles, who demand gifts or at least expect them, with his demand that they should only be given bread or provision for a day's journey when they go, which does no more than fulfill a command of general hospitality.5?7 If the apostle demands money, he has unmasked himself as a charlatan. About the task of the apostle, who probably must have been engaged in the mission outside already existing communities,5* the Didache gives just as little explicit information>? as over the nature and circumstances of his commis54Did. 12:2; on the background of Graeco-Roman and Jewish hospitality, which knew similar rules, cf. Audet, Didaché, pp. 444f.
55Cf. Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, p. 52) for the evidence that the expression, Yevdorpodyrn¢ in the LXX and early Christian literature is used "pour désigner une personne qui prétend étre un envoyé de Dieu sans 1|'étre véritablement", and does not simply refer to a false prophet (similar also Niederwimmer, "Entwicklungsgeschichte", p. 155 note 26). De Halleux could not refute this; with this the chief argument for the identity of apostles and prophets (and teachers), for which he argues, falls away. Elsewhere as well, the Didache distinguishes these three offices clearly from one another. The fact that the writing does not introduce the three offices together as a "trilogy" (de Halleux, p. 13) is no argument for identifying them.
56 So they are also not preachers, who—like modern revivalists—seek out already existing communities, as de Halleux ("Les ministéres", p. 13) thinks.
57 Cf. in this regard Audet, Didaché, p. 446.
58 This is probably also the reason why the apostles in Did. 15:2 are not introduced among the te7pnpévor; unlike the prophets and teachers, they no longer have any function in already existing communities; for a different point of view, see
Niederwimmer ("Entwicklungsgeschichte", p. 154 note 21), who does not see the apostles (and prophets) as community founders or organizers, but as eschatologically motivated drop-outs from the contemporary society. Howver, there are no bases to be found for this in the text.
59De Halleux ("Les ministéres", p. 12) also demonstrates this. He rightly refutes the assumption that one can deduce anything from the text about the ascetic lifestyle of the apostle.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
sion; it is simply a matter of providing the community with criteria to distinguish the false apostle, and in this way overcome abuses. b. The Prophets (11:7-12) The subject of vv.7-12 is the office of prophet;*! again the author has tried to give the community criteria which will put them in the position to differentiate true from false holders of this office.©?
With prophets this is particularly difficult because, in talking in the Spirit,? they have at their disposal a gift of divine origin, which is, in principle, impervious to human judgment. Therefore the passage begins with the prohibition against putting prophets to the test®5 while they speak in the Spirit. Clearly this command had come to be widely disregarded, since the Didache finds it necessary to understand testing of speaking in the Spirit as a sin against the Holy Spirit and expressly indicates it to be unforgivable.
Since speaking in the Spirit, as a kind of technique, can be mastered not only by true but also by false prophets, it cannot by itself be a mark of differentiation. Instead of this, agreement with the lifestyle of the Lord® serves as the criterion of the true
60 Schille ("Das Recht", p. 93) thinks that the apostles carried out a messenger service; there is no support for this in the text either.
61 That it is a matter of wandering prophets, cannot be deduced from ch.11; but it is assumed implicitly in Did. 13:1; cf. also Niederwimmer, "Entwicklungsgeschichte", pp. 156f.
62Cf. the same problem in HermMan 11.7:21 (SC 53bis, 194-8 Joly).
63What the Didache understood by speaking in the Spirit is only promoted in a limited way. In terms of content it is a matter of demands spoken out aloud in comprehensible form (vv.8, 12) and teaching (vv.10f) from the realm of community discipline and ethics. In terms of its form, it is obviously a recognizable manner (or technique) of speaking instantly recognizable as such by every member of the community, which governed not only the true but also the false-prophet (v.8). Cf. D. E.
Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans) p. 310. Perhaps it is distinguished from the speech of the teachers in that the listener gets the impression that it is not the prophet himself who speaks, but another, the Spirit, is serving his own. In this sense speaking in the Spirit presupposes ecstasy as "getting worked up".
6 It is, strictly speaking, not a matter of a prohibition on testing prophets. Only the testing of speaking in the Spirit is forbidden. Thus there is no contradiction between vv.7 and 8, as Giet (Enigme, p. 222) assumes.
65What exactly is meant by marpd&tw—test, put to the test—and éaxpivw—judge, speak a judgment—is made clear by a parallel in Eusebius, HE
5.16:16f and 5.18:13 (GCS 9,1,466. 478 Schwartz), where the attempt of bishops in the ecumenical church to refute montanist prophecies by internal contradictions and to move prophets to disputations is reported. Certainly it is not simply the interruption of speaking in the Spirit which is prohibited, as de Halleux ("Les miniue p. 15) rightly objected against Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, p. 53 note
°°What the author understood by the lifestyle of the Lord, is not more precisely explained; the example of vv.9-12 simply gives an—admittedly fragmentary—example; Knopf (Die Didache, p. 31) sees behind this the thoughts of the "imitatio
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
prophet. "For by their lifestyle the false prophet will be known from the true prophet".'? The area of doctrine clearly plays no role in this context—in contrast to the case of the teachers.
In vv.9-12 the principle set out in v.8 is developed in particular examples. The demand of the prophet to prepare a meal, given while speaking in the Spirit,°* must indeed be complied with by the community;7° but if the prophet himself eats from it, he misuses speaking in the Spirit to his personal advantage—as this obviously often happened—and then he shows himself to be a false prophet.
As a further principle, the Didache sets out the agreement of true—obviously ethical—teaching and conduct.
The cryptic sounding (to modern ears) v.11, which has not yet been satisfactorily explained,' limits this principle and so the community's possibility of testing in a special case—though only for the person who has already proved himself to be a genuine prophet. The last verse of this section tries once more to safeguard against an abuse of the regulation. Obviously false prophets misused speaking in the Spirit to make demands on the community for money; the Shepherd of Hermas attests similar abuses.7? Again the criterion is use for oneself, which characterizes the speaking in the Spirit of the false prophets. Demands for money for others if they are poor, lies beyond the competence of the community to judge. The goal of the argument of vv.7-12 is clear: while strictly preserving the high valuation of speaking in the Spirit, which is beyond human judgment and testing, the author puts forward criteria which allow the community to trace the false usage of the technique of speaking in the Spirit by false prophets, with the help of the examination of their lifestyle, in which the criterion of use to one's own benefit plays a major role. gerade des armen Lebens Christi"; similarly also Wengst (Didache (Apostellehre), p. 40) and Aune (Prophecy in Early Christianity, p. 215). Cf. in this regard, however, Did. 13:3-7.
§7 Did. 11:8.
68 So too Giet, Enigme, p.-223.
69 While it is not unlikely that it is a matter of a liturgical meal, perhaps an agape for the poor, as Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, p. 53) suggest, there is nevertheless insufficient evidence in the text; cf. also Knopf (Die Lehre, p. 31).
70 Ibid.
71 Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, pp. 186-188 note 5) and Wengst (Didache (Apostellehre), p. 98 note 99) provide an overview of the different attempts at interpretation; cf. also A. Frank (Studien zur Ekklesiologie des Hirten, 2 Klemems, der
Didache und der Ignatiusbriefe mit besonderer Bertcksichtigung der Idee einer praexistenten Kirche, Diss. Munich, 1975, pp. 333-343) and Aune (Prophecy in Early Christianity, p. 266). fie 72 HermMand 11:12 (SC 53bis, 196 Joly); cf. with further parallels M. Dibelius,
Der Hirt des Hermas = HNT.E 4 (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1923) pp. 541f.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
8. Chapter 12:1-5 After these three offices, the author now turns to ordinary Christians,73 who come to a community as strangers.' All arrivals who make the claim to be Christians?5 have a right to hospitable reception.
However, the Didache demands subsequent testing—probably to determine whether the traveler is really a Christian.76 The motive for this would probably be to prevent the exploitation of hospitality by non-Christians." In what follows, a different procedure is laid out, according to whether the traveler, who has proved to be a Christian, is only on a journey, or whether he wants to settle permanently in the community.
In the first case, he enjoys extensive support from the community; their hospitality is, however, limited to two, at most three, days. This rule is also obviously directed against a misuse of the claim to hospitality. A believer coming from elsewhere is not, however, forbidden to settle in the community. Yet then he must support himself with his own labour;'® if the occasion demands it the community must provide work for him.
V.5 shows clearly that this provision is directed against misuses:79 the person who refuses to work will be characterized as one who makes a trade of being a Christian, i.e. of belonging to the church.8° The community is told to exclude him from their midst.
9. Chapter 13:1-78) This general regulation must now be limited in the case of two groups of persons, who have a traditional claim to provision, if 73 For a different interpretation see J. Roloff (Art. Amt, Amter, Amtsverstandnis
4: TRE 2 (1978) p. 515), who sees in them wandering prophets who are in the process of becoming settled. This conjecture is, however, as little explained as the difficulties which are then thrown up by the following chapter.
7 Cf. in this regard M. Puzicha, Christus peregrinus. Die Fr (Mt 25:35) als Werk der privaten Wohltitigkeit im Urteil der Alten Kirche
(Miinster: Aschendorff, 1980), esp. pp. 11-13, 60-65.
75 This is how Knopf understands év dvépert xupiov (Die Lehre, p. 33); similarly
Kraft (Barnabas and the Didache, p. 172).
76Cf. Harnack, Die Lehre: Text, p. 48; Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 33.
7 $0 too Harnack, Die Lehre:
Prolegomena, p. 92; Puzicha, Christus peregrinus, p. 63.
78On the command to work, cf. Harnack, Die Lehre: Prolegomena, pp. 92f; H.
Holzapfel, Die sittliche Wertung der kérperlichen Arbeit im christlichen Altertum
(Wurzburg, 1941) p. 48. or too Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 34; Niederwimmer, "Entwicklungsgeschichte" , p.
J 8°On the expression, xoro7éwmopoc, cf. Harnack, Die Lehre: Text, pp. 49f.
81 On this passage, cf. Giet, "Coutume", pp. 122-124, 126-130.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
they settle** and place themselves entirely at the disposal of the community: the prophets and teachers, inasmuch as they have been shown to be GAnO.voi. To address this question, the author had at his disposal a clearly identifiable piece of traditional material. It is clearly discernible, for one thing, in that it is in Second Person Singular,®3 in contrast to the context; in addition it forms a stylistic and material unity:
3a. Every firstfruit of the product of the vine and of the threshing floor, of the cattle and of the sheep, take now and give the firstfruit to the prophets.
5. If you make dough, take the firstfruit and give it according to the law.
6. In the same way, if you open a jug of wine or oil, take the firstfruit and give it to the prophets.
7. But of gold and of clothes and of every possession take the firstfruit, as it seems appropriate to you, and give it according to the law.
In terms of content, all four verses are concerned with how the amapxy is to be provided.84 Formally they are constructed according to the same schema: 7}v &tapxyv (with concrete specification) AwBav 56¢ + Toig TpodHroaic and KaT& THY é&vTOAHr, alternating according to an ABAB-Scheme.®
The author fits this piece of tradition into his argument, without altering it stylistically.' The first verse of the chapter makes it clear that this regulation does not relate to all prophets, but only to those who are already known as GAnOcvoi and want to settle permanently in the community. The second verse extends the traditional material, which was limited to the prophets, to the true teachers.*' For both, the reason taken from the synoptic tradition is valid, that the person who works for the community is worthy of his wage.
82 The initiative clearly comes from the prophets (and teachers).
83 This would obviously not suffice as a criterion for a piece of traditional material.
84Cf. G. Schéllgen, "Die Didache—ein friihes Zeugnis fiir Landgemeinden?", ZNW 76 (1985) pp. 140-143.
85 Giet (Enigme, pp. 228f) resolved the question of the piece of traditional material in a similar fashion; his conjecture that it is to be identified as oral teaching material on account of carefully observed rhythmic patterns, remains just as hypothetical as the assumption of the non-Christian origin. The interpretation of Schille ("Das Recht", pp. 99-101) overlooks the unity of the piece of traditional material and is also as usual without sufficient evidence in the text.
86 Possible because of the high esteem enjoyed by the tradition from which this piece of tradition is taken.
87 The conjecture of Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, p. 190 note 2), that 13:2 documents a development in the course of which the prophets were replaced by the teachers in catechesis and instruction, finds no evidence in the text.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
The piece of tradition itself is still further extended by an interpolation. V.3b gives an Old Testament scriptural foundation for the prophets' right to support:** just as the high priests had the right to claim the &wapx7, in the same way today the prophets have the right to support.
®? evita V.4 takes up the question as to what a community, which is temporarily or permanently without settled prophets, should do with their &aapxj, which they now are accustomed to collect, and it allocates them to the poor.% The goal of the argument in ch.13 is purely and simply to authorize the claim of the prophets and teachers to support, and to regulate it concretely. This clarification had become necessary in the context because, in the preceding section, the author had refused all Christians, who wished to settle in a different community, a permanent claim to provision. Possibly the right of the prophets and teachers to support was also much contested. The Didache is no evidence for a slow integration of an originally nomadic prophetic ministry into particular communities, as de Halleux has rightly observed.%! The settled state is rather only one lifestyle of Christian prophets—which, as the piece of traditional material shows, had already been long practiced and recognized.%
88 V.3b, which betrays that it belongs with vv.1-2, 4 through the ipar, clearly indicates that the traditional piece of material 3a, 5-7 cannot be a later interpolation, as Audet (Didaché, pp. 105-110)(he inconsequentially allocates y.3b, despite the bua, to the interpolation) and Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, pp. 190f note 5) think, or rather conjecture; the yap of v.3b provides the basis for the regulation in v.3a; in the same way v.4 gives an instruction which can only be understood as supplementary rule to 3a. Vv.3b, 4 thus provide a later expansion. In addition: why should an interpolation, which provides a developmental rule of vv.1-2, limit itself to the prophets and allow the teacher introduced by v.2 to disappear? One can conclude from ch.7: on the plausible but not necessary hypothesis that the chpters 7 and 13, which are both composed in the Second Person Plural, spring from the same source (as e.g. Audet (Didaché, p. 108 suggests), then Did. 13:2-3, 4b is also a pre-existing piece of traditional material reworked by the author of the Didache.
89 What we have here is a simple comparison between prophets and highpriests with respect to the dmapx7, a particular form of right to support. One can conclude nothering from this passage concerning the specific liturgical function of the prophets; so also de Halleux ("Les ministéres", p. 19) contra Schille ("Das Recht", p. 93) and Rordorf & Tuilier (La Doctrine, p. 53).
90 That the prophets take precedence over the poor, as Harnack thinks (Die Lehre: Text, p. 52), cannot be concluded from the verse: It is clearly only a matter here of an additional source for the care of the poor, which presents itself if the firstfruits are not claimed by the prophets. Niederwimmer ("Textprobleme", p. 121) wishes to see a gloss in v.4, which presupposes a later situation; this is, however, not explained in more detail, 91 De Halleux, "Les ministéres", p. 17.
%2 Contra Niederwimmer ("Entwicklungsgeschichte, p. 160-166), for example, who concludes from the fact that apostles are not mentioned in ch. 13 that only prophets and teachers existed at that stage, who were moreover no longer itinerant, but had become settled in local communities.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
The Didache leaves one question unsettled, which one would wish to be answered by a comprehensive church order: what work is it that makes the prophets and teachers worth their upkeep? We know of the prophets, from a different context, only that they had the right to formulate the eucharistic prayers freely, and that they stood in high esteem on account of the gift of speaking in the Spirit. Whether they presided at the celebration of the eucharist; whether they had functions of community leadership; which tasks they generally performed in the community; these matters remain in the dark. The author of the Didache presupposes this knowledge in his readers and, since they clearly present no difficulties, sees no need for a regulation.
10. Chapter 14:1-3 Ch.14, which does not stand in close relation with what precedes,°> has two argumentational goals. In the first place the concern of the author is directed at the purity of the "eucharistic" meal,** which is understood as an offering.°5 The Scriptural attestation in v.3 is intended to legitimate this concern. Purity will be attained through the communal confession of sins in the eucharistic celebration, over whose concrete form the Didache is silent.9'7 The purity is endangered by intra-communal strife; so the Didache prescribes that warring fellow Christians must be excluded from the celebration of the eucharist, until they have been reconciled. One would be right to conclude the presence of abuses in the background.°% '
The second goal of the argumentation is not so. clear. The author emphasizes that the gathering of the community for the breaking of bread and thanksgiving should take place xa7a& kuptaxny dé xupiov. The doublet, "Lord's day of the Lord", may be interpreted, as Rordorf suggests, as directed against judaizing
93S too Knopf (Die Lehre, p. 35); Kraft (Barnabas and the Didache, p. 173) sees an associative relation between the firstfruits of ch.13 and the sacrificial thought of ch.14, which seems to me at least to be far-fetched.
°4 Cf. Rordorf, "Didaché", pp. 22-27 on the relationship of Did. 14 to Did. 910 and on the question of which ritual meal is intended here.
95 Cf. in this regard Giet, Enigme, pp. 233f; Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 70f; Rordorf, "Didaché", pp. 26f; H. Moll, Die Lehre von der Eucharistie als
Opfer (K6ln: Hanstein, 1975 [Theophaneia 26]) pp. 104-115, esp. 109-113.
96 On this see Rordorf, "Didaché", pp. 24f, esp. on the connection with Did.
4:14; the same, "La rémission des péchés selon la Didaché", rénikon 46 (1973) pp.
283-297; B. Poschmann, Paenitentia secunda (Bonn: Hanstein, 1940 [Theophaneia 1}) pp. 87-97.
971Cf. Rordorf, "Didaché", p. 25.
98Cf. Did. 15:3, which signals something similar. On this see Harnack, Lehre:
Text, p. 54.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
Christians who preferred the sabbath, so that it affirms Sunday as the day of eucharistic celebration.!°° These verses are, together with chs. 9 and 10, all that the Didache offers on the theme of the eucharist, agape etc. Again it is clear that the text only regulates particular controversial points; from the point of view of liturgical studies, it raises more questions than it answers. Decisive aspects remain unclear or are not dealt with, as e.g. the relation of the actual meal to the eucharistic celebration in a narrower sense.1°
Of the whole course of the eucharistic community gathering, only fragments, i.e. the three eucharistic prayers, are regulated. The ministry of the word is almost completely disregarded. The author makes no mention of the topics of the origin and nature of the sacrificial gifts, the place and time of assembly, the leadership of the assembly and seating.
11. Chapter 15:1-2 This section also stands in no close relation with the preceding chapter.1°2 The two verses, are in my opinion, generally misinterpreted, because people have neglected to work out the real goal of the argumentation. It is uncontested that the offices of bishop and deacon stood in low esteem in the community. The author feels forced to warn against despising them.!°3 The ques99 On this see Rordorf, "Didaché", p. 23; Jbid., note 31, for further contemporary testimony for this kind of tendency.
100With the doublet the author wishes to exclude a possible Jewish Christian misunderstanding, that xupax7 could also be taken as a designation for the sabbath as the day of the Old Testamental xipioc. Cf. in this regard Jbid., p. 23; Rordorf,
Der Sonntag: Geschichte des Ruheund Gottesdienstages im Gltesten Christentum (Zirich: Zwingli, 1962 [AThANT 43]) pp. 207f; Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 36; for a different point of view see Giet, Enigme, p. 232, with very hypothetical elaborations.
101 Cf. Kraft (The Didache and Barnabas, p. 173), "The description of early Christian worship is frustratingly vague"; Knopf (Die Lehre, p. 35), "Sehr wichtige
Teile des Gemeindegottesdienstes fehlen, die Erbauung durch das Wort wird mit keinem Blicke gestreift."
102 The ody of Did. 15:1 is generally understood in the sense that it establishes the connection between the rules of ch.14 on the celebration of the "Eucharist" and the election criteria for the celebrants of the liturgy (so Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 193 note 10; Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 37; Giet, Enigme, p. 239). Such an interpretation seems to me to be even more unlikely. For one think, ovy does not have to point to a consequent, but can simply have the function, "to indicate a transition to something new" (BAGD, p. 597); so perhaps in Did. 11:1; cf. Nautin
("La composition", p. 194). It is hard to accept that the provision of election ciriteria for bishops and deacons could be a consequence of Did. 14:1-3,where it is a matter of the purity of the sacrifice. Moreover, Thy NecToupyiav ertoupyeiv in Did. 15:1 should not be translated "to celebrate the liturgy"; cf. in-this regard note
109 above.
103D id. 15:2.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
tion is why they are so poorly esteemed. The first verse gives the decisive clue for this: he prescribes that only men who are worthy of the Lord should be chosen as bishops and deacons.
10% Clearly there were unworthy occupants of the offices, who did not meet the demands set out and so had brought the two offices into disrepute. In my opinion, the passage is best understood against the background of this abuse. The provision of criteria serves to prevent the selection of unsuitable candidates in the future. The requirements for the office reflect in part the duties of both
Offices: a. mpai¢c—gentle friendliness—in early Christian literature means, as a qualification for office, mostly the virtue of a person who resolves strife.!°° The Didache attests intra~-communal strife in many places;!% the selection criteria should be understood in this sense as a moderating, or community leadership, function in the widest sense. b. &dtAdpyvpoc—trefers, as Rordorf correctly supposes,!%" to the future function of the candidate in the administration of the community resources. c. &AnO.v6c—probably means that he must be a true, that is, an honest Christian.
1° d. dedoxipaopévogc—he must be a proven member of the community (i.e. not a newly baptized).
V.1b provides the reason (y&p) for these qualitative demands: they too (i.e. bishops and deacons) provide the community with the work of the prophets and teachers.!°° Beyond that, as shown above, the Didache provides only meagre information about what the task of the prophets and teachers was. In addition, that form of 104 On the meaning of xe.poroveiv cf. Rordorf & Tuilier, jp. 193 note 9; G.
Deussen, "Weisen der Bischofswahl im 1 Klemensbrief und in der Didache", TheolGl 62 (1972) pp. 131-134.
105Cf. in this regard F. Hauck & S. Schulz, Art. xpaic, mpatrnc' TDNT 6 (1959) pp. 645-651; for the virtue necessary to hold office for the correction of recalcitrants: 2 Tim 2:25 (cf. also Tit 3:2); similarly [gnTrall 3:2; IgnPol 2:1; 6:3
(174, 217, 222 Fischer).
106 Fg. Did. 4:3; 14:2; 15:3.
107 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 193 note 11; cf. also 1 Tim 3:3, 8 with the same qualifications fo rthe office of the bishop and a similar (aioxpoxepédei¢) for the deacons; cf. Knopf, Die Lehre, p. 37.
108 Cf. BAGD, p. 36.
109 Nothing points to an exclusive liturgical meaning for ry AeToupyiay Nevroupyeiv, which would, however, be lexically possible (cf. BAGD, pp. 471f); in addition the four election criteria of v.1a, for which v.2a indeed provides the basis, point to an essentially broader sphere of activity for bishops and deacons. Beyond this it is uncertain whether the teachers had a specificially liturgical function; the Didache at least does not attest it.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
the \evroupyia of the prophets about which the Didache provides information, i.e. freedom in the formulation of "eucharistic" prayers!!0 and speaking in the Spirit, is tied to their office.'!! It is therefore closed to bishops and deacons. Those tasks which can be recognized behind the first two criteria of choice—leadership of the community and administration of the community chest—are not mentioned in connection with prophets and teachers. Therefore one can only assume a partial identification of the tasks of the prophets and teachers and bishops and deacons. Since, however, there were clearly overlaps —perhaps in the area of teaching—the high esteem of the prophets and teachers—those who are true and tested of course—serves the author as the foundation for the qualitative demands the Didache makes for bishops and deacons.
It is thus not the intention of the author to provide a definition of the roles of bishops and deacons—the Didache mentions nothing specific about their tasks—nor to introduce two new community officials,!!2 as is often asserted.!!13 Rather he proceeds, analogously to the chapter on prophets, teachers and apostles, to rule out the abuses whereby the choice of unqualified candidates had led to low esteem for the position of bishops and deacons, and to place them together with the others among the te7iuynpévor of the community.
12. Chapter 15:3
Perhaps by association with the criterion of office, mpaic, closely connected with the two preceding verses,!!4 the author turns now to failings of Christians, especially against the neighbour. If this question had been handled in ch.14 from the point of view of the purity of the eucharistic offering, the author now insists on the correctio fraterna, which was probably extra-liturgical.!15
It remains unclear in what context it occurs.116 The argumentational goal of the two verses is clear: if the correctio fraterna does not lead the person who has transgressed against his neighbour to discernment, he is excluded from the community until he repents.
There is also no description of how the latter was to be carried out.
110 Did. 10:7.
M1Did. 11:7-12.
11289 also de Halleux, "Les ministéres", pp. 20-22.
113 Eg. Giet, Enigme, p. 241; Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 64.
114 Cf, in this regard note 106 above; such a connection nevertheless remains very hypothetical.
'ISCf, in this regard Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 78-80; Rordorf, "Rémission", pp. 293-296; Harnack, Lehre: Text, pp. 59f.
1160 too Rordorf, "Rémission", p. 294.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
13. Chapter 15:4
This verse forms the real conclusion of the church order provisions of the Didache, in the form of a summary: the author puts
'the whole of the community life, especially prayer and alms, under the authority of the gospel "of our Lord" .1!7
Results of the First Part The Didache is no comprehensive church order: its intention is not to order the life of the community as a whole, nor even in its most important areas.
The correct observation is that the text only concerns the external forms of the community in already established communities, and that theological problems play no role explicitly.
Inside this framework it pursues only a limited goal: it is concerned to correct abuses and to address new rules to changed circumstances—often in the face of resistance. Large parts of the community life, in which the author sees no problems, remain unconsidered. The misinterpretation of the. Didache as a comprehensive church order, in the modern sense, certainly rests for the most part on the fact that the text takes its themes from the whole breadth of early Christian community life: from the realm of catechesis, liturgy (baptism, prayer, "eucharist"), church offices and community charity. This interpretation overlooks the fact that the author does not provide a general order for these topics, not even dealing with the most important questions, but simply provides an authoritative regulation on controversial points. This is especially clear from the fact that it is often questions of the second order which are clarified, while the important ones are not handled because the author sees no difficulty there.
The Didache thus has a limited purpose in its composition and is, as a selective church order, a polemical text on particular problems of community life.
117 Ch.16 can here be bracketted out, since it is irrelevant for the determination of the form of the Didache. Essentially it provides an eschatological warning to watchfulness (vv.1-2), bound up with a little Apocalypse, and thus falls out of the framework of the rest of the sections of the writing, which provide particular rules for contentious questions of community discipline. Possibly it originally formed a unity with the Two Ways teaching of chs.1-6; cf. indeed, in this regard, the objections of Vielhauer, Geschichte, pp. 730-733 and Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 80-83; see there also arguments for the idea that it is a matter of a pre-existing piece of traditional material. Possibly its function in the framework of the Didache lies in the concluding heightening of the particular rules of the writing; cf. in this regard E. Bammel, "Schema und Vorlage von Didache 16", Studia Patristica 4
(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961 [TU 79]) pp. 253f, for the Jewish parallels. The possibility that it is a matter of a later addition should in any case not be ruled out.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
This specific definition of the purpose for the composition of the Didache, which is true also in similar manner for other early
Christian church orders, especially the Syriac Didascalia, does not allow one to expect a systematic structure to the text. The solution of particular problems, which do not hang together as a rule, provides—if at all—only a very crude order. One can observe a certain concentration of liturgical themes in chapters 710, although it is questionable whether the author of the Didache already knew the category "liturgy" in its present sense and saw in it the connection between the complexes "baptismal water",
"baptismal fast", "stationary fast", "private prayer", and "formula for the 'eucharistic' prayer". It is only clear that these sections are connected by association, mostly through word association. Only chapters 11-13 form a unity on the theme "conduct with regard to fellow believers who arrive in the community from outside". The following sections again stand alongside each other mostly without closer connection.
One seeks in vain in the Didache for even one or more fundamental tendencies, such as found in the Syriac Didascalia, which wishes especially to promote the claim of the monarchical bishop in all areas of the community life. The text struggles in many places against judaizing practices and shows, despite all abuses, a thoroughgoing esteem for speaking in the Spirit by prophets, yet neither of these becomes a governing theme. The details of the text, which seek nothing other than the solution of particular problems, do not allow this to happen.
I The consequences of the forgoing study are more far-reaching than might at first appear. It is less a matter of new, startling insights, which are to be gained from this short writing, than a limitation of wild hypotheses which try to gain more historical information from the text than it is able to provide. This will be demonstrated with regard to two controversial interpretations of the Didache.
1. The Literary Integrity of the Text Hardly any question, especially in recent literature, has been answered so differently as that of the origin of the text. If the older interpreters!'8 start mostly from the assumption of a single person re E.g. Harnack, Lehre: Prolegomena, pp. 24-63; so also Knopf, Die Lehre, passim.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
as author of the Didache (who simply drew on a limited number of traditions), today only a minority—albeit growing!!9—hold that kind of simple theory of origin. The rest, proceeding by the literary critical method,!2° reconstruct a differentiated number of phases of development, into which the particular sections of the text are then ordered.!2! It is significant that there is neither a consensus nor even only a limited number of types of solution between these sometimes extraordinarily complex theories of origin. Nearly every attempt to solve the problem stands by itself, and forms its own criteria for the supposed division of sources. So one cannot avoid the impression of arbitrariness, especially if even the smallest stylistic differences must serve as signs of a change of author.
!22
A detailed account of all the proposals cannot be given here, any more than a final solution of the question of literary integrity.
The recognition that the Didache is a selective church order allows us simply to demonstrate that the chief arguments for the differentiation of different phases of origin are groundless.
Unlike a clearly constructed church order, a collection of different regulations on particularly controversial questions in the "9 De Halleux, "Les ministéres", p. 22; Nautin, "La composition", pp. 209f;
L. Alfonsi, "Aspetti della struttura letteraria della Aiday7", in Studi classici in onore di Q. Cataudella 2 (Catania: Universita di Catania, 1972) pp. 465-181, esp.
480f; Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), pp. 18-20.
120 In withdrawing from the literary critical method, which he—without justification—considers out of date, Schille ("Das Recht", pp. 84f) attempts a redaction critical examination of the Didache. He separates the writing into small and smallest pieces of tradition and orientates himself in this expressly to the research into the synoptics, since the Didache as a collected work would have had a similar history of development as the synoptic gospels. This methodological assumption is not more extensively justified. Schille thus overlooks the fundamental difference in form between the gospels and the Didache; an unreflective borrowing of exegetical methods is thus not permissible from the outset. It denies the unique character and the clear orientation fo the individual units of argumentation.
121 Here Audet (Didaché, pp. 104-120) should particularly be mentioned; he differentiates, apart from the pre-existing Two Ways teaching, four phases of development of the Didache; he has received a sufficient refutation from Nautin ("La compostition", pp. 191-214). Cf. further Giet (Enigme, p. 262) with four "niveaux principaux" of development, which are in themselves still more widely differentiated and differ essentially from those of Audet. Rordorf & Tuilier distinguish—apart from the Two Ways teaching—essentially chs. 7-13 from the later continuation of chs. 14-15 (16); Niederwimmer ("Entwicklungsgeschichte", above note 42) who only deals with chs. 11-13, 15, reckons on two chief levels—tradition and redaction—as well as a later gloss. Kraft (The Didache and Barnabas, pp. 63-65) accepts a profusion of successive developments and reworkings of the original Jewish Two
Ways teaching, which indeed cannot always be reconstructed with certainty into their different phases.
122 This is true especially for the Commentary of Giet, who posits a change of author for the smallest inconsistencies and irregularities (Enigme, esp. pp..181188).
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
sphere of community discipline, without recognizable systematic construction, does not allow one to evaluate the discussion of questions from the same set of circumstances in different sections, or breaks between particular units of argumentation as clear indices for interpolation or even change of author.
So, for instance, the fact that "eucharistic" meals are handled in ch.9-10 as well as ch.14, is often taken as proof for a later origin of ch.14;123 this ignores the fact that neither section provides a general order for the "eucharistic" meals, but simply provides regulations on particular questions, which are not dependent on each other and consequently need not be settled together.
In similar fashion, the handling of church offices in 11-13 on the one hand and 15 on the other has falsely been taken as evidence for two or three successive developmental phases of 1115;124 here too it is a matter of two independent complexes of questions, and there was no need to handle them together.
It must not be overlooked that the brief composition of the Didache offers, in principle, fewer difficulties in the way of interpolating additional units of argumentation into the text to address problems as they arise, or to add them on, than would be the case in a systematic construction. The greater openness to later interpolation thus offers a correspondingly great difficulty for the historian to demonstrate such interpolations satisfactorily. This methodological presupposition is not generally taken into account in the sometimes very superficial hypotheses about its origin.
If one wishes to escape from the danger of arbitrary source hypotheses against this background, there remain very few indices which can make a change of author probable; the most important are briefly enumerated here: a. Unequivocal stylistic differences, inasmuch as they cannot be explained by a use of traditional material. Here strict criteria must be applied. If one ignores chs.1-6, where it can hardly be decided whether it is a matter of integration of traditional material or a later addition, as well as the eschatological concluding chapter, the following passages come into consideration in my opinion:
1. Didache 7:2-3, 4b 2. Didache 8:2 (Our Father) 3. Didache 9:2-4; 10:2-6 ("eucharistic" prayer)
4. Didache 13:3a, 5-7 They are best explained as interpolated traditional material, as we have tried to show above. b. Explicit and clear contradictions between particular units
123 Examples are presented by Rordorf ("Didaché", pp. 12-17), who also himself advocates this position; cf. also Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, -p. 64.
124 Cf. in this regard below pp. 23f.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
of argumentation; nothing like this can be demonstrated, in my opinion.
Particular sections are often attributed to different phases of the development of the community discipline. The two most important presuppositions for this exercise are absent. In the first place, the Didache can still not be dated and localized. In the second, the parallel material from other sources in the first one and a half centuries, concerning the external order of the community, is already so fragmentary that clear developmental phases, to which particular sections of the Didache could be ordered, cannot be satisfactorily reconstructed, i.e. sufficiently defined in their temporal and spatial differentiation.
!25 c. Hiatuses can only be taken into account if they emerge inside a unit of argumentation and explode the sequence of the thought. Even such hiatuses are absent.
Obviously this still does not prove that the Didache, as it has been received in the Codex Hierosolymitanus, originates from the pen of a single author. In principle it remains possible that it represents a collection of problem-solving material from different origins, which has been reworked by one or more redactors, put together and placed under the authority of the apostles. However, there are great and, in my opinion, insoluble problems in the way of the demonstration of that kind of complex history of origin, in the face of such loose composition of the text. So it seems appropriate to me to take a conservative line, to give precedence to the simplest hypothesis of origin, until someone provides convincing evidence for a complex explanation.
2. The Church Offices Most interpreters see in the Didache one of the most powerful witnesses for the process of the general supersession of charismatics by officials in the leadership of the communities. The presupposition is generally the allocation of the chapter in question to two or more phases in the development of the text, which for their part mirror different developmental phases in the constitution of the community.
Starting from this basic theory, however, the relevant passages are interpreted very differently in detail.!2° Since we cannot test all the claims one by one here, the commentary of Rordorf
125 Cf. in this regard esp. the following section on the church offices.
126 References to the relevant literature are provided in the discussion of chs. 1115; in addition see A. Lemaire, Les ministéres aux origines de l'église: Naissance de la triple hierarchie: eveques, presbytres, diacres (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf,
1971 [Lectio divina 68]) pp. 139-144.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
will be examined as one of the newest and relatively cautious representatives of this type of interpretation, with respect to the consistency of his argument. é He differentiates two developmental phases in the formation of the Didache community, which he tries to delineate with the help of source criticism.!27 Chapters 11-13 reflect the original situation; they still do not know any local hierarchy. The decisions are generally taken together; only apostles, prophets and teachers are known as church officers. Chs.14f reflect a later stage of development: the community has, in the meantime, found it necessary to choose local officials. For one thing, prophets and teachers have become rare, as the rule of Didache 13:4 already shows; as a consequence of this the divine worship can no longer be offered everywhere without officials. In the second place, ch.11 already shows clear signs of the deterioration of wandering charismatics.
Their declining numbers and dubious integrity now forces the community to introduce an innovation and to choose two colleges of officials out of their own ranks—bishops and deacons. The Didache mirrors the difficulties of this way of solving the problem, since the officials were not accepted as of the same worth as the charismatics.
This thesis of Rordorf's, concerning two developmental steps in the composition of the community, depends on the hypothesis that chs. 14 and 15 are a later addition. What Rordorf brings as evidence for this is not very convincing. From the provision of 13:4, that the first fruits should go to the poor (and not to the bishops and deacons) if the community had no settled prophets, he concludes that ch.11-13 still knew no local officials.!28
It is implicitly assumed that local officials possessed the right to support from the beginning.!29 A look at the sources shows, however, that this only happened from the-turn of the second to the third century, mainly in large communities.!3° The assumption that chs.11-13 does not mention the bishops and deacons because it did not yet know these officials,!3! is thus an argumentation from silence, which might perhaps have some justification in a comprehensive church order, but must be regarded as unacceptable in a selective one. If one takes into account the limited goal of the argument in chs.11-13—dealing with the reception of Christians of various offices arriving from elsewhere—one cannot see why
127 Cf. Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp. 63-80 on what follows.
128 Ibid., p. 63.
- 129 De Halleux ("Les ministéres", p. 19) also viewed this critically.
130 Cf. in this regard G. Schéllgen, Ecclesia sordida? Zur Frage der sozialen Schichtung friihchristlicher Gemeinden am Beispiel Karthagos zur Zeit Tertullians
(Minster: Aschendorff, 1985 [JAC.E 12]) pp. 307f.
131 Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, p. 63.
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
this section should consider bishops and deacons, who—unlike apostles, prophets and teachers—were uncontested local officials.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the text to suggest that the elected offices of bishops and deacons constitute an innovation,
On the contrary, the text battles against the decline of these offices as a result of the choice of unsuitable candidates, and so indicates that both offices had already existed for a long time. The Didache does not attest a declining number, or a collapse, of the prophets and teachers either.!33 Did. 13:4 simply specifies what to do when a community is without a resident prophet. The assumption that in a previous time all communities had resident prophets and teachers with right to subsistence in their midst, is nowhere attested in the text or even suggested. Furthermore, while steps are taken against impostors who give themselves out as Christians, teachers, apostles or prophets, it is not permissible to conclude from this a general collapse of the "charismatic office".
The whole text, especially Didache 15:2 testifies rather that they "still stand in high esteem.
The thesis of collective communal leadership by all local Christians!*4 also appears to me at least questionable. It is mostly based on the fact that those to whom the disciplinary steps of the Didache are directed are mostly addressed in Second Person
Plural, and that the text, with one possible exception,!35 does not explicitly mention a church hierarchy. But this is easily explained by the pseudepigraphical fiction of the text.13° The Jerusalem manuscript carries as its second title the following address: Avéaxy kuptov dia TOv b@dexa &ToOTOAWY Toi¢g EOveorv. It is only natural then that the Apostles often speak to their Gentile Christian addressees in the Second Person Plural in the course of the text.
Even if the second title was not original as a whole or in the present form,!37 it remains an impermissible argument~ from 132 Tbid., p. 64.
133 Jbid., p. 72.
134 Thid., p. 64.
135 Did. 7:4; the subject of xeXeterc remains unclear; it could be a matter of a community member provided with authority to instruct; v.4b belongs in any case most probably to a pre-existing tradition.
136 On the hypothesis which Audet (Didaché, pp. 91-103) has presented on the two titles, cf. the compelling refutation in Nautin ("La composition", pp. 210-214), obviously unknown to Vielhauer (Geschichte, pp. 722-725); cf. also Rordorf &
Tuilier (La Doctrine, pp. 13-17).
137 Cf, in this regard Nautin ("La composition", p. 213); the older editors such as Bryennios and Harnack (Lehre: Prolegomena, pp. 24-32), as well as Knopf (Die
Lehre, pp. 3f), consider the second title to be the original. Vielhauer's thesis
(Geschichte, p. 725; similarly also Wengst [Didache (Apostellehre), pp. 14f]) of a writing originally without a title is improbable. On whose authority could the author of the Didache then have founded and pushed through his rules? Cf., howver, S. Giet, "La Didaché, enseignement des douze apétres?", Melto 3 (1967) pp.
223-236.
GEORG SCHOLLGEN
silence,!38 namely from the fact that the apostles directed none of their particular rules to the church officials, to deduce that all decisions were made collectively, or that there were still no officials. The fact that chs.14 and 15 speak to their addressees in Second Person Plural speaks against this last assumption, although this section, even according to Rordorf's theory, concerns officials.
Altogether the respective passages on the constitution of the community, with their limited argumentative goals, are to be taken as of much more limited value for the history of the early
Christian offices and officials than is generally assumed.!3° They give simple, momentary, interventions into particular and actual problems, which are mostly of secondary significance both for the liturgy and for the field of church constitution. Evidence for an evolution in the sense of a general supersession of charismatics by officials cannot be drawn from the text. Rather, both groups existed alongside each other for a long time, without recognizable conflict between them.
Finally, the fragmentary information of the text on church offices can be summarized again:
1. There were wandering teachers, apostles and prophets who, with the exception of the apostles, worked temporarily in the communities—in what form remains generally unclear. They probably exercised no functions of community leadership.!4° The task of the apostles lay outside the already established communities, probably in mission.
2. Prophets and teachers had the right to decide to stay permanently in a community, where they could receive payment for their unspecified work. It remains unclear whether they led the community while they were present. How numerous such settled prophets and teachers were, whether their number at the time of the composition of the Didache was growing or declining, cannot be determined. It is only certain that not every community had prophets at their disposal.
3. By way of contrast, bishops and deacons should be elected by all communities—in what number is uncertain. It is possible in 138 This is true also for the position, which in any case rests on different presuppositions, of Wengst (Didache (Apostellehre), pp. 36f), who tries to demonstrate the concept of the priesthood of all believers in the writing.
139 Cf. e.g. the enthusiastic valuation of Did. 15:1-2 in Harnack (Lehre:
Prolegomena, p. 141): "...da8 es in der gesamten urchristlichen Literatur keine zweite Stelle gibt, die fiir die Entstehungsgeschichte des katholischen Episkopats so wichtig ist wie die unsrige". Similarly Lemaire, "Les ministéres", p. 142; essentially hesitantly de Halleux, "Les ministéres", passim.
140 Cf. in this regard Niederwimmer, "Entwicklungsgeschichte", 'hl SEK
THE DIDACHE AS CHURCH ORDER
principle, though not very probable, that there was even the monepiscopate, since one can not conclude for sure, from the fact that the apostles command their addressees to choose bishops and deacons, that both of the two groups formed a college in every particular community.!41 The qualification for office makes it clear that, among other things, their tasks lay in the sphere of community leadership and community finance, without that being certain. There was a partial overlap of their tasks with that of the resident prophets and teachers, with whom they formed the group of the "honoured".
!42
141 Cf. my article, "Monepiskopat und monarchischer Episkopat", ZNW 77 (1986) pp. 146-151.
142 Addendum: January 1996: It is, of course, not possible to elaborate here on ten years of research. Reference will be simply be made to a few publications of the author, which have carried the thoughts of the article further, as well as to a critical opinion concerning his position and a dispute with this criticism in a forthcoming publication. The author's subsequent publications include:
1. Didache—Zwolf-Apostel-Lehre.
Einleitung, Ubersetzung und Kommentar (Freiburg: Herder, 1991 [FC 1}).
2. "Die literarische Gattung der syrischen Didaskalie" in H. J. W. Drijvers & others (ed.), ZV. Symposium Syriacum 1984. Literary Genres in Syriac Literature
(Rome, 1987 [OCA 229]) pp. 149-159.
3. "Wandernde oder seShafte Lehrer in der Didache?", Biblische Notizen 52 (1990) pp. 19-26.
4. "Pseudapostolizitat und Schriftgebrauch in den ersten Kirchenordnungen.
Anmerkungen zur Begriindung des friihen Kirchenrechts" in Stimuli. Exegese und ihre Hermeneutik in Antike und Christentum: Festschrift Ernst Dassmann
(Minster, 1996 [JbAC Erg.-Bd 23]) pp« 96-121.
The following book has interacted critically at length with the article printed above as well as with the addition mentioned under (2) above:
Steimer, Vertex Traditionis.
Die Gattung der altchristlicher Kirchenordnungen (Berlin/New York, 1992 [BZNW 63)]).
An answer to this will shortly appear as:
"Der Abfassungszweck der friihen Kirchenordnungen. Anmerkungen zu den Thesen Bruno Steimers", JoAC 40 (1997).
THE JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
Pietermaritzburg i.
Since it was rediscovered in a monastic library in Constantinople and published by P. Bryennios in 1883, the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles has continued to be one of the most disputed of early Christian texts. It has been depicted by scholars as anything between the original of the Apostolic Decree (c. 50
C.E.)! and a late archaizing fiction of the early third century.? It bears no date itself, nor does it make any reference to any datable external event, yet the picture of the Church which it presents could only be described as primitive, reaching back to the very earliest stages of the Church's order and practice in a way which largely agrees with the picture presented by the New Testament, while at the same time posing questions for many traditional interpretations of this first period of the Church's life. Fragments of the Didache were found at Oxyrhyncus (POxy 1782) from the fourth century and in Coptic translation (PLond Or 9271) from the 3/4th century. Traces of the use of this text, and the high regard it enjoyed, are widespread in the literature of the second and third centuries, especially in Syria and Egypt. It was used by the compilator of the Didascalia (c. 2/3rd)3 and the Liber Graduum (c.
3/4th), as well as being absorbed in toto by the Apostolic Constitutions VII (c. 3/4th) and partially by the Coptic and Ethiopic
Church Orders,* after which it ceased to circulate independently.
1 A. Seeberg argued for this connection in various books, e.g. Die Beiden Wege und das Aposteldekret (Leipzig: Deichert, 1906). More recently C. N. Jefford
("Tradition and Witness in Antioch: Acts 15 and Didache 6" in E. V. McKnight, Perspectives on Contemporary New Testament Questions [Lewiston: Mellen, 1992
(Perspectives in Religious Studies 19)] pp. 409-419, esp. 87; cf. "An Ancient Witness to the Apostolic Decree of Acts 15?" in Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 10 [1990] pp. 204-213) has raised the issue of the relationship between the Didache and the Apostolic Decree of Acts again in a modified form, "...it seems apparent that some form of the Apostolic Decree has been utilized as the foundational structure for Didache 6".
2 E.g. J. A. Robinson, Barnabas, Hermas and the Didache (London: SPCK, 1902); R. H. Connolly, "The Didache in Relation to the Epistle of Barnabas", JTS
33 (1932) pp. 327-353; J. Muilenburg, The Literary Relations of the Epistle of Barnabas and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Marburg: no publisher given,
1929 [Yale Dissertation]); C. Bigg (The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles (London:
SPCK, 1922] pp. xxvi-xxvii) dates it as late as the fourth century.
3 See R. H. Connolly, "The Use of the Didache in the Didascalia", JTS 24 (1923) pp. 147-157.
4 See G. Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles or Canones Ecclesiastici (London:
Williams & Norgate, 1904).
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
Athanasius describes it as "appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness".5 Hence a date for the Didache in its present form later than the second century must be considered unlikely, and a date before the end of the first century probable.°
In the absence of external criteria for dating the Didache more closely, the problem resolves itself into a question concerning possible sources, and especially concerning its relation to the Jesus tradition in the Gospel and to the Epistle of Barnabas, to which it presents extensive parallel material in chs.
1-6.
Robinson, Connolly and Muilenburg, among others, saw the Didache as having borrowed and re-arranged the so-called "Two
Ways" material from Barnabas 18-20. This would make the Didache a second century work, whose object was to codify and order material it considered to be "apostolic", so that any echo of the New Testament may be taken as evidence of literary dependence. A. Harnack had already taken such a position, declaring the Didache's purpose to be a harmony of the gospel material on the basis primarily of Matthew.? A number of scholars preferred to see Barnabas as dependent on the Didache,® and the Didache as being thus contemporaneous with the formation of the written gospels. The Two Ways material was held to be derived from an earlier Jewish work of catechesis for proselytes, which was taken up and modified by the Christian community. The discovery of a Latin document entitled Doctrina apostolorum consisting of Did.
1-6 without 1:3b-2:1, gave considerable weight to this argument.?
5 Festal Letters 39:7.
© A new consensus is emerging for a date c.100 C.E. This is represented for instance by W. Rordorf and A. Tuilier, La Doctrine des Douze Apétres (Paris: Les
Editions du Cerf, 1978 [SC 248)]).
1 Die Lehre der zwolf Apostel (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1884 [reprint 1893, TU 2,12]) pp. 63-88. Harnack later changed his mind about the origin of the Two Ways, seeing it as derived from a Jewish catechetical document. See Die Didache und die jiidischen beiden Wege (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1886 [reprint 1896])
8 E.g. P. Schaff, The Oldest Church Manual Called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Edinburgh: Clark, 1885) p. 119-125; C. Taylor, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Cambridge: Deighton Bell, 1886); C. H. Turner, "The Early
Christian Ministry and the Didache", in Studies in Early Church History (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1912) pp.
1-31; G. Klein, Der dlteste christliche Katechismus und die jiidische Propaganda-Literatur (Berlin: Reimer, 1909).
9 See E. J. Goodspeed, "The Didache, Barnabas and the Doctrina", AThR 27 (1945) pp. 228-247 for the argument that the Doctrina represents the direct source for the Two Ways in the other two documents. There are substantial problems in the way of this hypothesis, since it differs at key points from both of them, e.g. the dualist tradition of the two angels set over the Two Ways in the Doctrina, where the Didache has a purely ethical framework (cf. Rordorf & Tuilier, La Doctrine, pp.
27f). The document was first published by J. Schlecht, Doctrina XII Apostolorum. Die Apostellehre in der Liturgie der katholischen Kirche (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Herder, 1901). Opponents of the theory of a Jewish source held this to be an abridgement of the Didache, e.g. J. Muilenburg (Literary Relations, p. 42) calls
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
However, it was not until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that the study of the Didache was able to move out of the impasse over its use of sources. The so-called Manual of Discipline (1QS
3:13-4:26) proved to present a Two Ways teaching remarkably close to the material in Barnabas, the Didache and the Doctrina, both in content and in structure.
It was demonstrated by J-P.
Audet!° that the Doctrina was closer in several respects to the Manual of Discipline than either Barnabas or the Didache. Hence, while the recension of the Two Ways evidenced by these three works may already have received Christian modifications, the teaching as a block existed already as Jewish catechetical material.!!
This discovery led Audet to a radical re-assessment of the relationship between the Didache and the Jesus tradition.!? He argued for a composition of the Didache in three phases: 1:1-11:2
(without 1:3b-2:1) written before the emergence of a written gospel; 11:3-16:8 written by the same author under the pressure of changed circumstances in the knowledge of a written proGospel, and finally various additions (including 1:3b-2:1) made at a later date by an interpolator, who nevertheless did not have any gospel as we know it today. Audet's theory sets the origin of the Didache entirely between 50 and 70 C.E. This is somewhat of a romantic over-simplification, since a closer examination of the text shows signs of considerable redactional activity, which defies any theory of a unity of composition, even allowing for the activity of an interpolator.!3 The Didache is a composite work, it "a homiletical extract and not a true copy or translation".
10 "A ffinités littéraires et doctrinales du "Manuel de discipline"", RB 59 (1952) pp. 219-238.
11 R. A. Kraft (Barnabas and the Didache [New York: Nelson, 1965 (AF 3)] p.
9) argues that the Doctrina represents "the immediate source upon which the final author-editor of the Didache drew for his Two Ways material", while Barnabas is
"the most primitive offshoot from the ancient common stock". The question of the relationship between Barnabas and the Didache has been re-opened by J. A.
Draper, "Barnabas and the Riddle of the Didache Revisited", JSNT 58 (1995) pp.
89-113. This article suggests that Barnabas may be deliberately polemicizing against the Jewish Christian use of the Two Ways for catechesis, as epitomized by the Didache.
!2 La Didaché (Paris: Gabalda, 1959) pp. 166-186.
13 Note, for example, the fluctuation between the singular and plural of the Second Person in chs. 7 and 13. Although Audet notices this, he draws the wrong conclusion. It is the Second Person Plural which is the mark of the later redaction, modifying the intimate tone of catechesis in favour of the collective plural of liturgical use in the community. See further my argument in A Commentary on the Didache in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Documents (Cambridge
Dissertation, 1983) pp. 145-148, 258-259. J. A. T. Robinson (Redating the New Testament [London: SCM, 1976] pp. 322-327) agrees with Audet in his dating of the Didache before 70 C.E.
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
which has evolved over a considerable period, from its beginning as a Jewish catechetical work, which was taken up and developed by the Church into a manual of Church life and order. The text was repeatedly modified in line with changes in the practice of the communities which used it.!4 Thus the core of 1-6 is Jewish and pre-Christian (c. 100 B.C.E. to 50 C.E.) and the work as a whole had probably received its present form by the end of the first century C.E. However, the full text of the Didache, apart from its use in the Apostolic Constitutions and the various fragments, is available only in a manuscript (H54) from the eleventh century. It cannot be assumed that this text, accurate as it may be, does not contain alterations made considerably later than the first or even second century. Moreover the tendency in the transmission would always be towards harmonization with the written gospels and with the later practice of the Church. Thus divergence in the Didache with regard to the Jesus tradition in the Synoptic Gospels must be held to be specially significant and indicative of an independent witness, unless it can be demonstrated that a later redactor would have had a motive in altering the form of the text.!5
Here I disagree with C. M. Tuckett, who bases his discussion of the dependence of the Didache on Matthew and Luke on a detailed and admirably thorough examination of whether its text is dependent on "Q" itself or on the Matthean and Lukan redactions of "Q". However, this is a tenuous procedure, since we do not possess "Q" and even its existence in written form is questionable. 6
It could equally well be argued, for instance, on the assumption 14 J. A. Draper, "Torah and Troublesome Apostles in the Didache Community",
Novum Testamentum 33/4, 347-372." Cf. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, p. 2.
15 Cf. W. Rordorf, "Problame de la transmission" in F. Paschke, Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag,
1981 [TU 125]
pp. 499-513; reprinted in W. Rordorf, Liturgie, foi et vie des premiers chrétiens.
Etudes patristiques {Paris: Beauchesne, 1986 (ThH75)]) p. 503. C. M. Tuckett ("Synoptic Tradition in the Didache" in J.-M. Sevrin, The New Testament in Early
Christianity (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 1989 [BEThL 86]) p. 197-230, esp. 199 n. 11) argues against me here that the Didache is not "quotation" but a free allusion to the written Gospel tradition. This reasoning, however, seems to me to beg the question of literary relationship, since we do not know, in fact, which writing came first, the Didache or Matthew. The reference to the use of the Old
Testament in Paul raised by K. Wengst (Didache (Apostellehre)—Barnabas-Zweiter Klemensbrief—Schrift an Diognet [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1984 (SUC 2)] p. 30) and cited by approvingly by Tuckett, is not apposite, since there is no question that Paul knew and used the Old Testament.
16 Cf. W. Rordorf, "Does the Didache Contain Jesus Tradition Independently of the Synoptic Gospels?" in H. Wansbrough, Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press [JSNTSup 64]) pp. 398-401, esp. pp. 411-412;
Niederwimmer, Die Didache (Géttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht [KAV 1)]) p.
108.
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
that the Didache is independent of both gospels, that an agreement of either with the Didache establishes the original form of "Q".
Il.
Because the Didache is a composite work, its evidence concerning the Jesus tradition must be evaluated differently for different sections of the work. The bulk of the tradition is found in 1:3b-2:1; 8 and 15:3-4, which appear to represent the latest redactional phase of the Didache, although still added before the end of the first century.!7 Here the concern is to subordinate the teaching contained in the Didache to the authority of the written Gospel (@¢
&kéNevoev 6 Kbploc év TO evaryyeniw adTod, 8:2; ao ExeTe év TO evayyeni, 15:3; Kai maoag Tag mpaéELG AUTW ToLhoUTE, CS
EyeTe év TQ evaryyediw Tod Kupiov nuav, 15:4),!8 just as the teaching of Jesus becomes the "first teaching" of the Way of Life
(1:3), displacing the Torah to a "second teaching"
(2:1).
However, it cannot be assumed without more ado that the reference is to a written and not an oral Gospel, or that we have to do here with our Synoptic Gospels. Further important material relating to the Jesus tradition is contained in the "apocalypse" of chapter 16, although here the basis of the teaching may well derive, all or in part, from the original schema of the Two Ways and may not be simply equated with the Jesus tradition.!9
Apparent echoes of the Jesus tradition outside these sections should be examined with great caution, since they may well derive from a Jewish Urtext, and even if they are the product of a Christian community, they may reflect the general milieu of the 17 W. Rordorf ("Probléme de la transmission", pp. 499-513, esp. 509-513) has argued that 1:3b-2:1 was inserted by the Didachist (compiler) who added chs. 7-13 to the Two Ways. He evokes two key pieces of evidence. The first is the relation between vnotevery in 1:3b to the twice weekly fast in 8:1. This is a somewhat tenuous link it seems to me. The other is more convincing: the link between xai fon
Tédevog and ov6é yap divaca: in 1:4 with the same expressions in 6:2. This provides evidence that both pericopes come from the same Jewish milieu. The other connections cited by Rordorf are more circumstantial than inherent.
18 | regard the phrases cai moodntav, kaT& Td d6yya Tod edayyediov odTw motnoare in 11:3 to be a redactional insertion to the instructions on apostles, along with the rest of the material relating to prophets. This material may also derive from the same redactional layer, in that the prophets are the purveyors of the Jesus tradition. See further my articles, "Torah and Troublesome Apostles in the Didache
Community", Novum Testamentum 33/4 (1991) pp. 347-372; "Social Ambiguity and the Production of Text: Prophets, Teachers, Bishops, and Deacons and the Development of the Jesus Tradition in the Community of the Didache" in C. N. Jefford, The Didache in Context: Essays on its Text, History and Transmission
(Leiden: Brill, 1995) pp. 284-313. x 19 See E. Bammel, "Schema und Vorlage von Didache 16" in F. L. Cross (ed.),
Studia Patristica IV (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961 [TU-79]), pp. 253-262.
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
i earliest Christian communities rather than a use of the Jesus tradition.
The possible parallels in the Two Ways (1-6) material prove mostly to be independent of the Jesus tradition. 2:2 forms part of midrashic expansion of the Decalogue; 3:7 forms part of the Tugendkatalog from the earliest stratum of the Way of Life (cf.
1QS 4:3) which has been embellished from Psalm 36:11.2° The reference of 6:2 is to the yoke of the Torah and not the "easy" yoke of Jesus, as the reference to the ritual food laws in 6:3 shows.?! Only in 1:2b does it appear that the teaching of Jesus has influenced the text of the Two Ways. The original reference in the Jewish tradition was in the first instance to @yamioeic Tov Oedv
TOV ToLHoOMVYTa oe, Since a stress on God as Creator is an essential part of the Two Ways, subordinating the incipient dualism to the requirements of Jewish monotheism (as in 1QS 3:15f; 9:26f; 11:6,
11, 18; CD 2:21; 3:8). Then the second component of the Way of Life referred to the keeping of God's commandments, as in Deuteronomy 30:16. The combination of these two elements survives in Barnabas 19:2, ayamhoewg Tov TovfoavTa Ge...00 ph
EyKaTanrinns évTokas Kupiov. The use in 1:2b of mp@rov and debTepov to describe God and neighbour love as a summary of the Law seems to require the influence of the Christian tradition found also in Matthew 22:37-39, despite the fact that a deep rooted
Jewish tradition lay behind the teaching of Jesus.22 The question of literary dependence is raised acutely, but not settled, by this pericope.?3
20 The Doctrina makes it clear that it belongs within the context of Jewish hope by its addition of sanctam terram (Audet, Didaché, pp. 132f; S. Giet, L'énigme de la Didaché (Paris: Ophrys [PFLUS 149]) p. 112 n. 67.
21 See A. Stuiber, "Das ganze Joch des Herrn (Didache 6:2-3)", in F. L. Cross, Studia Patristica TV (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961 [TU 79]) pp. 323-329. Stuiber argues that this represents a part of the purely Jewish Urtext of the Two Ways, which has been taken over by the redactor of the Didache. I have argued elsewhere that this represents the stance of the Jewish Christian community of the Didache
("Torah and Troublesome Apostles", p. 360-367); contra the ascetic interpretation of R. Knopf, Die Lehre der zwélf Apostel. Die zwei Clemensbriefe (Tiibingen: Mohr
[HNT.E 1]) p. 21; cf. K. H. Rengstorf, "ZTTOL", TDNT Il, pp. 896-901, esp.
901.
22 See K. Berger, Die Gesetzesauslegung Jesu. Ihr historischer Hintergrund im Judentum und im Alten Testament (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag [WMANT 40]) pp. 136f; A. Nissen, Gott und der Néichste im antiken Judentum
(Tiibingen: Mohr [WUNT 15)]) pp. 230-244.
23 C. M. Tuckett ("Synoptic Tradition in the Didache", The New Testament in Early Christianity, pp. 210-211) sees dependence on Matthew as the "simplest solution" to this. C. N. Jefford (The Sayings of Jesus in the Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles [Leiden: Brill, 1989 (VigChr.E 11)] pp. 36-37) has argued, however, that this represents "a common tradition of scriptural interpretation". His conclusion is supported by Rordorf ("Jesus Tradition", pp. 398-401).
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
Il.
In the liturgical instructions of Did. 7, 9-14, there are few direct parallels with the Jesus tradition. The Trinitarian baptismal formula in 7:1 is probably a later redactional retouch, since a slightly different formula is given in 7:3, and the earlier formula ei¢
5voua kupiov has survived in 9:5. Both formulae are taken from current liturgical practice and not from any written source.*4 The eucharistic prayers of Did. 9-10 seem close to the language of John 6:14, but they are closer still to the language of the Jewish
Berakoth (see b.Ber 35a) and to the Jewish hope for the eschatological ingathering of the diaspora.2> Moreover, the "Johannine" language of "life" and "knowledge" is now well attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, so that they can be seen to form part of the milieu in which the Didache originated. In any case, the eucharistic prayers in the Didache were likely already to have been long an accepted part of the life of the Church and were certainly not a literary composition of the Didachist. The saying in 9:5 (uy d7e 76 &ytov Toic Kvoi) is attributed to the "Lord", but the meaning is quite different to Matthew 7:6, since it is used in a cultic purity sense to justify exclusion of the unbaptized from the eucharistic meal. A similar saying is found also in m.Tem 6:5, where it seems to be cited as an authoritative saying, and it is matched by Essene practice recorded by Josephus in AJ XVIII.22 and by 1QS 5:13. It may thus represent a Jewish mashal which was attributed to Jesus by the Matthean Redactor in Matthew 7:6.
The use of the saying in the Didache seems to argue against its having been taken from Matthew, but rather from the Jewish milieu.26
The saying in 11:1-2 concerning false teachers seems to have connections with Mt 5:17-20, and to be directed towards the problem of the status of the Torah in the Christian movement. There is no certainty, however, that a literary dependence of the Didache
24 The liturgical usage may well have influenced the text of Matthew also at this point, so that the original reference of Mt 28:19 was to "the name" only, as in most citations by Eusebius. See among others, F. C. Coneybeare, "The Eusebian Form of the Matt 28:19 Text", ZNW 2 (1901) pp. 275-288; E. Lohmeyer, "Mir ist gegeben alle Gewalt!" in W. Schmauch (ed.), In Memoriam Ernst Lohmeyer (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1951) pp. 22-49. For a fuller bibliography, see Draper, Commentary, p. 146 n. 8.
25 See L. Clerici, Einsammlung der Zerstreuten. Liturgiegeschichtliche Untersuchung zur Vorund Nachgeschichte der Fiirbitte fiir die Kirche in Did. 9:4 und
10:5 (Minster: Westfalen, 1966 [LQF 44]).
26 The "Lord" referred to would then be the Lord of the Old Testament and not Jesus. Cf. Audet, Didaché, p. 173; Rordorf, "Jesus Tradition", p. 422.
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
on Matthew would solve the problem, and it may even be more easily explained by a reverse influence of Matthew on the Didache, as | have argued elsewhere.2? Although 11:3 refers specifically to 76 56ypa Tod evaryyediov, the only echoes of the written Gospel in what follows are very faint. In 11:7 there is a parallel with Mt 12:32, but the sense is different, since it identifies blasphemy against the Holy Spirit with refusing to accept the authority of a prophet speaking év mvetuari. On the other hand
13:1-2 is close to the wording of Mt 10:10, mac apodyrne- /dtdkoKadoG....&£t0¢ &oTt THS ToOdhc abrod. This saying of Jesus seems to have circulated independently of the written Gospels as we know them today, since it is found also in 1 Cor 9:13f and 1
Tim 5:18. It may also be rooted in Jewish wisdom tradition. The instruction of 14:2 is close to the sense of Mt 5:23f, although the wording is clearly independent. In all these examples, there is no proof of a dependence on Mt, rather a suggestion of independence.
IV.
Turning now to the Jesus tradition in 1:3b-2:1, it is important to notice first of all that the material is not attributed to a written
Gospel, indeed it is not even cited as the teaching of Jesus. Moreover, it is interspersed with material from the Wisdom tradition
(1:5-6), given all together as the distilled essence of the Way of Life. While the wording of the sayings is closest to Mt 5-7, they are given in a quite different order, with significant differences of wording, and interwoven with other material, some of which is found in Lk 6, and some of which is independent of both Gospels.
In some respects the Didache is closer to the collection of material in Justin, Apology 1.16 than to either Matthew or Luke. In other words, this material in Did. 1:3b-2:1 draws on material found also in the collection of sayings which is often referred to as the source
"Q" in Matthew and Luke. The question arises as to whether it derives the material from the written gospels and harmonizes it, or whether it draws directly on "Q" or a similar source. For ease of reference, the material is set out below:
Did. 1:3b evdoyEiTEe TOUS KATAPwWpLEVOUG LLY Kal Tpooevxecbe UTep TOV EXOpaV LUa?, pnorevete 5é UTep TOV SuWKOvTWY Lua.
Tod yap xapic éav pudyte TovSG hidrodvTac buds; OXI Kal TA EBV TO AUTO 27 Draper, "Torah and Troublesome Apostles", p. 357-360.
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
movovaww" vpetc dé didEiTE TOVS pLGOdPTAC bpac, Kal ovx ete ExOpov.
Mt 5:44, 46 OYANTATE TOUS ExOpovs vpav Kat Tpovetxeode i butép TOV SLwKOvTMV YLaC. éav yap ayannonre TOUS QyaravTac bpas Tiva peobor & EXETES OUXL Kat Oi
TEA@VAL TO AUTO TOLOVOLY;
Ek 6327,,28.,32 ayanare TOUS ExOpods t vpev, KaA@S Tovetre Tots prcovow ipac, evAoyetTe TovS
KATApPwMEvOUS bpac, Tpoceixecbe wept TOV émnpeafovTav vpas. Kail el ayarare TOUS ayaTravras bac, Toia div xapic éoTiv; Ka of &wapTwrol TOvS ayaTravTac autos ayaTGow.
Justin, 7 Apol 15:14 evxeobe t omép TOV EXOpar t bpar, Kal QYATATE TovS pLLoovvTac bya, Kal avdoyeire TovS KOT OPWMEVOUS opty, Kal evxeobe t brép TOV émmpen Sovrew i bac.
Justin, J Apol 15:13 él ayanarEe TOUS ayaravrag bpac, Ti KQLVOV TOLELTE; Kal yap oi TOpVvoL TOUTO
TOLOvoL.
Did. 1:4a QTEXOU TOV CApPKiKay EXLOULL@Y. EGY TiC oot 6@ paTiopa eic THY deELaY CLaAyOra, OTpEWov AUT® kai THY AAAHPY, Kal Eon TEELOC.
Mt 5:39, 48 GAN' GoTig o& paTifer sic THY SeELav oLayova, oTPEWov AVT@ Kal THY GAAnY™ Eoeobe ouv vpetc TEdELOL.
Lk 6:29a T@ TUNTOVTL O& ETL THY CLaryOva TApEXE Kal THY @ANNY.
Justin, 7 Apol 16:1
T@ TUNTOVTL COU THY CLaryOva TapEXe Kai
THY aAANP.
; a Did. 1:4b EQV @yyapEvon o€ TiC piLOV Ev, Uxaye Bet' avtod dbo" sav App Tic 70 iwariov gov, 80g aivT@ Kal TOV XtT@va éav AaBn Tlg &TO God 76 OO, UH aTaiTEer OvSE yap dvvacat.
Mt 5:41, 40 Kat bores OE ayyapevoet piduov Ev, travye BéT avTOD dvo" Kat T@ OédovTi cot KpiBjvau Kal TOV XiT@Va ov NaBeEiv, &dec
QUT@ Kai 70 iperiov.
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
Lk 6:29b, 30 Kal &TS Gov TO iwarioy Kai TOV XLTaVE [LH Kwdvong, Kal amd TOD alpovTog TH OX [iH aTairet.
Justin, J Apol 16:2, 1b mwavti 5& @yyapetorTi oe pidov akodovOnoov dbo. Kat Tov alpovTa cov TOV
XiTGva H 70 iariov wy KwAvoNG. Sc 5' av OpyLoOn Evoxds ~oTL Eig TO TIP.
TAVTL TH airovrTi oe Sidov Kai pH aTaiTeL.
Tao. yap Oédet SidooPat 6 TATHP &K TOV idiwy Xaplo"paTur.
Did. 1:5a Mt 5:42
T® aitovyti os 56c¢, Kai Tov O€NoVTA ATO ood Savicacbar un aTooTpAd |e.
Lk 6:30
TavtTi aitovvti os didov.
Justin, J Apol 15:15
Tavti T@ aitovvtt didote, Kat Tov Bovdopevor Saveionobat un aToOoTPAdTTE.
E. paKxaplog 0 Sd00¢ KaTa THY évTONHV' aO@o¢g yap éoTLV. Oval TS Kap Bavovtu' Ei pév yap xpsiav Exwv KapBaver Tic, WA@OC éora. 0 68 wy xpsiav Exwv Sacer Sixnv watt E\aBe Kai sic Ti.
Did. 1:5b Cf. Acts 20:35. é F, év ovvoxn 5& yevopevoc e€eTaoOnoeTau TEept av Empacke, Kai oun é&ehevoeTar éxelOev "EXplc OV ATOS@ TOV EoXxaTov
KOOPQVTNV.
Did. 1:5c Mt 5:25, 26 Kai eic dvdaKknv BNnOjon. aunv héyw ipiv, ov wn &&€NOnc Exeibev, Ewo Gv aT0dQ¢ TOV EoxaTOV KOdpavTny.
Lk 12:58f Kal 0 TPaKTWp oe Bade eic PuAAKHY.
Aéyw oot ov pn &EENONG Exeiber, Ew Kal
TO EOXATOV NETTOV ATOSOS.
(G:
GAA Kal Tept TOUTO 5é EipnTaL' EdpwoaTw N é\enpoobvn gov Eig TAS XELPAC OoU, péxpig GY yvas Tim Sac.
Did. 1:6
Cf. Sirach 12:1
The peculiarities of the Didache's version of these sayings cannot be attributed to late glosses, since no doctrinal point is implied in
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
any of them, and the Greek of the Didache is often clumsier than that of the Synoptic Gospels, so that they cannot be derived from stylistic corrections. The first groups of sayings (A) agrees first with the Lukan text, and then with Justin against Matthew/Luke in the saying: (mpoo)evxeo0e inép Tav éxOpGv buav and presents a third member found nowhere else, which forms a climax: vyorevtete 58 dns TaV dSwwKdvTwy bpac.2® The connection between prayer and fasting (which is seen as increasing the potency of prayer) is a common Jewish understanding.?? The Didache gives diAjTe...dcrodvTac...pureite against the Synoptic a@ya7Gze... ayaTtobvrac...vyaTtare; this reading is attested by the POxy fragment and the Apostolic Constitutions, which otherwise harmonizes the text of the Didache with Luke at this point. The tendency of the tradition was inexorably towards the use of GyaTaw, so this reading is important (cf. also JgnPol 2:1). The Didache uses &6vn for &paptwdoi in Luke and teA@vou in Matthew (cf. é@vixoi in 5:47) and zépvor in Justin. In-this the Didache presents most clearly the Jewish perspective, which is surprising in a work directed towards the Gentiles, a the longer title of the work suggests: Avédax% kupiov dia Tov b@deKa ATOOTOAWV TOTS
&6veo.v.>° It may well attest a very old tradition.
Finally, the Didache includes a puzzling sentence not attested elsewhere: xai odx fete éx6pé6v. This is best taken as a prohibition climaxing the teaching.?! Tuckett32 argues that toia yap xapic is dependent on Lk 6:32-34, which evidences an attack on "the morality determined by a reciprocity ethic". However, again, the wording is not identical to Luke's zoia tytvy xapic éoriv; and, while we may prefer Luke's sophisticated critique of this ancient ethic, this is no evidence for its priority. If the Didache "fails to see its significance" it may be simply that it does not know the Lukan text, rather than because it is obtuse.33 This style of argu28 H. Késter (Synoptische Uberlieferung bei den Apostolischen Vater (Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag, 1957 (TU 65)] p. 224) sees this as a sign of a late date.
2° See Behm, NHETIZ, TDNT IV, p. 928; G. G. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim II (New York: Schocken,
1958) p. 261; M. Mees, "Die Bedeutung der Sentenzen und ihrer Auxesis fiir die Formung der Jesuworte nach Didache 1:3b-2:1", VetChr 8 (1971) pp. 55-76, esp.
68f.
3° Cf. Rordorf, "Jesus Tradition", pp. 402-403, contra Tuckett, "Synoptic Tradition", pp. 222-223; Jefford, Sayings of Jesus, pp. 46-47.
31 Cf. Audet, Didache, p. 264. R. Knopf (Die Lehre der zwolf Apostel [Tiibingen: Mohr (HNT.E 1)] p. 7) sees here a lost gospel tradition.
32 "Synoptic Tradition", pp. 223-224, citing the argument of W. C. van Unnik, "Die Motivierung der Feindesliebe in Lukas VI 32-35", NT 8 (1966) pp. 288-300.
33 Rordorf ("Jesus Tradition", p. 403-404) accepts the presence of the "reciprocity ethic", but argues that the Didache does indeed critique it in that, "my enemy's conduct should not give me any pretext to give him a dose of his own medicine, namely hate; rather should I seize the initiative by loving him, so that he also may learn to love me".
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
ment depends on the dubious assumption that the earliest text is the most insightful and theologically sound, before the Friihkatholisierungsprozess corrupted the vision of the nascent church.
In this group of sayings (A), the Didache thus presents an independent text which cannot realistically be viewed as a harmony of the Gospels. It seems to have independent access to the traditions on which the Gospels also draw.
In the second group of sayings (B), the Didache contrasts the desires of the flesh34 with the way of perfection, which is that of turning the other cheek. This sophisticated setting for the saying is not to be found in other witnesses.35 However, the form of the text, while close to Matthew, appears the more primitive since 5@ pamiopa is clumsy Greek compared with Matthew's paiter.36
In the third group (C), the Didache presents a text close to Matthew in wording, but following Luke in the order ipériov/ xiT@va against Matthew. As in Luke, this saying is followed by the heightening saying éav AGBy Ti¢ &TO God Td COV MH aTaiTEL
(Luke &76 Tod atpovtog T& od...uc& &Taiter) and its has further climax in o06é yap divaca: (whose exact meaning is problematic, perhaps, "You are in any case not able to do so").37 In this section, as in the others which have been examined, the Didache has the longest text. Glover sees in this the sign of a greater faithfulness to a source which Matthew and Luke abbreviate and refine.38
Against this it has been asserted that the Didache arranges the material in a deliberately climactic style to heighten its effectiveness as catechesis.39
This does not, however, prove which arrangement of the material is the earlier one.
34 kai owpaTtixay should be omitted since it is absent from POxy and Const has a different reading also, cai koopuxar.
35 Note however Gal 5:16f.
36 See R. Glover, "The Didache's Quotations and the Synoptic Gospels", NTS 5 (1958-1959) pp. 14f. It is interesting to note also Jn 18:22, fwxev pamiopa TH
"Inood. Tuckett ("Synoptic Tradition", pp. 225-226) argues that this may simply be the result of the Didache's freedom in the use of his sources.
37 Cf. Giet, Enigme, p. 59; Mees, "Auxesis", p. 64. Tuckett ("Synoptic Tradition", pp. 229-230) again implies a (from his perspective necessarily later) backsliding from a difficult original saying, to provide a "worldly comment on the slightly puzzling preceding clause". Tuckett argues that the Didache is here dependent on the Lukan redaction of the "Q" tradition.
38 "The greater brevity and stylistic improvements of the synoptics again recall the changes they made in the text of Mark when he was their source"
("Quotations", p. 15).
39 Cf. B. Layton ("The Sources, Date and Transmission of Didache 1:3b-2:1", HUCA 61 [1968] pp. 343-383) who takes this approach. However his assertion that the Didache deliberately disguised his "plagiarization" of Scripture is absurd. The tendency was not to disguise but towards harmony with the Gospels, unless an author had theological motives. Moreover, Layton's assumption that rhetorical climax is a mark of later redaction is dubious.
It is found already within the Gospels.
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
The fourth section (D) in the Didache turns to the question of alms giving, which preoccupies the rest of the material (E-G). In doing so, the Didache applies a saying to entreaty for alms which in Luke applies to what is demanded by force (mavti 7@ aitobyTi oe 6idov). Matthew has a similar saying applied to lending in 5:42 with quite different wording: 7@ aitodyti oe 56¢ Kal Tov O€dovTa a6 ood davioncbou pH &mooTpadyns. The Didache amplifies this saying with material drawn from the Two Ways: maa yap 0édet didoo0cu 6 TaTHp &k TOV idiwy xaptouatwv. (See Doctrina 4:8, omnibus enim dominus dare uult de donis suis. Cf. HermMan 11.4;
Dida 4:3). Its original reference, as the Doctrina shows, was to alms giving within the community, but the Didache universalizes its reference to include even ones enemies, as the context suggests
(1:4).
A further saying, attested also in HermMan II.5-6, is introduced (E) in the form of a macarism. It seems to be reflected also in Acts 20:35 and 1 Clem 2:1, where it is attributed to the Lord
Jesus Christ.4° Késter+! is skeptical of its origin as a saying of Jesus, preferring to see in it a Jewish proverb.
The short pericope concerning prison (F) has an eschatological reference in Matthew and Luke. Judgment is coming and it is imperative to put one's affairs right while there is still time. The eschatological context is clearest in Luke. The same context probably lies behind the Didache. The person who takes alms without needing them shall give account not to a human court but to the heavenly judge before whom he shall be examined
(éfe7a0oOjoeTau Kept wv Enpaée). The use of the word ovvoxn in the Didache is striking, since it is a rare word meaning literally
"compression" and hence "distress"
.42 Only one possible instance of a use cognate with duvAaky is recorded (PLond 354.24) and even this is debatable. The word may rest on an Aramaic word such as 7¥7) which could be rendered either @uAaKy or obvoxy.
The wording differs considerably throughout the pericope from that in Matthew/Luke. The final saying (G) draws on a version of Sirach 12:1 which is independent of LXX, as a proof text from Scripture for the teaching.43
In none of these sayings from the Jesus tradition and the wisdom tradition can a dependence on either Matthew or Luke be demonstrated. Rather, the variation in order and wording seen in 40 Cf. Glover, "Quotations", p. 15f.
41 Uberlieferung, pp. 231-237.
42 BAG, p. 799.
Bek See P. W. Skehan, "Didache 1:6 and Sirach 12:1", Bib 44 (1963) pp. 533-
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
both the Didache and Justin indicates an independence over against the written sources in Matthew/Luke which is indicative of a time when the Gospel tradition was still in the process of formation. It may be that such collections of material had long been used in catechesis before they were finally inserted into the Didache, and indeed, such collections may well lie behind the Sermon on the Mount/Plain in Matthew/Luke.'4 Most important, for our purposes, is that all these parallels are from what is traditionally called "Q" material in Matthew/Luke, and there is no trace of Markan material.
If the Didache had our Synoptic Gospels in their present form before it, it seems hard to understand how he could consistently have excluded Markan material present in Matthew and Luke and only drawn on "Q" material. It would seem a more likely inference that the Didache had access directly to the so-called "Q" material, either in a written or an oral form.
Vi Didache 8 does seem to know a written or oral gospel close to the present text of Matthew. This is indicated by wo éxé\evoev 6
Kuplog év T@ evaryyediw avTov, as also by the reference to the vmoxpita (cf. Mt 6:1-6) and by the closeness of the text of the Lord's Prayer to that of Mt 6:9-13. Moreover Did. 8 appears to be a later addition to the earliest text of the Didache. It is inserted after the reference to the baptismal fast in 7:4, but it has a quite different reference to "stationary fasts" and daily prayer. It breaks up the natural flow in the catechetical manual from baptism to the eucharist. Moreover, it is not introduced by the formula which characterizes the liturgical sections of the Didache (mepi 5€), and in the Ethiopian version it is set after 11:3-13. Nevertheless, the text of Did. 8 exhibits a certain independence with regard to Matthew, which may raise questions as to a simple direct dependence on the present form of the text.45 The sense given to "hypocrites" is quite different to that in Matthew, where it is insincerity which is under attack. Here the term simply designates the Jewish opponents of the community.*® 44 "Nous sommes a |'intérieur d'une tradition du Sermon sur la montagne, orale ou écrite relativement uniforme quant a l'expression et relativement homogéne quant au contenu", Audet, Didache, p. 266.
45 For a more thorough examination of this section of the Didache, see J. A.
Draper, "Christian Self-Definition against the Hypocrites in Didache 8", in E. H.
Lovering, Society of Biblical Literature 1992 Seminar Papers, 362-377. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press.
46 Cf. Rordorf, "Jesus Tradition", p. 422.
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
The differences in the text of the Lord's Prayer, though minor, may be significant, since it is clearly derived from the liturgy of the community, where it was known by heart (it was to be repeated three times daily, 8:3).47 The Didache has év 7@ odpav@ for Matthew's éy oi¢ odpavoic, and the plural is characteristic of Matthew's editorial activity (5:12=Lk 6:23; 7:11=Lk
11:3; 19:21=Mk 10:21).*8 The Didache also has the singular 7nv édeXHv for Matthew's r& édev\j para, where the tendency in the tradition may be away from the more primitive idea of collective
"debt" towards an understanding of the number of particular sins (Lk r&¢ c&papriac HuGv). Finally the Didache has adiepev for Matthew &d¢ijxayer (Lk &diouer).*® Here Matthew may be concerned to emphasize with the Aorist the requirement of forgiveness as a pre-requisite to divine forgiveness, in view of the logion which follows in Mt 6:14f. The presence of the doxology in the Didache indicates a liturgical use of the Lord's Prayer, and this usage gradually began to invade the text of Matthew also.>°
Did. 15:2-4 seems to have been added at the same redactional stage as Did. 8.
VI.
The "apocalypse" of Didache 16 presents many parallels to Mt 24 and yet demonstrates a clear independence with regard to its text.
It is likely that the basis of Did. 16 was formed by the original eschatological conclusion to the Jewish Two Ways instruction of 1-6.5! Ethical parenesis is underscored by the warning concerning the imminent judgment. This Two Ways tradition appears most clearly in 16:2, which is paralleled by Barnabas 4:9-10 almost verbatim, but may well be behind 16:1 also. Did. 16:1 uses material found in the Jesus tradition in Matthew and Luke, but in a form which could hardly be a harmonization, since it agrees with neither in order or contexts? The Didache agrees with Mt
24:42 in yoryopeire and 24:44 (=Lk 12:40) in yiveo$e Froupor. It is not likely that the Didache has drawn this material directly from Matthew, since the short admonitions would be easily memorized
47 Cf. Ibid., p. 422.
48 See Koster, Uberlieferung, 206.
__* Koster (Ubid., pp. 208f) sees this agreement between the Didache and Luke as indicating what lay in "Q".
% Cf. Did. 9:2, 3; 9:4; 10:2, 4, 5.
3! See E. Bammel, "Schema und Vorlage", p. 253-262; cf. Rordorf, "Jesus Tradition", pp. 412f.
%2 See J-P. Audet, Didaché, pp. 180-182. B. C. Butler ("The Literary Relations of Didache ch xvi", JTS ns. 11 (1960) pp. 265-283), on the other hand, sees the Didache as dependent on Luke.
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
and used in catechism.*? There is a further agreement between the Didache and Lk 12:35, although the wording and the context are different:54
Didache Luke "Ob AoXvoL vpaor py oBeoOnTwoar EoTwoav Wuav ai doditec Kal al oopves Luar pH TEplEefwpméevae Kal ob AVX VOL ExNVEDOWOaY
KQLOMEVOL
Cf. Methodius, Symposium V.2
This imagery seems to have been drawn in part from the general fund of eschatological imagery from Exodus 12:11.55 See Mekhilta
Pis.
VIII.15-20
on this passage and j.Kil IX.32b.9; j.Kert XII.35a.9; New Year Amidah, Petition 3 in the Jewish tradition, as well as Ephesians 6:11f and 1 Peter 1:13 in the Christian tradition. B. C. Butler5¢ thinks that the Didache is here dependent on Luke, but this is unlikely. Rather Luke is here drawing on "Q" material. The same must be said for the relation between 16:3-4 and Mt 24:10-11, where the sense is the same but the wording independent. The picture of the eschatological woes is a common ingredient of Jewish writings.5'7 The only image which particularly calls for comment is that of the sheep and the wolves.
Didache Matthew 7:15
Kal OTpAPHooVTaAL TA TPOBaTa EiC¢ TPOVEXETE ATO TOV WevdoTpodynTav AvKouc
OLTLVES EPKXOVTAL TPOS LLaS év
Cf. AscenIs 2:24f évdvpaow TpoBaTuv Eowbev dé siow XbKOL ApTAVES Cf. Mt 10:16
i600 €y@ ATOOTEARKW UVULAG WS
TpoBaTa év péo@ hikwv Here the text of the Didache could hardly be dependent on Matthew, but the image is undoubtedly related. It may be that an 53 See Koster, Uberlieferung, pp. 176f. On the other hand, R. Bauckham
("Synoptic Parousia Parables and the Apocalypse", NTS 23 (1976-1977) pp. 162176, esp. 169) has seen the Didache saying as a "deparabolized" form of the "Thief in the Night" saying.
54 Cf. Methodius, Symposium V.2. See R. Bauckham, "Synolptic Parables Again", NTS 29 (1983) pp. 129-143, esp. 131f. The wording in the Didache and Methodius may reflect LXX Job 18:5.
55 Cf. Rordorf, "Jesus Tradition", p. 415; contra Tuckett, "Synoptic Tradition", pp. 201-203.
56 "J iterary Relations", pp. 265-283.
57 See for instance 1QH 4; 1QS 3:21-24; 4QFlor 1:8f; SibOr II.165f; Ascenls 3:27ff; ApocPet 1:1; OdesSol 38; Rev 19:2; 16:13; 2 Pet SSI in 3 0E ali Tn 2:18; 4:1. See Further Késter, Uberlieferung, pp. 177-182.
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
Aramaic saying lies behind these texts, such as 9X JX¥7 2202) O'3Nt, where the root 220 would explain OTPAPHIOVTAL and év uéow as well as the extended interpretation of the saying in terms of a disguise. Whatever the semantic background to the saying, it breathes an atmosphere of betrayal and conflict which is absent from the saying in Matthew.>® There is a much closer relationship between the material in 16:5-8 and Mt 24.
Matthew 24:10, 13 Kal T6TE oKaAVdaNLOOHCOVTAL Didache
Kal CKAVSANLOOHOOVTAL TOANOL Kat
@ToNovPTaL
TONNOL....
0 6& UTopeivac Eig TEOS OVTOS own cETaL ol 58 UTopmeivavTes Ev TH TloTEL avTav owlhoovTa UT avTOD TOU
KATOAOELATOS
Matthew 24:30, 31
kai T6TE SAVHGETAL TO ONpELOV TOU
KQL TOTE PAVHOETAL TA ONMELA TIS
adnbsiac TP@Tov onpetov
EKTETQOEWS EV OUDAV@
EiTa Onpeiov Pwvang GaATVYYOS
Kal TO TPLTOV AVAOTAOLG VEKP@V OU
TavrTwy O&...
TOTE OWETAL O KOOLOS TOV KUPLOV
EPXOpmEvoy ETAVW TOV VEPENaV TOU ovpavov viov TOD avOpaTov Ev OUPAVa
KQL TOTE KOWOVTOL TAGAt ai PvAQL
THS YAS Kai OWovTat TOV VLOV TOU avéparov...
EpXOpPEevov ETL TAY VE>ENGV TOV oUpavod...wETaA TANTUYYOS peyadns Kai éx.ovvatovow TOUS
EKAEKTOUG QUTOD EK TAY TEGOAPwY
QVELOV AT AKPOY OUPAVaV EWS TOV
QKP@V QUTOV
There are a number of details in the Didache which show it to be independent of Matthew and perhaps even help to explain the background behind the text of Matthew. In 16:5 (cf. 4Esdr.
6:25), for example, the difficult phrase tz' aitod Tod KaTavé"atosg seems to be faithful to the tradition in which the faithful remnant is purged by suffering like a refiner's fire (Mal
3:2-4). The "curse" which saves is the tipwoic Tio SoKxipacias (16:5) as is seen in the closely parallel texts of Hermas, Vis IV.3,
4 and | Peter 4:12.59
58 See J. A. Draper, "Social Ambiguity and the Production of Text: Prophets, Teachers, Bishops,and Deacons and the Development of the Jesus Tradition in the Community of the Didache" in C. N. Jefford; The Didache in Context: Essays of Its oy History and Transmission (Leiden: Brill, 1995 [NT.E 77]) pp. 284-313, esp.
84f.
°° For a further discussion of this passage see A. Milavec, "The Saving Efficacy of the Burning Process in Didache 16.5", in The Didache in Context, pp. 131-155;
N. Pardee, "The Curse that Saves (Didache 16.5)", Ibid., pp. 156-176; J. A.
Draper, "Resurrection and the Cult of Martyrdom in the Didache Apocalypse",
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
The onpeta of the Didache are also true to the tradition on which Mt 24:30f depends.® The meaning of the Didache is somewhat obscured by the translation of two Hebrew words NX and 03 respectively by the same Greek word onpeiov (as also in LXX).
The onpeta of the Didache are also true to the tradition on which Mt 24:30f depends. The onueia riic adnOeiac are the NINN nyaXn, true signs by which the heavenly Son of Man will be known, as opposed to the false signs given by the World Deceiver to pervert the world (16:4). The first sign (onpeiov éxmeTa&oews év ovpav@), however, is the O°2W2 WD 03, the totem promised by Isaiah 11:10 which the Messiah would raise to rout the nations and gather in the exiles of Israel.*1 This is confirmed by the extensive commentary in the Targum to Isaiah whenever
appears in the Old Testament (eg. Is 10:11 ff; 18:3; 31:9). Jn 3:14 makes the same connection between the serpent set up as a 03
(Num 21:4-9) and the cross as the sign of the Son of Man. The reason the nations mourn at the appearing of the sign of the Son of Man in Matthew is because the banner of the Messiah has been set up to rout the nations and gather in the diaspora. This banner was identified by the Church with the cross of Christ, and indeed even the word éxmercéoic, like the Hebrew 75 suggested crucifixion
(cf. Dida 26 [Lagarde p. 107 ll 27-9] SibOr V.257; VIII.302; OdesSol 27:2f; Gospel of Philip [NgH II.3] 63:21 ff).
The trumpet and the rising of the dead follow the raising of the sign, the gathering in of the scattered tribes being held to include the saints who had died (see 1QH 6:34; cf. 2:13). The whole schema is accurately reflected in the Jewish Shemoneh
Esreh, Petition 10, which is widely regarded as being very ancient,probably going back to the late first or early second century AD: 133277 w°N?3 PIP? O31 NWI NIN? 97173 WDIwA YPN
YON MDI YAN TN'.
Finally, the Didache in its present form has the quotation from Dan 7:13 found also in Mt 24:30. An older text of the Didache may be represented by Const which has kai r6Te HEE 0
KUplog Kal maVTES ol &yLor peT' AUTOD Ev OVODELOU® ETaVW TOV vedend@v, since Const usually harmonizes the text of Didache with the Gospels. The H54 text of the Didache like Matthew cites Dan
7:13, but the survival of 6 xiptoc indicates its independence of Matthew. Késter®? has argued that the Didache draws here upon Paper Delivered at the Society of Biblical Literature Congress, Philadelphia, 1995.
60 See further on this passage, J. A. Draper, "The Development of the "Sign of the Son of Man" in the Jesus Tradition", N7S 39 (1991) pp. 1-21.
61 See Draper, Commentary, pp. 319-325; also A. Stuiber, "Die Drei Semeia von Didache xvi", JAC 24 (1981) pp. 42-44.
62 Uberlieferung, pp. 187-189.
JONATHAN ALFRED DRAPER
the Ur-text of a Jewish apocalypse used also by Mark. However, J. S. Kloppenborg® has demonstrated that the Didache only uses the material parallel to Matthew's special source "M" and at no point cites Matthew where Matthew can be seen to be using Mark.
He concludes from this that the Didache represents an independent tradition under whose influence Matthew altered his Markan source.©4 This conclusion reached by Kloppenborg concerning
Did. 16 is similar to that reached by Glover,® who goes so far as to say that "the case for the Didache being a witness to some source, or sources, of our Lord's teaching more primitive than the synoptic Gospels appears very strong indeed"
.° VIL.
The above assessment of the Jesus tradition in the Didache allows some tentative conclusions to be drawn. It suggests, firstly, an independence over against the Synoptic Gospels which often throws light on the Gospel material. Secondly, it shows that firm dependence on the Jesus tradition, rather than what can be attributed to the Jewish milieu, is limited to the tradition which is found mainly in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke, besides the "apocalypse" of Mt 24.
The Didache is usually closer to Matthew but sometimes closer to Luke. While this might at first suggest a knowledge of Matthew and Luke, in which the Synoptic Gospels are harmonized on the basis of Matthew, this must be considered unlikely. The context, order and wording of the sayings is independent and cannot be derived from either.
The material the Didache has in common with Matthew and Luke never includes material these evangelists have drawn from Mark.*7 It co-incides with what is normally described as the "Q"
Source in these Gospels, and seems to confirm the hypothesis that sayings of Jesus were collected and circulated in a more or less fixed form, whether oral or written, before the collection was incorporated into the Gospels as we have them. It may be that 63 "Didache 16:6-8 and Special Matthean Tradition", ZNW 69-70 (1978-1979) pp. 54-67.
64 "Tradition", p. 63. A reservation concerning Glover's conclusion needs to be made, in that the Didache may reflect at this point an underlying Jewish tradition rather than the Jesus teaching in particular, which may draw on the same tradition.
65 "Quotations", pp. 25-28.
S6ubid.. p. 21:
67 Tuckett ("Synoptic Tradition", p. 201) puts forward the material on the Antichrist performing "signs and wonders" in 16:4 as a case where the Didache echoes Mk 13:22=Mt 24:24; Mk 13:19=Mt 24:21; contra K6ster, Uberlieferung, p. 182; Rordorf, "Jesus Tradition", p. 415.
JESUS TRADITION IN THE DIDACHE
these collections were already referred to as 7d evaryyédov (Did.
8:2, 11:3, 15:3, 4). The context of such a collection of sayings in Did. 1:3-2:1 strongly implies the use to which the collection was put—the instruction of catechumens: tadta ma&vTa tpoeiTovTEec.8
Thirdly, the differences in wording and context of the Jesus sayings in the Didache, Matthew and Luke are of the same kind.
They indicate an independent use of a common source at a time when that source was still fluid.
68 The same explanation can be given for the collection of sayings of Jesus in Justin, / Apol 15-16, which set out the kernel of Christian teaching which was to precede baptism.