[cambridge: harvard university Press, 1927–1930], 1:331).

108; George foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 3 vols.

53. huub van de sandt, “The Gathering of the church in the Kingdom: The self-understanding of the Didache community in the eucharistic Prayers,” in Society of Biblical Literature 2003 Seminar Papers, sBLsP 42 (atlanta: society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 75.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

“identity,” there may be a small gap between the community and a particular redactor who is distressed by the community’s increasing distance from Torah.

The Didache is far more attached to Jewish identity than Paul is, and Paul would reject its imposition of even a limited Torah observance. But we should recognize this as intra-christian polemic. The Didache is as christian as Paul is. The only kind of “conversion to Judaism” of which we can speak is a symbolic or imaginal conversion to a Christianized and symbolic Judaism.

christianity can be described as a kind of transmogrified or universalized Judaism, as long as it is not reduced to that. conversion, in either Paul’s or the Didache’s community may be a kind of symbolic conversion to Judaism, but it is an actual conversion to a christ-community that is clearly distinct from both temple-based and rabbinic Judaism.

authority and Perspective in the Didache Clayton N. Jefford

1. introduction

scholars have long recognized the difficulties that arise from comparisons of scripture with the text of the Didache. early researchers settled on the basic assumption that the Didachist must have had a variety of written scriptures available at the time of writing, with Matthew as the primary gospel on which much of the text was based. With respect to Old Testament texts and traditions, such assumptions are undoubtedly true. But with respect to New Testament writings, such presuppositions are easily challenged, and more recent studies have indicated either the presence of independent oral traditions,1 parallel textual developments,2 or even the possibility that certain New Testament authors may have made use of the Didache itself.3

even a cursory reading of the Didache spawns immediate recognition of biblical texts and themes well known to most readers. The opening call to recognize the Two Ways of existence (that is, life and death; 1.1) leads to instructions about love of God and neighbor, followed by the negative expression of the so-called golden rule (1.2). Prohibitions against sins listed in the Decalogue (murder, adultery, theft, etc.) appear thereafter (2.2–3.6; 5.1), followed by the comforting words “my child” drawn 1. already evident in the work of helmut Koester, Synoptische Űberlieferung bei den apostolischen Vätern, TuGaL 65/5.10 (Berlin: akademie, 1957), 159–241.

2. This is an underlying assumption for Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache: A Commentary, trans. Linda M. Maloney, hermeneia (Minneapolis: fortress, 1998), 52; see especially his “Der Didachist und seine Quellen,” in The Didache in Context, ed.

clayton N. Jefford, NovTsup 77 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 15–36.

3. Most recently, alan J. P. Garrow, The Gospel of Matthew’s Dependence on the Didache, JsNTsup 254 (London: T&T clark, 2004).

-33 -

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

from wisdom literature (3.1–6; 4.1) and a brief household code (4.9–11).

subsequent instructions to baptize in the name of the Trinity (7.1, 3) are followed by the so-called Lord’s Prayer (8.2), counsel not to give holy items to dogs (9.5), and concluding warnings about the end times (16.1–8). such clear equivalents prod most readers to question the sort of literary relationship that must have existed between the Didache and scripture.4

The history of research into this question has produced a variety of studies related to the topic of the Didachist’s use of biblical sources.

The most recent, and perhaps most complete, of these was published by William Varner in 2005.5 Varner’s concerns are typically what scholars might otherwise consider, that is, the form of scripture employed and the manner in which it is used.6 his study is a careful analysis of these two elements, focusing on the nature of the quotations and allusions in the Didache, the basic manuscript traditions behind the sources that were employed, and the purposes for which those materials were incorporated. included here are not only canonical materials, but similarly relevant noncanonical sources.

4. This was true already from the beginning of such research; see Philip schaff, The Oldest Church Manual Called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (ΔΙΔΑΧΗ ΤΩΝ

ΔΩΔΕΚΑ ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΩΝ) (London: T&T clark; New York: funk & Wagnalls, 1885), 78–95; adolf von harnack, Die Apostellehre und die jüdischen Beiden Wege (Leipzig: heinrichs, 1886); Gustav Wohlenberg, Die Lehre der zwölf Apostel in ihrem Verhältnis zum neutestamentlichen Schrifttum: Eine Untersuchung (erlangen: Deichert, 1888).

More recently, one might consider Jean-Paul audet, La Didachè: Instructions des Apôtres, ebib (Paris: Gabalda, 1958), 166–86; Willy Rordorf and andré Tuilier, La doctrine des douze Apôtres (Didachè), sc 248 bis (Paris: cerf, 1998), 83–91; Niederwimmer, Didache, 42–52; Kari syreeni, “The sermon on the Mount and the Two Ways Teaching of the Didache,” in Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? ed. huub van de sandt (assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: fortress, 2005), 87–103; and christopher M. Tuckett, “The Didache and the Writings that Later formed the New Testament,” in The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1 in The New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. andrew f.

Gregory and christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 2005), 83–127.

5. William Varner, “The Didache’s use of the Old and New Testaments,” MSJ 16

(2005): 127–51. Parallel materials appear in his subsequent volume, The Way of the Didache: The First Christian Handbook (Lanham, MD: university Press of america, 2007), 41–54.

6. Or as he indicates, the linguistic and hermeneutical questions; so Varner,

“Didache’s use,” 128.

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in the final analysis, Varner comes to five basic conclusions about the scriptural sources behind the text.7 These are important guideposts by which to measure the intention of the Didachist, both with respect to the author’s understanding of the nature of authority and with reference to the matter of perspective on tradition. his five conclusions are as follows: (1) the Didachist saw authority in scripture; (2) the Didachist made considerable use of the Gospel of Matthew; (3) the Didachist incorporated segments of the Torah and the Prophets drawn from the LXX; (4) the Didachist did not make use of allegory as a mode of interpretation; and (5) the Didachist employed scripture in the same way as the New Testament authors.

such conclusions are worth consideration to the extent that two other elements are included. The first of these relates to what Robert Kraft once identified as the essential nature of both the Didache and Barnabas, that is, “evolved literature.”8 The text of the Didache is known primarily from a single manuscript tradition in Greek,9 but even here are numerous problems that suggest the tradition may have evolved through more than one editorial hand. for example, the section of materials from 1.3b–2.1 known as the “ecclesiastical section” (the Sectio Evangelica) features several so-called Q texts, a source that is otherwise little featured throughout the work.10 Most scholars now recognize this segment as secondary to the text, an insertion from a later hand. at the same time, there is some question about whether the Greek manuscript contains the final verses of the original text or whether that wording has been lost.11 if the latter, it is impossible to know how such an omission may have occurred over the course 7. see Varner, “Didache’s use,” 141–42; Way of the Didache, 53–54.

8. Robert a. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, af 3 (Toronto: Nelson, 1965), 1–3.

9. codex hierosolymitanus 54.

10. see Richard Glover, “The Didache’s Quotations and the synoptic Gospels,”

NTS 5 (1958): 12–29; Bentley Layton, “The sources, Date and Transmission of Didache 1.3b–2.1,” HTR 61 (1968): 343–83; Michael Mees, “Die Bedeutung der sentenzen und ihrer auxesis für den formung der Jesusworte nach Didache 1,3b–2,1,”

VetChr 8 (1971): 55–76; John s. Kloppenborg, “The use of the synoptics or Q in Did.

1:3b–2:1,” in van de sandt, Matthew and the Didache, 105–29; christopher M. Tuckett,

“synoptic Tradition in the Didache,” in The Didache in Modern Research, ed. Jonathan a. Draper, aGJu 37 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 110–28.

11. see aaron Milavec, “The saving efficacy of the Burning Process in Didache 16.5,” in The Didache in Context: Essays on Its Text, History and Transmission, ed.

clayton N. Jefford, NovTsup 77 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 151–54; Robert e. aldridge,

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

of the manuscript’s transmission, but nevertheless the present Greek text would thus be defective. finally, numerous words and phrases that now appear in the manuscript are missing from the fourth-century apostolic constitutions and canons, a text that preserves a majority of the Didache with substantial elaboration.12 This suggests the Greek manuscript, dating much later to sometime in the early eleventh century, has acquired various alterations not originally associated with the Vorlage and thus may not reflect the perspective of the Didachist. efforts to distinguish between original text and additions are difficult, though perhaps not impossible to some extent. The evolution of the text must certainly be considered in any permissible discussion of the appearance of scripture within the Didache.

a second element to consider relates to the first, coming in the form of what James sanders has identified as the question of “canonical criticism,”13

a consideration of what any particular author views as authoritative canon with respect to texts and traditions. an author thus chooses among sources considered to be respected in support of the argument at hand. The use of such sources presumably reflects both the perspective of the author and the audience. in the case of the Didachist, one assumes that the biblical sources included in the text reflect those traditions held in highest esteem within the immediate community context.

a consideration of canonical elements is not unexpected but is made more complex when one imagines that the Didache is possibly a compilation by diverse authors and editors. unless these contributors derive from the same community setting and are de facto in agreement with respect to canonical authority, their assorted contexts must be established in order to understand how individual sources have been put into use. each author necessarily represents a tradition, which itself works with recognized literary authorities. One must thus recognize how each tradition interprets

“The Lost ending of the Didache,” VC 53 (1999): 1–15; Garrow, Gospel of Matthew’s Dependence, 38–66.

12. Much of this alteration is likely due to the author’s desire to accommodate the Didache as a source to the needs of the readership, which often includes the addition of numerous passages from scripture by way of illustration.

13. James a. sanders, Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: fortress, 1972). sanders applies this specifically to use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, but the same may be said about the authors and writings of late christian antiquity.

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its authorities in order to identify the literary convention within which scriptural sources are used for each passage.14

it is assumed here that such distinctions cannot be made with certainty in the case of the Didache, particularly since scholars disagree concerning the background and composition of the text. at the same time, however, one may perhaps separate different scriptural references and the manner by which those sources are used to help establish possible layers of development that have accrued over time. This will be the goal of the present essay, taking advantage of Varner’s work in the process.

2. clear citations of scripture

a reasonable place to begin is those instances in the Didache where the author has acknowledged use of authoritative sources. several of these are scattered throughout the text.

The first appears at Did. 1.5. here the Didachist (= Did1) appears to quote from either Matt 5:42 or Luke 6:30.15 There is little question that the author views this as a “citation” of authoritative teaching (either oral or written), since the text continues with the line “fortunate is the one who gives according to [this] instruction.” The term “instruction” (ἐντολή) suggests both conscious reference and authoritative source. The text itself reads as follows:16

Did. 1.5a: Give to each one who asks of you and do not be anxious.

παντὶ τῷ αἰτοῦντί σε δίδου καὶ μὴ ἀπαίτει

Matt 5:42: τῷ αἰτοῦντί σε δός … μὴ ἀποστραφῇς

Luke 6:30: παντὶ αἰτοῦντί σε δίδου … μὴ ἀπαίτει

14. This is not to assume that the authorities in question are necessarily written in the case of the Didache; see, e.g., ian h. henderson, “Didache and Orality in synoptic comparison,” JBL 111 (1992): 283–306; see also his related essay on style-switching throughout the text in “style-switching in the Didache: fingerprint or argument?” in Jefford, Didache in Context, 177–209.

15. stanislas Giet, L’énigme de la Didachè, PfLus 149 (Paris: Ophrys, 1970), 190; Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine des douze Apôtres, 85–86; Niederwimmer, Didache, 81–83, notes further the parallel with herm. Mand. 2.6.

16. all translations of the Didache are my own.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

a quick scan of the wording suggests closer similarity to Luke than Matthew, and even Varner, who otherwise is focused on the Didachist’s primary concern for Matthew, admits Lukan influence here.17

But one must not forget that scholars typically view this verse as part of the larger secondary insertion of 1.3b–2.1 and thus not original to the text. if the reference in 1.5 is indeed a citation of Luke as an authoritative source (as it well appears to be), it is thus not necessarily reflective of the Didachist’s perspective but that of a secondary editor (= Did2). This later contributor to the text appears to hold a certain respect for Luke not otherwise obvious elsewhere in the Didache. and so one must attribute this viewpoint not to the Didachist but to what was likely an early redactor of the text.18

One should also observe that, by the same argument, Did2 held the Decalogue as an authoritative source, since that material is likewise introduced as a “second instruction [ἐντολή] of the teaching” in 2.1, which one assumes are also the words of this editor. This is hardly surprising, but is worth note in an effort to associate sources of authority with this particular redactor.19 One thus may attribute at least two sources of authority to 17. Varner, “Didache’s use,” 132: “Though such a variation may prohibit blind dogmatism about the Didache’s sole usage of Matthew, its rarity of occurrence illustrates the point that the Didachist used Matthew almost exclusively.” see also Tuckett, “synoptic Tradition in the Didache,” 125–28, who finds evidence of Lukan redactional activity behind the saying here (126). Kloppenborg, “synoptics or Q,” observes in support of Tuckett’s position that “agreement with Luke’s πάντι and δίδου, both normally attributed to Lukan redaction, seems to signal the Didache’s knowledge of Luke.” Though against Tuckett’s presupposition of written sources, see aaron Milavec,

“synoptic Tradition in the Didache Revisited,” JECS 11 (2003): 443–80.

18. such designations as Did1 and Did2 are not to be confused with audet’s own D1 and D2 labels (audet, Didachè, 110–15). Though audet used similar terminology, his scope was limited to the immediate editing of the early textual tradition and did not take into consideration the later emendation of the Greek manuscript itself, which is my own concern here.

19. This begs the question of other usages of “instruction” (ἐντολή) within the Didache of which there are five total. apart from the two mentioned in 1.5 and 2.1, the term appears in 4.13, as well as 13.5 and 7. There is some question about whether the latter two references are original to the Vorlage, since neither is preserved by the apostolic constitutions and canons and the former is likewise missing from the Georgian version of the Didache, which otherwise tends to read similarly to the Greek text of codex hierosolymitanus 54. Whether these usages may be attributed to Did2

is debatable, but neither reflects a known text of scripture and thus the matter stands

JeffORD: auThORiTY aND PeRsPecTiVe iN The DiDache 39

the secondary editor Did2 and quite likely three: Torah, Lukan tradition, and dominical sayings.

a second citation appears at 8.2, where the listener is told not to pray like the hypocrites, but “as the Lord instructed in his gospel, pray as follows” prior to the introduction of the so-called Lord’s Prayer.20 The form of the prayer is very close to that of Matt 6:9–13 rather than Luke 11:2–4, preserving both the terminology and structure of Matthean tradition. Varner seems to agree with udo schnelle here that the reference to “in his gospel”

(ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ) is a clear indication that the Didachist knew a written form of Matthew at this point.21 as further support for his argument, he gives explanation for the doxological conclusion “for yours are the power and the glory forever” found at the end of Did. 8.2, which appears only secondarily in certain later manuscripts that preserve the Matthean version of the prayer. Varner observes:

Though this addition to the prayer in the Didache initially may appear to encourage Byzantine text advocates since it could support an early date for this ending, the truth is just the opposite. The doxological ascrip-moot for present purposes. With respect to 4.13, the warning here that one accept the

“Lord’s commandments … neither adding nor subtracting” recalls Deut 4:2, 12:32, or Prov 30:6 (if one considers the “Lord” to be God) or perhaps vaguely of Rev 22:18 (if one considers the “Lord” to be christ). Both the apostolic constitutions and canons and apostolic church Order preserve this verse, thus suggesting that it is original to the text. in either case, as with 13.5 and 7 above, there is no specific scriptural source at reference here and thus little to be gained by pursing the matter further for present discussion.

20. Literature on this passage is expansive with primary focus on the nature of

“hypocrites.” see, e.g., Édouard Massaux, The Apologists and the Didache, vol. 3 of The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on the Christian Literature before Saint Irenaeus, trans. Norman J. Belval and suzanne hecht; NGs 5.2; Macon, Ga: Mercer university Press, 1993), 154–55; Jonathan a. Draper, “christian self-Definition against the ‘hypocrites’ in Didache 8,” in The Didache in Modern Research, ed. Jonathan a. Draper, aGJu 37 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 223–43; Marcello Del Verme, Didache and Judaism: Jewish Roots of an Ancient Christian-Jewish Work (London: T&T clark, 2004), 144–88; and most recently, stephen e. Young, Jesus Tradition in the Apostolic Fathers: Their Explicit Appeals to the Words of Jesus in Light of Orality Studies, WuNT

2/311 (Tübingen: Mohr siebeck, 2011), 218–24. Tuckett (“synoptic Tradition in the Didache”) does not address this reference.

21. Varner, “The Didache’s use,” 132, in reference to udo schnelle, The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings, trans. M. eugene Boring (Minneapolis: fortress, 1998), 355.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

tion appears later in the Didache in almost the exact same form and is appended to the eucharistic prayers in 9:2, 3, 4 and 10:2, 4, 5. it is very similar to a common ending to prayers in the Jewish liturgy which exist even today. a better explanation of the manuscript tradition is that the Didache is an early witness to the tendency of scribes to add doxological ascriptions, which increased in Byzantine times when doxological ascription crystallized and, in the Middle ages, became part of the received text—at least in the Byzantine section of the church.

This connection with parallel prayers in Did. 9–10 via similar conclusions is well taken. But as the context suggests, the Didachist seems familiar with the Lord’s Prayer largely within the context of other messianic Jewish prayers, all appearing in the Didache within the framework of chapters 8–10. This is no comment on the origins of any of these prayers, but the introductory formula “in his gospel” in 8.2 suggests that at least this opening prayer belongs to a tradition of teachings that stands apart from the prayers of chapters 9–10.22

There is little reason to doubt that the introductory formula here is original to Did1, though use of the same or similar wording elsewhere is not as certain. The Didache provides some form of this phrase four times (8.2; 11.3; 15.3, 4), with only the first appearance preserved in the witness of the apostolic constitutions and canons, a text one might expect to welcome such a useful reflection of literary tradition. Where the phrase is preserved at 8.2, the wording reads with a slight alteration. The form in both the apostolic constitutions and canons and ethiopic versions reads simply “in the gospel,” while the Didache adds “of him” (αὐτοῦ). The former reading surely understands the reference to be a known textual convention, while the latter is not so clear, perhaps reflecting oral tradition.23 in the final analysis, the text at 8.2 suggests that the Didachist gave significant authority to the teachings (= gospel?) of Jesus, preserved at least in this case according to the terminology and structure known from Matthean tradition.

a third citation appears at 9.5 where a reference is introduced with the words “for the Lord has also spoken about this.” That reference is the 22. Draper argues that the whole of chapter 8 may be secondary to the text, so Draper, “christian self-Definition.” see too in this volume, the essay of Peter J. Tomson (“The Lord’s Prayer [Didache 8] at the faultline of Judaism and christianity”), specifically under “3. comparing contexts.”

23. see Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 203–9.

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dominical saying “Do not give what is holy to dogs,” known elsewhere only from Matt 7:6. While the two references are virtually identical in Greek,24 the contexts diverge: Matthew’s reference is related to the judgment of others; that of the Didache is a warning against participation by the unbaptized in the eucharist. Varner believes, however, that the context is in fact not so different, the Matthean setting having placed the saying at the conclusion of materials about judging generally (7:1–5 to 7:6) and the location of the Didache usage being associated with the “moral and spiritual responsibility” of the assembly’s leadership to make such judgments with respect to participation in the eucharist.25 such an astute observation readily displaces the more specific concerns that commentators often brought to the matter of context in a broad sense. Yet there is another element that should be considered as well.

The only clear textual parallel to this section is preserved once again in the apostolic constitutions and canons (7.25.5–7). here too one might expect this editor to have eagerly incorporated such a reference to a commandment by the Lord, as well as such clear affirmation of a dominical saying in the process. But instead, the text reads as follows: Let no one eat of things who is uninitiated, but only those who are baptized into the Lord’s death [εἰς τὸν τοῦ κυρίου θάνατον]. But if any of the uninitiated should keep it hidden and take a share, they eat eternal judgment, because not being of the faith of christ.26

The rationale behind the logic of the apostolic constitutions and canons is clear then, since the author is undoubtedly concerned with refusal of the unbaptized from the ritual of the eucharist within a later setting. it is within this context that one observes the warnings against hiding one’s status in order to join the assembly. Yet a reader might suspect that, since this author is constantly incorporating scriptural references into the bulk of the writing elsewhere, this moment would yet again have been a welcome dominical condemnation of such persons as drawn explicitly from 24. The only discrepancy is that the final word in Matthew (κυσίν) carries a move-able ν that is otherwise absent in the Didache. for more on this text, see huub van de sandt, “ ‘Do Not Give What is holy to the Dogs’ (Did 9:5d and Matt 7:6a): The eucharistic food of the Didache in its Jewish Purity setting,” VC 56 (2002): 223–46.

25. Varner, “Didache’s use,” 135–36.

26. all translations of the apostolic constitutions and canons are my own.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

scripture. instead, the reference to the saying itself and the introductory words “for the Lord has also spoken about this” are both missing.

it is suggested here that, contrary to Varner’s generous analysis of the passage, the entire phrase that now appears in Did. 9.5b (“for the Lord has also spoken about this: ‘Do not give what is holy to dogs’ ”) has been secondarily added into the text at this point by a later hand and was never actually known to the author of the apostolic constitutions and canons as part of the Didache source. Whether one should attribute this apparent addition to Did2 remains uncertain. Yet the fact that Did2 has appealed to dominical sayings previously (see 1.5a) certainly puts the present material within a realm of possibilities for this editor. in either case, with the absence of a true secondary witness by the apostolic constitutions and canons here, one is tempted to believe that both the introduction and the saying itself are the addition of a later perspective.

The next reference to scripture as authoritative source is the well-known usage in Did. 14.3. The certain foundation for this quotation is Mal 1:11, 14, as is readily observed in a comparison of parallels: Did. 14.3

(a) for this is that about which the Lord said: αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ῥηθεῖσα ὑπὸ κυρίου

(b) in every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice, ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ καὶ χρόνῳ προσφέρειν μοι θυσίαν καθαράν

ὅτι βασιλεὺς μέγας εἰμί λέγει κύριος

(d) and my name is marvelous among the nations.

καὶ τὸ ὄνομά μου θαυμαστὸν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσι

Mal 1:11, 14 (LXX)

(b) καὶ ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ θυμίαμα προσάγεται τῷ ὀνόματί μου

καὶ θυσία καθαρά (1:11b)

(1:14c)

(d) καὶ τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐπιφανὲς ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (1:14d) Mal 1:11, 14 (MT)

(b) הרוהט החנמו ימשל שגמ רטקמ םוקמ־לכבו (1:11b) (c) תואבצ הוהי רמא ינא לודג ךלמ יכ (1:14c)

(d) םיוגב ארונ ימשו (1:14d)

JeffORD: auThORiTY aND PeRsPecTiVe iN The DiDache 43

Varner correctly observes the minor differences among parallels here, with the Didachist omitting “almighty” (תואבצ, παντοκράτωρ) from Mal 1:14c (or Mal 1:11, as he sees it), and the insertion of the “functionally equivalent word” of “marvelous” (θαυμαστὸν; see ארונ, ἐπιφανὲς in Mal 1:14c) shortly thereafter.27 Though as Varner observes, the more important issue is why Malachi has been employed here at all. The likely reason is because of the reference to “the nations” (τοῖς ἔθνεσι) in this passage, a natural link to the longer title of the Didache and the prophecy of a pure sacrifice by non-Jews when “Malachi’s Jewish people were offering defiled sacrifices (see Mal 1:6–10).” This implies a reversal that Malachi already recognized and the Didachist saw fulfilled “as spiritual” in the eucharistic rituals of the messianic community, “commemorating the one great sacrifice for christians through Jesus.”28

This may indeed be the case. Yet as Robert Gordon has suggested, the focus of such rituals for christians and rabbinic Judaism became the element of prayer.29 This is a primary concern for the Didachist in the same place where Varner points to the significance of eucharistic ritual (see Did. 8–10). Whether one should see these prayers as linked to the eucharistic tradition of the New Testament is not at issue here. a more vital observation is that the prayers and ritual event that they claim are likely associated with this particular use of scripture from Mal 1:11, 14

and thus are inherently authentic to the structure of the Vorlage as envisioned by the Didachist.

Though there is much in terms of detail that may be said about the use of this text by the Didachist, in result it is apparently safe to associate the prophetic source of Malachi with the original vision of Did1, a perception that held the early community of believers as the (intended?) focus of the ancient prophet himself. This is hardly unexpected, since the motif of prophetic fulfillment otherwise permeates New Testament thought. Yet at 27. Varner, “Didache’s use,” 139. apostolic constitutions and canons (7.30.2) follows Malachi more closely here, reincorporating the term παντοκράτωρ (which appears elsewhere in the Didache at 10.3 only) to its original location. This author introduces the citation with a more ecclesiastical consciousness, however, using the words “to God, who said concerning his universal church” (θεῷ τῷ εἰπόντι περὶ τῆς

οἰκουμενικῆς αὐτοῦ ἐκκλησίας).

28. Varner, “Didache’s use,” 139–40.

29. Robert P. Gordon, “Targumic Parallels to acts Xiii 18 and Didache XiV 3,”

NovT 16 (1974): 285–89. My thanks to Jonathan Draper for bringing this brief article to my attention.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

least here one may thus identify the writings of the prophets as one of the more important (if not the most significant) sources for Did1, much as that of Torah, Lukan tradition, and dominical sayings may be linked with Did2.

The last citation of scripture appears in Did. 16.7, where the words “as it has been said” (ὡς ἐρρέθη) are used to introduce a clear citation. The connection with zech 14:5 is without question:30

Did. 16.7

(a) The Lord will come, and all the holy ones with him ἥξει ὁ κύριος καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ

zech 14:5 (LXX)

(b) καὶ ἥξει κύριος ὁ θεός μου καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ

zech 14:5 (MT)

(b) ךמע םישדק־לכ יהלא הוהי אבו

One observes that there are few differences among these texts. The Didachist does not include the words “my God” (יהלא; ὁ θεός μου) and agrees with the LXX in the reading “after him” (μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ) against the hebrew

“after you” (ךמע). it is possible that this is either a loose citation or simply is drawn from oral tradition.

With respect to the author’s perspective, Varner observes that the Didachist does not view this event as a “‘general’ resurrection, but one that consists of believers only” based on the opening phrase “but not of all” (οὐ πάντων δέ). he argues that the text sees the “holy ones” (οἱ ἅγιοι) as believers, reflecting Paul’s words in 1 Thess 3:13, and not as angels.31 at the same time, he admits that angels accompany the Lord elsewhere in the New Testament, as in Matt 25:31.32

30. Koester (Synoptische Überlieferung, 187) likewise agrees that this text derives from zechariah and not Matt 25:31. Neither does Massaux (Apologists and the Didache, 167–73) include it within his otherwise extensive listing of Matthean parallels to Did. 16.

31. contra Niederwimmer, Didache, 225, and Milavec, The Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50–70 CE (New York: Newman, 2003), 655.

32. Varner, “Didache’s use,” 140, given in the text as 25:30. The word used in Matthew is specifically “angels” (ἄγγελοι), however.

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One is struck by several elements in this consideration. The first is that the Didachist is often opaque about whether references to “the Lord”

are intended as allusions to God the father or, instead, to the Messiah.

The prophet clearly infers the former in zech 14:5, which the Didachist may indeed have shifted to the latter figure here, as most commentators assume.33 at the same time, however, this is a reading molded by the vision of Paul, whose words are not otherwise prevalent throughout the Didache. furthermore, it is not at all clear that the Didache envisioned a limited resurrection here at all. it is true that such is indicated by the text as it now stands, but the apostolic constitutions and canons (7.32.4) omits the wording “but not of all; rather, as it has been said” in favor of a simple “and then” (καὶ τότε). This is surprising, since such terminology would seem typical of what might otherwise be expected from that author’s fourth century perspective. One is led to suspect that, once again, both these phrases “but not of all” and “as it has been said” are secondary to the text of the Didache and thus were unknown as part of that source as used in the apostolic constitutions and canons.

Regardless of how one views the original intention of the text, it seems reasonable to attribute the citation to the Didachist again, once more reflecting the author’s concern for the teaching of the prophets and its significance for the early messianic community.34 The Didachist then is clearly anxious to include the following elements: Torah (based on the inclusion of the Two Ways materials), prophets (seen with the use of Malachi and zechariah), and teachings of Jesus (at least within their narrower Jewish context).

3. allusions and echoes of scripture

The remainder of the Didache features numerous echoes and allusions to scripture. Varner divides such references into three basic classifications: parallels with the Gospel of Matthew, noncanonical materials (whose use 33. so Klaus Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), Barnabasbrief, Zweiter Klemensbrief, Schrift an Diognet, su 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984), 31; Niederwimmer, Didache, 225 n. 30. Though against the supposition that the Didachist has the Messiah in view here, see Milavec, “saving efficacy,” 151 n. 47.

34. Though some commentators do not consider this verse to be original to the text.

Niederwimmer (Didache, 225 n. 27), e.g., considers it to be “a gloss by the Didachist.”

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Varner primarily rejects),35 and Old Testament passages (devoted primarily to the use of Malachi and zechariah, as observed above). Whether this should be considered a complete listing of potential parallels with scripture may be debated, but following the guidelines of Varner’s own work, it is useful to work with these categories here.36

Varner begins his focus with the obvious reflection of the Gospel of Matthew that appears in the Didache, or one might at least say those materials that are linked with Matthean tradition.37 he lists thirty-four potential parallels (including the title), which are scattered throughout the course of the writing. such a list is determined by how one counts relevant items, and some scholars have seen considerably more parallels in the process.38 Regardless of the count, though, it is clear that a heavy emphasis on materials from the Matthean tradition is to be found.

from the outset some of these may be eliminated as not directly relevant to the views of Did1. One finds, for example, that five of Varner’s parallels (all drawn from Matt 5) appear within Did. 1.3b–2.1. as observed 35. Varner acknowledges the exception of sir 12:1 (which he considers as noncanonical) behind Did. 1.6 following the short study of Patrick W. skehan (“Didache 1,6 and sirach 12,1,” Bib 44 [1963]: 533–36), though even here he argues that the Didachist does not make use of this source in a straightforward manner as a consideration of scriptural authority. in fact, it seems quite likely that both Matthew and the Didache are highly dependent on sirach when compared with other authors among the New Testament and apostolic fathers; see my “‘The Wisdom of sirach and the Glue of the Matthew-Didache Tradition,’” in Intertextuality in the Second Century, ed. D. Jeffrey Bingham and clayton N. Jefford, Bac (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

36. e.g., one might consider whether there are other potential New Testament parallels with the Didache as follows: 1.2 (Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8); 1.3 (1 cor 5:5); 1.4 (1 Pet 2:11); 1.5 (acts 20:35; 2 Thess 3:10); 3.6 (Phil 2:14); 4.8 (acts 2:44–45; 4:32); 4.10 (eph 6:9; col 4:1); 4.11 (eph 6:5–8; col 3:22–25); 4.14 (Jas 5:16; 1 John 1:9); 6.3 (acts 15:29); 10.2 (John 17:11); 10.3 (Rev 4:11); 10.5 (John 17:23; 1 John 4:12); 10.6 (1 cor 16:22); 11.2 (2 John 10); 12.1 (Rom 12:13); 12.4 (2 Thess 3:7–12); 13.1 (1 cor 9:13–14; 1 Tim 5:18); 15.3 (1 cor 5:11); 16.4 (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7); 16.5 (1 cor 3:13; 1 Pet 1:7); 16.6 (1 cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16); and 16.7 (1 Thess 3:13). This listing does not even include possible parallels with either Luke or Mark, whose materials should be considered alongside of those from Matthew in many cases.

37. Varner, “Didache’s use,” 130–36.

38. John W. Welch, e.g., has identified over seventy such connections in his “Law, ethics, Ritual, and eschatology from the sermon on the Mount to the Post-Temple Didache” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the society of Biblical Literature, Boston, November 25, 2008); see the current form of that paper provided elsewhere in this volume as “from the sermon on the Mount to the Didache.”

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above, this section of the Didache is not usually accepted as original to the Vorlage and thus, as secondary, must likely be associated with the hand of a later redactor (Did2?) and not directly with the Didachist (Did1).

a similar situation arises in the case of Did. 7.1, where Varner follows traditional assumptions that the trinitarian formula used for baptism (both here and at 7.3) reflects the well-known wording of Matt 28:19. Whether this formula was originally part of the Matthean narrative may be debated, but its certain absence from the apostolic constitutions and canons once again suggests that its presence in codex hierosolymitanus is an editorial addition and thus likely more accurately associated with a later editor and not with the Didachist. This element of ecclesiastical detail should thus be linked with Did2 as reflective of a later context.

similar instances are likewise in doubt for various reasons. for example, the reference to “hypocrites” in Did. 8.2 is listed by Varner as parallel to similar occurrences in Matt 6:2, 5, and 16. This is most likely true, though a reader is pressed to explain why each author indisputably has a different antecedent in mind for “hypocrite”: Matthew undoubtedly thinking fraudulent Jews (though the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer in Matt 6:7 specifies the “nations” [οἱ ἐθνικοί]), with the Didachist more likely envisioning either all Jews39 or some particular Jewish group.40 One might again question whether such an emphasis in the Didache does not suggest a later hand a work. The same might be said about the reference to giving holy things to dogs in Did. 9.5b (par. Matt 7:6), which has been mentioned above as a possible secondary addition to the text. Both here and at the beginning of 8.2, where the Lord’s Prayer is introduced, references to “the Lord” are offered as intended reflections of the teachings of Jesus. One can hardly question that the authority of Jesus as Messiah was respected by the earliest of christians, but the text seems to assume authoritative status behind the teachings associated with the person of Jesus as opposed to his association with scriptural norms or traditional teachings. some ques-39. so huub van de sandt, “The Didache Redefining its Jewish identity in View of Gentiles Joining the community,” in Empsychoi Logoi: Religious Innovations in Antiquity, ed. alberdina houtman et al., aJec 73 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 261–65.

40. for the latter view in one perspective or another, see esp. Draper, “christian self-Definition,” and “Do the Didache and Matthew Reflect an ‘irrevocable Parting of the Ways’ with Judaism?” in van de sandt, Matthew and the Didache, 217–41; clayton N. Jefford, “conflict at antioch: ignatius and the Didache at Odds,” StPatr 36 (2001): 262–69; and Del Verme, Didache and Judaism, 143–88.

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tion remains about the historical setting in which such a perspective might have arisen in the case of these particular teachings.

so, too, the observation in Did. 14.2 about the need to reconcile a quarrel before offering sacrifice, which clearly reflects the teaching of Matt 5:23–24,41 is omitted entirely at this juncture by the apostolic constitutions and canons. upon closer observation it is evident that the text of the Didache (as it stands in the Greek) reads smoothly even without this comment, as thus:

(14.1) When you come together on the Lord’s day and after having acknowledged your offenses so that your sacrifice may be pure [καθαρός], break bread and give thanks.… (14.3) for this is that about which the Lord said, “in every place and time offer me a pure [καθαρός] sacrifice.”

(citation of Mal 1:11, 14)

The catchword between these verses is the adjective “pure” (καθαρός), while the term used in 14.2 is the verb “defile” (κοινόω), which is certainly related but most assuredly different. should one assume that the Didachist has introduced an acknowledged citation of scripture in the form of Malachi by means of materials from Matthew that has otherwise gone undesignated? This is certainly possible, of course. But because of the absence of these words from the apostolic constitutions and canons, one might be tempted once more to suggest that they were not originally part of the text fashioned by Did1 but belong to the editorial hand of Did2. There is an element of speculation here, but the unnecessary repetition of thought in the Didache makes the suggestion quite possible if not likely.

Other parallels that Varner raises do indeed seem at home within the text and should be associated with Did1. Varner offers Matt 5:17–20 on instruction about Torah as an apt parallel to Did. 11.1–2, which itself is a warning against those who offer a different “teaching” (διδαχή) from that of the Didachist. This may truly be the case, though here the specifics of the Matthean teaching have been omitted in the Didache. References to abolishment of the Torah, relaxing of related commandments, and righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees have all gone missing in the process. The Didachist is focused on divergent teaching 41. for an intriguing argument in support of the antiquity of the wording in 14.2

and 16.1 based on syntax, see Brian J. Wright, “Greek syntax as a criterion of authenticity: a New Discussion and Proposal,” CBQ 74 (2012): 84–100 (96–97).

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and seems hardly bothered by Jewish hypocrisy, much like the situation of Did. 8 (par. Matt 6:2, 5, 16) above.

Varner next indicates that the counsel of Did. 11.7 against testing prophets is a likely parallel to Matt 12:31 (“Therefore i tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven” [NRsV]). The Matthean text is likely based on Mark 3:30, another potential parallel. But since both the Didache and Matthew contain the word “sin” (ἁμαρτία) here, which Mark omits, the Matthean reference is indeed the more probable parallel. Varner is surely correct to attribute this connection to the Didachist, particularly since the coptic, ethiopic, and Georgian parallels all include this reading as well. One wonders why he did not then turn to Matt 7:15–23 with respect to the fruit of a tree and the nature of deception as probable parallels to the following verse in the Didache (11.8). Though the reference is much broader in scope, it too is supported by the coptic, ethiopic, and Georgian parallels and likely should be included as well.

additional parallels between the Didache and Matthew are likewise to be attributed to the vision of Did1, as Varner indicates. The observation about prophets being worthy of their food (Did. 13.1; Matt 10:10) is widely supported by literary parallels. Yet it may be worth observation that the following verse about a true teacher being worthy of food (Did. 13.2) is not found either in the apostolic constitutions and canons or the ethiopic tradition, indicating that the Vorlage behind the Greek text has conceivably been edited here. This saying was widely known by early christian authors (see Luke 10:7; 1 cor 9:13–14; 1 Tim 5:18), though admittedly the Didachist’s use of “food” (τροφή) agrees with Matthew as opposed to these other parallels, which read “pay” (μισθός).

finally, Varner indicates numerous connections between Matt 24

and Did. 16 that are often argued by other scholars.42 These include the 42. The history of interpretation for comparison of Matthean parallels with Did.

16 is long and arduously argued. see, e.g., George eldon Ladd, “The eschatology of the Didache” (Ph.D. diss., harvard university, 1949), 19–28; John s. Kloppenborg,

“Didache 16: 6–8 and special Matthean Tradition,” ZNW 70 (1970): 54–67; Milavec,

“saving efficacy”; Vicky Balabanski, Eschatology in the Making: Mark, Matthew and the Didache, sNTsMs 97 (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 1997); Tuckett,

“synoptic Tradition in the Didache,” 95–104; Joseph Verheyden, “eschatology in the Didache and the Gospel of Matthew,” in van de sandt, Matthew and the Didache, 193–

215; and now most recently, William Varner, “The Didache ‘apocalypse’ and Matthew 24,” BSac 165 (2008): 309–22.

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following: Did. 16.1 (see Matt 24:42; 25:13); 16.3 (24:11–12); 16.4 (24:10, 12); 16.5 (24:10); 16.6 (24:30–31); and 16.8 (24:30). This final chapter of the Didache is something of a muddle with respect to subsequent manuscript traditions. it is clear that the author of the apostolic constitutions and canons, for example, has greatly reshaped Did. 16.1 around the sentiment of Matt 24:50 and Luke 12:35–37, 46 rather than the tradition of Matthew and thereby reveals a concern for the priority of scripture over against the words of the Didachist. With reference to 16.4–5, the apostolic constitutions and canons diverges from the Didache in favor of the wording of 2 Thess 2:8–9. The Didache reads as follows: (16.4) and then the deceiver of the world will appear as a son of God and perform signs and wonders, and the earth will be handed over into his hands, and he will do such atrocities as have never existed before.

(16.5) Then all humanity will come to the fire of testing, and many will fall away.

The apostolic constitutions and canons offers alternatively: and then the deceiver of the world will appear—the enemy of truth, the prince of lies, “whom the Lord Jesus will destroy by the spirit of his mouth,” who destroys the ungodly with his lips—and many will fall away.

it is unclear why the imagery of 2 Thessalonians (offered in quotation marks here) was selected for inclusion at this point, though it is possible that the author either no longer understood the focus of the Didachist’s argument or wished to approach the topic from another perspective.

The conclusion of the Didache (16.6–8) provides yet another problem, the question of whether the Didachist has paid special attention to Matthean tradition at this juncture or Did2 has manipulated the text in favor of Gospel readings. Varner is certainly correct to observe the sudden turn toward Matthean materials in terms of theme and phraseology here.

While one might expect such parallels with respect to similar ideas elsewhere in the text, the focused nature of such equivalences makes these closing verses very intriguing. Whether one may assume that this passage originally served as the end of the text by Did1 remains for debate, but a comparison with the apostolic constitutions and canons does not suggest as much. We have already seen the presence of zech 14:5 in Did. 16.7, which bears other parallels to Matt 25:31 and 1 Thess 3:13. Varner does not include this Matthean parallel, preferring to focus on chapter 14, but it is

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clearly present in the mind of the author. The apostolic constitutions and canons, however, adds additional Matthean parallels, namely, Matt 16:27

and 25:46, as well as an allusion to 1 cor 2:9. and at Did. 16.8 alternative extensions to the text are supported by a variety of witnesses, including the apostolic constitutions and canons and De abrenuntiatione in baptismate of Boniface.43 a good case may be made from these optional conclusions that the Didache itself once possessed some wording that no longer exists in codex hierosolymitanus.44 Yet the difficulties inherent in any attempt to postulate what the ending envisioned by Did1 may have been is difficult to assess. for present purposes, it is perhaps safe to say simply that the entire scope of Did. 16 is problematic in terms of which portions should be attributed to Did1 and which reflect the editorial activity of Did2. in either case, it is clear that Matthean tradition was important to both writers.

Other potential parallels with Matthew as identified by Varner are mitigated by additional scriptural options, leaving them only secondarily related to the Matthean tradition. One must assume that this is the case with the Two Ways teaching in Did. 1.1, which Varner associates with Matt 7:13–14 but is perhaps more directly dependent on any number of Old Testament equivalents, especially that of Deut 30:15.45 similarly, it may be that the Didachist does not rely on Matt 22:38–39 and 7:12 as the basis for the teachings behind Did. 1.2, but instead on Deut 6:5, Lev 19:18, and Tob 4:15, texts which are themselves the basis of the Matthean parallels. an even more likely scenario is seen in the use of the Decalogue at Did. 2.2–3.8, which Varner associates with parallel elements in Matt 5 and 19:18, but which may as easily derive either from exod 20:13–17 or Deut 5:17–21, not to mention a variety of lesser Old Testament parallels. One is thus left with some confusion about the extent to which the Didache (1) opts for use of the Old Testament as an authority, which Matthean tradition has likewise employed; (2) uses Old Testament texts because Matthean tradition has considered them important as well; (3) relies on Matthean texts that simply happen to have used Old Testament texts and traditions themselves (ala Varner); or (4) reflects the use of Old Testament texts as authoritative at the level of Did1 but employs them because 43. aldridge, “Lost ending,” 1–15.

44. audet, Didachè, 73–74; Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), 20; Garrow, Gospel of Matthew’s Dependence, 44–66.

45. Otherwise, one might consider Prov 12:28, Jer 21:8, Job 33:14, and even sir 15:17.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

they are associated with Matthean tradition at the level of Did2. This final option is certainly conceivable based on the subsequent manuscript traditions and should not be dismissed without further consideration.

4. use of the Materials

The Didache thus employs scripture in several different ways on at least two different levels. The original approach of the Didachist (Did1) is to incorporate materials of Torah, Prophets, and teachings of Jesus as they relate to the Torah and the Prophets. This is clearly evident in the Two Ways segment, for example, as seen here without the interpolation of 1.3b–2.1:

1.1

Deut 30:15; Prov 12:28; Jer 21:8; Job 33:14; sir 15:17; Matt 7:13–14

1.2

Deut 6:5; sir 7:30; Matt 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27a // Lev 19:18; Matt 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27b; Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8

// Tob 4:15; Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31

2.2

exod 20:13–15; Deut 5:17–19; Matt 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20 // Deut 18:10 // exod 20:17; Deut 5:21

2.3

zech 5:3; Matt 5:33 // exod 20:16; Deut 5:20; Matt 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20 // exod 21:17; Matt 15:4 // Prov 12:28; zech 7:10; 8:17

2.4

sir 5:14; 6:1; 28:13 // Prov 21:6

2.7

Lev 19:17–28; Matt 18:15–17; Jude 22–23

3.1

1 Thess 5:22

3.2–6 exod 20:13–17; Deut 5:17–21; Matt 5:21–37

3.4

Lev 19:26, 31; Deut 18:10–11

3.6

Wis 1:11; Phil 2:14

3.7

Ps 36:11 (LXX); Matt 5:5

3.8

isa 66:2

3.10

sir 2:4

4.1

sir 7:29–31; heb 13:7 // Matt 10:40; 18:20

4.2

sir 6:28; 51:26–27; Matt 11:28–29 // sir 6:34–36

4.3

Lev 19:15; Deut 1:16–17; sir 4:9

4.5

sir 4:31; Deut 15:7–8; acts 20:35

4.6

Tob 4:8–10

4.7

Prov 19:17

4.8

sir 4:5a // acts 2:44–45; 4:32

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4.10

sir 4:30 // eph 6:9; col 4:1 // Luke 1:17

4.11

eph 6:5–8; col 3:22–25

4.13

Deut 4:2; 13:1 (LXX); Prov 30:6

4.14

Jas 5:16; 1 John 1:9

5.1

Matt 15:19

6.1

Lev 15:13

Viewing only this small section of the Didache, it is clear that numerous themes in the text find parallel in a variety of scriptural sources that do not make Varner’s list, as seen for example with the situation of Proverbs, Tobit, acts, James, and 1 John. This listing is much open to debate, and its parallels are oftentimes simply suggestive and not likely true foundations for the text. To that end, unless the Didache can be shown to emphasize a particular source, the coincidence of a parallel is mostly inconsequential.

What is left from this sampling is some recognition that the text is highly dependent on materials from exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy that have likewise found parallel in Matthew.46 in other words, the Didache (whether one speaks of Did1 or Did2 in this case) reveals special interest in Torah materials associated with the teachings of Jesus, particularly as preserved in the Matthean form.47

from Did. 6.2 to 16.8, the situation is quite similar, though the foundation of Torah is no longer evident. One might at the most look toward the prophets as a substitute for this Old Testament layer of support as follows: 6.2

sir 51:26–27; Matt 11:29–30

6.3

acts 15:29

7.1, 3 Matt 28:19

8.1

Matt 6:16

8.2

Matt 6:5 // Matt 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4

9.4

Neh 1:9

9.5

Matt 7:6

10.2

John 17:11 // Luke 1:49; Matt 6:9; Luke 11:2

10.3

Wis 1:14; sir 18:1; 3 Macc 2:9; Rev 4:11

10.5

Matt 6:13 // John 17:23; 1 John 4:12 // Matt 24:31; zech 2:10

46. One observes here yet again that a high preponderance of parallels to sirach is evident throughout. see n. 35.

47. in many cases these materials find parallel in Mark and Luke, but without consistency and typically without distinctions among readings.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

10.6

Matt 21:9, 15 // 1 cor 16:22

11.2

2 John 10

11.7

Matt 12:31

11.8

Matt 7:15–23

12.1

Ps 117:26 (LXX); Matt 21:9; Rom 12:13

12.4

2 Thess 3:7–12

13.1

Matt 10:10; Luke 10:7; 1 cor 9:13–14; 1 Tim 5:18

13.3

sir 7:29–31; Matt 10:10

14.2

Matt 5:23–24

14.3

Mal 1:11, 14

14.5

Num 15:20–21

15.3

Matt 18:15 // 1 cor 5:11

15.4

Matt 6:1–18

16.1

Matt 24:42, 44; 25:13; Mark 13:35, 37, 33; Luke 12:35, 40

16.3

Matt 20:10–12; Mark 13:13 // Matt 7:15; Mark 13:22

16.4

1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7 // Matt 24:10 // Matt 24:24 // Joel 2:2

16.5

1 cor 3:13; 1 Pet 1:17 // zech 13:8–9 // Matt 24:10 // Matt 10:22; 24:13; Mark 13:13

16.6

Matt 24:30–31; 1 cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16

16.7

zech 14:5; Matt 25:31; 1 Thess 3:13

16.8

Dan 7:13; Matt 16:27; 24:30; 26:64; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27

here one continues to see the presence of Matthean parallels, as Varner has observed, and no longer the focus on Torah provided as the framework for the Two Ways segment. There is more presence of the Prophets, illustrated above in the discussion of Malachi and zechariah. One might argue for the presence of additional Pauline parallels and Johannine phrases throughout, though these are scattered and in no sense focal to the Didachist’s argument. Much of this material appears either in the eucharistic prayer and discussion on accepting teachers in 10.1–11.2 or in the eschatological section of chapter 16, materials that find ready parallel elsewhere in Paul’s writings and Johannine literature.

Most importantly, what is not here are appeals to the teachings of Jesus based simply on the authority of the figure of Jesus christ. it is true that there are scattered references to teachings as found in the Gospels but, as has been argued above, the great majority of these likely belong to the hand of Did2 and not to the Didachist. Thus the authority of the gospel as text (or at least as textual tradition) must be ascribed to a later per-

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spective that appreciates literary convention in an evolved understanding of ecclesiastical authority, a view of Matthew not shared by the original author of the Didache, who is identified here as the Didachist or Did1. it would seem that while the Matthean tradition was an important lens for scriptural interpretation in the view of Did1, it was the Gospel text itself that likely served that same role for Did2.

5. summary and conclusions

Reviewing Varner’s observations about use of scripture in the Didache, what can one say in response? Let us review these remarks in order: (1) The Didachist saw authority in scripture. This comment is offered under the assumption that the Didache is a single perspective and thus a reflection of only one view of canon. This seems not necessarily to be the case, since the text likely preserves an original vision (= Did1) and at least one editorial layer (= Did2). as for the former, the Torah and the Prophets hold primary concern. With respect to the Prophets, this is easily envisioned by the way in which the Didachist specifically cites passages from Malachi and zechariah as authoritative sources. With respect to the Torah, this is necessarily true, because it is the tradition on which the Two Ways is constructed. The Didachist likely has simply incorporated a Jewish Two Ways source here as a valid foundation of community authority.48 The editor (Did2) must have been in agreement with this view by logical deduc-tion, having maintained the Two Ways as the opening of the text, though there is nothing to indicate that this tradition held any special importance in this respect. More important for Did2 is the Gospel of Matthew, whose text as opposed to its tradition seems to hold primacy of place, indicating a mindset that appreciated the evolved authority of gospel development.

(2) The Didachist made considerable use of the Gospel of Matthew.

This observation seems true both for the Didachist and the secondary editor. as for the latter, it is evident that the Gospel of Matthew (either in literary or oral form) was valued in its own right. The question of whether the Didachist (Did1) knew any such source remains a matter of how one assigns a date to the two works and their relationship to one another.

48. so the assumption of van de sandt and flusser (among others), which i too accept here; see huub van de sandt and David flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity, cRiNT 3.5 (assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: fortress, 2002).

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

Regardless, there is no reason to doubt that at least the community tradition in which Matthew developed held primary importance for the author of the Vorlage itself.

(3) The Didachist incorporated segments of the Torah and the Prophets drawn from the LXX. This is particularly difficult to substantiate either with respect to the Didachist or the editor. it is true that certain passages drawn from scripture indicate a clear dependence on the LXX,49 but many source texts are similar in both the MT and LXX forms. Nevertheless, there is no single instance in the Didache where the author clearly has preferred a hebrew text or tradition over that of the Greek, and thus Varner’s observation may indeed be seen as a reasonable assumption.

(4) The Didachist did not make use of allegory as a mode of interpretation. This is patently true, but it is not evident how this observation is particularly useful apart from corollary observations. One might note that the Didachist (as well as the editor) did approach scripture metaphorically, as is sometimes the practice of Paul (see Gal 4:21–31) or is presumably true for certain parables of Jesus (so Matt 13:3–24, 37–43). But the author of James likewise uses no allegory. Does this mean that the Didachist (as well as the editor presumably) is more Jewish in some sense? This is widely assumed by most authors, but not based on this particular category, since even the rabbis employed allegory. at the same time this comment does differentiate the Didache from texts like Barnabas with its rampant allegorical language, but not from other authors who run the ideological gamut from clement of Rome to ignatius of antioch. it is especially hard to know the extent to which the Didachist (or the editor) read the eschatological texts behind chapter 16 as literal or allegorical, since no subsequent interpretation is offered. Varner’s observation ultimately seems reasonable here again, though its value remains uncertain.

(5) The Didachist employed scripture in the same way as the New Testament authors. This final observation is indeed curious, especially since Varner offers no similar analysis of how scripture was employed by the authors of the New Testament, and they did not use scripture in the same way among themselves. for example, New Testament authors use scripture literally at times, typologically at others, allegorically and metaphorically elsewhere. This varies according to author and topic. The Didachist 49. see the scattered usages of sirach, Tobit in 1.2, exodus and Proverbs in 2.3, Psalms in 3.7 and 12.1, Deuteronomy in 4.13, and the prohibitions of the Decalogue scattered throughout chapters 2–5.

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(as well as the editor) seems on the surface to have employed scripture in a simple literal fashion, shaped on the one hand by the plain value of the direct teaching of the text and, on the other, occasionally by the prophetic dimension of fulfillment, as Varner argues for the author’s use of Mal 1:11

and 14 in Did. 14.3.

What seems evident with respect to the use of scripture in the Didache is as follows. There are at least two different perspectives concerning scripture at work here. The first, and presumably original, perspective (Did1) revered the Torah (seen in the Two Ways), Prophets (seen with Malachi and zechariah), and teachings of Jesus (within a distinctly Jewish context).

There is discernible sympathy for Matthean tradition here, though it is difficult to know whether the gospel text itself was available for consultation.

One observes that with this limited canon in hand (to use the terminology of sanders), there is nothing to identify the Didachist as anything other than a messianic Jew. The author of the Vorlage fits reasonably well into the historical moment in which Paul and his contemporaries found themselves in the first century.50

The second and later perspective at work within the Didache (Did2) preserves the same respect for the Torah and the Prophets, as well as a sayings tradition behind the teachings of Jesus (perhaps Q?). Beyond this, however, it appears that the literary form of Matthew’s Gospel has gained prominence of place for the subsequent editor (Did2) of the text, inter-mingled to some limited extent with Lukan tradition. This evolution of perspective suggests a later situation (late second century?) in which the concept of canon has been expanded and, at least to some extent, certified as authoritative for the tradition. One might easily envision that the influence of irenaeus is already at work for Did2, having shaped a perspective that reads Old Testament texts and traditions through a specifically christian lens. This editor is now a “christian” in the full institutional sense of the word; this writer respects the authority of a new tradition that had not yet been settled for the Didachist.

ultimately, the Didachist and the later editor both work within a similar tradition of interpretation. But while the perspective of the former is limited to the Torah, Prophets, and teachings of Jesus, the latter further includes a limited Lukan perspective and dominical sayings associ-50. There is thus ample reason to see great antiquity behind the traditions that underlie the Didache and perhaps even to assign the Didachist to a pre-Matthean trajectory; so the view of Garrow, Gospel of Matthew’s Dependence.

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ated specifically with the text of Matthew as an authoritative source. Thus the sources behind the Didache derive from within a single trajectory of vision, but with a clear evolution of perspectives and development of literary authority.

The Distress signals of Didache Research: Quest for a Viable future

Aaron Milavec

During the hundred years following its discovery, adolf von harnack and, after him, his successors succeeded in giving a determined direction to Didache research. in so doing, the Didache took on a discernible identity and was valued as contributing to the pressing academic discussions of the day. During the last forty years harnack and his successors have been largely marginalized. as a result, the field of Didache studies has been caught up in a confusing diversity of scholarly opinions. There is no single origination hypothesis, no single methodology, and no single research program to guide our way. The field of Didache scholarship is thus in disarray and unable to substantially contribute to the academic questions of our day.

in this essay i want to sketch out how research programs from the past have contributed to the current crisis. i also want to sketch out how recent approaches to Didache studies offer some promise to resolve this crisis. My comments will be grouped under three headings: (1) Mistaken identity of the Didache as a “church Order”; (2) Problematic Reliance on the synoptics; (3) failure to Recognize that “the Lord” Who is coming is the father and Not Jesus.

1. The Mistaken identity of the Didache as a “church Order”

a unified reading of the Didache has been impossible until very recently, because the prevailing assumption has been that the Didache is “the oldest church order” created in stages with the compiler splicing together preexisting documents with only a minimum of editing.1 in practice, source 1. Joseph G. Mueller, “The ancient church Order Literature: Genre or Tradition?” JECS 15 (2007): 337–80.

-59 -

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and redaction criticism expend so much energy in hypothesizing, on the basis of shifts in the logic and rhetoric of the text, where one source ends and another begins that any unity gets entirely obscured in the analysis.

furthermore, since the hypothesized sources in the form that the compiler knew them cannot be independently known and verified (e.g., as in the case of the synoptics), scholarly debates have been unable to arrive at any working consensus, since every major author relies upon his or her own

“reconstruction” of the original sources. Georg schöllgen, accordingly, accurately summarized the academic disarray as follows: it is significant that there is neither a consensus nor even only a limited number of types of solution between these 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.2

against this background, it is not surprising that three recent German commentaries offer three divergent “theories of origin” for our text: (1) according to Klaus Wengst,3 the author of the Didache set down in the initial ten chapters the existing traditions of his community and then created 11–15 by way of offering rules to protect those traditions.

(2) according to Kurt Niederwimmer, the compiler of the Didache was most probably “a respected and influential bishop” who “quotes existing, sometimes archaic rules and seeks both to preserve what has been inherited and at the same time to accommodate that heritage to his own time [the turn of the first century].”4

(3) according to Georg schöllgen, it is impossible to find any persuasive ordering principle in the Didache; rather, for him, the author “simply provides an authoritative regulation on controversial points,”5 which he 2. Georg schöllgen, “The Didache as a church Order: an examination of the Purpose for the composition of the Didache and its consequences for its interpretation,” in The Didache in Modern Research, ed. Jonathan a. Draper, aGJu 37 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 65.

3. Klaus Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), Barnabasbrief, Zweiter Klemensbrief, Schrift an Diognet, su 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984).

4. Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache: A Commentary, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis: fortress, 1998), 228.

5. schöllgen, “Didache as a church Order,” 63.

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sets out at random. schöllgen consequently identifies breaks in the text as signalling the transition from one controversial point to the next and not as indicators of multiple authors/editors.

While the origination hypothesis of each of the three German scholars is manifestly different, they all agree on two important points. (1) The Didache was produced by an author bent upon reporting or regulating the affairs of an existing community within which they functioned. Gone is the notion of a scribe or scribes sewing together blocks of preexisting materials by adding editorial stitches at the boundaries. While all three German scholars disagree as to what precisely were the traditional materials being used by the author, they all agree that the author was selecting and editing and ordering practices known to his community in such as way as to faithfully address urgent community needs. (2) The Didache as a consequence was composed by a single author producing a unified text for use within an existing community. all three German scholars have abandoned the notion of stanaslas Giet and Willy Rordorf calling for two distinct stages of composition by different persons at different times.6 With even greater force, they reject Jean-Paul audet and clayton Jefford who identified three temporally separated stages of composition.7

in brief, one can notice here how the traditional notion of a “church order” and its associated notion of authorship as being limited to minor editing has being abandoned when it comes to examining the Didache. in its place, one can detect how recent German scholarship has paved the way for a responsive and true authorship functioning within the constraints of a living community. in this way the disarray created by a rigid emphasis on source and redaction criticism has been partially overcome and the way was open to examining the Didache as a unified document regulating the affairs of a functioning community.

a Note in Defense of Orality

While each of the three German commentators revived the notion of a single author of the Didache, none of them has seriously taken into account the possibility that the Didache was created in “a culture of high 6. ibid., 67–70.

7. Niederwimmer, Didache, 42–43.

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residual orality”8 wherein “oral sources” (attached to respected persons) were routinely given greater weight and were immeasurably more service-able than “written sources.”9 in such a society no one practiced silent reading. every act of reading was tantamount to winding up the gramophone so that one could “hear” again the “oral source” that initially created the grammata (the silent string of notations without spaces transcribed on the parchment). The character and meaning of a text, consequently, was only available due to the recognition that comes from “hearing” it being recited.

furthermore, in societies where there is only a marginal access to and reliance upon written materials, “oral sources” offered a measure of socially maintained and person-centered stability without ever supposing that one needed or relied upon the frozen rigidity of a written text.10

each of the German scholars considered above suffers from the bias toward textuality and the ignorance of orality when it comes to examining the Didache. a more fruitful point of departure consequently would be to begin by noting that the Didache has clues throughout pointing to the primacy of “oral recitation.” here are a few instances of this: (1) The novice being trained in the way of life is told to honor “the one speaking to you the word of God” (Did. 4.1), thereby signalling that oral rather than written transmission of the training was presupposed. Moreover, the novice trembles “at the words that you have heard” (Did. 3.8).11

(2) in every instance where the Didache cites specific mandates from the hebrew scriptures, meanwhile, the oral aspect (as opposed to the written) is highlighted: “it has been said” (Did.

1.6); “The Lord has likewise said” (Did. 9.5); “This is the thing having been said by the Lord” (Did. 14.3); “as it has been said”

(Did. 16.7).

8. Paul J. achtemeier, “Omne verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral environment of Late Western antiquity,” JBL 109 (1990): 3–27 (3).

9. ibid., 9–11. also Walter J. Ong, The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Minneapolis: university of Minnesota Press, 1967), 52–53.

10. achtemeier, “Omne verbum sonat,” 27. see further Ong, Presence of the Word, 231–34.

11. The translation of the Didache is my own and can be found in its entirety in my two Didache volumes (see n. 23). unless otherwise stated, translations of the Bible follow the NRsV.

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(3) The Didache gives repeated attention to speaking rightly (Did.

1.3b; 2.3, 5; 4.8b, 14; 15.3b) and entirely neglects to mention false or empty writing.

(4) at the baptism, the novice is immersed in water “having said all these things beforehand” (Did. 7.1).

(5) The same holds true when later in the Didache the baptized are warned only to receive teachers who “should train you in all the things said beforehand” (Did. 11.1). This indicates that both true and false teachers were being heard. No mention is made of either true or false writings.

as soon as one explores the dominant role of orality within traditional communities, one has to abandon the notion of a single authoritative text produced by a single author. studies in the synoptics, for example, have moved to seeing living communities as being both the repositories and the shapers of their oral narratives.12 These narratives in the course of time get transcribed on parchment, but the authority of that parchment depends upon the fact that what is transcribed can be read out loud by a trained reader and that listeners immediately discover an “echo” of what was currently being narrated and lived by the leading teachers and elders within that community.13

Three consequences suggest themselves. (1) Phrases such as “the author of the Didache” might better be replaced by phrases such as “the narrators of the Didache” in order to focus on the oral transmission and the aural reception surrounding the use of the Didache. (2) aural reception of the Didache is associated with the phenomenology of “trembling”

(Did. 3.8). having been set upon the path of life by “the God who made 12. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 2003), 191–200. fully developed by Werner Kelber, “The Oral-scribal-Memorial arts of communication in early christianity,” in Jesus, the Voice, and the Text: Beyond the Oral and the Written Gospel, ed. Tom Thatcher (Waco, TX: Baylor university Press, 2008), 235–62.

13. John L. McKenzie, “The social character of inspiration,” CBQ 24 (1962): 115–25. already fifty years ago, McKenzie argued that it was impossible to adequately describe or to verify the interior states of those writing under the influence of divine inspiration. as a social phenomenon, however, one could readily understand and verify the situation that prevails when a single author, as a service to the community, transcribed the oral transmission of the authoritative and guiding narratives that animated the community.

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you” (Did. 1.2), the novice trembled with excited anticipation and rever-ential fear. This was the phenomenology exhibited when israel originally experienced the word of the Lord from Mount sinai (exod 19:16) and when the prophets encountered God’s word (e.g., ezra 9:4; isa 66:2; hab 3:16). among the rabbis it was a commonplace to remember that every master taught his disciples “with awe and fear, with trembling and trepida-tion” (b. Ber. 22a). Reading seldom has this effect.14 (3) When the way of life is acknowledged as an oral recitation, it follows that the ordering of the training might meticulously follow a very sophisticated schema from beginning to end. it was through my own oral recitation of the Didache that i myself progressively discovered this schema.15 This effectively undercuts schöllgen’s pessimistic affirmation that it is impossible to find any persuasive ordering principle in the Didache.

seeing the trend in the last thirty years, my expectation is that future Didache scholars16 will increasingly use studies of orality to appreciate the nature, character, and use of the Didache within its community setting.

2. Problematic Reliance on the synoptics

The dating of the Didache has been heavily dominated by presupposi-tions17 regarding the sources used in its composition. harnack wrote in his influential 1884 commentary: “One must say without hesitation that it is the author of the Didache who used the Epistle of Barnabas and not the reverse.”18 harnack accordingly dated the Didache between 135 and 14. Jonathan Draper provides additional testimonies to this phenomenon in his essay included in this volume.

15. for details, see aaron Milavec, The Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50–70 CE (New York: Newman, 2003), xxxii–xxxiii.

16. Perttu Nikander provides an illustrative study of orality in his article included in this volume.

17. Presuppositions regarding the character of the early church also interfered with an early dating. see, for example, Thomas O’Loughlin, “Reactions to the Didache in early Twentieth-century Britain: a Dispute over the Relationship of history and Doctrine?” in Religion, Identity and Conflict in Britain: From the Restoration to the Twentieth Century. Festschrift for Prof. Keith Robbins, ed. stewart J. Brown et al. (farnham, surrey, uK: ashgate, 2013), 177–94.

18. adolf von harnack, Die Lehre der zwölf Apostel nebst Untersuchungenzuraltesten Geschichte der Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts, TuGaL 2.1, 2 (Leipzig: hinrichs, 1884; repr. Berlin: akademmie, 1991), 82.

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165 and fixed the place of origin as egypt, since Barnabas was conjectured to have been composed there. it was not until 1945 that edgar J.

Goodspeed, aided by the Latin versions of Barnabas that had no two way section, finally put to rest the assumption that the Didache had to depend upon Barnabas.19

Once the epistle of Barnabas was no longer considered as the source for the Didache, an earlier dating for the Didache could be entertained and a fresh impetus was given to the question as to whether the framers of the Didache used one or more of the canonical Gospels. it is telling that as late as 1958 audet devoted forty-two pages to the Barnabas dependence issue and only twenty pages to the gospel dependence issue.20 audet concluded that, when examined closely, even the so-called “evangelical addition” of Did. 1.3b–5 could not be explained as coming directly either from Matthew or from Luke.21 accordingly, in the end audet contributed more than any other scholar by showing, text by text, how securely the Didache was anchored in a Jewish horizon of understanding. Thus, audet concluded that this pointed to a completion date prior to 70 in a milieu (antioch) that did not yet have a written gospel.22

Recent scholars have been willing to call into question direct dependency upon any written gospel. Jonathan Draper, John Kloppenborg, aaron Milavec, Niederwimmer, Rordorf, and huub van de sandt argue in favor of this position.23 Opposition voices, however, are still heard.

19. edgar J. Goodspeed, “The Didache, Barnabas and the Doctrina,” AThR 27

(1945): 228–47.

20. Jean-Paul audet, La Didachè: Instructions des Apôtres, ebib (Paris: Gabalda, 1958), 121–63, 166–86.

21. ibid., 186.

22. ibid., 192, 210.

23. Jonathan a. Draper, “The Jesus Tradition in the Didache,” in Draper, The Didache in Modern Research, 72–91; John s. Kloppenborg, “Didache 16:6–8 and special Matthaean Tradition,” ZNW 70 (1979): 54–67; aaron Milavec, Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life, 693–740; a summary statement was also included in the final three pages of the student edition: The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary (collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003); Niederwimmer, Didache, 48–51; Willy Rordorf and andré Tuilier, La doctrine des douze Apôtres (Didachè), sc 248 bis (Paris: cerf, 1978), 91, and more emphatically in the 1991 expanded edition (p. 232); see also Willy Rordorf, “Does the Didache contain Jesus Tradition independently of the synoptic Gospels?” in Jesus and the Oral Synoptic Tradition, ed. henry Wansbrough (sheffield: sheffield academic, 1991), 394–423; huub van de sandt and David flusser,

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christopher Tuckett of Oxford university, for example, reexamined all the evidence and came to the conclusion that the Didache “presupposes the finished gospel of Matthew (and perhaps Luke).”24 if Tuckett is correct, then the earliest possible dating of the Didache would be the late 80s, the date when most scholars suppose that these gospels were finalized.

My early work with Rordorf led me to realize that the nearly universal agreement that the Didache made use of Matthew stood on very weak grounds. in my 2003 essay “synoptic Tradition in the Didache Revisited,”25

i made a strong case for showing that the received text of the Didache does not exhibit familiarity with Matthew’s Gospel, otherwise the framers of the Didache would have made use of the “words of Jesus” to support community practices such as the confession of failings prior to the eucharist and not be forced to stretch the hebrew prophets to perform that service. Moreover, i showed that the framers of the Didache displayed verbal usages, community discipline, and a theological orientation that set it apart from the community orientation and practices of those following the Matthean tradition.

The academic community has much to gain from a free and open exchange between two opponents. following the publication of my essay

“synoptic Tradition in the Didache Revisited,” therefore, i was pleased that Tuckett took an interest in refocusing his own position while correcting various ways in which i may have “misunderstand and/or misread”26 his position. in my rejoinder that was also published in the Journal of Early Christian Studies, i begin by setting forth two methodological points where Tuckett and i find substantial agreement:27 (1) the framers of the Didache were not “citing from an open gospel set out before them” nor does the fourfold use of “good news/gospel” (εὐαγγέλιον, 8.2; 11.3; 15.3, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity, cRiNT

3.5 (assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: fortress, 2002), 48–52.

24. for the sake of brevity, citations will be largely limited to the text of Tuckett’s refutation of my position in “The Didache and the synoptics Once More: a Response to aaron Milavec.” JECS 13 (2005): 509–18.

25. aaron Milavec, “synoptic Tradition in the Didache Revisited,” JECS 11 (2003): 443–80. This article is an updated and shortened version of material from my book, Didache: Faith, Hope, and Love, 693–740.

26. Tuckett, “Didache and the synoptics Once More,” 510.

27. aaron Milavec, “a Rejoinder [to Tuckett],” JECS 13 (2005): 519–521. Given my severe space limitations, i forego the temptation to explain and to nuance these statements from our respective sides.

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4) necessarily refer to a written source; (2) even in instances where the Didache manifests an exact or nearly exact verbal agreement with Matthew, this does not in and of itself establish familiarity and borrowing of one from the other. This is so because both could, in these instances, be making use of oral/written traditions independently available.

Jefford, in his book-length treatment of this issue, repeatedly comes across this impasse, namely, how to differentiate between the Didache making use of Matthew’s Gospel and the Didache having access to a shared (oral) tradition from which both the author of the Didache and the author of Matthew are able to freely borrow.28 Tuckett, in response to this question, endeavors to frame a criterion that “could be applied with a degree of objectivity,”29 namely: “if material which owes its origin to the redactional activity of a synoptic evangelist reappears in another work, then the latter presupposes the finished work of that evangelist.”30 Tuckett uses this principle to demonstrate that Did. 16 shows borrowing from Matt 24. Time does not permit me to unravel the particulars of this demonstration. What i can say, however, is that i had sincerely hoped that Tuckett might have changed my mind in 1996 when i first encountered his work. he failed to do so. i appreciate his redoubled efforts to convince me yet again in 2005

after i had published my two volumes on the Didache. every time i reenter into his framework of thinking, however, i confess that i find only fleeting intellectual satisfaction. Tuckett, needless to say, remains firmly convinced that Did. 16 made use of the redactional work found within Matt 24. he is further convinced that this borrowing took place precisely because the author of the Didache regarded the Matthean tradition (even if it was an oral transmission) as an “authoritative source.” But here is the stumbling stone: if the Matthean tradition was indeed the “authoritative source” that Tuckett assumes, how can he explain why the author of the Didache would have taken over only a mere 2 percent of Matt 24 while seemingly ignoring and/or rejecting the other 98 percent? a response to this question has not been forthcoming.

slowly the tide is turning. at the international specialist conference on “The Didache and Matthew”31 held at Tilburg in 2003, i publicly polled 28. clayton N. Jefford, The Sayings of Jesus in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Vcsup 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1989).

29. Tuckett, “Didache and the synoptics Once More,” 517.

30. ibid., 517.

31. Papers from the conference have been subsequently edited and published;

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the twenty-three participants at the end of the conference. six judged that the Didache made use of Matthew; one person judged that Matthew made use of the Didache; but the overwhelming majority (sixteen) held that the Didache was created without any reliance upon Matthew. as more Didache scholars come to accept this emerging consensus, the way will open up for dating and for interpreting the Didache independent of the influence of Matthean studies.32 i, for one, welcome this prospect and believe that the future of Didache studies securely lies in walking along these lines.

3. failure to Recognize that “the Lord”

Who is coming is the father and Not Jesus

My decision to accept an early dating for the Didache never was based exclusively on my conclusions regarding textual independence. Nearly eighteen years ago, for example, i noticed that the Didache focuses upon orthopraxis in much the same way as does the Manual of Discipline and the Mishnah. in this regard, reading Jacob Neusner’s Why No Gospels in Talmudic Judaism? and Werner Kelber’s The Oral and the Written Gospel were influential, for they both, following entirely different lines of reasoning, demonstrate that the gospel genre would have been quite foreign to the Galilean disciples of Jesus. combined with this, audet’s masterful thesis showing how every part of the language and logic of the Didache finds its meaning within a Jewish horizon of understanding supported in my mind the possibility that the Didache might represent a Jewish form of christianity that predated the formation of the Gospels.

somewhat later i was able to notice that the Didache focuses on God the father as the expected savior coming to gather his elect into the kingdom. in Paul’s epistles and in the sermons of acts, this focus gets decid-edly altered. The one who heralded the kingdom is now being celebrated as the savior who has been raised from the dead, taken up into heaven, and is sitting at the right hand of God awaiting the time for his triumphant return when he will raise the dead to life, judge the nations, and establish see huub van de sandt, ed., Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? (assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: fortress, 2005).

32. The case of the Didache is thus comparable to that of hebrews. as soon as it was accepted that Paul was not the author, then it was likewise required that hebrews could be interpreted based upon its own internal logic and rhetoric quite independent of the theology of the authentic Pauline epistles.

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God’s kingdom. The Didache, interestingly enough, focuses exclusively on what God the father will do—much in the same way that it would appear that Jesus did when he proclaimed the kingdom of God in his tours of the villages of Galilee. Thus, quite clearly the Didache must have originated within a community wherein the faith of Jesus (rather than faith in Jesus) was still running strong.33

in his book The Birth of Christianity, John Dominic crossan (following helmut Koester and Kloppenborg) identifies two primary but markedly different Jesus traditions propagated in earliest christianity: (1) the tradition which placed central emphasis upon Jesus’s sayings and life as a divinely approved guide for living, a tradition crossan labels as “the Life Tradition”; and (2) the tradition which placed central emphasis on Jesus’s death and resurrection, a tradition found in the epistles of Paul and the sermons of acts which crossan labels as “the Death Tradition”34 The Didache, along with the Gospel of Thomas and the Q Gospel, in contrast to this, follow the “Life Tradition” and retain a form of eucharist wherein the father is the honored guest and thanks are given for what he has already done and what he will bring to pass in the future. in this eucharist, it is understandable why there is no memorial of the saving death of Jesus and no expectation of the return of Jesus as Lord in the end times.

What is striking in crossan’s exposition is that he puts forward a hermeneutical principal advising scholars investigating these two early and very distinct forms within earliest christianity to “not privilege one over the other”:

We should not privilege … the death and resurrection over the sayings, as [was done] in past theology, nor the sayings over the death and resurrection, as in present reaction.… furthermore, whatever descriptive term is used for one, be it proclamation or kerygma, tradition, or gospel, the same term should be used for the other. finally my own preferred terminology is the Life Tradition and the Death Tradition.35

33. This comes forward in my writings, beginning with “The Didache: a Window on Gentile christianity before the Written Gospels,” The Fourth R 18 (2005): 7–11, 15–16.

34. John Dominic crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus (san francisco: harpersanfrancisco, 1998), 407, 415, 420, 501–4, 521, 550, 572–73.

35. ibid., 415.

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crossan’s insights offer a very fruitful point of departure for exploring the unique character of the Didache in the context of alternative forms of early christianity. his hermeneutical principle serves to safeguard a climate that is both impartial and ecumenical.

3.1. an examination of the use of κύριος in the Didache The Didache makes use of κύριος (“lord”) twenty-four times. in each instance the context can be explored in order to discern whether the “Lord God” or the “Lord Jesus” is meant. The purpose of this exercise is to open up the hidden spirituality of the Didache and to provide a sure starting point for exploring its inner workings.

Within the eucharistic prayers, Jesus is portrayed four times as παῖς

(“the servant”) who reveals the life and understanding of the father (Did.

9.3). This accords well with the understanding of the christian scriptures that Jesus proclaimed “the good news of God” (Mark 1:4; Rom 1:1; 2 cor 2:7; 1 Thess 2:2, 9; 1 Pet 4:17)—never the “good news of Jesus.” Thus, in the four places within the Didache wherein “good news” (εὐαγγέλιον) is found (Did. 8.2; 11.3; 15.3, 4), it must be supposed that this refers to an oral source36 and that it comprises the “good news of our Lord God” (Did.

15.4) transmitted by his servant, Jesus.

for the reasons just mentioned, it must also be supposed that when it comes to baptizing and receiving visitors “in the name of the Lord” (Did.

9.5; 12.1), this means first and foremost, doing these things “in the name of the father” (Did. 7.1). The members of the Didache were singularly preoccupied with his “name” (Did. 8.2; 10.2) and mute when it came to the

“name of Jesus.” More especially, the daily prayers petition that “your [the father’s] name be made holy” (Did. 8.2), and the weekly eucharist speaks of “your [the father’s] holy name, which you tabernacle in our hearts”

(Did. 10.2). Within the prayer life of this community, consequently, the presence of the father is singularly and consistently evoked. The presence of Jesus is not dwelt upon.37

36. historically speaking, the term εὐαγγέλιον referred to an oral production, and only in the latter third of the second century were books recording the “good news” first designated by this name. helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London: scM; Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990), 1–54.

37. This does not mean that David and Jesus are not specifically honored as the Lord’s “servants” within the eucharistic prayers. Rather, my purpose here is to high-

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On four occasions the Didache makes reference to persons being honored or received “as the Lord” (Did. 4.1; 11.2, 4; 12.1). The most elaborate of these is the following:

[a] My child, the one speaking to you the word of God,

[1] you will remember night and day,

[2] and you will honor him/her as the Lord,

for where the dominion of the Lord is spoken of, there the Lord is (Did. 4.1).

here the novice was being shown the appropriate posture to take toward his or her personal trainer from whom he or she receives the way of life: (1) remembering and reflecting at night and during the day on his/her life and words; and (2) honoring him or her “as the Lord.” in this instance, the novice honors his or her mentor “as the Lord God,” for it is “the word of God” and the way of life revealed by the father that was being transmitted.38 This parallels what R. eleazar ben shammua said: “The reverence light that prayers are addressed directly to the father and that there is no need to add at any point “from him, with him, and through him [Jesus].” Thus, the Lord God is boldly and familiarly addressed as “our father,” and the eucharistic meal honors him as the unseen host who is praised throughout the meal for his work in guiding, liberating, and sanctifying his children. in contrast, the Pauline memorial of the Last supper shifts this focus toward Jesus. Now the guiding, liberating, and sanctifying functions are either shared or entirely taken over by christ Jesus. The development of eucharistic theology, meanwhile, has been singularly preoccupied with explaining the manifold ways that christ is present. christian denominations vie with one another in inventing new ways to evoke the presence of christ. hence, even though most or all of the traditional canonical prayers are still addressed to the father, the minds and the hearts of today's worshippers are predisposed toward encountering Jesus. This is the direct result of the “Death Tradition.”

i mention these things here because the very fabric of our current eucharistic spirituality blocks us from rightly appreciating and rightly entering into the spirituality of the Didache. even dedicated scholars and pastors are prone to read into the Didache what they want to find there and to discover therein what they imagine ought to be there if it is to be credited and harmonized with what we now know about early christianity. The clues of the Didache are thus bent into all sorts of fantastical directions that have few checks and balances, and, as a result, the authentic voice of the Didache is muffled.

38. Niederwimmer judges that “the Lord God” would have been intended in its original Jewish context but that here it refers to the “Lord Jesus” (Didache, 105).

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

owing to your master [mentor] should be like the awe owing to heaven [=

God]” (m. ’abot 4:12; Kallah Rab. 52b).39

3.2. The Lord’s Prayer

The Didache declares that members should pray three times a day “as the Lord ordered in his good news” (8.2). The “Lord” in this case could possibly refer to Jesus, but this would yield to a Matthean bias that might be misplaced in the context of the Didache. The focus in the Didache is quite clearly cantered upon “how does the Lord God want us to pray?” at the three ordinary times each day.40 Given the fact that the Lord’s Prayer in the This demonstrates that even seasoned scholars can unknowingly transport into the Didache their bias in favor of identifying Jesus as Lord. They acquire this bias in studying Paul and in participating in christian piety. it is difficult for them, accordingly, to imagine how the Didache can be true to Jesus while absolutely being centered upon the presence, the purposes, and the saving grace of the father. Niederwimmer refers to the “original Jewish context” without even for a moment reflecting that Jesus himself and the movement he left behind were solidly rooted within a Jewish context. Thus, even in the synoptics we find Jesus saying to his disciples: “Whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matt 10:40; Luke 9:48). and even Paul, who was consumed with promoting the messianic identity of Jesus, finds no difficulty in referencing the final consummation of history as taking place when “the Lord will become king over all the earth; the Lord will be one and his name one” (zech 14:9) as requiring that ”when all things are subjected to him [christ-Jesus], then the son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all” (1 cor 15:28).

39. Jonathan Draper adds more references supporting this when he notes that

“speaking the Name or Word or Torah mediates the presence of God is widespread in Jewish thinking”; see in this volume, the essay of Jonathan a. Draper (“children and slaves in the community of the Didache and the Two Ways Tradition”).

40. The framers of the Didache specify: “Three times within the day präy thus”

(Did. 8.3) [for use of the umlaut, see n. 48 below]. at the same time, the framers found no necessity to define those times during the day when these prayers take place, nor do they specify the posture of prayer. The silence of the Didache on these points suggests that everyone was familiar with those times due to the practice of the community, which, in its turn, was shaped by the practice of the synagogue. following Paul f. Bradshaw, “the times were traditional and unchanged, and so need no explicit mention” (The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship [New York: Oxford university Press, 1992], 26). Taras Khomych follows this line of thinking when he contrasts εὐαγγέλιον as found in Paul and in the Didache: “as opposed to Paul, the Didache is notably not centered on christology. This document presents Jesus as

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Gospel of Matthew (6:9–13) differs markedly from what one finds in the Gospel of Luke (11:2–4), and given the distinct possibility that Jesus (like most of his contemporaries) prayed extemporaneously, and, finally, given the absence of any tradition that Jesus routinely acted as prayer leader for his disciples, one has to be cautious in assuming that the Didache knows anything of Matthew’s account of the origin of this prayer.41

furthermore, the Didache does not stop with saying “as the Lord ordered,” but continues with “in his good news.” The good news, of course, is God’s good news of his plans to establish a kingdom on earth as it is already established in heaven. The framers of the Didache consequently presuppose that the oral tradition for the Lord’s Prayer was already established and in use within their community life. The Didache sanctions this usage as what “the Lord ordered in his good news” and insures that this prayer template had the authority (1) to override the use of the eighteen Benedictions (m. Ber. 4:3, m. Ta‘an. 2:2), which guided synagogue Jews in their prayers three times a day, and (2) to reign in the enthusiasm of christians who might be expected to promote the second coming of Jesus in their daily prayers.42

God’s servant [παῖς], who revealed the will of the Lord”; see in this volume, the essay of Taras Khomych (“another Gospel: exploring early christian Diversity with Paul and the Didache”).

41. The scholars of the Jesus seminar, meeting in atlanta in 1988, said that certain lines of the prayer appeared to be most authentic, namely, “hallowed be thy name,”

“thy kingdom come,” “give us this day our daily bread,” and “forgive us our debts.” But they said that these were likely to have been paraphrases of earlier statements and that it was unlikely Jesus ever strung these lines together in a single prayer. for a detailed analysis, see Milavec, Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life, 300–50.

42. suffice it to say here that the phrase “dö not pray as the hypocrites” (Did .

8.2) [for use of the umlaut, see n. 48 below] signals that there was some contention within the Didache communities regarding what prayer template was to be used for the threefold daily prayers. Keep in mind that such prayers were regularly prayed in small groups (in households and in workshops). in this case a gifted prayer leader would improvise and expand within the progression given by the prayer template, and “because yours is the power and the glory forever” would be used as the expected refrain (as also in the weekly eucharist). Given the restricted eschatological horizon of the Didache, one can imagine that someone who misused the daily prayers to promote Jesus as the Messiah coming upon the clouds of heaven would be as objectionable as someone who promoted defense of the Jerusalem temple as part of God’s final show-down with the gentiles. The framers of the Didache had the pastoral genius of know-

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

3.3. The eucharistic Meal

in connection with the eucharist, we find the following instruction: (and) lët43 no one eat or drink from ÿour eucharist except those baptized in the name of [the] Lord, for the Lord has likewise said concerning this: “Do not give what is holy to the dogs.” (Did. 9.5) Within the context of the Didache’s eucharist, “Lord” is reserved for “Lord God” and prayers are addressed entirely to the father. Given the identification of Jesus as παῖς (“the servant”) of the father (Did. 9.2–3; 10.2–3), one would not be astonished that Did. 9.5 retains the notion that baptism was practiced “in the name of the Lord God.”44 On the other hand, within the

“Death Tradition,” baptism was performed “in the name of Jesus christ”

(acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 1 cor 1:13; Gal 3:27), but we would not expect that to be the case here.

ing where to be lenient and to honor diversity and where to draw the line and enforce a necessary unity. The community that prays together stays together.

43. in my two Didache volumes, i adapted the practice of using an umlaut by way of signaling that the verb is plural. i retain this practice in this essay.

44. scholars generally agree that Did. 9.5 represents an earlier tradition that was gradually replaced by the trinity of names. see James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 155–56. The tradition of acting “in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit” (Did. 7.1, 3) should not be thought of as reflecting early evidence of the doctrine of the Trinity. christianity took over from Judaism an instinct for monotheism that made it impossible for Jews to imagine any physical person being confounded with the invisible and all-powerful Lord of the universe. for an in-depth story, i would recommend the historical grounding and the exegetical lucidity of James D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: scM; Philadelphia: Trinity, 1991), 163–229. a key passage in his work appears on page 190, as follows: “Paul in fact calls Jesus ‘Lord’ as much as a means of distinguishing Jesus from God as of identifying him with God. We have already cited 1 cor 8:6 more than once: ‘for us there is one God, the father … and one Lord, Jesus christ.’ evidently Paul could confess Jesus as Lord, while at the same time confessing that God is one; the two claims were not seen to be in any kind of competition. Paul could acknowledge the lordship of christ, without apparently diminishing his commitment to Jewish monotheism.… We should also note a phrase which recurs quite often in the Pauline corpus, ‘the God and father of our Lord Jesus christ’ [Rom 15:6, 2 cor 1:3, 11:31; eph 1:3, 17; col 1:3; also 1 Pet 1:3]. even Jesus as Lord has God as his God.”

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in the entire New Testament, Matthew alone has the trinity of names associated with baptism, “in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit” (28:19). arthur Vööbus points out, however, that eusebius cites the great commission of Matthew more than two dozen times as “teach all nations in my name.”45 it is quite probably, consequently, that eusebius’s text of Matthew’s Gospel did not have a trinitarian formula and that this was later edited into copies of Matthew’s Gospel. accordingly, the retention of the simple formula “baptized in the name of the Lord” (Did.

9.5) may also be a remnant of how 7.1b and 7.3 were expressed in earlier recitations of the Didache. hence, some weight must be given to the possibility that the trinitarian formula was introduced into the Didache in much the same way that an early copyist emended Matt 28:19 to conform to the liturgical practice of his day.46

Many scholars immediately jump to the conclusion that the second use of “the Lord” clearly refers to Jesus, since a word for word repetition of “Do not give what is holy to dogs” is found on the lips of Jesus in Matt 7:6.47 This conclusion is doubtful for three reasons: (1) to begin with, the Didache up to this point has not used “Lord” by way of referring to Jesus; (2) when a similar formula is used in Did. 14.3, the citation in this case is from Mal 1:11, and consequently the appeal to what was “said by [the]

Lord” clearly and unambiguously refers to the Lord God;48 (3) finally, the 45. arthur Vööbus, Liturgical Traditions in the Didache (stockholm: eTse, 1968), 37–39.

46. ibid., 37–39; Jonathan a. Draper, “a commentary on the Didache in the Light of the Dead sea scrolls and Related Documents” (Ph.D. diss., cambridge university, 1983), 146–47.

47. Niederwimmer, Didache, 153.

48. Niederwimmer at this point allows that “κύριος here probably does not refer to Jesus” (Didache, 198). This is an understatement. Niederwimmer is deliberately tentative here, because he was hoping to show that all of the references to “the Lord” in the Didache might have referred to the Lord Jesus. for the moment, however, one can judge from the implied christology of the Didache that it would have been blatantly blasphemous for members of the Didache communities to even imagine that Jesus might somehow adopt Mal 1:11 as referring to himself and, accordingly, direct that the gentiles should offer pure sacrifices to him. even as late as the early third century, christian communities were still struggling with whether it was fitting to offer prayers to Jesus (e.g., Origen, On Prayer). Thus, it would be ludicrous to imagine that the Didache, given its Jewish horizon of understanding, would have entertained anything but a strict monotheism. The words of Mal 1:11 thus could only be understood as

“having been said by the Lord God” (Did. 14.3).

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

context of the saying about “holy things” in Matthew clearly pertains to Jesus’s teaching and has no oblique reference to the eucharist.

The saying itself, when read within the context of the Didache, clearly associates the eucharistic bread and wine as “holy”49 (see also Did. 10.3) and as a “sacrifice” (Did. 14.2–3) and, therefore, not to be given to “the dogs.” The reference to “dogs” was pejorative, since in the experience of the first-century hearer, the dog here was not a beloved household pet but “the annoying and despised eastern dog of the streets”50 who is essentially a wormy, uncared-for, scavenger “commonly consuming flesh not acceptable for humans, such as animal carcasses and even human bodies.”51

Moreover, in the christian scriptures, the term “dogs” is used on multiple occasions as a metaphor to designate the gap between “the children of God” and the gentiles (Matt 15:26–27; Mark 7:26–27; Phil 3:2; 2 Pet 2:22).

Within the rabbinic literature, however, “it is the flesh of [temple] sacrifice that the much quoted saying refers: ‘what is holy is not to be released to be eaten by dogs’ (b. Bekhorot 15a interpreting Deut 12:15; m. Temurah 6:5; b. Temurah 117a and 130b [actually 17a and 30b]; b. Shebiit 11b and b. Pesahim 29a).”52 in pagan temples, given the absence of refrigera-tion, those periods when there was an excessive number of flesh sacrifices resulted in transporting some of the meat offered to a god to be sold in the local meat market. among the rabbis, therefore, the saying of Did. 9.5

seemed to say that meats offered to the Lord were “holy” and therefore ought not to be fed to dogs (literally) or sold off to “dogs” (metaphori-49. The wine and bread were “consecrated” (Latin: con [intensive] + sacrare [to make sacred]). They were entirely set aside from ordinary wine and bread by the prayer of thanksgiving that consecrated them. This point has been hotly contested because the eucharist of the Didache is not a memorial of the Last supper nor do the words, “This is my body.… This is my blood” appear. edward J. Kilmartin makes the observation that prayers of thankful praise must be considered the apostolic forms of “consecration” as framed within the “Life Tradition” (“sacrificium Laudis: content and function of early eucharistic Prayers,” TS 35 [1974]: 268–87 [273]). enrico Mazza also makes the point that “the problem of the validity of the consecration is a problem which does not exist in the Jewish concept of the ritual meal” (“elements of a eucharistic interpretation,” in Draper, Didache in Modern Research, 287). for further details, see Milavec, Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life, 357–421.

50. Otto Michel, “κύνω, κυνάριον,” TDNT 3:1101.

51. frederick J. simoons, Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present (Madison: university of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 247.

52. Michel, “κύνω, κυνάριον,” 3:1102.

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cally, the gentiles). The framers of the Didache, consequently, had only to redraw the lines between insiders and outsiders, between the children and the dogs, in order to discover that such a saying of the Lord God applied to their eucharist. in order to do so, however, the eucharist had to be seen as the equivalent to a temple sacrifice. and this is exactly what happens in Did 14.1–3 wherein the framers of the Didache used Mal 1:11 to affirm that the Lord God regarded the eucharistic meal as a sacrifice. This in turn invited the use of another saying of the Lord God (“Do not give what is holy to dogs”) as an ironclad directive against inviting the nonbaptized to partake of this eucharist.

3.4. Living on the Threshold of the Lord’s coming Just as the message of the Didache continued the message of Jesus of Nazareth, so too, the eucharist of the Didache perpetuated the proleptic anticipation of the kingdom that marked the table fellowship of Jesus. fed on the eucharist, therefore, those who shared the way of life of the father were nourished in their altered social reality. The consecrated cup evoked the holy vine of David; the consecrated broken loaf evoked the life and knowledge of the father. The former indicated that the father had elected israel and established a kingdom of promise through David, his servant. Drinking the cup of the holy vine, therefore, allowed newly baptized gentiles to join in fellowship with israel and to share her eschatological expectations.

above all, the eucharist of the Didache was profoundly forward looking: those whose lives were nourished on the broken loaf were set aside for the final ingathering—for just as the fragments that form the loaf were once “scattered over the hills” (Did. 9.4) and only later kneaded and baked in one loaf, so too those who ate of fragments of this consecrated loaf knew that the father would one day harvest them “from the ends of the earth”

so as to gather them into a kingdom on earth. Those who ate, therefore, tasted the future and collective promise that the “one loaf ” signified.

Participants at the eucharistic meal would have had little inclination to speculate regarding some form of bodily or sacramental presence of Jesus. Their focus was elsewhere. for them, the Father was the unseen but very much present host at every eucharistic meal. The drink and food served were provided by him (Did. 10.3; 1.5). his “holy name”

was dwelling within their “hearts” (Did. 10.2). The prayers addressed to this “holy father” (Did. 10.2) were directly and immediately received by him. But, above all, he was the “almighty Master” (Did. 10.3) who was

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

poised “to save … to protect … and to gather” his entire church into “the kingdom … prepared for her” (Did. 10.5). in their way of experiencing things, consequently, members of the Didache communities looked to the father for their redemption—just as his “servant Jesus” (Did. 9.3; 10.3) had done before them.

The following refrains bring the official eucharist to its close: come, grace [of the kingdom]!

and pass away, [Oh] this world! hosanna to the God of David!

if anyone is holy, come! if anyone is not, convert!

come Lord [Marana tha]! amen! (Did. 10.6)

The Didache is not intent upon the coming of the son of Man (Matt 10:23; 16:27–28; 25:31–46; 26:64) or the return of Jesus (1 Thess 4:16–17; 1 cor 1:7–8; acts 1:11; Rev 1:7) but awaits the coming of “the God of David”

(Did. 10.6) who after all the failures of fleshly kings will finally come to rule the world himself. This is the eschatology of the prophet zechariah.

The Lord God is finished using intermediaries. for his final coming, the Lord God will come himself personally.53 The closing lines of the Didache 53. Most christians, and many scholars among them, will have great difficulty with suggesting that God himself is expected to usher in the final kingdom. To begin with, christian sources and homilies seldom if ever probe this line of thinking. When one reads the prophetic books of the Bible, this is the reoccurring theme. Yet christians are in the habit of reading the prophets by way of confirming the mission of christ. Yet in Genesis one finds God rolling up his sleeves and planting a garden in eden (Gen 2:8). This would be a good place to begin to show how anthropomor-phic images of God fit easily into the Jewish tradition. Jacob Neusner, in his excellent volume The Incarnation of God: The Character of Divinity in Formative Judaism (Philadelphia: fortress, 1988), provides a wide assortment of such illustrations. so we can now turn our attention from the first pages to the last pages of the christian Bible. The book of Revelation has a wide assortment of end time scenarios. The favorite by far of most christians is the scene wherein the Lord God is seated on his throne in the new Jerusalem that has come down from heaven and a voice says: “ ‘see, the home of God is among mortals. he will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes [see isa 25:8].

Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ and the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘see, i am making all things new’ ” (21:3–5). in the book of Revelation, Jesus has the form of a lamb “that was slaughtered” (Rev 5:9, 12). in the final apocalyptic vision in this book, however, it is the Lord God who is at the center of the healing action. But God and the lamb together provide light for the city and a beacon for the nations: God’s glory

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return to this expectation when they cite zechariah in support of the selective resurrection of the just, saying:

“The Lord will come and all the holy ones with him.” Then the world will see the Lord coming atop the clouds of heaven (Did. 16.7–8) Within the “Life Tradition” it has become quite clear that the one who was to come to establish his kingdom was “the God of David” (Did. 10.6) and not “the son of David” as found in Matt 21:15. under the influence of Matthew, it is not surprising that the fourth century apostolic constitutions and canons altered the closing words of Did. 10.6 to read, “come Lord! hosanna to the son of David” (7.26.5)54. Thus, as the “Death Tradition” took hold, the prayers of the Didache were revised to make room for the “second coming” of the Lord Jesus.55 “come Lord [Marana tha]”

remains, but in the apostolic constitutions and canons the son of David is expected and not the God of David. The Didache, on the other hand, forces us to go back to an older belief where the focus was set upon the

“God of David” (Did. 10.6) who is both “the father” and “the Lord” who will gather the elect into his kingdom (Did. 9.4; 10.5).56

replaces the sunlight/moonlight and the Lamb provides an oil lamp. The contrast is evident: “and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its [i.e., by the city’s] light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it [the city] (21:23–25). Thus, right within the New Testament canon, one has a vision of an apocalyptic future very much centered upon the arrival and the saving activity of the Lord God.

54. Knowing this, it becomes clear how impossible it would be to rely upon the fourth-century apostolic constitutions and canons to reconstruct the so-called “lost ending” of the first-century Didache. unfortunately, even scholars such as Niederwimmer come to the conclusion that a “lost ending” is “obvious from the structure of the Didache apocalypse (16:3–8), as well as from the paraphrasing conclusions of this section in the Apostolic Constitutions” (Niederwimmer, Didache, 20). for a detailed examination, see Milavec, Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life, 828–36.

55. John a. T. Robinson, Jesus and His Coming, 2nd ed. (London: scM; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979) observes with T. s. Glasson that the parousia does not derive from messianic passages within the hebrew scriptures but from end time visions of the Lord God coming to his people, with the “single adjustment that the Lord was the Lord Jesus” (140).

56. some scholars have asked me why the Didache makes no room for the messianic claims on behalf of Jesus that are promoted by the “Death Tradition.” i respond to this very excellent question as follows:

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

if acts gives us anything near an accurate picture of Paul’s impact upon the synagogues in asia Minor that he visited, then one can gain a certain sympathy for those who wanted Paul silenced and were willing to take action against him as “a disturber of the peace” (acts 24:5). from the point of view of Paul’s opponents, Paul appeared as an irresponsible and irrepressible fanatic who dominated the open forums in the synagogue every sabbath and used the hebrew scriptures by way of demonstrating that everyone had to champion Jesus of Nazareth, because God had raised him from the dead and thereby singled him out as the one who would return in the final days to usher in the messianic age. When Paul did get silenced, he then withdrew from that synagogue those Jews and “Godfearers” who accepted the renewal of faith and hope that came with his apocalyptic visions. in so doing, however, it can also be imagined that such actions often broke up families and introduced factionalism into the very heart of the local synagogue.

This is perhaps the sort of apocalyptic factionalism that the framers of the Didache were trying to prevent. how so? first, by codifying the way of life, the liturgical templates, the treatment of visiting prophets, and the end times scenario. second, by insisting that these are boilerplate protections for all concerned: “You will not at all leave behind the rules of the Lord, but you will guard the things that you have received, neither adding nor taking [anything] away” (Did. 4.13; 6.1; 11.1–2; 15.4).

Third, visiting apostles and prophets are honored “as the Lord,” but then their stay is deliberately limited and their conduct carefully supervised (Did. 11.1–13.4). after the official eucharist is finished, the prophets are allowed to give thanks “as much as they wish” (Did. 10.7) and as they wish. Thus, a christian prophet could paraphrase 1 Thess 4 in its entirety. another prophet could recite a “secret of the Most high” as found in 2 esd 12:31–36. and still another could glorify King hezekiah or even name his own “master” as the future messiah (b. san. 98a). from the vantage point of the Didache, all such apocalyptic visions regarding the identity and the role of the messiah were left “open and unresolved” in the face of the certainty that the Lord God was coming to gather his elect into his kingdom. What remained certain, consequently, is that lex orandi, lex credenda (“the rule of praying is the rule of believing”). fourthly, the terms “christian” (Did. 12.4) and “christ-merchant” (Did. 12.5) appear in the Didache not as unqualified endorsements, but by way of giving cautions regarding unfortunate tendencies found among these outsiders (Did. 12.3). fifthly, it must be observed that the Didache also leaves “open and unresolved” another troublesome source of factionalism, namely, whether Jerusalem or the temple will have any role to play in God’s future kingdom.

in sum, the rule “You will not cause dissention, and you will reconcile those fighting” (Did. 4.3) applies to all of this as well. and no amount of apocalyptic speculation can override the final call for “watchfulness … for the whole time of ÿour faith will not be of use to ÿou if in the end time ÿou should not have been perfected”

(Did. 16.1–2). finally, the fact that the end times opens with havoc in the heart of the Jesus movement (Did. 16.3–4) is most probably a sign that such bitter havoc has already been tasted by the framers of the Didache relative to the endless varieties of

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conclusion

in the end i return to the crisis facing Didache scholarship. We have been at a standstill for a long time. During a thirty-year period when the number of participants and the number of papers increased three-fold during the annual meetings of the sBL, the number of persons addressing the Didache has still remained at a comparatively low level. This is because the legacy of source and redaction criticism and the influence of harnack has hopelessly fragmented the text and reduced it to a second-century church order. The thrust of my essay has been to show that this orientation is being progressively abandoned. “The decision to reject one paradigm,” Thomas Kuhn rightly notes, “is always simultaneously the decision to undertake another.”57

first, the voice of the Didache was muted by the supposition that it was spliced together like a church order. in truth, however, it exhibits a finely tuned oral integrity from beginning to end. Next, the voice of the Didache was distorted because it was interpreted in the shadow cast by the Gospel of Matthew. freed of the christology and ecclesiology of Matthew, the Didache demonstrates a highly sophisticated community of householders bound to the way of life in anticipation of the final ingathering into the kingdom of God. finally, in the third section the voice of the Didache was freed from the high christology that even scholars with the stature of Niederwimmer have mistakenly tried to overlay the document. Thus, the hermeneutical caution of crossan helps us to safeguard the “Life Tradition” within the Didache and to enable it to stand up for itself without being overwhelmed by the “Death Tradition.”

Not all examinations of the Didache are created equal. some force us to notice more about the text. some examinations break through the surface of text and weave together the clues offered by the text into tan-talizing visions of the communitarian way of life that stood behind the text. superior theories have a greater fruitfulness—they are “fraught with further intimations of an indeterminate range”58 that reveal themselves from time to time in “as yet undisclosed, perhaps as yet unthinkable, apocalyptic variations that visitors bring with them into the heart of the Didache communities.

57. Thomas s. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (chicago: university Press, 1962), 77.

58. Michael Polanyi, Tacit Dimension (Garden city, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 23.

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consequences.”59 such theories also provide a greater intellectual satisfaction—they say more about what are the hidden depths of meaning within the text. as part of their greater fruitfulness and greater intellectual satisfaction, however, they also often carry with them a concomitant vulner-ability to being falsified.

as someone who spent many sleepless nights puzzling over the Didache, i still believe that i have much to learn from those who are coming after me and will inevitably dismantle and reconstruct much of what i have done. among all my reviewers, however, i am especially indebted to Robert J. Daly, professor emeritus of patristic studies at Boston college. in his review of my thousand-page volume, he makes some very perceptive and timely observations that serve to define how in the present moment a new direction in Didache studies is emerging not only within my own scholarship, but also among the small group of pioneering scholars who have embraced proposals that find common ground with the position that i have set out above. i find it fitting, therefore, to give Daly the last word when it come to defining a “viable future”

for Didache studies:

Building on, but also fundamentally correcting more than a hundred years of research and interpretation, Milavec’s basic thesis, convincingly demonstrated in magnificent detail, is that the Didache is neither a church order in the ordinary sense of the word, nor a text sometimes awkwardly patched together by several hands from several sources, nor a document that is dependent on any of the gospels (it’s actually prior to them) or on other christian texts, but an orally transmitted guide for mentors given the responsibility of progressively introducing adult pagans into this new christian way of life.

it is also a book that could not have been written even as recently as one or two decades ago. To list some of the reasons for this: (1) the relative maturation of nonpolemical approaches to matters of christian origins—no longer is interpretation driven by a specifically catholic or Protestant confessional need to prove this or that; (2) the maturation and broad acceptance of sociological analyses of the New Testament and early christianity; (3) the general availability of an explosion of knowledge about postbiblical Judaism and about late antiquity in general; and (4) a methodological shift away from the relative dominance of textuality over orality—that is, one no longer assumes that the first question is how 59. ibid., 23.

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this document developed as a written text, but is ready to ask first about the life situation that can explain the text as received. in other words, the fundamental principle of interpretation that Milavec consistently follows to good effect is not to look for exogenous reasons for interpreting the text, but to go the extra mile in allowing the text, as received, and from its own context, to explain itself.

following this method of interpretation, Milavec shows that the Didache is not only not dependent on any of the gospels, but is most likely prior to them and, in any case, theologically very different. What it reveals is a, so-to-speak, pre-christological stage of christianity. There is no mention of christic sacrificial atonement; no mention even of the passion and death of christ. instead Jesus is spoken of as the “servant”; nor is it Jesus, but the father, who is spoken of as the Lord, the one who will come in the Last Days.60

60. Robert J. Daly, Review of The Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50–70 CE, by aaron Milavec, Catholic Books Review (2004).

Online: http://catholicbooksreview.org/2004/milavec.htm.http://catholicbooksreview

.org/2004/milavec.htm

children and slaves in the community of the Didache and the Two Ways Tradition

Jonathan A. Draper

This paper explores the Haustafel (= hT) in Did. 4.9–11 and parallel versions of the Two Ways against the background of the “moral economy” as defined by James c. scott and halvor Moxnes. These texts insist on “generalised reciprocity” and reject the “balanced reciprocity” practised by the elite in the Greco-Roman context and the “negative reciprocity” they mete out to the underclasses. for this reason the intrusion of the patriarchal ethic of the hT, with its uncompromising one-way instruction concerning children and its support for the institution of slavery, are surprising, as is the absence of instructions concerning husbands and wives. Less surprising perhaps is the absence of instructions concerning the emperor. The background and implications of the instructions are examined to try and reconstruct the social situation in households in the Didache community.

The paper concludes that the hT is firmly situated in the social location of koinonia or community of goods in the earliest christian Jewish communities, which challenges traditional mores but also occasions the specific limitations to koinonia that undermine the egalitarianism of the community. The evidence of the Didache reveals both the social dynamics of the hT and its enduring influence on emerging christianity.

1. introduction

in recent years biblical scholars have shown a renewed interest in the hT

genre of literature in the New Testament, driven by both a feminist critique since the ground-breaking work of elizabeth schüssler fiorenza’s In Memory of Her and also a renewed interest in socioeconomic location of

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texts in the ancient world.1 There has been a shift in the scholarly consensus from viewing these texts against the background of stoic philosophy or hellenistic Judaism toward understanding them as a topos of “household management.”2 The evolution and status of the debate has been astutely set out and critiqued in a recent paper by Margaret Y. MacDonald 3 so that there is no need to repeat it here. her insistence that what appears in texts is always only partly a reflection of what goes on in reality (that it stands in dialogical tension with reality so that the discussion needs to be more nuanced) is welcome. My own study in this paper has been formed by the work of carolyn Osiek, MacDonald, and Moxnes, though they are not to blame for what i say. in particular, Moxnes’s careful economic analysis of the embedded economic relations reflected by Luke’s Gospel in The Economy of the Kingdom4 has raised questions that prompted me to undertake a “moral economy” analysis of the whole text of the Didache as an integral reflection of an attempt to construct an alternative economy to the surrounding Greco-Roman economic relations based on patron-client relations, an alternative economy that was only partially successful.5

My economic analysis viewed the hT table in Did. 4 as having subverted and ultimately undermined this egalitarian economy, something i wish to pursue in more depth in this paper, particularly since the hT in the Two Ways tradition has been largely ignored in the discussions of New Testament scholars.

a quick flip through the recent literature on the hT shows that these authors either do not refer at all to the Two Ways found in Did. 1–6 and 1. elisabeth schüssler fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (London: scM; New York: crossroads, 1983).

2. James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to Colossians and to Philemon, NiGTc (Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 1996), 243.

3. Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Beyond identification of the Topos of household Management: Reading the household codes in Light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the study of the New Testament,” NTS 57 (2011): 65–90.

she insists that “there is a need for greater nuance with respect to the function of the codes in community life to allow for more complexity and even contradiction based on the variety of actors and perspectives that shaped [New Testament] communities and texts” (72).

4. halvor Moxnes, The Economy of the Kingdom: Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel (Philadelphia: fortress, 1988).

5. Jonathan a. Draper, “The Moral economy of the Didache,” HTS.TS 67 (2011), art. #907. DOi:10.4102/hts.v67il.907.

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Barn. 18–29 (and other early christian extracanonical texts in the Two Ways tradition) or only occasionally refer to the apostolic fathers in parenthesis. The general assumption is that, if material is not in the New Testament, it is late and does not need to be taken into consideration. But from 1883 a range of scholars have considered the Two Ways (usually represented by the Doctrina apostolorum) to be a pre-christian Jewish proselyte tract incorporated into a christian document or as presenting one of the very earliest christian catechetical patterns.6 alfred seeberg’s overelaborate claims for the existence of such a Jewish-christian ur-text behind most of the New Testament epistles led to the theory being discounted (see the recent helpful paper of Benjamin edsall7). This perspective has continued to be argued extensively in recent years, however, as for example in my own doctoral thesis.8 huub van de sandt and David flusser have even gone as far as to provide us with a critical text of their hypothesized pre-christian, Jewish, Greek Two Ways.9 aaron Milavec,10 on the other hand, argues that the whole of the Didache dates to the middle of the first century ce and represents the earliest christian life, something 6. e.g., charles Taylor, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, with Illustrations from the Talmud (cambridge: Deighton Bell, 1886); alfred seeberg, Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit (Leipzig: Deichert, 1903); Die beiden Wege und das Aposteldekre (Leipzig: Deichert, 1906); Die Didache des Judentums und der Urchristenheit (Leipzig: Deichert, 1908); Gunther Klein, Der älteste christliche Katechismus und die jüdische Propaganda-Literatur (Berlin: Reimer, 1909).

7. Benjamin edsall, “Kerygma, catechesis and Other Things We used to find: Twentieth-century Research on early christian Teaching since alfred seeberg (1903),” CurBS 10 (2012): 410–41.

8. Jonathan a. Draper, “a commentary on the Didache in the Light of the Dead sea scrolls and Related Documents” (Ph.D. diss., cambridge university, 1983); see also “Ritual Process and Ritual symbol in Didache 7–10,” VC 54 (2000): 1–38; “a continuing enigma: The ‘Yoke of the Lord in Didache 6:2–3 and early Jewish-christian Relations,” in The Image of Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Christian Literature, ed. Peter J. Tomson and D. Lambers-Petry, WuNT 158 (Tübingen: Mohr siebeck, 2003), 106–23; huub van de sandt and David flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity, cRiNT 3.5; (assen; Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: fortress, 2002); aaron Milavec, The Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50–70 CE (New York: Newman, 2003).

9. Van de sandt and flusser, Didache, 122–30. They even go so far as to suggest that “Jesus in formulating his instruction used traditional materials transmitted both in the sermon on the Mount and in the Greek Two Ways” (193).

10. Milavec, Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life.

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supported also lately by Thomas O’Loughlin.11 Much of this discussion seems to have escaped New Testament scholars and social historians of early christianity. But if it is correct that this material provides a window on first century Jewish communities or the earliest christian communities or, as i would argue, the early christian Jewish communities in a tension with the early Pauline communities, then it would be essential that it is factored into the discussion of the hT tradition and the burgeoning discussion on early christian households and families. i would argue that this is particularly important because the hT in the Two Ways tradition is set in an explicit and coherent socioeconomic context in the text itself, though this has not been recognized.12 Previous studies of the hT material have been misled by the assumption that paraenesis is a random collection of ethical instruction with no Tendenz, which arises from the form critical approach of Martin Dibelius in his Commentary on the Epistle of James (1976)13 and was adopted by Pierre Prigent,14 Robert Kraft,15 and Klaus Wengst16 in their analyses of the Two Ways material in Barnabas. i have modified the position i took in my doctoral dissertation in that, while i still believe that the Two Ways tradition in the Didache, Barnabas, Doctrina apostolorum, ecclesiastical canons, and epitome apostolorum can be shown to continue the topos and outlines of the Jewish Derek Eretz tradition, i do not think that this tradition is necessarily pre-christian Jewish 11. Thomas O’Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians (Grand Rapids: Baker; London: sPcK, 2010).

12. i raised this question in the discussion of the hT material in my doctoral thesis (1983) when the stoic hypothesis prevailed and was given its classic presentation by James e. crouch, The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haustafel, fRLaNT

109 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972).

13. Martin Dibelius, James: A Commentary on the Epistle of James, rev. h. Greeven; trans. M. a. Williams, hermeneia (Philadelphia: fortress, 1976).

14. Pierre Prigent, Les testimonia dans le christianiasme primitive: L’épître de Barnabé I–XVI (Paris: Gabalda, 1961); Pierre Prigent and Robert a. Kraft, Epître de Barnabé, sc 172 (Paris: cerf, 1971).

15. Robert a. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, af 3 (Toronto: Nelson, 1965).

16. The suggestion that Barnabas represents a collection of Jewish legal interpretations had already been made by Leslie W. Barnard (“The epistle of Barnabas and the Tannaitic catechism,” AThR 41 [1959]: 177–90) and has been renewed more recently by Martin B. shukster and Peter Richardson (“Temple and Bet ha-midrash in the epistle of Barnabas,” in Separation and Polemic, vol. 2 of Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, ed. stephen G. Wilson, scJ 2 [Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier university Press, 1986], 17–31).

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as it stands, as argued by van de sandt and flusser. it was developed within the early christian Jewish communities under the pressure of the need for the catechesis and socialization of gentiles. We have no evidence for its use in its current form in Jewish communities, but widespread evidence of early christian usage.

The heart of a moral economic analysis lies in the premise that the economy of premodern societies was/is embedded in their ethical system, the social universe that conveys meaning. The accumulation of capital was not an end in itself but rather related to honor and shame, patterns of patron-client relationships stretching up to the ruler himself and down to the lowest human being. Land and the control of its produce, control of the fertility of women, and control of the product of the labor of human beings was represented by the gods and their laws. conversely, ethical and social rules are always simultaneously representations of economic relations. They receive ideal elaborations in the texts of the elite, but these texts usually represent the “official transcript” except where the marginalized insert their “hidden transcript” into the discourse of the powerful.17 here religion plays a key part in modelling the alternative social universe of the poor, powerless, and marginalized. hence the emergence of a “christian”

literature as the final product of a largely illiterate movement of Galilean peasants may provide a glimpse of their alternative social universe, the way they began to embody it in communal life before it was, in turn, taken up into the modified discourse of a new christian elite.

2. The Variants of the christian Two Ways Text

as socially Meaningful

Those who have written on the first six chapters of the Didache, with the notable exception of Milavec, have usually been more interested in tracing the “original text” of the Two Ways and settling the question of whether the Didache or Barnabas is more original. if David c. Parker18

is correct, however, there is no original text in a society that is primarily oral in its communications, and instead we have multiple representations of a tradition that is fluid and continually subject to change, to respond 17. The terminology comes from James c. scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New haven: Yale university Press, 1990).

18. David c. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 1997).

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to, and to reflect the social situation of the scribes, since text and oral performance are continually interacting and reshaping each other. Looked at in this way, the variants in the representation of the hT of the Two Ways take on new meaning as reflecting social and economic development.

Most scholars accept that the structure of the Two Ways tradition is best represented by that of the Didache and Doctrina apostolorum (e.g. van de sandt and flusser prefer the Doctrina apostolorum for the structure but the Didache for the text) rather than Barnabas.19 Beyond that it is often argued that the text of Barnabas represents earlier traditions closer to Jewish origins. since that writer is frequently polemical, though, this needs to be interrogated. Beyond the Doctrina apostolorum, there are also two related fourth century representatives of the tradition that do not have the way of death, namely, the ecclesiastical canons and epitome apostolorum, though its representation of the tradition is sketchy to say the least. The fifth century arabic Life of shenudi represents a coptic egyptian text that is also reasonably faithful to the tradition, in my opinion, though its exact Greek basis is often difficult to reconstruct, since it is a coptic text that survived only in arabic. The apostolic constitutions and canons contains the whole text of the Didache rather than the separately existing Two Ways, again reasonably faithfully but with added commentary and obvious redactions. Then two later Greek texts follow something of the structure and some of the text, paraphrased at times as the basis for an ascetic monastic lifestyle in fides Nicanae and syntagma doctrinae, somehow associated with athanasius, which ultimately influences the composition of the late fourth century Rule of St. Augustine and the Rule of Benedict.

19. Besides van de sandt and flusser, Didache, see the classic discussions of the Two Ways in Jean-Paul audet, “Literary and Doctrinal affinities of the ‘Manual of Discipline,’” in The Didache in Modern Research, ed. Jonathan a. Draper, aGJu 37

(Leiden: Brill, 1996), 129–47; trans. of “affinités Littéraires et Doctrinales du ‘Manuel de Discipline,’” RB 59 (1952): 219–38; Willi Rordorf, “an aspect of the Judeo-christian ethic: The Two Ways,” in The Didache in Modern Research, ed. Jonathan a. Draper, aGJu 37 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 148–64; trans. of “une chapitre d’éthique judéo-chrétienne: les deux voies,” RSR 60 (1972): 109–28.

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3. The Haustafel in the Didache and

its economic Logic in the Moral economy

in my article “The Moral economy of the Didache,”20 i have argued that there is a consistent socioeconomic pattern of generalized redistribution in the Didache, which is consistent with the creation of the kind of alternative economy of the weak and marginalized in the Roman empire as described by scott.21 it is a rejection of the unequal power relations epitomized by a patron-client system radiating out from the emperor and per-colating down to the lowest level of the empire, including its conquered peoples. central to this resistance is insistence on generalized reciprocity, the insistence that labour, goods, and wealth are given to people by God with the express purpose of giving to others so that all benefit. for this reason, inside the community no one is allowed to turn away a needy person, or refuse to give, or even to call their property their own. There is a balanced reciprocity in that goods given to those in need are really given to God, who will reward the giver and remove their sins in exchange. in addition, although they are sharing perishable material goods with the poor, they are also receiving imperishable spiritual gifts from them in return. so the hellenistic principle of isotes among friends is not abandoned entirely: it is deconstructed and reconstructed in a radical fashion. Moreover, there is a serious and implementable sanction against abuse of the system of generalized redistribution, namely, that those taking without need are subject to judgment and punishment by the community “until they have repaid the last farthing.” Most probably this would involve exclusion from the community until they repaid in the fashion of 1 cor 5–6. Συνοχῇ (Did.

1.5) does not mean “prison” primarily but “pressure” or “distress.” Paul forbids members to go to pagan courts but to exercise judgment themselves.

Didache 4 takes the same line, as we shall see.

in “The Moral economy,” i note that the generalized reciprocity and egalitarian alternative economic system developed within this early christian community should not be romanticized (as i believe it is by Milavec and O’Loughlin), but that its limitations and problems should be explored also. chief among these internal contradictions in the system is the presence of the hT insisting on the subjection of children and slaves in chapter 4, and the recognition of the importance of patronage of the 20. Draper, “Moral economy.”

21. scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance.

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wealthy alongside the (probably impoverished) spiritual leadership in chapter 15. The former limits the liberatory potential of the movement for the weakest and most exploited members of the community. The latter reintroduces the web of imperial connections embedded in patron-client relationships by the back door and ensures that, in the long run, the empire strikes back. in this paper i will only be exploring the relationship of the hT in chapter 4 to the moral economy that i have described in the previous paper. first, i set out the material schematically and use the section numbering from the Didache as the basis for the discussion of Barnabas and other forms of the Two Ways in schematic 1. items found only in the Didache are italicized.22

schematic 1: Didache 4

1. The Teacher/Prophet

a 4.1 Remember night and day

the one who speaks to you the word of God,

and honor him [male?] as the Lord [τιμήσεις … ὡς κύριον].

For where the things concerning the Lord are spoken, there is the Lord.

2. Regular communal assemblies for Judgment

B 2. and you shall seek out the presence [ἐκζητήσεις … τὰ πρόσωπα] of the saints daily [καθ’ ἡμέραν],

so that you can find rest in their words

3. You shall not make a schism,

but you shall reconcile the warring factions.

You shall judge justly;

you shall not show favouritism [οὐ λήψῃ πρόσωπον] leading to transgression;

4. you shall not doubt [διψυχήσεις] whether it should be or not 3. Requirement for Generalized Reciprocity

c 5. Do not be one who stretches out your hands to receive, but one who shuts them up when it comes to giving.

6. if you have [earned anything] through [the work of] your hands, you shall give a ransom for your sins.

7. You shall not doubt [διστάσεις] whether to give, and you shall not grumble when you give,

22. Translations of the Didache are my own unless otherwise indicated.

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for you shall know who is the good giver of the reward.

D 8. You shall not turn away the needy person [male?], but you [sg.] shall share all things with your brother [and sister?], and you shall not say they are your own.

for if you [pl.] are sharers in what is immortal, how much more in perishable things?

4. household Management

e1 9. You [sg.] shall not hold back your hand

from your son or from your daughter,

but from their youth you shall teach the fear of God [τὸν φόβον τοῦ θεοῦ].

f1 10. You [sg.] shall not reprove in your anger your male slave or your female slave,

who hope in the same God,

lest they should no longer fear [φοβηθήσονται] the God who is over you both.

for he has not come to call with respect of persons [κατὰ πρόσωπον], but those whom the spirit has prepared.

f2 11. and you [pl. male?] slaves shall be subject [ὑποταγήσεσθε] to your [pl.

male?] masters,

as to an image of God [ὡς τύπῳ θεοῦ], in shame and fear.

12. You [sg.] shall hate all hypocrisy [ὑπόκρισιν], and everything which is not pleasing to the Lord.

5. conclusion of the Way of Life: Binding Nature of its Teaching G 13. You [sg.] shall not abandon any commandments of the Lord, but you shall keep what you have received,

neither adding nor subtracting.

h 14. You shall confess your transgressions [vl. in church], and you shall not come to your prayer with an evil conscience.

This is the way of life.

in my schematic arrangement i am suggesting five blocks of progressively ordered and related catechetical teaching that constitute the final instructions in the way of life and set out a kind of constitution of the community into which the catechumens are being initiated. Whereas much of the previous teaching has been paraenetic, generalized lists of ethical behaviour and prohibited behaviour, this chapter sets out concrete social relations in the community. it is consistent with the rest of the Didache but forms an integrated and well-structured unit. Block 5 constitutes the conclusion of the way of life set out in chapters 1–4 and emphasizes the binding and

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

unchanging nature of these social relations as commandments of the Lord.

i suggest that, although the instruction forbidding hypocrisy (G) may well belong with block 4 and not block 5, it fits equally well with the general conclusion, since double mindedness is consistently rejected in the whole of the Two Ways. its rhetorical function here in terms of its position in the text, however, may relate rather to the behaviour of slaves than to the general conclusion.

in block 1, which concerns the relationship of community members to teachers and/or prophets, we need to note the use of the language of patronage, though the advantages being brokered are spiritual ones. she or he is to receive the τιμή, which would usually be reserved for God, because she or he speaks the words of God and hence mediates God’s presence. The principle that speaking the Name or Word or Torah mediates the presence of God is widespread in Jewish thought, as in the well-known m. ’abot 3:3: But if two sit together and words of the Law [are spoken] between them, the Divine Presence rests between them, as it is written, Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name [Mal 3:16]. scripture speaks here of “two”; whence [do we learn] that if even one sits and occupies himself in the Law, the holy One, blessed is he, appoints him a reward? Because it is written, Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he hath laid it upon him [Lam 3:28].23

it is taken up in the famous saying of Jesus in Matt 18:20: “for where two or three are gathered together in my name i am there amongst them.”24 There are signs that this way of honoring a superior in the community as if they were the Lord (τιμήσεις … ὡς κύριον) links to questions of patriarchal hierarchy, since the concept recurs in the instruction to the slaves at the bottom of the chain of patron-client relations that they should obey their owners/ masters as if they were a “type” of God (ὡς τύπῳ θεοῦ). in block 1 of chapter 4, however, the text provides the basis for the honor due to the teacher/prophet as patron, even though these figures were financially 23. all references to rabbinic texts are taken from The Soncino Classics Collection: The Soncino Talmud, the Soncino Midrash Rabbah, the Soncino Zohar, the Bible, in Hebrew and English, Judaic classics Library (New York: Davka), electronic text.

24. celia Deutsch, Hidden Wisdom and the Easy Yoke: Wisdom, Torah and Discipleship in Matthew 11.25–30, JsNTsup 18 (sheffield: JsOT, 1987).

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in need of support from the community, as the reservations in Did. 11

show and as the monetary and material resources made available to them in Did. 13 clearly show they were. instead of giving material resources to the community as patrons should, they receive resources. Later versions of the Two Ways make this explicit, as we shall see. This is the cause of the conflict in Did. 15, in my opinion, since it undermines the patron-client basis on which bishops and deacons are appointed: honor in exchange for resources. in this respect, 4.1 sets out alternative economic relations in which honor is not given on the basis of material resources and patronage but on spiritual resources of God’s word. But this coheres with the thought in block 3 that material resources and spiritual resources should be equally weighted and with the insistence of chapter 15 that prophets and teachers receive equal honor with bishops and deacons.

Block 2 provides for regular meetings of the assembled community for judgment. The “rest” that people seek to find in the assembly is, in this case, the settlement of legal disputes. The proximity of block 3 suggests that the majority of questions to be addressed by the community assembled for judgment would be socioeconomic, though no doubt questions concerning the testing of visitors (chs. 11–12) and unresolved quarrels between members (chs. 14 and 15) would also feature. The instructions here are based on Lev 19:17–18, as also in Did. 2.6–7 and 15.3.25 The block shows signs of internal and external coherence: The saying on judgment begins with coming together to seek the communal (τὰ πρόσωπα, v. 2) assembly and ends with a prohibition of showing favoritism toward the individual (οὐ λήψῃ πρόσωπον, v. 3), something repeated in verse 10

(κατὰ πρόσωπον) in the instructions to slave-masters. Judgment must not be done double-mindedly (οὐ διψυχήσεις, v. 4), something repeated in the instructions on giving (οὐ διστάσεις, v. 7) and again in the instruction to slaves in that ὑπόκρισις appears in tandem with other words suggesting double dealing/thinking/acting in 5.1 (ψευδομαρτυρίαι, ὑποκρίσεις, διπλοκαρδία, δόλος).

Block 3 is the central and principle statement around which the whole series of instruction coheres. it is also central in the structuring of this 25. Jonathan a. Draper, “Pure sacrifice in Didache 14 as Jewish christian exegesis,” Neot 42 (2008): 223–52; see also huub van de sandt, “Two Windows on a Developing Jewish-christian Reproof Practice: Matt 18:15–17 and Did. 15:3,” in Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? ed. huub van de sandt (assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: fortress, 2005), 173–92.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

material. Giving of one’s material resources is not an option but a requirement, because it is actually giving to God and a prerequisite for a “ransom for your sins” (v. 6). Doubting (διστάσεις) and grumbling (γογγύσεις) are excluded by recognizing that God is the one who gives and also rewards the giver (v. 7). More radically, however, community members are prohibited from refusing to help the needy person, because they must share everything with other members of the community. They can call nothing their own:

συγκοινωνήσεις δὲ πάντα τῷ ἀδελφῷ σοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἐρεῖς ἴδια εἶναι

εἰ γὰρ ἐν τῷ ἀθανάτῳ κοινωνοί ἐστε, πόσῳ μᾶλλον ἐν τοῖς θνητοῖς (v. 8) The argument is based “from light to heavy,” a fundamental Jewish exegetical technique (qal wahomer): since the community members already share in imperishable goods, how much more are they sharers in the much less important perishable goods. indeed, their catechetical instruction in the way of life already has put them in debt spiritually to “the one who has spoken the things of the Lord” to them. in any case, since these goods are given to human beings by God for the express purpose of giving to all from God’s own gifts, one is obligated to give to all who ask (1.5). Possessions do not belong to individuals. This radical demand is not simply an ideal, but backed up by the judicial system of the community as set out in block 2:

anyone who exploits the community by taking without being in need will give an account [to the community assembled in judgment] concerning what she or he took and why, and being in distress [ἐν συνοχῇ]

[as a result of exclusion from the community] will be examined concerning what she or he has done and will not be released from there

[by readmission to the community] until she or he has paid back every farthing. (1.5)

as i have already indicated, debtor’s prison would most likely be beyond the community’s ability to impose. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine a more express implementation of a system of generalized reciprocity in terms of the moral economy theory than the requirement that one should call nothing one’s own but share everything in common with fellow members of the community. in any case, the rules of block 3 would have severe consequences if applied rigorously in a christian Jewish community. The first and foremost consequence of renouncing ownership of one’s property

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would be the disinheritance of one’s children and the manumission of any slaves one owned. This leads naturally to block 4. Kurt Niederwimmer26 is quite wrong, in my opinion, in supposing that the problems occasioned by this instruction to practice community of goods are ignored in what follows: “hereafter the Didachist gives no further attention to the problem of private property in his own remarks.”

Block 4 is connected with the preceding blocks because of the insistence on equality before God and community of goods between community members. This has important intracommunal implications for parents and slave-owners and their subordinates. interestingly, husband-wife relations are not mentioned here or anywhere in the document, leaving only arguments from silence. either the problem was too big to allow it to be raised at all, or it was no issue in the community, or it was a complex mix of both. The last option seems most likely to me: it was too big in that there were christian Jewish and christian gentile wives, concubines, and slave women under the control of unbelieving gentiles who could use such an instruction to wives to submit as ammunition to withdraw them from the community. it was too small in that Jewish patriarchy was far stronger and more established than the rather fluid gentile situation where elite Greek and Roman women might enjoy a considerable amount of freedom. if both circumstances obtained simultaneously, then it would be both unwise and impractical to lay down a ruling. Most important, in my estimation, is that the document is directed toward gentiles wishing to join a christian Jewish community. Marriage between gentile and Jewish christians would have been unthinkable unless a gentile became “perfect”

(got circumcised, ate kashrut, and kept ritual purity). Therefore, different legal situations might apply to gentile and Jewish christian married women. in any case, the rules concerning giving over one’s property to the community clearly did not extend to releasing free women from their husbands and fathers in the way it might have implied release of slaves by their masters. slave women would have been in the same situation in terms of the legal implications as their male counterparts and are thus covered by the same instructions.

The teaching in e1 counters the objection of children to the alienation of their inheritance, drawing on the wisdom tradition: spare the rod and 26. Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache: A Commentary (hermeneia; Minneapolis: fortress, 1998), 109.

The DiDache: a MissiNG Piece Of The PuzzLe

spoil the child. it must be remembered that progeny remained under the authority of their male parent until the patriarch died. This was true both for Jews and for gentiles in the Greco-Roman world, where the right of the father to put his child to death was an accepted principle. (Male) community members were expected to exercise their rights as patriarchs to enforce on children the adoption of the new faith of their parents, including their submission to the alternative economic system. acceptance of the system of generalized reciprocity advocated here would make these children dependent on the community and force them to participate in it and integrate. at one level this promoted the principles of an alternative economic system in embryo. at another level it undermined it fundamentally by reaffirming and enshrining in it the patriarchal authority of the male head of household. Moreover, the invocation of patriarchal authority is legitimated by the “fear of God” (τὸν φόβον τοῦ θεοῦ). it is noteworthy that there is no limitation on this authority (such as, for example, “fathers do not provoke your children”!) nor is there any reciprocal instruction to children (for example, “children obey your parents”), possibly because some of the members of the community still had living patriarchs who might seek to exercise their authority to remove their adult child from the community. The instruction would then become counterproductive in the life of the community. in any case, the inclusion of this patriarchal instruction right after the blueprint for an egalitarian “economic safety net”27 as set out introduced a radical contradiction into the heart of the ideal that ensured its ultimate failure as a genuine alternative economy, in my opinion. Block 5 turns to the issue of slaves, an issue that would have presented itself immediately to any elite person who joined this community, who would have been expected to be a patron of the community by becoming a bishop or deacon, making their house, resources, and influence available to the community. Gentile slaves purchased by Jews were required to be circumcised (if a man) or immersed (if a woman) and to keep the Torah to the same extent as women and immature children. They became a part of israel, but with limited rights and responsibilities.28 This was necessary to preserve the ritual purity of the household (something that would have concerned the Didache community also), given their dedication to ritual purity (7.1–4). The principle as stated by Rab huna (d. 297 ce [a2])29 but 27. Milavec, Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life, 173–227.

28. see van de sandt and flusser, Didache, 137.

29. citations following herman L. strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash

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seemingly everywhere applicable is, “every precept that is obligatory on a woman is obligatory on a slave; every precept that is not obligatory on a woman is not obligatory on a slave” (b. ḥag. 4a). according to the Mishnah, while women, slaves, and minors are exempt from reciting the shema and putting on the tefillin, they are required to perform the tefillah, mezu-zah, and berakot after meals. so on this basis God hears the prayers of slaves as well as the prayers of a woman and a child: R. Judah b. shalom

[a5 342–443] said in the name of R. eleazar, “Before God, however, all are equal, women, slaves, poor and rich” (exod. Rab. 21:4). God’s blessings pronounced over israel by the priests apply also to proselytes, women, and slaves (Num. Rab. 11:8). Their cries can reach the ears of God who is over both master and slave, and this places limits on the behaviour of Jewish slave owners!

a particularly germane background to the passage and the problems that the instruction that “You shall call nothing your own” would have posed to slave owners is provided by a halakah in the name of R. simeon of Mizpah (T1, alive while the temple was still standing), found both in m.

Pe’ah 3:8 and also in t. Pe’ah 1:13, in which form i cite it here: a. One who consigns [all of] his property to his slave—[the slave]

becomes a free-person [because the slave as part of the estate, now owns himself]. if [in his consignment of the property the owner] had retained any land at all—the slave does not become a free person, [for we assume that the property retained includes the slave].

B. R. simeon says [T1, while temple was still standing], “Lo, he who says,

‘Lo all of my possessions are given to so-and-so, my slave, except for one ten-thousandths part of them’ [m. Pe’ah 3:8] has said nothing [of binding force],

c. unless he specifies [the property in] such-and-such a city or [in]

such-and-such a field.

D. and even if he owns [only] that very field and that very city, [so that, in effect, he wishes to give the slave nothing at all], the slave acquires the property and may buy his freedom.”

e. and when they said these words in front of R. Yosé, he said, “he who gives a right answer smacks his lips” [Prov 24:26].30

(New York: atheneum, 1931. english translation of the German 5th edition prepared by the author.

30. Jacob Neusner and Richard s. sarason, trans., The Tosefta: Translated from the Hebrew, with a New Introduction (Peabody, Ma: hendrickson, 2002).

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if a Jewish person gave away all or part of his possessions to his slave (the masculine is used following the intention of the halakah, though it would probably apply in some circumstances to women and their maid-servants, as in the case of Queen Berenice of adiabene, according to the tractate Gerim), his slave would be regarded as manumitted. in the case of common ownership of property, in which the slave was regarded as owner in common of all the wealth and property of the community, he could legitimately argue that he was now freed. The social consequences of the alternative socioeconomic arrangements of this early christian Jewish community were thus as serious for the question of masters and slaves as for fathers and children (patriarch/kyriarchs and their subordinates) and calls for a special instruction. The instruction provided, however, also undermines the egalitarian and liberatory potential of the movement deriving from Jesus. The fundamental principles of the community are: the spirit falls on patriarchs and subordinates alike; there is no favouritism with God and therefore there can be none in the community; all things must be shared. The solution of the community is to reassert the patriarchal control of slave-masters but limit their power with a strong warning.

as with the instructions on parents and children, the instructions on masters and slaves begin with a directive to the patriarch/kyriarch, but in this case it affirms the authority of the slave-master and hence the institution of slavery itself, only indirectly protecting the slaves by limiting their power to punish their property without restraint “in their bitterness” (ἐν πικρίᾳ σου). The word πικρίᾳ is a metaphorical application from a word meaning “bitter taste” to “bitter feelings” or “harshness”

or “violent temper.”31 in other words, harsh and arbitrary treatment of slaves is prohibited, the kind of treatment that often left a slave with lasting physical damage or even ended in death. it is noteworthy that both male and female slaves are specifically mentioned, since female slaves were doubly at risk as objects of sexual exploitation by their owners.32 Their inclusion sends an important signal, especially in the context of the prohibition in the Didache’s reformulation of the ethic of the second half of the Decalogue not only of anger as leading to murder but also of desire (ἐπιθυμία), because it leads to fornication (πορνεία) and ultimately to adultery (μοιχεία, 3.2–3). The behaviour of the slave-owner might lead a 31. LsJ 1403b–1404a.

32. carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. MacDonald, with Janet h. Tulloch, A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: fortress, 2006), 95–117.

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slave to cease to “fear” (φοβηθήσονται) the God who is over both of them.

Two observations follow here: the slaves had no choice but to convert with their owner, in line with Jewish practices for slave owning. second, the

“fear of God” in verse 10 is rhetorically equated with “fear of the Master”

in verse 11, so that the alternative socioeconomic community practice is given with one hand and taken away with the other.

The basis for this instruction to the slave owner (no gender is specified, so it must be held to refer to both male and female slave owners) is fundamental to the community’s ethos, as we have seen: the same God is the hope of both parties and God has no favourites but gives the spirit to both. The whole passage is difficult syntactically and semantically,33 perhaps reflecting the complexity of the issue for the community. in the first place, the exact reference of οὐ γὰρ ἔρχεται … καλέσαι is not clear: the present tense here could refer to the coming of God in judgment or to the first or second coming of Jesus, though his name is not mentioned; the calling could refer to the call to all human beings inherent in the gospel, but could also refer forward to the coming judgment. To my mind it does seem to include a certain note of eschatological warning to back up an otherwise unenforceable instruction, since although the judgment of the community against violent behaviour might result in expulsion from the community for the slave owner, this would remove one of its patrons. The expression ἐφ᾿ οὓς τὸ

πνεῦμα ἡτοίμασεν is also difficult: it may indicate that the process of preparation and acceptance of the slave into God’s covenant through the preparation of the spirit is complete (aorist tense), but it could also mean that God or Jesus came to prepare his people to receive the spirit as a gift, even the slave (“upon whom” the spirit has come) and so confers on all community members equal status before God as those who possess the spirit. This is the interpretation i prefer, given the importance of the spirit in this community evidenced in chapter 11 (though the spirit seems always to be the spirit of prophecy in the Didache). The same word πρόσωπον is used here as in the requirement to judge justly in block 2, rhetorically reenforcing the instruction concerning the equality of all members of the community. so, although the instruction affirms the institution of slavery and the rights of slave owners, these rights are in theory strictly circumscribed by a requirement to respect the equal humanity of a slave, which is supported by a raft of religious taboos since it is unenforceable any other way.

33. see Niederwimmer, Didache, 110–11 for a discussion.

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The instruction to slaves appears to apply to both male and female slaves, although no differentiation is provided this time, perhaps because it is rhetorically unnecessary. Nevertheless, the inclusion of slaves in an anonymous plural group reduces their humanity. it requires them as a group to submit to their κυρίοις. The plural could be taken as inclusive of both male and female owners, but may have only the male patriarch in mind, since the owner is to be a type of God, and one wonders whether the gender neutrality of God was even on the horizon. clearly the reciprocal instruction to the slave is necessary because their equal humanity before God and equal right to share in the community of goods of the community would undermine the right of the slave owner to continue to own them and to command them to obey. This would then result in elite members of the community ceasing to be able to function as patrons offering their status and their resources to protect and promote the community’s interests with the outside world. The sanction the instruction receives is severe: the slave owner (male?) is a “type” or image of God, like the image of the emperor struck on an imperial coin. While slaves and women, for that matter, are instructed to respect and submit to their patriarchs as “to the Lord” elsewhere (col 3:22–23; eph 6:5), the language here could be regarded as more extreme. The slave owner is to be the image of God to the slave, and as such, the “fear” that is due to God by both slave-owner and slave, since God is over them both, is now due to the slave-owner by the slave (ἐν αἰσχύνῃ καὶ φόβῳ), since he stands as the image of God.

This instruction to slave-owners and slaves is reinforced by an instruction appealing to a general principle that community members should “hate all hypocrisy and all that is not pleasing to the Lord” (v. 12), which i read as the conclusion to the instructions to slave owners and slaves. against this is the fact that the preceding instruction is in the second person plural, since slaves are addressed as a group, which certainly is not suggestive of equal status. The instructions as a whole are couched in the second person singular, however, and the return to a key ethical understanding of the community would require a return to the generalized pattern. a repeated refrain in the Didache is a prohibition of “double-mindedness” in various forms and expressions. hypocrisy is set alongside these expressions of

“double-mindedness” and so reinforces the command to slave-owners not to oppress or ill-treat their slaves and to slaves to submit to slave owners without reservation or their own kind of bitterness, so standing parallel to the prohibition of “bitterness” in the conduct of their masters. They should do everything that is pleasing to the Lord, which would coincide

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with doing what is pleasing to the slave owner, since he stands as a “type”

of God. This is an uneasy compromise to be sure, but it is directed in my opinion toward keeping the ideal of generalized reciprocity in place.

Block 5 provides a conclusion to the way of life as a whole. it presents the instructions of the way of life as “commandments of the Lord” (v.

3), which must not be tampered with either by adding or subtracting, a common device in writing to reenforce its authority (see, for example, Rev 22:18–19). These instructions would be particularly poignant to children, however, and more particularly to slaves, who might spend much time

“confessing their transgressions” of “hypocrisy” in their attitudes to cruel slave-owners.

4. The hT in the Doctrina apostolorum

The Latin Doctrina apostolorum follows Did. 1–6 very closely, so much so that there has long been a debate over whether it is an extract from it or a source for it. Besides smaller variations, the main difference is the absence from the Doctrina apostolorum of the “Q” tradition in Did. 1.3–6

and a different ending in the Doctr. 6.2–3. This has led to speculation as to whether it represents a pre-christian Jewish source for an originally Jewish Two Ways teaching. Therefore, the differences between the texts, though small, may often be highly significant. set out in the same structured way as we have noted for the Didache, it appears as follows (dotted line indicates omissions, while italics represent additions or variations).34

schematic 2: Doctrina apostolorum

1. The Teacher/Prophet

a 4.1. Qui loquitur tibi uerbum domini dei

memineris die ac nocte

reuereberis eum quasi dominum

unde enim dominica procedunt

ibi et dominus est.

2. Regular communal assemblies for Judgment

B 2. Require autem facies sanctorum …

34. The text of the Doctrina apostolorum is taken from Willy Rordorf and andré Tuilier, La doctrine des douze apôtres (Didachè), sc 248 bis (Paris: cerf, 1998), 208–9.

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ute te reficias uerbis illorum.

3. Non facies dissensions

… pacifica litigantes

iudica iuste

sciens quod tu iudicaberis.

Non deprimes quemquam in casu suo …

4. Nec dubitabis *uerum [cj. utrum] erit ac non erit.

3. Requirement for General Reciprocity

c 5. Noli esse ad accipiendum extendens manum

et ad reddendum subtrahens.

6. si habes per manus tuas … redemptionem peccatorum.

7. Non dubitabis dare

nec dans murmuraueris

sciens quis sit huius mercedis bonus redditor.

D 8. Non auertes te ab egente

communicabis autem omnia cum fratribus tuis

nec dices tua esse

si enim […] mortalibus socii sumus

quanto magis hinc initiantes esse debemus?

Omnibus enim dominus dare uult de donis suis. [cf. Did. 1.5]

4. household Management

e 9. Non tolles manum tuam a filiis …

sed a iuuentute docebis eos timorem domini.

f1 10. seruo tuo uel ancillae

qui in eundem sperant dominum

in ira tua non imperabis

timeat utrumque dominum et te;

non enim uenit ut personas inuitaret

sed in quibus spiritum inuenit.

f2 11. Vos autem serui subiecti dominis uestris estote tamquam formae dei

cum pudore et tremore.

12. Oderis omnem affectationem

et quod deo non placet non facies.

5. conclusion of the Way of Life: Binding Nature of its Teaching G 13. … custodi ergo, fili, quae audisti

neque appones illis contraria neque diminues

14. … Non accedas ad orationem cum consientia mala.

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haec est uia uitae.

for the most part, the Doctrina apostolorum follows the text of the Did.

4.1–8 with little variation, but the variations are significant. in the first place, καθ’ ἡμέραν is omitted, as in the epitome apostolorum, so that it is unlikely that a daily “church meeting” was ever in mind in the earliest tradition. second, and more important, a note of eschatological warning is introduced into the requirement to judge justly and avoid favoritism, thus strengthening its urgency: “You shall judge justly, knowing that you will be judged. You shall not oppress anyone in his case.” Third, in the requirement

“to give the fruit of your labor for the redemption of your sins,” the word

“give” appears to have been accidentally omitted so that it reads literally,

“if you have through your hands redemption of sins” (v. 6) and then runs on “you shall not doubt to give [etc.]” (v. 7). fourth, there is another seeming omission in verse 8, so that it would read, “if we are sharers in mortal things, how much more ought we to do this being initiated?” (leipography from si en[imim]mortalibus). The textual variant could make reasonable sense in that the Two Ways teaching was intended as preparation for initiation (see Did. 7.1), so that the ordinary sharing of all human beings in mortal things is contrasted with the sharing in imperishable things of those who have been initiated into the community. That wording does, however, weaken the sense of material sharing being a natural consequence of sharing in immortality. fifth, the Doctrina apostolorum adds here the saying found in the Jesus tradition section in Did. 1.5b: “indeed the Lord wishes to give to all from his gifts.” This in return strengthens the emphasis on community of goods still further, since the material goods belonging to members are in any case God’s gifts and remain God’s own property to dispense to others in the community through its members. One wonders whether the insertion of this material from 1.5 here in the Latin text was made later to compensate for the leipography above.

in block 4 of the hT:

e2 You shall not hold back your hand from your sons, but from their youth you shall teach them the fear of the Lord.

f1 You shall not command your male slave or your female slave, who hope in the same Lord, in your anger. Let him or her fear both the Lord and you. for he did not come to invite according to person but those in whom he has found the Spirit [v.l. a humble spirit].

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f2 and you slaves be subject to your masters as types of God with shame and trembling. You shall hate all hypocrisy, and you shall not do what does not please God.

it is noteworthy in e1 that the Doctrina apostolorum has the plural filiis and lacks the express inclusion of daughters, even if they could be understood to be included within the masculine plural. This difference is significant in terms of the “invisibility” of women, their inclusion within the male, and their treatment as property to be disposed of in patriarchal society. second, θεός is often represented by κύριος in the Doctrina apostolorum, a signal that the Lord Jesus may be in mind, at least in the later redactions, since in the same places the tradition is divided. The Doctrina apostolorum is often regarded as the earliest form of the Two Ways, but even if it is, its wording may in places be later. in the New Testament hT, ἐν κυρίῳ is an important aspect of the rhetoric, but not in the Two Ways, except in the Doctrina apostolorum.

in the instructions on slaves and masters, there is a noteworthy variant contained in “let him or her fear both the Lord and you” after “lest he or she should no longer fear the Lord who is over you both.” The inclusion of this reduces the strength of the injunction to the slave-owner by placing the fear of the Lord alongside that of the slave-owner, thus revealing an elite perspective rather than that of the embryonic alternative socioeconomic community we are exploring here. it shows itself to be a later development. finally, the text has a variant reading in the difficult passage, concerning whom the Lord has come to call: the Doctrina apostolorum has “those in whom he has found the spirit.” The idea that God’s holy spirit indwells slaves who fear God is a radical one: so radical that a variant reading is inserted above the line of the Latin manuscript replacing “holy spirit” with “humble spirit” (humilum)! There are a few variations in the conclusion at block h, but these have no bearing on the hT tradition and can be ignored here.

5. Other Versions of the independent Two Ways Tradition following the Order in the Didache

in addition to the Doctrina apostolorum’s close parallel to the Didache, there is a range of other versions of the independent Two Ways tradition.

They highlight the role of the teacher in chapter 4 so that it intrudes from

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block a into block B. here we follow the ecclesiastical canons and the epitome apostolorum.35

schematic 3: ecclesiastical canons and epitome apostolorum 1. The Teacher/Prophet

a 4.1 Thomas said,

the one who speaks to you the word of God,

And who is the cause of your life

And who gives you the seal in the Lord

You shall love him [male?] as the apple of your eye Remember him [male?] night and day

and honour him [male?] as the Lord.

for where the things concerning the Lord are spoken, there is the Lord.

2. Regular communal assemblies for Judgment

B 2. and you shall seek out his presence daily and that of the rest of the saints,

so that you can find rest in their words.

3. Cephas said, You shall not make a schism,

but you shall reconcile the warring factions.

You shall judge justly;

you shall not show favouritism leading to transgression; 4. In your prayer you shall not doubt whether it should be or not.

3. Requirement for Generalized Reciprocity

c 5. [Do not be one who stretches out your hands to receive, but one who shuts them up when it comes to giving. ec; eP omit.]

6. if you have [earned anything] through [the work of] your hands, you shall give a ransom for [the forgiveness of ἄφεσιν; eP] your sins.

7. [You shall not doubt whether to give,

and you shall not grumble when you give,

for you shall know who is the good giver of the reward. ec; eP omit.]

D 8. You shall not turn away the needy person [male?], 35. The english translation is my own. a critical text can be found in alistair stewart-sykes, The Apostolic Church Order: The Greek Text with Introduction, Translation and Annotation, ecs 10 (strathfield, au: st. Paul’s, 2006). ec refers to the ecclesiastical canons; eP refers to the epitome apostolorum.

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but you shall share [συγκοινωνήσεις; eP] all things with your brother [and sister?],

and you shall not say they are your own.

for if you are sharers in [death, θανάτῳ, eP] what is immortal, how much more in perishable things [mortal things, θνητοῖς, eP]?

4. household Management

e1 9. [You shall not hold back your hand

from your son or from your daughter,

but from their youth you shall teach the fear of god. eP; ec omit]

12. [You shall hate all hypocrisy

and everything which is not pleasing (ἀρέσκει) to the lord. eP: ec omit.]

5. conclusion of the Way of life: Binding nature of its Teaching

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