Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Huub van de Sandt and Jiirgen K. Zangenberg On April 12 and 13, 2007, an international conference on Matthew, James, and the Didache in their historical, social, and religious settings was held at the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands. This meeting represents the continuation of a research process initiated with a conference held at Tilburg in April 2003 whose main concern was to exchange ideas on the possible common environment of two early Christian writings, Matthew and the Didache. The proceedings of that conference were edited by Huub van de Sandt and published as Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? (Assen:
Van Gorcum, 2005).
The subject of the 2007 meeting broadened the scope of the 2003 conference to include the Letter of James as well. It is commonly accepted that Matthew and James share important features, and the same holds true for Matthew and the Didache and—perhaps to a lesser degree—for James and the Didache. The agreements and common perspectives within Matthew, James, and the Didache may be accounted for by theories of sources or traditions the authors used, or more generally their common Jewish-Christian background. The likelihood that the relationship between the three writings is one of literary dependence seems negligible however.
Matthew, James, and the Didache are writings that most certainly span the worlds of Judaism and Christianity. As far as we can tell, the vast majority of Jewish Christians continued to observe the whole law, taking for granted that they were still obliged to do so. The three documents could reflect various stages in the development of a network of communities that shared basic theological assumptions and expressions, or they may represent contemporaneous strands or different regional forms of the same wider phenomenon we now call Jewish
Christianity. Of particular importance for the reconstruction of the religious and social milieu of the communities behind Matthew, James, and the Didache are issues such as the observance of Jewish law and elements of Jewish piety. We believe that in addition to the Pauline and Johannine "schools," Matthew, James, and the Didache represent a third important religious milieu within earliest
Christianity, which is characterized by its distinct connections to a particular ethats
MATTHEW, JAMES, AND DIDACHE
ical stream of contemporary Jewish tradition. This is so even if cohesion between these three documents is less distinct and constituted differently compared to the Pauline and Johannine corpora and would certainly not exclude possible affinities to other early Christian documents. This is why we prefer the somewhat more vague term "milieu" to the sociologically more definitive "school" with all its problems, assumptions, and implications. The ultimate aim of this conference was to explore ways to identify topics common to these three documents, discuss possible implications for a reconstruction of their sociological background and make attempts to describe this "milieu."
This volume contains the papers presented at the 2007 meeting in Tilburg.
Each paper focuses on individual aspects of the interrelationship between the Gospel of Matthew, the Letter of James, and the Didache. Their authors are scholars of the New Testament, Second Temple Judaism, the History of Liturgy and Patristics. Instead of looking at Matthew and James as a subject of study belonging to the New Testament only and instead of considering the Didache as pertaining to Patristics alone, each author was asked to place his or her individual topic in the wider context of Jewish and Christian religious history.
The seventeen papers included in this volume are arranged in five sections. The first section, "Methods and Milieus," deals with the social context of each of the three documents, Matthew, James, and the Didache, in an integrative perspective. The issue at stake is the vexing problem of reconstruction. To what extent do these texts help us trace their own roots and histories? How can we move from the literary world of texts to the social, or "real," world to which Matthew, James, and the Didache belonged? In the opening article David Sim examines the social and religious milieu of Matthew and his intended readers. He joins the fairly well-established consensus about Antioch as the place where the Gospel was written sometime after 70 c.£. The question of the social and religious setting of Matthew is then put in a broader perspective, taking up the question of the relationship between Matthew's community and the Jewish world. Did Matthew's group still identify itself as part of the Jewish world, or had it broken ties with its Jewish heritage, and if yes, in what respect? Matthean scholarship is divided over this issue. Yet what is often missing in discussions of the social setting of this Gospel is a careful assessment of the relationship of the Matthean community with the Gentile world, the Roman Imperial context, and other Christian groups.
Oda Wischmeyer explores the social and religious milieu of James. She begins with brief reflections on the term milieu and ways to specify its relevant parameters. Applying these parameters to James's text, a religious and literary
Christian milieu emerges whose religious culture is shaped by the Septuagint in its early Christian ethical interpretation. The addressees must also have been acquainted with Jewish and Christian traditions (oral as well as textual) and were generally interested in literature that combines religion and ethics.
INTRODUCTION
Jurgen Zangenberg takes up the same issue with respect to the Didache. He approaches the question with several caveats that seem especially appropriate in the case of Didache. The first of these is the general murkiness of all relationships between a text and what we call "milieu." While texts contain elements that can be used to reconstruct its social and ideological background, they are never comprehensive or direct enough to be taken as simple "reflections" of a supposed
"milieu." Didache's character as an anonymous and composite document needs to be taken into account by anyone attempting to reconstruct its cultural and sociological background. After a step-by-step analysis of crucial passages and their relationship to other Jewish and early Christian traditions, Zangenberg comes to the tentative conclusion that the Didache "came from anywhere in the Greek-speaking (eastern) Mediterranean, that it was deeply rooted in Judaism and shows striking similarities with Matthew and—to a lesser but still significant degree—with James, and all three might very well have come from a common
"milieu" (p. 69).
The second section, "Conflicts and Contacts," presents three studies of Matthew, James, and the Didache in their socio-historical settings. These contributions focus on disputes between and competition among other early Christian groups and on how contact and conflict with the "outside" world were regulated.
After a brief survey of the general problems involved in textual interpretation,
Magnus Zetterholm turns to the specific problems of texts that cannot be located in time or space with any precision, written by authors who cannot be identified, directed to communities unknown to us. These issues have by no means been resolved. As a way out of the dilemma, Zetterholm pursues a hypothetical-deductive model in which relatively well-founded conjectures regarding the origin and development of the texts are used as theoretical assumptions. This approach is suggested as a point of departure for investigating Matthew and the Didache. Both writings are taken to reflect historical developments in the relations between Jews and non-Jews within the Jesus-believing movement in Antioch. The conclusion is that both Matthew and the Didache should be seen as two different ways of dealing with the problem of alleged moral impurity among non-Jews.
Peter Tomson outlines a rough framework of Jewish history in the Roman Empire between 50 and 150 c.k. The series of Jewish wars against Rome in the late-first and early-second centuries imply that profound transformations had taken place within Judaism. The extent of these transformations has recently become a much-debated subject. One may distinguish two approaches to the period between 66 and 135 c.£.: the "classical" approach represented by Gedalyahu Alon and Shmuel Safrai and a modern one embodied by Seth
Schwartz in particular. Tomson emphasizes the ideological and military power of the Jews in the ultimate collision with Rome, the important role of rabbinic leadership in this conflict and the growing confrontation between Jews, JudaeoChristians, and Gentile Christians in the period under discussion. This historical
MATTHEW, JAMES, AND DIDACHE
background directly affects the interpretation of the three writings. For Tomson,
Matthew and the Didache reflect social tensions between each of these communities and the Pharisees, even a clash between these communities and Jewish society as a whole. And it is also possible to read the Letter of James under the assumption that certain Jewish Christian groups had come under fire from competing Gentile Christian quarters.
Joseph Verheyden addresses how these three documents have figured in discussions about how to define what is usually called "Jewish Christianity." He points out that all definitions are hampered by the very fragmentary character of available sources (literary as well as archaeological) and often blurred by academic debates about overarching historical or dogmatic issues. The criteria by which ideological and behavioral phenomena are considered "Judaeo-Christian" often remains unclear. The debate is a healthy reminder that neither Judaism nor Christianity were monolithic entities. For Verheyden the only reasonable consequence is to choose a broad definition. He concludes: "There is no standard definition of Jewish Christianity and there never was. There are only ways and forms of being a Jewish Christian and we have only a very limited access to them. Perhaps then the real challenge is not to focus on what holds the evidence together, but rather fully to recognize that the evidence is of necessity and by definition diverse because of the nature of the phenomenon itself" (p. 128).
What then does all that mean for the interpretation of Matthew, James, and the Didache? Following Gunnar Garleff, Verheyden sees these three documents as an attempt to shape early Christian identity by forming ethos, ritus, and community structure in close contact and often also conflict with Judaism. Nevertheless, an analysis of these three documents raises further questions, above all about "the limits of this apparently quite flexible concept of Jewish Christianity" (p. 135).
Four other topics are treated in the third section on "Community and Identity." How did the communities behind Matthew, James, and the Didache shape their identity both ideologically and structurally? What factors contributed to that process? In this section's first paper, Jonathan Draper carefully examines six leadership roles found in the three texts: prophet, teacher, apostle, bishop, deacon and elder. In the course of his analysis, he compares these roles in Matthew, Didache, James and other early Christian texts. While the Didache and Matthew do show significant affinities, James clearly stands apart and fits instead into an environment better characterized by "wisdom than charisma." Yet the comparison displays some overlap as well since "all three writings appear concerned about false leaders who seek to exploit the community financially, as well as to give false teaching, and all three see the lifestyle of the leader as the appropriate test of authenticity" (p. 176).
Wim Weren analyzes the semantics of how each of the three documents constructed individual images of the ideal community. He explores three topics: how the community is referred to, the community's relationship to God and Jesus, and the concept of perfection (teleios). In Matthew both the local commu-
INTRODUCTION
nity and the totality of such communities is referred to as ekklesia. For Weren the concept has a polemic connotation over against other Jewish groups and communities. In James and the Didache the term ekklesia is associated with diaspora and symbolizes the hope that Christian communities will participate in a united
Israel. With respect to the second topic, James and the Didache focus prominently on God, whereas Matthew elaborates the community's close relationship to Jesus. The adjective teleios represents the third theme, a term describing ideal behavior in each of the three documents (on this topic see also Jens Schroter in this volume). In Matthew, James, and the Didache, teleios expresses full observance of the Torah. Yet the Didache takes a position of its own and opens up the community to members who are not "perfect."
In their analyses of Matthew, James, and the Didache commentators time and again have treated "poor" and "pious" as parallel concepts. John Kloppenborg puts this assumption to the test. Are the poor, the exploited and destitute underclasses to be equated with the pious? Was poverty a religiously charged concept? The paper examines the historical and conceptual basis for this notion of poverty and finds that in biblical and later Judaean literature those in a state of poverty were not thought to be privileged by virtue of their poverty. Kloppenborg then focuses on the Didache, Matthew, and James. Although Did. 3:7-4:4 is often taken to reflect the belief typical of the "piety of the poor," the passage shows no trace of poverty. Matthew too has relatively little to say about the poor or poverty. His concern is not primarily with the poor but with the households of the Jesus movement. At first sight one might think that James firmly identifies with the poor against the rich via the traditional piety-poverty link. However he does not show solidarity with the plight of the poor and still less equates the poor with believers. He uses the common rhetorical topos of rich and poor only in order to expose inequalities already generally lamented in Greco-Roman society.
Jens Schréter explores the Jesus (or synoptic) traditions in Matthew, James, and the Didache. The concept of "perfection" is central to his paper (on this topic also see Wim Weren's article in this volume). This element presents itself prominently in all three writings and functions as an interpretive key for the Jesus traditions found there. However each of the three documents deals with this topic in a noticeably different way. In James, Jesus traditions are used side by side with quotations from Scripture or other Jewish and early Christian traditions in order to develop the idea of wisdom as the way to perfection. There is no trace at all that James knew these traditions as specifically connected to Jesus.
An important feature in Matthew is the presentation of Jesus's ethical teachings, which brings traditional Jewish commandments to their completion. Traditions are regarded valid only if interpreted from Jesus's radicalized perspective. In the Didache the "entire yoke of the Lord" (6:2) is important. The notion entails all commandments of the sectio evangelica (Did. 1:3b-2:1), which must be kept in order to achieve perfection. The presence of the Jesus traditions in these Didache
MATTHEW, JAMES, AND DIDACHE
instructions and even more in its teaching of liturgical and eschatological matters serves to help develop a "Christian" in contrast to a "Jewish" identity.
The fourth section, "Interpreting Torah," investigates the exposition of the Torah, halakic discussion, and moral imperatives with regard to Matthew, James, and the Didache. J. Andrew Overman observes that over the last twenty years scholarship concerned with formative Christianity and Judaism has emphasized the diversity within so-called Judaisms and early Christianities. However this new approach raised problems of how to distinguish between Jews, Christians, and Jewish Christians (on this issue also see Joseph Verheyden's article in the present volume). Overman's observation is particularly relevant for the study of such seemingly related documents as Matthew, James, and the Didache. Matthew focuses on the competition between his community and another closely related group of Jewish leaders and retainers. Matthew believes his community and their application of the Torah is much better suited to guide the local population by urging them to get along with Roman provincial authorities. The Didache is a manual for a community that is well on the way to being organized; it focuses above all on internal issues and behavior. James represents a type of Judaism that found certain Greek philosophical notions quite compatible with Jewish history and whatever Jesus came to accomplish. It is only their usage of a shared Two
Ways ethical tradition that requires us to relate the documents to one another.
Matthias Konradt concentrates on the command to love one's neighbor which is based on Lev 19:18 and is found three times in Matthew's Gospel
(5:43; 19:19; 22:39). In Matthew the command has developed in two directions.
By referring to outsiders—even enemies—the love command transcends the boundaries of the local community. Moreover, it involves the social perspective of merciful care for the poor. The love command in Jas 2:8 is based upon the Hebrew Scriptures, It is quoted in a context rejecting partiality toward rich people. As in Matthew, it features prominently, functions as a summary of God's will, and implies charitable love. Didache 1:2 associates the two precepts occurring in Lev 19:18 (to love man) and Deut 6:5 (to love God) with the proclamation of the Golden Rule as a summary of the whole Torah. In this respect the Didache reveals a strong affinity with the Matthean Gospel, which also takes the doublelove commandment and the Golden Rule as summary statements of the law
(Matt 22:37-40 and 7:12). There is also a resemblance among the three documents, Matthew, James, and the Didache (that is the pre-Didache recension in Did. 1:1-3a; 2:2-6:1), in as much as they evidence a similar relation of the love command and the Decalogue. The affinities between Matthew and the Didache in these and other respects demonstrate that in some way the material derived from a common tradition. The Didache may represent a later stage in the development of the type of "Christianity" reflected in Matthew. Of course, there are close connections between Matthew and James too, but this affinity cannot be equated with the close relationship between Matthew and the Didache.
INTRODUCTION
Patrick Hartin shows how James, Matthew, and the Didache reflect a similar ethos and ethical perspective, the first of which he believes to be the earliest of the three. The ethical admonitions in these documents are the boundary markers expressing the identity (ethos) of the members of the respective communities.
The admonitions examined in this paper are "being perfect," the imitation of God rather than the imitation of Jesus, the double mindedness and the doublelove command. Having considered these ethical perspectives, Hartin then briefly examines the relationship of the three documents to the ethos and ethics of other traditions and other Christian literature from the same period. He pays special attention to the Sayings Source Q, the form of the Two Ways in the Letter of Barnabas, the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John. He argues that in their own way all three documents express the understanding that faith must be articulated through action. Their identity and perspective clearly assigns them to a common, developing milieu that was still at home within the social and ideological context of Israel. The different stages in the development of this milieu are reflected in the successive documents: James (middle of the 60s), Matthew (early 80s) and the Didache (90s through 120s).
Huub van de Sandt argues that the commonalities of perspective with regard to the law in Matthew and James is the result of their common use of a section of the Jewish Two Ways which is best preserved in Did. 3:1-6. He first demonstrates that theme and terminology in the teknon section of Did. 3:1-6 betray close affinities with materials collected and preserved in the pious milieu of the early
Hasidic Sages. This specific ethical stream within early rabbinic Judaism is probably the concrete life situation of the teknon passage. Van de Sandt then draws attention to the Matthean Antitheses and James's Letter. Matthew and James used traditional materials identical or similar to those transmitted in Two Ways
3:1-6 when respectively formulating the Antitheses (5:17-48) of the Sermon on the Mount and creating specific segments of James's letter (1:13-21; 2:8-11 and 4:1-4). The ethical code passed on in the Antitheses and in James—both imposing higher standards for the halakic way of life—finds its best explanation in light of Did. 3:1-6 and Hasidic tradition. This traditional type of instruction does not provide us with a full understanding of Matthew's Antitheses or the Letter of James however. The argument in the latter writings is more rigorous than is the line of reasoning in the Two Ways. Matthew and James independently represent a further development and radicalization of the warnings in Did. 3:1-6.
A conference on the relationship between Matthew, James, and the Didache would not be complete without considering how each document envisioned ritual observance. The fifth and last section of the book is therefore dedicated to this issue. In the first of the section's three papers, Alistair Stewart-Sykes analyzes the close relationship between paraenesis and baptism in Matthew, James, and the Didache. Employing the key term apokuesis logo aletheias, Stewart-Sykes first examines the character of paraenesis (especially in James) and asks "whether the paraenetic content of James is meant to recall instruction given before baptism
MATTHEW, JAMES, AND DIDACHE
as a means of restoring the hearers to their baptismal resolve through reminding them of their initial incorporation into James's group" (p. 347). He then examines baptism in Matthew, James and Didache, emphasizing the strong connection between paraenesis and baptism all three documents express in detail despite their differences.
In the second paper of this section Martin Vahrenhorst presents a case study of a topic that was particularly vexing for many early-first-century Christians as well as Jews, the prohibition against taking oaths. This was a matter of intense
Jewish debate since it concerned the question how the name of God could be protected from being profaned in the process of swearing. "Almost all Jewish sources," Vahrenhorst asserts, "deal with it and even non-Jewish sources reveal a strong interest in it" (p. 365). Examining how this controversial issue is treated in each of the three documents can help better place them within the context of contemporaneous Jewish discussions. Vahrenhorst sees Matthew and James deeply connected to the Jewish debate.
Last but not least, Boris Repschinski deals with purity, one of the crucial defining notions of Second Temple Judaism and a concept not only based upon Scripture but also on (often controversial) supplemental halakic traditions. After analyzing a number of relevant passages in Matthew, James, and the Didache,
Repschinski comes to the conclusion that while each document shows a very peculiar approach to the topic (Didache and James largely ignoring it), they all share a certain tendency to reinterpret purity issues in ethical or christological terms and use them as a means to define one's own identity against competing
Judaism. While Matthew remains closest to Jewish tradition, he also delegitimizes purity traditions by taking up impulses from the early Jesus tradition.
The papers presented at this conference clearly demonstrate both the promise and problems of an approach that takes Matthew, James, and the Didache as related documents and reads them as distinctly Judaeo-Christian voices in their
Jewish and Christian contexts. Apart from presenting many exegetical details and illuminating insights, the articles demonstrate that it is more difficult than ever to distinguish between "Jewish" and "Christian" because they were sociologically and theologically too closely related and—in different respects—in statu nascendi, Theological affinities, common topics, accepted practices, and similar linguistic habits connect Matthew, James, and the Didache. The articles in this book invite a closer examination of the repercussions these assumptions have both for the interpretation of each individual document and for the construction of a framework for understanding early Christianity in general. It would be a misunderstanding, however, were this connection to be described uncritically at the cost of linguistic, social, and theological dissimilarities between these three texts or by excluding other documents that share individual elements—such as 1 Peter with James.
The broad range of methodological approaches and research interests represented by the authors in this book amply demonstrates that the topic raised
INTRODUCTION
by the 2007 Tilburg Conference is tackled with utmost care and simplifications are avoided. The discussion is far from finished, of course. Neither the book as a whole nor any individual contribution claims to have had the last word on this matter. Further research is certainly necessary on, for example, the relationship between the milieu represented by these three documents (and others?) to voices that are clearly not part of it and the representation of the non-Jewish and nonChristian outside world in general. On the basis of the results of the 2007 Tilburg
Conference, it seems likely that these questions will not be resolved by simple answers and compact concepts that lump the three documents together indiscriminately. Instead we can expect that research in such a direction might also demonstrate that Matthew, James, and the Didache kept their own profile within a common milieu that represents only one multivocal voice in the disparate choir of early Christianity.
We would like to extend our heart-felt gratitude to all who have contributed to bringing this book to light. We first thank all the colleagues who devoted their time and expertise to make the conference and this proceedings volume possible with their written and oral contributions. We are further indebted to the Faculty of Humanities at Tilburg University (above all the Department of Religious Studies and Theology) and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) for generously making all necessary personal and financial resources available to launch the conference. It is a pleasure to thank the staff of SBL, especially
Victor Matthews, Bob Buller, and Leigh Andersen for skillfully guiding this book through its various stages of development from conceptualization to publication.
Substantial assistance was rendered by John Flanagan (Leiden) and David Lee (Amsterdam) who helped improve the English of a number of articles. Last but not least, we are indebted to Ms. Nathalie Bastiaansen (Tilburg) for her contribution to the process of editing and preparing the final text.
We initially invited Wiard Popkes to present a paper at the conference.
Despite his increasingly severe illness, Wiard Popkes was quick to respond and promised a paper on "Initiation and Celebration: Rites and Religious Practices in James, Matthew, and the Didache." Not much later, however, we received the sad message from his son that Wiard Popkes had passed away on January 2, 2007.
The editors and all contributors to the Tilburg conference deeply regret the loss of such a fine scholar. Through his erudition and his ability to read texts in their historical and theological context, Wiard Popkes has deeply influenced New Testament scholarship over a long period and especially stimulated the interpretation of the Letter of James. There were many occasions during the conference when his work was cited and his personal presence was greatly missed. In the name of all the participants and with deep gratitude and respect we dedicate this volume to his memory.
PART 1
METHODS AND MILIEUS