1 See to it that no one leads you astray from this
4. Epilogue (6.1) and Appendix (6.2-3)
1 See to it that no one leads you astray from this way of the teaching, since [the person who would do so] teaches apart from God.
2 If you can bear the entire yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect, but if you cannot, do what you can.
3 As for food, bear what you can, but be very much on your guard against food offered to idols, for [to eat it] is worship of dead gods.
(6.5) Haec omnia tibi in animo pone Comment et non deceperis6 de spe tua, sed per haec sancta certamina pervenies ad coronam.
("My child, keep yourself from all these and see to it that no one leads you astray from this teaching or that you receive teaching without discipline. If you act with this in mind every day, you will be near the liv ing God. If you don't do so, you will be far from the truth. Put all these things in your mind and you will not be deprived of your hope. But through these holy contests you will win a crown.") The beginning is still present in the Didache (in what is probably a more original version):
(5.2 end) Pva^eipre, reava, dfo tovtuv drcdvruv.
(6.1) 'Opa, pq rLq oe itXavr\o"q ccko ravrpq rf/q ■ 1 The Two Ways tractate concluded appropriately (in the recension available to the Didachist) with a brief parenetical epilogue, now attested by 5.2 (end) and also by 6.1: "Opa, jur)1 rig oe irXavrjorj card Taurrjg rrjg o8ov2 rrjg 8L8axB^> irapeKrog &eov oe (uSacr/cet. The Didachist dropped the rest of the epilogue from the source3 and added, instead, an appendix (6.2-3) cover ing questions that he found important in the context of baptismal instruction.4
Excursus: An Original Parenetic Epilogue The literary situation is therefore as follows: The Two
Ways tractate, in the recension available to the Didachist, concluded with a parenetic epilogue com parable to the epilogue that we now find at the end of Doctrina.5 It begins, basically, with the final phrase in Doctr. 5.2 and continues in Doctr. 6.1 and 6.4-5:
(5.2 [end]) Abstine te fili ab istis omnibus (6.1) et vide ne quis te ab hac doctrina avocet, o8ov rfjq 8i8axfjg, eirel rrapeKroq deov oe dcdaoKec?
The Didachist suppressed the rest of the epilogue. I call this the epilogus primus', with it8 the Two Ways tractate, in the recension available to Doctrina and Didache,9 originally came to an end.10 Its language and way of thinking are Jewish or Jewish-Christian.11
The Didachist could not use this entire epilogue in et si minus extra disciplinam doceberis.
(6.4) Haec in consulendo si cottidie feceris, prope eris vivo deo; quod si non feceris, longe eris a veritate.
1 'Opa pij ktA. with the aorist subjunctive: BDF,
§364.3; BDR, §364.3.
infer a different eschatological epilogue for recen sion B (from which come Barn. 21.2-4 and Can.
2 TlXavav boro rrjq odov ("stray from the path") is good OT language; cf. Deut 11:28; Wis 5:6. See also the similar expressions in Isa 53:6 (7 Clem. 16.6) and 2 Pet 2:15.
14).
6 Deceperis in f; deciperis in f1; decipieris conjectured by Lietzmann, Didache, 9.
7 Cf. also Fides patr. 3: opa dvdpame, pr\ rLq oe diroorpoei (cf. the v.l. in PG 28.1639C) etc rrjq irLoreoiq ravrpq, eirei irapeKroq deov elr\q ("See then, man, that no one remove you from this faith, since then you would be separated from God").
8 More precisely: with the text, which we can no longer reconstruct in detail, that stands as the source behind Did. 5.2 (end) + 6.1, and Doctr. 5.2 (end) +
6.1, 4-5.
9 The same must be true, however, of the source that was the ultimate basis for Fides pat-rum.
10 In saying this I have obviously decided already that the source had no apocalyptic conclusion com-
3 Audet (Didache, 352) differs. According to him the original Duae viae tractate probably concluded with 6.1.
4 Harnack's suggestions (Apostellehre, 30) that the Jewish source may have contained instructions about food regulations and similar matters at this point (and similar suggestions by Seeberg [Wege,
39-40], namely, a passage about food regulations) are revealed by the text of Doctrina to be without foundation.
5 In my opinion this epilogue goes back to recension C1, which was available to Didache and Doctrina. I
6.1-3 the context of his book12 and therefore restricted his quotation of it to 5.2 (end) as the conclusion of the exposition of the "Way of Death." From the rest of the epilogue he selected only the motif of warning
(opa pp rLq ktX. in 6.1), and omitted the rest. In place of the text that followed, the Didachist inserted in 6.2-3 an appendix to the two-ways section of his book (therefore 6.2-3 is redactional).13 At the same time, Doctrina has its own history (independent of the Didache). What we now read as its conclusion:
(6.6) Per dominum Iesum Christum regnantem position to execute it" (hence bvvaoftat jScmrdom).15
There is a parallel (although only a formal one) in Acts 15:10, where the text reads: emdelvat £vyov eirl tov
TpaxpXov Ttbv p,abhr]Ttiv ov ome ol Tcarepeq 77/zcoj' ovre VP-elq loxvoapev (3aoTaoat ("by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear"). Here £vyoq is the divine com mand or instruction, as we occasionally find in Jewish usage. Thus, for example, Wisdom calls people to accept her yoke (Sir 51:26; Matt 11:29-30); the rabbis speak of the "yoke of the Torah," or the "yoke of the command ments," and so on, as well as of a "yoke" in the absolute sense, by which they mean the yoke of God. A character istic expression is "to take up the yoke of the kingdom of heaven."16 But (as Biichsel has pointed out),17 £vyov
(SaoTa^eLV does not correspond to the rabbinic 'nu Tap et dominantem cum deo patre et spiritu sancto in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
("Through the Lord Jesus Christ, who reigns and rules with God the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.") represents a later addition (epilogus secundus), which must certainly have been added to the text of Doctrina in the course of its history within the Latin tradition.14
□'ocn itd5o (which would be £vyov bex^O'dat). Zvyov (3aoTa£eLV does not mean "take the yoke upon oneself," but "bear or endure the yoke."18 Thus it is clear that in this passage it is a question of whether the individual
Christian is in a position to bear the divine ordinances in their entirety (oXov tov fyyov). If so, such a one will be TeXetoq, that is, one who fulfills the divine com mands to the full;19 if not, it is conceded that the person should concentrate on the part of the commandments that he or she is able to fulfill (o bvvrj, tovto Trolet).
■ 2 The redactor would therefore have concluded the quotation from his source at Did. 6.1. What he now added in 6.2-3 has the character of interpretation and expansion. The very first section, in 6.2, is the crux interpretum: el ptev yap bvvaoat (3aoTaoat oXov tov fyyov tov Kvpiou, TeXetoq eorp el b'ov bvvaoat, o bvvrj, tovto irolec. It is'true that the expressions themselves are immediately intelligible: Zvyov fiaoTa^eiV is to be taken metaphorically, and here has the special meaning "to bear, endure, and keep a divine command; to be in a parable to Didache 16. On this, see below at 16.1-8.
11 For the certamina in Doctr. 6.5, cf. IQS 4.17-18; for corona, IQS 4.7 and Braun, Qumran, 2.186-87. The echoes are very remote, and one would omit them altogether if there were not a tradition-historical connection between IQS 3.13-4.26 and the Two
Ways tractate.
12 The Didachist did not end the book at this point. It was his intention to add some additional parts con cerning the order of worship and the rules of the community. Nevertheless, he probably took some inspiration from the conclusion of his source in adding an eschatological prospect to his text in chap. 16 (q.v.). But the material in chap. 16 does not come from the tractate.
13 So also Drews, "Apostellehre," 267; Knopf, Lehre, 20; 6.2-3 could scarcely be the work of an interpola tor, as Audet thinks (Didache, 107-8, 352-53).
14 For this formula, cf. Schlecht, Doctrina, 66; Giet, L'Enigme, 98 n. 16.
15 For dvvaodat paoraocu, cf. Epictetus Dissertationes 3.15.9 (Schenkl, 279): avdponre, OKepou irpuTov rl eon to irpaypa, elra Kal tt)v oauroO ipvotv ("Man, consider first what the business is, and then your own natural ability, what you can bear"). Cf. also ooov bvvaoat in Barn. 19.8; more remotely, ov dvvaofte ^aoTa^etv apn. in John 16:12.
16 On this whole subject, see Str-B 1.608-10; Karl Georg Kuhn, "C'C3~ trcbo in Rabbinic Literature,"
TDNT 1 (1964) 572-74; Friedrich Biichsel, "/3aardfaj," TDNT 1 (1964) 596 n. 5; Karl Rengstorf,
"fryoq in the N.T.," TDNT 2 (1964) 898-901.
17 Biichsel, "jSaardCa," TDNT 1 (1964) 596 n. 5.
18 Cf. tov pjyov tov Xoyov (sc. Xpiarov) jSaordfeu' in Justin Dial. 53.1 (Goodspeed, 152). The para doxical formulation 6 £uyoq tov x&pLToq ("the yoke of grace," 1 Clem. 16.17) intends to say that this yoke does not lay a burden on someone, but on the contrary it is grace. Identical in subject (although the word is given a more negative qualification) is
Barn. 2.6: 6 KCtLvdq vopoq tov Kvplov ppwv Ipooi) XpcoTOv, avev pjyov avdyKpq lev ("The new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, being without the yoke of necessity").
19 TeXeioq eorj ("you will be perfect") of course reminds us of Kai ear/ TeXetoq in Did. 1.4 (q.v.). In
Alfred Stuiber24 has presented a different idea.25
According to him, 6.2-3 concerns a "Jewish supplement to the Jewish teaching about the two waysA26 The Sitz im
Leben would be the diaspora synagogue and its propa ganda. "Because the Law was given only to Israel, it is only the people of Israel who are obligated to observe it.
For the God-fearing Gentiles the moral law is sufficient.
But it is still highly welcome when these Gentiles also observe the ritual laws insofar as that is possible, because that can prepare for complete conversion."27
Stuiber must then suppose that Doctrina never had this addition, or that it was eliminated by the Christian redactor of Doctrina', to explain the fact that the Jewish supplement (6.2-3) was allowed to remain in the Chris tian Didache he must then suggest "carelessness on the part of the Christian compiler,"28 although this seems rather a last-ditch solution.
With these reflections we have already sketched the general framework that defines this section. It remains unclear, for the moment, what exactly is meant by the expression oAog 6 fyyoq ("the entire yoke") and what its content may be.20 Various answers have been given by scholars over the years. It has been proposed that oAog 6
£Vyoq refers especially to the rigoristic requirements of an encratitic morality, including sexual asceticism in particular.21 In that case, the TeXetoq would be the ascetic who renounces marriage, although this is not demanded of everyone. Average Christians are simply asked to do what they can; that is, they need not renounce marriage (like the TeXetoq) if they are not able to do it.22 In favor of this interpretation of the passage is that in the early period certain rigorists (heretics, to be sure) sometimes combined baptism and the renuncia tion of marriage.23 In addition, one could call on the context in support of this interpretation of the passage: in 6.2-3 the Didachist would be discussing two special ethical questions, namely, in 6.2 whether baptism implies renunciation of marriage (which he would deny), and in 6.3 the question of asceticism with regard to food.
The correct interpretation is probably to be found by following the suggestion of Rordorf and Tuilier,29 according to whom oXoq 6 fryoq tov Kvptou now30 means the law of Christ, as the Didachist had revealed at the beginning in the sectio Christiana sive evangelica. The phrase TeXet oq earj, in any case, reveals the pen of the both cases it is the didachistic redactor who is speaking. This will be discussed more fully below.
20 Constitutions no longer understood this section, or did not accept its thesis, and thus omitted it.
21 Harnack, Lehre, 19-21; idem, "Prolegomena," 43: probably the primary thought is of total sexual abstinence. Knopf, Lehre, 21: "The ideal is to live a life of total celibacy: anyone who can do that is a TeXetoq."
22 Knopf {Lehre, 21) gives precision to this idea: "With o bwi) we are to think of temporary and restricted asceticism, renunciation of marital intercourse dur ing particular times (cf. 1 Cor 7:5)."
23 Niederwimmer, Askese, 176-86.
24 Stuiber, "GanzeJoch," 323-29. Schaff {Church Manual, 182) had already decreed that what is intended is "the ceremonial law."
25 Stuiber's arguments against the first interpretation ("GanzeJoch," 325-26), however, are very question able. He then suggests (pp. 326-27) a 'Jewish■
Christian" interpretation according to which what is at stake is the yoke of the Torah (and, in fact, the particular issue of circumcision); but he then rejects this interpretation as well (p. 327). The "JewishChristian" interpretation (to use Stuiber's terminol ogy) has recently reappeared in the work of Wengst
{Didache, 95-96 n. 52). He considers it possible that the statement was originally Jewish in its intent, but it now stands in a Jewish-Christian document and must therefore be interpreted differently. "The expression refers to the Old Testament law, even under Christian auspices, and the verse then regards it as not necessary, but still desirable that gentile Christians should also observe this law" (p.
96). Audet {Didache, 353-54) had already said some thing similar (of the interpolator), and Wengst refers to this.
26 Stuiber, "GanzeJoch," 327.
27 Stuiber, "GanzeJoch," 328.
28 Stuiber, "GanzeJoch," 328.
29 Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 32-33.
30 Rordorf and Tuilier consider Stuiber's derivation possible. "Still, it remains equally necessary to be precise about the sense in which this instruction is repeated in the Didache" {Doctrine, 32; cf. also n. 4).
That Did. 6.2 refers back to 1.3-6 was something already suggested by Seeberg, Wege, 39. He also pro posed that here a Christian had given a new mean ing to an existing Jewish text (pp. 39-40).
31 Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 32-33.
32 Rordorf and Tuilier {Doctrine, 33) refer to Ps.Cyprian De centes. 14 (Reitzenstein, p. 79,11.
132-35), where this passage may be quoted. See above, Introduction, §2b. I would like to set aside the question whether that sermon means the same thing as this Didache passage. Rordorf and Tuilier
6.1-3 Didachist (cf. 1.4).31 Thus the Didachist now (after con cluding the Two Ways teaching) recalls once again, and in a special way, the commandments of the Lord he quoted in 1.3b—2.1. They are for him the "yoke of the Lord" (for which he takes up a traditional Jewish way of speaking), and so the "new law of Christ," even when the term is not spoken. He has no illusions about the radical nature of the Lord's commandments; those who are not able to fulfill these commandments completely should at least do what they can.32 If this interpretation before).34 Thus while the compulsory nature of these prescriptions has been relaxed, there is no fundamental abrogation of the food laws here. While the author con siders the relaxation of food laws (except for eldaAodvtcc) permissible in individual cases (the degree of relaxation apparently to be measured by the individual's judgment), he remains strict with regard to elduXodvra: the eating of meat offered to idols is absolutely forbid den,35 and this is because the eating of sacrificed meat is nothing less than worship of the dead gods, the idols.36
The phrase Aleev 7rpoaex^37 paints a picture of anxious avoidance of idol worship. The attitude toward the eat ing of the iepodvTov ("sacred meat," as the Gentiles call it) corresponds more or less to that in Acts 15:20 par.38 and Rev 2:14, 20.39 is correct, it seems consistent to me to attribute 6.2 (as well as the next verse, 6.3) to the body of the didachistic redaction.
■ 3 The Didachist now treats a special problem for cate chumens in this context: Trepl de rrjq /3pa>oecoq, concern ing commandments about food. Cf. Barn. 10.10: e'xere
TeXeluq Kai Trepl rrjq (Ipuaeuq ("be perfect also about food") and, although restricted to eidwAo^vra, 1 Cor
8:4. This refers obviously to the commandments and prohibitions regarding food in the Old Testament and Jewish tradition.33 The Didachist requires that they be
Let us now look back at Did. 6.2-3. What is the func tion of this section within the work as a whole? If my description is correct, 6.2 has an interpretive character.
The Didachist directs the attention of the reader (or hearer) back, beyond the advice in the previous passages, to the eschatologically conditioned beginning in which logia from the Jesus tradition were quoted (1.3b—2.1).
Indeed, he makes clear to the reader (or hearer) once kept to the extent that it is possible for each individual—
6 bvvaoai pdoraaov (the formula echoes what has gone / also refer (Doctrina, 33 n. 4) to the Liber graduum.
(For my part, I would like to see the graded ethics of the Liber graduum clearly distinguished from the view evident in Did. 6.2.) 33 According to-Harnack (Lehre, 21) this is not about the OT and Jewish food laws, but specifically about the eating of flesh. Knopf, Lehre, 21: "Refusal of certain things (Acts 15:20, 28), as well as strict fast ing on bread and water, but only for a time (Hermas
Sim. 5)." This is improbable.
34 From the continuation it is evident that this refers to all food laws except for the prohibition of eidathings] for dead demons, as if they were heavenly beings, performing a godless and destructive wor ship"). Rabbinic texts may be found in Str-B
3.53-60, 377-78.
37 IlpoaexeLV 6nro both here in 6.3 and afterward in 12.5 is the work of the Didachist.
38 There is, however, no special reference to the "apos tolic decree" (Kleist differs, Didache, 5, as does
Audet, Didache, 354-57). The other prohibitions are lacking. See Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 33-34.
39 Is the Didachist's position the same as Paul's?
Andreas Lindemann (Paulus im altesten Christentum [BHTh 58; Tubingen: Mohr, 1979] 175) writes that while nothing is said about care for the conscience of one's neighbor, "the fundamental attitude is the same as in Paul: the demons are 'nothing,' therefore
'dead'; but for that very reason there can be no question for Christians of owing them any kind of homage" (p. 175). Giet (L'Enigme, 191) differs; according to him the Didache is stricter than Paul.
This question can scarcely be answered at all, because Paul and the Didache are on quite different levels of tradition. Later examples of prohibition of eating meat sacrificed to idols can be found in Aristides Apol. 15.5 (Goodspeed, 20); Justin Dial.
34.8 (Goodspeed, 130); Ps.-Clem. Horn. 8.4.2 (GCS2 1.118); 8.1 (120); 8.19.1 (129).
Aodvra. On this point the Didachist's judgment is more rigorous.
35 The question is thus not "sharing in the sacrificial meal for idols," which is forbidden to Christians in any case, "but eating the flesh of the sacrificial ani mals" (Knopf, Lehre, 21).
36 The idea that foreign gods are nothing matches the judgment of the OT and Jewish tradition, which was taken over by the church as a matter of course. Cf.
1 Cor 8:4; 10:20; 2 Clem. 3.1: otl ppelg oi pavreq Toiq venpoiq deolq ov fivopev Kai ov irpooKVVovpev avroic; ("For we who are living do not sacrifice to dead gods nor do we worship them"); Diogn. 2.4-5;
Sib. Or. 8.393-94 (Jewish or Christian?) baipotn ttolpoovoi veKpoig, aq ovpavLoLOLV./dpeoKeiap ddeov
Kai oAedpiov CKTeAeovreg ("They will do [these
again what high demands the Kyrios had raised, demands whose fulfillment is the work of the TeXeioq
(and him or her alone). The Christian who is not among the reXecoL should not be dismayed by the high demands stated in 1.3b—2.1, but should fulfill them to the degree that is possible for him or her. may observe them to the extent possible for each one.
Of these two additions, 6.2 is of special importance.
Taken together with 1.3b—2.1 it allows us to see how the didachistic redactor has more strongly Christianized the text of the Jewish source (which had received only a superficial Christian veneer before this). Only by means of 1.3b—2.1 was the traditional moral teaching given an eschatological qualification, and 6.2 serves as an inter pretation that emphasizes the importance of the sectio for understanding the whole. To put it another way: the tractate on the Two Ways that is here quoted is meant, in the intention of the Didachist, to be read in the light of So much for 6.2. In contrast, 6.3 touches a special question that was scarcely mentioned in the tractate but is now added because it was apparently important to the communities for whom the Didachist wrote. This is the question of the attitude one should take toward the Old
Testament and Jewish food laws, or to the eating of meat sacrificed to pagan idols. The Didachist's answer is again nuanced: The eating of meat sacrificed to idols is abso lutely forbidden; as for the other food laws, individuals
1.3b—2.1 and 6.2.