a. Among those who considered it to be eucharistic Supper celebrated in the form of a unified, complete
9.1-10.7
4. What kind of meal is this, then? meal prayers in chaps. 9-10 are said to refer to "a Lord's
Supper celebrated in the form of a unified, complete community meal," while chap. 14 describes the official
Sunday Eucharist of the local community, led by a bish op.29 Knopf's judgment was similar. He wrote of the prayers in chaps. 9-10, "What we have here is a celebra tion in a smaller group where there is still a genuine meal (10.1), whereas [chap.] 14 refers to the celebration of the whole community, on Sunday, without a meal: the Mass with the consumption of the sacrament alone, as in Justin 1 Apol. 67. "30 a. Among those who considered it to be eucharistic are Harnack,11 Volker,12 Greiff,13 Middleton,14 Creed,15
Richardson,16 Bosio,17 Glover,18 and Kraft.19 There is an especially interesting variant in the work of Hans
Lietzmann.20 In his interpretation this is "an agape intro duced by a eucharistic celebration."21 Did. 9.1-5 describes the eucharistic celebration, and this was fol lowed by an agape, which was a complete meal (between chaps. 9 and 10). The agape meal was then in turn fol lowed by the prayers of thanksgiving in 10.1-6; the text in 10.6 (part of the eucharistic liturgy) is misplaced.22
This description played a particular role within the framework of Lietzmann's conception of the twofold origins of the Eucharist. d. The opinion that the prayers in chaps. 9-10 are agape prayers followed by the Eucharist in 10.6 has been widely adopted.31 The most important arguments for this idea are found first in the work of Zahn32 and later b. Among those who considered this meal an agape were F. Kattenbusch,23 Connolly,24 Vokes,25 Dix,26
Adam,27 and Gero.28 c. Drews had his own solution to the problem: the 27 "Herkunft," 32-33 (combined with certain remarks on the myron prayer: see below).
28 Gero, "Ointment Prayer," 82; for his remarks in this connection regarding the myron prayer, see below.
29 "Untersuchungen," 74-79, esp. 78-79 (quotation on p. 79).
30 Knopf, Lehre, 24. Cf. Klein, "Gebete," 144-45: the meal in chap. 9 is a festive Sabbath meal held in the evening, at the beginning of the Sabbath (perhaps also a baptismal meal occasioned by the baptisms performed on Friday evening). On the Sabbath the community celebrates a festive, full-course meal, and on the Lord's day (chap. 14) the Eucharist.
31 For the sequence of the two celebrations the follow ing variants have been proposed: brated as part of the agape {Lehre, 28), as "a genuine meal" (Apostellehre, 3). Cf. also "Prolegomena," 60:
"This complete obscuring of the death of Christ and the forgiveness of sins is characteristic of the postapostolic or, better, the non-Pauline origin of the prayers."
12 Karl Volker, Mysterium und Agape: Die gemeinsamen Mahlzeiten in der Alten Kirche (Gotha: Klotz, 1927)
105-7, 126-28, and passim.
13 Pascharituale, 109-11, and passim.
14 "Eucharistic Prayers," 259-61.
15 "Didache," 374, 386-87.
16 "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," 165-66: "a peri od when the Lord's Supper was still a real supper, and when the joyful and expectant note of the Messianic Banquet had not yet been obscured by the more solemn emphasis on the Lord's Passion"
(p. 166).
17 Padri apostolici, 1.21.
18 "Quotations," 26-27.
19 Kraft (Didache, 168) thinks of an "annual BaptismEucharist-service" as the Sitz im Leben for chaps.
9-10.
20 Mass, 188-94, at 189-90.
21 Lietzmann, Mass, 190.
22 Lietzmann, Mass, 192-93.
23 "Messe, I: Dogmengeschichtlich," RE3, 12.671.
24 Richard H. Connolly, "Agape and Eucharist in the Didache," DRev 55 (1937) 477-89.
25 Riddle, 197-207.
26 The Shape of the Liturgy (repr. of 2d ed.; London:
Black, 1970; New York: Seabury, 1982) 90.
• Originally, the full meal could have been inserted in the sacramental celebration (cf. "after dining,"
/terd to denn'rjoou in 1 Cor 11:25), so that the sequence would have been: eucharistic bread, full meal, eucharistic wine.
• At an early date the full meal was transferred to the beginning of the celebration (as it appears in the Didache), so that the sequence "agape"—
Eucharist resulted. Cf. also Ep. apost. 15, Ethiopic (NTApoc, 1.257-58).
• The reverse sequence (Eucharist—agape) is attest ed in the Didache, according to Lietzmann.
• Finally, there is also early evidence of the separa tion of Eucharist and agape.
32 Kanon, 3.293-98. The prayers in chap. 9 are agape prayers. "The prayers in Doctr. 10 constitute the
the table prayers in the Didache were originally eucharis tic prayers, but the redactor of the document has made them agape prayers.44 v in that of Arthur Darby Nock,33 August Arnold,34 Martin
Dibelius,35 and others. Agape prayers (or table prayers for the community meal) followed by the Lord's Supper are also suggested by, among others, Bultmann36 and Jeremias,37 and with caution by Stuiber,38 Vielhauer,39 g. Most recently Wengst has defended the idea that chaps. 9-10 depict nothing but a full-course meal.45 It bears the name evx^peOTta, but it has nothing to do with the Christian Lord's Supper. The celebration spo ken of in chaps. 9-10 is purely a meal for the satisfaction of hunger, and nothing else.46 and (again cautiously) now Rordorf and Tuilier as well.40 e. Audet produced a remarkable variant on this model.41 f. Voobus completed a thorough investigation42 in which he again spoke in favor of interpreting this as a eucharistic celebration. Chaps. 9-10 are eucharistic prayers, and the fact that the meal is a full-course dinner need not disturb us because Eucharist and agape had not yet been separated. Finally, Johannes Betz, adopting and correcting an idea of Peterson,43 advocated the idea that 5. It seems to me that if we are to reach a conclusion in this matter we must begin with Did. 10.6, a text that must be placed before the sacramental Communion.47
This means that the Eucharist in our sense, that is, the sacramental Lord's Supper, must begin after chap. 10. It is characteristic that Lietzmann, who defended a differrist proper, the "great 'eucharist.'"
42 Liturgical Traditions, 63-74.
43 Peterson, "Probleme," 168-71. Behind the prayers in chaps. 9-10 of the Bryennios text are remnants of ancient eucharistic prayers of the Egyptian church, or a church prayer (in chap. 10). For the Novatianist (?) redactor of the document respon sible for the the Bryennios version, these prayers have been devalued and (in chap. 10) abbreviated to table prayers for ascetic circles.
44 So Betz, "Eucharist," 251-53. Betz counts Did.
9.2-4; (9.5); 10.2, 3b-5 among the ancient parts.
The blessing of the cup (9.2) has been shifted by the redactor; 10.3a is a later addition by the redactor, and 10.1 is also redacdonal. Klauck (Herrenmahl,
263) uses the same explanation as Betz and sees the table prayers as reflecting the influence of the Hellenistic synagogue, as does Dibelius (see below).
45 Wengst, Didache, 43-56. Bread and wine are suffi cient for the satisfaction of hunger. "From the fact that this eucharist had the character of a full meal we may by no means conclude that the meal con sisted of anything more than, or different from, bread and wine. Bread was the food for satisfaction of hunger" (p. 45).
46 Of course, in that case, Did. 10.6 creates difficulties.
Wengst admits (Didache, 46) that "originally" (as he says) this was "a fragment of a Lord's Supper lit urgy." But the text in its present context has lost that function. In that case, however, how did this liturgical text come to be placed at the end of the prayer of thanksgiving? This "may be because of its eschatological orientation" (p. 47).
Voobus's attempt (Liturgical Traditions, 70-74) to show that Did. 10.6 is redacdonal (p. 73), and in fact
"a general admonition and warning to the readers of the manual reminding them of the demand for transition from the agape to the sacrament proper"
(p. 296).
33 "Liturgical Notes," 390-91.
34 Der Ursprung des christlichen Abendmahls im Lichte der neuesten liturgiegeschichtlichen Forschung (2d ed.;
FThSt 45; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1939) 26-31.
35 "Mahl-Gebete," 126-27: "the special sacred action, whatever its makeup, did not occur between 9 and 10, but after 10.6. Between 9 and 10 is only the meal proper" (p. 126). He then says (p. 127) that the sacred action following 10.6 is the Eucharist.
36 Theology of the New Testament (trans. Kendrick Grobel; 2 vols.; New York: Scribner's, 1951-55)
1.151: "It does appear to be true that the words of 10:6 are to be understood as a transition to the sacramental Eucharist, the liturgy of which does not need to be set down because it was familiar to all.
But then it is clear that two celebrations of entirely different kind have been secondarily combined.
Therefore, the celebration implied in Did. 9 and 10 existed at first by itself, and it must have been from it that the Lord's Supper took over the title
'Eucharist' ('Thanksgiving'), which is a very strange term for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper."
37 Eucharistic Words, 117-18, 134.
38 "Eulogia," 914; cf. also 919.
39 Geschichte, 38-39.
40 Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 40-41. Cf. also Rordorf, "Didache," 15-16; Moll, Opfei; 106-15.
41 Audet, Didache, 312-77. At 405-7 he distinguishes between the "breaking of the bread" (which, how ever, is not to be understood as an agape) and the Eucharist itself (which follows chap. 10). The whole 47 celebration is a vigil. It is introduced by the break ing of bread. Did. 10.6 is the transitional formula: the baptized move to another room for the Eucha
9.1-10.7 ent position, raised objections to the placement of after the free prayers of the prophets: 10.7) the Lord's
Supper itself.
10.6.48 If we allow the text to stand as it has been hand ed down we have scarcely any other choice but to sup pose that 10.6 is the invitation to the Lord's Supper, which follows immediately thereafter. In that case, how ever, the meal envisioned in Did. 10.1 cannot be a Eucharist in the sacramental sense, but only a commu nity meal. This is indicated also by epTcArjodrjvaL, if we do not attempt to interpret it artificially against its con text.49 In that case the difficulty otherwise produced by the "reversed" sequence of wine and bread in 9.2-4 dis appears. If we are to suppose that the sacramental meal follows after Did. 10.6 it seems plausible (with Rordorf)50 to understand the prayer of thanksgiving in 10.2-6 as also a kind of "preface" preceding the sacrament to fol low; the text itself, in its individual phrases, favors this interpretation.
Two major objections may be raised against this inter pretation. First, the rubric in Did. 9.1 speaks expressly of evxot-piOTia. If we are to maintain the position just enun ciated we must suppose that ct>xotpLOTLOt here does not have the ordinary, sacramental sense, but describes the nonsacramental community meal. This would be a sin gular but early usage of the word, not yet restricted to the sacrament. Correspondingly, evxotpLOTeiv in 9.1 and 10.1 would mean the speaking of the prayers of blessing that are to be offered at the community celebration.51
These propositions would be in harmony with the archa ic character of the liturgy given here.
A second difficulty results from the absence of the words of institution. If, understandably enough, one is not satisfied with Bultmann's solution (the liturgy of the Lord's Supper "[did] not need to be set down because it
[was] familiar to all"),52 one might be tempted to sup pose that there is a deliberate suppression of the words of institution, in order not to profane them.53 This sup position is awkward, however, because there is no evi dence at this early period for the so-called arcane discipline.54 Thus there remains an unresolved problem at this point.
Thus we find the following progression of the liturgy: community meal ("agape '?) as meal for satisfaction of hunger, introduced in each part (9.2-4) by short bless ings of wine and bread (in which the formularies point to Jewish blessings of wine and bread as models); after the full meal (10.1) follows the prayer of thanksgiving
(modeledpn the Jewish prayer after meals, but strongly Christianized), which at the same time introduces the celebration of the Lord's Supper (10.2-5); this prayer in turn is followed by the invitation (10.6) and then (or purity as a requirement of preparedness" (p. 74), is not persuasive.
48 See p. 141 above.
49 EptcXpodfivcn can be understood metaphorically; cf. Rom 15:24 and the linguistic parallels for that verse in BAGD. Thus Karl Volker (Mysterium und
Agape: Die gemeinsamen Mahlzeiten in der Alten Kirche drinking, and table conversation. This invitation and the prayer after the meal that follows provided the formal basis for the later Christian eucharistic prayer."
51 I believe that the redactor's usage was already dif ferent, i.e., more advanced. The term eiixotpiOTLOt in 9.5 (redactional) could already include the Lord's
Supper. Something analogous is then true of evXccptOTelv in 10.7 and 14.1.
52 Theology of the New Testament, 1.151.
53 This is suggested by Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 40 n. 2. One should compare Jeremias, Eucharistic
Words, 132-37.
54 "To this time there is not a single secure proof of the existence of a Christian 'arcane discipline' in the first two centuries," Otto Perler, "Arkandisziplin," RAC 1 (1950) 671.
[Gotha: Klotz, 1927] 107) thought of a spiritual sat isfaction in Did. 10.1. But even Zahn (Kanon, 3.293) wrote, "Here, however, it is a matter of eating bread and drinking wine, and hence ejmX'qad'fjvaL is to be understood as the satisfaction of hunger and thirst."
Cf. also the analogous pera to deLnvrjoca in 1 Cor 11:25, and the replacement of the didachistic e/x- ■nXpodpvca by /xerd 8e rr/v perdXrjfiU in Const.
7.26.1 (because there, in Constitutions, the author is thinking not of a full meal but of the sacrament).
50 "Didache," 18. Cf., however, Arthur Darby Nock, "Liturgical Notes JTS 30 (1929) 391; and Stuiber,
"Eulogia," 912: "The participants in the meal ate invited to the prayer after the meal in a special address concluding, simultaneously, the eating,
a. Prayers for the Full Meal (9.1-5) 1 As for thanksgiving, give thanks this way.
2 First, with regard to the cup:
"We thank you, our Father, For the holy vine of David your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever."
3 And with regard to the *Bread:
"We thank you, our Father, For the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever.
4 As this < .. . > lay scattered upon the mountains and became one when it had been gathered.
So may your church be gathered into your kingdom from the ends of the earth.
For glory and power are yours, through Jesus Christ, forever."
5 Let no one eat or drink of your thanksgiving [meal] save those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord, since the Lord has said concerning this, "Do not give what is holy to the dogs."
Comment Supper. The following ovmq euxapLOTTjaare is to be understood in the same sense: the following is the man ner1 in which you are to pray the benedictions.2
■ 1 Didache 9.1 is an introductory rubric. Ilepl 8e rrjq euXoepLOTLaq corresponds formally to Trepi 8e tov fianTLOparoq in 7.1; cf. also 11.3 (where, however, it is an ■ 2 This verse gives the first of the two benedictions that are to be spoken. This is the blessing over the cup. That the cup is mentioned first3 is probably connected with the fact that at a Jewish meal with guests the first cup was given before the meal, and each person spoke a blessing over it.4 The action presumed by the liturgy is not described, but it can be guessed: the one presiding at the meal5 takes the cup filled with wine (in ancient imitation by the redactor). EvxocpiOTia in 9.1 is (in the sense indicated in the analysis above) a term for the blessing to be spoken and, at the same time, it is proba bly also the designation for the community meal to fol low, whose character is determined by such benediction(s). Here in 9.1, however, euxccpcorLa does not yet refer to the sacramental Eucharist of the Lord's
1 Ovrag does not fix the wording, but offers a para digm. See above at Did. 8.2.
2 We cannot go into the complicated history of the word evxctpuJTelv here, but this much can be said: if the Jewish-Christian community meal described here was combined with the sacramental Lord's
Supper it is understandable that the designation of the community meal (namely, evxapLOTia., after the evxapiOTeh' = "]~Q that made it what it was) was indeed have eucharistic (sacramental) significance.
The usage in Did. 9.2-3 (where Patsch thinks of the sacrament) would be an exception. Thus even with in his proposal the usage of the Didache is seen as inconsistent; this makes the entire proposal ques tionable. EvxocpuJTelv and evXoyelv are used unsys tematically in the NT (as has often been observed: cf. Hans Conzelmann, "xcupw ktA.," TDNT 9 [1974]
411). Both translate "pQ. But the choice of evxapcOTelv for is not entirely accurate. In our texts, evxotpioreiv always means "thank," not "praise" (in spite of what Audet says, Didache, 377-78). At most one may suppose that the meaning "to praise" is echoed because of the underlying "[ID. transferred over time to the Lord's Supper (or its elements). Hermann Patsch ("Abendmahlsterminologie auBerhalb der Einsetzungsberichte: Erwagungen zur Traditionsgeschichte der Abendmahlsworte,"
ZNW 62 [1971] 218) advocated the position that et)Xaptaretr with object, in our literature, has no eucharistic (i.e., sacramental) reference, whereas absolute evxapiOTelv (without an object) does
3 Audet (Didache, 405) concludes from the late posi tion of the bread (and from 9.3) that the primary accent lies on that element, and thus explains the meal as the "breaking of bread."