desire to remain in the community, and duties toward ther specific assignment falling to the Didachist is the
III. The Church Order 11.1-15.4
At 11.1 the mode of discourse changes again. The quota tion from the liturgy (expanded at the end by the redac tor in Did. 10.7) is finished. What now follows is a series of canonical instructions concerned with the relation ship of the local communities to the itinerant charismatics and other traveling sisters and brothers, with questions having to do with confession, the choice of local officials, and finally problems of church discipline: these make up chaps. 11-15. It appears that we are now looking at the part of the Didache that can be called a "church order" in the narrower sense of the term. has before him is an ancient text that deals with situa tions within the Christian community that have signifi cantly (although not entirely) changed at the time when the Didachist is writing. That is, the literary layers reflect different situations: The ancient tradition avail able to the Didachist speaks of itinerant charismatics, apostles, and prophets who visit resident Christians for brief periods of time. Thus there is a contrast between the itinerant apostles and prophets on the one hand and the resident groups on the other. The situations presup posed by the predidachistic source could have held true for particular regions within early Christianity in the border regions of Syria and Palestine, and may have endured throughout the final decades of the first cen tury. But between the time of this old tradition and the time of the Didachist things have changed within the region supplying the traditions for the Didache. There is nothing said any longer about itinerant apostles; the group of charismatics is now composed of prophets and teachers, whereby the prophets are still to be regarded as itinerants who now, at least in part, desire to become resident. As a result the Didachist sees a need to give advice applicable to this situation. Did. 11.1-2 shows that something analogous is true of the teachers. A fur ther specific assignment falling to the Didachist is the division of responsibility between the two sets of lead ers: the charismatics on the one hand and the office holders within the community (the episkopoi and diakonoi) who, unlike the charismatics, have served from the beginning as local, resident officials within the com munity.
Did. 11.1-2 represents the transition to this section.
With navra rot Ttpoeipripeva (v. 1), the redactor refers to the preceding chapters of the work, and with the phrase oc~ av ovv eXdwv <5u5a|ij vpaq ... he is already introducing the material that follows.
The whole section (chaps. 11-15) seems to be orga nized as follows:
1. Transition (11.1-2) 2. On the reception of itinerant apostles and prophets (11.3-12) 3. First appendix: On the reception of other traveling brothers and sisters (12.1-5) 4. Second appendix: On the duty to house prophets who desire to remain in the community, and duties toward teachers (13.1-7) 5. On confession and reconciliation (14.1-3)
6. On the election of bishops and deacons (15.1-2) 7. On church discipline (15.3-4) The structure of this section becomes apparent when we clarify its tradition-historical and literary origins.1
The Didachist (I believe) again makes use of a written source, which he then expands and brings up to date by means of additions from his own pen. In fact, what he
This description involves a specific assessment of the literary strata in this chapter.21 do not think it is neces sary to posit two redactional levels.3 It is sufficient to dis1 On this, see Niederwimmer, "Itinerant Radicalism,"
323-27. [Ed. See now also Stephen J. Patterson, "The Legacy of Radical Itinerancy in Early Chris tianity," in Jefford, Context, 313-29.] 2 Audet assigns Did. 11.1-2 to D1; D2 begins with 11.3 and includes the instructions that the apostolic author subsequently added to his work (Audet,
Didache, 110-15, 436). For the analysis by Schille, Giet proposes two redactions: chap. 15 is said to be a "later addition" (L'Enigme, 243), and chap. 16 may also go back to a postdidachistic redaction (p. 256).
Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 49, 63, 93-94, and passim: chaps. 14-15 are probably postdidachistic, as is chap. 16. On this, see above, p. 43 n. 13.
"Recht," 84-103, cf. the critique in Niederwimmer, "Itinerant Radicalism," 323-24 n. 8. In my opinion, the approximating result of the analysis of chaps.
11-14 in Giet, L'Enigme, 219-24, 234-37, is artifi cially complicated.