The structure of this section becomes apparent when the beginning as local, resident officials within the com
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.
book is connected with the changed social conditions.
The Didachist attempts (in these matters as well) to remain faithful to his tradition, but at the same time he feels called upon to accommodate that tradition to the present time and therefore to give instructions applica ble to the new social situation. tinguish between the predidachistic tradition and the didachistic redaction (a single redaction to which, I must admit, one must attribute a relatively great amount of the material in these chapters). Each of these two layers corresponds to a particular social situation.4 In my opin ion, ancient predidachistic tradition is found only in 11.4-12; the rest is to be attributed to redaction5—that is, in this part of the book the Didachist does not appear merely as a compiler and redactor but offers rather long expositions from his own pen. That he formulates on his own much more extensively than in other parts of the 4 De Halleux ("Ministers," 300-302) goes much far ther. He not only rejects (correctly) the idea of a second redaction, but wishes to see chaps. 11-15 altogether as a literary unit (which is probably wrong). It is true that in his polemic against the contemporary model of Harnack (a polemic that is correct in principle) he mistakenly overlooks the development undergone by the charismatic groups in the traditional region of the Didache. In addition he attempts to show that the apostles, prophets, and teachers in the Didache were always one and the same group—the prophets. (This last point was already made by Kretschmar, "Askese," 141: "The summary, all-inclusive name for these charismatics is 'prophet' [11.4ff.; 13.3]"). Even Wengst (Didache,
23), who does not collapse the three groups of charismatics into one, attempts to see chaps. 11-15 as a literary unit and has, for that reason, rejected my description (p. 23 n. 83). Wengst's skepticism is countered, however, by the argument that I consider strong: that in 11.4-12 the focus is on the itinerant apostles and itinerant prophets, while in the later passages nothing more is said about the apostles; instead, the text speaks only of prophets and teach ers (cf. esp. 15.1-2). The inclusion of the traditional section 11.4-12 is explained (apart from the conser vative attitude of the compiler) by the fact that this piece of tradition refers to the prophets who, even at the time the Didache was written, continued to play a role in the community.
Niederwimmer, "Itinerant Radicalism," 325-26.
Kraft (Didache, 62) has correctly seen that 11.3-12 is the heart of the tradition. When he proceeds to assign the rest of chaps. 11-15 to various layers of tradition (pp. 62-63), I consider this excessive analysis. For the question whether 11.11 may be partly or entirely redactional, see below.