a. The appearance of false prophets and the collapse the tractate may be the observation that the tractate, in
IV. Eschatological Conclusion 16.1-8 General Comment With Did. 16.1 begins the concluding section of the book, which contains an eschatological text. More pre cisely one must distinguish between a parenetic section
(16.1-2) and an apocalyptic section (16.3-8). The latter breaks off sharply at 16.8. The whole seems to be orga nized as follows:
The eschatological conclusion of the Didache has been repeatedly associated with the Two Ways tractate. Chap.
16 (or parts of chap. 16, or the source of the chapter) is then regarded as the original conclusion of the Two
Ways tractate. The Didachist then would have copied the tractate in chaps. 1-6 of the Didache and returned to his source in chap. 16, which constituted the conclusion of the tractate.3 The principal argument in favor of this hypothesis making chap. 16 (or its prior forms) part of the tractate may be the observation that the tractate, in the form available to Barnabas (and similarly the Canons of the Apostles as well), very probably had an eschatologi cal conclusion, which is demonstrable in the form found in Doctr. 6.4-5. (The text of the epilogue, however, is dif ferent.) Something similar has been proposed regarding the source of the Didache. Chap. 16 is said therefore to come from the eschatological final section of the Two
Ways tractate, or more precisely from the version of the tractate that was available to the Didachist as a source.
The principal argument against this is the observation 1. Eschatological parenesis (16.1-2) 2. The apocalypse (16.3-8)1 a. The appearance of false prophets and the collapse of the Christian community (16.3-4a) b. The appearance of the Antichrist (16.4b-d) c. The great apostasy and the preservation of the faithful (16.5) d. The revelation of the three signs of the truth
(16.6-7) e. The arrival of the Kyrios (16.8) . . .
The conclusion of the apocalypse is unfortunately lost in H and can no longer be reconstructed in detail from Constitutions or the Georgian version; it is probable, however, that the apocalypse in the Didache ended origi nally with a short reference to the final judgment of the world.2 that while Did. 1.1—6.1 has parallels (some of them very close) in the Doctrina apostolorum (setting aside the sectio evangelica), the same is no longer true for Didache 16.
1 The defining elements are as follows: eu yap rale; eoydraLq ppepacq (v. 3a) opens this section; av^auovapq yap rfjq avoplaq (v. 4a) is part of the previous section. The remaining organization is indicated by the numerative (nal) Tore in vv. 4b, 5,
6 (including the scriptural proof in v. 7), 8. Cf.
Philip Vielhauer and Georg Strecker, "Apocalyptic in Early Christianity," in NTApoc, 2.589-91.
Consider also the similar beginnings: v. 4b: Kai Tore ipav-qaerac Z indeed have been mentioned in what followed, as the paraphrases in the Apostolic Constitutions and the Georgian still show.
3 This hypothesis seems to have appeared first in the work of P. Savi (cf. Ehrhard, Altchristliche Litteratur,
51 and n. 1, 55). Ehrhard himself also accepted this idea (p. 51). It later found a number of adherents, e.g., Hemmer, Doctrine, xciv (probably); cf. earlier at xxix; Creed, "Didache" 379; Drews, "Untersuchungen," 68-73 (for the source redacted by the Didachist); Knopf, Lehre, 2: "In the original of this proselyte catechism, which was available to the author of the Didache, the greater part of chap. 16, the apocalyptic final scene (16.3-7) was very proba bly present. Possibly 16.2 was also part of the Jewish document because there is again a clear parallel to this passage in Barn. (4.9-10)." In more recent times see esp. Koester, Synoptische Uberlieferung 160:
"Did. 16: a little apocalypse that was probably com bined with the 'ways' even before its inclusion in the Didache." Cf. also pp. 173, 190. Koester therefore speaks of the "apocalypse of the ways" (p. 173). In addition see Kamlah, Paranese, 214. Against the combining of chaps. 1-6 with chap. 16 are Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 81-83; Vielhauer, Geschichte,
731-35; Aono, Entwicklung, 164-65, 256-57. v. 5a: Tore qi-ei, v. 6a: eai tots (pavqaerai v. 8: Tore operat.
2 Section (e) thus probably dealt, originally, with "the coming of the Kyrios to judge the world." Aono
(Entwicklung 169-74) has insisted that Didache 16 is lacking the idea of judgment. He finds it absent as early as 16.2b as well as in what follows. Aono can only maintain this judgment, however, by having the apocalypse in the Didache (despite Constitutions and the Georgian) end with 16.8. He considers it "more probable that the author deliberately ended chapter
16 just as the other manuscripts [sic] read" (p. 171).
To this it should be said that, as certainly as any thing can be, 16.8 (if only for paleographical rea sons: see below) is not the end of the original
Didache. Rather, in the original, judgment would
Did. 16.1-2 Luke 12:35 Matt 24:42
Matt 25:13
Mark 13:35 (cf. 33) (la) yppyopeire ypr)yopelre ovv, rpriyopeire ovv, yprjyopetre ovv inrep rrjq fafjq vpav (lb) oi Avxvot, vpuv 'Eoraoav vpav ai oo<pveq pr) o(3£adr)TG>oca>, 7r epiefaopevai Kai ai ooipveq vpav Kai oi Avxvot pr) eKAveofiaoav,1 KOLLOpeVOL.
Table 11 Matt 24:44/Luke 12:40 (Q) (lc) dAAa yLveode eroLpoi,- (...)Kai vpetq yiveo&e erotpot, ov yap oldare on fj ov doKelre otl ovk otbare on ovk otbare ovk otbare ttjv copav, ev r\ up a (Luke: r) up a noia ppepa ov boKeire) 6 vioq tov 6 Kvptoq vpav avdpamov rfjv rjpepav yap 7rore epxora l. epxerat. epx^rat • • • 6 Kvptoq r)ptiv ovbe ttjv upav.
6 Kvptoq rrjq oiKtaq epxerai.2
(2a) TWKvaq be ovvaxdpaeode $r)Tovvreq ra dvrjKovra raiq \pvxalq vpuv Barn. 4.9
(2b) ov yap dxpeArjoei . . . ovbev yap u<peAr)aet vpaq rjpaq d 7raq xpo^oq 6 iraq xpwoq — rrjq farjq /cat rrjq TrLoreaq vptiv, rrjq TTLOTeuq rjptiv, eav prj ev m eav prj vvv ev m 60X&T0) Kcupw avopu naipti — Kai rotq peAAovatv OKavbaAotq, aq Ttpeitet reAeta^rjre. violq deov, avnorapev.
1 Cf. Eph 6:14; 1 Pet 1:13.
* CL 2 Clem. 12.1.
This can only be explained if either Didache or Doctrina has better preserved the original conclusion of the source; in light of Did. 6.11 prefer the latter option. The simplest and least forced explanation may well be that the Didachist found in his source (the Two Ways trac tate) a short eschatological epilogue (note: short and not apocalyptic in its content), somewhat in the form in which it now appears in Doctr. 6.1 and 6.4-5 (Barnabas
21/Canons 14 rest on another, perhaps older version).
The Didachist, when he came to this point, omitted the epilogue he found in his source (except for 6.1), for understandable compositional reasons. Now, at the end of his whole document, he inserts in its place an eschato logical conclusion; in its content, however, it is not derived from the Two Ways tractate.4
But where does the material in chap. 16 come from?
The answers given to this question are sometimes com bined with the hypothesis just discussed, according to which chap. 16 belonged to the Two Ways tractate (in one or another version); sometimes they are indepen dent of that hypothesis. Cf. also tables 11-15 (derived from Koester, Synoptische Uberlieferungen, 175-90).