8. The challenge of the Didache
This book has attempted to introduce an early Christian training guide to ways of being a disciple of Jesus. We have seen how it focuses on the community and its activities, stands alongside the community’s great story, and gives us – in our very different world – a glimpse into what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus, to believe that he was the Father’s child, the Anointed, and the teacher who had shown them the Way, and who would gather them at his return to himself. To examine these issues anew is, in itself, an important part of being a Christian. This is especially true when the lens we use is a text that is less familiar to us than those in the canonical collection, and therefore a text that can grab our attention by showing us what we thought we knew from a very different angle. But are there any aspects of our discipleship that the Didache challenges us in a particular way to examine afresh? The answer to the question must remain open: it depends on the whole variety of situations where Christians find themselves, their ways of understanding discipleship, and the problems they face. Each person who reflects on the Didache needs to draw up her/his own list, and that list will reflect their own experience of being part of a church, their views about the Church, its books, and how discipleship relates to individual action.
However, it is easy to produce a wish list in this form: it was great back then, so let us imitate it! But while it is possible to imitate specific items we see elsewhere – and Christians are always borrowing from one another, from the past and from elsewhere – the task of trying to become more self-aware by comparing ourselves to the past is far more difficult. This is the attempt to become aware of the tacit assumptions of our own times, our inbuilt biases and our systemic misrepresentations of Christian discipleship. Here the focus is not on the bits in the past that we find interesting or charming, but on how we can learn more about ourselves by looking at relatives, but very foreign relatives.
The most common attitude to the past – and the one adopted very frequently in preaching that is based on the canonical collection – is to see something which is jarring between then and now. Then there is the assumption that the position then is the norm, and we should adopt it now! This is like walking through a museum and making a list of the items you might want to take home with you. However, learning from the past is not the same as imitating it. It is a process of comparison that involves looking at how various elements fitted together in the past and seeing whether or not those elements fit together today. This is more like visiting a very foreign country and being struck by how different it all is: things we ‘take for granted’ are problematic for them, but what is a ‘big deal’ for us is seen as unworthy of comment over there. At the end of the process, we should know more about ourselves, more about the other, and have new goals for ourselves inspired by the other, but not simply adopted from them. Like the traveller returning from the foreign country we want to have new ideas for what we can do differently having gained new self-knowledge, not simply some curios that we put on the mantelpiece.
A central tenet of any such comparison is that we move beyond some of the very simple analogies of history that we commonly use. Take, for example, this analogy: ‘the mighty oak has grown from the tiny acorn’ – and we look on the past as the acorn and the present as the oak. However, from acorn to oak is a matter of genetic programming: only an acorn can lie behind an oak, and an acorn cannot produce a sycamore or fir tree! However, human affairs are not so predictable: there is the continuity between now and back then, but there are ups and downs as well! We cannot make the assumption that the present is the inevitable outcome of the past: people get things wrong, sometimes other things intervene, sometimes there are unexpected blessings and sometimes there are unwelcome accidents. One culture received a religion in one way, another in a different way, and some virtually reinvented Christianity when it arrived among them. We can see these processes today, and they were also operative in the past. Comparison does not make one period, then or now, normative, but assumes that learning from comparison is a way of becoming more self-knowing as disciples. There is a tendency to see the past as a ‘golden age’ and use terms like ‘in New Testament times’ (sotto voce: ‘all was lovely and pure then’), and then think that it can be just reinvented. Likewise, we tend to decide that our views, our practices, or our doctrines are not only true, but the only possible genuine Christian position, and we use terms like ‘authentic’ or ‘orthodox’ (sotto voce: ‘people who are not with us are wrong’) and then we only look back and see the bits that fit with our positions, and simply ignore the rest! In the first case we reinvent the past to image the future we would like, in the second case we reinvent the past to image the present we do like. So if ‘oaks come from acorns’ allows us to recognize continuities (and hence comparisons are meaningful) then it should be balanced by this, the opening line from L. P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, The Go-Between: ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’. Historical comparison may sometimes condemn the present or the past, but most times it should give us understanding for the task of acting in theologically aware ways now.
Because the Didache covers such a range of Christian life, there are any number of areas where we could make such comparisons between the life of discipleship then and now. However, I am going to take three topics and make my comparison, with the intention of showing the method of comparison rather than drawing out any particular points about the present where we might need to become more aware.
Morality, law and love
A common theme in Christianity since the time of the Didache until now is that of moral action: individuals are faced with choices and must choose between alternatives. This leaves us with two questions: first, how this aspect of discipleship is presented; and, second, how those demands were seen to possess a moral quality.
When Christians approach morality they usually do so using a few very well-trodden routes. The simplest is that there are certain actions that make one sinful, and the sinful person cannot exist in the presence of God. Here the core concern is not with the rightness/wrongness of an action, or its impact on others, but on the fact that it makes one a sinner, and if that happens then the need is for purification, individual forgiveness by God and the knowledge that one is now ‘one of the saints’ once more. It is a notion that is very close to the notions of ritual purity that one finds in Leviticus and Numbers, and so, not surprisingly, it will pay great attention to issues of personal sexual morality. The approach can be spotted in that the concern, after a sexual sin, is not with whether or not the action has victims but that the actor is now in a state of sin. The need for ‘the sinner’ is for some ritual – though many would object to this word – that allows that sinner to become ‘justified’ or ‘forgiven’. The ritual might be ‘Confession’ for a Catholic or an intense moment of becoming aware of divine forgiveness and being ‘personally saved by the Lord Jesus’, for an Evangelical. But in either case, the most important aspect for the individual is that he/she is now ‘OK’ with God. Phew!
A second approach is that of doctrinaire morality: Christianity knows, as a religion, what is right and wrong, and making sure that people know this is a basic part of the message. So the acts that are right or wrong are laid down in a law – summarized in the Ten Commandments – and these are promulgated: follow them and you will be all right, fail to follow them and there is chaos in this world and the next. In this system there is great emphasis on morality as knowing what is right and wrong. There is a body of information about God, and part of this is knowing what he has legislated regarding conduct: it is a complete package, and there are great benefits for anyone who accepts the doctrine and what it teaches about conduct. In this approach, there is a similarity between the ways one views belonging to a civil society with its clear laws and the religious dimension of that society whose morality frequently can be closely mapped onto society’s laws. This has been a dominant approach for much of Christian history where ‘Church and State’ operated in tandem, but it is far wider in its spread than Christianity, and the religious leaders saw themselves as a religious government or the religious wing of government: just as the sheriff patrolled some laws, the clerics kept an eye on other laws. God’s law and society’s regulations were linked, and religious leaders saw no difficulty in promoting both together, especially if the specifically religious demands were enshrined in secular law.
The third approach is to see morality as having its main themes, such as justice, originate in parallel to any particular religious code, and here the emphasis is upon how certain basic moral demands are far wider than any one religion. Then the religion recognizes that right action is part of the human response to the divine, and so adopts the ethics that are seen as a shared human inheritance as one of the elements of its religious adherence. So the demands of morality can be seen to arise out of the nature of creation or of the human condition and upright reflection on this situation, and then the business of following that ‘wise path’ is seen as part of the respect for the divine, or, in Christian terms, an aspect of discipleship. This approach has a long history in Christianity where it manifests itself in such ethical forms as ‘the natural law tradition’ and the notion that right moral action and right human action are closely related.
The fourth approach is to take what we say about the divine nature and make it the basis for how we act: God is love, and therefore we come into existence through God’s love; and we respond to God, and who we are, by seeking to act as loving beings. Augustine expressed this pithily when he said: ‘Love, and then what you desire, do’ (Tractates on the First Letter of John 7.4.8). In its more common form, all the particular rules and regulations of a religion are seen as expressions of a more basic understanding that flows from the very core of the religion. So the covenant between God and his people is the fundamental relationship that constitutes society, and all rules, ritual and ethical, give it concrete expression. In Jesus we see love become a human being, so the basis for his followers to act as human beings is to act with love.
These approaches, a morality of ritual purity, of doctrinaire moralism, of natural law, and a covenantal morality, are not mutually exclusive, and in every actual teaching system, religious culture and each Christian making choices there is a varying mix of these approaches. The question to pose to the Didache is what mix of approaches is found in it; and are any of them given priority? One very interesting point to observe is that despite its function as a basic training for apprentice Christians it presents the notion of a covenantal morality at its outset. Christians are not offered a choice between either right/wrong, or between being saved/damned, but between a way of life and a way of death, and the demands of the way of life flow from the need to love God and neighbour. Most modern ‘simple’ introductions to religion start with a moralism of ‘what is right and wrong’ and see the notions of a morality of love as belonging to a higher ‘way of perfection’: for ordinary people there are ‘the commandments’ and then for the few, ‘the counsels’. Much Christian effort down the centuries has been devoted to a notion of moral purity, and even greater detail focused on sexual morality, whereas in the Didache, while this aspect of morality is not ignored, it is treated in a few general prescriptions on the major crimes. The Didache does appreciate the notion of ritual purity, as in its statements about fasting before baptism, but this – and its ritual regulations on fasting and prayer – is presented as part of the need for the community to cohere and form a new people. So the action of comparison is not to decide that ‘Didache good, moderns bad’ (or vice versa), but to see how basic approaches vary between groups of Christians in various times and places, and to use this comparison to get a deeper insight into both the past and ourselves. So, having examined the Didache, what sort of training for new disciples would you, and your community, produce? And, just as importantly, why would you go down that particular route?
Historical comparison does not produce answers for what we should do today, but information that helps shape better questions about today and tomorrow. People who look to the past for answers to reuse today ignore the reality of human history with its variety; likewise people who do not consider the past when asking questions about today ignore the reality of human history with its continuities. Both camps who ignore history, though frequently at odds, are similar in approach in their confidence that ‘answers’ can be got easily.
The Christian meal
For most Christians today the most striking difference between modern practice and that mentioned in the Didache concerns what is now called the Eucharist (though many, demonstrating how we love the familiar in religion, prefer their denominational terms, most of which derive from far more recent times). From being the meal which bonded Christians it has become the battleground where all sorts of conflicts are fought out. Sometimes these are doctrinal (as between differing denominations about whether you may or may not ‘receive’ at our Eucharist – or whether your Eucharist is even ‘real’), sometimes these concern styles of practice or attitudes within groups (each has a Eucharist for its taste), and sometimes it is even used as a way of expressing approval or disapproval of individuals (for instance, can a gay person ‘receive communion’ or not?). The meals of Jesus were the means to train the disciples in his revolutionary model of the kingdom, but all too often our ‘meals’ are used as a litmus test to make sure boundaries are clear. What is most obvious at the practical level is that a meal ritual has become a ritual meal. The emphasis has shifted from blessing the Father – which is identical in early practice to ‘offering thanks’ – to an interest in what it is that is eaten, ‘received’, while ‘the sacrifice of praise’ that the Didache sees as inherent in the act of blessing the Father has become a series of questions about how this sacrifice is or is not identical with the death of Jesus on the cross, that death understood as a ‘sacrifice’. So not only has actual practice changed (what happens at the gathering) but the purpose of the practice (from unifying the group to identifying those ‘fully in communion’ with the group), and also the perception of what is important and how that is best explained in relation to other aspects of Christian belief.
Again, it is easy to see the situation then as ‘uncorrupted’ and want to ignore what has happened since; and, likewise, it is easy to dismiss this as primitive and see the present as ‘the fully developed photograph’ when all is clear. Both positions will have their followers, but there is an even more complex kind of comparison that can be made that may promote greater understanding of what your group of Christians do, and help you to see good aspects of others’ practice.
This comparison is based on seeking to see how and why the ritual evolved the way it did. All still have a gathering, someone to offer the prayer of blessing to the Father in words, a table, a loaf (of some shape, sort or form), a cup, and eating and drinking. Now each of these elements can be examined and questioned as to why the practice that is there arose in this form and whether or not it must be that way or can be otherwise.
Gathering
For some it is a rare event to gather for this meal, while for others it is weekly, and others it is a daily event: why is that the case? Is it a ‘meal’ with a liturgy of readings used as an introduction or is it really a readings/prayer service with the ‘meal’ tacked on? Are you even happy that it should be described as a ‘meal’? Some Christians have the actual gathering broken into two spaces and separated by a wall, called an ‘iconostasis’, while others have rails between the clergy and the people. What signals do such divisions in the group send out to all concerned? Are these appropriate to the meal of Jesus and, whether they are or are not, would you be prepared to see changes in these practices?
If the meal gathering is not important, how did the community of the Didache get the matter so wrong that they invested such energy in it? And what importance is signalled to us by the way we organize our actual gathering?
Leader
In the Didache the task of leading the prayer of thanksgiving follows on from the fact that the church has gathered for the meal. But for many Christians today, one can only have the meal if one has a specially commissioned (and trained) person, a presbyter/priest, present; the meal follows from leadership. For other Christians the idea that only a specially ordained person can lead prayer is itself unnecessary. In each case there are many hidden assumptions not only about the nature of the meal but also about leadership, the Church and the action of the Spirit among the disciples of Jesus.
Table
The actual object on which the food is laid at the Eucharist is a table. It is a table because it was originally a real meal and these are eaten from tables, and because Jesus used the language of meals, tables and banquets. Moreover, we have descriptions of the altar in Jerusalem and it is nothing like that, and every museum with Roman artefacts has at least one ancient Mediterranean basic-style altar, essentially a short pillar, and nothing like it has ever been used in Christian practice. However, for many Christians, it is not thought of as a table but an ‘altar’, while for other Christians it may be ‘the holy table’ but it is never ‘an altar’. So what does it mean to refer to the table as an altar, why does this occur, and would it be more appropriate to refer to it with a phrase like ‘our table at the Eucharist is, for us, our altar’?
This is further complicated in that many traditions of Christians use a language of ‘the table’ and a language of ‘the altar’: what benefits flow from such rich use of language, and what are the disadvantages? What, indeed, should one see, and then name as an object, when one enters the space where Christians gather? In recent decades when many denominations have sought to redesign their church buildings to have a liturgy more sensitive to the notion of the Eucharist as a meal, warfare has ensued in the church over shapes and positions of this table, but, sadly, the debate has usually been dominated by aesthetics or nostalgia: looking back at how forms have evolved, what they have evolved from, why they evolved in the way they did, and asking whether or not they are in harmony with the original ideas would not only save much unseemly bickering, but make the whole process of change a positive one of making all concerned more aware of what they are doing.
Loaf
It might not seem important to mention the actual object that was eaten after the blessing of the Father at the Eucharist: surely bread is simply bread? But it is worth noting that this practical question – quite apart from theological issues – has caused more than one schism in the history of Christianity. Sometime in the ninth century the Western churches, for practical reasons, began using unleavened loaves, and this put them at odds with the Easterners who rejected the idea that the meal of the living One could be celebrated with ‘dead’ bread. The West replied that it was originally a Passover, and so only unleavened bread should be used! In the early centuries the emphasis was on a unity, a loaf, divided into shares so that each could be part of the one loaf (> 1 Cor. 10). Later the emphasis shifted to the question of what it is that one eats. If the answer is ‘the body of Christ’, then the immediate response is to say that one cannot ‘receive’ it too often because one is unworthy! So eventually, only the leader ate at the Eucharist, so special little wafers, now of unleavened bread, became the norm. Instead of each having a share in a common loaf, each had an individual wafer on the occasions when one actually ate anything – as distinct from being simply present. No one seemed to notice that it is slightly absurd to imagine one can participate in a meal while not eating or drinking!
So what actual practice do you see in your community, and what does that indicate about your church’s understanding, and the route it has taken to get to today? Is it a highway without junctions, or have there been many junctions so that the group could have arrived at many other destinations than where you are now? In fact, when we look back we always tend to see a straight road leading from the most remote past down to this very morning; but historical questioning reveals that routes that are straight in hindsight – history is written from the perspective of what actually evolved – are actually full of junctions and turns. We need only reflect that there were junctions in the past in order to recognize that there are choices facing us today. Looking then at the Didache’s image of a shared, broken loaf now becomes an inspiration for tomorrow.
Cup
One of the most shocking aspects of Jesus’ meal practice with the disciples was that he invited them to share a cup: practically it demonstrated their intimacy and metaphorically it became an indication of the willingness to share in his life and destiny (> Mark 10.38). While sharing a loaf or a cake is a common demonstration of intimate sharing at table (just note how everyone at a birthday party has to have a piece of ‘the birthday cake’), the notion of sharing a cup is counter-cultural: everyone wants their own glass, cup, drinking vessel – even if it is just made of paper. In the action of sharing a cup, drinking from one vessel one after another, we have an actual action that goes back to Jesus. In the Didache we find a prayer that expresses this action as part of our discipleship; while Paul in 1 Corinthians 11.25–28 sees this action as reflecting the intimacy of the new bonds between Christians and Christ. Indeed, it was this action of drinking that was emphasized, rather than what was drunk (wine was used, but also water), as being the imitation of the Christ. Yet, down the centuries it has always been an embarrassment to the churches who have found excellent reasons – and subsequently elegant theologies – to justify not doing it! Avoiding the actual action has taken the form of spoons, straws, moistening a wafer, many tiny cups, or simply declaring that it was enough for the priest to drink from the cup! But the underlying theme is clear: these communities faced with an aspect of Jesus’ behaviour that upset them too much found ways to ignore it! It is a salutary lesson from the past: just because a group believes it is ‘the Church’ does not mean that it might not have forgotten important aspects of discipleship. So, recalling earlier practices and understandings, are we happy with what we have forgotten, or are there things to be recalled, restored, reinstalled into our practice? These are the questions that looking at the Didache can help us confront.
Eating and drinking
Sometime in the second century the meal of the Christians took on a far more formal aspect and it came to be known simply as ‘the Eucharist’ and the larger meal disappeared. Why this development took place is unclear. Most probably it was because the social disruption of slaves eating next to masters, poor with rich, and various ethnic differences all seemed too much. So the simplest thing was to share the Lord’s loaf and cup, and skip further awkward table mixing! Yet human beings continued to be human beings, and eating together – but in exclusive gatherings – is part and parcel of being human, and every human meal has its own inbuilt ritual and subconscious statements. To gather and eat together expresses solidarity, it binds people, it expresses common purpose, it seals friendships, it expresses common joys and sorrows, it cements families, and it makes us sharing, speaking, sisters and brothers. Can you imagine any big event without a meal of some sort? Would you want to imagine life where we always eat alone or in silence!
Curiously, now that the Eucharist is usually a token rather than a real meal, and for some churches it is a peripheral event, the instinct to eat together is still there! When a new minister arrives and wants to ‘build a sense of community’ often the first suggestion will be having coffee and biscuits after the service. An evangelization programme may not have any mention of the Eucharist in its formal programme, but will have a meal included in the ‘group activities’ with everyone bringing some of the food to be shared. Recalling the origins of our gatherings as churches can help us see seemingly incidental actions, such as ‘tea and biccies’, in a much larger perspective. Looking at the past can show us what we do now, in very different ways, as reinterpretations, work-arounds, of basic aspects of discipleship. Then that leads on to the larger questions: should there be such a separation between the ‘sacred’ formally ritualized meal, ‘the Eucharist’ and the actual ‘profane’ informally ritualized meal? Is not every gathering of the Lord’s people in the Lord’s name a ‘sacred event’ in our actual world, just as he lived and ate in the midst of our actual world? And when we gather for even a token meal (coffee and biscuits in the church hall) should we not bless/thank the Father for his goodness for this assembly? And if we do that, then how is that gathering not as eucharistic as what took place in the church building?
Sustenance/boundary
When we look at the past we can see not only what was done but also what was implicit in what was done. In the early communities the boundary of the community was set by baptism (as is still formally the case for most Christians), and the Eucharist was what sustained the community and glued it together. For most Christians today, the Eucharist has become a boundary ritual: are you in communion with us, can you ‘receive communion with us’ or can I ‘take/be given communion from you/by you’? In all such painful inter-Christian disputes there is no shortage of highly developed speculation. But if one has taken a wrong turning early in an argument, no matter how elaborate that argument becomes, it will still be heading in the wrong direction. One can create the most elaborate explanations of why there cannot be intercommunion between Christians, but fail to notice that the Eucharist was not intended as a boundary ritual but as a unifying and sustaining ritual. The assumption was that baptism forms the boundary, and then people’s other differences are reconciled in the unity of Christ at his table. Here looking to the origins of what we do has the effect of undermining much later speculation as faulty. Here historical theology displays one of its most important functions: it allows us to ‘check the wiring’ of our arguments.
However, this sort of questioning based on examining the present in the light of the past is never easy! In the case of the simple comparison the task is to suggest ‘improvements’ in practice. For example, that there should be a ‘real loaf’ rather than token wafers or that ‘we should all sit or stand around the table’ at the Eucharist – this is the sort of thing that the Catholic Church has been attempting in its reforms of its practices since the 1960s – and there may be much to recommend this approach as a ‘fix-it’ strategy. But the more searching kind of comparison asks far more basic questions, is far more painful because most people are inordinately attached to their familiar rituals – though they will rarely admit it – but actually might touch the underlying fissures between Christians.
New Christians
The third example of historical comparison concerns how we envisage the task of making new Christians. This consists of the interlinked questions: first, why do we do it, and second, why do we do it in this way? The Didache’s primary purpose was the training of new members of a community, new believers in the Christ, and to guide new people on the Way. It was a task that was understood as pertaining to every existing member of the Church – though it is most unlikely that every Christian took an equal share in it. However, what is important is that the community was looking outwards and was adapting its approach, for instance, over the regulations of the law, to those it was encountering.
Looking at how and why they did this tells us a great deal about their sense of Christian identity, and it is by using these questions, inspired by examining the Didache, that we can ask the same questions of our communities today. For these questions will reveal our own sense of identity and purpose more quickly than any others. Here the Didache is not being held up as a model – though there are many excellent features in its approach – but as a screen which shows up to us our assumptions. It is worth remembering that the Didache was a success in what it set out to accomplish: it trained the early communities and they embedded the message of Christianity within their societies. The Didache was the means of effectively and simply transmitting their cherished way of life: a life based in divine wisdom and the notion of graced existence. Any group which cannot present itself as one wherein people are welcomed, a real community is established, and wisdom and grace, beauty and life are encountered, will not endure.
And finally…
This book has been an exploration of one short text from the first generations of Christians. I have tried to see through it to the communities that would have produced, valued and used a text like this as part of their everyday life as Christians. It was their text, and now, in a sense, it is our text also. Having worked through the Didache towards an appreciation of those churches, you may find that other books produced in those churches which we all too often simply think of as ours were first and foremost theirs. It is upon the tradition of those churches, as they sought to understand and witness to what the Father had done in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and how they sought to live as the community of the Anointed One, that the whole Christian edifice, in all its contemporary diversity, rests.