The Literary History Of The Didache
Iil
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
(a) Barnabas and the Didache TuHE "' Two Ways"' of Barnabas X VIII-XX and Didache I-V are certainly connected in some way or other.
Either Barnabas uses the Didache or vice versa, or they employ a common source.
Outside.the 'Two Ways"' there are very few points where the writings are connected.
They are the following :— (a) Barn. IV, 9: 6:6 mpocdywpev ev rats eoydrais uepass. oddev yap wdpedAjoe nuds 6 mas xpdvos THs mioTews Hudv, eav py) viv ev TH avouw Kaip@ Kal Tots péAAovow oKavddAots, ws mpeérret viots Geob, avrioT@pev, iva p17) ox Tapeiodvow o péAas.
Did. XVI, 2. auKvdds dé cvvaxOjccobe Cntobvres Ta avijKovTa tais uxats duadv. od yap wdedjoe buds 6 Tas xpdvos THs mioTews BUaV, eav py) ev TH eoxdtw Kaip@ TeAcrwO Are.
(0) Barn. XII, 4. Kat wadw ev érépw mpodyrn AEyeu: "OAnv rHWv yucpay eLerréraca Tas xeipds pou mpos Aadv ameiOHR Kal avrTir€yovTa 60@ SiKaia jou.
Did. XVI, 6. Kai rote davyjcera. Ta onpeta THs aAnOeias: mp@tov onuetov exmeTdoews ev ovpav@, elra onpetov puwvis odAmuyyos, Kal TO TpiTov avdoTacts veKpav:
(c) Barn. VII.
Allegory of the scapegoat.
Did. XVI, 5. tore 7€eu 7) Kriows TOV avOpdrrwv eis THY TUpwow Ths SoKysacias, Kat oxavdadaPjcovrat moAAol Kal azrodobvrat, ot dé bropeivavtes ev TH Tote: adta@v awhyoovta bn' adtob Tob
Kkatabépatos.
(d) Barn. XVIII, 1b.
'Odoi dvo ecioly dibaxfs Kat e€ovoias.
XXI 64 yiveobe 5ێ GeodibaKror.
Did. VI, 1.
"Opa py tis ce mAavion amo tadtys THs 6506 THS dvdaxhs, emel mapektos Oeod ae SvdaoKer.
(ec) Barn. XII, 10-11.
Barnabas discusses Ps. cx, I, as did Jesus.
Jesus is not Son of David, but Lord of David and Cc
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
Son of God.
Barnabas quotes Isa. xlv, 1:
'' The Lord said to the Lord my Christ."
Did. X, 6. doawa 7 Oe Aaveis.
(f) Barn. IV, 1, 2.
¢vywpev odv redeiws amo mdvrwv Tav Epywv Tis dvopias .
. .-pamore cpowwIGpev avrois.
Did. III, 1. Téxvov pov, gedye dro mravrds movnpod Kal ame TavTOs Opovod avToo.
(g) Barn. I, 4, 1V, 6. dyardav buds brép riv puxiv pov, idiws Sé Kal mdvtas ayarrav brép THY puyxyy pov.
Did. II, 7d. ods S€ ayarjoes brep THY poy cov.
(4) Barn. XVI, 9. at evrodai rijs bidax7js.
Did. II, 1.
Aevrépa dé evtoAn ris didaxijjs.
(i) Barn. XVI, 1.
Kat od« emt tov Gedv adtav Tov moujoavTa avrovs ...
Did. 1, 2. dyamjoets tov Bedv Tov TowjoarTd Ge.
(j) Barn. VI, 15. vads yap dyvos, ddeAgoi pov, TH Kupiw To KATOLKYTYpLOV HUY Ths Kapdias.
, Did. X, 2.
Edyapiorotpey oor, mdtep aye, bmép Tod dyiov évépards Gov, ov KaTecKk}Vvwoas ev Tais Kapdiais HUdv.
(k) Barn. X, 3-4.
One must not waste one's property, but must gain one's living dia Kémov Kai idp@ros.
One must not sit dpyés and seek to take others' goods.
Did. I, 6.
Let your alms sweat into your hands till you know to whom to give.
XII, 2-5.
Travellers may stay only a day or two.
If they stay they must learn to work, and not sit dpyds.
These eleven places where contact is possible are not all of equal importance.
In the first it seems to me that it is certain that the Didache employs Barnabas, or vice versa.
It seems to me more likely that the Didache uses Barnabas, for the following reasons:
(a) Did. XVI is a collection of quotations from various sources, and it seems likely that this section is derived from some source; (0) it is unlikely that had Barnabas derived this passage from the Didache he would have used the one part of Did. XVI not derived from the New Testament and have omitted all the New Testament material; (c) the language is very much that of Barnabas,
€.g. Katpod tod viv ris avouias, XVIII, 2, ddetAopev éavrois mpocexovres exlytetv Td. Sixarépata Kupiov, II, 1, etc.; (d) in
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Barnabas the passage is an integral part of the context, calling on men to repent now, for the final stumbling-block is at hand.
Barnabas is keen and excited.
The Didache omits the viv of Barnabas, is more abstract than Barnabas and is merely writing an apocalypse.
For all of these reasons Barnabas seems to be theoriginal here, the Didachesecondary.
\x - With regard to the passages in 6, Streeter!in J.Th.S., Oct.
1936 acknowledges that Muilenburg and Burkitt are right in saying that the Didache in chapter XVI is based primarily on Matt. xxiv and that onpetov éxmetdcews is the Didache's interpretation of Matt. xxiv, 30, where we read of the "sign of the Son of Man."'
Barn. XII is a long series of proof texts on the power of the Cross, telling how Israel overcame its enemies when Moses stretched out his hands, how the Israelites were saved when they saw the brazen serpent, how Isaiah in lxv, 2 said " I stretched out my hands the whole day."'
Justin and others quote these passages of the Old Testament, and John iii, 14 says of Jesus that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must Jesus be lifted up on the Cross.
Streeter says that if we hold that the Didache depends on Barnabas in using Isa. lxv, then we must say John depends on Barnabas, which is impossible.
It seems to me that Barnabas and Isaiah explain the Didache, but we cannot be certain whence the Didache drew his expression.
Perhaps Barnabas and the Didache both derive it from a series of proof-texts. ~ With regard to c, it may be that the allegory of the scapegoat explains the Didache, but the Didache may equally well be referring to Paul's quotation of " Cursed be everyone that hangeth upon the tree.""
In d_the-Didache seems to combine the two passages from Barnabas and to be secondary.
Here it seems that contact is likely, the two passages in Barnabas being combined with Matt. xxiv, 4:
" Take heed that-no-man lead~you-astray."
In e, as we shall see later, there seems to be an echo of questioning as to the correctness of calling Jesus.' Son of David."
Adamantius discussed the question, Tatian forbade the use of the title '' Son of David."
The Didache may very well 1 See also Streeter, The Four Gospels, pp. 50 f.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
have used the phrase '"'God of David" because of the Gospel discussion on Ps. cx, without recourse to Barnabas.
With regard to f, the question is complicated by the fact that Did. III, 1-6 is undoubtedly derived from some other? source, which, it is possible, was quoted later as scripture by Clement of Alexandria.
In these circumstances the resemblances in Barnabas are certainly casual.
In the passages quoted in g the Didache is quoting Barn. XIX, 5c.
He has said above in Did. I, 2:
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," so in II, 7 he makes up something like Jude 22, where is given one's duty to three of four classes of people, and for that purpose he can use Barnabas's recurring phrase drep ri puynv ayarav. h and will be discussed elsewhere.
In 7 it seems to me that neither Barnabas nor the Didache is original, but that the Didache uses John, where oxynvdw occurs of the Word, and dvoua of God occurs in John xvii, while Barnabas uses the Pauline word xarotxytipiov (Eph. ii,
22).
Finally, in k& it seems to me that the source of the Didache is Paul's words in II Thess.
In these eleven places, therefore, where the Didache and Barnabas seem to be connected with one another, in a, d, g writer of the Didache, but other sources might explain the Didache equally well.
In the other cases the resemblance is slight and no certain conclusion may be drawn therefrom.
It is over the question of the relationship of the " Two Ways "' of the Didache and of Barnabas that the battle has raged unceasingly for fifty years, and even now no one solution is accepted by all, any more than when the Didache was discovered.
The "' Two Ways"' is found in Barnabas, the Didache, the Latin Didache, the Apostolic Church Order, the panegyric of Schnudi, A.C. VII, the Fides Nicena, and the Syntagma Doctrine.
It is referred to in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,in Lactantius and many other writers.
The possible solutions are three in number, (a) that the 1 Canon Streeter (J.Th.S., 1936) agrees with Dom Connolly as to this borrowing, but does not follow him in the opinion that Clement quotes not the Didache but the Didache's source.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
"Two Ways" in the Didache is the composition of the author of the Didache, (5) that the author of Barnabas composed the formof the 'Two Ways" found there or (c) that Barnabas and the Didache use acommon source, a Jewish document for the instruction of proselytesor an early Christian treatise onmorals.
With regard to the possible existence of a Jewish "' Two Ways," Dalman, in The Words of Jesus, says:
'' As to the Jewish origin of the ' Two Ways,' I have, however, grave doubts.""
It could hardly have been intended for the use of proselytes.
Harnack and C. Taylor, on the other hand, held that a Jewish document underlying the Didache could be reconstructed, if one omitted the '"' Christian Interpolation '' of Did. I, 3-II, 1, where the Didache openly uses the Gospel and probably Hermas.
This passage is not found in Barnabas, the Latin Didache, Schnudi or the Apostolic Constitutions.
There may be incidental references to it in Fides Nicena and Syntagma Doctrine.
If one omits this passage and other very slight passages it would be possible to call the "Two Ways" Jewish.
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Jeremiah and other Jewish documents refer to a "' Two Ways," and it may be that it was thus that Jewish books of moral teaching were arranged, but Greek
_ philosophers had the same arrangement.
The idea of the " Two Ways." is not necessarily Jewish.
In many places in the "Two Ways" the Didache and Barnabas agree word for word.
For example, the second half of the "' Way of Death " in the Didache runs as follows :
SiBOxtar ayalav, pucodvres dAfOevav, dyar@vres yeOSos, od ywwokovtes puc0ov Suxaroovvys, od KoArAdpevor ayab@ od8€ Kpicet
Sixala, dypumvobvtes obk eis TO ayabdv, GAN' ets TO movnpdv: dv paxpav mpairns Kal dopovy, udrava ayar@vres, SudKovres avTamddop.a, ovK eAcodvTes TTWXOV Ov TOVObVTES emt KaTaTrovoupevw,
Ov YwWaOKOVTES TOV TOLnCAVTA adtovs, povets téeKvwv, POopeis mAdopatos bob, amootpepdpevoe Tov evdedpevov, KaTatrovoivres tov OAPdpevov, tAovoiwy TapdKAyToL, TeviTwY dvopol KpLTat, navOapdprnro.
In Barnabas after xpice: diag is added y7jpq kal ép¢av@ ob mpocéyovres, in place of ayafov is written ¢dBov deod, after dvwaxpav is added kat méppw, after émi xaramovovpevw isadded edyepeis ev karadaG. Otherwise the two docu-
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
ments agree word for word.
Similarly we read in the Didache : od govetoers téxvov ev pbopa odd€ yervnfev amoxreveis.
In Barnabas this is exactly the same, with the addition of maAw before yerrnfé.
Again, in the Didache we read : od KodAyOnoerar % Puy cov peta dYnAdv, GAAG pera Sukatwy Kat Tarewav dvactpadyon.
Ta ovpPaivovTd cou evepyjpara ws ayaba mpoadeén, eidws Oru drep Oeod oddev yiverar.
In Barnabas in this passage KodnPjon ex yvyfjs cov is put instead of the Didache's KoAAnOjcerar 4 puyy cov, tamewdv Kat Sixaiwv occur in the order opposite to that of the Didache, and dvev is read instead of drep.
In many other places similar word for word agreement is found.
This makes it certain that the Didache's writer had Barnabas before him when he x wrote, or vice versa, or that they had a common written
source before them.
Such word for word agreement is not possible unless a written source is used directly and not used from memory.
Now, if Barnabas used the Didache, could he have omitted Did. I, 3-II, x and III, 1-6, and could he have confused the order of the ''Two Ways" of the Didache to produce the confusion of Barnabas?
Here we meet again the question, is Did. x, 3-II, 1 part of the original Didache or a later interpolation?
Itis found in A.C. VII, in the MS. of Bryennius, in the Georgian Version and in the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus.
It quotes Hermas, as we shall show later, it is quoted by the Didascalia, by S. John Climacus, possibly by the Syntagma
Doctrine (vide p. 73) and probably by the Fides Nicena.
In the Apostolic Church Order we read : tysjoets adrov (1.e. Tov Aadobyrd cou Tov Adyov) Kal?' 6 Suvatds ef ex Tod iSpHros cov, which may be a reference to Did. I, 6:
'" Let your alms sweat into your hands."
It is not, however, certain.
Similarly in IV, 8, the Latin Version adds:
"' omnibus enim dominus dare vult de donis suis,' which seems to be a reference to Did. I, 5 : maou yap BeAr Sid0c8a 6 marip ex THV idiwy xapicoudtwv.
Otherwise the Apostolic Church Order, the Latin Didache and the Life of Schnudi omit this passage.
The language of the " Interpolation "' is very like that of the rest of the Didache.
«Kal gon téAevos comes in Did. I, 4.
In VI, 2 we read, réAevos gon.
The verb rede occurs in
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
X, 5 and XVI, 2. dSiS0c8a Kara tiv evrodjv is used in Did. I, 5, waxdptos 6 Sid0vs Kara TH evroAnv, in XIII, 5, we read
€dv oitiay Touhs, THY arapy)v AaBev Sos Kata THY evroAjv, and in XIII, 7:
. AaBav rhv arapyny ads dv cor 86€n, 80s Kara TH evroAjv.
To introduce the quotation of Did. I, 6 is used the phrase, a\Ad Kai mepi rovrov dé eipnrar.
To introduce the quotation in IX, 5, the writer says, kal yap wept tovrou elpnkev 6 Kupios ; In XIV, 3, adry yap éorw 1% pnOeiaa bro Kupiov ; and in XVI, 7, aad' as é6pe6n.
Svvacba is a favourite word of the writer.
In I, 4 we read, odd€ yap S¥vacar; in VI, 2, et 8 od dvvaca, 6 dvvn, Tobro Toi; in VI, 3, epi Sé THs
Bpdcews, 6 Stvacon Baoracov; and in XII, 2, Bonfetre aird dcov dSvvacbe.
In each case these phrases are in passages added by the writer of the Didache to the sources used.
As will be shown later, the style of the Didache is very marked, so that these phrases, occurring here, have more importance than they would in an ordinary document. They show that the man who wrote the rest of the Didache wrote Did. I, 3-II, r.
The sources used in Did. I, 30-II, r are Justin, as will be shown later, Hermas, Matthew and Luke, in addition to the unidentified quotation in I, 6.
Chap. I, 3 is derived from Justin; I, 4 from Matt. v and Luke vi; I, 5 from Hermas,
_ the Sermon on the Mount andICor.
In the latter part of the Didache these same sources are all used, as will be shown later.
It seems, therefore, that the " Interpolation"' in the Didache is an integral part of the Didache, but why, then, do the various people who use the Didache omit this passage ?
The three who omit the passage are (1) the Apostolic Church Order, (2) the Latin Didache and (3) Schnudi.
How is it that two Egyptian writings and a Western writing agree in omitting just these sentences?
What special peculiarities are there in them?
They are the chief passages in the Didache where evangelical commands and the words of Christ are openly used.
This might seem to be an argument for their retention, not their omission, and Canon Streeter,!
1 In P.C., p. 282, Canon Streeter says that Bryennius and the Oxythynchus Papyrus go back to a fourth-century text, but the Apostolic
Church Ordey and the Latin are earlier than this, and so are better authorities for the text of the original Didache.
He forgets the evidence for the Interpolation found in the Didascalia.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
in ].Th.S., 1936, makes this his chief argument for the interpolation theory, that these writings agree in omitting this passage.
The Apostolic Church Order divides up the words of the Didache among the various Apostles, and it is not likely that the words of our Lord would be placed in the mouth of a single Apostle, though they might be ascribed to all the Apostles.
Secondly, the passage is full of peculiarities and contradictions.
Why does the writer say, "Fast for your enemies," why " and ye shall not have an enemy"? capkixdv cat cwparixav is a peculiar combination.
There is no good explanation of ovdé yap! divaca.
We cannot tell for certain what is the évroAj according to which gifts are to be given. There is no reason for odai r@ AapBdvovte, and there is a contradiction between I, 5, where one has to give to all, and I, 6, where one is to find out to whom to give.
The Georgian version omitted Did. I, 5 and 6 for this reason, though I, 3 and 4 are translated in it.
Thirdly, Did. I, 5, with its commands on giving and receiving, is, as we shall see, derived from Hermas.
In Did. IV, 8, 9 are commands on giving parallel to Barn. XIX, 8a, 9.
Now, the Latin Didache certainly knows Barnabas.
In I, 1 it reads, " Vie duz sunt in seculo, vite et mortis, lucis et tenebrarum.
In his constituti sunt angeli duo, unus aequitalis, alter iniquitatis.
Distantia autem magna est duarum viarum."
The Greek Didache has, 'Odoi dvo eiai, pia tis Cwhs Kal pia Tob Bavarov, diadopa dé 7oAA7) peTaed trav S¥o 6dGv.
Barnabas has, 'Odoi Svo cioly Sidayjs Kal e€ovoias, 4} Te TOG dwrds Kal 7 Tod oxdrous.
Sdiadopa S€ todd) THY dSvo dddv. ed" Fs per yap elow TETOY{LEVOL gutaywyol dyyeAor Tob Oeod, ed' Hs dé dyyedow rob caravé.
In this passage it is clearly seen that the Latin Didache knows Barnabas.?
If therefore the translator were to shorten in any way, he might well agree with Barnabas by omitting Did. I, 3-II, 1, especially as I, 5 occurs again in Did. IV, 8,.9 and Barn. XIX, 8a, 9.
Moreover, if the Didache translated by the author of the Latin did not contain + The Georgian explains this by an addition
'' secundum fidem haec facere velle."
* In Did. IV, 12 we read in the Greek, kat wav 6 yi) dpeordy T@ Kuplo. a Latin reads "deo.''
In Barnabas we read, wav & od« éorw dpeorov Tw VEW,
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Did. I, 3-II, 1, then the addition to Did. IV, 8, '"' omnibus enim dominus dare vult de donis suis," is probably derived from Hermas, Mandate, II, 4, maow yap 6 Beds Sid0c8a béAe ex TOV idtwv Swpnudtwy, to which there is no exact scriptural parallel.
Nowitis admitted, as will be shown, that Did. I, 5 is based on this same mandate.
It is not likely, it seems, that ' the translator of the Latin Didache and an" interpolator "' of the Greek would recur to the same passage in Hermas for an addition to be made to the original.
Had it been to a scriptural passage, it would have been a different matter, but independent recourse to Hermas is most unlikely.
It seems, then, that the Latin Didache knew the Greek " Interpolation' and omitted it (a) because it is obscure and contradictory, (6) because material in it occurs elsewhere in the "Two Ways," and (c) because he saw that Barnabas omitted it.
These reasons would be sufficient for the omission of the passage in what is evidently a homiletic adaptation of the "' Two Ways," as we stated above.
Reasons @ and 6 would account for the omission in the Apostolic Church Order, where the additional reason, the impropriety of ascribing to an individual apostle the words of Christ, would weigh very heavily.
Finally in Schnudi we have another homiletic extract, and the words of Christ here used without any acknowledgment of their source could well be omitted there.
There seem to me very clear reasons why the Didache's so-called '"' Interpolation' is omitted in these documents based on the Didache, and why we should consider it an authentic part of the original Didache.
If Barnabas is based on the Didache, is there any reason why Barnabas should omit the passage?
There seems to be none whatsoever.
There are in Barnabas many quotations from our Lord's words, ¢.g. IV, 14 quotes Matt. ix, 16, zoAAol KAnrol, dAtyou dé exAeKTot edpefdpuev,"' V, Q quotes Mark ii, 17,
" That he might show that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners,' and so on.
In many cases these quotations are inserted incidentally with no mark of a quotation.
Moreover, there may be a reference in Barn. XIX, 8a and 9 to giving and receiving, but it is much simpler than Did. I, 5,
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
and there is no parallel to the rest of the '' Interpolation."
It seems to me, then, that the Didache adds to the "' Two Ways " and Barnabas does not omit.
It seems, too, that the regular order of the Didache is secondary, imposed by the writer on his material.
It does not seem that Barnabas could have taken the orderly precepts of the Didache and disarranged them to the disorder found in his Epistle.
There is little need to give examples of this superior order, but reference may be made to the following:
In Did. III, 9, 10 the Didache says, ody tdoes ceavTov odd€ Sdoes TH YvxH Gov Opdcos. od KoAAnOjcerar 4 Yvy} cov pera tnA@v, adda pera Sixatwv Kai tanewav avaotrpadjon, which is followed by a reference to all évepyjuara as coming from God.
In Barnabas this passage is split up, the first half of the first sentence occurring in XIX, 3a, the second in XIX, 3 end, the second sentence occurs in XIX, 6c, followed in XIX, ro by a reference, as in the Didache, to évepyjuata.
Now, the Didache's order is so natural and logical that it would be impossible for anyone to confuse it, if it was before him, to produce the disjointedness of Barnabas.
Similarly in XIX, 5f and XIX, 7b, c, d, Barnabas tells us our duty towards our sons and daughters, the duties of slaves towards their masters, and of masters towards their slaves.
In XIX, 6 and XIX, 7a occurs irrelevant matter about covetousness, pride and double-mindedness.
In the Didache in IV, 9-11 the order is father's duty to children, master to slave, slave to master.
The order of Barnabas is that of Ephes. vi, 1-9, the Didache is logical in the order of duty of superior to inferior, superior to inferior, inferior to superior.
It is unlikely that if the Didache were the original, anyone would have inserted into it the dislocating material of Barn. XIX, 6, 7a.
These two examples will be sufficient to show that Barnabas is more disjointed and disordered than the Didache, which goes to support our view that it is unlikely that Barnabas used the Didache.
Either Barnabas is the original, or it follows the original more closely than the Didache.
Another very noticeable fact is that the Didache turns reminiscences of Scripture in Barnabas into quotations.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Where Barnabas hints at the New Testament, the Didache makes the vague hint a certainty.
This is noticeable in Did. II, 7, Barn. XIX, 5c, and Jude.
Barn. XIX, s¢.
Did. II, 7. ayamiyoeis TOV TAnod puonoEls mdvTAO atov cov wrep THY dvOpwrov add' ods buxnv gov. pev édéy€ers mrepi d€ dv mpocevén, ods de ayamnoets dep Thy puxyv cov.
Jude 22-3.
\ a A
~ Kat ovs prev édAcaTe duakpwvopevous, ovUS A
> A de owlere éx mrupos ¢€ , SI \ apmatovres, ots dé > ~ > / edeGre ev hoBw, pucobvres Kal TOV amo Ths aapKos é€omAwpeévov xiTa@va.
With this may be compared Lev. xix, 7, 8, '"' Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart : thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbour, and not bear sin because of him.
Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself:
I am the Lord."
Barn. XIX, r1e, too, may be compared els TéXos puLonoets TO Tovnpdv.
It seems here that the Didache waters down Barnabas's more than evangelical enthusiasm, since he has already said, "' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."'"
The introduction he gets from Barn. XIX, rie, _which he does not use elsewhere, the form from Jude 22-3.
In Did. III, 7, 8, Barn. XIX, 4f, g, h occurs the following passage :— Did. III, 7, 8. tof. S€ mpats: emel ot mpacis KAnpovopmoovat Barn. XIX, 4.
€on mpais, eon qavxLos, €on Tpépwv Tovs Adyous ovs NKNVOUGS.
Ps. xxxvli, II.
But the meek shall inherit the land.
THY viv. yivou jLaKpovos Kat eAejmwv Kal akakos Kal HOVXLOS Kal ayabos Kat Tpé"wv Tods Aoyous dia travrds, ovs HKovoas.
Matt. v, 5. pakdptoe ot mpaets, ott avtol KAnpovopjoovot THY yhv.
Isa. Ixvi, 2.
Even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembleth at my word.
' THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
Here it will be seen that the Didache keeps Barnabas's reference to Isaiah, but strengthens it with a quotation from either
Ps, xxxvii or the Beatitudes in order to explain Barnabas's mpais.
In the " Way of Death" we have seen that the Didache and Barnabas agree so closely in the second half that literary connection is necessary.
Death " they diverge widely.
In the opening of the " Way of Matt. xv, 19.
Did. V, I.
Barn. XX, I. ek yap THs Kapdias e€€pxovrat diadoyiopol mrovnpol, ¢gdvot, potxetat, mopvetat, KAoTrat, pevdouaptupiat, BAacdnelowAodarpeia,
Opacvrns, tibos Suvdpews, UrdKptots, SumrAoKkapdia, wouyela, fovos, apmayn, bmepynpavia, Trapaddvor, moyetar, €7rOvpiar, mopvetat,
KAoTrat, €towAoAarpia payelar, dappakiar, aptayal, pevdopapTupiat, vmoKpicets, dumAoKkapdia, ddAos, bmepnpavia, Kakia, av0ddera, mAcoveeia, * Baows, ddAos, Kakia, av0ddea, Pappakeia, payeta, mAcovecia, pula. aisxpodoyia, CnAorvagoBia beob mia, Opacvrns, vos, aAaloveta Here it will be seen that in the order of the sins and the use of the plural of abstract nouns the Didache agrees very closely with the list in Matthew.
It may further be seen that all the sins mentioned in the Didache occur in the "Way of Life," and that the first eight, with the exception of eidwAoAarpeia, occur in the same order in Did. II, 2.
This mechanical correspondence between the Didache's " Ways of Life' and " Death " and its agreement with Matthew are surely a sign of its secondary nature over against the freedom of Barnabas.
It will be seen from these passages—and there are many others—that Barnabas is nearer the original, if not itself the original, of material made to conform closer to the scriptural source by the Didache.
We have shown that the order in the Didache is more likely to be imposed on scattered material like that of Barnabas than disturbed by Barnabas.
The
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
language of the Didache, too, is sharper and more economical than that of Barnabas.
For example, the Didache opens with : 'Odo dvo ciow, pia THs Cwhs, Kal pia tod Bavdrov,
Siagopa, dé odd petakd Ta&v dvo 6ddv.
'H pev ody 6d0s Tis Cwijs €otw avtn. mp@tov ayamyoets Tov Oedv Tov TroujcavTd Ge, devrTepov TOV TANGiov Gov Ws ceavTdv: TavTa dé doa éav DeAHans pi) yiveoOai, cor, Kal od dAAw pu) Toler.
Barnabas has: MeraBadwev S€ Kal emt érépay yr@ow Kal didayyjv.
'Odoi dvo eictv dWayfs Kal e€ovaias, 7 Te TOO PwTds Kai 7) TOK GKdTOUS. dia¢opa de 7oAA1) THY BVO dda. ed" Fs pev yap elow TeTaypévor dwrayuyolt ayyeAo. Tob Deo', éf' as dé dyyeAor tod Latava.
Kal 6 pév €orw Kipios amd aidvwv Kat ets tods aid@vas, 6 8é dpxwv Katpod Tod viv THs avouias.
'H obv 6d0s Tod dwrds éorw avTn: éav Tis Dédwy doy ddevewv em TOV WpLOpevov TéTOV, OTEvON
Tots épyois adrod. eoTw odv 4 dobecioa ypiv yvdots Tod mepimatety ev adtH ToatTyn. ayamjoes TOY mojpoavTd oc, pofyOjon Tov ce TAdCaVTaA, So€dleis Tov ce AVTpwodpevov ex Bavdrov.
Here it will be seen at first glance that the Didache is shorter and more economical in its use of language.
Life and death, too, are used instead of light and darkness, since our Lord used "life" and " death " in Matt. vii, 13, 14, and Jeremiah used the same words in xxi, 8. Asin our Lord's reply to the Scribe in Mark xii, 29 the command to love God is put
_ together with the command to love one's neighbour.
The Didache adds the negative Golden Rule.
These additions by the Didache, when usually he is shorter, show that either both add to a short original or else Barnabas is the original.
It is not likely that Barnabas would omit much that the Didache has only to expand in other places.
The Didache shortens what Barnabas has, but omits nothing of importance, and adds many things from other sources.
Thus Did. I, 3-II, 1, III, 1-6 are, as we have seen in the case of the first and shall see later in the case of the second, derived from other sources.
Now, according' to. B.. H. Streeter \in "the. J:7%.S.-for October 1936, this does not prove the originality of Barnabas's form of the "' Two Ways."
He says:
" Dom Connolly has made it impossible for any future scholar to reverse his hypothesis and urge that Barnabas used the
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
Didache.!.
He has left unweakened the hypothesis that they used a common source which neither has incorporated without considerable modification."
So we are left with the two alternatives, that the Didache used Barnabas or that both used a common source.
Both in J.Th.S. and in his Primitive Church Streeter makes very great use of analogy from Synoptic and Gospel textual criticism.
In the case of the Christian Interpolation he says that the false end of St. Mark's Gospel provides an analogy.
This was known to Irenzus at a very early date, but, says Streeter, this does not prove its authenticity.
This is an incomplete analogy, for it leaves out of consideration the signs of a unity of authorship of the '" Interpolation' and the rest of the Didache, which we have noted above.
His analogy, then, is of little use.
Finally, on the major question of the relationship between the "Two Ways" of Barnabas and the Didache, he says that the relationship is analogous to that of those parallel passages in Matthew and Luke which cannot be explained by derivation from Mark.
He marshals his argument from this analogy as follows :— "(a) Matthew's arrangement of the material is much more orderly and systematic than Luke's; the arrangement in the Didache is much more orderly and systematic than in Barnabas.
""(b) The general impression given in Matthew is much more Jewish; Luke's version is slightly Hellenised.
Just so the 'Two Ways' has in the Didache a more Jewish flavour; in Barnabas it is more Hellenic.
""(c) Matthew does not merely re-arrange material which occurs in Luke; he also interpolates into it matter which obviously comes from another source.
Dom Connolly's argument (J.7h.S., April 1932) that Did. III, 1-6, which is not found in Barnabas, comes from another source, is, I believe, a sound one; but it no more proves that Barnabas is the source of the 1 In saying this Canon Streeter shows that he has changed his mind since he wrote his Primitive Church.
On p. 283 of that book he refers to two places where 4.C.O. and Barnabas agree against the Greek and Latin
Didache and to the fact that II Clement uses the idea of ''Dead Gods" found in Did. VI and not in Barnabas.
This reference to "' dead gods,'' he says is presumably an echo of a MS. of the Didache slightly different from that used by Barnabas.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Didache than the fact that Matthew frequently has passages lacking in the parallel in Luke shows that he used that Gospel."
He then goes on to state that in the Synoptics in the use of Q material sometimes Matthew's and sometimes Luke's phrasing seems-the original.
So he says in the case of the Didache and Barnabas it is easy to show that Barnabas is more original, but it can also be shown that the Didache preserves the more original phrasing, referring to Maclean's edition of the Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles (S.P.C.K.,
1922).
Lastly, he says that in Q passages in Matthew words characteristic of the rest of this gospel occur and the same phenomenon occurs in Luke.
So, he says, we may not argue from the fact that in Barn. XVIII-XX many words characteristic of Barnabas occur that Barnabas is the original author of the " Two Ways."
All of Streeter's arguments here are of very great importance.
It is impossible that Matthew used Luke, and certain that the writers of these two Gospels used a common source.
He holds that the reasoning generally used of the Didache and Barnabas breaks down when applied to the Synoptic problem, hence the argument is wrong, but in the paragraph numbered 0} above and in his last argument he does not seem to deal fairly with Connolly, Muilenburg1 and Armitage
Robinson.?
First of all, what does he mean by Jewish and Hellenised?
Secondly, it is in more than diction and phrasing that unity of authorship between Barnabas's "Two Ways" and the rest of his Epistle is to be found.
Thirdly, he leaves out of the question the points of contact between the Didache and Barnabas outside the "' Two Ways,' to which we referred at the beginning of this chapter.
He deals only with the more doubtful of these.
We will deal with two of these three questions in this order, first the unity of authorship of Barnabas, and then the Jewish and Hellenistic colour of the ' Two Ways."
1 The Literary Relations of the Epistle of Barnabas and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 1929.
2 Barnabas, Hermas and the Didache, 1920, and J.Th.S., 1934.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
In chapters XVIII-XX of his Epistle Barnabas uses the same language, the same phrases, the same ideas as in the other chapters.
These chapters are full of the same spirit as the others.
It is said that the moral code of the " Two Ways" is foreign to the speculative theology of Barnabas
I-XVII.
The "Two Ways" passage is omitted in the Latin text of the Epistle, but it is contained in all the Greek texts.
There is, moreover, no contradiction between the two sections.
The transition occurs naturally after the tatra pév ovtws of chapter XVII in the MeraPdpev S€ Kai ent érépav yydow kai didayyv of chapter XVIII.
Moreover," according to Jewish custom the " Haggadah"' of chapters I-XVII would require the "' Halakhah "' of chapters XVIII-—
XX.
It is what we find in St. Paul's epistles, in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians.
Muilenburg in The Literary Relations of the Epistle of Barnabas and the Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles, pp. 109-135, has well demonstrated the unity of Barnabas.
A few examples may be given here.
Barnabas is very fond of the phrase ayanay imép tiv pvy7jv which occurs in Barn. I, 4, IV, 6, XIX, 5c.
He is fond of the idea of yrSous and d.dax7.
Both occur in the beginning of the "Two Ways " quoted above; yv@ors occurs in I, 5, " knowledge with faith," in V, 4, "' knowledge of the way of righteousness," and in XXI, 5, "' May God grant you knowledge of his judgments "'; ddax7) occurs in IX, 9, " He knows this who places the gift of teaching in our hearts,"' and in XVI,
Q, evroAal rhs ddax7js.
The angels of God and of Satan, the ruler of the present time of iniquity, occur in Barn. XIX, 2.
In IX, 4 we are told that an evil angel caused them to err, in V, 5 that God is Lord of all the world, while in IV, 1 we are told to hate the deceit of this present age.
Barnabas's "ways'"' are those of light and darkness, and these are referred to often in the early chapters.
In III, 4, XIV, 7, 8,
are quotations which tell of light, and in V, 4, XIV, 5, 6 we hear of the darkness of sin and ignorance.
In XIX, 4 there is a reminiscence of Zech. vii, Io, in the words od pvnoikakynoes TH adeAd@ oov while in II, 8 the similar Zech. viii, 17 is quoted in the words, éxaoros judy cata Tob
TAnaiov év TH Kapdig €avTod Kakiav pr) uvyotKaketrw.
In XIX, 1
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
occurs the phrase 7) Sofetoa piv yrSous, and in IX, 8, ris } dofcica ait yvadou.
In XIX, 2 we read, ayamnioeis TOV mouncavTd oe, PoBnOyjon rév ce wAdcavra, So€dcets TOV GE Avtpwodpevov ex Gavarov.
In XIV, 5 and 6 Barnabas twice uses the phrase ''redeem from darkness," while in XIV, 8 he uses Isa. xlix, 6f., in which is said, odrws dyer KUpios 6
Avtpwodpuevds ce Oeds, and in II, 10 he quotes Ps. li, 17, Gvoia 7H Kupiw Kapdia ovvrerpiypévn, and adds, éop:) edwdias
T® Kupiw Kapdia do0€dlovea tov memAaKora avtyv.
The phrase ep' ods 76 mrebua Hroiwacev in XIX, 7 is very like that in VI, 14, dv mpodBrerev 76 mvedua Kupiov.
These similarities of language might not be enough to prove unity of authorship of Barn. I-X VII and XVIII-XX, but there is a similarity of spirit and of sources used.
The similarity of spirit can be seen in the eager rushing forward from subject to subject, which gives a very haphazard and disconnected appearance to all the writing.
Secondly, it is seen in the fervour and extravagance of so many of his sayings all through the book, in irép ru Kat Kab? dmepBodjv drepppaivoua. (1, 2), in the recurring phrases imép riv duyrv gov and ex ypuyfs.
Then Barnabas is always thinking of " these evil days,' XVIII, 2, II, 1, and of the nearness and imminence of the end, IV, ro and XIX, ro (' Thou shalt remember the day of judgment night and day'').
If one looks at the references at the foot of the page in any edition of Barnabas, it will be seen how closely those in chapters
XVIII-XX resemble those on the rest of the Epistle.
Maclean ! in his revision of Bigg's edition of the Didache says that the arguments from the linguistic similarity between the two parts of Barnabas prove only that Barnabas uses a source which at times he rewrites in his own language, or that he re-echoes this source in the earlier chapters of his
Epistle.
Streeter in J.Th.S., 1936, says the same thing, adding that a similar rewriting of sources occurs in the use of QO by Matthew and Luke.
Maclean, however, does not take into account the close resemblances in spirit between the two parts of Barnabas.
Streeter does add that Matthew and Luke make Q seem more Jewish and more Hellenistic,
1 S.P.C.K., 1922.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
and hold that this is so with the Didache and Barnabas.
Now, this is a very doubtful statement.
It does not seem clear exactly what is meant by Jewish and Hellenistic.
The Didache is a regularly ordered series of maxims arranged perhaps for mnemonic purposes, like so much Rabbinic literature, but this is no more Jewish than Barnabas, which is so like the books of Proverbs.
All the symbolical exegesis of Barnabas may be of Hellenistic origin, but it was grounded deep in Judaism as well.
The Fourth Gospel could be . ascribed to a Jew of Palestine by Westcott even though there is so much mystical symbolism there.
The only difference between Barnabas and the Didache here is not between Hellenism and Judaism, it is between the quick, keen utterances of an original disorderly thinker, and the formal,
- ordered work of an uninspired compiler.
There seems no legitimate reason for denying that the '"" Two Ways "' is the original composition of Barnabas, used by the Didache.
The only reason which could be found for denying this statement is that there were passages in Barnabas evidently secondary to those in the Didache.
Streeter in J.Th%.S., 1936, refers here to Maclean.
According to Maclean, Barnabas's " Way of Light "' and " Way of Darkness "' are secondary ways of expressing the Didache's "' Way of Life" and "Way of Death,' especially as Barnabas incidentally refers in XIX, 2 to the "' Way of Death"; but it seems to me that Barnabas is the original, for it is more likely that the secondary author would alter Barnabas so as to conform to the New Testament, than that the secondary author should change from the New Testament language to this other way of expression.
In one general matter and in two particular points Maclean considers Barnabas secondary.
On page Xv of his edition he says, '' Further, the change from the singular to the plural in Did. shows that our author used an older document which had the singular ' my child,' but this mode of address is not found in Barnabas, and this older document therefore was not the Epistle.'
On Did. V, 2 he notes, " The last clause of this section is not in Barnabas, and was probably the composition of an author; but he has suddenly diverged into the plural 'my children.'
This shows
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
that he is making use of an older document which used the singular."
On VII, x he says that in the " Two Ways" the Didache uses the singular, in the rest of the writing the plural, so that in the "Two Ways" he uses a previously composed tract.
This is explained on this supposition, that Barnabas uses the singular in chapter XIX, while in the first section of chapter XX he uses abstract nouns for the various sins and in the second section he uses concrete expressions in the plural of classes of sinners, a very natural proceeding.
The Didache follows Barnabas in this where it uses Barnabas.
In I, 3-II, 1 it follows the New Testament, Justin and Hermas, in III, 1-6 a new source is incorporated bodily with its special recurring address réxvov pov, at the end of V, 2 the Didache uses this address in the plural, as the preceding words are in the plural, and in the rest of the Didache the plural of the regulations seems more natural than the singular of the moral code.
There is no need whatsoever to suppose that the whole of the "' Two Ways "' originally had réxvov pov in every clause, nor to follow
Bigg in supposing that réxvov pov is natural where an apostle addresses the reader as in A.C.O., so that in III, 1-6 the Didache is secondary to A.C.O.
The Didache follows various sources and uses their various forms of address.
He is an orderly compiler, but not a good reviser.
The two places where the Didache is said to be original and Barnabas secondary are Did. IV, 1, Barn. XIX, 9, Io, and Did. IV, 6, Barn. XIX, 1o.
These had better be written out.
Barnabas XIX, 9,10. dyamyoes ws Képnv Tod 6¢0aduod cov mdvra Tov AaAobvrd cou Tov Adyov Kupiov. pvnobjon jwépav Kplcews vuKros Kal jpuepas, Kal exlyrioes Kal" Exdornv jpepav
Ta mpdcwra TOV dylwv 7) Sia Adyou KomAY Kal Topevdpevos Ets TO TapaKad€oa Kal pedeTav cis TO Goat uxiy TO Adyw, 7} dia
TaV xeipOv oov epydon cis AUTpwow apapTiv cov.
Did. IV, 1-3.
Téxvov pov, rod Aadobyrds cou Tov Adyov Tob G08 pnobhon vuKros Kal jpepas, Tyunoers S€ adrov ws KUptov.
Sbev yap % Kupidrys AaAcirar, exe? KUpids eorw. exlyrijoets Sé Kal? Hpyépavy Ta mpdcwra TaV ayiwy, va enavamafs Tots
Adyos adr&v. od 7objces oxiopa, efpyvedoes de paxopevovs.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
IV. 6. édv éyns 81a rav xetpGv cov Sdceis AUTpwow apapTiav gov.
} Cf. Barnabas XIX, 12. od moujoes oxtopa, eipnvedoets SE paxopevous avvayaywv: ée€oporoyjon .
+ .
Did. IV, 12.
&v éxxAnoia eEopodroyijon ..
According to Maclean these passages are a good example of the originality of the Didache.
Barnabas thought that it was extravagant to say that the preacher must be remembered night and day, and so merely said, '" Remember as the apple of thine eye the preacher," using his favourite phrase, and then used "' night and day " in order to bring in his special concern, the day of judgment.
This he naturally connected with the idea of seeking out people to save them and of toiling to save oneself.
One might also add that in XIX, 12 he uses ovvayayuwv, because eipynvedaets is misused by the Didache in an active sense.
According to A. Robinson, these passages show how the Didache is secondary to the Epistle.
First of all, Barnabas naturally uses ovvayaywy to govern paxyopuevouvs.
The Didache unnaturally uses efpnvedcers aS a transitive verb, and so, being left with ovvayaywv, takes it as equivalent to & ovvaywyf and adds it to the following clause in Barnabas, and so gets ev exkAnoia e€opodoyyjon.
It may be that here we have a hint of an error of punctuation in the MS. of Barnabas used by the Didache.
In forming Did. IV, 1, A. Robinson says that Barnabas is primary, using his typical phrase ws képny offaduod.
He then goes on to mention the " day of judgment '' in which he is tremendously interested.
The Didache is not, nor does the writer like such phrases as "' the apple of your eye."
He therefore omits the reference to the day of judgment and forms a command something like that of Heb. xiii, 7, where we read, pvnpovedete THV ryovpevwv bu@v, oitwes eAdAnoav tyiv tov Adyov tod Geos.
To this he adds his typical phrase, "" Honour him as the Lord" (cf.
XI, 2). This is picked up in the curious sentence, "' Where the Lordship is spoken of there is the Lord," a probable reminiscence of the '' where two or three "' of Matt. xviii, 20, or of Isa. lviii, 9, ére Aadodvrds cou épet- *1dod md peut, or of Exod. xx, 24, €v mavti rémm ob edv emovoudow 76 dvoud pov,
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
"T will come to thee."
The "saints" are to be sought in Barnabas to help them, so they are all " the faithful," in the Didache they are to be sought for the help they can give, and so are a special class.
The Didache omits the last phrase of Barnabas about working 6a yepdv, but he is reminded of it when he comes later to use the previous section in Barnabas about holding out the hands to receive, and makes of it the difficult and incomprehensible sentence found in Did. IV, 6. There is no doubt that in this passage one of the two versions is secondary, and it seems to me that Armitage Kobinson better explains the various phenomena than does Maclean.
Naturalness is certainly on the side of Barnabas, and surely that is a sign of originality.
There seems to be no place where the Didache is more original than Barnabas, and thus there is no reason for rejecting the theory that Barnabas wrote the "' Two Ways."
It was an integral part of the writing, for Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis, II, 18) and Origen (de Principiis, III,
2,4) quote from chapters XVIII and XXI as from Barnabas, and though the Latin version omits the " Two Ways," it ends with '"' Habes interim de majestate Christi,' which seems to mark that it is a mere instalment of the whole
Epistle.
From its version of the "" Two Ways " the Didache omits much that is most characteristically Barnabean in Barnabas's version.
This is not a sign that Barnabas has added these things to the common source, but that the Didache can see Barnabas's peculiarities, and finds them unbearable.
The theory of an original '' Two Ways "' used by Barnabas, A.C. VII and the A.C.O. and other writings, leads one into a muddle.
If they are separate versions of this source, then the arrangement in A.C.O., A.C. VII and the Didache must be the arrangement in the original source.
Dr. Salmon (Dict. Chr. Biography, IV, 811) said that " the whole character of Did. makes us indisposed to think that its author was likely to have performed such a piece of literary workmanship as collecting the precepts scattered in Barnabas, digesting them into systematic order, and making to them a number of harmonious additions.'"'
The writer of the Didache was thought too uninspired to do this, but
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
the whole regular, orderly plan of the Didache seems to be the work of a competent mechanical compiler, a task for which no inspiration is needed.
In Did. VI-XVI there are no repetitions, no useless material, but it is very wooden.
This is so in IV, 1, I, 3, and various other places, where we have seen the Didache makes additions of his own.
It seems to me more likely that the Didache ordered than that any man disordered.
The logical order seems to me to be that the Epistle to Barnabas was written first, written by Barnabas, whoever he was, as a whole.
Hermas used Barnabas, the Didache used Hermas and Barnabas, the A.C.O. and the Latin Didache used Barnabas and the Didache, chiefly the latter, and A.C. VII used the Didache.
That A.C.O. used our Didache and yet omitted Did. IV, 9 ff.-V, 2 may be due to the fact that Did. IV, 9-end is derived chiefly from Eph. vi, and could well be omitted.
There is no need to postulate a mutilated copy of the primitive Jewish "Two Ways."
If any genealogical tree is needed, it is not the complicated arrangements of Schermann's Eine Elfapostelmoral.1
It could be drawn as follows :— B ue | | Schnudi A.C.O.
Lat. Did.
ALC. VII So the evidence of the relationship of the "' Two Ways " in the two documents agrees with that furnished by the points of contact between Barnabas and the Didache outside these passages.
It seems certain that the Didache is later in date than Barnabas, and uses whatever parts of that writing suited its purpose.
The date of Barnabas is important for us if we are to find the date of the Didache, for now we know that the Didache is later than Barnabas.
The date when the Epistle was written is uncertain, but it was certainly before the time of 1 Veroffentl. a.d. kivchenhist. Seminar, Mimchen, II, 2, 1903.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Clement of Alexandria, who quoted it as written by Barnabas, one of the Seventy, who preached with Paul.
It was also certainly written after Ephesians and Hebrews.
It quotes Ephesians frequently, Eph. vi, 5 in XIX, 2, iv, 2 in XIX, 3, iv, 29 in XIX, 4, etc. (cf. Armitage Robinson in J.T2.S.,
1934, pp. 135-7). The thought of the Epistle is inferior to, and does not appreciate, that of Hebrews, which deals with | the same problem, the supersession of Judaism by Christianity, but there are echoes of the language of Heb. xi, 13 in the use of ovvamodciras in XXI, 1, a word not found elsewhere in the Apostolic Fathers, and in XIX, 11, Barnabas appears to use Heb. xi, 6, where we read tots éxlnrotow adbrov pucOamoddérns yivera.
Barnabas has 6 Tod pucb0d Kadds avramodéTns.
Thus Barnabas is later than Hebrews and Ephesians, of which the date of the latter is probably c. A.D. 60-65, if it is a Pauline writing, while the date of the former is earlier than that of I Clement, which is c. A.D. 95.
Hebrews may be a work written before the full force of the Neronian persecution and after the death of Paul, for in XII, 4 we read, " Ye have not yet resisted unto blood."
These are wide limits.
Within them internal evidence points to a date between the years A.D. 70 and 132, after the date of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, mentioned in the Epistle, and before the war with Hadrian, which ended in a second destruction, not referred to in the Epistle.
Within these limits Weizsacker suggested a date A.D. 69-79, Lightfoot A.D. 70-79, Hilgenfeld A.D. 96-98,
Volkmar and Harnack A.D. 119-138.
The reasons for these dates are as follows.
In IV, 4 and 5, Barnabas writes of ten kings who shall reign and of a little king who shall rise to destroy three of these kingsin one.
This is based on a quotation from. Dan. vii, 24.
Weizsdcker reckons the ten kings as the ten Cesars from Julius to Vespasian.
This latter is the tenth, the little king who destroyed three in one, Galba, Otho and Vitellius, but the little king ought not to be one of the ten, Vespasian did not destroy the three emperors of A.D. 69, and he was never considered to be anti-Christ, as is the "little horn."
Hilgenfeld arrives at his date by saying that Domitian was the tenth emperor,
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
for Julius was never called such, and Vitellius was not recognised as emperor in Egypt.
Nerva was the little horn, who subverted the rule of the three great Flavian emperors,
Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
Vitellius and Julius were, however, always included in the list of emperors, and the Sibylline Ovacles, an Egyptian work in parts, refer to Vitellius.
Under Nerva the persecution started by Domitian ceased, so that he was always considered a friend of Christianity, not an enemy.
According to Volkmar, the tenth emperor was Domitian, his three successors, Nerva,
Trajan and Hadrian, were the three kings in one, as Nerva adopted Trajan, and Trajan adopted Hadrian.
The little horn is to be a Nero or Domitian redivivus, who is to destroy Hadrian.
This does not, however, give a good explanation of the tenth king; it does not properly explain the " three in one," nor can it be seen how Nerva could be brought low twenty years after his death.
Lightfoot's explanation is this.
He follows Weizsacker in considering Vespasian to be the tenth emperor, and Volkmar in considering the " little king "' to be the anti-Christ, a Nero Redivivus to come in the future.
The "three kings in one"' are, in his opinion, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
The latter two were very early in Domitian's reign made Cesars, all three occur on coins together, while in an extant inscription on a memorial
Vespasian's name occurs with his titles in a column between the names and titles of Titus and Domitian.
That at this time the fear of a return of a Nero was great is seen in risings made by pretenders to this honour in A.D. 80 and in A.D. 88.
The Sibylline Oracles of the year A.D. 80 attest to this fear, and so does the Ascension of Isaiah.
This '"' explanation " of the prophecy certainly seems superior to the others, but the precarious nature of the argument from the vague language of apocalyptic may be seen from the fact that others see in chapter XVI a reference to the rebuilding of the Temple and to the events of the year A.D. 132.
The date is certainly uncertain, but it is certain that the Epistle was written at Alexandria, where it is first quoted by Clement of Alexandria, and where a similar exegesis of the scripture was rampant, and that it was written at a time when there
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
was no persecution, but when a large Christian population was becoming slack.
It also gives evidence of that troubling of the mind of Christians over the nature of the debt owed by Christianity to Judaism which the writer of Hebrews and Marcion tried to solve.
There was also at the time considerable friction between Jew and Christian.
It was also written and honoured early enough to be used by Hermas at Rome and to be included in one great early MS. of the New Testament, though this latter fact might be due to its ascription to Barnabas.
Such circumstances could have existed in A.D.
130, when Hadrian ! came to Alexandria and wrote a letter to his brother-in-law Servianus about the religions of the city.
It could also have occurred much earlier.
It seems best to leave the date vague, and to say that it was written at Alexandria after a.D. 70 and before A.D. 130, probably before A.D. 100.
The Didache, then, was written subsequent to that date.
(b) Hermas and the Didache In the following places it is said that Hermas shows know- - ledge of the Didache or vice versa :— (1) Mand. II, 4-6. evdvoai S€ tiv cepvornra, ev 4% oddev iy Aes
/ > i Ly ¢ A Ve: fA > , TpocKoppd €oTw Trovypov, aAAa TravTa Opard Kat iAapa. epyalov
TO ayabov Kat €k TOV KOTTWY Gov dv 6 Geds dSidwalv cou TaowW e f / ¢ ~ \ rf i:
~ nv / A daTepovpevois didov amAds, (ea) dvordlwv, tive d@s nN TWe LH d@s. mdow didov: médow ydp 6 Beds Sidoc8a OérAeu ex Trav > "y ia € > / > df / idtwv SwpnpaTwv. ot obdv AapBavovres amrodWwaovoL Adyov ~ a ty yA sy re , ¢ \ a!
/, T@ Oe, dvati €AaBov Kat eis Ti. oF pev yap AapBdavovtes OABopevot od Sixacbjoovra, ot dé ev droxpices AapBavovres
, / € aN \ 10, at > € A Er \ tiaovow diknv.
6 ovv did0dvs GI@ds €oTw. ws yap eAaBev mapa Tod Kupiov tiv Stakoviay TeA€caL, aTADs adriy éréAccev, wnbev
1 " J have become familiar with Egypt which you praised to me...
It is fickle, uncertain, blown about by every gust of rumour.
Those who worship Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to Serapis who call themselves bishops of Christ.
There is no ruler of a synagogue there, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, a quack.
The patriarch himself, whenever he comes to Egypt, is compelled by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ'' (Vopiscus,
Vita Saturnini, 8).
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
Suaxpivwy, rive 8@ 7 7 OO. eyevero obv 7 Siakovia avrn amAds redcobeioa evdokos mapa TH Ge, 6 obv ovtws amrds Siaxovdv TO be Cyoerar.
Did. I, 5. zavti 7 airotvri oe Sidov Kai 7) Gmairer. maav yap Oéddeu SiSo08a1 6 rrarnp ex THv iSiwv xapiopdtwv. paKdptos 6 SiS0ds Kata THY evToAjv: aOGos ydp €oTw. oval TH AapBavovteel pev yap xpelav exw AapBdver tis, AI@os Era 6 dé 7) xpeiav éywy Sdoet Sixny, tvari éhaBe Kal eis tiev cvvoxh dé yevomevos eferaoOnoerat mept dv empake, Kai odK e&eAcvoeTar exeibev, péxpis 00 a70d@ Tov €oxaTov KodpavTnv.
(2) Mand. VIII, 3-5.
List of wickednesses from which we must refrain: adultery, fornication, drunkenness, evil luxury, gluttony, extravagance of wealth, boasting, haughtiness and pride, lying and evil speaking and hypocrisy, malice and blasphemy, theft, lying, robbery, false witness, covetousness, evil desire, deceit, vain-glory, pride Kai dca
TOUTOLS OpLoLd, EOTL.
Mand. VI, 1, 2: the crooked path of unrighteousness.
VI, 2: angel of unrighteousness with man and his works.
Did. V.
Way of death.
Did. III, 1: My child flee from all evil kat azo mavrds opotov adrod:
(3) Mand. XI.
Rules for judging true and false prophets. dibvxou go to false prophets : they are idolators and pavrevovTaLws Kal Ta €Ovy.
A false prophet is one év qoAdais tpud¢ais avactpedopevos . Kal pta0ods AapBavwv THs mpodytetas adrod. éxets apdotépwv t&v mpodyntav thy CwHv.
Soxipale odv ano TOv epywv Kal ths Cwis tov avOpwmov tov A€yovta éavtov mvevpatodpopov eivat:
Did. XI, 8. azo ob Tév TpdTrwv yowoOnoerat 6 pevdorrpodyrns Kal 6 mpopyTys.
12. Prophet may not ask for money. g. Prophet may not "define table"
(i.e. order lovefeast) and eat from it.
(4) Vas. III, IV, 3.
Gav ta dS0fac0F 76 dvoua Tob Beod col amekaddgOn kat aoxadugOjcerat did Tods Supdxous, Tods SvadoyeCopevous ev tais Kapdias adrdv «i dpa €orw Tabra 7) odk goTw.
Did. IV, 4. ob dubvyijoeis, wérepov eorar 7) ov.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
(5) Mand. III, 2. of obv pevddpever dberotow rév KUpwov Kal ywovrat amoorepytat tod Kupiov, py mapaddSdvres abt@ ri napakatabnkny, jv éhaBov. éAaBov yap map' adbrod medyua aifevotov.
Tobro éay pevdes droddowow, euiavay rhv évrodjy Tov Kupiov Kal éycvovto amoaTepyrat.
Did. IIT, 5. réxvov pov, pi yivov pevorns, ered) dSnyet TO pedopua eis tv KroTHY.
Now, Schaff in his Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or the Oldest Church Manual said that the Shepherd of Hermas is later than Barnabas and so than the Didache, but we have seen that Barnabas is prior to the Didache.
He also says that Hermas is an expansion of the simpler statements of the Didache.
Arnold in Zeitschrift fiir Kirchenrecht (1885) says much the same thing.
Harnack and Zahn held that the Didache depends on the Shepherd; Robinson, Muilenburg and Connolly follow them in this, as do K. Lake and Streeter.
The last two, however, holding that Did. I, 3II, 1 is an interpolation in the original Didache, consider that this passage alone depends on Hermas.
Harnack, in the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia (1909), since he held then that the Didache I-VI is a recension of the original "' Two
Ways," parallel to, and not dependent on, Barnabas nor connected with other forms of the "' Two Ways," said that it may not be safely affirmed that the Didache had Hermas as a source in view of the variations in the passages quoted above in the various recensions of the '' Two Ways."
The opposite view was, he said, certainly excluded.
The following general characteristics point to the priority of the Shepherd:
(i) The Didache is shorter, and we have seen that the Didache abridges its source when it uses
Barnabas, and shall see the same thing in the case of the use of the New Testament.
(ii) In the case of Did. I, 5, Hermas omits many of the Gospel references of the Didache, and where Hermas employs the New Testament the Didache accentuates the borrowing.
(iii) In each case, and especially in Did. I, 5, Hermas's statements are much more suited to their context than in the Didache.
(iv) Did. I, 3-6 is a collection of extracts from various sources, the New Testament, apocryphal writings and, as we shall see later, Justin
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
Martyr.
It is likely, then, that I, 5 is a quotation from some source, and that is probably Hermas.
In the passage quoted above it will be seen that in the case of 2, 3, 4 and § contact is not specially close.
The parallel forms of the '' Way of Death" are not strikingly similar to one another.
Nor are the rules for discerning between true and false prophets so like one another as to imply that Hermas borrows from the Didache or vice versa.
In 5 the Didache is quoting from an unknown document, Did. III, 1-6 being, as we shall see, an extract from this.
Clement of Alexandria quotes from the Didache or from its source, ascribing to it the authority of ypa¢7j.
Prov. xxx, 6-9 reads, "' Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Two things have I asked of thee: deny me them not before I die: remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and use profanely the name of my God."
This may explain Hermas and the Didache.
Hermas is more natural than the Didache, and so may be prior to the Didache or its source, but we cannot be certain that there is any connection.
In 4, Barnabas and the Didache are alike.
Both offer no explanation of their saying.
We cannot, therefore, decide whether Hermas has any connection with either.
When we come to the passages in I we find that there is a definite connection between the two, and A. Robinson has carefully considered the two passages in Barnabas, Hermas and the Didache, pp. 53-56, 34-37.
The argument of Hermas's second Mandate runs as follows:
Hermas starts with a demand for simplicity and orders his hearers to refrain from evil speaking.
In his first demand he used I Cor. xiv, 20, "In malice be babes."
He does not, however, quote this.
"Malice" is hidden under the words " without malice."
"Be babes "' he changes to kal éon ws Ta vijmia.
The second command is derived from James iv, 11; Matt. v, 235 James ii, 10, iii, 8, i, 8. From the first comes, " Speak evil of no one," from the second, "' You yourself also will have something against your brother," from the third évoyos,
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
from the fourth and fifth dxardorarov.
This very peculiar method of quoting Scripture, this " strange, elusive method "' of Hermas, is noted by C. Taylor.
Hermas will even say dyyeAia ayaby ts for edayyédvov (Vis. III, 13, 2). So here in these single words we may see reminiscences of New
Testament passages.
So we come to the passage quoted above and find in the first instance év8dw, which with dé@apaia or the "' new man " or "' the armour of righteousness "' or some such phrase is common in Pauline writings, as is mpécxoupa and its cognate words. oeuvdrys occurs in I Tim: ii, 2 with a reference to a quiet, peaceful life. fapés occurs only in the New Testament in II Cor. ix, 7, "' The Lord loves a cheerful giver,' and the next section in Hermas deals with giving.
"Work that which is good,' almost certainly refers to Eph. iv, 28, waddov S€ Komarw epyalopevos TO ayalov tais
XEpow, va éxn perad8dvar TH yxpetav 2xovrr, but he adds to this a reference to how one should give.
'Give simply' may be a reference to Rom. xii, 8, " He that giveth, let him do it ev amAdrntt," or more probably to James i, 5, where we read,
Tob dibdvrTos Geob maow amAds Kal pu) dverdiLovros. Here alone is amA@s used in the New Testament.
To this Hermas adds a probable reference to Matt. v, 45, Luke vi, 30, 35-7.
He finds Swpyyara in James i, 7 of God's good gifts.
The regulations about discriminate giving and proper receiving are probably Hermas's own work, following naturally as they do from the rules about giving.
The reference to a " ministry '' is probably derived from Col. iv, 17, BAéme rH duakoviay nv tapéAaBes ev Kupiw, va adrihy mAnpots.
Now, when the Didache comes to the passage quoted, it starts from a different standpoint.
Hermas starts from a hint on giving in II Cor. and from Ephesians and James, the Didache starts from the Sermon on the Mount.
The writer of the Didache says, '' To every man that asketh of thee give and ask not back,'' derived from Luke vi, 30.1.
Then he uses something like Hermas's reference to James i, 5.
This 1 In Die Spriiche Jesu Ropes notes how Matt. v, 45, Luke vi, 30 and the " agraphon "' 7di0v dvddvar 7} AapwBdvery are combined in the Didache, the Didascalia, the Didascalia Petri, etc.
The various writings in their conflation of the passages incline now to the one, now to the other source.
So here the Didache is closer to Luke vi, 30.
' THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
is apposite in Hermas, but in the: Didache it is an intrusion, for it has nothing to do with asking, which is what the preceding passage deals with.
Moreover, the Didache says marip, not beds.
This is natural, for it is using material from the Sermon.
It also says yapeoudrwr, not the Swpnyarwv of James.
In the New Testament we read in I Cor. vii, 7, éxaoros iSiov exer xdpiopa éx Oeod, the only place where iSvov xdépuoa occurs.
As we shall see, the Didache employs I Corinthians very often, and so may do so here.
The Didache now has a blessing on those who give according to the commandment 1 and a woe on those who receive.
This is a very strained paradox, modelled, it seems, on the Blessings and Woes of Luke vi, 20 ff., Luke's version of the Beatitudes.
The '' for he shall be guiltless"' is almost certainly from Hermas, for a0@os occurs in the New Testament only of Jesus' death and Pilate's washing his hands.
The reference to punishment and the uttermost farthing is probably derived from Matt. v, 26. The Didache's ddceu dtxnv is very unusual Greek.
One may have ddéce Adyov or tice. dixnv, as has Hermas.
May not the Didache be an unintelligent combination of these two?
Finally in Did. I, 6 is added a quotation about letting alms sweat into one's hands before giving, which contradicts all that has been said about giving.
Now, it seems to me that in this passage the Didache employs Hermas.
Some connection is certain because of the reference to God's cheerful giving, because of the use of afos of the giver, and because of the combination in both of James and the Sermon on the Mount.
To me Hermas seems to be the original, because of the logical flowing construction of the passage.
The Didache employs Hermas, attaching it to an unsuitable introduction, altering words here and there and adding an incomprehensible
'' Woe."
The Didache certainly seems to be secondary.
It is secondary in all the rest of the '' Interpolation," and so probably ere.
1 " Give xara tiv évtoAny'"' occurs also in Did. XIII, 7.
There it may refer to Old Testament commands as to first-fruits, but here we may note that Hermas's Mandates are évroAai.
Does the Didache refer to the Mandate in this word?
Of that we cannot be certain.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
In one place in this passage Hermas, Barnabas and the Didache seem to be closely related.
Hermas says, p1) dora lw tive ds 7 Tim pr) S@s.
Barn. XIX, 11 says, od duordoets Sodvar otdé€ Sid0ds yoyyvoers.
James i, 5, which Hermas employs, has kai pix) dvetdiLovros.
The Didache has this in IV, 7, not in I, 5.
If Hermas is here the secondary, he uses the Did. IV, 7 and I, 5, or Did. I, 5 and Barn. XIX, 11.
This does not seem very likely.
It seems probable that the Didache employs Hermas and leaves out the passage like that in Barnabas, knowing it to come later in his '' Two
Ways."
Barnabas, we have seen, wrote his '"' Two Ways," so Hermas used Barnabas, and the Didache used both.
This order, Barnabas, Hermas, the Didache, is confirmed by _ the other points of contact between Barnabas and Hermas.
These are Barn. XIX, 2 and Hermas, Mand. I and II, Barn. XVIII and Mand. VI, 1 and 2, and Barn. IX, 9 and Vis. III, 4, 3.
In the first of these Barnabas and Hermas agree in putting in succession commands for belief and simplicity.
In the second both refer to the "" Two Ways."
In Hermas this is an unnecessary intrusion.
Hermas also, like Barnabas and the Latin Didache, refers to the angels set over these 'Two Ways."
He does not follow the Didache in the Didache's peculiarity of calling the '' Ways " those of '"' Life" and '"' Death."
We have seen that the Latin Didache is an adaptation of the Greek in which knowledge of Barnabas is shown.
So we may well suppose that here Hermas knows Barnabas, and not the Didache.
In the third case Barnabas, at the end of his allegorising of the story of Abraham's circumcising his servants, says that no man has heard a more excellent lesson from him, but '"' I know that you are worthy."'
In Hermas the Lady, when Hermas asks for an explanation of the parable of the building of the Tower, says, '' It is not because you are more worthy than others that a revelation should be made to you... ."
There may be contact here between the two writings, but it is more doubtful than in the other cases.
The Didache is therefore later than the Shepherd of Hermas and the Shepherd is later than Barnabas.
In this we assume that the Greek Didache includes Did.
I, 3-II, 1 as an
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
authentic part of the original writing, and that the " Two Ways" are an integral part of Barnabas.
We have seen in the first section of this chapter what is the date of Barnabas.
It now remains-for us to see what is the date of Hermas.
The Muratorian Canon writes of Hermas, "Pastorem vero nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe
Roma Herma conscripsit sedente cathedram urbis Romae ecclesiae Pio eps fratre ejus, et ideo legi eum quidem oportet se publicare vero in ecclesia populo neque inter prophetas completum numero neque inter apostolos in finem temporum potest."
Pius was Pope about the year A.D.
148.
In Vis. II, iv, 3, Hermas writes, ypdies obv Svo0 BiBAapisva kat mépipers €v KXjperre cal év parti. mépiper obv KAjyns eis tas Ew méAcis exelvw yap emurérpanra.
The suggestion is that the Clement here referred to is the author of the First Epistle of Clement, who, it seems, was in a position of authority at the end of the first century.
It would be impossible that this same person should be in authority in
A.D. 148.
Harnack supposed that the Clement referred to by Hermas lived c, A.D. 145 and wrote II Clement.
This was taken to the East as a work of Clement, and was naturally attributed te the great bishop.
We may note that the Clement who wrote I Clement and the one referred to by Hermas have the same task, to write to distant Churches.
Harnack's solution may be possible, but the invention of figures of the same name, e.g. Presbyter John, the John of Jerusalem and the Apostle John, seems to mean using imagination to solve historical problems.
Some other solution is more probable.
Irenzus+ and Clement of Alexandria quote Hermas with deference, the former referring to the '"' Shepherd" as "Scripture."
He is so sparing in the use of that term that we may well suppose that he would not be likely to use it of a document barely thirty years old.
The Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas, as has been shown by Armitage Robinson, are full of reminiscences of the Shepherd.
In the Codex 1 Tt is interesting to note that Irenzus says that the Apocalypse was written " almost in our own times," when he means seventy or eighty years before, while the Muratorianum says that Hermas wrote " recently."
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Sinatticus Barnabas and Hermas are placed in the same MS. with the canonical books.
Athanasius in his Festal Letter 1 quoted below says that Hermas was useful for the instruction of catechumens.
We may note that in one place he quotes from the Shepherd as if it did not include the Visions.
Hippolytus and Tertullian seem to have attacked the Shepherd.
The De Pudicitia of Tertullian calls the Shepherd the "Shepherd of the adulterers," classed " by every council of your churches among false and apocryphal books."
In his De Ovatione, however, Tertullian does not attack Hermas in this way.
The low opinion of the Shepherd shown in the Muratorian Canon may be due to the connection of that writing with Hippolytus or his circle, a connection which Lightfoot held to be proved, but which Harnack denied.
Hippolytus could not stand Montanism and Hermas was a prophet and a friend of prophets.
Besides, Hippolytus and Tertullian _ could not abide the laxity which allowed even one repentance for all sins, as does Hermas.
The late date ascribed to Hermas may be compared with Tertullian's treatment of the Acts of Paul, which he attacked as of recent composition.
The newness of the writing may be stressed in order to undermine its authority.
Moreover, the Latin of the Muratorianum is probably a translation from the Greek, and may in the passage above be a mistranslation of '' Hermas, whose brother Pius sat on the seat.""
The Muratorianum is, however, a Roman document of the latter part of the second century.
It seems probable, then, that it would be well acquainted with the history of the writings of its own
Church.
If, then, we hold that Hermas? and Pius were brothers and that the Shepherd was written when Pius was bishop, and yet that the Clement referred to in Vs. II was the author of I Clement, what solution can we give of the problem of the divergence of dates?
It seems probable that the right solution is that the writing of the Shepherd was spread over thirty or forty years.
This is not an impossibility.
The ae P65:
; 2 Streeter, P.C., 209, says that Hermas may have been a foundling slave and then the identity of his brother would not be likely to have been known.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
Visions are separate from the rest of the book, for the Lady of the Visions gives way to the Shepherd of the Similitudes and Mandates.
We are told that Athanasius knew the Shepherd without the' Viszons.
If Clement was alive when. the Visions were written, and then Hermas was a man of about thirty or forty—he could be such with a wife and family—it would be possible for him to have had continual visions over thirty or forty years more till the time when his brother was bishop.
There is no impossibility in Pius being brother of a slave, for ex-slaves could and did rise to great heights in the Roman Empire.
Hermas could have been very young when bought by Rhoda, and then see her '' many years after '' when the Visions began.
This seems to be the right, explanation of the history of the Shepherd—that it was written over a long period of years from the time of Clement c. A.D. 100 to the time of Pius c. A.D. 140-150.
The Visions reflect a situation like that of J Clement.
There has been fierce persecution recently, cf. Vis. III, ii. We hear of bishops, teachers and deacons, cf. Vis. III, v.
The whole situation of the Visions is like that of I Clement.
The latter pact of the book varies from this.
The stress on the necessity of repentance shows that the Church needed pulling together.
This is probably the state of Rome when heretics like Marcion started coming, and money became more abundant in the Church.
This evidence is corroborated by the use made by Hermas of Barnabas, the Epistle of James and the Gospels.
Only in one very doubtful place in the Vistons does it seem that Hermas uses Barnabas, but elsewhere it is certain that he does make use of the Epistle of Barnabas.
Hermas is very vague in his use of Scripture.
In Vis. III he uses the parable of the couch on four legs firmly established, as the world is established out of four elements
This is very like Irenzeus's explanation of the necessity of four Gospels.
In Mandate II, as we have already seen Hermas * makes considerable use of the Epistle of St. ee
1 Cf. Streeter, P.C., 190.
James was n cond :
» P.C., : ot ref tov1anum nor was it accepted as canonical in the Woot allan er a the East in the Peshitta till a.p. 411-435. eee
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
He uses James i. 27, "' to visit widows and orphans in their affliction," in Sim. I, "therefore instead of fields buy ye souls that are afflicted, as each is able, and visit widows and orphans.'
This use of the four Gospels as a special collection of Scriptures and of the Epistle of James favours a fairly late date.
James? is first mentioned by name by Origen, though it was probably used by Irenzus and Tertullian.
Hermas must have been written late enough to have used Scripture in this way—the allusive method probably being a mark of his strange prophetic manner—and early enough for him to be discussed by the Muratorianum as an honoured book.
He was new enough for Tertullian to attack his work.
Moreover, Athanasius refers to Hermas with honour and the Codex Sinaiticus includes both Barnabas and Hermas.
The safest conclusion is probably that Hermas was written between the years A.D. 100 and 150, perhaps in instalments and not all at one time.
The prophetic claims of the book _ would ensure its wide acceptance, but the allowances it makes to human frailty would cause it to be rejected by Puritans inside or outside the Montanist movement.
Thus the Didache is later than Hermas, which is later than Barnabas.
From Barnabas the Didache derives the greater part of its "" Two Ways," from Hermas a few additions to it.
In date, then, the Didache must be later than
A.D. 150.
1 Origen mentions it by name in Com. Joh., tome XIV, 6 as attributed to the Apostle.
It is not quoted as his before Dionysius of Alexandria.
"a10Q010L 1AM Y>L
DH OLQOL £317310L doaroy
'aaag Dy 2499)uy> aM dou
-93a0Q ddA
-sil.podioow | un sgonojea0g aoaanl oyaog a0L 10H *310Q1Q 14400110 (4 ILADL ida DLavt 'A1310L "av3og sod agin
"s1oaztloag S10L 41344104 OL 3g SIy 'sora am2ao jp adliirs AM
dana 3903Xa9
1» 'aarla Saoa ->1l mdpip» SQoL 319240ya3 10m 'sora SpLagoonl SQ0L sLpu0dp yO "'acona amdpX > ame dou >9039Xa3 "mAay ayrla 3Q org,
"A10N010LL
OLAOL roadou
dod you {319310 daodmy
'Sora Spiamundn Saor sipuvkp
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
'sM 9SINO Jey} WI9q} sseqq 0} pue 'sn 03eY 3eY} Woy} sAcT 0} pur 'soTuINUS INO OF UsAS Aeid 0} sn poutofue oy ueyM 'Op 0} sn 3Y48ne} pIoT pure }sIIYD IMO se 'UoUT [Te IOF pue 'noA roy Aerd sn fo [Te oy "EE1 ansoqwpig oreduiog "AX 'J 'jo¢dp 'urysn{ BAe ith Maks Akal tt Oo a oh cad SDL S19 aoo taaoon aya ipo -mdQy, -m1ld1> 3Q anoLnoL dou 10» PYYP 'alizapdgom "Aoi X.03
AOL oun go SidXan "a3gyam>
10.19003Y259
"190 yo» '930d
Ap idan 1.130lp 001959 Soa -arl aad ag liXoano a> .7L
10% agvye
9D A'7 aif
"amX
an130X 'Wal 2@
.10.L02 Sow gD 'sat nang roy amX2 an93dX dod daar!
1Laoang nl Dy OL 7D20 A1L03 dod 50m
aly onas ales DLO» S20g2g ° soidpyor 'am pr ordoX
AML yD duuouo
9.00919
dod 10D 3.190
D un 1D 20Q1Q
quago1r0 OL qwaDus
"19.00ANQ
dod agno 139190) is '00
OLD SrL lig vy ax av
1X aot 1»
S0Q boul aorLpn
OL sot Udp a> 02g QoLaD 'aon ahve a> aonyyrl S1L
Uoasdoddn ap> -SoIsy pt ling 10» 'aluyyD 'alu 10m
aopsdzo "oaod
a01$3Q alt
nrlorupd ce
Sob ap am rriag 1b
12071
Dy AMxIndDO AML aoXaun *aodgX > 31333 Xa0 10» 'sonia svtaaoorl SaoL sLpuDddD 2Q sprla $ a10Q010u OLQD OL lage t DL 10m aX a0 'Soa SoLam undp Saoz azpuvdv ap "snd pX dod D10L .sort Q am1ao% -M1Q ame doug 3Q ausnsiola 'aml a am dgX
AML daua'
39.09X -a300du 10» aya "saoazrim dni» SeoL 31134 oy
tap a1L03 UXveig k amdoy ams
aminor € 'I 'pid soLam undp Saor 10ymLdon p
dvd wom {a7L02 SidpX arrie v10u 'sonia Sosamundn Snot ain u0dp 73 mM
'"SmI0TIO SIOLAD 3113102
siaTla you "10 dpa yo aina
a10010L DA2 >L3¥329 SMQDH OH
aL» ll PO DL SoLdodi0 QoL ou 10m '20979 30 quagoLr LAD Lb *slinnyo ll pamuXx AOL 10m aorzp1!? OL aon So.1aod1D aon ou wy 'albyyp alt you 2Xadpu paodv10 alt 143 30 JLdoLuaLr "OL 'soda amLaojnsdl.u> AL aan 3909X-¢ az00du 'airla Saoa -orl mdvLom Saor 9.119A oya> 'sonia arogooi § S10L 311310 SMYOm famrla SaodpX>s Saor arpuodv +A10N0NOMD SOL MmAdY ana yD aLl973dDQ aD> 71D
*A100010LL
O.LAD ot y0yMLd01 10 dod Mm {A703 Sid pX aya DI0L 'sonla Sp1aao -ronogokn snot ailioLogodn ap> 1H "a10MLvhD SaoLaD 3903032 YH 'Sayou apna Sogo o ™mL02 10»
-SPLAOPMLY
ILL D masgirl 313734DQ 1H 3113910 -opndn wou acmra SaodgXa SdoL sLpuvdnalyy{ D02 pL om" py -0D Dar 'arnnoFIADe Sioymidon & roymsdon p10» | a1L03 SidDvX agra Dion 'arsgvy a13991Ly> ap dou "Snodluaow yom SaoLordoXp SQOL 13 A1Lo> SoLoludX Soran 110 aoLowpa 1030 'Ze 'TA OyNT
apolasd SMiL0 sora AML "494 m1g AOL daua 3902Xaz00du yoy 'aoa saodgX 3 SQOL LDU ~vhp 'ala MAY 29 @ mAs "a00 aodgX > aol sokorl 1D» noo aojoly u 04 si0l.uvdp ipgedda
3LD000% Ff, 'slip vdi00"D unl 19p0001a0Q Q00 OLD DLAOY>Q a0L WM
*S0Q 30 I1LA90L10
OL ong goLan lanl shown "az aon r0nsdoddD 30 S1L00 "wm «dO1L =p OL wy 100 Sopp 'aa oy aoo "pac 1X aoL 'rom mak pidy 100 ey OL wm ayy als 70m L100 dopadLo 'paodn190 401339 ale S23 ragqund 30 S1L00 YD .odl.aou @+ maltortap irl aqrla mA 3Q mda "S0LA0Q0 aD DLA9QO JOH 'aonynggo 1 LAD 'aon -vogpo .ig2dd2 119 3200004 fy, Face 3 ' 519X3 aogorl DajL 'sorta SDLADE -oAn "saoL stlolundD 'dvd aD *SAOHIQD 1A SAOIHIQ 1d aX adg you Saogodv you Saodiaou 1u9 IYY2LDAD BOLQD aowl a04 1L0 'sioapdao a3 aot ama Sodiou nor
£4100010L OLAD OL 1041499
10 wm 1X0 {311310 a0001daL aL Saoaon amrla SAoPy2Qn Seor dpolopuon ap> YH { d10Q01I0" oLap
OL wADY>L
9 70 10% 1Xg0 "gE 'a "79°
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
(c) The Didache and other Writings It has been shown that the writer of the Didache employs
(1) Barnabas, (2) Hermas, (3) the New Testament and (4) the unknown source of Did. I, 6 and III, 1-6 in compiling his book.
We have also seen that the so-called " Christian Interpolation '' in I, 30-II, x is a true part of the Didache.
In this section Dom Gregory Dix thought he saw a quotation from the harmony of the Gospels compiled by Tatian.
In Did. I, 4 édv ris cor 86...
I, 5, Kal ur) amatrer there is a conflation of Matt. v, 39 ff. and Luke vi, 29 ff. very like
Tatian's harmony of these passages.
Tatian and the Didache differ because (1) the Didache follows Matthew in adding defidv before ovaydva, while Tatian follows Luke in omitting it, and (2) the Didache follows Luke in the natural order iudriov xvtHva, while Tatian follows Matthew with the -teverse.
The Didache and Tatian thus seem to be parallel and unconnected harmonies of the same passage.
In Justin, Afol. I, 15 there is a somewhat similar harmony.
Here Matt. v, 38 ff. and Luke vi, 27 ff. seem to be conflated just as in Did. I, 3-6.
When the passages are written out in parallel columns, the similarities will be seen.
Justin has none of the peculiarities of the Didache, vnorevere trép .. ., Kal obx e€ere €xOpdv, or Kai €on TéAevos.
It is therefore unlikely that Justin used the Didache.
The Didache has "' bless those who curse you,"' "' love those who hate you,"' " pray for your enemies '' and "' fast for those who persecute you.'
Justin has "' pray for your enemies,"' "' love those who hate you,"
" bless those who curse you,'' and "' pray for those who treat you despitefully."'
Matthew has "'love your enemies,"
"pray for those who persecute you,'"'
Luke has " love your enemies,' ''do good to those who hate you,"' "' bless those who curse you,"' and "' pray for those who treat you despitefully.'
Thus Justin and the Didache agree in putting "pray for your enemies '' and "' love those who hate you."'
The latter is the natural contrast, love and hate, but it cannot be by chance that both Justin and the Didache take the "love '' from before '' your enemies'' and replace it by
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
"pray for.''
Justin repeats " pray for '' with " those who treat you despitefully,'' as does Luke, but the Didache now uses the r@v Siwxdvtwv of Matthew and replaces "' pray for "' with 'fast for.''
This '' fast for'' is unique.
It may be due to the fact that the writer read Ps. xxxv, 13, "' But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth:
I afflicted my soul with fasting.''
The "' they "' of the Psalmist refers to unrighteous witnesses.
The writer of the Didache was also probably led to write "' fast for '' by the frequent combination of prayer and fasting in the New Testament, e.g. Matt. xvii, 21, '' This sort comes not out save by prayer and fasting,'' Mark ix, 29, v, 1.
These peculiarities of the Didache in its conflation of Matthew and Luke seem to be due to the influence of Justin.
The Didache tried to escape the repetition of '' pray for.''
C. Taylor, on other grounds, tried to prove that Justin depended on the Didache, but with very little success.
In the First Apology Justin says, Aatpevaers e€ GAns Tis KapSias gov kai e€ Ans THs iaxyvos cov KUpiov Tov TojcavTd oe.
The description applied to the Lord is the same as is found in Did.
In Justin, Apol. I, 12, we read, ywdoxwv mopevecOar én aiwviay Sud 7upds Katadixny, which is like Did. XVI, 5: rére n&et i Kriows TOv dvOpdirwv eis Tiv m3pwow THs SoKiacias. The destruction of the world by fire is again mentioned in A pol. I, 20, where the Sibyllines are quoted.
In A fol. I, 16 Justin refers to the Gospel prophecy of the coming of wolvesin sheep's clothing at the end, as does Did. XVI, 3, though there the meaning is different.
In the chapters of the First Apology on baptism and the eucharist, Justin uses language like that of the Didache, especially when he commands that other people should fast with the person to be baptised.
However, except in chapter XV of the First Apology and in chapter XVI there is no certain evidence whether the Didache uses
Justin or vice versa, or whether the points of contact are no more than mere resemblances.
If, however, the Didache in the '' Christian Interpolation '' uses Justin, Apol. I, 15 and follows Justin in its harmony of the Gospels, then it may be that elsewhere the Didache uses Justin.
It may be possible, then, to follow C. Taylor in explaining Did. XI,
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
TI, from Justin, Dial. 94, of a sinful action done by Moses in making an image to save the people.
Similarly Did. XVI, 5 about those '' who are saved by the curse'' might be explained from Justin, Dial. 32, 110 of the scapegoat.
In neither of these cases, however, is it certain that Justin gives the true clue to the meaning.
We may, however, assume from the passages referred to above that the Didache employs the writings of Justin Martyr.
In many places the Didache is referred to by name.
We read in Eusebius, H.F. III, xxv, 4, év rots vd0ous KaTateTaxOu Kat tv [lavAov Hpagewv 4 ypadi 6 te Aeyopevos Loum Kat 7
*Aroxdduyis Ilérpov Kat mpos rovrous 7 depouevn Bapvafa emioToAn Kal THY atooToAwy at Aeyopevar Atdayal ere te, ods ednv, 7 "lwavvov "AzoxdAvyus, ef davein:
Nicephorus Callisti, H.E. II, 46, repeats these words of Eusebius.
Rufinus, when he translated Eusebius, speaks of the "' Doctrina,'' not Doctrine. In his In Symb. Apost. 39 Rufinus says, '' In Novo vero Testamento libellus qui dicitur Pastoris sive Herme,
(et is) qui appelatur Duz Viz vel Judicium secundum Petrum.
Que omnia legi quidem in ecclesiis voluerunt, non tamen proferri ad auctoritatem ex his fidei confirmandam."
This we will discuss later.
Athanasius, in his Festal Letter 39, written at Easter « 367, wrote, 'Eoti kat érepa BiBAia .
. od Kavorifdueva per, retuTwpeva S€ Tapa TOV TaTépwr avaywwoKeabat Tots apre mpocepxopevots Kat Bovdopevors Karnxeta0an Tov ris ebocBetlas
Aéyov: Logia Noropdvros Kal Logia Lipax Kai "EoOnp Kat *Tovdi0 Kat TwBias cai Avsayy Kadovpevn tav drroaréAwy Kat 6
Tlouuyv. Matthaeus Blastares (c. 1335) quotes this with the note, ravrnv S€ Kai Extn advodos HOEryGEV, ws Sed7jAwTar, thus confusing the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions.
Johannes Zonaras (0b. 1120), in his commentary on Athanasius's Festal Letter, makes the same mistake.
A Synopsis Sancte Scripture (Migne, P.G. XXVIII, 431) attributed falsely to Athanasius runs, Tis véas maAw diaOnKyns avrTireyoueva, Taira Ilepiodoe Ilérpou
. Avdayy arroordAwy, KAnp- &ria. e& dv peredpdobnoav exrcyévra 7a aAnbéorepa Kal
Oedmvevota.
Tatra Td dvaywwoKdoueva.
In the Stichometry attributed to Nicephorus (c. 850) we
'THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
read, "Oca rhs véas Siabjnnns dmoxpuda: a' Ieptodos IavAov OTL. y's B' Ilepiodos Tlérpov orixy.
By'...
Aday7 GmooToAwy aTix. ot. «+ In a catalogue of the sixty Canonical Books of the sixth century, edited by Cotelerius Patr. apost.
(1724), I, 197; Zahn, Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, II, 290, and Funk, Theologische Quartalschrift, 1895, P527, is the following list:
Kat éca 2éw rav &': a' Logia LoAopAvros, B' Xodia Aipax ..
« u€' Tleptodou Kat Avdaxal trav dmooréAwv.
Anastasius of Sinai (0b. 599), in a list of apocryphal writings found at the end of his Questiones, refers to Ilepiodor trav amooToAwv.
Jerome refers to a '' Due Vie '' and a" Judicium Petri?
We may compare this with Rufinus's translation of Eus., H.E. Ill, xxv, and the passage in his commentary on the Creed.
The question remains as to whether they refer to our Didache.
'Due Viz '' could well be the title of the Latin version of the Didache, which, as we have it at present, does not deal with the Church Order of Did. VII-XVI.
The " Duz Vie '' might be any of the documents which contain. the moral code of the '' Two Ways," but it is difficult to see what is meant by the '' Judicium secundum Petri.''
In Il Peter there is a reference to the '"' Two Ways,"' while in the Apostolic Church Order Peter is the chief apostle.
Perhaps the name could be applied to the "' Preaching of Peter,'' but on the whole we must leave it undecided as to what Rufinus and Jerome refer.
We may note that the title of the Latin MS. of the Didache is '' De Doctrina apostolorum,"' and that for the plural in Eusebius Rufinus puts " Doctrina.''
It is probable that Jerome and Rufinus knew at least part of the Didache, but not very well.
The question of the extent of the Didache known to Nicephorus and Athanasius is difficult.
The proportions of the various writings to one another in length is wrong in Nicephorus's Stichometry if a ortyos is a fixed length.
We cannot therefore tell how long his Didache was.
Some say that the first six chapters with the last would make up ov'arixou, some the whole book, some only the '' Two Ways."
Cotterill, writing in the Scottish Church Review in 1884, thought that the number of lines in the Bryennius MS. of the
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Didache agreed so closely with that given by Nicephorus that the Didache must be a forgery made to measure, for Nicephorus's numbers are all wrong, and the " forger'' of the Didache agrees with him.
With regard to Athanasius's reference, it is said that only the '"' Two Ways'' could be said to be of any use for converts who wished to be instructed in the word of piety.
Thus it is said that Athanasius knew only the first six chapters of the Didache, and it is said that his knowledge of the Shepherd of Hermas shows us the same phenomenon.
He quotes from this as if the Shepherd. did not include the Visions.
There is a good deal of evidence for the theory that the Shepherd was written at various times over a period of nearly fifty years, and there even exists now the Michigan Papyrus, which contains the Shepherd without Vis. I-IV, but there is no other evidence for its existence otherwise than complete.
Moreover, even if we do not think the latter part of the Didache useful for _ the instruction of catechumens, yet Athanasius in de Virginitate quotes from chapter IX of the Didache.
This book has been proved by von der Goltz to be the work of Athanasius.
Moreover, the Syntagma Doctrine, formerly thought to be falsely ascribed to Athanasius, and now recognised as genuine, quotes from the '' Two Ways," and has references to other parts of the Didache.
Thus we may be certain that Athanasius knew all of the Didache as we have it in Bryennius's MS.
Evidence quoted in discussing the text of the Didache will show us where and when the Didache was known.
The MS. discovered by Bryennius is dated A.D. 1056, and seems to be a Byzantine work.
The papyrus discovered at Oxyrhynchus is an Egyptian work of the fourth century.
The Georgian translation is probably the work of the first quarter of the fifth century.
The Latin, according to Wohleb, Die lateinische U bersetzung der Didache, is to be dated in the third century, about the time of Cyprian, and is probably of African origin.
The Coptic and Ethiopic extracts show that the Didache was known in Egypt during the fifth century.
With one third-century document ! the Didache has very 1 Cf, Connolly, J.Th.S. XXIV, 148 ff.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
close contacts, and that is with the Didascalia.
The following table will show the parallel passages arranged in columns :
DIDASCALIA
DIDACHE I. Did.
I, 3. Now the teaching of these words is this: Bless those that curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those that persecute you. For what credit isit to youif you love those that love you?
Do not even the heathen do the same?
But, for your part, love those that hate you and YOU WILL HAVE NO ENEMY.
Didascalia I, 2,3.
And in the Gospel also it is written again:
Bless them that curse you.
And to them that do you evil, do not you evil; and do good to them that hate you, and be patient and endure, for the Scripture saith : '' Thou shalt not say :
I will render to mine enemy evil, even as he hath done to me: but be patient, and the Lord will be thy helper, and will bring recompense upon him that doeth the evil.'
And again he saith in the Gospel:
'' Love them that hate you and pray for them that curse you, AND YE
SHALL HAVE NO ENEMY."
IL Did-I,.- 5:
Give 'to everyone that asks thee, and do not refuse, for the Father's will is that we give to all from the gifts we have received.
Blessed is he that gives according to the mandate: for he is innocent.
Wok To
HIM WHO RECEIVES;
for if any man receive alms under pressure of need he is innocent; but he who receives without need SHALL BE TRIED AS TO WHY HE TOOK ITand for what, and being in prison he shall be examined as to his deeds, and he shall not come out thence till he pay the last farthing.
Didascalia IV, 3:
For WOE FROM
GOD TO THEM
that have, and RECEIVE IN FALSEHOOD (or are able to help themselves and yet receive); for every one of those who receive SHALL GIVE AN account to the Lord God in the day of judgment as TO WHY HE received. Ifa man has received an account of a fatherless childhood, or on account of indigence in old age, Or On account of infirmity and sickness, or on account of the rearing of children he shall be praised ; for he is esteemed as the altar of God, therefore shall he be honoured of God.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
For he did not receive idly ; because he was praying diligently and unremittingly at all times for those who give; for his prayer which is his strength he offered as his payment.
These then who are such shall be declared blessed by God in the life everlasting.
III. Didache II, 4. Thou shalt not be DOUBLE-MINDED nor DOUBLE-TONGUED.
Didascalia II, 6, 1.
. And let him (the Bishop) not be
DOUBLE-MINDED nor DOUBLE-
TONGUED.
IV. Didache III, 7, 8.
But be THOU MEEK FOR THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH; be thou long-suffering, and merciful and guileless, and quiet, and good, and ever FEARING THE WORDS
WHICH THOU HAST HEARD.
Didascalia II, 1,5. Wherefore even though he be young, yet let him be meek and fearful and quiet; for the Lord God said in Isaiah :
On whom shall I look and take pleasure in him, but on the quiet and meek, THAT
TREMBLETH AT MY WORDS?
And in the Gospel also He spoke thus:
BLESSED ARE
THE MEEK, FOR THEY SHALL
INHERIT THE EARTH.
V. Didache VIII.
Wednesday and Friday fasts.
Didascalia V, 14, 18-21.
Wednesday and Friday fasts.
BuT FAST NOT AFTER THE
CUSTOM OF THE FORMER PEOPLE, but according to the new testament which I have appointed you.
LET NOT YOUR FASTS
WITH THE HYPOCRITES.
VES Didache "2ZXIII, 3.
Therefore thou shalt take the first-fruit of the produce . . . and shalt give them as the first-fruits to the prophets, for they are your high priests.
Didascalia II, 26, r and 2.
First-fruits, etc., are to be given to the Bishops, for they are your high priests; but the priests and Levites now are the presbyters and deacons, and the orphans and widows: but the Levite and high priest is the bishop.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
He is minister of the word and mediator; but to youa teacher, and your father after God, who begot you through the water.
VII. Didache XVI, 6.
Didasealia VI, F5; 3-332 And then shall appear the But the letter is the extension signs of the truth.
First the of the wood of the cross. sign spread out in Heaven . (onpetov exmeTdcews).
Notes.
I. Here we have seen that the Didache probably follows Justin, Apol. I, xv, in conflating Luke vi, 27 ff. and Matt. v,
44, 46,47.
The Didascalia follows the Didache in a somewhat similar conflation, and it also follows the Didache in one of its peculiarities, z.¢. the stilted addition:
"" And ye shall have no enemy."
Il. Here the Didache follows Hermas, Mand. II, 5-6.
It seems probable that the Didascalia uses Hermas too, but the writer knows the Didache.
Hermas has no " woe" to him who received as have the Didache and the Didascalia.
The Didache and the Didascalia both refer to an examination as to why one has received.
Later on the Didascalia says, " But he who gives simply to every man, does well in giving, and he is innocent." Here the daAds is derived from Hermas.
III. Here the Greek of the Apostolic Constitution which incorporates the Didascalia has diyvwyos and dtyAwooos. Barnabas has dvyyrdpwv and dtyAwosos, C.G., duyvdpwv and yAwoowdnsin x.
A. Robinson considers the reading of C.G. to be correct. The Didache has d8vyrépwv and dtyAwocos. Thus the Didascalia may have used either Barnabas or the Didache or a common source.
IV. The Didascalia and the Didache here combine references to Matt. v, 5 and Isa. Ixvi, 2.
This combination is not found in Barnabas.
V. In this passage the Didache is following the Montanist custom of making the Wednesday and Friday fasts compulsory.
The Didascalia apparently is the first Catholic document to do the same, and the long explanations required show that the writer is making an innovation.
Both agree in making our Lord command fasts when He told His
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
disciples not to fast like the hypocrites, and in thinking that the hypocrites were all Jews.
VI. Here it is possible that the Didascalia follows the Didache in saying that first-fruits must be given to the high priests.
In the Didache these are the prophets, in the Didascalia the bishops who are mediators of the word and teachers like Aaron and his priests.
There may be here an explanation of the Didache's ascription of high-priesthood to the prophets, for Caiaphas prophesied "being High
Priest that year," and Aaron was Moses's " prophet "
(Exod. vii, 6).
VII. The Didascalia here may ' explain" the difficult passage in the Didache, but no use of the Didache by the Didascalia is necessary to explain the similarity.
Thus in the passages I, II, IV contact between the two writings seems certain, in III and V it seems likely, in VI and VII it is possible but not probable.
Priority seems to be on the side of the Didache in I and II, for in II the Didascalia tries to explain the statements of the Didache, and in I the addition to the scriptural passage is more noticeable in the Didache than in the Didascalia, where it seems to follow on more naturally.
It seems, then, that the Didache, as Bryennius said, not only underlies Book VII of the _ Apostolic Constitutions, but was one of the sources used by the Didascalia which was incorporated into Books I-VI of the Constitutions.
The Didache thus used contained the so-called '"' Interpolation" (Did. I, 3-II, 1), and not only the '' Two Ways," but the Church Order of Did. VII-XVI too.
Thus the Didache was known in Syria when the Didascalia was written some time in the third century.
In which part of the century it was written we cannot tell.t The following documents are said to have made use of the "Two Ways" part of the Didache only, either because they did not know the later chapters, or because they intentionally omitted them as unsuitable for use as being out of date: the Apostolic Church Order, the Panegyric of Schnudz, the Syntagma Doctrine and the Fides Nicena.
The Apostolic Church Order is an Egyptian compilation, composed probably at the end of the third or beginning of 1 Connolly, Didascalia, Introd. EX RX Vil-Xcl.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
the fourth century.
It consists, like the Didache, of the "Two Ways" and a Church Order, but the fiction of apostolic authorship is more stressed, the various commands being ascribed to the separate apostles.
According to Harnack, the compiler used the Didache and two other contradictory Church Orders.
Of the Didache he used only the first five chapters, omitting Did. I, 3-II, 1, but there is a possible reference to Did. X, 3, for it is said that 6 Kdpuos jéiwod ae Sv' adtod Sobjvar mvevpatixny Tpodipy Kal Cav aiwvoy, and there is also a possible reference to Did. I, 6.4.
At times the writer appears to use Barnabas.
Thus to the command to love God he adds to the Didache é€ 6Ans cod Kapdias, derived probably from Barnabas.
He also attempts to explain the Didache.
Thus Barnabas and the Didache say, " Thou shalt not be in two minds whether it shall be or no."
A.C.O. has, "In thy prayer thou shalt not be in two minds."
Where the Didache has 60ev yap % kupiorys Aadetrar, A.C.O. says, '' Where Jesus Christ is spoken of."
Similarly Did. IV, 2 commands the reader to seek out the saints daily and honour those who have taught him Christ.
A.C.O. adds to this a reference to " him who is responsible for his spiritual life and gave him the 'seal.'"
The A.C.O. certainly uses Didache, modifying it at times with Barnabas.
The Panegyric® of Schnudi, abbot of a monastery in Egypt who died before the Council of Chalcedon, written by Besa, his successor, contains a homily founded upon the "Two Ways."
It follows fairly closely Did.
I, I-34,
If, 2-1V, 8, IV, 14;°V,.2, VI, 2.
It follows the 4.C0) in making Did. I, 2 closer to Barnabas and the Gospels, with the addition of " with all thy heart, etc."
It omits " who made thee"' after '"' God."
The Syniagma Doctrine is a document formerly thought to be falsely attributed to Athanasius, but Batiffol and others now consider it to be genuine.
The Fides Nicena is much later, sit 'is founded on the Syntagma, and it certainly cannot be considered the work of Athanasius.
» Inthe words riyrjoes addy (i.e. roy AaAoSvTE cou Tov Adyor) Ka? 6 Suvards b as} at a" el €x T00 Ldp Gros cov.
2 Iselin, T. und U.., 1895.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Both these works use the " Two Ways," and possibly other parts of the Didache.
In the Syntagma and in the parallel passage of the Fides, when using the first two chapters of the Didache, the documents pass straight from Did. I,
2-II, 2.
Elsewhere in the Syntagma there is what seems to be a reference to Did. I, 5 in the words, "' But if thou hast not thou shalt not be blamed."
This is found in the Fides, too, where kat Sixaos €or is added.
Thus the Fides sees in the Syntagma a reference to Did. I, 5 and goes back to the Didache in order to make its own addition.
Thus the Syntagma knew the "Two Ways" with and without the interpolation.
Perhaps the writer knew the Didache and Barnabas and the A.C.O.
He fills out the command to love God, as do the Epistle and A.C.O. and Schnudi.
The Fides appears to know the " interpolated' Didache independently of the Syntagma.
We have discussed ! the light which the use of the "Two Ways" in these documents throws on the question of the authenticity of the '" Interpolation '' and the nature of the '' Two Ways "' elsewhere.
All these documents make use of extensive passages of the Didache.
Of course, the Seventh Book of the Apostolic Constitutions is in chapters I-X XXII a complete revision |
'of allthe Didache.
Various alterations are made, quotations are added, reminiscences of the New Testament in the Didache are turned into explicit quotations, the Church
Order is made up to date.
The Didache used is the Didache as we have it at present in Bryennius's MS.
There are many shorter quotations or reminiscences of the Didache in various writings.
In Serapion's Anaphora and in Athanasius's de Virginitate there are quotations from Did. IX, 4.
The Serapion passage will be found quoted on page 191, when we are dealing with the Didache's eucharist and agape.
Athanasius has.in his grace to be used at the meals of the virgins, '' And as this bread upon this table was scattered upon the mountains and gathered together has become one, so let thy Church be gathered together from the bounds of the earth into thy Kingdom, for thine is the power and the glory for ever and ever, Amen."
Note aE
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
that here, though corn was never sown on the mountains in Egypt, but on the plains of the Nile valley, the Didache's words "upon the mountains"' are retained here as they are in Serapion.
This passage is used by John Chrysostom, and a similar idea occurs in many later writers right down till the time of the Reformation, but the probable source is not so much the Didache as Irenzeus and Hippolytus.
There may be some influence at times from the Didache.
The use of these prayers by Athanasius and Serapion shows that in Egypt all the Didache was known, and not only the '' Two
Ways" chapters.
Athanasius's words that it was useful for the instruction of proselytes apply not only to the first six, but to all sixteen chapters.
Before the time of Serapion, Athanasius and the Apostolic Church Order the Didache was little known in Egypt.
It is not likely that the book was known to Dionysius of Alexandria, and evidence for its use by Clement of Alexandria and Origen is very slight.
The evidence is as follows :— (a) Clem. Alex., Stvomateis 1, 100, 4. odros KAéarns b16 TAs ypadis eipyrar, dat yodv 'vie pr) yivov pevorns, ddnyel yap TO pedopua mpos viv KAoTHY'.
Did. III, 5. rékvov pov, pu) yivov pevorns, ered) Sdnyet 70 pedopa, eis THY KOT.
(2) Clem. Alex., Quis Dives Salvetur, 29. odros é rév olvov, TO ala THs dumédov tis AaBisd, exxéas Hudv emi tas TeTpwpevas puxds.
Did 1x2.
"Evyapiorobpev cou, TaTEp HuaV, brép THs ayias aumédrov AaBid rod madds cov, Hs eyvdiptoas jpiv da *Inood
TOD TrALdds Gov.
(c) Clem. Alex., Ped. III, 12,59. é€orlv uty 6 dexdAoyos... od poryevoets, odK eldwrodAatpevtoers, od mavdopbopyaeis, od
Krépers 2.
(d) Nae of Heraclea from Clem. Alexandria on Matthew C. 42.
~ > , ?
> ~ Thy ev Toway i ig U a} a D 7 piss pa ain at mvEevpatiKous iva Tis an abt av edKapmias Sid Tay x xns.
1S Shows no very special knowledge of Did.I,6: "Let your alms sweat into your hands til Sos a similar thought. i fill you know to whom to give," but only
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
'""One must give alms, but with judgment and to those who are worthy, in order that we may gain a reward from the Most High.
Woe to those who receive with hypocrisy, or who are able to support themselves and yet are willing to receive from others.
For he who has and receives through hypocrisy or laziness shall be condemned."'
Did. 1,5. odat rH AapuBadvoveeci pev yap xpetav éywv AapBaver tis, GO@os Eorar6 dé pr) xXpelav exwv Sadar Sixnv iva ri éAaBe kal eis Ti...
In these four cases only is there any real reason to suppose that Clement uses the Didache, and of these the last three are no use as evidence.
With regard to (5), the vine of David in Clement and the Didache does not necessarily refer to the same thing.
Origen, see below, has a somewhat similar idea, but the use of the symbol of the vine as applied to the Messiah was widespread in Judaism and Christianity ;
) cf, Lest. Levi 2,1 Apoc. Bar.* 36, IV Ezva V, 23..
In Berachoth 57a we read (according to Hoennicke), '' Wer eine Rebe im Traume sieht der darf auf den Messias hoffen, denn es ist gesagt worden, 'Er bindet an den Weinstock sein
Eselfiillen und an die Edelrebe das Junge seiner Eselin."
Thus there are many possible sources for Clement's statement.
In (c) the introduction of zaud0¢Gopia into the Decalogue is very like the position of madofGopia in Did. II, 2 where it comes after povyeta and before zwopveia.
Clement, however, knew and quoted the Epistle of Barnabas, whom he called an apostle, and in Barnabas XIX, 4 wopveia, pouxeia, and zroudo0¢Oopia occur together.
This is probably the source of Clement, if any source for such a condemnation is needed.
With regard to (d) Nicetas is quoting the Apostolic Constitutions, attributing this "' Clementine '' work to another
Clement.
This is shown by the fact that the form ovat.
Kat AapBdvew .
. Bovdopevos is that of A.C. VII and that the last sentence 6 yap éywv, etc., occurs in Nicetas and
A.C. VII.
The passages in (a) seem to show that Clement used the Didache and called it "' Scripture,' for nowhere else is such a statement to be found, that lying leads to theft.
1 odros cra cov aypos dumeAwy Kapmos xpuaiov apyvptov.
: ii 2 " Tunc revelabitur principatus Messiz mei qui similis est fonti et viti."
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
In fact, it seems to be the reverse of the natural order.
Here the question of the relationship is complicated by the character of Did. III, 1-6.
This has always been recognised as different from the rest of the 'Two Ways."
It is not in Barnabas, and is probably added by the Didache to Barnabas's '"' Two Ways.'
The form of the sections " Be not...for...leadsto...'' is what we would consider the Jewish "' hedge of the Law" to have followed.
It seems that in these six sections, each beginning with the personal address "'my son," in contrast with the more impersonal tone elsewhere, we have a fragment of an earlier writing incorporated bodily into the Didache.
This, according to the Didache's method of composition, would be an " apostolic writing," as is Barnabas's
'' Two Ways'"' or the Gospels.
As suchit could be quoted by Clement as Scripture.1
It is unlikely that Clement calls the Didache "' Scripture " when nowhere else does he use or refer to the writing.
Moreover, in Eusebius, H.E. VI, 13, where Eusebius is giving a list of the disputed books used by,Clement, the Didache is not mentioned.
Thus it is likely that in this passage Clement uses the unknown source of the Didache and nowhere refers to the Didache itself.
There is little evidence for the use of the Didache by Origen.
The following are the only two cases where contact might be found :— (a) Origen, de Princ.
III, 2, 7-
Docet nos scriptura divina : omnia que accidunt nobis tamquam deo illata suscipere scientes quod sine deo nihil fit.
Did. III, 10.
7a ovpBatvovrd cor evepyjpata as ayaba mpoadeéen, elds Sri drep Bod obSev yiverat.
Origen certainly knew Barnabas and valued it highly.
This passage occurs in Barn. XIX, 6, and is derived probably from Rom. Vili, 28.
It is unlikely here, as in the 1 Gordon says that in Clement passage occurring not only in the D assigned the authority of Scripture this is a quotation from memory of a idache, but also in the Epitome of Rules, because the statement is based on Prov. on between stealing, lying and denying ement quotes a work by Peter on the ver, more likely that it is the source of the othing else.
"Two Ways'' here.
It is, howe Didache which is quoted, and n
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
case of Clement, that the Didache could be called "' Scriptura divina,"' when nowhere else referred to.
Barnabas is the certain source.
(6) Origen, Hom. VI, In Lib. Jud. 2.
Vere vitis qui ascendit de-radice David sanguine inebriemur.
Did. IX, 2; see above on Clement.
Here Origen quotes a Christian commonplace and may well be referring to Clement.
Thus there is no evidence for any knowledge of the Didache in Egypt before the time of the A.C.O., Serapion and | Athanasius, though the Egyptian writing, the Epistle of _ Barnabas, is one of the chief sources of the writing.
In Oviens Christianus, Vol. I, 1901, Besson published a passage from Mar Isaac in which it seemed that the Didache
» was used, but it was certainly the parallel passage of the 1 Apostolic Constitutions, Book VII, which was used, as ) Connolly proved in the J.Th.S. in reply to Dix's article in } the same journal in 1933, in which he tried to prove that / Did. I, 3-4 uses Tatian's Diatessaron.
We have shown |) above that the Didache here follows the Harmony made by Justin in his Apol. I, xv.
In I, 4 the Didache differs from ) Tatian considerably.
Where the Didache follows Luke, ) Tatian follows Matthew and vice versa. i John Climacus (0b. c. 580) writes, EvoeBdv peév 76 alrobyre
W SiSdvar, edocBeorépwv dé Kal TH pH airobvri ro S€ amd Tob | aipovtos pi amauteiv, Svvapevous pddora, Taxa TOV drabdv Kal povewy tdvov Kabdornkev.
Here there is a possible reference to Did. I, 4-5 and to the addition which the Didache makes to Scripture in od8€ yap Svvacat which makes very little sense.
| This is omitted in A.C. VII, so here John Climacus may very I) likely be referring to the Didache.
| Reminiscences or quotations of the Didache have been qd found in (a) the Clementine literature: J and II Clement,
| the Clementine Homilies, (b) Theophilus of Antioch, * (c) Dorotheus of Palestine, (d) Pseudo-Ignatius, (e) Ignatius.
1 E.g. he quotes the command to love God, omitting tov moujoavrd oe, & as does A.C. VII.
With A.C. VII he omits " fast for your enemies,' and {| makes Did. I, 3 conform closer to the Gospel.
He alters capxikdv kai d owpatixdv émibvjudv, as does A.C. VII.
One MS. of Mar Isaac agrees f }with A.C. VIL in capxixdv Kai Koopik dr, others have capxux av Kat Biwrek av,
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
(a) II Clement XVIII uses the word mavOapaptwrds.
The Didache in chapter V uses the word zav#ayaprynro.
In Barnabas the same word is used, but in some MSS. without an. aspirate.
Otherwise the word is unknown.
If IJ Clement derives the word from any source it is probably from Barnabas, which is prior to the Didache.
(b) II Clement III, 1 refers to sacrifices to and worship of dead gods.
Did. VI, 3 calls the eating of idol-meats Aatpeia Oedv vexpdv.
Here the common idea is probably derived from Old Testament references to idols and from Paul's references to idol-worship.
(c) II Clement XI quotes a " prophetic saying,"' " Miserable are the double-minded that doubt in their heart."
I Clement XXIII quotes the same saying.
Did. IV, 4 is an order that men must not be dévyo..
The passage quoted may well be the source of Barnabas and Clement's use of this, and the Didache follows Barnabas.
(d) II Clement XXI.
7 povw OG dopdtw matpi Tijs aAdnfeias, TH earrooreiAavte Hiv Tov owrhpa Kat apynyov THs aglapoias, 5.' 06 Kat éfavépwoer juiv rv adjevav Kal TV emovpaviov lwyv, adt@ 7 dd€a eis rods aidvas Tdv aidvwv.
This doxology is very like the prayers of Didache, but there is an evident common source in the Johannine Gospel.
(e) There is in the Clementine Homilies much like what we find in the chapter of the Didache on baptism.
Thus in Contestatio 1 we read of dSwp Cav.
In Recognitions VII, 34-5 we read of baptism in " perennis aqua "' after fasting "' vel una die."
This similarity with the Didache need cause no suspicion of contact between the two documents, for baptismal language is similar in all Christian literature.
In Hom. VII use is made of the negative '"' Golden Rule" and in IX, 23 there is, as in II Clement, a reference to " dead
Gods." In all the Clementine literature there is thus no real evidence of any knowledge of the Didache or of any use by the Didache of anything found there.
All the points of similarity are merely fortuitous.
Theophilus of Antioch quotes the Golden Rule in its negative form and various commands rather like those of the "Two Ways."
His : ys.
1S source may, however, be Barnabas or a
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
ordinary Christian moral teaching.
Nowhere are there any evident signs of use of the Didache.
Dorotheus of Palestine quotes something very like Did. III, 10, but so did Origen, and it has been shown that Origen did-not know the Didache.
In the words é«kAtvov amo Kakod olov gedye amAGS wav Kakdv, exkAtvov amd TavTds mpaypatos épovros auaptiav there is a resemblance to Did. III, 1, réxvov pov, debye amo mavros Tovynpod Kal amo TavTos opotov advrod, but no necessity to suppose borrowing.
In the interpolated form of the Ignatian Epistles there are often contrasted the two words ypioréumopos and ypioriavs.
It was thought that this was the earliest example of the use of yptoréumopos.
C. Bigg called the word the " Achilles' heel' of the Didache, and therefore dated the work in the fourth century. xpvoréwmopos, however, occurs in the fragment of Hippolytus on Ruth, a work of the earliest third century.
The suggested contacts between Ignatius and the Didache are as follows :— Ignatius Magn. V, 1, "Emel ody ro téAos Ta Tpdypwata exer
Kal mpoKetTar TA OVO Smod, 6 Te Odvatos Kal 7) Cw, Kal ExacTos eis Tov ldvov ToTroV peAAeL YwpeivTrall. VII, 1. dvddrrecbe obv tods tovwovrovs:
Tobro de gorar vuiv pr) pvaovovpevois Kal odow aywplotos Geod *Inood Xpiorob Kai Tod émioxoTod Kal THv SvaTaypyatwv TOV anoaTdAwv.
Phil. V, 1-2. ... mpoodvyadv 7@ ebayyediw ws capkt Inood, Kal Tots amroaTéAots ws TpoaBuTepiw exkAnotas. Kal TOdS TpogrTas d€ dyaTpev.
In his Primitive Church, p. 279, Streeter remarks that in these passages and in others referred to in C. H. Turner,
Studies in Early Church History, p. 8, there are " seeming echoes" of the Didache.
In the first, Magn. VII, it is said there is an echo of the '' Two Ways," in the second, Tvall.
VII, 1, the reference must be to written ordinances of the Apostles, while in the third, Phil. V, 1-2, the " prophets "' must be the Old Testament writings, the Gospel be the written Gospel of Matthew, which stressed the humanity of _ Christ and the Apostles 'the written Didache."
This
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
seems to me a very risky argument.
If the Didache and Ignatius are products of the same district and almost of the same generation, as Streeter holds, such deference towards the Didache would not have been possible.
Something else must be referredto. The "Two Ways" is a Gospel figure, the "ordinances of the Apostles" need not be written, while the Apostles might be the apostolic Epistles.
It does not seem to me that Ignatius could have known the Didache.
With no other Greek writings can the Didache be said to have any point of contact except with Greek apocryphal writings written in Jewish Christian circles or in pure Jewish circles, like the Sibylline Oracles, Ps. Phocylides, the Ascension of Isaiah, or the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.
Here are a few examples of similarities found : i. Asc. Isaiah Ill, 21.
It is said that at the coming of Christ the disciples will abandon the teaching of the Twelve
Apostles, and faith and love and sanctity.
There seems to be here a reference to the Didache, but probably something like what we find in I Tim. iv, 12 or II Peter is at the back of the mind of the writer. li. Orac. Sib. IV, 165.
&v motapots Aovoacbe dAov déuas devdovow.
Cf. Did. VII on Baptism.
'ants Test. XII Patr. X, 1, 3.
880 dSods Ewxev 6 Beds rots viots rv dvOpdmwv .
Cf. Did. I-VI. iv. Sir. VII, 30.
With all thy strength love him that made thee.
Cf. Did. I, 2, TOV ToLncavTa Ge. v. Orac. Sib. II, 88 (also in Ps. Phoc.), mAobrov éxwv op xetpa Tevntevovow dpetov, dv cor ewxe Beds, TovTwy ypyCovtt mapaoxov.
Cf. Did. I, 5.
Vi. Ps. Phoc. 23, Spaon oraxvwv xpytovrr.
Cf. Did. I, 6.
Sir. XII, I. édp evrrouns yv@Ou rive movets, vil. Test. XII Patr. Issachar. VII, 1. odK« endpvevoa ev HeTewpiou® odfadudv pov.
Cf. dyyASPOadAuos in Did. III. 3. viii. Lest. XIT Paty. IV, 19.
7% diAapyupta mpds eiSwAodAaTpetay oonyel.
Cf. Did. III, 4.
1x. S07 11T, 4. | wav & day emaxOA coi Sééar.
Cf. Did. III, ro. x. Pirke A both. IV, 16.
Let the f ; the fear of God. et the fear of thy Rabbi be as
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
Pirke Aboth. 1V, 16.
Let your house be the place of reunion of the wise.
Disdain not the dust of their feet and gather their words with eagerness.
Cf. Did. IV, 1, 2. xi. Siv. VII, 10.
Have firm confidence in your prayer and do not neglect almsgiving.
Cf. Did. IV, 4, doubt; IV, 5, almsgiving.
Sir. IV, 31. pa €orw 7 xetp cov exrerapévy els TO AaPetv kal €v TH amodideva ovveaotaAuévyn.
Cf. Did. IV, 5. xii. Test. XII Patr. Levi 2.
Apoc. Baruch 39.
These passages are referred to in the chapter on the Didache's eucharist and agape. xiil. Wisdom I, 14.
F or he created all things that they might have being.
Siy. XVIII, 1.
He that liveth for ever created all things in common.
Siv. XXIV.
The creator of all things.
Cf.
Did. X, 3.
Thou, O Lord almighty, didst create all things for thy name's sake. xiv. Test. XII Pair. Jud. 18. dAapyupia .
. Kal mpodyryn Aadoivr. ody tmakover Kat Adyw edoeBetas mpoaoxBiler. Cf.
Did. X1, 12. xv. Test. XII Patr. 1X. édv tis dpdprn eis o€ etre adt@ ev ta ~ A 2A € 4, , wv ?
~ oA eipnvy.
. Kal €av OpuodAdynoas petavojon apes adT@.
E€av TE apvnrar 7) pidAovetker adT@.
6 yap apvovpevos peTavoe? TOO pnkére mAnupeAfjoat eis oé .
. eav S€ dvatdys eore Kal evioTraTar Th KaKia Kal oTws ddes a'T@ amo Kapdias Kai dds TH Oe@ THv exdiknow.
Cf. Did. XV, 3. xvi. (Orac. Sib. IT, 253-* Und es werden dann alle hindurch durch die brennende
Strom gehen Und durch die Flamme, die nimmer erlischt. Jedoch die Gerechten Werden alle gerettet herbei.
Die Gottlosen aber Gehen auf ewig zu Grunde.
Cf. Did. XVI, 5. els tiv tUpwow Tis Soxipacias.
Orac. Sib. VIII, 302.
He shall spread out his hands and measure the whole world. Cf. Did. XVI, 6, onpetov exmerdcews.
1 F, Blass:
Die Sibyllinen in Kautzsch Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments vol. II.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
These are the chief examples where contact between the Didache and Jewish and Jewish Christian apocrypha can be found.
It will be seen that they are chiefly in the '' Two Ways,"' the prayers of Chapters IX and X and the apocalypse of Chapter XVI, in each case those parts of the Didache where it is said that the writer is using Jewish documents.
In ix, x, xi it seems to me that Barnabas may be indebted to the Jewish works, but not the Didache.
In the other cases the Didache's contact with the writings quoted seems very slight.
The similarities are merely a matter of chance.
The New Testament is often very like the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.
The similarity of language is due to the similarity of subject and to the Jewish origin of Christianity.
Except in i and vii there seems no case where the Didache refers to or is referred to by these writings.
In i it seems that the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles could be derived from the end of Matthew by both writings, and in vii bYnrd d0adpos and perewpiopds odbaduav may explain one another, idolatry and fornication being often connected in Jewish and Christian writings, but it does not seem that any connection between the two writings is needed, especially as Did. III, I-6, we know, is part of an early document of unknown origin incorporated in the Didache, which perhaps used Jewish writings.
In the case of the last example quoted, the spreading out of the arms of the Messiah, there have been many explanations sought of the onpetov exmrerdcews.
Inthe Book of the Bee, edited by Budge, we read, ' Then shall appear the living sign of the Cross of the Lord.
. Others say that the heavens will be unrolled like the covering of a tent."
The Didache's phrase is probably the sign of the Son of Man in Matt. XXIV, 30, as is that in Budge and in the Sibylline Oracles.
In the chapter on the Didache's eucharist and agape it will be shown that in the cry "' Hosannah to the God of David '' and in the reading of the Coptic '' Hosannah to the
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
this last title.
However, the Didache may be contemporary with this discussion or have decided to say '' God of David,"' because of our Lord's question on the matter in Mark xii.
This appears to me to be all the evidence we have of knowledge of the Didache in the East and in Greek writings.
There is evidence of the use of Barnabas, Hermas and Justin by the Didache and of use of the Didache by the Didascalia.
Nowhere is the Didache very much used, but in Egypt and ~ :
Syria it seems to have been highly honoured.
It spread widely, but disappeared as it was incorporated into other documents.
In the West there is less evidence for the existence of the Didache., We have noticed the references in Rufinus and Jerome to what seems to be a document like the Didache.
The Latin translation of the Didache which we have now consists only of Did. I-V and a doxology.
This could be called a "' Duze Viz,'' but why Petrine authorship should be ascribed to it we cannot tell.
Jerome and Rufinus do not quote from the work, so we do not know if they knew it, or were merely quoting from the list of apocryphal works in Eusebius, changing the title because they did not know for certain what was referred to.
There is, however, some evidence for the existence of the Didache in the West.
It is as follows :— i. Ps. Cyprian adversus aleatores 4.
In doctrinis apostolorum: si quis frater delinquit in ecclesia et non paret legi, hic nec collegatur, donec pcenitentiam agat, et non recipiatur, ne inquinetur et impediatur oratio vestra.
Did. XIV, 2. was 5é éywv tiv audiBoAlav peta Tod Eéralpov adrod pi) ovveAOérw tyiv, ews ob diaddaydouw, iva pw) Koww)F
9 Ovoia budv. ii. Optatus Milevium Gesta ap. Zenophilum, ed. Ziwsa, p.
192, 4.
Secundum dei voluntatem, qui dixit: quosdam diligo super enimam meam.
Did. II, 7.. 0d projoers mavra dvOpwrov, adAa ots pev édéyeis, Tepl dé dv mpocevéy, ovs dé ayamnoes dep THY Puy Gov. iii. Optatus Milevium, I, 21, ed. Ziwsa, p. 23, 11 ff.
Denique inter cetera preecepta etiam hec tria iussio divina
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
prohibiut : non occides, non ibis port deos alienos, et in capitibus mandatorum : non facies scisma.
Did. IV, 3.
0d mobjcets (v.l. ounces) oxlope.. ie) iv. Tertullian, de Ovat. 11.1
Ne in via orationis constitutl ad patrem cum ira incedamus.
Did. IV, 14.
Kal od mpocedevon emi mpocevyny cov ev ovvedyoer Tovnpa. y. Cassiodorus.
Desudet eleemosyna in manu tua donec invenias iustum cui eam trades.
This is found in Piers Plowman also, in Petrus Comestor and other writers.
Did. I, 6. 'ISpwodrw 7 eAenpoov'vyn cov eis Tas xetpds gov, Héxpis av yva@s, tive dds. vi. Lactantius, Div. Inst.
VI, 3.
Duas esse humane vite vias nec philosophis ignotum fuit nec poetis.
Nos utique rectius qui alteram vite alteram mortis et hic tamen esse has vias dicimus. vii. Acta Philee et Philowmeni.
Dicit sacra et divina Scriptura : '' Diliges Dominum Deum tuum qui te fecit."'
Did. I, 2. mp@rov ayamjoeis tov Deov TOV TOLnCaVTG GE.
It seems that the Ps. Cyprianic adv. Aleat. knew the Didache and used it, and perhaps that Cassiodorus did also, unless he knew the otherwise unknown source of the quotation in Did. I, 6. The two passages from Optatus seem to show knowledge of the Didache.
The second may be from Barnabas.
'' Facies'' agrees with Barnabas and the Latin Didache, but the latter has "' dissensiones,'' not "' scisma.''
In the first of the two the Didache is a combination of Barn.
XIX, 4 and 5 and Jude 22.
Barnabas has, '"' Thou shalt love thy neighbour more than thine own life," and '"' Thou shalt utterly hate evil.''
Jude has, "" And on some have mercy ...and some save...and on some have mercy with fear.'"
The Didache alone is like the passage in Optatus, unless there is some lost scriptural passage containing these words.
Tertullian may have got his words from Barnabas or 1 In Ex. to Chastity, 11, we read that nothing is done without God's permission.
Here Tertullian is probably using Barnabas XIX, 6, which is parallel to Did. III, 10, and derived ultimately from Romans.
Origen quotes the same passage from Barnabas.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
from the New Testament.
Nowhere does he seem to know the Didache.
He ascribes Hebrews to Barnabas, which may mean that he does not know the Epistle of Barnabas, but often he has phrases like Barnabas's.
The passage from Lactantius is not the only one where it is said that he used the Didache.
He employs the negative Golden Rule, and he follows the Acta Philowmeni et Philee in adding rév momoavrd oe.
Justin may be the source of this.
The '' Way of Life and of Death'' might be deduced from the New Testament.
It seems that there is slight knowledge of the Didache in the West.
The Latin version has been ascribed to the time of Cyprian, and the adv. Aleatores is of the second half of the third century.
It seems that at first all the Didache was known in the West, but later in our text of the Latin Didache the first half was made into a homily, the translator or adaptor being influenced by Barnabas in many ways.
There is considerable evidence of knowledge of the Didache, or at any rate of the '' Two Ways,'"' in medieval Rhineland preachers like Boniface of Mainz and Severianus of Cologne.
The Didache was never so popular in the West as in the _East.
It was used for homiletic purposes, and that is all.
So except for XIV, 2 nothing was quoted except from the "Two Ways.''
The Didache was probably known in its entirety at first, for Cassiodorus quotes I, 6, and the Latin
Didache may know the "' Interpolation '' (cf. p. 19), but the writer of the Latin Didache omitted both chapters VI-XVI and the "'Interpolation'' when he used Barnabas and the Didache to make his homily.
In two places the Didache has some similarity to Irenzus, in Did. IX, 4 and in Did. XIV, 3.
In the first it might be thought that Ireneus, Her. III, 18, 1! and the Didache's prayer are connected, but probably, as the thought is different, both are separate compilations from New Testament ideas and phrases.
In the other the second Pfafian fragment ® appears to quote the Didache, but this fragment 1s spurious, and not the work of Ireneus.
Ireneus, Her.
III, 18, x is probably the source of similar prayers all through
1 P, 192.
2. P. 205.
THE RIDDLE OF THE DIDACHE
history down to the time of Henry VIII, and not the Didache.
Both these passages are discussed in the chapter on the Didache's eucharist and agape.
We have seen that the Didache is later in date than Barnabas, Hermas and Justin.
Of these three, Justin is probably the latest, his First Apology having been written in A.D. 150-155.
It is earlier in date than the Didascalia, the Ps. Cyprianic adv. Aleatores, Serapion and the Afostolic
Church Order.
These are the earliest documents which show any knowledge of the Didache.
The Latin document is probably the work of the second half of the third century,
Serapion was bishop in the early fourth century, the Apostolic Church Order is probably to be dated c. A.D. 300, while the Didascalia is probably the earliest of these documents, being a work of the third century.
It is, according to Connolly, a work written in Syria between Antioch and Edessa either in the period before the Decian persecution of A.D. 250, or after the edict of toleration of Gallienus
(A.D. 260-268)
and before the Diocletian persecution.
Connolly inclines to the earlier date, though he expresses no certain judgment.
Thus the Didache is almost certainly a work written between the years A.D. 155 and 250, or perhaps the dates might be contracted a little to allow for the works of Justin to be circulated to reach the Didache, and for the Didache to have been written and circulated to reach the writer of the Didascalia.
: The place of writing of the Didache is uncertain from a literary point of view.
Its chief source is the Egyptian Epistle of Barnabas; the earliest use of it is made in Syria.
The choice seems to be between Egypt and Syria, and _ Internal evidence tells us nothing.
It employs the Roman Hermas and cosmopolitan Justin, it is employed by the Syrian Didascalia and Apostolic Constitutions, the African adv. Aleatores, the Roman Jerome and Rufinus, the Egyptian
Serapion, Athanasius, Apostolic Church Order, Schnudi, and soon.
It appears to have spread abroad very quickly from wherever it was written.
Only its '' Two Ways'' was of much interest, and then only as being better arranged than
Barnabas's.
As we shall see later, the rest of the document
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE DIDACHE
is of such a peculiar type that it immediately passed away.
Later the Didache was incorporated in so many documents that its preservation served no useful purpose, and it quickly disappeared till re-discovered by Bryennius.
These facts are all derived from the evidence of the literary relationships between the Didache and other writings.
In coming to these conclusions no evidence has been drawn from the conditions pictured in the Didache, but it will be seen later that evidence from this source corroborates the evidence from literary arguments.
The evidence we have made use of is more mathematical, the other seems more a matter of opinion.
It is better to use the literary evidence first, and to use the other later.
Early critics of the Didache took its Church Order at its face value and said, "' There is something which must be very primitive.''
Then they went on to judge the literary evidence with their minds already made up.
It is better to take evidence which seems certain from literary relationships, and then, having ascertained within what limits the date of the Didache falls, to see where the Didache's Church Order fits into the conditions of the Church of which we know the state from other less questionable sources.
It seems certain, then, that the Didache was written in the last third of the second century or the first third of the third century.
Now we may go on to examine the question of a literary relationship of special importance—that between the Didache and the New Testament.