The Didache

The Didache Sam Harrelson

In Partial Fulfillment of: Church History 1

Prof Stepp Gardner-Webb University

18 November 2008

The Didache is a curious work that supplies more questions than answers about itself, its conext in the first or early second Christian movement and its place within what came to be known as the canon. After a first reading, the text appears to be little more than a collected sayings of a popular teacher, or group of teachers, addressed to one particular community wondering how best to continue the ministry of Jesus while waiting for the second coming. However, there is a great deal of information and questions to be gleaned and discovered within the text itself. By focusing on the questions of authorship and background, how the Didache compliments or contradicts the recognized canon of the New Testament and how the document informs us on the subjects of ancient christianities as well as modern christianities, we’ll arrive at a deeper understanding of this pivotal work and recognize its proper place, if not in the canon, at least in the received wider tradition of the early church. Authorship of the Didache is a particularly complicated subject. Where and when one places the creation of the Didache relies on how one sees the Didache in relation to texts such as the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that can be (for the most part) adequately dated. Generally, dating has relied on the acceptance of the idea that the Didache borrows from texts such as Luke and Matthew. Both of these Gospels can be reliably dated to at least post 70 C.E. and closer still to the end of the first century considering the development of theologies and the received tradition of Jesus stories (along with other parallels to contemporary texts and reliance on Mark and perhaps variants of Q). This would place the composition of the Didache somewhere in the late first, but most probably early-to-mid second century. However, scholars such as Aaron Milavec who are tackling the Didache with a renewed emphasis on its place in the received tradition and

how the text itself was shaped (or not) by more reliably dated works, have cast doubts on this dating scheme. At the heart of this renewed look at the Didache’s dating is whether or not the text is actually reliant on Matthew or Luke. Milavec argues that instead of being reliant on these auxillary and more reliably dated texts, the Didache actually represents a teaching manual for new converts (primarily gentile) to the Jesus movement. In Milavec’s assessment, the text is not bound to relational dating to the Gospels but is instead independent of those traditions and dates somewhere closer to the halfway mark of the first century1 The question of the Didache’s authorship is also a difficult question to tackle since there is so little information regarding the transitory period of the first and even second centuries of the Jesus movement. Much of the knowledge we do have of this time period is focused on Paul and his letters to communities in Asia Minor and around the Mediterranean. What we lack is a solid understanding of what the religious communities of Syrio-Palestine that would become the early church looked like in regards to social, economic or even religious makeup. The Didache’s placement in the mid point of the first century, if Milavec’s early dating scenario holds up to the data, would fall in line with a sense of Jewish-Christianity that would become less and less popular after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and in the second revolt of the 130’s C.E. and eventually border on heresy in the patristic period afterwards. According to Milavec, the Didache can be seen within this transitory period of the first century when the earliest notions of what would eventually coagulate into “the Church” as a text to inform new members of the Jesus group of how to best observe the rituals and teachings of the group and how to Aaron Milavec, The Didache (New York: The Newman Press, 2003), xvii. 1

eventually become baptized and then join in the celebration of the Eucharist. Milavec sees the Didache as a document that has an inherit sense of unity and purpose and is not a thrown together collection of teachings representing despondant communities. Instead, Milavec holds that the Didache is an anonymous but purposeful and whole text meant to provide a path for gentiles to enter into fellowship with the earliest of Jewish-Christians in Syria-Palestine in the mid-first century.2 However, Milavec represents just one of the scholarly views on the topic of authorship. Klaus Wengst sees the document as a collection of sayings and writings with numerous insertions.3 Kurt Niederwimmer argues that the Didache has an eventual redactor that was probably an “influential bishop” hopes to preserve the traditions of his own time while passing on to the next generation a sense of identity.4 Jean-Paul Audet and Clayton N. Jefford argue for a three part construction with distinct stages of compostion.5 Stanislas Giet and Willy Rordorf both call for two stages of composition and eventual redaction by different editors. 6 Since its rediscovery in a manuscript compliation in 1873 by a monk in Nicomedia outside of Istanbul, Turkey, the text has had a complex relationship with the canon of the New Testament. While we can reconstruct the popularity of the text in the first and second centuries as the Jesus movement was transforming from an transitory movement held together by wandering prophets into something more organized with presbytrs, bishops and deacons, we also can reasonably assume that the structure the Ibid, xi. Klaus Wengst, Didache (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftiliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984), 106. 4 Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 228. 5 Ibid, 42. 6 Georg Schollgen, The Didache as a Church Order: An Examination of the Purpose for the Composition of the Didache and its onsequences for its Interpretation, ed. Jonathan Draper (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), 6770. 2 3

document helped to create in some sense was the ultimate reason for its place outside of what would become the canon since the need for a training manual such as the Didache was eventually replaced by hierarchy and more rigid structures of catechisms. For theological reasons, there is little room for a document with such a practical emphasis as the Didache, regardless of how important the text might have been to early communities in and around Syria-Palestine in the first and second centuries. While there have been cursory attempts to link theologies present in the Didache with New Testament texts or emerging theologies present in canonical texts, it is dubious at best to ascribe or hang what would become accepted Church teachings on the Didache because of its practical nature and usage. In my own opinion, scholars and lay members of churches have a great deal to gain from reading, studying and reflecting upon the received text of the Didache. If the text does date from the mid point of the first century as Milavec asserts, there is an incredible amount of importance in its words and teachings given its close proximity to the historical Jesus in time and place. While close historical proximity should not be the sole determiner of a text’s “worth” to a community (especially a community removed by two thousand years), having a description of teachings and attempts at preserving the tradition of these early members of the Jesus movement is beyond valuable and should be seen as precious by modern church members. Whether we have room theologically in the modern context of Jesus worship is a moot point when it comes to the actual scholarship of the document since the Didache only has just over a century of scholarship ascribed to it, and most of that has been trying to make the text conform to the 19th and early 20th century German Protestant hegemony of “early catholic” studies that sought to rediscover

a more authentic early Christianity absent of the fossilization of later imposed hierarchy. Instead, the Didache remains a tempting lens to look into the past and hear the authentic words of first or second century followers (or potential followers) of Jesus who should be heard in their own voices, as closely reconstructed as possible.