Doublets in the Didache.

[Ben C. Smith]

A brief look at the Didache (yet again) inspired by a talk that Alan Garrow gave in Edinburgh half a decade ago. Garrow notes the doublets in the second half of the text and splits the text accordingly; I give a modified rendition of this splitting here below. He suggests that the column on the left (Didache 9.1-5; 11.1-6) is earlier than the column on the right (Didache 10.1-7; 11.7-12.2), which he perceives as modifying the lefthand instructions. I have reddened text which he thinks is later than both of these layers:

Didache 9.1-5; 11.1-6	Didache 10.1-7; 11.7-12.2
9.1 And with respect to the eucharist you shall give thanks as follows. 2 First, with respect to the cup, “We give you thanks, our Father, for the holy vine of David, your child, which you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever.” 3 And with respect to the fragment of bread, “We give you thanks, our Father, for the life and knowledge that you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever. 4 As this fragment of bread was scattered upon the mountains and was gathered to become one, so may your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. For the glory and the power are yours through Jesus Christ forever.” 5 But let no one eat or drink from your thanksgiving meal unless they have been baptized in the name of the Lord. For also the Lord has said about this, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs.”	10.1 And, when you have had enough to eat, you should give thanks as follows, 2 “We give you thanks, holy Father, for your holy name which you have made reside in our hearts, and for the knowledge, faith, and immortality that you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever. 3 You, Ο Master Almighty, created all things for the sake of your name, and gave both food and drink to humans for their refreshment, that they might give you thanks. And you graciously provided us with spiritual food and drink, and eternal life through your child. 4 Above all we thank you because you are powerful. To you be the glory forever. 5 Remember your church, Ο Lord; save it from all evil, and perfect it in your love. And gather it from the four winds into your kingdom, which you prepared for it. For yours is the power and the glory forever. 6 May grace come and this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him come; if any one is not, let him repent. Maranatha! Amen.” 7 But permit the prophets to eucharize as often as they wish.
—	11.7 Do not test or condemn a prophet speaking in the Spirit. For every sin will be forgiven, but not this sin. 8 Not everyone who speaks in the Spirit is a prophet, but only one who conducts himself like the Lord. Thus the false prophet and the prophet will both be known by their conduct. 9 No prophet who orders a meal in the Spirit eats of it; if he does, he is a false prophet. 10 Every prophet who teaches the truth but does not do what he himself teaches is a false prophet. 11 You are not to condemn any prophet who has been approved and is true, and who acts on behalf of the earthly mystery of the church, even if he does not teach others to do what he himself does, since he has his judgment with God. For even the ancient prophets behaved in this way. 12 Do not listen to anyone who says in the Spirit, “Give me money,” or something else. But if he tells you to give to others who are in need, let no one judge him.
11.1 And so welcome anyone who comes and teaches you everything mentioned above. 2 But if the teacher should himself turn away and teach something different, undermining these things, do not listen to him. But if his teaching brings righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord, then welcome him as the Lord. 3 But concerning the apostles and prophets, do as the gospel decrees; 4 let every apostle who comes to you be welcomed as the Lord.	12.1 Everyone who comes in the name of the Lord should be welcomed. Then, when you exercise your critical judgment, you will know him; for you understand what is true and what is false.
5 But he should not remain more than a day. If he must, he may stay one more. But if he stays three days, he is a false prophet. 6 When an apostle leaves he should take nothing except bread, until he arrives at his night’s lodging. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.	2 If the one who comes is simply passing through, help him as much as you can. He should not stay with you more than two or three days, if need be.

But to my eye, if anything, the direction might go in the other direction.

I have posted before about the eucharistic prayers, which seem to be based upon the Jewish grace after meals, the Birkat HaMazon. Didache 10 seems to hew more closely to this Jewish prayer tradition, whereas Didache 9 starts to partition it up into two Christianized subblessings, one for the cup and another for the fragmented bread. An easy progression may exist, then, from the Blessing of the Food, through Didache 10, to Didache 9, which is more like what we find in other Christian texts (the gospels, Paul, Justin Martyr, and so on) than Didache 10 is. Also, 10.6 permits only the holy, whereas 9.5 permits only the baptized, which feels to me like a later clarification of what being holy is (that is, holiness is obviously a subjective quality, whereas baptism is an objective action to undertake; there are witnesses to a person having been baptized; 9.5 is more enforceable than 10.6).

The column on the right speaks only of prophets, whereas the column on the left speaks of apostles and of prophets. There seems to have been in early Christianity a time during which "the apostles" (Mark 6.30) meant pretty much anybody sent out by somebody else: messengers or envoys. Even Paul uses this term of a church representative (Epaphroditus in Philippians 2.25-26). Later, however, the term came to refer to a more specialized group, and perhaps that is the atmosphere that the column on the left is capturing. The lefthand column also refers to a gospel, though Garrow excises both this reference and the others in the Didache as later glosses.

The column on the right invites the prophets to give thanks at will in 10.7; testing them is forbidden, unless they manage to prove themselves total scoundrels, not by their words, but by their lifestyles, as per 11.7-9. Likewise, the righthand column enjoins the faithful to help wandering prophets all that they can in 12.2. The lefthand column, however, comes across to me as if the prophets have perhaps been given a bit too much leeway in practice, and now the apostles (which seem equivalent to wandering prophets) are to be given only enough bread for their journey in 11.6, not "as much as you can." On the right, the prophet can stay up to two or three days in 12.2; on the left, the apostle should stay for no more than a day, two in an emergency, but three days are beyond reason in 11.5, thus marking the fellow as a false prophet.

On the right, everyone who comes in the name of the Lord is to be welcomed in 12.1; on the left, apostles are to be welcomed in 11.4. The field has been narrowed down so as not to place unnecessary burdens on those putting up people for the night.

The perspective of the reader of the text is that of the householder, not that of the itinerant; it is all about what "you" should do about "those" prophets or apostles. And all of these modifications seem to me to make the most sense in the direction of right column to left column, since that is the direction which is more in keeping with the interests of the householders, who have understandably been burned before by itinerants acting in bad faith and who therefore now stand in need of stricter policies for dealing with them.

What do you think? Given this (or some similar) layout of doublets in the Didache, do the instructions get more lenient for the itinerants, or do they get stricter, thus better protecting the householding community?

Ben.

[Stuart]

Stricter. Or so common sense instructs us. Laws and restrictions are made because people are doing the things the Law wants to regulate and going past the restrictions. This is something of an Axiom.

But the above assumes some unity of authority in the organization. The possibility to consider is that the two rulings are not from the same leadership at different times, but rather from two contemporary competing authority sources resulting in a partially harmonized document or compendium including the two sources (the Gospel collection can be considered in such terms, rather than render strong judgment saying this Gospel is right, the others wrong, just include them all).

An example of two competing authorities can be seen in 2 John and the response in 3 John on whether to accept itinerant preachers. The latter rejects the authority of the former. This is a rare instance of the looser ruling being after the stricter. (I wrote a blog article exploring this a few years ago). The above passages look very similar to the two Johannine letters in their opposition to each other's ruling.

DIGRESSION:

I think Christians are more hung up on trying to harmonize than Jews, because writers invoke their patron saint for their tracts, and there is a desire and bias by Christian scholars to think of the patron saint as the author. Jewish writings tend to say Rabbi so and so said X, while another Rabbi said X is wrong we should do Y instead. Thus they are less hung up on trying to explain away differing opinions.