Loading...In my previous post I started to discuss one of the most important of the Apostolic Fathers, the Didache. I indicated there that it consists of three parts, the first of which is an ethical treatise on the “Two Ways” one can live.
Now I continue with describing the even more unusual next two parts, a set of instructions about ritual activities and wandering apostles and prophets, and an apocalyptic prediction of what is yet to come.. This description is principally taken from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.
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Like the “Teaching of the Two Ways,” the second portion of the Didache may be drawn from one or more earlier sources, or it may represent the anonymous author’s own composition. It is a kind of “church order” in which instructions are given for various kinds of church activities. For example,
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Dr. Ehrman, I’m looking at the Eucharistic prayer in the Didache where it says:
“We thank You, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your child, which You made known to us through Jesus Your child.” (Didache 9:2)
How would early Christian communities have understood the word “child” here? does this parallel usage suggest these Christians viewed Jesus as a continuation or fulfillment of David’s role as God’s “servant” rather than anything approaching later Christology?
Also does this language and the absence of Johannine themes imply the Didache’s authors had no knowledge of the Gospel of John?
Good question. The term in Greek is indeed “pais” which can mean either child or servant or slave; normally Jesus is called the “huios” (= “son”) of God. Pais is the term used for the “suffering servant of the Lord” in Isaiah (42:13). So maybe that is what is in mind here. (THe suffering servant as theDavidic messiah). I don’t think the absence of John’s themes can show that the author(s) of the Didache didn’t know the Fourth Gospel. (Little in my work would suggest that I’ve read Dickens or John Irving, e.g.)
A most intriguing part of the Didache’s approach to the Eucharist is that it makes no mention of the bread and wine representing the body and blood of Christ.
What do with traveling apostles, teachers, and prophets who are scoundrels. Sounds like a problem we’re still having.
A reference to Simon Magus or Paul, maybe?
Why are the words spoken at the Eucharist according to the Didache completely different from 1Corinthians 11:23-25? (no mention of bread = body, wine = blood)
The author may not have known these words, or he may have a different issue in mind. He is not indicating what Jesus said at the meal, but what prayers are to be said when Christians celebrate it.
What is interesting is that the meaning attributed to the bread giving by the Didache:
“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.”
resembles the one Paul refers to in 1 Cor 10:17:
“Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread”
Apparently Paul (or somebody before him) added to the meaning of the bread as the union of the church the meaning of the bread as Christ’s body, so the union of the church is through Christ’s body.
These non-canonical documents are fascinating! Do you think that the teachings of the Didache are indicative of the practices of the mid-first century church? I am curious because as a former evangelical, it seemed that the intent was to be as much like the early church as possible. But I now question that. Do you think that today’s typical evangelical church with its non-ritualistic services and less emphasis on the Lord’s Supper and baptism, and seeker-friendly practices has any resemblance at all to the early church?
No, these appear to be much after developments.
I think the Didache (The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations) was a set of instructions, the Jerusalem Church sent to the gentile churches, about the same time they send the letter with the result of the meeting with Paul about the practices of the Law for gentiles. The form of the Eucharist in the Didache is a strong indication that what Paul said about the Last Supper was anathema for the Jesus followers. They must abstain from blood!
The period of the 50’s and 60’s, until the death of James, the overseer (bishop) of the Jerusalem Church, was the last time, they had more influence than Paul. It is not clear who reached first to the cities of Galatia, Antioch, Damascus, and Corinth. Paul had problems with these communities, because many there, followed the Apostolic preachers. Those churches were the battleground between the message of Jesus and the message of Paul. Paul was considered an interpolator. There was no chair for Paul, when Jesus was coming back to judge the living and the dead.
@manny5 That is the argument of Hyam Maccoby in his book, The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity.
On the other hand, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Paul may have been a vehicle used by Christ to salvage his teachings in the face of the Roman conquest of Judea. Modern Christians–especially those covertly working for the Luciferian Brotherhood–give more importance to Paul’s words than to the words of Jesus or YHVH as revealed through the prophets. One hypothesis is that the Luciferians were influencing Paul in the material plane, and Jesus was influencing him in the subtle plane. It would make sense for the Roman-controlled Church to highlight certain aspects of Paul’s teachings that were useful for Luciferianism, eg, blood sacrifice and cannibalism, and give Jesus’s actual words less importance.
It is certainly curious that the Didache discusses *both* itinerate Apostles / Prophets and Bishops. If 1 Clement, which also discusses Bishops and Apostles, is dated early (some proposed a c. 70 date), then perhaps Didache belongs at an earlier era than 100 C.E., when we would expect some itinerate Apostles and Prophets to still be active?
The problem is that the development of clerical hierarchy (like theology) was not unilinear, but happened differently in different times and places, and differently among different groups. 1 Clement though must almost certainly be around 95 CE or so (I discuss it in my Intro in the Loeb edition of the Apostolic Fathers).
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman
Although their is almost nothing of demons or a devil in the Old Testament would you concede that the OT does vaguely talk about evil spirts that could be referred to or seen as demons?
Examples I just did a quick Google search and these two verses came up.
What would you say to these two verses from the OT Bart?
Thanks.
Deuteronomy 32:16,17) God says the people provoked Him with anger by making sacrifices to devils.
(Pslam 106:37) The people sacrificed their children to devils.
The words “demons” and “devils” meant different things at different times. DAIMONIA (the word behind “demon”) in the wider world typically referred simply to lower level divinities not as powerful as the great gods; some could be wicked but others were good (“guardian angels”). In Israelite tradition they simply could refer to idols or pagan gods, not to malevolent spirits like demons in later apocalyptic thinking.
It only replaces one question with another but, if you serve communion by intinction (dipping the bread in the wine), it seems natural to have the wine ready ahead of serving the bread.
Good point. I don’t think we have evidence of intinction until centuries later.
Did the Christian writers of the second and third century struggle with the fact that the foretold apocalypse had not occurred as expected? Or did they just conveniently ignore the subject?
Yes, it was much debated. The side that continued to insist there was a literal millennium still to come came to be demeaned and marginalized, as the doctrine of “heaven” and “hell” started to emerge and Christian teachers maintained that the apocalypse was not to be a literal event.