Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/864

 DIDACHE

780

DIDACHB

Thy Child". After a doxology, as before, come the remarkable exclamations: "Let grace come, and this world pass away ! Hosanna to the Son of David ! If any is holy, let him come. If any be not, let him re- pent. Maranatha. Amen". We are not only re- minded of the Hosanna and Sancta Sanctis of the Utur- gies, but also of Apoc, x.xii, 17, 20, and I Cor., xvi, 22. In these prayers we find deep reverence, and the effect of the Eucharist for eternal Life, though there is no distinct mention of the Real Presence. The words in thanksgiving for the chalice are echoed by Clement of Alexandria, "Quis div.", 29: "It is He [Christ] Who has poured out the Wine, the Blood of the Vine of David, upon our wounded souls"; and by Origen, "In i Judic", Hom. vi: "Before we are inebriated with the Blood of the True Vine Which ascends from the root of David." The mention of the chalice before the bread is in accordance with St. Luke, xxii, 17-19, in the "Western" text (which omits verse 20), and is apparently from a Jewish blessing of wine and bread, with which rite the prayers in ch. ix have a close affinity.

The Third Part speaks first of teachers or doctors (diSda-KoKoi) in general. These are to be received if they teach the above doctrine; and if they add the justice and knowledge of the Lord they are to be re- ceived as the Lord. Every Apostle is to be received as the Lord, and he may stay one day or two, but if he stay three, he is a false prophet. On leaving he shall take nothing with him but bread. If he ask for money, he is a false prophet. Similarly with the order of prophets: to judge them when they speak in the spirit is the unpardonable sin; but they miLSt be known by their morals. If they seek gain, they are to be rejected. All travellers who come in the name of the Lord are to be received, but only for two or three days; and they must exercise their trade, if they have one, or at least must not be idle. Anyone who will not work is a Xpio-r^^Tropos — one who makes a gain out of the name of Christ. Teachers and prophets are worthy of their food. Firstfruits are to be given to the prophets, "for they are your High Priests; but if you have not a prophet, give the firstfruits to the poor". The breaking of bread and Thanksgiving [Eucharist] is on Sunday, "after you have confessed your transgressions, that your Sacrifice may be pure", and those who are at discord must agree, for this is the clean oblation prophesied by Malachias, i, 11, 14. " Ordain therefore for yourselves bishops and deacons, worthy of the Lord ... for they also minister to you the ministry of the prophets and teachers". Notice that it is for the sacrifice that bishops and deacons are to be ordained. The last chapter (xvi) exhorts to watching and tells the signs of the end of the world.

Sources. — It is held by very many critics that the "Two Ways " is older than the rest of the Didache, and is in origin a Jewish work, intended for the instruc- tion of proselj^es. The use of the Sibylline Oracles and other Jewish sources may be probable, and the agreement of ch. ii with the Talmud may be certain; but on the other hand Funk has shown that (apart from the admittedly Christian ch. i, 3-C, and the occa- sional citations of the N. T.) the O. T. is often not quoted directly, but from the Gospels. Bartlet sug- gests an oral Jewish catechesis as the source. But the use of such material would surprise us in one whose name for the Jews is "the hypocrites", and in the vehemently anti-Jewish Barnabas still more. The whole base of this theory is destroyed by the fact that the rest of the work, vii-xvi, though wholly Christian in its subject-matter, has an equally remarkable agreement with the Talmud in cc. ix and x. Beyond doubt we must look upon the writer as living at a very early period, when Jewish uifluence was still im- portant in the Church. He warns Christians not to fast with the Jews or pray with them; yet the two fasts and the three times of prayer are modelled on

Jewish custom. Similarly the prophets stand in the place of the High Priest.

Date. — There are other signs of early date: the simplicity of the baptismal rite, which is apparently neither preceded by exorcisms nor by formal admis- sion to the catechumenate ; the simplicity of the Eu- charist, in comparison with the elaborate quasi- Eucharistic prayer in Clem., I Cor., lix-Lxi; the per- mission to prophets to extemporize their Eucharistic thanksgiving; the immediate expectation of the sec- ond advent. As we find the Christian Sunday already substituted for the Jewish Sabbath as the day of as- sembly in Acts, XX, 7 and I Cor., x\a, 2, and called the Lord's day (Apoc, i, 10), there is no difficulty in sup- posing that the parallel and consequent shifting of the fasts to Wednesday and Friday may have taken place at an equally early date, at least in some places. But the chief point is the ministry. It is twofold: (1) local and (2) itinerant. — (1) The local ministers are bishops and deacons, as in St. Paul (Phil., i, 1) and St. Clement. Piesbyters are not mentioned, and the bishops are clearly presbyter-bishops, as in Acts, x.x, and in the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul. But when St. Ignatius wrote in 107, or at the latest 117, the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons were already considered necessary to the very name of a Church, in Syria, Asia Minor, and Rome. If it is probable that in St. Clement's time there was as yet no "monarchi- cal ' ' bishop at Corinth, yet such a state of things cannot have lasted long in any important Church. On this ground therefore the Didache must be set either in the first century or else in some backwater of church life. The itinerant ministry is obviously yet more archaic. In the second century prophecy was a charisma only and not a ministrj', except among the Montanists. — (2) The itinerant ministers are not mentioned by (,'le- ment or Ignatius. The three orders are apostles, prophets, and teachers, as in I Cor., xii, 28 sq. : "God hath set some in the Church; first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly doctors [teachers]; after that mir- acles, then the graces of healings, helps, govern- ments, kinds of tongues, interpretations of speeches. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all doe- tors?" The Didache places teachers below apos- tles and prophets, the two orders which St. Paul makes the foundation of the Church (Eph., ii, 20). The term apostle is applied by St. Paul not only to the Twelve, but also to himself, to Barnabas, to his kins- men, Andronicus and Jmiias, who had been converted before him, and to a class of preachers of the first rank. But apostles must have "seen the Lord" and have received a special call. There is no instance in Holy Scripture or in early literature of the existence of an order called apostles later than the ApostoUc age. We have no right to assume a second-century order of apostles, who had not seen Christ in the flesh, for the sake of bolstering up a preconceived :iotion of the date of the Didache. Since in that work the visit of an apostle or of a pretended apostle is contemplated as a not improbable event, we cannot place the book later than about SO. The limits would seem to be from (35 to 80. Harnack gives 131-lCO, holding that Barnabas and the Didache independently employ a Christianized form of the Jewish "Two Ways", while Did., xvi, is citing Barnabas — a somewhat roundabout hypothesis. He places Barnabas in 131, and the Didache later than this. Those who date Bamab.as under Vespasian mostly make the Didache the borrower in cc. i-v and xvi. Many, with Funk, place Baniabas under Nerva. The commoner view is that which puts the Didache before 100. Bartlet agrees with Ehrhard that 80-90 is the most probable decade. Sabatier, Minasi, Jac- quier, and others have preferred a date even before 70.

As to the place of composition, many suggest Egj'pt because they think the "Epistle of Barnabas" was written there. The corn upon the moimtains iloes not suit Egypt, though it might be a prayer borrowed