Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/956

 precepts from the Sermon on the Mount. This section is entirely absent from Barnabas. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that Barnabas did not know the Didaché in Bryennius's form. He has elsewhere coincidences with N.T., and had no motive for avoiding them. If a book before him contained a number of N.T. precepts he would never have studiously avoided these in using the work, nor have forgotten them even if he wrote from memory. The coincidences between the two works, therefore, must be explained by the use of a common document.

This conclusion is confirmed on taking into the comparison also the Latin "Two Ways," and the Egyptian Church Ordinances, both of which, like Barnabas, do not recognize the Didaché section founded on the Sermon on the Mount. Neither is this section recognized in Pseudo-Athanasius. The Church Ordinances exhibit signs of acquaintance with Barnabas; the Latin form does not. In the order of the precepts the Ordinances and the Latin both agree with the Didaché against Barnabas. The Ordinances differ from the Latin by excess, but scarcely at all otherwise. The same reasons that forbid us to think that Barnabas, if he had known the Didaché, would have left out its Christian element, prove the Ordinances and the Latin likewise independent of the Didaché. The phenomena are explained if we assume an original document in substantial agreement with the Latin, enlarged in the Didaché by additions from N.T., and afterwards independently enlarged by the framer of the Church Ordinances, who broke it up into sections supposed to be spoken by different apostles; while Barnabas worked up in his own way the materials he drew from the document. We cannot say positively whether this original proceeded beyond the "Two Ways." The Latin fragment breaks off too soon to give any information as to the length of the original: the Church Ordinances cease to present coincidences with the Didaché after the section on the "Two Ways"; but this may be because the directions for ritual and discipline had become out of date when the Ordinances were put together, the editor therefore designedly substituting what better agreed with the practice of his own age. The quotation by Pseudo-Cyprian leads us to think that the Latin Doctrina Apostolorum did go beyond the "Two Ways." No great weight can be attached to the length ascribed to the Didaché in the Stichometry, but this rather favours the idea that the document intended was longer than the "Two Ways," but shorter than the Didaché of Bryennius.

It remains to be mentioned that there is a coincidence between Barnabas and the Didaché outside the "Two Ways." The opening of the Ep. of Barnabas and the last or eschatological chapter of the Didaché both contain the warning that the disciples' faith would not profit them unless they remained stedfast in the last times. There is a good deal of difference in the wording of the warning, but not more than is usual in quotations by Barnabas. The supposition that Barnabas was acquainted with Bryennius's form of the Didaché has already been excluded; therefore either (1) the earlier form which Barnabas did use included an eschatological chapter containing this warning, or (2) the editor who changed the earlier form into that of Bryennius was acquainted with the Ep. of Barnabas. We prefer (2), on account of the reasons we shall presently give for thinking the document used by Barnabas to have been pre-Christian. If the editor of Bryennius's form knew Hermas, he might also have known Barnabas, with whom he has a second coincidence in a passage about almsgiving, which, as implying a knowledge of Acts and Romans, Barnabas was not likely to have found in his original. Possibly there is a third coincidence; for a plausible explanation of the difficult word ἐκπέτασις in c. xvi. is that it means the sign of the cross, being derived from Barnabas's interpretation of ἐξεπέτασα in Is. lxv. 2.

Hermas also presents coincidences with the Didaché, but it is not easy to say that there is literary obligation on either side, except in one case, viz. a coincidence between the second "commandment" of Hermas and the "Sermon on the Mount" section, which we have already seen reason to think belongs to a later form of the Didaché. In this case the original seems clearly that of Hermas. His instructions as to almsgiving are perfectly clear. The corresponding passage in the Didaché has many coincidences of language, but expresses the thought so awkwardly as to be scarce intelligible without the commentary of Hermas. It begins, "Blessed is he that giveth according to the commandment, for he is blameless: woe to him that receiveth." The words "for he is blameless," as they stand, are puzzling; for we should expect the "for" to introduce something stronger than merely an acquittal of blame. By comparison with Hermas we see that the case contemplated is that of giving to an undeserving person. Then the receiver deserves the woe; the giver obtains an acquittal. We conclude, then, without disputing the greater antiquity of the original Didaché, that the interpolator who brought the work to the form published by Bryennius was later than Hermas, and drew from him.

Clement of Alexandria was certainly acquainted with the Didaché in some form. He expressly quotes one sentence as Scripture (Strom. i. 20, p. 377), "My son, be not a liar, for lying leads to theft." This saying is not quoted by Barnabas; but the Church Ordinances attest that it belongs to the earlier form of the Didaché. Even the later form of the Didaché may well be considerably older than Clement; and he might easily have met with a copy during his travels in the East. He uses (Quis Dives Salv. 20) the phrase "vine of David," found in one of the benedictory prayers of the Didaché. He shews a knowledge (Strom. vii. 7, p. 854) of the Wednesday and Friday fasts (c. 12, p. 877), but does not seem to attribute to these institutions the authority which belongs to the name Scripture bestowed by him on the Didaché.

Origen was later than Clement and must have been well acquainted with the literature current in Egypt and Palestine; so that we might naturally expect him to be familiar with the Didaché. Yet no satisfactory proof of his knowledge of it has been produced.