But what date must we assign to Barnabas ? As this is a crucial matter for our Didache, which was probably rather later, reason must be shown for fixing on the reign of Vespasian, in spite of much critical opinion to the contrary.
It is a mistake in method to rely mainly on the apparent reference in ch, xvi. to a rebuilding of the Jewish temple by the Romans as imminent. For such an expectation is quite as likely to have arisen in certain circles under Vespasian, soon after the staggering catastrophe of a.p. 70, as later under Hadrian. This being so, the dating in terms of Roman emperors, apocalyptically indicated in ch. iv., is really far more secure, when due note is taken of the very peculiar situation presupposed.
‘And I saw the fourth beast to be wicked and strong, and more intractable than all the beasts of the earth; and how there arose from him ten horns, and from these a little horn, an excrescence (rwapapuddiov) ; and how that it abased at one stroke (s¢’ év) three of the great horns.’ Now when it is noted that the text of Dn 7, which is here explicitly cited, does not furnish the most distinct- ive phrases in this description (for which Barnabas’ Greek is here given), we are sure that they contain at once its emphasis and the key to its author’s meaning. Keeping this in mind, we perceive that the reign of Vespasian alone suits the conditions. He and his two sons were, for a student of apoca- lyptic on the look-out for striking phenomena rather than for strict Roman theory, ‘three’ con- joint heads of the empire, which might be smitten down ‘at one stroke.’ The stroke was to be de- livered by Nero, reappearing as Antichrist, himself an ‘offshoot’ of the series of emperors, to which he had once belonged. In this solution Lightfoot and
DIDACHE
DIDACHE 445
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Ramsay agree ;* and it is hard to see why any should hesitate to accept it in some form, ¢.g. in Ramsay’s, which includes Julius among the ‘ten kings,’ and excludes Otho and_Vitellius as un- likely to count as emperors in Vespasian’s day. Tt is strange that any one should think that Nerva satisfies the unique situation hinted at by Barna- bas, touching which he might well say to his con- temporary readers, ‘Understand, then, ye ought.’ Further, it is natural to suppose that the coinci- dence between the political situation and Daniel would be noticed while the new conditions were still fresh in men’s thoughts, that is, early in Vespasian’s reign. Hence a date as early even as A.D. 71 is more likely than one towards the end of Vespasian’s reign, especially as it would be before the Flavian rule was felt to be firmly estab- lished that the idea of Nero’s return to overthrow the Flavians (like the shortlived emperors of 68-69) would most readily occur.
(c) Origin of the fuller Didache. — Assuming, then, that about A.D. 70, or soon after, the ‘Teaching’ of the Zwo Ways was already current in definite form in one or more of the Greek- speaking regions of Palestine (¢.g. the Maritime Plain), how are we to imagine it growing into our Didache by the addition of the ecclesiastical sec- tions (vii._xv.) and the eschatological conclusion (xvi.), as well as the parts of ch. i. absent from other witnesses to the Zwo Ways? In the period following immediately on A.D. 70 there still existed in Palestine a strong sense that all sacred usages of the local Ecclesia rested upon the teaching of its Apostolic founders, particularly the Twelve. But it was also felt, with some dismay, that the personal influence of these authoritative exponents of the Gospel was yearly becoming less and less. In- firmity or death was rapidly removing those of them who had not already gone to other fields of work. How, then, was their influence to be pre- served unimpaired, especially among Gentile be- lievers, over whom it must from the first have been least assured, and who were most liable to change under outside influences, which would be at their maximum on the sea-board? Sooner or later the plan would suggest itself of putting into written circulation those usages which were held to be Apostolic, for the sake both of fixity and wider diffusion. Such a method was quite in keeping with Hellenistic habits, especially when influence on non-Jews was sought. Hence it was in every way natural that the first public catechism of the Christian life and of ordered Church fel- lowship should be addressed ‘to the Gentiles.’ It was equally natural that it should be issued by its Hellenistic author or authors as ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’ who were to all Palestinian Christians essentially the authorities as to their Lord’s mind and will.t Finally, what more natural than to adopt an existing body of precepts like the Two Ways, already held to embody Apostolic teach- ing on the duty of the Gentile turned Christian, and to enlarge the scope of the title ‘Teaching ’— even at the risk of making it cover rather more than it would suggest § to a Greek at any rate?
* Lightfoot, Clement, ii. 503 ff. ; Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, 307-809.
} Thisis clearly true of Vitellius, but not equally so of Otho, who was dead before Vespasian became a candidate for the purple. Accordingly, the present writer prefers to reckon from Augustus and to exclude Vitellius only (so Eusebius, H. E iii. 5.1, who may here reflect the view of contemporary writings). It is probable that St. John’s Apocalypse also reckoned from Augustus, in its similar passage, 17911: see edition in the ‘Century Bible,’ 53 fi.