iv. CHURCH CONDITIONS IMPLIED IN THE DIDACHE.—This subject will be discussed more fully under C. Enough here to indicate certain features bearing on origin and date. Thus the degree to which its Christianity is still expressed in forms determined by Judaism, while yet its attitude to unbelieving Judaism (‘the hypocrites ’) is one of bitter hostility, seems a highly primitive trait. It has more in common with the Epistle of James than with any other Christian document ; only, the judgment which James felt near at hand has fallen, and has left Judaism as a whole still impenitent — apostate in the eyes of our author. Yet even he is swayed by Jewish sentiment in matters such as dietary restrictions (vi. 3), where inherited instinct would naturally leave a prefer- ence, even when Gentiles were concerned. nd so vi, 3 shows a qualified survival of the compromise laid down in Ac 15”, with a clear distinction be- tween different elements in it: ‘ Now touching food, bear what thou canst ; but of food offered to idols greatly beware, for it is worship of dead gods.’ Observe, too, the natural, allusive way in which it is said: ‘ All first-fruits . . . thou shalt take and give as the first-fruits to the prophets ; for they are your chief priests. . . . Take the first-fruits and give according to the commandment’ (xiii. 3, 5, 7). It is the age of transition, when the old forms of Palestinian Judaism are being adapted to the new religion of the Spirit, of which the prophet is the type.
But it is in the Eucharistic forms that this primitive continuity of thought and feeling is most apparent. We are still in the atmosphere of ‘the breaking of bread’ as it appears in Acts. The ideal implied in the Didache might (with the sub- stitution of second-hand for first-hand Apostolic teaching) be summed up in the words of Ac 22 ‘They were keeping steadfastly to the teaching of the Apostles and to the communion—the breaking of bread and the prayers.’ ‘The breaking of bread’ in Thanksgiving (Eucharist) is still viewed as ‘the expressive act by which the unity of the many, as partakers of the one Divine sustenance, is signified’ (Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 44): and here we have samples of ‘the prayers’ in which the thanksgiving was expressed. When we ex- amine these prayers, they are seen to be trans- formed Jewish Bérakhéth over food; only, the parallel between the bodily and spiritual food reappears in a yet more impressive form, and the looking forward to the restitution of the Davidic Kingdom (here alluded to in ‘the Holy Vine of David Thy servant’), with the festal joy of a united and blessed Israel, receives a nobler Mes- sianic meaning. Indeed, the more the parallel with Ac 2*-47 js studied, the more the identity of spirit comes out; and a conviction arises that the writings belong to nearly the same epoch * (ef. the
* The present writer assigns the Lukan writings, like Barn., to Vespasian’s reign.
mpopjra Kal duddoxaro of Ac 13! with Did. xiii. 1, 2, xv.2). Particularly is this so, when we observe the agreement of Didache and Luke’s Gospel (on either text) with respect to the order of the Cup and the Bread. For, however we may explain the liturgical usage here revealed, it is hard to believe that it would be thus enjoined, without a sign of embarrassment, once the Gospel of Matthew, with its opposite order in the story of the Last Supper, had become generally known in Palestine. Such a consideration tends to exclude the notion that the Didache means our Matthew in those cases where it cites ‘the Gospel’ (viii. 2, xi. 3, xv. 3, 4)— a view otherwise unlikely, owing to the fact that it also quotes Evangelical phrases found only in Luke. ‘dd to this the nature of the ministry, especially the central significance of the prophet and the absence of any one presiding adminis- trative official ; the absence of any trace of public persecution, of any fixed creed, any conscious theological tendency, or any special heresy to be guarded against; and, finally, the type of its eschatology—and the general effect is that of a stage in primitive Christianity not later than the close of the lst century.
J. Réville, Les Origines de UEpiscopat, 260f., well says: ‘Certainly the compiler of the Didache, like all genuine Chris- tians from the beginning, has a very lively sense of the unity of the Christian Society. But this unity is all spiritual and mystical: it does not yet manifest itself in any ecclesiastical organism, . . . The veritable organs of the essential unity of the Church are still the apostles and, above all, the itinerant prophets, all those who go from city to city, from village to Village, to be the witnesses of one and the same evangelic tradi- tion and the interpreters of one and the same Christian inspira- tion. Precautions have already to be taken concerning them, lest they abuse their position; but there is as yet no thought of subordinating them to any ecclesiastical authorities. The sovereignty of the Spirit is still undisputed, and knows no other control than that of the conscience of the faithful.’
v. DatE.—In trying to reach a yet more exact date, we are hampered by ignorance of the relative rate of development in different countries, especi- ally as it happens that primitive features were likely to linger longest in Palestine, to which internal evidence points directly. Accordingly it is rash to say of Palestine, that after a given decade such a manual would no longer be in correspond- ence with its environment. Still it does seem pos- sible to show that certain decades are more prob- able than others, even in Palestine. Nor is docu- mentary evidence here quite so wanting as is often supposed, if we may take Dr. R. H. Charles’ views on the Ascension of Isaiah as substantially correct. He shows that the striking Christian section (iii. 13-iv. 18)—which he gives reasons for believing to have belonged originally to a larger ‘ Testament of Hezekiah’ (known to Cedrenus)—yreflects con- ditions as they existed within the lifetime of the last of those who had seen their Lord in the flesh (iv. 13), ¢.e. not later than A.D. 100. Further, the Hebraic cast of the style and the circle of ideas in this section point strongly to Palestine, or at least Syria, as the region to which, its descriptions apply most directly. Here, then, are data for testing the state of things implied in the Didache by criteria belonging to a similar local type of Chris- tianity. The following quotations exhibit the main points of contact. After an account of the first advent of ‘the Beloved’ (i.e. Messiah as God’s mais, as in Did. ix. x.; see Mt 12%, citing Is 421) and ‘the discipling of the Twelve’ ( ray dddexa Madnrela), we read—