(d) Didascalia.— This work fulfilled for Syi'ia towards the end of the 3rd cent, what the last- named did_ for Egypt a little later. It is not, however, like it, simply an adaptation of the Didache. Indeed, it was earlier regarded as com- pletely independent, but its dependence may now be held as proved (cf. C. Holzhey, Die Abhdngigl-eit d. syr. Didascalia v. d. Didache, Freiburg, 189S). No certain conclusion can be drawn as to what form its author had before him.
(e) Apostolic Constitutions and Canons. — The first six chapters embody the Didascalia, and to that extent the Didache is used at second-hand. Direct relationship is confined to the first 3-2 chapters of the seventh book. Most of the Didache is here embodied, but with significant alterations and additions which betray a later age. The adaptation is clearly based on our text of the Didache. Here at last there is no serious question of dependence on an earlier recension.
{/) Other works. — For a full list the reader is referred to Harnack [Gesch. der altchristl. Litt. i. 87), Rendel Harris (Teaching of the Apostles, 18SS), and Vernon Bartlet (HDB v. 442). Chief among these may be mentioned : Athanasius, Syntagma Doctrines, which is obviously dependent on Did. i.-vi., and less obviously on xii. xiii., the under- lying text probably being the earlier recension (A) ; the pseudo-Athanasian Fides Xiccena and Did- ascalia cccxviii. Patrum, where the basis is evidently the Syntagma; the Life of Schnudi, which includes most of the first part in an Arabic version, derived probably from the Apostolic Church Ordinance.
We have, therefore, continuing the numbers at the end of § 4, (5) Barnabas (B) and Hermas (H), dependent on the earlier Christian recension (A) and probably known to the maker of the final re- cension (D) ; (6) the Apostolic Church Ordina^icc (CO), possibly based on A, but more probably on D -fB; (7) the Apostolic Constitutions and Ccmons (A), clearly based on D ; (8) the Syntagma (S) and dependent works based on the earlier recension (A).
The evidence, then, points with great probability, for it can never amount to demonstration, to (1) the circulation and use of two recensions of the Didache, an earlier and a later, whicli difier in the omission and inclusion respectively of i. 3-ii. 1 and in certain other ascertainable points of slight im- portance ; (2) the gradual disappearance of the second part of the Didache in the two ways of (n) omission, as in B and L — in B, through lack of relevance, in L through lack of correspondence to
DIDACHE
DIDACHE
299
actual conditions; (b) supersession by a complete recast of material to suit altered ecclesiastical con- ditions as in CO and A, and, it may be added, by omission and supersession jointly, as in S ; (3) the fortunate preservation of a complete copy of the later of these recensions by a scribe whose full MS shows interest in what he conceived, generally rightly, to be genuine remains of Christian anti- quity. The general result may be tabulated thus :
Jewish Original
6. Place of origin and date.— (1) Place. — Both place and date seem to assume importance when we begin to discuss the significance of the work in relation to the problems of the early Church. But this is true of the place only to a very limited ex- tent. For, tiiough it were proved to have origin- ated in some more isolated communitj'^, yet its acceptance by so wide a circle would show that it was no mere reflexion of abnormal conditions whicii existed nowhere else. Most of the regions in which early Christianity had any hold have been sug- gested as the place of origin — Syria (in particular, Palestine), Egypt, Asia Minor, Thessalonica, Rome. But the great bulk of opinion is almost equallj^ divided between Egypt and Syria. On behalf of Egypt it can be, and has been, urged that the earliest references and quotations belong to Egypt ; that the work had there from an early date almost canonical authority, and was used freely from the time of Clement to that of Athanasius and later. On the other hand, the testimony of use from Syria, though less imjiosing, is also strong. Further, the form of the doxology in the Lord's Prayer has Egyptian affinities. It omits ' the kingdom ' with the Sahidic version. But the doxology itself origin- ated in Syria, and was thence adopted into Syrian texts of the NT (Westcott and Hort, NT, 1882, App. p. 9). Against the claim for Egypt there is what Schaff calls ' the insuperable objection ' — the allusion to the broken bread having been scattered in grains ' upon the mountains.' But after all this only proves that this particular form of prayer here incorporated did not originate in Egypt, but in some hillier land. The objection is not ' insuper- able,' but it has more weight than is commonly allowed, for later Egyptian works certainly felt the difficulty. ('Upon the mountains ' is omitted in Apost. Const., and represented by 'upon this table ' in the pseudo-Athanasian tract de Virgini- tate. ) On behalf of Syria, in particular of Palestine, there can be urged the marked affinity of the Didache with the Epistle of James and other recog- nized products of Palestinian Christianity, and the fact that it must have arisen in a community where it was necessary to make decisive the distinction between themselves and non-Christian Jews, e.g. in the regulations about fasts (viii. 1). A multi-