THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
stantinopolitan manuscript is secondary to Barnabas, and is either dependent upon it or upon materials already used by Barnabas; and the possibility is excluded that Barnabas copied from the " Teaching " as it exists in the Constantinopolitan manuscript. [The priority of Barnabas is advocated also by Bryennios, llilgcnfeld, andKrawutzky in KL, whereas the priority of the Diduche is strongly advocated by Zahn, Funk, Langen, Farrar, nearly all English and American writers on the subject. A third opmion is held by Lightfoot, Holtzmann, Massebieau, Lipsius, Warfield, Mc- Giffert, that both Barnabas and the writer of the Didache drew from a common source which is lost.] The relation between the " Teaching " and Hermas is more uncertain. There are only two parallels, " Teaching," i. 5; of. Mand., ii. 4-6, and the very doubtful one " Teaching," v.; cf. Mand., viii. 4-5. That the " Teaching " had Hermas as a source may not be safely affirmed in view of the variations in these passages in different recensions;, but the opposite is certainly excluded. [Schaff holds that the Didache is older than the
Shepherd of Hermas; for in its brief 3. Hermas parallel sections Hermas is likewise and an enlargement of the simpler state- Jewish ments of the Didache ; Schaff, pp. 121 Writings, sqq.] Lately, American, English, and
French scholars have brought forward numerous parallels to i.-v. from Philo, Pseudo- Phokylides, the Sibylline books, and from the Talmud and Midrash. If, from these chapters, i. 3-6 be omitted, the remainder has almost nothing specifically Christian about it, and the little it has can be shown by the use of other original documents to be additions. Therefore it is an extremely probable conjecture that the " Two Ways " is a Jewish production, intended for proselytes, derived from the decalogue and an amplification of its commands, which along with the Old Testament has come over into the Christian Church.
VI. The Author's Standpoint: This much-discussed point is not settled. The " Teaching " has been regarded as a Jewish anti-Pauline Christian (Sabatier), as Jewish Christian, but not Ebionitic (Schaff), as anti-Pauline and Sadducean, heretical and anti-Christian (Churton), as Ebionitic, semi- Ebionitic, or anti-Ebionitic (cf. Krawutzky, KL, iii., 1869 sqq.), as Hellenistic-Christian, as anti- Montanistic and anti-Gnostic (Bryennios), as Montanistic (Hilgenfeld and Bonet-Maury), etc. To refute these different views is not necessary, but it is necessary to oppose the notion that the author of the " Teaching " was a Jewish Christian who belonged to a circle detached from Gentile Christians, and attached in some way to the Jews as a nation.
The facts are these: The author main- I. The tains silence upon circumcision and all Author other Jewish rites; in the two places not an where he mentions them he calls the Ebionite. Jews " hypocrites "; not a word is
said of observing the Mosaic law; in the long eschatological section (xvi.), derived from Matthew, the passages referring to Jerusalem, the Jewish people, and the Temple are wanting, nor is there any mention of a glorious kingdom in Pales-
tine, although the author presupposes a visible kingdom of Christ, as his belief in a double resurrection proves (cf. G. v. Lechler, Apostolisches uiid nachapostolischcs Zeitaltcr, p. 592, Carlsruhe, 1885) ; Matthew and Luke, or a recension of them, and not the Gospel of the Hebrews, was used, perhaps also the Pauline Epistles; Jesus is not called the Son, but the God, of David; the book passed over into the use of the Catholic Church. These considerations exonerate the author from Ebionism. But some assert the Jewish-Christian but not anti-Pauline character of the author. Schaff (pp. 125 sqq.) has collected arguments as follows: only the Twelve, but not the Apostle Paul are named; but in this respect the author does not differ from many ordinary Christian authors before the closing of the New Testament Canon. The style and phraseology are Hebraistic; but that is not remarkable in view of the Jewish origin of Christianity and the use of the Old Testament in the Septuagint. The author calls the prophets " high priests," but this was the rule among Gentile Christians. He demands the first-fruits for the prophets; but so do Paul and the Gentile Christian Church of the earliest times, especially after Justin's day. He warns against fasting with the Jews on Monday and Thursday, enjoins fasts on Wednesday and Friday, and names Friday paraskeue, " preparation." But even if the author had set the fasts upon the Jewish fastdays, this would have been no more a sign of Jewish Christianity than was the practise of the Quartodecimans. The author's discussion of the week in a religious sense explains the use of the Jewish names for the days, and he is entirely silent respecting the Sabbath. The injunction three times daily to repeat the Lord's Prayer is plainly adopted from Jewish custom. Besides what has been said
above, it should be remarked that it 2. Was He is not known what hours for prayer a Jewish were in the author's mind, and that, Christian? even if he had enjoined the Jewish
hours, that would not have been specifically Jewish-Christian. The author conceives of Christianity substantially as the highest morality ; he is a moralist in the better sense of the word, like James and Matthew. Consequently he must have been a Jewish Christian. To answer this argument would take too much space. The author does not attack the Jewish religion, as does Barnabas; but as a rule he attacks nobody. He not only lays stress upon the (Jewish-Christian) prohibition of meat offered to idols, but sets forth the observance of the Jewish dietary laws as the summit of Christian perfection. The prohibition of eating meat offered to idols was universal in the congregations in the empire from the end of the first century (cf. C. T. Keim, Aus dem Urchristenthum, pp. 88 sqq., Zurich, 1878) ; and, as for the second point, no one ever made such a claim, for by brosis, " food " (vi. 3), is most certainly meant, not the Jewish dietary regulation, but an ascetic restriction in the use of meat, as Schurer also maintains. The view-point of the author is that of common Gentile Christianity. His standpoint is very close to that of the author of the second epistle of Clement; he is not a Jewish Christian,