by Matt Larsen
I have decided to hold off on writing out my thoughts for the previous series title—I believe that it is leading me to original thoughts about the Didache (caution is needed here).
I, however, would like to continue the afore promised series on the Didache, taking it in a new direction. In a document that is largely understood as a church manual, concerning how to catechize new converts, one would expect to hear a fair amount of instruction about sin and forgiveness. And, indeed, the Didachist does speak of these topics and has some interesting things to tell us about sin and forgiveness. I endeavor to walk through the Didache and bring these text to light, bring out their meaning, and draw some conclusions about the Didachist understanding of sin and forgiveness. Many Moderns, and especially Evangelicals, will no doubt find much of what [s]he has to say and doesn’t have to say on the topic to be uncomfortable and odd. This will take 3 posts looking at the data and 1 post synthesizing it into some conclusions.
The first section that deals with the forgiveness of sins is the Two Ways tractate (Did 1-6). This section tells the catechumens about the way of life and the way of death. In this section, there are 3 verses that directly deal with sin and forgiveness and 1 that inferentially deal with these same topics.
The first reference reads as follows:
Did. 4:3 οὐ ποιήσεις σχίσμα, εἰρηνεύσεις δὲ μαχομένους. κρινεῖς δικαίως, οὐ λήψῃ πρόσωπον ἐλέγξαι ἐπὶ παραπτώμασιν. (Do not make division, but cause those in quarrels to live in peace. Judge rightly. Do not show partiality (lit. “take face”) when reproving transgressions.)
There are a couple things that we can learn about the Didachist view of sin and forgiveness in this verse. It was a community event. There is no privatized religious experience here. It is assumed both by the Didachist and by the community that one’s transgression are known by the community. The community is assumed to have the responsibility to reprove the sins of those in their community. An implied ethic existed in the community and those within in were apparently responsible to know the actions of other involved in their communal life and hold them to this ethic. This idea will become clearer as we continue.
The second reference is found in Did 4.6, and this is particularly interesting:
Did. 4:6 ἐὰν ἔχῃς διὰ τῶν χειρῶν σου, δώσεις λύτρωσιν ἁμαρτιῶν σου. (If you have through [the work of] your hands, give [it] in redemption of your sins.)
The context surrounding this verse is about the giving and receiving of money. This passage tells us that it is not to be assumed that everyone in the Didachist’s community could be said to have money that they had earned through labor. However, if members of the community did indeed have money earned through labor, the Didachist commanded them to give it as λύτρωσιν of their sins. It is assumed from the context that the Didachist intended them to give it to the poor as a redemption for their sins.
Here we have a very interesting statement about forgiveness of sins. The Didachist seemed to indicate that the giving of alms to the poor is a means of accomplish the redemption of one’s sins. This verse again shows us again a communal view of sin, but also a communal view of forgiveness. It also strongly incorporates doing justice to the poor with forgiveness/redemption. This final idea is further supported by Did 5.2, when outline the way of death, the Didachist lists these particular sins:
“having no mercy for the poor, not working on behalf of the oppressed, not knowing Him who made them, murderers of children, corrupters of God’s creation, turning away from someone in need, oppressing the afflicted, advocates of the wealthy, lawless judges of the poor, utterly sinful. May you be delivered, children, from all these things!”
Clearly, for the Didachist, the way of life is the way of redemption, and the way of redemption is closely linked with dong justice towards the poor!
The third and final explicit reference to sin and forgiveness in the Two Ways tractate involves both sin and forgiveness and is found in 4.14. It reads as follows:
Did. 4:14 ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐξομολογήσῃ τὰ παραπτώματά σου, καὶ οὐ προσελεύσῃ ἐπὶ προσευχήν σου ἐν συνειδήσει πονηρᾷ. αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ὁδὸς τῆς ζωῆς. (In church, confess [2 sing] your transgressions and do not come to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life.)
This verse ends the Didachist’s description of the way of life. [S]he instructs the catechumens that they must confess their sin in church. The following part of the verse instructs them to not come to prayer with an evil conscience. It cannot be determined with absolute certainty how these two parts of the verse relate to one another. Are they two separate commands or are they two commands in logical sequence? As simple as this explanation seems, I believe they are to be taken as two commands in logical sequence. If the Didachist had simply desired to close out the Two Ways tractate with two important but unrelated ideas, [s]he wouldn’t have need to use a connective καὶ. The presence of the καὶ indicates that these two commands are logically connected. Thus, the new converts are told that they must confess their sins to the church community, otherwise, they would be coming to their prayer with an evil conscience.
This appears to be some sort of proto-catholic confession. Their sins must be confessed publicly to the community otherwise their prayer will be done with an evil conscience. Restitution for sin was not made apart from community, but rather through the confession of sins to the community
This same idea is also found in James 5.16:
ἐξομολογεῖσθε οὖν ἀλλήλοις τὰς ἁμαρτίας καὶ εὔχεσθε ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων ὅπως ἰαθῆτε. (Therefore, confess sins to one another and pray on behalf of one another so that you might be healed.)
This, once again, tells us that the Didachist and his community had a community view of forgiveness. The fact that the one with sins needed to work through the vehicle of the church in order to not come to prayer with an evil conscience indicates that they indeed had a communal view of forgiveness, as well as sin.
The last reference that I want to point out in this post is tangentially related to the topic of sin and forgiveness, but I find it so fascinating that I wanted to discuss it anyways. Here it is:
Did. 6:2 εἰ μὲν γὰρ δύνασαι βαστάσαι ὅλον τὸν ζυγὸν τοῦ κυρίου, τέλειος ἔσῃ· εἰ δ᾿ οὐ δύνασαι, ὃ δύνῃ, τοῦτο ποίει. (For if, on the one hand, you are able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect. But if, on the other hand, you are not able [to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, what you are able, do this.)
Draper restates this verse as follows: “The ‘perfect’ (τέλειος) or complete Christian in the Didache, then, is the one who keeps the whole Torah according to Christian halakah” (The Didache in Modern Research, 358). I point this verse out because the prevailing view of Protestant theology of sin and forgiveness has been framed in something like this: Once you have figured out that you cannot keep the law that God requires, stop trying and simply trust in Jesus. This is the (although perhaps a bit of a caricature) traditional view of sin and forgiveness among non-catholics post-Martin Luther.
Yet, here we have a Jewish-Christian Jesus community that was contemporaneous with or, at latest, immediately following the Jesus community’s represented in the New Testament and they seem to frame the discussion of sin and forgiveness in … well … the exact opposite way!
This is an important and interesting text for understanding the Jewish mindset at the time of the New Testament. I do not doubt that those of us who are opposed to the NPP will read this verse and think that we perhaps are looking at the those rascally Judaizers that Paul had to fight against. “See! There they go trying to earn there salvation, again! How misguided they are!”
But I also don’t doubt that others of us who have sympathies towards the NPP will see this verse and think perhaps we and not them have been misguided, reading a anti-Papal corruption hermeneutic into the whole of the New Testament.
I suppose the question is: Do you see an attitude of legalism in Did 6.2 or an attitude that is completely unaware of the post-Luther-vs-Rome/Paul-vs-Pharisee discussion of salvation by grace verses works? I leave the decision up to you …
Just finished up a major Aramaic exam and now I’m working on a major exegetical paper for the Book of Romans that’s due next Friday. I’ll be posting before then but off and on. Keep checking back!
As interest continues to arise in the Fathers and we consider their voice for the life and the practice of the Church, I found it fitting to bring in a guest blogger who can bring a challenging and fresh perspective to one of the most beloved works in the Fathers, the Didache. I’ve only recently gotten to know Matt Larsen, a fellow colleague, but he has demonstrated to be an exceptionable student of the Fathers and the Didache and shows to be a promising future scholar in the field. Matt is very much involved in teaching the Scriptures over at his Church in Dallas, Texas. This is first post of several to follow. Feel free to comment and ask questions for Matt as this series develops–whether encouraging, challenging, constructively critical, etc. Welcome Matt!
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Rethinking the Didache (Part 1): A Literary/Rhetorical Approach
by Matt Larsen
It just be might be that an avalanche in Didachistic studies has recently begun. Since its discovery in 1873, it has been generally accepted to see the Didachist as a redactor of source, rather than as an author in his own right. But it is a truism to state that one will inevitably find what one is looking for in the text or, as Albert Schweitzer taught us, whom one is looking for. As Adele Berlin points out, if one approaches a text convinced on the validity of form and source criticism, one will certainly “find” a wide array of forms and sources.
In this light, we are forced to ask, “Is it any coincidence that the Didache was discovered and first studied during the life and Julius Wellhausen, with all the excitement around his new Documentary Hypothesis, and the Didache was ‘found’ to be created by a redactor using various sources, as well?”
The Didache has been a difficult puzzle for scholars ever since its discover by Philotheos Bryennios in the library of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople. Scholars have found different results as they approach the text. The majority assumption among these same scholars has been that the Didachist was dealing with various sources, redacting them and compiling to accomplish his desired effect on his community.
But is it not true that the task of the scholar is not simply to ask questions of the text but rather, first, to approach the text without prior commitment to any type of “criticism” and let the text itself dictate the questions that it wants to answer? Here’s what I’m saying: what if the search for redacted sources in the Didache was something that the scholastic community of the last hundred plus years have wanted to find and thus they have indeed “found” them, and thus, were misguided from the get-go? Does the Didache really demand that we perform rigorous source and form criticism? Or does it want to answer different questions?
Into this milieu enters the recent commentary of Aaron Milavec. One thing that can certainly be stated about his commentary is that he is an independent thinker. Many of his views of the Didache are unique or fringe. He is not shy to voice his options over and against vast scholarly crowd standing against him.
One of these unique views is that the Didache was not compiled by the Didachist of different sources, compiling them and redacting them as [s]he saw fit. Milavec sees a clear unity in the Didache. He finds a compelling pastoral genius that holds the Didache together. He says that he came to this conclusion, among other things, by reading the text in the Greek over and over again, listening to it spoken out loud over and over again, and, ultimately, committing the whole text to memory.
While I didn’t follow his exact methodology. I have sought to read and re-read the text of the Didache over and over again, and simply ask, “What am I seeing?”. In this endeavour, I too find a clear literary unity of the Didache, but for a different reason.
I see a strong polemic and defensive tone throughout the Didache. From beginning to end, I believe the Didachist is seeking to claim that their Christian community is not a false, rogue Messianic sect, but rather, they and not the Jews are in fact the true expression of Israel.
This series of posts will seek to point out the polemic, defensive tone of the Didachist in four posts and, in the final post, to begin to make some remarks about the significance of the polemical literary unity of the Didache. The question that the scholar must ask is: does this methodology work when used on this text? Whether it be source, form, literary, or … even canonical criticism, we must ask, “does looking at the text this way illuminate or confuse it?” Source criticism has left the poor Didachist as a confused compiler who had no theology to offer his readership. The question now must be switched to “Is there another form of criticism that will make better sense of this document?”
As now introduced, I believe the answer to that question is “yes” and that that method is rhetorical criticism, which sees a strong polemical, defensive rhetoric claiming to be the continuation of the true Israel, not a false, rogue Messianic sect and certainly not a new religion, but a very very old one.
Stay tuned …
I’m looking for critical, preferably newer, articles that deal specifically with Rom 6.1ff. Perspective does not matter. Your suggestion may save me some time! 
And so it begins… Jewett, Cranfield, Byrne, Schreiner, Moo, et al. [update: my original post which was somehow erased had Dunn second]
Came across this today as I continue through my class in Romans, and thought I’d share it with you all. Rom 4.15 reads:
ὁ γὰρ νόμος ὀργὴν κατεργάζεται· οὗ δὲ οὐκ ἔστιν νόμος οὐδὲ παράβασις. (For the law produces the wrath of God, but οὗ there is no law, neither is there transgression.)
It’s quite clear that the normal usage of the relative pronoun ‘which’ is not employed here. Rather it’s an evolvement of the relative pronoun that became an adverbial of place (BDAG, s.v. οὗ).
So then, a proper translation of this text would read something like:
For the law produces the wrath of God, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.
Or so says James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary, who states,
“We finally found the original text of Deuteronomy . . . This is sensationally important.”
HT: Jim West
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