by Matt Larsen
The second section of the Didache that I want to consider in regards to the issues of sin and forgiveness in chapters 7-10 (see Part 1 of Examining Sin and Forgiveness in the Didache by clicking here). There are 3 points I want to make about sin and forgiveness, one that is explicit in text and two that are implicit.
First, in Didache 8.2, the Didachist stated the Our Father prayer as he has received. It bears a remarkable resemblance to Matthew’s version of the Our Father. However, there are 4 small differences. While many scholars conclude that these changes are are insignificant, I argue that little changes become of great significance when it involves a prayer that was memorized and prayed in community thrice daily. Thus, these difference must be analyzed scrupulously. Two of these differences involve both sin and forgiveness. The sixth and seventh line of the Our Father differ in the Didache and Matthew: (1) the Didachist used τὴν ὀφειλὴν ἡμῶν, using singular debt with a plural pronoun, whereas Matthew used τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν, matching the plural debt with the plural pronoun, and (2) the Didachist used the present active ἀφίεμεν whereas Matthew used the aorist active ἀφήκαμεν. As stated earlier, while these are small difference, I believe they become significant in light of the fact that these were prayed in community thrice daily. I believe that two issues regarding sin and forgiveness in the Didache can be noted here: (1) Again, the Didachist hold a more communal view of sin. He sees that the community together has a debt that they communally owe to the Lord. The Didachist is thin on individual sin while he has much to say about communal sin. (2) The Didachist, based on his use of the present instead of an aorist, links divine forgiveness even closer with daily intra-communal human forgiveness than does Matthew. He sees forgiveness of sin as an issue that involves the community, in that the community was only entitled to ask for divine forgiveness to the extent that they were offering daily forgiveness to one another. In the Our Father of the Didache, we see that sin and divine forgiveness, for the Didachist, involved the whole community, not merely the individual.
Second, in Didache 9.6, it reads:
μηδεὶς δὲ φαγέτω μηδὲ πιέτω ἀπὸ τῆς εὐχαριστίας ὑμῶν, ἀλλ᾿ οἱ βαπτισθέντες εἰς ὄνομα κυρίου, καὶ γὰρ περὶ τούτου εἴρηκεν ὁ κύριος· μὴ δῶτε τὸ ἅγιον τοῖς κυσί. // But let no one eat or drink from your [pl] Eucharist except those baptized in the name of the Lord, For the Lord has even spoken concerning this: “Do not give what is holy to the dogs”.
This reference implicitly teaches about forgiveness . It explicitly teaches that the central meal of this community (who prayed for and experienced daily forgiveness) was only for those baptized in the name of the Lord [i.e. Jesus]. When this passage is read light of the pseudepigrapha, other NT texts, and especially other AF reference, it seems likely that the Didachist saw baptism of the means of forgiveness of sins, acquiring entrance in the church, and gaining salvation. In Joseph and Aseneth, though no explicit reference is made to baptism/bath, Aseneth’s moment of conversion is associated with washing her hands and face in “living water” (14.12, 15, 17; see also 18.8-9. Didache 7.2 which states “living water” as the preferred mode of baptism). Everett Ferguson, in his new book Baptism in the Early Church (77-82), claims that this reference does not refer to proselyte baptism. While this may be true in the strictest sense of the terms (as it is not a full bath but a washing), it does refer to a washing in “living water” that is associated with conversion, which is of significance to our discussion on the Didache. A clearer reference is found in Barnabas 11.1, a document which has many conceptual parallels to the Didache. Barn 11.1 reads:
“But let us inquire whether the Lord took care to foreshadow the water and the cross. Now concerning the water, it is written with reference to Israel that they would never accept the baptism that brings forgiveness of sins, but would create a substitute for themselves.”
This is a clear reference from the AF that explicitly links baptism with the forgiveness of sins, which the church accepted but Israel never accepted. These passage along with 1 Peter 3.21 (which links baptism with salvation), Shep of Herm 11.15 (which links baptism with salvation) and 15.3 (which links baptism with entrance into the saved community) gives us a context within which to understand what the Didachist has in mind in 9.5 (and also in ch. 7). In sum, in light of Did 9.5 and these parallel passages, the Didachist likely understood baptism to be the thing which entered one in the community that experienced forgiveness and shared the Eucharist together.
Thirdly, the Didachist mentions nothing about forgiveness of sins in his/her section on the Eucharist in 9-10. This is significant because every student of the historical Jesus Movement knows that all 3 of the Synoptic Gospels and Paul explicitly, immediately, and repetitively link the Eucharist with the death of Jesus (see Mk 14.24, Mt 26.28, Lk 22.20, 1 Cor 11.26) as well as with forgiveness of sins (see Mt 26.28). Yet the Didachist in no way connects the Eucharist with the death of Jesus or the forgiveness of sins. Rather, it language reflects a community of hope with a future-oriented posture. My only point here is to help us understand what the Didache did not have in mind when he thought of the forgiveness of sins – namely, the Eucharist.
In light of these above observations, it must be remembered that Second Temple period thought of sin and forgiveness in very different terms than do Western Christians. Our culture hears sin and immediately thinks in individualistic terms. It hears forgiveness and immediately thinks of a cognitive event. This was by and large not the case among Second Temple Jews. In order to properly read the NT and its surrounding texts, we must bear in mind the large hermeneutical gaps that exist and must not read about culture’s view of sin and forgiveness into their minds – particularly in the area of sin and forgiveness.
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