Knowledge and the Coming Kingdom: The Didache's Meal Ritual and its Place in Early Christianity (Library Of New Testament Studies)

LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUD IES

373 formuly the journal for rhc>- Study of the New Test:unenr Supplrmem series

Edicor

Mark Goodacre

Edltorl.lllkxud John M. G. 8arday, CraiB Blomberg, Kathleen E. Corl- a nd the Doxology Findings

190 200

Eucharislic Assemblies in Revelation

201

Prayer in Justin

204

ConcJusions

8. THt:

I N J· LUENCE of'I'H S D m.-tCtlt.'"s R r r UAL L OGIC IN Eu't'I'T

l a te Egyptian Evidence for the Inlluence of the Didarlw's Eucharistic Tradition Recycled Images An Ascetic Meal Prayer Early Egyptian Evidence The EJ>istlt• of Barnabas The Epistle 10 Dioguetu,,

Valenlinian Prayer

207 208

208 208 212 2 I7 2 I7 220

222

Comems Clement of Alexandria The Case of Strasbourg Papyrus 254

Conclusions

9. THE Exn or A

VII

229

234 237

Rit ual Rivalries

239 239

Apostolic· Coustitlllions 7.25- 26 Conclusions

247

TRAJEc 1·oRY

243

WORKS Cn~I!D

251

INOEX

269

A c KNOWLEDGEM ENTs

This project began with a series of informal conversations wilh Helmut Koeste.r . who repeatedly advised me to ask ' \Vha t is this?' when considering Didadw 9- 10. The fru it of those conversations was, eventually. a d issertation, which would have suffered greatly without his o ngo ing guidance as well as the s kilful insights of Paula Fredriksen. bot h o f whom I heartily thank. not o nly lo r t his projet.t but a lso fo r t he hours they

invested in my thinking. and writing.. Dietmar Winkler also provided helpful c ritique and bibliographical guidam:e at severa l s tages

orthe initial

project. and Jo nathan Klawans and James \Vahers gave me useful c riticisms on the completed d issertation, which have. im pacted the final Conn of this project in numerous ways. I also want to thank Fr~mk Korom for guiding. my read ing on rit ua l, o rality a nd food ways on severa l o ta kes its a nalytical acumen from its ability to respect significa nt d iversity in the earlie-sl stages oCt he Jesus movement. This model proposes tha t many of the written materhtls preserved from those early stag,e s come from d istinct and somewhat independent streams o f the Jesus movement. which themselve-S c hanged (and sometimes merged) over time. T he a na lytical cons truct 'trajectory' therefo re presses the queslions o f whether, how ;md to wha l extent any two lr.tditions or documents represent a commo n fo rm o f the movement. Conver:;ely, this model demands that a ny proposed link: (socially a nd religiously) betwee.n two documents be f/cmon.tlmted ra ther than assumed. It theref'o re demands a more thoroughgoing compar.tti ve venture t ha n. fo r exa mple, a model tha t assumes the existenllt>hrt-}. Bamttlxlsbri(!_/: Zwt>ila Klf'llmuhrit>/. Sl, beraw;gttgt>.bell. tibertmgt>lllmd erliilllert (Schriftc:n des Ursrltidue tim· Kircr: c:sp. Gregory Di:t. Tilt' Shupe ofthlt Liturg..r (New York: Sc:abury. 1982). p. 90~ Jungmann. Em~r Li111rgy. pp. 35- 6: and t hose rnentioncd in Paul F. Bradshaw. ' Introduc-tion: Thc Evolution of Early Anaphoms'. in Paul F. Br<Jdshaw (c:d.). E.wtys tm far~r E(IJiem £udwriJtic Pmyers(Collegc,·illc:. '-'IN: Liturgical Press. 1997). pp. 1- 18 (7). 17 The l:aucr tc:ml is taken frum Nicdcrwimmer (Didadllt. p. 1 ~3: •meal for the satisf:1ction of hunger'). whose rc:cenl and importtmt cther. Cf. Bradshaw. Eudltlristic Origins. p. 36.

Ritual and History of tm Jdiosynalllil' Tradition

II

t~oherent explanation for the rise of Catholicism. St1bsequent historians~

howe.ver, have-an obligation to confront the par.ldoxes he produced and to ta ke better account of the (sometimes newly) available evidence. 27 In particular. it will not do simply to gloss over the distinctive-t raits of the Didadu~'s me~ll ritua l instructions in an e llOrt to devise a seamless evolutionary paradigm. Precisely these distinctire traits should~ instead, be explored and elucidated in a sympathetic and historically plausible manner. Such a historical e ndeavour will not assume a f~i.cile and unproblematic link or conco rd between the various strands o f evidence tha t happen to survive from the early Jesus movemenl. Nor will il involve a debate- about the uut henticity or 'orlhodoxy' of the Didadu(s ritua l fO rm. A number of impo rtant works have appeared in recent years~ which a pproach the Didat'he pret.isely as a distinctive and e~1rly document. Jonathan A. Draper, in particular. has written a number of a rticles elucidating va rious aspects of the social a nd ritual situation implied by the Didadu~'s instructions.18 Aaron Milavec. in his massive. commentary on the Didaclu~. has worked tireles-sly to inte rpret the text in a no\'el and sympat hetic manner. 29 Alan J. P. Garrow. in a bold monogra ph and some equally bold papers, has been arguing for ihe Didachc's historical priority over the . NT Gospel or Matthew a nd key elements of the Pauline context. 30 These a nd o lher scholars have cont ributed much to o ur appreciation of the distinctive voice of the. Didar!Je. Thus. they signal a ~rowing awareness t hat lhe traditions preserve-d in lhis seemingly marginal document have more to say to t raditional po rt raits or early Chrislian o rig,ins than was previously imag.ined . The. Didat he's meal rit ual, too, deserves a fresh examination. which will consider ils origjnative matrix and its historica l impact, without slotting il into a predete rmined pattern or e ucharistic- evolution or a 'prolO-

27 One thinks of the l't'Cendy rcdi9:owrcd Gospel of Jud!IS. which oonlains at least one in which c:ttholic eucharist i~ practice: is \'icwc:d with c:ontempt. nnd which ngain emphasizes the ritual diversity of prc-Constanlinian Chri.sli.nnily. 28 Sec csp. Jomllhan A. Draper. •Torah nnd Troublesome Apostles in the Diiladw Community". No•·T 33 (1991). pp. 347- 72: 'Social Ambiguity and the Produe1ion of Te:(t Prophers. Teach~~rs. Bishops, nnd o~·ncons and the Devdopn1cnt of the Jesus Tr..dilion in the Ct,mmunity of !he Didarllt!'. in Clayton N. kfford (cd.). The Ditktt•he in Ctmt(!.\'1: E.uays tm ils Text. fli.~!t~ry tmd Tumsmi.uim1 ( L.ci Ritual theorists, a t their best, have in mind particular instant·e.s of ritual performa nce. which derive their effectiveness as rit uals from the-specific historical a nd c ultur.tl contexts within which t hey are pe.riOrmed. lt should be possible. the.n . to test the explanatory power o f a gh•e n ritual theory in a particular historical setting> and it should a iSD be possible to eluddate historical developments from a ritual-ce nt red point of view. One must keep in mind. of course-, that a ny point of view has its limitations. But s uppose that one were to d iscover reasonably fu ll informa tion regarding a ritual t hat was known to be impo rtant - e\'en central - to a gi\'en group. and little e lse could be known about t hat group'' In that case. it should be possible. by paying artention to their ritual instructions, to eluddate something meaningful or signillc-a nt abo u1 the mysterious group - something tha t could nol be elucidated without a n adequate understa nding of what rit uals can ' be' a nd especiaJiy how they might ·work·. This situation. it seems to me, is precisely what we e ncounter in the-case of the meal ritual preserved in the Didache. As the brief s urvey of scholarly approaches above. illustra tes. the pressing q uestion reg.arding 31 Sec too Bradshaw. EuduiJ'isJic Origins. p. 32.

Ritual and History of tm Jdiosynalllil' Tradition

13

this particula r meal ritua l has a lways been, to some exte nt a t le-ast, what it 1ras, what it was meant to do. how it was meant to be uHderswod or to

jimcliou for those who utilized it. Part of t he problem has always been tha t lillie c.an be known about the people who produced this ;-monymo us text. besides wh~it we le.a rn from the d ocume.n t itself: almost not hing is known with conlldence a bo ut the prm•e mmc.:e of the. Didadw. 32 Should t hese folks be co nsidered some kind o f rog.ue Jewish C hristian group'? Is their context closer to wha t we thought we understood as early apostolic Christianity? Who pr.tetised this ritual, and what d id they think they were-about'? Ell'orts to work o ut these problems on the-basis of o ther features in the exta nt Didat'he - e-Specially the fa mous ' two ways· tre-atise that forms its o pening - have- not d aritied the eucharistic pw:zles that confront us in Didudw 9- JO:B T he significa nce of this fa ilure>howe\'e r, has not always been Sr.lsped, bec-.a use scholars o f early Christianity have no t alw~1)'S ta ken seriously t he importance. of rilual participa tion and non-pa rtidpation for early Christian communities. T his bli nd spo t is ironic. given modern concems over the 'authe nticity' o f t he Didac/l(!'S ' Eucharist'. T here is stro ng evidence- that analogous com:erns about 'a uthenticity' in ritua l perfonnan{'e held sway a lso in a ntiquity: eucharistic practice f~1irly 34 frequently emerges as a litmus test o f a uthentic Christianity. In addition. the centra l impo rta nce of rit ual eating fo r a wide- s pectrum of early Christian gro ups cannot be denied ; such ritua ls a re-in a significan t sense thr selling (Or much that ha ppened in the-e.;-trly communilies. Therefore, the puzzles that confro nt us in this ritual text are. in nic t some o f the. be-st evidence we have for the existence a nd. distinctive traits of the group or bra nch of the Jesus movement that produc..·ed a nd utili:lt'especially from t he a nlhropology 32 We do nol know for certain cxactlr when. wh1•·mul llw Didadtr. (Minneapolis: Foru-cs.~ Press. 2005). PJl. 35-47): I rcnmin dubious. in pan b«.~au sc of the astonishing number of di,•cf'SC documents Ihat scholm-s are i1>dinod to place there. 33 Mos1 rcocn1ly. S:mdt and f1uss.:r. Ditktchl!. 34 I discuss thi\X instances inCh. 9: Ignatius of Antioc-h. h cnacus and the Apoca~rpse of Paul. M:tny o1hc:rs could be adduced: sec. e.g.• the disputes probed by McGowan. Asatieogra phical and historical seu ings. ll is critic-.al to bear this fac t in mind, bec.a use the Roman world was sometimes more- vast tha n a mileage cha rt would suggest. fo r instan(·e , what generalizations ~m be-made on the- basis of how a n early third-century Christia n apologist pr.tys in Carthage a nd :i mid-third -century ca.techist and theologian, some eleven hundred miles away. prays in Alexandria?35 T heir na tive languages d iffe-r. and t hough they read most or the s:.-tme Scriptures, they have almost c::ertainly le-arned fro m their Christia n fOrebe-a rs diffe rent prayer conventions. which the.y take to be traditional and perhaps even normative. Often enough. turns of phrase. common to various prayer samples turn o ut to be ' trdditiona l' in the sense that they mimic Scripture (the Psalms. for exa mple. or the Lord';; Prayer from the Gospel of Matthew). But upon carerul examination, such prayer texts just as often conta in se.rious dinerences. and this complicates any effort to generalize a bo ut ancient Christian prayer. Aga in. it would be helpful to possess two o r three reasonab l)' full sketches of the perfonmmce of a Christian meal ritual prior to Constantine - but we do no t. Justin's description of the 'Eucharist' of the (Gentile) Christians. composed in Ro me a ro und 160 but presumably based o n experiem:es both then~ a nd in Asia Mino r, is be.tte.r th:-m no thing. 36 But it has se-rious limitations, induding some-famo us ambiguities in his language a ndt of course. the propagandistic agenda o f the treatise in which his description a ppears. His account would be invaluable in the context of other materia ls fro m the same regjon and the s~tme period of time, but such additional materials turn out to be very sparse. Natura11y, his description becomes less reli~tble t he furthe-r rrom Rome-one gets and the fu rther fro m the year 160 one goes. It certainly does not 35 I have in mind here Tc:nullian and Origcn. whose lrcatiscs on prayer arc: conveniently primed in one \·olume {with a treatise of Cyprian} in :10 n that rite> namely, which had been instituted by our Lo rd on the e.ve. of His passion. Josef A. Jungmann 1 The familiar tradilion of lhe last mea l belo re Jesus' death has tended to dominate-the scholarly im~tgination orearly Chris tian ritual me-a ls. Since the Didadw's d iscovery, its ritual d irectives have usually been interpreted precisely in te rms of that tradition. Can il concern an 'authe-ntic' Eucharist despite its fail ure to cite o r refe rence tha t last meal? Should it ins tead be la beled a me-re ·agap(>" meal? Does it a t least imitate Jesus' actions a t his last me~d. 1 o r can it sim ply be read as tacitly alluding to that meal'?l Seldom have scholars posed the prior question, whether the Didache~s ritual exhibils any knowledge o f o r indebtedness to thal (fOr us) fa miliar tmdition. Yet if we are to grasp the signilkance of this ritual. and its place wit hin t he histo ry of the. Jesus movement. precisely this q uestion must be confronted directly. Accord ing to Paul, t his tmdition was crilk:a l to pro per practice of the ' Lo rd's S upper' . a me-.tl shared amo ng his Corinthian assemblies. It a lso plays a s triking role. in Ma rk's narra ti\'e, especially that portion concerned I Jungmann. far~r Litu,.gy. p. 29. 2 The proposal of Edward J. Kilmartin. 'Soctificium luudis: Contrnt and Function of Early Eoch:1ristic Pr..lyers·. TS JS (1974). pp. 26&-87 (276}: and Enrico Ma:an. · o idnchc 910: EJro1cnts of a Eucharistic fnlr.rprclalion·. in Jonathan A . Draper (ed.). Lynda Pl1b:a.o (lrnns.), Tile Dk!!lcl!e it1 Mod~rn R1'J.t'ardr (lcidcn: Brill. 1996). pp. 276-99 (292-4): follou-cd by Mikl\'«. Ditla(h1•. pp. 380. 390--95. 3 The \'icw l"Specially of Nock. E(lr/y Gemill' Cbrislitmily. pp. 77-8. Similarly nlrc:ady Philip Schaff. Tht• Oid~.sl C1mrch Ma11uul, C(tl/ed tlut ll'llrlling tJ/ thi! T"'i!h·~ AposJ!.?s (New Yorl:: Funk & Wagnalls. Jrd cdn. 1889). p. 190. Cf. Gerard Rouwhorst. ·o iduche 9- 10: A l ilmus Test for the Resc;u-.:h on Early Christian Liturgy Eochnrisf. in Huub van de S.:•ndt (cd.). M(/tll/i!h' ami tlut Didadrt': TwtJ Doamtc>fll.f from tile Some Ji'wislr-Citri.\'littll .\fili~11? (Minneapolis: Fortress Prc:ss. 2005). pp. 143- 56 ( 145).

20

Knmrletlge and the Coming Kingdom

wit h Jesus· fate in Jerusalem, and it a ppears in enough additiona l early documents from t he movement Lo warrant serious a lle ntion. Finally it is, or course, c-entral to developed liturgies of the catholic churches of late antiquity. Acco rdingly, t his tradition h;.1s been given an important, even cenlr.tl ro le in most acl;ounts of lit urgical origins. 4 !\·ly concern in this

chapter is more narrow than the reconstructio n of liturgical ori~ins. however, partly bec~n1se, unlike J ungmann, I do no t take it as a given tha t the Las t Supper was: the origina ting moment o f all s ubsequent eucharistic practice. I wis h instead to query this traditio n for its rit ual logic - how it constructs the meal's function fo r (or within) the. life o f the t:ommunities that preserved this tr.tdition. In t his chapte.r. then, I offer a fresh assessment of t he tradition or Jesus'

final meal, which I call here rhe 'last supper t radition'. Be