4/15/20
Bammel, Ernst. “Pattern and Prototype of Didache 16” pp. 364-372 in Draper, Jonathan (editor). The Didache in Modern Research. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996.
Bammel, considering the overall structure of the Didache, finds it fairly common in other literature, particularly in the Jewish tradition, for a text to end with some sort of eschatological exhortation (Bammel 1996, 365). Bammel cites a number of catechetical works in which a closing portion is similar to the eschatological secitono f the Didache. Bammel concludes, however, that it is not altogether clear whether chapter 16 was more or less original, attached to the Two Ways discourse, or was appended at a later time (Bammel 1996, 368).
The content of the chapter may be of assistance. Bammel observes that the eschatological passages attached to Two Ways narratives are of two types. “The one type is directed towards the blissful goal, the other points to judgment and only in that context to the μισθός” (Bammel 1996, 368). When the eschatological passage describes bliss, it is appended to a “way of life” rather than a “way of death.” Bammel sees the Didache speaking of judgment, consistent with a catechetical work including the “way of death” (Bammel 1996, 369). He furtehr ties the content to Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2, which he considers to have a Jewish antecedent. Bammel further considers the idea of ethical righteousness as existing first in the text, then a digression about eschatological events to have been added. Here he makes comments which provide a clear illustration of a schema by which an author or document cannot speak of two matters which bear some sort of logical connection, even a tenuous one (Bammel 1996, 369-370). Bammel finally takes Didache 16:3-8 as Jewish, with the eschatology as a Chrsitian insertion (Bammel 1996, 371). The individual ethical demands, which he says are older, give way to apocalypse, which he sees as a newer stage of development (Bammel 1996, 372).