5/28/21
Friday's Focus - Didache Articles
Warfield, B. B. "Notes on the Didache." Journal of the Exegetical Society (1886), 86-98.
Warfield identifies the Pseudo-Athanasian Σύνταγμα Διδασκαλίας as adapting the Didache in a similar way to the Apostolical Constitutions book 7 (Warfield 1886, 86). The material bears a similarity to the Two Ways narrative found in the early part of the Didache. Specifically, he finds the material to be the form representated in Barnabas, with an omission from 1.3 εὐλογεῖτε through 2.1 (Warfield 1886, 87).
Warfield narrates the salient factors of the Syntagma in brief (Warfield 1886, 87-88), comparing them to what is present and absent in the Didache's Two Ways.
Of great interest to Warfield is the specific text tradition used by Pseudo-Athanasius. The text used is that used in the Canons, with the inclusion of phrases omitted in the Canons (Warfield 1886, 88). The same pattern is present in the Pseudo-Athanasian Faith of the Nicene Fathers (Warfield 1886, 89). Warfield considers the tracts not to have borrowed from one another, but both to have borrowed from the Didache.
Warfield admits that a reconstruction of the Didache as a whole based on references in other texts would be impossible. Yet it is significant that the text variants referred to by Barnabas, the Latin fragment, and the Canons was apparently in broad circulation at an early date (Warfield 1886, 90).
The Two Ways in particular, and some other elements of the Didache, have often been considered as Jewish material (Warfield 1886, 91). Warfield agrees that the concepts of the Two Ways "are intensely Jewish" (Warfield 1886, 92). However, he considers the fact that the Didache is a decidedly Christian work and that its use is in other Christian works to argue against the source being a Jewish document. "Its essence seems to me to be Christian; it appears to me to be still based on Matthew's Gospel in a real sense, and to be throughout the freee composition of a hand that was at once Jewish and Christian" (Warfield 1886, 93). Warfield goes on to note a number of Two Ways ideas, but to observe they do not have a particular Christian outlook. As a specific example, Warfield describes a somewhat parallel passage in the book of Jubilees, ch. 7 (Warfield 1886, 95-96). Though the ideas are similar, the text does not seem closely related.
Friday's Focus - Didache Articles
Warfield, B. B. "Notes on the Didache." Journal of the Exegetical Society (1886), 86-98.
Warfield identifies the Pseudo-Athanasian Σύνταγμα Διδασκαλίας as adapting the Didache in a similar way to the Apostolical Constitutions book 7 (Warfield 1886, 86). The material bears a similarity to the Two Ways narrative found in the early part of the Didache. Specifically, he finds the material to be the form representated in Barnabas, with an omission from 1.3 εὐλογεῖτε through 2.1 (Warfield 1886, 87).
Warfield narrates the salient factors of the Syntagma in brief (Warfield 1886, 87-88), comparing them to what is present and absent in the Didache's Two Ways.
Of great interest to Warfield is the specific text tradition used by Pseudo-Athanasius. The text used is that used in the Canons, with the inclusion of phrases omitted in the Canons (Warfield 1886, 88). The same pattern is present in the Pseudo-Athanasian Faith of the Nicene Fathers (Warfield 1886, 89). Warfield considers the tracts not to have borrowed from one another, but both to have borrowed from the Didache.
Warfield admits that a reconstruction of the Didache as a whole based on references in other texts would be impossible. Yet it is significant that the text variants referred to by Barnabas, the Latin fragment, and the Canons was apparently in broad circulation at an early date (Warfield 1886, 90).
The Two Ways in particular, and some other elements of the Didache, have often been considered as Jewish material (Warfield 1886, 91). Warfield agrees that the concepts of the Two Ways "are intensely Jewish" (Warfield 1886, 92). However, he considers the fact that the Didache is a decidedly Christian work and that its use is in other Christian works to argue against the source being a Jewish document. "Its essence seems to me to be Christian; it appears to me to be still based on Matthew's Gospel in a real sense, and to be throughout the freee composition of a hand that was at once Jewish and Christian" (Warfield 1886, 93). Warfield goes on to note a number of Two Ways ideas, but to observe they do not have a particular Christian outlook. As a specific example, Warfield describes a somewhat parallel passage in the book of Jubilees, ch. 7 (Warfield 1886, 95-96). Though the ideas are similar, the text does not seem closely related.
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