Scholarly Reflections
Garrow, Alan J.P. "Chapter Two: The 'Eucharistic' Prayers in Didache 9 and 10." The Gospel of Matthew's Dependence on the Didache. New York: T&T Clark International, 2004, 13-28.
There is considerable scholarly disagreement about what actual liturgical celebration is described in Didache 9-10. Garrow notes that there are five actions described, and that the difficulty arises from attempts to identify all five in any one liturgical event (Garrow 2004, 14). Didache 10.1 powerfully indicates a meal which is filling. 10.6 invites the repentant to come as a participant in the liturgy (Garrow 2004, 15). It speaks as describing a future event, not one which just happened. In the interim, 10.2-5 is a thanksgiving for use after a meal, presumably the one which was found filling in 10.1. The scholarly world has a high degree of agreement on this issue, as well as the similarity between 10.2-5 and a Jewish Birkat Ha-Mazon (Garrow 2004, 17). The order of elements in 10.2-5 suggests to Mazza and Garrow that the prayer may be intended as a transition from a time of receiving physical food to a time for spiritual food and drink (Garrow 2004, 19). In the analysis, we then back up to 9.1-5, in which Garrow sees the reading being skewed by scholarly reading of 10.1 (Garrow 2004, 19). Here there is a thanksgiving over a "fragment," rather than over "bread," along with a cup. This is strongly suggestive of the eucharist, particularly when we recognize the parallel statement of 9.1 with 7.1, which introduced baptism (Garrow 2004, 20).
Having reviewed the texts, Garrow enumerates five actions which he considers to creat an incompatibility. These actions are, "1. Did. 9.2-4: thanksgivings prior to a eucharist. 2. Did. 9.5; the eating of a eucharist (implied). 3. Did. 10.1: a filling meal (implied). 4. Did. 10.2-3a, 4-5: a thanksgiving after a filling meal. 5. Did. 10.3b, 6: preparation for, and invitation to, a eucharist." (Garrow 2004, 21). The two apparent eucharists do not make sense in one event. As a result, some scholars have attempted to reinterpret either 9.2-5 or 10.6.
In some scenarios, scholars have attempted to understand 10.6 as an inserted rubric inviting people to come to a future celebration or possibly as a dismissal referring to attendance at a liturgy which is now complete. A few have suggested the statement was moved and belongs at an earlier location. Garrow does not consider these attempts to be satisfactory (Garrow 2004, 23).
Another, and probably the most common, way of dealing with the difficulty is to take the event as a filling meal which then introduces the eucharist. 10.2-5 gives thanks for the meal, the 10.6 introduces the eucharist (Garrow 2004, 23). This causes us to understand 9.2-5 as something other than a eucharist. Some take 9.2-5 as prayers for a filling meal, despite the language of a "fragment." Another theory takes the material from chapter nine as prayers which were later associated with an agape meal, though they may have had eucharistic significance at some point (Garrow 2004, 23). All these proposed solutions fail to persuade Garrow (Garrow 2004, 24).
Garrow suggests that the "fragment" language of chapter nine could be explained by a preceding meal at which bread was broken, thus introducing a sixth action, the "meal before the thanksgiving over the cup and the fragment" (Garrow 2004, 25). This in turn suggests that we are presented with two accounts of one event, which includes a full meal and a eucharistic celebration (Garrow 2004, 25-26). Garrow presents a side-by-side comparison (English) of chapters 9 and 10, identifying the significant level of parallelism (Garrow 2004, 26-27).
What Garrow fails to do, in my opinion, is to provide a reason for the presence of the parallel accounts. He comes no closer than concluding that the two accounts belonged to two layers of redaction (Garrow 2004, 28).