20230117 T&G
T&MP 2023-1-17 Lost Bible: The Didache - Center Place
Transcript:
Introduction: One of the Lost Books of the Bible
(00:04) Our topic tonight is one of the lost books of the Bible. um one of the books that didn't make it into the New Testament canon and indeed what I would usually think of as maybe maybe one of the most the earliest books that we still have or that we have again that didn't make it in and maybe um in my book anyway the second most important New Testament book that got left out of the New Testament after the sayings gospel of Thomas.
(00:37) This is a book that uh is usually called the dedicay which is Greek for the teachings. So the teachings of the twelve apostles as it's sometimes sometimes called. So there are lots of books um that are let's say missing from the New Testament both in terms of books that actually were written and maybe books that people would like to have.
The New Testament Canon
(01:01) So the New Testament as canonized as we have it now consists of four gospels uh where gospel is its own kind of interesting genre of text. Sometimes people read these as if they were, let's say, a biography or a history of Jesus, but they aren't really because um for one thing, in general, they really only cover uh just a couple years of Jesus's life.
(01:31) And in fact, like a third of the text in each of the cases is devoted to essentially the last week of Jesus's life. The earliest of these gospels, the one that is now called the Gospel of Mark, does not even have any kind of um let's say anything that happened before Jesus's baptism. Uh whereas the Gospels of Matthew and Luke include very brief um non-historical nativity stories uh that are added into it.
(01:57) But in any event, that doesn't make them biographies in any sense. Uh nor are they eyewitness accounts or history books. Rather they are theological books that are attempting to tell the sacred story of Jesus ministry as understood by second and third century I'm sorry second and third generation early late first century Christians uh stories of the good news as understood by the Christian the emerging Christian tradition.
(02:23) So in addition to those four gospels, there's a book of acts um which is essentially a stories about how uh early Christians anyway understood the early church to have grown out of a movement uh that surrounded immediately the uh Jesus to a a movement that was spread kind of across the Roman Empire in tiny congregations and especially the cities of the Greekeaking East.
(02:50) uh the book of acts is also uh written by the same author as uh the author of the gospel of Luke and so it's actually the second half of that text in addition to those five books then there are 21 letters on a variety of topics uh and the letters can be are pretty random and so um one of them is simply kind of a a pageelong letter that Paul writes to um someone he knows about a a guy who maybe perhaps is a runaway slave and he wants uh uh essentially kind of is kind of guilting this guy into giving him back
(03:27) to or giving him his freedom and letting him come back and help out Paul with his work and so forth. In other words, it's kind of a an odd book to even have made it into uh the New Testament. And there's a bunch of them that are a little bit strange like that. And then at the end with the um uh there is a book about a vision of the end of the world, the book of Revelation.
(03:46) So there's one apocalypse that's added. But in that whole set of context, one of the things that the New Testament does not have um that I think maybe many early Christians would have wanted and indeed people have probably wanted in Christian history ever since is let's say a rule book or an administrator's guide or something like that.
(04:08) How do you run a church? What are some of the things that you do in order to have a church and so forth? uh that doesn't uh actually exist. So by the time the texts of the uh New Testament are written, it's clear from the context for example especially in the letters the letters of Paul being the earliest writings that Christians are already now existing in small groups or congregations like I say spread across the cities and towns of the Roman Empire especially in the Greek speaking east but already all extended as far away as Rome itself. So in other words,
(04:43) in the Latin West as well, as I say, none of the texts provide basic instructions though for how do you have a Sunday worship or are you supposed to be meeting on Sunday and so forth. What are what are the things that you're supposed to do to be Christians? How should the groups decide who's in charge? What are the different jobs in the congregation? Who who do you pick them? What are the descriptions? What are the people supposed to do? And so forth.
(05:09) um rather than having some kind of a proactive users manual or something like that, the most prolific of our early authors and the first of the authors, Paul is actually when he's writing to these groups, he's primarily reacting to problems. So in a lot of cases, either they've written him, a congregation has written him a letter or maybe they've sent messengers to him and he is writing a letter in response.
(05:36) So you can get a sense if by kind of reading into what he's saying what their problems are and he's kind of giving answers that give you some of these details of how you should run a church or how Paul thinks you should anyway. Um but there isn't like a proactive or a a positive way where you're just setting out those kind of rules at least that exist in the New Testament canon.
(05:59) And so for example uh this is something that was lacking for Protestants. So when the Protestant Reformation happens, when the northern uh and western uh Latin church, there's a division between uh in Latin Christendom between people who stayed and remained loyal to uh the church in Rome, the papacy, and all of the reformers who ended up breaking away into Lutheranism and Anglicanism and so forth.
(06:29) Um, one of the things that the Protestants did was reject uh uh other sources of authority like tradition or like the apostolic succession. the idea that uh bishops had been appointing bishops who'd been appointing bishops that go all the way back to the apostles and so forth or even frankly the mediating um writings of the earliest Christians the so-called church fathers um uh in other words because the protestants wanted to focus as a sole source of authority on the biblical text itself uh and not have that unmediated so they don't care what origin or
(07:07) Clement or August had to say necessarily about uh the New Testament texts because they were going to interpret them themselves and everyone should because that's you're going to have a brand new uh religion focused not new understanding of Christianity which is to say one so amazingly focused on Bible text uh that wouldn't have been the case anytime before that time period that modern time it's now for Christians that has been so central for you know last many centur centuries because of the Protestants.
(07:40) People just think that Bible based or Bible focus is what Christianity is. But that is a new thing. And because there are all of these gaps in the New Testament, like I say, there's no manual for how you run a church. That's one of the reasons why Protestantism is ultimately divided into so many denominations.
(08:00) It's because the texts allow for different interpretations. And so, how should you be running these things? Should we have bishops? Should the bishops be in charge of different things? Or are bishops something we don't need and instead we should have like a council or should should people be electing prespits to sinods and so forth.
(08:20) There's all of these different kinds of governance questions that are not really um laid out in the New Testament canon. And as a result, like I say, Lutherans and Methodists and Baptists and uh Presbyterians and so forth all have different uh interpretations based on the text. Um that kind of a sectarian uh division and divide was one of the things that for example early in the early uh American republic in the 1820s uh Joseph Smith was struggling with.
(08:53) um he was, you know, had for a while kind of looked at joining the Methodists and some of these other churches and so forth. And one of his solutions uh in beginning and composing and creating new scripture like the Book of Mormon, part of the goal of that text or one of the things that that text does is fill in answers that Protestants couldn't find in the Bible.
(09:16) So there was a new scripture that provided new authoritative or scripturally authoritative answers. So for example, this is just I'm not only going to talk about this. This is just a diversion. It's not about the Book of Mormon, but I'll just mention it here. So by the end of the composition process as Joseph Smith is um dictating uh the Book of Mormon and his um scribe Oliver Cowry is writing it down.
(09:40) Uh while they're getting to the end of the process of composing the text, they've already decided that they're going to be founding a new church, the Church of Christ. the church that ultimately becomes community of Christ and also the rest of the Latter-day Saint tradition of churches, Mormon church and so forth. So in their text then as you get to the end, you get to the book of Moroni, the last book, not the last book composed, but the last book in the text, it's suddenly filled with all of these rules for how do you run a church? You know,
(10:08) these are questions that they're thinking about because they're about to start a church. And so these rules include right away they get, oh, here's the text for the communion prayers. It's the same same text that we still read uh once a month in we did a couple months a couple weeks ago here in the congregation when we have a communion service.
(10:28) It lists the priesthood officers as they understood it in 1830s. So they talk about the elders, priests and teachers. In other words, all of these things start existing as a more like I say a rule book of how to have a church or found a church or run a church and so forth. So early Christians you know in the first century uh AD also saw the need for rules.
(10:52) So example how should we be performing sacraments? What was what are the priesthood rules? And they produce texts on this topic. So this creates a genre of texts known as ancient church orders. So that's just what the genre is kind of called, but essentially rule books or handbooks for how do you uh how do you be a Christian or how do you have a Christian congregation.
(11:15) The earliest then surviving text of this genre church order is the dedicay which may include components that date all the way back to the mid 1st century. So maybe even among the earliest. Uh nevertheless like I say the dedicay is not included in the New Testament cannon. So it may preserve some of the earliest Christian writings that didn't get canonized.
(11:37) So let's look at how the canon works and what's in the New Testament and what didn't make it as we are considering some of these uh and in this case one particular lost New Testament uh book. So although the New Testament is usually published as a single book and it's often published as the same book with the Old Testament.
(12:00) So the Bible is one of the most um commonly ever since the invention of the publish printing press is one of the um I guess it's the most printed book ever. It's a big long book and in some cases because um for a whole long time in English um the most likely or the most commonly printed one is the King James version which is this kind of oldtimey Shakespeareytalky uh version.
(12:26) It makes it seem like it's all written in one voice as if it was all written at the same time. One author, one single book and so forth. But actually um the New Testament is in fact made up of multiple texts written by multiple authors at different times with different perspectives with competing viewpoints. Viewpoints where they don't agree with each other in some cases.
(12:46) Viewpoints where they are actually at majorly angry at each other and and disagree with each other and certainly where they contradict one another directly. But in addition to all of those texts that made it into the Bible, there are the same number or actually more uh texts that did not make it in even though they are very very similar to the ones that were included.
(13:11) So in some sense the um and in some cases the decisions of which one that goes in or not is almost haphazard and arbitrary as we will sort of see. So the books that did make it in, this is essentially how we look at it in kind of a a a graph or a piraphph in terms of by length. And so you can kind of see the um the gospels themselves is kind of going around this circle of this clock from 12 to almost 6 are the uh are kind of a bulk of the texts.
(13:46) The gospels now attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. uh Mark being the oldest of those and John being the newest. In addition to that, the book of the Acts of the Apostles which is also long. And so you can kind of see here because Luke and Acts of the Apostles have the same author, that author is one of the most uh uh prolific authors in the New Testament canon because a greater percentage of the text is written by that author.
(14:18) Then we have all of these letters. And so here in yellow and gold and orange are the letters that are attributed to Paul. And I have on the yellow ones essentially the ones that most scholars think are authenticely Paul. The gold ones here are ones that scholars think may be Paul or some scholars think could be Paul. And the orange ones ones that are very unlikely to be Paul, although some people hold out hope.
(14:43) And then in addition to that, there's just a little bit of a miscellane you can see in that kind of time period from 10 10 p.m. all the way to midnight, which is the biggest one there is the anonymous letter to the Hebrews. It kind of got into the canon because some people thought maybe Paul wrote it. It's good that it made it in. It's actually a really a a very thoughtful text by an important early Christian thinker who's not Paul, not anybody else, but anyway, we don't know who it is, but anyway, somebody who has a very interesting way of thinking. And
(15:10) then the letter of James, the letters uh attributed to James anyway, the letters that pretend they're Peter, pseudo Peter, the letters of John that we'll be talking about, Jude, and then finally, Revelation. And like I say, even though um uh sometimes Christians conflate uh the person who actually the many authors who wrote the Gospel of John with the author of the book of Revelation and the author of the letters, three letters attributed to John, those are in fact not by the same authors.
How the Canon Was Formed
(15:45) We'll look at that next week. So like I say in terms of types we have four gospels, one book of acts, 21 letters and one apocalypse. No church manuals in terms of how to make a church and so forth. So how did we get that canon? So the canon is not something that uh people went out to start writing. Nobody uh had a committee.
(16:14) Um at the beginning Jesus didn't say he didn't start writing anything and in fact we have no writings from Jesus. He didn't say to his apostles I want you to make a new Bible start writing or anything like that. Rather um it's a thing that took centuries to do and it's an assembly of books that were not written to be part of a Bible or were not written to be scriptures.
(16:39) Um, we had a a quotation by Paul uh a couple weeks ago where we say uh I've told you all of this that Jesus died according to the scriptures. He was raised. He came again according to scriptures and so forth. And somebody emailed me and said, "Wait a second. What does Paul mean by scriptures if he is writing before any of the other texts of the New Testament are written? He obviously does not mean the New Testament.
(17:05) He doesn't mean the Bible the way we have it." And that's exactly the case. So Paul when he's talking about scriptures and all that kind of thing, anybody in New Testament is talking about scriptures, if Jesus is talking about scriptures and so on, they are not talking about the Bible the way we have it. They are actually specifically talking about the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament.
(17:26) And specifically, they're talking about um the Hebrew Bible as it was translated into Greek, uh the Septuagant Translation. And so um the canon of the New Testament took centuries to become fixed. So the very earliest um cannon that exists is actually created by a guy who we've talked about when we talked about lost Christianity is a man named Marcian who is a church leader in the second century but a church leader of a group that does not win.
(18:01) So it's a it becomes what we think what what the rest of Christians the Christian tradition that won the protoorthodox tradition calls heretics the Marcianites. Um Marcian uh created a cannon of just 11 books u specifically focused he actually rejected the whole Old Testament and so forth. It's focused essentially just on Paul's letters and and most of the Gospel of Luke, but deleting some of the Gospel of Luke because uh Marcian, as we've talked about anyway, believed that the God of the Hebrew Bible is an evil God and so forth and is opposed to
(18:36) that kind of thing. He wanted to eliminate Christianity's um Jewish roots effectively. So anyway, once he had this idea of a cannon though, well then other people who are in the mainline church or what becomes the mainline, the protoorthodox group, they start saying, well, that's a good thing. We should start saying which of the which of these books are actually ones that we are are valid and that we should use and so forth.
(19:03) However, even in all the different lists, the lists are quite variable until we get to um the year 367. So that is the first time that the final list of 27 books appear without any other books or so on. In other words, without, you know, so in other words, not all of the books made it in the list and some lists and so forth.
(19:23) But by the time we get to this letter by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, he says these are the books that I consider to be uh canonical or that these should be what should be part of Christian scripture. few years after that or a generation after that uh Augustine some very important uh Latin thinkers so uh the most important early church father in the Latin speaking church at a sinod in Hippo he's a bishop of Hippo which is in North Africa Algeria Tunisia area uh in 393 he um led that and councils of Carthage and they accepted those 27
(20:03) books as the canon and so that canonized it. So based on what Augustine is running around doing down in Africa, the pope uh commissions a translation of those 27 books, he has uh St. Jerome translate those into Latin uh what's called the Vulgate because it's a type of Latin uh the common Latin. Vulgar means common.
(20:28) Uh and that helps to fix the cannon in the Latin West. And so that's gets us to the end of the 4th century before we're really even having a cannon. So the eastern church um ends up agreeing with that list by the time you get to the fifth century. Uh essentially the book of revelation was the very last book to be universally accepted.
(20:49) So that almost didn't make it into the canon. So the canon therefore if we kind of look at maybe when they were composed all of these different texts the canon collects those. And so some of those are like the letters the earliest letters of Paul as we always look back to are happening in the 50s. Then there are the um the later letters that are attributed to Paul.
(21:12) Um and and I'm dating them in my case by saying they probably aren't written by Paul and so therefore they're later than usually think. Uh and also you can kind of see some of these other letters, James and Jude and Peter and Peter and so forth of the when the gospels are kind of coming in and Revelation and John. So nevertheless, there are a bunch of other texts that are kind of left out, including ones that are fairly early.
(21:39) Um so one of the ones that are are showing up on this early especially are I'm listing here. I'm kind of having them as hexagonal ones. I'm making little those little hexagonal green ones there as kind of texts that are maybe theoretical or lost that we don't have um um but are maybe earliest versions, right? And so I have here maybe Q.
(22:03) So Q could theoretically be the earliest gospel, this lost sayings gospel. And maybe there is a very early version of Thomas. uh it's not the Thomas that we have now which you can kind of see on this chart is maybe composed or compiled or re-edited all the way to the point in the early let's say 120s but it maybe there's an earlier component of it likewise that could be true for the dedicay which is to say there is maybe an early components of this text that are let's say from the 60s or so and then maybe the collection as we have it
(22:35) now is again kind of uh composed or added together and made into this uh text that we have maybe by the beginning of the second century that kind of a thing. Um and then there's a bunch of these other texts uh and we've had lectures on some of these um and we'll talk continue to talk more about them as they fit in.
(22:57) So for example the I list there as another early one the signs potential signs gospel that's a hypothetical uh source for what then becomes the gospel of John. So just as an example, so these are letters by Paul and letters attributed to Paul and so in terms of order of maybe when they were written beginning with Thessalonians and Galatians, 1 Corinthians and so forth.
(23:27) But one of the things that we might note if you read Paul's first letter to the Corinthians at a certain point Paul says in my previous letter to you I said this or that. And so um you know one thing we can say then about the first Corinthians is that's not the first letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. So there is presumably an earlier letter to Corinthians which is a lost previous letter.
(23:52) And so I'm listing that as being older than the ones that we have. And then again, those are the authentic ones in yellow, the ones that may be authentic, and the ones that probably aren't authentic in kind of red. And then in purple, we have ones that definitely aren't authentic, but are also um many early Christians sort of uh you know, attributed to Paul and and read and popularized.
(24:16) And so, for example, there is a a really kind of a an exciting um uh hellenistic romance almost or um it's an action thriller story called The Acts of Paul and Thela. Um which is really quite popularized. And uh Paul's missionary companion, Thela, is a female apostle who has all kinds of adventures. she like self-baptizes herself and and even though again this is not historical and this is definitely not legitimately it's not part of the Bible and it isn't like I say historical nevertheless is a a saint for example in the Eastern
(24:55) church she has a shrine there's all these kinds of um uh ideas about her even though these texts didn't make it into uh um the Bible neither did the apocalypse of Paul the prayer of Paul's letter to the Leodosians the apocalypse of Paul, the third letter to the Corinthians, Paul's letter to Stenica and so forth.
(25:17) These are all much later um pseudopagraphical texts that are in Paul's name, but definitely not written by Paul the same way that the letters of Timoth to Timothy and Titus are not written by Paul, but those did make it in. So, in other words, it's not not just because they're authentic or not that they made it in.
(25:35) And it's not just because they're earlier or not that they made it in because again an authentic letter to the Corinthians which would have been the earliest that didn't make it in and a bunch of letters that Paul didn't write did make it in. So So how did text make it into the canon? So antiquity is a feature. So most of the old oldest texts that survive did make it in.
(26:00) But we are aware of lost texts that are just as old that were not included like like I say Zeroth letter to the Corinthians, the uh Q sayings gospel and so forth. Um one of the things that was really um important to the early Christians was is this text attributed to an apostle or an apo apostolic companion real or puditive? And so the fact that um let's say second Peter is written and it claims to be written by the apostle Peter that's why that thing made it into the canon even though all scholars agree that that is not written by Peter. So in
(26:38) other words it's a pseudographical text it got into the bible because um early Christians believed that Peter wrote it or some early Christians enough early Christians believe that he did even though he didn't. Uh that's one of the ways you get in. um it's addressed to an audience who are are successful in the air with eras successful in later Christianity.
(26:59) In other words, um because Paul's Greek congregations become the origins for the protoorthodox church which becomes the u you know the Orthodox and Catholic Church and all modern Christianity descends from that church. the other early Christianities uh the uh people who are uh doetics, the marcianites, montanis, the gnostics, the ebianites and so forth.
(27:30) Texts that are are are written to those communities get knocked out because the um protoorthodox people label those as heresy and then they don't put them on their list and they ultimately stop copying them. in some cases they burn them and so forth and so we lose them and ultimately uh if the texts have teachings that are consistent with doctrine that later becomes Christianity sorry later becomes orthodox and later Christianity those got put in whereas if there's something in the text that seems to be a problem that'll get left out
(28:03) so what kept texts got left out ones that didn't have apostolic authority so even very important early Christian writers like Clement Ignatius, Polycarp, the Shepherd of Hermas and so forth. These were on a lot of early uh Christian fathers lists of texts that should be in the Bible. But because Clement and Ignatius and Polycarp and so forth are not apostles.
(28:27) They are early important early Christian leaders who are in the next generations that got left out. Um, like I say, if they got addressed to an audience that died out, so there's whole gospels as we've seen for the Hebrews, the Ebianites, the Nazarans, and so forth. Um, their gospels are left out and lost. Like I say, it contains teachings that are rejected as heretical likenosticism, dosatism, uh, adoptionism.
(28:55) So, doatism is essentially um the different christologology. So Christ is not fully human and fully divine, but the idea of it is he's really just divine and he only seems to be human. That's dosatism or he's adoptionism is kind of the other thing which is he's fully human. He's just a regular guy who was perfect and and God adopts him as a sort of adopted son or the nasticism which is a kind of uh spiritual dualism.
(29:24) The whole world is u is corrupt. there's an elaborate mythology and secret behind it and so forth uh about the true spiritual world and so forth. So anything that kind of leads that way um that that gets kicked out. Stories that are too fanciful to be believed. There's a lot of um there's a lot of fanciful stuff that does make it in the Bible.
(29:46) Um, you know, we we talk about we're going to talk about Genesis again soon. And obviously Genesis includes a story in the Garden of Eden of a of a snake that talks, right? And there's also um uh in the early in the Pentatuk there's the story in Exodus of the story of you know Balum's ass a donkey that talks and so forth. So there is some fanciful stuff that happens in the Bible.
(30:11) Nevertheless, a lot of fanciful stuff gets left out. And we've did one, we've done lectures on the infancy Gospel of Thomas, which we shouldn't confuse with um the sayings gospel of Thomas. Essentially, infancy Thomas is like talking about the childhood of Jesus and and it's an imagination of what if um what if God was a a 5-year-old boy? Um what kind of mischief would he get into? and so does all kinds of crazy stuff, you know, with, you know, all of his magic powers and so forth.
(30:43) Um, it's something that's an interesting or uh thought experiment and funny and it actually provides some u popular backstories. So, I've been to um kind of ancient or medieval uh churches in the south of France which are decorated with uh with images of from the stories of the infancy gospel, even though that didn't make it into the text.
(31:06) Um also extremely obvious forgeries got left out. So for example these letters um uh the letters of Paul to the philosopher Senica. So Senica is a contemporary Roman philosopher. Uh Senica is not interested in or nor cared about anything about Christianity. Senica is an important person. Paul is not an important person.
(31:30) Christianity um is not important at all at the time of Paul. Uh, and so there was no way that Senica and Paul are writing back and forth to each other. This is these are something that somebody wrote several centuries later. And so that did not make it in. As I mentioned, the book of Revelation just barely squeaked its way into the canon.
(31:52) So the apostolic authority of the apocalypse of John is ambiguous. So many people like I say tried to imagine that the author John of uh the revelator who was a guy named John in other words is the same as the apostle but very many early Christians could really easily tell otherwise. Um, they were all people who could speak Greek and they could tell that the book of Revelation is written in almost some kind of a a slangy street Greek as opposed to um the Gospel of John which is a much more elevated Greek.
(32:28) Um, another problem that the apocalypse had is it was beloved by a community that became seen as heretical. So there were early apocalypticists, the Montana for example, who thought that the end of the world was coming. They had a date for it. they all go up and uh got stop all their things. They get up, they throw everything away and they go up and wait for the M to happen and it doesn't happen.
(32:49) Um it has a bunch of imagery and teachings that are borderline as regards to later Orthodoxy. Um it was rejected in turn by the netorians and other peoples and even as recently as the Protestant Reformation uh Martin Luther almost rejected it. So Martin Luther and he when he is um when the Protestants are making their own version of the Bible, they actually rip a whole bunch of texts out of the Old Testament uh which for Protestants are now called the Apocrypha.
(33:18) So books like first and second Mcabes. There's a bunch of different books that were part of the Septuagant version of the Bible and are still part of the Orthodox and Catholic Old Testament um but are not part of the Protestant Old Testament. And Luther was also kind of persuaded initially thinking that um that there's nothing much Christian and going on in in the book of Revelation, although then he changed his mind once he started reading it as a as an allegory and so forth.
The Didache as an Ancient Church Order
(33:47) Okay. So that brings us to the dedicay uh which like I say means the teaching. So this is the earliest surviving uh church order. You know like I say that genre of church order. Most scholars as I say date the text to the first century some to the second century. It's possible like I kind of did on my chart that there are components of it that are very early and that they're maybe combined together uh because it is a composite work.
(34:16) So in other words, there's a bunch of different component texts that have been edited together even though it's not a very long text. Um, one of the very, you know, again, among the early Christian writers, um, the church fathers, uh, Ucius, who's essentially the first, um, kind of major Christian antiquarian. He's he's in sometimes called like the the father of church history, but his history is so poor, I have trouble calling him a historian.
(34:44) So we would say an antiquarian. Um he knows this book the teaching of the apostles but he already himself considers it spurious as do other uh early writers in other words 4th century writers like him uh Athanasius refinus and so forth who mention this text. So it's it's circulating still but they don't think that it's actually even though it's called teaching of the apostles they don't think the apostles actually wrote this.
(35:10) So because it was rejected from the canon by Ucius and others because they didn't think it was written actually written to the by the apostles, the dedicay was lost then for centuries. Uh, a couple fragments had been known and preserved, but in 1873, a Greek Orthodox Metropolitan bishop, Feloios Brienio, in other words, a a Greek metropolitan means archbishop essentially.
Contents of the Didache
(35:42) um he discovered a copy of the dedicay in a really important manuscript um bound together with a bunch of other really interesting early texts in a monastery in Constantinople what's now Istanbul. So let's look at the contents of the dedicay that we have it in its present form as it's been rediscovered. So although like I say it's a pretty brief text, it's only maybe 2,300 words long, it actually is a combination of distinct component texts and some of which anyway describe a very very early Christianity.
(36:19) So the beginning of it, the first six chapters are essentially the two ways, the book of the two ways. And this is rules lists of dos and don'ts. Thou shalts and thou shalt not. Especially the next section, chapters 7- 10 are instructions concerning Christian sacraments. Chapters 11 through 15. I guess it's a continuation of that.
(36:43) But anyway, it's now concerning more concerning offices in the church or roles in the church, church priesthood, however it's understood. And then there's kind of a final sign off which is short a chap final chapter 16 which is sort of an end times prophecy. Be vigilant at the end is coming. and so forth. So, um the text we can as we have it does seem to overlap a bunch in terms of its uh themes and even its quotations with the gospel of Matthew.
(37:17) So, in its present form, the author or the redactor who's put together the dedicay has probably got um the gospel of Matthew at the very least. maybe Matthew and Luke and a bunch of other texts like Hebrews um may be available to them as they are uh combining the dedicay together and forming it.
(37:36) Um certainly the formulation of the Lord's prayer in the dedicay very closely resembles the version that we have in Matthew and there are other references to Matthew. So for example, the dedicay quotes Matthew um and so like the community that produced Matthew, the dedicay seems to come from a Jewish Christian group. So the Gospel of Matthew is often called like the most Jewish of the of the canonical Bibles and is sort of written to um let's say Jewish Christians which is to say uh Christians who are still thinking it's import who came from a Jewish background
(38:11) and who still consider um uh keeping kosher or keeping some forms of Jewish law as essential to uh what it is to being Christian. Uh so in other words that as opposed to let's say the Paul's more gentile Christian groups people who are largely groups that are largely converted from um Greekeaking former pagans people who worship the old gods of Greece and so forth.
(38:44) uh who then convert directly from um the Greek religion to Christianity without uh needing to uh be circumcised or to uh keep any kind of Jewish law because Paul has said that's not necessary for Christians. So the dedicay and the gospel of Matthew is kind of coming out of that other kind of Judaizing or Jewish Christian tradition. So a central theme in Jesus' teaching opposes scriptural legalism.
(39:15) So if you're reading through the gospels, Jesus is almost continuously berating people and trying to spell this out to people. He's trying to promote the idea of doing the right thing motivated by love rather than going through a list of rules and just doing them according to following the rule book and so forth. Um there's almost always uh you trying to do things as the spirit of a thing.
(39:40) So people will complain in the gospels that Jesus is going around healing people on the Sabbath when you're not supposed to do work on the Sabbath and so forth. Um despite the fact that that does seem to be the central thrust of what Christianity should even be about. In other words, as opposed to in its kind of um emergence out of second temple Judaism.
(40:04) Nevertheless, people really prefer, I think, to have fixed lists of rules. They want to have a list that they can check off, oh, I've done that. I've done that. I've done that. So that they can think very highly of themselves and they can judge others. And so, uh, even though it's sort of anti what Christianity is all about.
(40:22) Nevertheless, Christians very quickly developed uh and devised kind of rules lists and also very quickly started judging each other by for not you know obeying the rules and so forth. So that's certainly part of what happens at the beginning of the dedicay which is like I say the two ways uh there's a first more or less a list of thou shalts and thou shalt not.
(40:48) Um, this is probably uh many scholars think that this is probably actually a there was a pre-Christian there was a Jewish text of a list of these kinds of commandments that has been added to and sort of Christianized um which is interesting again because it's kind of showing how um that this community that is making like the gospel of Matthew the community that's making like the dedicay is emerging out of second temple Judaism and Um, one of the uh things about this section of the of the text, it compares um very closely with, let's say, rules
(41:26) for conduct that exist in the Kuman community, the Dead Sea Scrolls, a Jewish sect, the Essenes that are contemporary, who have their own kind of set of lists of rules of things that they should do. And there are also parallels in some of these other early Christian texts like u the letter of Barnabas and and the shepherd of Hermes and so forth.
(41:50) So we'll read a little bit about the be you know about this uh two ways the preface here uh as we start it. It says this is the Lord's teaching to the nations to the Gentiles by the twel apostles. So that's the title, right? The dedicay, the Lord's teaching dedicay to the heathens, the Gentiles, the nations by the twel apostles.
(42:11) So it begins here. There are two ways, one of life and one of death. And between the two ways, there is a great difference. Now this is the way of life. First, you must love God who made you. And second, your neighbor as yourself. And whatever you want people to refrain from doing to you, you must not do to them. Okay.
(42:40) So, this is pretty interesting right out of the gate. And so, um, uh, we're going to set up a palemic here. You know, you got to do do right to for the to be the way of life and do don't avoid wrong for the way of death. But and but more or less it's going to be a list of commandments and the list starts off with um the greatest commandment uh as understood anyway as as presented by Jesus in the gospels.
(43:05) Love God with all your mind and heart and so forth. This is also the greatest commandment or a central commandment in Judaism as well. But then it's coupled with the one that Jesus said is like unto it in the gospels. Love your neighbor as thyself. And then paired with that in this in this formula is a golden rule, right? So whatever you want people to refrain from doing to you, you must not do to them.
(43:25) So this is a negative version of the golden rule. Um the way it's expressed in the gospels is do unto others as you, you know, would have them do unto you, which is kind of the positive version of it as opposed to don't do to other people what you don't want them to do to you, which is the same, same principle, but the negative version, right? So, it's pretty interesting that that's kind of how the Christianized version of this kind of um uh commandments list starts off.
(43:56) It continues with a series of maxims. And uh the interesting thing is that these are teachings that are are normally attributed to Jesus in the Gospels, but here it doesn't say Jesus said this or anything like that. It's just it's just listed as general maxims. So it says what the maxims teach is bless those who curse you, pray for your enemies.
(44:20) Moreover, fast for those who persecute you. For what credit is it to you if you love those who love you? Is that not how the heathen act? But you must love those who hate you, and then you will make no enemies. So, so these are all sort of um in keeping with teachings of Jesus in the gospels, but kind of interestingly anyway here they're just not they're not given the authority of Jesus.
(44:44) So, in other words, it's not saying Jesus said this. And it's sort of interesting because again as we've seen elsewhere when we are looking at uh for example the Jewish Christian communities that are led by for example James the brother of Jesus and texts that use James's authority like the book of James the epistle of James um even though that's not not written by the actual brother of Jesus but written in his name so by a group that uh is is looking to that kind of um that background.
(45:23) Uh they also will attribute to James. James will say things which are kind of teachings of Jesus elsewhere, but they're kind of a general list of these early groups teachings that don't necessarily um aren't necessarily needing to be anchored in Jesus's authority, which is anyway just an interesting overlap we have here. The maxims are then followed by a list of thou shalt not which may derive from a pre-Christian Jewish source.
(45:51) So, you know, our famous of those is the ten commandments. Uh this is kind of an expansion of all that. So, these are do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not corrupt boys, do not fornicate, do not steal, do not practice magic, do not go in for sorcery, do not murder a child in corruption or kill a newborn infant, do not coveret your neighbor's property, do not commit perjury, do not bear false witness, do not slander, do not bear grudges, and so forth.
(46:14) It goes on lots and lots of do nots. So like I say, one of the thing that this list I think tells us is what this particular community thinks are essentials of Christian behavior. As they are doing their boundary maintenance, what is part of the group and what is not, they are saying do not do all these things. These are things that are are these are our lists of dos and don'ts.
(46:36) The next two chapters are a second list which are written in poetry and they're more elaborated. So it's not just don't do this, don't do this. It's a little bit longer in terms of the description. And the reader in this case is addressed as my child uh six times. And so it reads more like kind of the same kind of saying things that you shouldn't do, but it's uh just in a more poetic way of saying it.
(47:01) So my child, do not be a diver for that leads to idolatry. Do not be an enchanter or an astrologer or a magician. And the language here is actually even don't be a mathematician because mathematicians could lead to doing astrology. In other slippery slope arguments here have no wish to observe or heed such practices. Don't watch people doing divination and all that because all of this breeds idolatry.
(47:24) So it lists a bunch of other things that lead to other things that you want to avoid. It also says things like be humble since the humble will inherit the earth. Be meek for blessed are the meek they'll inherit the earth. In other words, teachings again attributed to Jesus elsewhere are quoted here but not attributed to Jesus still.
(47:42) So it's uh sharing some of those teachings. Um it also says for example my child day and night you should remember him who preaches God's word to you and honor him as you would the Lord. So this is kind of talking about preachers, teachers who are in the community and who are sharing God's word, the good news, and so forth.
(48:07) You're to honor those preachers as you would the Lord. For where the Lord's nature is discussed, there the Lord is every day. You should seek the company of saints. So this is um also making use of this early um some cases pre-Christian word for other Christians saints fellow saints uh that exists in some of Paul's letters for example and also acts so descriptions you know before other Christians are calling each other Christians uh the saints to enjoy their refreshing conversation here's the next uh precept you must not
(48:44) start a sism that's important because that has obviously been happening a lot. So, we're all breaking up. Christians are all fighting with each other. There's all these different schismatic groups. You must not start schisms, but you must reconcile those at strife. It says here, "Your judgments must be fair.
(49:07) You must not play favorites when reproving transgressions." And so this is a um I just highlight anyway the fact that it's quoting proverbs here to uh to telling people to do fair judgments as opposed to Jesus's maxim about judging which is a lot harder to do. Jesus says judge not you know he's telling you not to judge.
(49:28) Um here the dedicay saying you know be fair in your judgments. So it's too hard to follow that. And so Christians want to be judgmental right away and and it's softened already here in the dedicate. Some of the lists include values that seem to be conssonate with early Christian focused on the poor and the marginalized.
(49:49) Um, so we've talked about how uh the earliest Jesus movement is probably a group of of mendicants who renounced worldliness and who are living by uh begging for their daily bread and so forth. Uh and they are and Jesus is teaching blessed are the poor and so forth. Um so the way of death is said to include people who look for profit, people who have no pity for the poor, people who do not exert themselves on behalf of the oppressed, people who turn their backs on the needy, people who oppress the afflicted, people who defend the rich,
(50:27) people who unjustly condemn the poor and are therefore thoroughly wicked. My children, may you be saved from all of this. So, uh, there's an emphasis here on focusing on the poor, the oppressed, and so forth, the marginalized, and that certainly comes through. The text is also though um, pragmatic. So while the teacher is pretty stark in saying there's a big vast difference between the way of life and the way of death and while the text states that the goal for Christians is perfection.
(51:01) The author concedes if you can't be perfect then quote do what you can. So so he says here see that no one leads you astray from the way of the teaching since such a one's teaching is godless. So don't follow people away from this teaching. It's godless. If you can bear the Lord's full yoke, you will be perfect.
(51:26) But if you cannot, yeah, then do what you can. And so, for example, they have an example now about food. Undertake what you can. Um, you know, in terms of what are we expected to eat? Keep strictly away from what is offered to idols, for that implies worshiping dead gods. So, as we see elsewhere, for example, in the letters to Paul, one of the uh major issues that early Christians have as Christians um separate themselves off from their pagan neighbors.
(52:01) The majority of meat in a city that is processed, almost all of the processing takes place at a temple. Um, so the cow or whatever the bull is going to be brought to a temple of so- and so and is going to be sacrificed. A lot of times we now think of sacrifice as being a holocaust sac sacrifice where the entire bull is burned up and so forth. That was very rarely done.
(52:23) Usually speaking um uh it's the unusable parts and some of the fat and so forth that is burned up. And in general, most of the meat is actually preserved and and made into kind of a feast that would be part of a reg regular religious ceremony. And then the re remainder of it is then sold in the city markets.
(52:43) And so more or less any meat that is going to be available in a pagan city is meat that has been offered to idols. And this has been a problem that early Christians are sort of facing. Well, should we be really eating this? Isn't that saying that we are actually worshiping u like it's what it's calling here dead gods? It's actually we're almost saying that we are honoring Zeus and and Athena and Neptune or Pluto or Poseidon and all the the Greek gods and so forth.
(53:12) Um this is similar to what we read in Paul. So in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul has kind of an even more pragmatic response to this question of eating sacrificial meat. Like I said, it's sort of a universal problem. All meat is going to be like this. So he's saying look Paul writes so then look about eating food sacrificed to idols we know quote an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no god but one so in other words these gods aren't real anyway so it's not really a big deal but he says not everybody possesses this knowledge
(53:47) so we you know those of us the people I'm writing to and me I'm in the know we we understand that Zeus doesn't exist and so forth but some people by the way are so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food, they think of it as having been sacrificed to a real god.
(54:06) And since their conscience is weak, it is therefore defiled. They think that meat has become defiled because it's been sacrificed to this god as if that god exists. You know, Paul says food does not bring us near to God and we're no worse if we eat and if we don't eat and no better if we do and so forth. So this idea that they have is not true.
(54:22) It's superstitious and so forth. Be careful. He says though, however, that in the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to these weak people. For if someone with a weak conscious sees you, you know, somebody who knows everything about this, eating an idol at an idol's temple, won't that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So, this weak brother or sister for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge.
(54:49) In other words, you know better, and so you don't care about this nonsense. But some of these other people who don't know any better are going to get led astray. So it's meaningless, but you shouldn't do it if you are around weak Christians to who you might confuse is more or less Paul's response.
(55:03) Paul is a little more explicit even later on in the letter in 1 Corinthians 10. He says, "Look, eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience." You don't go to the meat market and say, "Hey, was this I we had the big sacrifice to Athena yesterday. Is this part of that meat?" Uh, you know, don't ask them.
(55:21) Don't ask, don't tell about this meat. And he says, if you go to an unbeliever's house, somebody who's not a Christian, a regular pagan, and they give you a meal, and you go, eat whatever they put in front of you, and don't worry about that. Don't say, oh, wait a second. This isn't this isn't pagan sacrificial meat, is it? But if you go to that dinner, he says, and someone says to you, well, this was offered in a sacrifice.
(55:41) And he kind of points it out to you like that. Well, then you don't eat it because then he's kind of they're making a big deal about it. So, so it that's more or less what he's saying. It doesn't matter if you eat the meat, but um you know if somebody's making a big stink about it, you know, then you know then yeah, go ahead and say there's a principle and so forth.
(56:00) That's essentially the pragmatism that's kind of on display both in Paul's writing and in the dedicay. And I think that again this is despite the fact that there's like this whole long rule list even at the beginning of the dedicay um even that text is kind of like you know if you do it all you're perfect but you know if you can't do what you can so I do think it's a it's it's actually meant to be somewhat in keeping with the opposition to legalism.
(56:31) Uh the texts are fairly um relaxed in that sense. Okay, so the next component of the text is about church practices and organizational structure. And for me, this is actually a lot more interesting than the commandments lists. And so, uh, chapters 7 through 10 here are instructions concerning sacraments. So that part begins with rules about baptism.
(56:57) So it says about baptism. So the word is essentially immersion. As about baptism, this is how you baptize. give public instruction on all these points and then baptize in running water in living water in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. And if you don't have running water, baptize people in some other kind of water.
(57:24) If you cannot baptize them in cold water, then baptize them in warm water. If you have neither a pool, you know, any kind of pool, cold or warm living or or still, then pour water on their head three times and say, "In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit." So, um before baptism, moreover, um the one who baptizes and the one being baptized must fast.
(57:46) And anybody else who's going to show up there who is able to and who can should also fast. And you must tell the one being baptized to fast for a day or you know two days if they can beforehand. So in other words, ideally baptism should be by immersion in cold living running water like I say like a river or a pool that is filled by you know rain or something like that.
(58:13) Um, but if that's not possible, it's okay to immerse someone in water that is like warm or drawn, like making a bathtub or something like that. Uh, and if you don't have any access to any of that, just go ahead and sprinkle them. So, in other words, the rules here are once again already quite symbolic and flexible.
(58:34) You have the symbolism of what you want. Cold, painful, living water that you want to dunk people all the way under in. But if you don't have it, you know, you do with what you can do. Uh, next the dedicay talks about prayer. So don't pray like the hypocrites. It says, "But pray as follows as the Lord bid us in his gospel.
(58:56) " Uh, which is the gospel here being referred to presumably is the gospel of Matthew. And so it reads in the dedicay, "Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our bread for the tomorrow. And forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.
(59:14) And do not lead us into temptation, but save us from the evil one. For yours is the power and the glory forever. And you should pray in this way three times a day. It specifies. So uh we have multiple versions of what's called the Lord's prayer. So when Jesus is saying uh as an example, teach us to pray, the apostles say in the gospels. And he gives this example.
(59:40) Uh the version that we have in Luke is the shortest and the kind of simplest. And so that goes, "Father, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive our sins. And for ourselves forgive uh for we for ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us and do not bring us to the time of trial.
(1:00:03) " So that's a more modern um translation of the earlier kind of the oldfashioned way that I read it in the other translation. So between Luke and Matthew the differences are uh the Matthew text has in heaven to specify about the father u may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and then at the end of don't you know don't lead us into temptation but rescue us from the evil one.
(1:00:31) Uh and so those are all added between the uh Luke version which usually people don't repeat and they instead uh cite the the Matthew version and then the difference between the Matthew version and the dedicay is the inclusion at the end of the doxology for yours is the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. um that part is not in the I don't have it on the Matthew section here because it's actually not in the earliest um uh manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew which is why u for example in the Orthodox and the especially Catholic
(1:01:08) church um when they're saying the Lord's prayer they don't include that component. It's in later um later editions of Matthew later manuscripts and it's in the dedicay here. Uh and so essentially if you go to it's in the King James version of the Bible and so if you go to many Protestant churches that that addition will be included at the end.
(1:01:31) So there's also instructions for what to do on Sunday. The dedicay proposes for example that Eucharist should be celebrated by Christians every Sunday. On every Lord's day we read in chapter 14 his special day. come together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure.
(1:01:52) Anyone at variance with his neighbor must not join you unless they are reconciled, lest your sacrifice be defiled. For it was of this sacrifice that the Lord said, quote, "Always and everywhere, offer me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is marveled at by the nations.
(1:02:12) " And so that's not the Lord Christ. That is the Lord in the Old Testament. And so that is actually a quotation from the Old Testament uh book of Malachi, the prophet Malachi and so forth. So the idea of it though is that in this Christian community, they want to have uh the eukarist uh celebrated every week.
(1:02:34) Um, and they also though want to confess and also make peace with all of your neighbors uh before you're actually able to uh before you actually come together for communion. So um like I say after the baptism and fasting and prayer now that it gives instructions for the Eucharist back in chapter 9.
(1:02:54) So about the eukarist we read in the dedicay it says this is how to give thanks. First in connection with the cup say, "We thank you our father for the holy vine of David your child which you have revealed through Jesus your child. To you be glory forever." Then in connection with the peace essentially the piece of bread broken off from the loaf say we thank you our father for the life and knowledge which you have revealed through Jesus your child. To you be glory forever.
(1:03:28) So unlike the formula for baptism which should be very familiar to most Christians I baptize you in the name of the father and son and the holy spirit that's very common and is continued. These are very unfamiliar formulas for uh eucharist prayers. Um oh I'm sorry the the second one can even continues and has an addendum.
(1:03:50) This piece of bread was scattered over the hills and was then brought together and made one. So let your church be brought together from the ends of your kingdom for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever. So so yeah, it's it's a strange formula and it's also out of order.
(1:04:08) So wine first then bread that's opposite from the New Testament accounts of the last supper and it's opposite from the practice of most Christians today including community of Christ. Like I say also um these prayers really differ from New Testament examples. So for example, if we go to what Paul says in our earlier text or the earliest text uh around 50 AD in Corinthians, Paul says, "I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,
(1:04:44) "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." So, those are the formulas for uh the Eucharist in the order, excuse me, the order of bread and then wine, uh that Paul gives in his first letter to the Corinthians.
(1:05:15) Likewise, in the synoptic gospels, in the gospels beginning with Mark, but also followed in Matthew and Luke, and I'm using Matthew here because of the relation between Matthew and the dedicay, Jesus institutes the practice of the Eucharist during the episode of the last supper. So, while they were eating, we read in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, "Take and eat. This is my body.
(1:05:42) " Then he took a cup and when he given thanks he gave it to them saying drink from it all of you. This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. So it's a simple formula here too which is more similar frankly to the one that's in Paul and may actually Paul may be the original and this is an expansion from that.
(1:06:06) Um, for whatever reason, the dedicay has a very different formula and it's pretty interesting the fact that it has that variation. Even though the authors of the dedicay have access to Matthew, the dedicay also seems to assume the Eucharist is an actual share meal, not just the very symbolic way we do it today where you just have a little uh piece of bread and a little tiny cup the way we have it.
(1:06:30) So for example it says after you've finished your meal in other words they all meet eat together say grace in this way. So it gives a kind of a benediction or grace that you say at the end of it. We thank you holy father for your sacred name which you have lodged in our hearts. Almighty master. You have created everything for the sake of your name and have given men food and drink to enjoy that they may thank you.
(1:06:53) But to us you have also given spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Jesus Christ your child. Remember Lord your church. Save it from evil and make it perfect by your love. Make it holy and gather it together from the four winds into your kingdom which you have made ready for it.
(1:07:11) For yours is the power and the glory forever. They like the doxology. Thine is of the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. And it's in a lot of these formulas. Uh let grace come and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. There's a lot of um there's a lot of mention of David in this again because like I say this is a um sign anyway about more of a Jewish Christian tradition.
(1:07:36) And so even um you know even talking about the vine of David um there is more mention of as a title in Matthew calling Jesus son of David. It exists in um Mark and Luke but it's repeated many more times in in Matthew. So this community is more um me remembering um Christ or Messiah as a uh a precursor of that in the form of uh the mythological anyway the ancestor David.
(1:08:08) Um the text also advocates for closed communion. So um there's a question do you let so are all welcome at Christ's table? Do you let everybody uh um partake of it or is it or do you keep it closed? Uh the dedicay is on the side of clothes. So it says you must not let anyone eat or drink of your eukarist except those baptized in the Lord's name.
(1:08:36) Um, so there was a we had that in our church. We had a tradition of closed communion which uh we moved away from uh and opened communion in the in the 1990s I think is when it happened but could have been a little later but anyway maybe it was in the 2000s as late as that but before my time. So next after sacraments the next part is concerning what I'm saying concerning priesthood but um it doesn't really say priesthood.
(1:09:01) It's essentially maybe church offices. Although it doesn't say offices, it is talking about bishops, deacons, and teachers. And when it's talking about teachers, it's giving teachers, it's talking about teachers as apostles and prophets. And it actually is giving special emphasis to Christian apostles and prophets, which is um unusual, especially uh let's say as the church experience runs on.
(1:09:26) We don't often think about too much about early Christian prophets. Um John the Revelator is maybe you think of as a prophet and apostles essentially fall out of the narrative fairly early. I mean after the first generation in general we don't think about apostles. Um so here's what it says concerning teachers of which apostles and prophets are a category.
(1:09:49) You should welcome anyone who comes your way and teaches you all we have been saying. But if the teacher proves himself a renegade by teaching otherwise and teach by teaching otherwise contradicts all of this. In other words, he's out of out of harmony with everything like this, then pay no attention to him.
(1:10:09) But if his teaching furthers the Lord's righteousness and knowledge, welcome him as the Lord. So this portion of the dedicay I think seems to reflect a very early stage of Christianity when Christian communities regularly hosted itinerant teachers. Um but it's also kind of seeing problems are already emerging right so if the teacher proves himself a renegade don't pay attention to them you know so there's already uh renegade teachers that the dedicay is very aware of.
(1:10:40) So now about the apostles and prophets, it says act in line with the gospel precept. Welcome every apostle on arriving as if he were the Lord. So this seems to be again the precept found in Matthew. Anyone who uh welcomes you saying that to the apostles welcomes me and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
(1:11:07) So uh if you are you should be welcoming apostles that are coming to your community as if it were the Lord. But that guy who's come and visited you welcomed as if he were the Lord. He must not that apostle he must not stay beyond one day in case of necessity. However the next day too. So he can maybe stay two days if it's necessary.
(1:11:29) But if he stays three days, he is a false prophet. On departing, an apostle must not accept anything save sufficient food to carry him to his next lodging. If he asks you for money, he is a false prophet. So they are already um trying to follow the precept um essentially of that is about favoring and supporting mendicant apostles people who are coming preaching begging and then going on.
(1:12:00) They're following that um that uh initial teaching but they're obviously already having problems with what they're what the text is calling false prophets. people who want to stay and hang out and don't want to keep going on to the next place and possibly are trying to um you know make their life easier by getting more money than they need to just continue a life of daily begging.
(1:12:22) So um this brings me to this question that I think is confusing to a lot of Christians. A lot of Christians um when we talk about apostles, how how problematic were apostles? Weren't there only 12 apostles? I mean is how many apostles were there? And so people maybe even a lot of Christians as we did in our in our lecture on the historical apostles wonder isn't that a trick question shouldn't there's 12 apostles right and so they wonder well maybe I'm meaning there were only 11 because Jesus Judas's scariot is kicked out but you
(1:12:52) know according to acts Judas was replaced by a methias so there's no problem with the 12 but what we have to remember is is that there were not just 12 apostles in early Christianity there were many many more than 12 apostles in the first generations of Christianity. So the 12 are a subset of a much larger group of apostles.
(1:13:19) The 12 are a group uh that Jesus in the gospels anyway historically sets apart to symbolically represent a new Israel. They symbolically represent the restored 12 tribes of Israel. And so and we call them the 12 apostles, but in fact there's plenty more apostles. And in the um uh in the Gospel of Luke, for example, in the chapter after uh uh Jesus sends forth the 12, he gets another 72 apostles together and he sends forth the 70, it's called the 70, but or the 72 apostles depending on the translation of that.
(1:13:52) And so, for example, the second most famous apostle after Peter, maybe the most famous, Paul, and it depends on how famous you think Peter and Paul are to each other. Anyway, right up there in the top two, Paul is not ever one of the 12. So, um, you know, he's an apostle, generally conceded by modern Christians to be an apostle, but he's not one of the 12.
(1:14:17) Um, so be one of that list of 70. Not he wasn't part of the original 70, but maybe another group of 70 uh later on. Uh, there's not just 70. Anyway, it's a it's part of this larger group of apostles. So, what is an apostle? The title apostle literally means one who is sent forth in the sense of being a messenger or an ambassador. So like I say, if the early Jesus movement is centered on a mendicant spiritual group that renounced worldly entanglements such as property, the apostles were those who were sent to share that group's message with
(1:14:58) sympathetic supporters that are living in the world. And so uh the gospel of Mark includes a description of Jesus' instructions for sending forth those apostles. The Q sayings gospel preserves a second set and so uh because the authors of Matthew and Luke have access to both Mark and Q they react to those two lists.
(1:15:24) So the gospel of Matthew synthesizes them and brings those two lists together. Whereas the author of Luke includes both lists. The first of them being used for the sending of the 12 and like I say the second is for sending the 70 or 72 more apostles. So just how does it work? So um in Mark we read Jesus called the 12 and began to send them out two by two and he gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
(1:15:53) He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. I only got one. So he said to them, "Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that place. Don't go shopping around what house you're going to stay at.
(1:16:17) If the any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and he cured and cured them. So So essentially the 12 are given authority over the unclean spirits and they cast them out.
(1:16:40) They provide uh healings, social healings and so forth, spiritual healings. They go out in twos, two by twos. They're proclaiming the good news. Repent. Turn your life around uh into the new uh covenant in Christ. Take nothing with you. You know, no bread, no bag. You can have a staff and you can have one tunic, right? And then again, don't shop around once you're in a house. Stay there until you leave.
(1:17:09) Uh the author of Luke then repeats those same instructions to the apostles of the 12 in Luke 9, but then includes the Q version in chapter 10 of Luke's gospel. So Jesus says to these ones, the 72, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way.
(1:17:31) See, I'm sending you out like lambs amidst the wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals. These guys can't even have sandals. So, greet nobody on the road. Whatever house you enter, say first to the house, "Peace to this house." And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person.
(1:17:53) But if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house eating and drinking whatever they provide. So, don't worry about these kosher rules and so forth. The laborer deserves to be paid. But don't move around from house to house. Don't don't say, "Oh, this fancier person now is going to invite you into their house and give you better food.
(1:18:12) " No, stay with the first person that invited you in. Cure the sick uh who are there and say to them, "The kingdom of God has come near you." So essentially between those two rules, you know, there's no no bread, no bag, no money, no second tunic, no looking for better accommodation, but yes, you can have staff and sandals.
(1:18:31) You can, you're supposed to declare repentance, cast out demons. Same thing in the second list. No bag, no purse, no sandals, don't even greet people on the road, don't look for better accommodations, eat what's given to you, share peace, cure the sick, and so forth. So, um, early Christianity then was led and spread by pairs of mendicant apostles who were speaking in the spirit.
(1:18:57) The instructions that are given in the gospels and in the dedicay are kind of starkly pro-appost. So you are to receive the apostle as if they were the Lord. So that's pretty pretty big deal. This person who has come into your house, a stranger who has come to start preaching, you're just supposed to treat them as if the Lord has entered your house.
(1:19:19) do not deny anything said under the ecstatic influence of the spirit for this is an unpardonable sin. So in other words, when they start to speak from the spirit and they start preaching and and prophesying and all those kind of things, you can't say, "No, that's not the case." And that that that kind of thing, you have to actually listen to that as if that were again this Holy Spirit speaking.
(1:19:44) And if you deny it, that's actually the only unpardonable sin. So taken together I think these precepts create a system that is very much open to abuse and potentially to chaos. So um and in in addition the fact that this is the focus of early Christianity in other words that early Christians are represented by you know leaders or apostles who are going around and speaking by the spirit.
(1:20:12) That also gives us a context for why early Christian mythology and so forth evolved so very rapidly because when you're speaking by the spirit, people might tell stories about Jesus. They might tell visions that they've had about Jesus, for example, Jesus walking on water or something like that. And that's something that you've heard an apostle, let's say, telling a story about speaking under the influence of the spirit, a vision maybe that they've had.
(1:20:41) And then later people remember that and they remember that as a thing and then that gets written into a narrative uh gospel of Jesus as if that's something that happened in the in the lifetime of the historical Jesus. And so I think that that's part of the reason why there's no really clear separation between people visionarily speaking from the spirit.
(1:21:04) That's what the Christianity is really about and uh you know and and then trying to record what the historical Jesus might have done which was not what Christianity was about. So supporting mendicate prophets, apostles is central to the role of the Christian community as understood in the dedicay which advises for example take all of the first fruits of vintage and harvest and of cattle and sheep and give these first fruits to the prophets.
(1:21:39) So in Judaism, when you're taking your tithes, when you're taking your first fruits of vintage and harvest and cattle and sheep and so forth, these are offerings that are going to go to uh the temple and so forth, the Jewish authorities. But now what the dedicay is saying, no, what we're doing with all of these first fruits is we're going to give those to these mendicant apostles, this community of the poor, these preachers who were are traveling and are only staying with you one day and moving on and so forth. these give them to the
(1:22:08) prophets for they are your high priests. If however you have no profit, so if nobody nobody's come that day, then take those same tithes that you would normally have and give them to the poor generally to just regular poor people who are not uh mendicant prophet apostle people who are being poor out of out of wanting to be or because they have made a covenant to be that way with God just to regular poor people who are poor because of misfortune. uh give it that.
(1:22:40) If you make bread, take the first fruits and give in accordance with the precept. Similarly, when you open a jar of wine or oil, take the first fruits and give them to the prophets. So that's very central to the understanding of let's say the Christian Lelay community as understood by the dedicay.
(1:23:00) Um you know this is very common to what um you know how Buddhism works. So Buddhism has a much larger lay Buddhist community and one of the things that they do is the the regular people who are living their regular worldly lives. they, you know, open their jar of wine or oil or they harvest and so forth and they take a portion the ties of out of their out of their uh surplus and so forth and they give that to the Buddhist monks and nuns who are mendicants who don't who are living by by begging and so forth.
(1:23:35) So it would have been very very similar here. The earliest configure of Christianity like I say seems to be these mendicant apostles traveling about spreading the good news speaking by the spirit. But how already by the time of the dedicay this system is clearly already plagued by apostles or s pseudo apostles who have teachings that contradict the gospel as it's already understood by the dedicate author's community as well as by maybe those are maybe those are just heterodox apostles or people who are have a different faction or
(1:24:12) understanding of Christianity but it's also plagued by apostles who, let's say, want to settle down and enjoy the community's hospitality for more than one or two days, as well as by people who say they're apostles who are asking for more food or money than is necessary to get them to the next town.
(1:24:32) So already you can see how this system would lead to abuses and that's certainly happening and the dedicay text is warning about it. So the dedicay actually says, you know, even though we're not ever denying, let's say, what's said in ecstatic utterances, when people are speaking by the spirit, you cannot contradict the spirit because it's an unpardonable offense.
(1:24:57) It's quick to say, however, not everybody making ecstatic utterances is a true prophet, but only if he behaves like the Lord. It is by their conduct that a false prophet and a true prophet can be distinguished. For example, for instance, if a prophet marks out a table in the spirit, then he must not eat from it. If he does, he's a false prophet.
(1:25:24) And again, every prophet who teaches the truth but then fails to practice what he preaches, that's a false prophet. So if he says do this, and then you see him doing something else, that's a false prophet. So the dedicay recognizes that there are many let's say false apostles and prophets and it gives you a bunch of these kind of uh cribnotes for how to tell the phonies as it understands them.
(1:25:45) Every attested and genuine prophet who acts with a view of symbolizing the mystery of the church and does not teach you to do all that he does. You must must not be judged by you. His judgment rest with God. For the ancient prophets too acted in this way. But if someone says in the spirit, "Give me money or give me something else," you must not heed him.
(1:26:12) However, if he tells you to give for others who in need, then no one must condemn him. So if he's coming around and saying, you know, give everything that you have to the poor, help out the poor people, and so forth, the marginalized, that's great. if he's like one of these um modern evang evangelist prophets who's more or less saying, you know, uh this is a wonderful ministry.
(1:26:31) I have these nice two jets that you guys have bought me, but I need a I need all of you um poor old ladies who are on a fixed income and your social security to send me all of your checks so that I can buy my third jet or whatever these guys are saying. Um those are false prophets according to the dedicay. So anyway, the dedicay recognizes there are many of these uh false prophets.
(1:26:53) So when advising the community to support the true mendicant apostles, the dedicay likewise preaches caution. If there's a traveler who arrives, help him all you can, but he must not stay with you more than two days or if necessary three. If he wants to settle with you and he's an artisan, then he must work for his living.
(1:27:14) Don't just keep giving him stuff if he's hanging out with you, you know, like moves in with you. If however he has no trade, you know, use your judgment in taking steps for him to live with you as a Christian without being idol. So doesn't have any good skills, maybe he can clean up around the house or something like that.
(1:27:33) In other words, if he refuses to do this, then he's trading on Christ. You must be on your guard against such people. So this is already, like I say, be on your guard against sponges. This is already quite a pragmatic text. You can see the problems that have already emerged out of this tradition of mendicant apostles just in the first generations.
(1:27:52) So in addition to that favored role of teachers, which is to say mendicant apostles and prophets traveling and speaking in the spirit, the dedicay has um briefly mentions the community's own local officials in chapter 15. So it says, "You must then elect for yourselves bishops and deacons who are a credit to the Lord men who are gentle, generous, faithful, and well-traded.
(1:28:19) For their ministry is identical with that of prophets and teachers. You must not therefore despise them, for along with the prophets and teachers, they enjoy a place of honor among you." There's not a lot of more information than that. And so kind of is the implication of it is you know this emerging new group local leaders um of each congregation.
(1:28:43) There's going to be a bishop and a bunch of deacons maybe um people who are uh uh overseeing or the the good of the established congregational community in each town or city. Um, nevertheless, uh, the text here is already, even though the text is trying to say, you know, these guys should be in your guy's head on the same level with these apostles and prophets, it's clear that they aren't for the people, right? Because he's kind of saying, you don't despise bishops, you know, you shouldn't despise them.
(1:29:17) You should you should honor them alongside the prophets, but, you know, it's clear that people don't, right? So essentially this is the new emerging um roles and indeed once you get to the second century there are no more traveling apostles and prophets. They've been weeded out of the out of the church and instead the church is run by these bishops and uh deacons and ultimately separated out having priests elders as well um as the new emerging uh officials.
(1:29:47) So after uh the first generation of Christ first generations of Christianity anyway the role of roaming mendicant apostle prophets is stamped out as the focus shifts to bishops deacons and so on leading fixed communities and like I say though the short shrift I think given these later positions by the dedicay kind of coupled with all of these tests for false prophets I think illustrates just this that this text is kind of written in an important moment in the evolution of Christianity.
(1:30:15) In other words, from the way it has been, all the problems that are resulting to the way it's going to be. Um, and so it's a very interesting early conception of Christianity that we're able to see here in the middle of the dedicay. Uh, the dedicay then includes part four, very brief part, the last chapter, uh, with a caution to the reader to be ready for when the hour of the Lord is coming.
(1:30:41) uh as with so many early Christian texts uh author of the Gospel of Mark uh is a apocalypticist. Paul is an apocalypticist who believes he's going to live to see a literal end of the world and a second coming of Christ. Uh likewise um obviously John the Revelator also is firmly convicted that that will happen.
(1:31:07) And so this is in that same uh early generation kind of uh assurance that many early Christians had in a literal apocalypticism. So it says, "Watch over your life. Do not let your lamps go out." Um we have a wonderful hymn, keep your lamps trimmed and burning, which I love. Uh do not let your do not keep your loins unguarded, but be ready for you do not know the hour when the Lord is coming.
(1:31:32) Meet Together frequently in search of what is good for your souls. since a lifetime of faith will be of no advantage to you unless you prove perfect at the very last. For in the final days, multitudes of false prophets and seducers will appear, sheep will turn into wolves, love into hatred, and for with the increase of iniquity, men will hate, persecute, betray each other, etc.
(1:31:56) , etc., and there's all the end times antichrist to appear and so forth. So to summarize um the dedicay I think is a very very interesting book. Um it's among the earliest and I think most important texts left out of the canon of the Christian the Christian cannon of the New Testament. For me, the central sections about priesthood and the sacraments are especially interesting as I think they give us insight into, as I say, that evolution of the very earliest Christian institutions uh and practices, how the sacraments and
(1:32:30) other things are understood. Um while um also interesting, but less so to me anyway, the thou shalt not lists I think um show very interesting overlap with the um that the movement here is emerging out of Judaism. So many of these are similar to the uh to Jewish commandments, the ten commandments lists and so forth, a little bit expanded and have again interesting parallels with similar lists of how to act and not to act that exist among the Essenes in the in the Kuman community, the Dead Sea Scroll community and so forth.
Summary and Conclusion
(1:33:06) And so that is my look at the dedicay, one of the lost books of the Bible. So, while Andrew is getting me the questions, I'm going to take a little drink of water. Um, Michelangelo asked, "Wouldn't early church fathers have known that Peter probably couldn't write?" So, so they probably would know.
Table 1: Previous Lectures or Episode
| Name of previous lecture or Episode | Description | Transcript Link | Date of release |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who Was Abraham? | Lecture on Abraham | Link | 3 days ago |
| The Myth of Moses | Lecture on the Myth of Moses | Link | 1 month ago |
| The Tower of Babel | Lecture on the Tower of Babel | Link | 5 months ago |
| Joshua vs. Judges | Lecture on the walls of Jericho | Link | 1 year ago |
Table 2: Religious Studies Terms
| Religious studies terms mentioned | Description |
|---|---|
| Adoptianism | The Christological view that Jesus was a regular human who lived a perfect life and was adopted by God as His son. |
| Apocalypse | A genre of prophetic literature depicting a vision or revelation of the end of the world and ultimate heavenly realities. |
| Apostolic Succession | The doctrine of continuous lineage of religious authority transmitted through the unbroken ordination of bishops tracing back to the apostles. |
| Canon | An official, authoritative list of sacred books and scripture recognized as genuinely inspired by a religious tradition. |
| Docetism | The Christological belief that Jesus Christ was purely divine and only appeared or seemed to be human. |
| Gnosticism | An early Christian spiritual movement centered on dualism and the pursuit of secret, esoteric knowledge for spiritual salvation. |
| Mendicant | Refers to traveling preachers or apostles who renounce personal property and live by daily begging and community support. |
| Pseudepigrapha | Writings composed under a false or assumed name, often falsely attributing authorship to an apostle or venerated figure. |
Table 3: Individuals Named
| Individual Name | Description | Transcript Link |
|---|---|---|
| Athanasius of Alexandria | Bishop of Alexandria who issued a letter in 367 AD listing the 27 books of the New Testament canon | Link |
| Augustine of Hippo | Early Latin Church father and bishop who led synods accepting the 27-book New Testament canon | Link |
| Clement | Early Christian Church father and writer | Link |
| Eusebius | Early Christian antiquarian and historian who described the Didache as spurious | Link |
| Ignatius | Early Christian leader and writer | Link |
| Ignatios Bryennios | Greek Orthodox Metropolitan bishop who rediscovered a complete manuscript of the Didache in 1873 | Link |
| James | Brother of Jesus and prominent figure associated with early Jewish-Christian traditions and writings | Link |
| Jerome | Saint who translated the Biblical texts into Latin to form the Vulgate | Link |
| Jesus of Nazareth | Central figure of Christianity whose life, ministry, and teachings form the core of the Gospels | Link |
| John the Apostle / Evangelist | Early Christian apostle traditionally attributed with writings in the New Testament | Link |
| John of Patmos | Author of the Book of Revelation | Link |
| Joseph Smith | Founder of the Latter Day Saint movement and author/dictator of the Book of Mormon | Link |
| Judas Iscariot | One of the original twelve apostles who betrayed Jesus | Link |
| Jude | Early Christian figure associated with an epistle in the New Testament | Link |
| Luke the Evangelist | Author attributed with the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles | Link |
| Marcion of Sinope | 2nd-century Christian leader who compiled an early, highly selective canon and was rejected as a heretic | Link |
| Mark the Evangelist | Author attributed with the Gospel of Mark, the earliest canonical gospel | Link |
| Martin Luther | Protestant Reformer who translated the Bible and questioned parts of the New Testament canon | Link |
| Matthias | Apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot in the Book of Acts | Link |
| Matthew the Evangelist | Author attributed with the Gospel of Matthew | Link |
| Oliver Cowdery | Scribe to Joseph Smith during the dictation of the Book of Mormon | Link |
| Origen | Early Christian scholar and theologian | Link |
| Paul the Apostle | Early Christian missionary and prolific author of New Testament epistles | Link |
| Peter the Apostle | Leading apostle of Jesus to whom early epistles and traditions are attributed | Link |
| Plato | Ancient Greek philosopher mentioned in philosophical context | Link |
| Polycarp | Early Christian bishop and martyr | Link |
| Rufinus | Early Christian writer who mentioned the Didache | Link |
| Seneca the Younger | Roman Stoic philosopher to whom spurious letters from Paul were attributed | Link |
| Thecla | Heroine of the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla | Link |
Table 4: Bible Passages
| Bible Passage | Type | Transcript Link |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Corinthians 10 | Referenced | Link |
| 1 Corinthians 8 | Referenced | Link |
| 1 Corinthians 11:23–25 | Quoted | Link |
| Luke 10:2–9 | Quoted | Link |
| Luke 11:2–4 | Quoted | Link |
| Malachi 1:11 | Quoted | Link |
| Mark 6:7–12 | Quoted | Link |
| Matthew 26:26–28 | Quoted | Link |
| Matthew 6:9–13 | Alluded to | Link |
Table 5: Non English Words
| Non-English Word | Definition | Language of Origin |
|---|---|---|
| Apocrypha | Biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of Scripture. | Greek |
| Didache | A short early Christian treatise containing instructions for Christian communities; means "teaching". | Greek |
| Eucharist | The Christian sacrament or rite commemorating the Last Supper, in which bread and wine are consecrated and consumed; means "thanksgiving". | Greek |
| Hosanna | An expression or cry of praise, adoration, or acclamation to God. | Hebrew / Aramaic |
| Septuagint | The earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. | Latin |
| Vulgate | The 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible that became the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version; means "common" or "popular". | Latin |
Table 6: Books mentioned
| Extra-biblical / Non-canonical Book | Author |
|---|---|
| Acts of Paul and Thecla | Anonymous (Pseudepigraphal / attributed to Paul) |
| Apocalypse of Paul | Anonymous (Pseudepigraphal / attributed to Paul) |
| Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) | Anonymous (Attributed to the Twelve Apostles) |
| Gospel of Thomas (Sayings Gospel of Thomas) | Anonymous (Attributed to Thomas) |
| Infancy Gospel of Thomas | Anonymous (Attributed to Thomas) |
| Letters of Paul to Seneca | Anonymous (Pseudepigraphal) |
| Prayer of Paul | Anonymous (Pseudepigraphal / attributed to Paul) |
| Shepherd of Hermas | Hermas |
| Third Letter to the Corinthians | Anonymous (Pseudepigraphal / attributed to Paul) |
Table 9: Graphics Referenced
| Graphics Referenced | Transcript Link |
|---|---|
| Letters by Paul and Letters Attributed to Paul | Link |
| New Testament Books by Length | Link |
| Timeline of New Testament and Early Christian Texts | Link |
Table 12: Chronology
| Date in the transcript | Event at that date | Transcript Link |
|---|---|---|
| 1820s | Joseph Smith struggled with sectarian division in the early American republic | Link |
| 1830s | Understanding of priesthood officers (elders, priests, teachers) | Link |
| 1873 | Philotheos Bryennios rediscovered a copy of the Didache in Constantinople | Link |
| 1990s | Church moved away from closed communion to open communion | Link |
| 367 | First time the final list of 27 New Testament books appeared (letter by Bishop Athanasius) | Link |
| 393 | Augustine led the Synod of Hippo accepting the 27 books of the New Testament | Link |
| 50 AD | Paul wrote regarding the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians | Link |