el

7-

THE DIDACHE AS A SOURCE FOR PICTURING THE EARLIEST

CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF THE PRACTICE OF FASTING
Thomas O'Loughlin

7-

Taking Note of the Didache

rs

v:
3-

The year 2000 was the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the
announcement of the discovery in Constantinople of the Didache' by
Philotheos Bryennios2 in a manuscript now housed in the Greek patriarchate of Jerusalem.' During that time we have become used to the idea of
spectacular discoveries that can change our perceptions of the early church
and radically alter how we read the traditionally available material such as
the fourth-century collection of early texts commonly known as 'the New
Testament'. However, while the Didache lacks the exciting allure of the
Qumran and Nag Hammadi documents, it probably has provided as much
information on the earliest decades of Christianity as these larger and more
famous discoveries. It is a text, now in 16 chapters (really little more than
paragraphs), which can be read in less than an hour.' In terms of theology
and Christian practice it contains almost nothing that would much surprise
the average Christian todaythough it would annoy many of them, and
has done so since its publication in 1883.5
1. The edition used in preparing this article is that found in Holmes (1992: 24669); this edition has been compared in the case of each citation with that in
K. Niederwimmer's text (1998). The latter book is currently the most comprehensive
introduction to the Didache and scholarship devoted to it.
2. The discovery was made in 1873 and announced in 1875, with the editio
princeps appearing in 1883. For an account of the discovery the key work is Schaff
(1886: 1-10); there is summary in Niederwimmer (1998: 19).
3. Codex 54; there is a facsimile of folios 76-80 (which contain the Didache) in
Harris (1887); and a summary of its contents in Niederwimmer (1998: 19); and cf. also
Audet (1950).
4. Schaff (1886: 23) pointed out that it is about the same length as Paul's letter to
the Galatians.
5. The more irrational late datings (fourth and fifth centuries) suggested by some

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Since its publication it has not been without scholarly attention.' Within
a few years of its appearance there were major studies in German by Adolf
von Harnach (1884), in French by Paul Sabatier (1885), and in English by
F.W. Farrar (1884) in Britain and Philip Schaff (1885) in America.' By the
1930s there had been so many studies of this little text that one commentator, F.E. Vokesin a very strange book, for he thoroughly disliked the
text to which he devoted many years of study described it as 'the "spoilt
child" of criticism' (Vokes 1938: 6-7).8
Two major schools of interpretation soon took shape.9 The first was in
France where the text was held to be first century and from the general
area of Syria; the second was in German lands' where it was dated to
some time in the second century and from Egypt. Anglophone scholarship
took a variety of positions but on the whole tended towards the German
school, although it produced a series of eccentric studies beginning with
Charles Bigg who in 1898 described it as 'a romance of the fourth century'
and had its fullest exposition in Vokes who believed that it was the work
of a 'very mild Montanist' at 'the end of the second century or at the
beginning of the third' (Vokes 1938: 208-220)." It is important to note the
writers are evidence of this annoyance. Their dismissal of the Didache from discussions of Christian originsfor it is so dismissed if it is a 'post-apostolic' document
are usually justified by the fact that only with a long passage of time (and so, they argue,
inevitable ecclesiastical corruption) could `un-evangelical' features such as fixed rules
regarding prayer have arisen among the Christians; cf. Ehrhard (1900: I, 62).
6. While Niederwimmer (1998) provides a thorough account of the scholarship on
virtually every matter of significance, the best historiographical review is Jefford
(1989: 3-17).
7. For the details of these works, see Jefford (1989: 3-13).
8. Vokes (1938: 6-7) (when he quoted Bigg 1898 who has been seen as the first of
the British school who have argued that the Didache is an elaborate literary fiction, cf.
Niederwimmer [1998: 43-44 n. 16] where he is particularly critical of Vokes). Vokes
returned to the topic many years later (1964) without any evidence of any alteration of
his views. Vokes, like Bigg, dismissed the earlier datings on the basis that the Didache's
praxis too resembled the later 'corrupted' church that was often labelled 'early Catholicism' (Friihkatholizismus).
9. This division into schools is based on Jefford (1989: 3-17).
10. This school embraced Polish scholars who lived in regions which were then
part of Germany, e.g. Krawutzcky (1884).
11. For an account of these writers, see Jefford (1989: 15); but see Niederwimmer
(1998: 43-44 and also 52 n. 16, 68) for a more critical assessment. This approach
culminated in Middleton (1935) who saw 'the Didachist' as from a 'Jewish community
and on his conversion composed his curious little work' which has not made 'any

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existence of these schools of thought as it has caused many Englishspeaking scholars who use the Didache for parallels to their main concerns
to use fudges such as 'pre-third century, perhaps mid-second century or
earlier, from either Egypt or Syria', which really say nothing and only
serve to distract students from giving the document the care it merits.'
Essentially the difference between the dates (mid to late first century versus
early to mid second century) depended on whether one approached the text
from the appearance of the church it described (the French approach) or as
a witness providing evidence to the formation of the Gospels. Using the
German approach, since the Didache seemed to use Matthew (and others
found Luke, Acts, Paul, Ignatius of Antioch and even Justin)" it must be
later than those documents. Equally, the text as we have it shows signs of
redaction,' a process which takes time, and argues for a later date. But
equally it has practices such as the cup before the loaf at the Eucharist, a
ritual that had already changed by the time Matthew was written, and which
argue for an earlier date.' However, as our understanding of Gospel foruseful contribution to our knowledge of the Early Church' and not 'worthy of anything
like the serious attention that was at one time given to it' (1935: 267). Happily this
eclipse of the Didache in English-speaking scholarship seems to be coming to an end,
but even today it receives more attention from German and French scholars.
12. A good example of this is to be found in Jasper and Cuming (1980: 14) who
introduced the text thus: 'It has been allotted dates varying from AD 60 to the third
century' without further comment. This statement then informs writings by other
liturgists who often conclude that there is little agreement about the Didacheeven
fewer recognize that the late datings are eccentricand opt for the latest date as 'the
safe option'.
13. The central thrust of scholarship on the Didache has been to establish its
literary relations with other texts, either with the New Testament texts for those who
argue for an early date (cf. Jefford 1989 passim; and Niederwimmer 1998: 46-52) or to
the 'apostolic fathers' for those who have argued for a later date.
14. This is agreed by all, but the significance attached to the activity (i.e. redaction
of components into a single manual or simply the binding together of materials for
convenienceif these activities can be distinguished), especially in so far as redaction
reflects use of other texts (see the preceding note), has a bearing on the whole study:
see Niederwimmer (1998: 1-2).
15. Cf. Did. 9.2-3 with Mt. 26.26-28; in support of the Didache order cf. 1 Cor.
10.16 and Lk. 22.17-19; in support of what established itself as the liturgically standard
order, cf. 1 Cor. 11.23-26 and Lk. 22.19-20. This question has attracted much attention
during the last century, and for an approach that fully embraces these different
traditions of practicein contrast to earlier approaches which saw them as textual
contradictionssee Nodet and Taylor (1998: 88-123). For a study of the various texts,
see Voobus (1968).

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mation has changed, so too has the way that we look at this text, and today
there is a broad consensus that the original form of this document goes back
to the middle of the first century, and that it draws on the same strands of
traditionwritten or oral that both Matthew and Luke drew upon,' 6 and
that it received the form in which we have it by the end of the first century
(if not earlier) as a manual' for presbuteroi.' This positionessentially
that of all recent editors of the text: J.P. Audet, Stanilaus Giet, Willy
Rordorf and Andr Tuilier and Kurt Niederwimmer19has major implications for how the text is used in studies of early Christian communities
and must alter the way that it is used by students of the canonical collection of documents in particular. It means in many cases that textsalthough
hallowed by centuries of familiarity and doctrinal commitmentmust be
seen as secondary to the Didache as witnesses to the earliest communities
(the study of Acts is the example sans pared), while the Didache must
move from being a peripheral, subsequent text to being centre-stage in our
study of many of the basic activities of the church such as regular gatherings for the Eucharist. This is, of course, already happening in studies
where it is the actual community and its beliefswhich we know through
its literary products such as the Gospelsthat are the focus of attention,
but there are still many studies that focus on the canonical text as the source
or vehicle of religious information, and in which the Didache is viewed as
but a useful, if complicated, source of parallels and 'background'. This
article is an attempt to demonstrate how one can glimpse an aspect of the
life of an early community through the Didache with our other sources
16. In many places the Didache seems verbally closer to Matthew, in other places it
seems verbally closer to Luke; and there have been many studies that sought to show
that it is linked either with Matthew or Luke. However, that such studies are inconclusive is what we should expect: all three documents represent the common church tradition which is fixed textually in slightly different ways by each text. The crucial point is
that all three reflect the tradition prior to the time when it was part of the tradition to
assert the tradition's content by reference to a fixed, written text. This question is
addressed in every study of the Didache, the most extensive recent study being by
Jefford (1989); however, for an elegant presentation of the evidence, noting that the
Didache is independent of any of our existing Gospels, see Glover (1958-59).
17. The designation 'manual' was first given to the Didache by Philip Schaff
(1886: 16). Schaff thought of a manual in a quasi-official sense: a 'brief Directory of
Apostolic teaching, worship and discipline'; while I also use the word manual I do not
wish to imply some semi-official status; rather, that some materials came together
because it was most convenient to have them in one place in a single small codex.
18. See Milavec (1994).
19. See Niederwimmer (1998: 233-34) for the details of these editions.

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being used as supporting witnesses.' However, it is necessary at the outset

to declare my hand and acknowledge some of my basic assumptions. First,
my object is an understanding of an aspect of the life of a community
through looking at one of its literary products. Second, an understanding
of the text per se is not my objective, but merely a preliminary requisite so
that the text can yield the maximum amount of information about a church.
Third, the pursuit of this objective presupposes that texts, especially texts
giving directions for group activities, exist within communities, and that
the community has both a prior and more fundamental existence than its
literary products.' In short, the reality of Christianity in the first century is
to be located in a community defined by its religious identity, not in texts.'
Low-Level Documents
However, using the Didache as a source for observing a first-century community begs a question. If that document is valuable for understanding
their lives, why did it not continue in use within the church, since we know
that it was translated in Coptic and Georgian and a work like itif not the
actual textwas still remembered in the late fourth century and mentioned
by Jerome?' A simple answer would be to point out that what has survived has been very much a matter of chance and that there is much that
we know existed which did not make it through the sieve of time. From
the first two centuries we have, in fact, only a fraction of what was produced and the real question is whether there are any special features of the
texts that did survive that made them popular, and, consequently, with a
higher chance of survival through much copying and wide diffusion. But
while such considerations are relevant to a work the Gospel of Thomas is
a case in pointdeliberately produced with the demands of the kerygma
20. I am concentrating on early Christian sources at the expense of inter-testamentary Jewish sources and Greek sources from the wider first-century society: an
article has little canvas!
21. This raises questions of both epistemology and literary theory; in the context of
the Didache my approach is that since it relates to the common activities of the group
(broadly defined as its `rituals'and not just its 'rituals' in the narrow sense of religious ceremonies), then the ritual-as-communication school's approach is the most
appropriate, cf. Rothenbuhler (1998).
22. This has, obviously, important implications for anyone who looks to either the
early days of Christianity or to canonical texts as part of a theological quest, but these
implications are not my concern here; cf. 0?Loughlin (2001).
23. Cf. Niederwimmer (1998: 4-13).

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in view,' there is a simpler reason for the disappearance of the Didache

and texts like it.
I begin with an analogy. I reach to a shelf in my study and pull out three
books at random. I have picked up F.J. Matera, What Are They Saying
about Mark? (1987), Sean Kealy's Mark's Gospel: A History of its Interpretation (1982) and Wilfrid Harrington's Mark (1984). For me there is
some ongoing relevance to these booksif nothing else, I know two of the
authorsand so they stand there safely on my shelf ready to be used
again, and if anyone interested in early Christianity saw them thrown on a
skip they might rescue them and declare that they were 'still worth holding
on to'. Yet in the same period in which I bought those books, I also got
umpteen practical guides to this, pastoral guides to that, 'regulations
concerning...' and bundles of magazines containing information which I
then considered important for I remember copying items at the time for
others. I look around my study and I cannot find a single such item. And
even if I were a magpie and kept everything, at some stage that material
would have to be skipped, and if at that point you came across it you
would probably leave it there as 'it's too dated to be of use'. My point is
this: manuals, catechisms, guidelines, homily notes, and other pastoral
ephemera are vital at the time but have a short shelf-life, after which they
disappear through obsolescence. Indeed, it is their very relevance to a particular moment and situation that makes them ephemeral. When we move
from our world to that of manuscripts where every copy is a result of a
distinct decision that someone wants a new copy for future reference,' the
chances that an earlier manual will continue to be copied decline to almost
zero. If, indeed, many of the literary works from antiquity have been lost
(e.g. the Hortensius by Cicero which was still available in the fourth century), the survival of a practice-related work is simply a happy accident.
Manuals, of their nature, are updated continuously leaving their earlier
forms to disappear, usually, without trace. This is what I contend happened with the Didache,26 and the fact that any copy survived must be
seen as a stroke of luck. Moreover, in fact, the text we have is one of the
24. See the context suggested for the Gospel of Thomas by Valantasis (1997).
25. Just as today the publisher produces copies in anticipation of demand, the decision to make a new copy is based on the judgment that someone else needs the work
for their use and for whom the existing copy is no longer sufficient.
26. Schaff (1886: 16) recognized this as the mechanism that eventually led to the
eclipse of the Didache: 'It was afterwards expanded in various modifications, and
ultimately displaced by fuller manuals...'

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`updates' of the basic text: someone, probably in the early second century,
had the manual and decided that he would add at its endperhaps where
there was a blank page in his copy27a useful homily (Did. 16), and that
update stands behind our surviving manuscript.28
However, we now encounter the paradox of manuals. If, perchance, they
do survive, then there comes a time when the very fact that they are so
primitive, and linked to people now seen as the progenitors of a tradition,
means that they attain the status of monuments. Then they become worthy
of being reproduced and studied as relics. Here, perhaps, lies the reason
why someone in 1056 CE coming across an obvious antiquity entitled 'the
teaching of the twelve apostles' deemed it worthy to be copied once more.
But if the Didache is a monument for those seeking apostolic relics
because of its title's claim to have links with the apostles and the earliest
times, then it has another claim on our attention as historians as a piece of
pastoral ephemera. This value to investigators of the earliest Christian
communities lies in the fact that `low-level' documents with their stress on
what should be done in concrete situations, and their interest in day-to-day
problems, allow us to see how individuals believed and behaved. While all
documents reveal a community in some way, such ephemera reveal their
home far more directly. To return to my analogy: if one wanted to understand the concerns that animated the Christian communities in Ireland in
the 1980s, to what sources should one turn? One would certainly find
much of value in books and formal statements written at the time, but one
would have a much fuller picture of how the Christians viewed the situation by looking at newspapers (even at the adverts in them), looking at
regulations that were issued, and at lists of meetings that took place in
parish halls. The value of the Didache to historians is that it belongs to this
second category of document. It is a witness to a living community and
its cares which were changing from day to day.' As Niederwimmer has
remarked: 'The whole composition is unpretentious as literature, nourished by praxis and intended for immediate application' (1998: 3). Unlike
Acts, which has a theological vision of what the Church should be in con27. The possibility of such a page is based on its transmission in a codex made up
in quires, and I take the use of a codex for granted; cf. Roberts (1979); Roberts and
Skeat (1983); Skeat (1994; 1997).
28. This proposal would accord with Niederwimmer's dating of the Didache (1998:
52-53), but also shows my sympathy (against Niederwimmer 1998: 42-43) with those
(Audet, Giet, Rordorf and Tuilier) who hold that the text as we have it is the result of
several redactions.
29. See Kraft (1965: 64-65).

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trast to its actual defects, the Didache is not a theological work; but in so
far as it proposes rules to a community to be followed, it can reveal to us
the operative theology of its compilers and the communities which used it.
A Manual
Most attention to the Didache during the twentieth century focused on
what it could tell us about other thingsespecially the Gospels as texts.
Today, its value is increasingly seen to lie in what it tells us of the concerns and everyday priorities of an early community. Therefore, the picture of the early Church we discern in the Didache is at the opposite end of
the spectrum to that given in Acts with its imaginary 'golden age'. Thus
far I have referred to the Didache as a 'manual' (Schaff s term) and as a
piece of ephemera (my term), but, as Aaron Milavec has pointed out, we
must use such terms with caution lest by them we imply that the Didache
was an 'off the cuff' document or the casual product of some presbuteros
(1994: 118). Milavec has shown there is a careful rhetorical structure in
parts of the text which was probably given to it in order that its guidance
could be memorized. The obvious implication of his research is that what
we have is not an individual's notes, but the record of a community's
decisions on matters of discipline and organization. The term 'manual'
was used disparagingly by Schaff. In the Didache's regulations on various
matters he found something out of accord with his notion of primitive
`evangelical liberty'a state which he imagined had to precede any more
formal organization within Christianity. As such, a 'manual' was an indicator that Christianity was already in downward spiral from the Lukan
`golden age' as read through the eyes of late nineteenth-century rationalist
Protestantism.' I use the word 'manual' in the wholly positive sense of
manuale or enchiridion: a distillation designed to be user-friendly in that it
allows key, frequently accessed information to be conveniently retained by
its users. As such, the Didache is one of the first of many similar works
which we know existed, but which have in most cases vanished with only
accidental traces. Moreover, we know from later examples that such short
collections of diverse pastoral materials often contained items known as
meinoriae technicae, exactly as Milavec has argued that the Didache
contains. By calling it a piece of ephemera I mean that it was assembled
30. See Schaff (1886: 29) where he sees 'the beginning of liturgical bondage' and
of practices which 'interfere with evangelical freedom' in the Didache. For an analysis
of how that agenda informed many studies of early Christianity, see Smith (1990).

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with a specific situation in mind rather than planned as some ideal guide to
Christian praxis. Thus we have moral instruction, combined with ritual
regulations, some rules dealing with problems facing that community, and
lastly (what is usually referred to as the eschatological section) what is
probably the earliest surviving sermon notes.
The Didache is a pastoral manual produced in the first century in a place
where there was not yet any of our canonical texts; and consequently should
be used by us an independent witness to Christian praxis in that community.' We should compare alongside it other contemporary texts such as
the genuine Pauline letters; and we should use it as a backdrop when
reading later Christian documents from the first and second centuries, be
they canonical or not, when we attempt to imagine the Christian community in which those writings were valued. What follows is a sketch of one
aspect of early Christian living which we glimpse through it.
Fasting: A Regular Custom
The Didache assumes, as was the case within contemporary Jewish practice,' that there was regular weekly fasting by the community:
Do not let your33 fasts [take place] with [i.e. at the same time as] those of
the hypocrites. They fast on the second [Monday] and fifth days [Thursday]
of the Sabbath; you,34 though, are to fast on the fourth [Wednesday] and on
the day of preparation [for the Sabbath: i.e. Friday] (Did. 8.1).

This matter-of-fact presentation of regulations is all that the text says

about this regular weekly fast. Now let us see what is implied in it. First,
it is clear that this is already a well-established practiceit is something
that the community takes for granted, and it is a custom which they
31. See Milavec (1994: 118), who argues that this approach is a necessary assumption for a fruitful study of the Didache.
32. The practice is widely attested, and it was given a range of interpretations. How
it was perceived in the Judaism in which Jesus lived can be seen from the way it is
imagined in the book of Judith: at a time of great crisis, its author imagines that 'all the
people fasted' to implore divine assistance (4.9 and 13); while the heroine, Judith, as part
of being the perfect Jewish woman fasts every day except 'the day before the Sabbath'
(Friday) and 'the Sabbath' (Saturday), the day of the new moon and its eve, and the great
feasts of the Lord (8.6). For the notion of regular liturgical fasting, see Zech. 8.19 (and
for the impact of that verse of Christian tradition, cf. Talley [1980-82: 43-45]). For an
excursus on the practice in Judaism, see Niederwimmer (1998: 132-33).
33. Note this is the plural: Upc;ay.
34. Note this is the plural: IMOTElkiaTE.

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value.' This is not a preacher introducing something new, and there is

no sense that they need encouragement to continue the practice nor persuasion as to its credentials within the churches. Second, as with practical
books in general, the concern is with 'doing the right thing' rather than
with a justification of why one must fast or with some symbolic explanation. That fasting is something that is worth doing and an intrinsic part of
religious discipline is assumed. The Didache follows this instruction with
directions on prayer, and so the community clearly held the notion that
fasting adds earnestness to prayer, and we know that this was a widespread notion in Jewish thinking on prayer at the time.' Thirdly, their
particular discipline regarding when they fasted was a feature that contributed to giving the group a distinctive identity. The regulation's stress
is not that they should fast, but that they fast on particular days so that
their group is distinctive through behaving differently from the others
(`the hypocrites'). Moreover, this is not just some invisible differencea
different intention, or a distinct attitude of mind and heartbut a concrete
separation in the way they collectively organize their week. They are
visibly bound together in being, as a group, out of phase with the others.
As a group regulation, framed in the imperative, this verse would seem
to be unproblematic and, indeed, to be simply the earliest attestation of
somethingnamely a twice-weekly fast by Christians on Wednesdays and
Fridaysthat would become standard for centuries. Indeed, as a scholar
born in Ireland whenever I read this verse I recall that this practice has
generated the names for three weekdays in the Irish language.' However,
this verse of the Didache has been a source of debate for much of its
history. Starting with the assumption that the Gospels show Jesus as casual
about fasting (Mt. 9.15) and Paul's rejection of ritual food regulations
(Rom. 14.1-22; 1 Cor. 10.23-31),38 coupled with 'let no one pass judgment
on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new
35. This aspect of the text is central to Niederwimmer's exegesis (1998: 131).
36. See Jdt. 4.9, 13; 9.1 (to which further reference will be made below); and cf.
Horbury (1998: 306).
37. In modern Irish the name for Wednesday is De Ceadaoin, which comes from Old
Irish Cetain, which means 'first fast [of the week]'; the word for Friday is De hAoine
from the Old Irish ain, which means 'fast' and is a borrowing from the Latin ieiunium;
while the word for Thursday, Deardaoin, is derived from the Old Irish Tardain/Dardain
coming from etar di ain, which means `[the day] between the two fasts' (Quin 1983).
38. There is an additional problem regarding food which has been used in Gentile
cults. Paul (1 Cor. 8) takes a pragmatic view that the only harm in eating such food is the
danger of scandal to those with weak consciences, for the Christian knows those 'gods'

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moon or a Sabbath' (Col. 2.16), then, many have argued, the Didache
must be a later document when the ritualizationit has been a widespread
assumption in nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship that the
original Christianity was not only free of ritual but against the very notion
of Christianity was well under way. The theme was well stated at the
very beginning of the study of the Didache by Schaff:
The prescription to fast before Baptism (in Ch. VII. 4) and on Wednesday
and Fridays (Ch. VIII) goes beyond the New Testament, and interfered with
evangelical freedom. The Lord condemns the hypocritical fasting of the
Pharisees, but left no command as to stated days of fasting (1886: 29).

The general assumption that rituals equal some sort of corruptionindeed

a betrayal of Christianity through the admixture of superstitions derived
from paganismof a primitive simplicity focused on the written word"
was part of the agenda of those who went back to the 'primitive church' to
find there the 'warrant' for their own view of Christian worship.' We see
this exemplified in this statement: 'Fasting before the act [of baptism]
was required, but no oil, salt, or exorcism, or any other material or ceremony is mentioned' (Schaff 1886: 139).
This suspicion of rituals, with the consequence that there are 'right'
ways for the community to perform them, has often blurred our vision so
that we fail to note that one of the binding factors that formed the Christian community was its rites. However, behind the later Lukan phrase
`they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and the community, to the breaking of the loaf and to the prayers' (Acts 2.42) lies a rich
pattern of community ritual activity, such as the regular 'celebration of the
Eucharist' (Did. 9-10; 14); rites of passage, such as baptism (Did. 7);
ways of viewing time such as the Lord's Day (Did. 14); regular prayers
(Did 8.2-3); and regular practices, such as fasting. While the explanation
of these practices changedhence in the canonical collection there is not
one, but many explanations of the significance (theologies) of baptism and
the Eucharistthe practices themselves formed a continuity over time and
a bond between groups.41 So, taking a set of rituals that includes fasting as

have no reality; the Didache, by contrast, offers a simple, non-nuanced regulation: 'keep
well clear of food offered to idols because that is the worship of dead-gods' (6.3).
39. The canonical texts, as writings, were seen not only to be ritual free but also to
be such that they allowed their readers to live lives free of religious ritual. Ritual, as
such, they held was part of the world of paganism, and the antithesis of 'word'.
40. See Smith (1990: esp. 54-84).
41. It is this hypothesis that underlies the approach of Nodet and Taylor (1998).

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that which marks out the community's group culture, do we get any hint as
to how they imagined its purpose to themselves?
Fasting as a Form of Love
The first mention of fasting in the Didache is at the very beginning of the
text where we have a saying forming part of a piece of teaching known as
the 'Two Ways '.42 The 'Way of Life' is 'love of God who made you' first,
and then 'love of neighbour as yourself' Although generically claimed
by the title of the Didache as 'the Lord's teaching through the twelve apostles' this commandment is not explicitly claimed as a saying of Jesus, and
it is located within a catechetical framework rather than in some historical
situation. The love of neighbour is then explained using a troika of blessing,
praying and fasting:
Now the teaching of these words is this [that you] bless those who curse
you and prayer for your enemies and fast for those that persecute you [Urrip
-r6v 6tCJKOVTCOV Upasi. For what credit is it to you if you love those who
love you? Do not the nations do the very same! (Did. 1.3)

While this immediately rings many bells for us, it is worth noting how
different it is to those echoes it calls up for us.' First, we are used to the
troika of alms, prayer and fasting (cf. Mt. 6.2, 5, 16), but here we have
blessing, praying and fasting. These are the three ritual actions with which
Christians respond to attacks with acts of love. Second, what is found here
as a single unit of teaching is found in a variety of places in the Synoptic
tradition. In Mt. 5.44 we have 'Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you' (61-rip -r(31/ 6tcoK6v-rcav 6pC(5), which is arguably
less demanding than fasting for them. In Lk. 6.28 we find 'bless those who
curse you, pray for those who abuse you' (TrE pi TC3V ii-rripEacci rc.ov 605),
while in Mt. 5.46-7 we have 'For if you love those who love you, what
reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you
salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not
even the Gentiles do the same?' While the Didache gives this as a direct
instruction; in Matthew it is expanded with explanations such as: 'Love
42. This is the most studied part of the Didache because of parallels in Jewish and
other early Christian sources, cf. Niederwimmer (1998: 30-41); and to see some of the
complexities that surround this part of the Didache, see Goodspeed (1945).
43. Did. 1.2; and cf. Lk. 10.27; Mt. 22.37-39; and Mk 12.30-31; for a discussion of
the textual relationships, see Jefford (1989: 29-37).
44. See Jefford (1989: 38-48) for the textual relationships.

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your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be
sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil
and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust' (5.44-45).
While in Luke it is supported with examples such as:
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who
strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away
your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to every one who begs from
you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as
you wish that men would do to you, do so to them (6.28-31).

Similarly, the troika of alms, prayer and fasting in Matthew is found in a

much more expanded form than here. Indeed, Mt. 6.5-16 can be seen as a
particular spiritualizing interpretation of the practice of fasting whose
physical structure is indicated in the Didache's regulation.' Moreover,
while here it is inappropriate to open the question of the history of the
Synoptic tradition, when we examine texts with common elements and
include the Didache as a basic witness to tradition, it constantly challenges
neat textual explanations of the preaching of the Christian movement's
message in the early decades.'
Third, while it is clear that one can pray for someone, the Didache has
the notion that one can transfer the benefits of one person's fasting to
another.' It seems that one's own acceptance of a penitential regime can
become an act of love replying to an injury. This supposes a spiritual
universe of human solidarity before God more akin to what later Latin
theology would refer to as the transference of merit within 'the treasury of
the church' (thesaurus ecclesiae), than to the rejection of violent responses
to attack supposed 'in turning the other cheek' (cf. Mt. 5.39; Lk. 6.29).
Fasting and 'Rites of Passage'
The third mention of fasting is at the end of the instructions on how to
baptize: 'And before the baptism there should be a fast by the one who
45. See Glover (1958-59) where this is examined in detail.
46. See Glover (1958-59) for the light the Didache can shed on the relationships
between the Gospels, and see Glover (1985) for a general discussion of the value of
non-Synoptic early sources for a discussion of Synoptic relationships.
47. For a context in which we might locate this notion, see Maher (1979).
48. I am using the term here not in its classical anthropological sense (A. van
Gannep) but in the sense of rites whereby the community makes sense of its activity to
itself, as explored by Turner (1969: 131-65).

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does the baptising and the one who is baptised, and any of the others who
can. Tell the one who is to be baptised to fast for one or two days before
hand' (Did. 7.4).49
The great difficulty about this text is that while it lays down a rule about
who is to fast and for how long, it gives no hint as to how they perceived
the purpose of this practice, nor does it offer any theory about the origin or
benefits of the practice. That a pre-baptismal fast was an early practice
within the church is not in doubt. Indeed, it is confirmed indirectly by
Luke in Acts 9 when he presents such a fast as taking place prior to Paul's
baptism. The presence of this element in his story shows that Luke assumes
that his readers will view it as a standard, well-established, custom. In 9.9
Luke states that from the moment of revelation on the Damascus road,
Saul 'neither ate nor drank for three days'. Then, having met Ananias, he
was baptized and took food again (9.19).50 Moreover, we know that the
practice continued in the church for we have many later references to it.51
But, given the fact of the practice, can we draw on other sources which
might throw light on how it was understood?
Some commentators have seen this fast as designed so as to dispose the
recipient to receive divine illumination;52 however, that would not explain
the need for the minister to fast, nor do we know whether or not they understood baptism in terms of illumination. The first point to note is that the act
of baptizing a new member into the Church is imagined as a process that
personally involves not just the recipient of baptism, and the one who
baptizes (both baptizer and baptized seem to be equally involved),' but
the whole community. This larger involvement is implied by the Didache's
desire that the community should fast in preparation for a new member's
baptism. A minimal explanation is that since they understood baptism to
be a decisive moment both for the individual and the community, then
49. The most extensive commentary on this text is in Voobus (1968: 20-21);
however, to see how this text is the first in a trajectory of texts from the early period
until the third century, see Niederwimmer (1998: 129-31).
50. I wish to thank Dr Brendan McConvery for reminding me of Paul's fast in Acts
9.
51. The earliest of these later references is in Justin Martyr, Apologia 1.61-62.
52. See, e.g., Meloni and De Simone (1992).
53. That the baptizer has any individual personal involvement in the baptism is
something that would soon disappear in the church, such that the focus was on the
baptismal action (the pouring of the water with the correct verbal formula), with some
interest in the attitude of the one baptized, but with the assumption that the baptizer
merely was the agent for the pouring of the water and the expression of the formula.

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97

fasting was taken as a standard part of the preparation for a major religious
event, and that the moment was of such importance as a rite of passage
that everyone concerned had to be spiritually fully ready for it.' This
could look back to Moses's fast of 40 days prior to receiving the Law
(Exod. 34.28) or Daniel awaiting a revelation (Dan. 10.3) as its model and
inspiration. And, it is very likely that it is against the backdrop of their
own pre-baptismal fasting that they would have understood traditions
about Jesus' fasting prior to his public ministry as witnessed, for us, in
Mk 1.13, Mt. 4.2 and Lk. 4.2. It is also possible that this pre-baptism fast
was penitentialfor which there was the precedent in 1 Sam. 7.6with
the fast being seen as a purification prior to entry into Christ. If one accepts
the notion, mentioned above, that they imagined a universe where spiritual
benefits could be transferred from one person to another, then it may be
that the fast of the various members of the church was to produce a benefit
that could be transferred from them to their new brother/sister to enable
the initiate to turn away from his or her sins and to enter Christ.
A more elaborate explanation, following from the scenario just proposed, would relate this fast to a connection being made by the community
between baptism and an exorcismwhich would later become a standard
part of baptismal rites. Voobus addressed this possibility:
It was believed [he asserts on the basis of later evidence] that fasting had a
purifying effect and contained expiatory power. It was also held that fasting
could break the power of demons and that it strengthened the efficacy of the
prayer of the candidate. This is what was regarded adequate [sic], for the
preparation of the body for the reception of the Holy Spirit (Viiiibus 1968:
20).

If the fast were only that of the candidate, then fasting as a spiritual
preparation could provide an explanation of the matter, but the involvement
of the minister and preferably others in the community points to the fast
being a collective act of intercession for the candidate. If the demons are
to be confronted and ejected, then all involved must work together to bring
about their casting out from the individual. If this line of argument is followed, then here again we have the notion that the effect of fasting is to be
understood in terms of the spiritual solidarity of the whole community:
engaging in this act together, they work for the holiness of the church54. While the notion that the baptizer is entering the mystery as much as the one
baptized is foreign to later Christian theology, that an event of such spiritual magnitude
in the eyes of the participants would make severe demands on the minister is not
foreign to students of ritual, cf. e.g., Turner (1969: 20-33).

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and it is the church that is strengthened by the process. It is not the candidate alone who must confront the demon that is within them, but also the
minister who carries out the exorcism' (and who consequently needs to be
fortified for the encounter), and those at the centre of the process are
buoyed up by everyone else in the community who have chosen to help
this new member by adding their fasts.
In support of the possibility that they understood the fast as part of a
ritual of exorcism we have only one tantalizing piece of evidence: the text
of Mk 9.29 that there are demons that 'can only be driven out by prayer
and fasting' .5' The words 'and fasting' disappeared long ago from critical
editions as they were held to be a later addition to the text, as has the
whole verse's other occurrence at Mt. 17.21. The reason for the exclusion
of 'and fasting' is based on the phrase being omitted in the major textual
families (`common omissions' logically point to something that was not
present in the common ancestor of those families), despite the counterindicative evidence of its being well attested in terms of numbers of manuscripts of every text family. Where, as here, the evidence of the manuscript
readings is contradictory, the formal deductive methods of textual criticism cannot alone produce a answer and the critic must fall back on
historical conjecture to indicate the more likely earliest reading. Bruce
Metzger approaches the matter thus:
In light of the increasing emphasis in the early church on the necessity of
fasting, it is understandable that Kai VflGTEla is a gloss which found its way
into most witnesses. Among the witnesses that resisted such an accretion
are important representatives of the Alexandrian, the Western, and the
Caesarean types of text (Metzger 1975: 101).

However, if fasting was not a practice upon which emphasis increased

in the early church but one upon which there was emphasis before there
were any of our Gospels, then we should reverse the judgment: instead of
following the common omission we should accept the diffusion of the
reading as pointing to the original.' Moreover, while a fast for the one
55. That those who saw themselves involved in preaching the Gospel saw part of
their task as casting out demons is well attested from the time in which the Didache
was being used: see, e.g., Mk 3.14-15; 16.17; and cf. Mk 6.13, 9.38.
56. The phrase is familiar as it is found in both the Vulgate (where it is not problematic as a reading) and the so-called `textus receptzts', which together lie behind
many modern translations, so it is found in the RSV, but not in the JB or NRSV.
57. It should be noted that if one accepts any reading that is found in the different
textual families, yet also omitted in every family, as genuine; that reading should have
preference as the lectio difficilior.

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99

being baptized remained the practice of the church, references to a fast by

the minister and the community are not found in later texts this argues
that the emphasis on fasting by those carrying out an exorcism (for in later
texts it is clear that this was an aspect of baptism) decreased, rather than
increased, with the passing of time. It may be simply that fasting and
exorcism were connected at an early stagehence the widespread form of
the textand this, in turn, is reflected as a regulation in the Didache. If,
then, one accepts, as I do, that the original Markan text read 'by prayer and
fasting', the consequence is that Mark reflects a belief within his community that there are many grades of demons afflicting those who come to
`the disciples' (i.e. the church) and the more powerful variety are those
where the community must both pray and fast if they are to be ejected.'
As in the Didache, there is the supposition that the individual's spiritual
health requires the generous, and physically demanding, action of the
whole church.
One other fragment of evidence must also be considered. In Luke's environment there was a fast preparatory to apostolic commissioning. When
Luke imagines the selection of Barnabas and Saul by the church at Antioch
(Acts 13.2-3) and Paul's appointment of presbuteroi in churches where
he had preached (Acts 14.23) he has the appointment take place after a
preparatory ritual of 'prayer and fasting'. This appears to be a solemn
community action which rendered all present capable of selecting and
appointing those who should have authority within the church. Luke
assumes that it is common practice within the churches that significant
moments in each community's life will be ushered in with a special period
of fasting and prayer, and that this practice was one that went back to the
earliest communities. We have already noted that Acts 9 points to prebaptismal fast by the one awaiting baptism, while Acts 13 and 14 assumes
a more general community fast to prepare for a central ecclesial event;
together they indicate that fasting was a significant practice in Luke's
time, even if some of the details of its regulation which he knew were different to those found in the community of the Didache. Moreover, since
the Didache is earlier it shows that Luke was correct in his assumption that
the practice was primitive. We might further speculate that fasting as part
of the ritual for these significant moments for individuals within the group
58. Glover (1958-59: 26) remarked that the Didache may at times preserve 'a text
of our Lord's teaching more primitive than the text of our Luke and Matthew'; here I
would alter his argument slightly to say that it may show us which is the primitive
reading of the earliest extant Gospel.

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(someone entering the group or being commissioned by the group) was a

widespread practice in Luke's time.' In all three cases, the action of fasting is presented as an integral part of a complex liturgy. Acts 9 has abstinence from food initiated by a vision and terminated by a ritual. Acts 13
assumes that once the choice of who should be sent had been made under
the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it was now a case of needing to proceed with the appropriate ritual which involved the sequence of: (1) prayer
and fasting; (2) laying on hands; and (3) sending off. In Acts 14 'prayer and
fasting' is a specific part of the ritual of appointing presbuteroifor it was,
for Luke, so done 'with prayer and fasting' in every church by Paul and
Barnabaswho are then 'committed to the Lord'. And, this last text's most
obvious meaning is that this period of prayer and fasting included not just
thepresbuteroi-to-be along with Paul and Barnabas, but the whole of those
churches.' In the Didache there is the period of prayer and fasting, followed by the event of baptism. However, neither document offers a rationale as to why fasting was part of these rites of passage.
Whatever meanings early communities gave to this baptismal fast remain
a matter of conjecture, and if one or more explanation did come down to
us it would still be simply a rationale post factum rather than an explanation for that fact: it was their practice which survived in the communities.
Indeed, a pre-baptismal fast became a fixed element in the final days of the
catechumenate.61 It is referred to by Justin (Apol. 1.61); it is commented
upon by Tertullian (De bapt. 20) and Hippolytus (Trad. apost. 20); and later
still Augustine on several occasions (e.g. De fide 6.8 and Epist. 54.10) looks
at its significance.62
59. Such an assumption, involving the notion that the practice was a very early one
which diffused with the earliest Christian movement, would make the later ubiquity of
fasting at such times far easier to explain than an appeal to an explanation that fasting
was a later introduction somewhere which had then to be diffused and adopted widely
a process of which we have no historical trace.
60. The impression in Acts 14 is that everyone in those churches fasted, while the
Didache assumes that the fast will be undertaken by only a part of the church (`those
who can')here we may have another instance of Luke imagining a perfect church in
the first generation of Christians: in those golden days it was not just a proportion who
fasted, rather, everyone fasted as part of the community's preparation for these significant events. This fast by the whole community prior to the appointment of presbuteroi is thus set out as the ideal that should be imitated.
61. See Talley (1980-82: 43-45) for an account.
62. For a guide to later instances of pre-baptismal fasting, see Meloni and De
Simone (1992).

O'LOUGHLIN The Didache and Early Christian Communities 101

Fasting and Identity

Several elements have recurred in the above examination of the three
references to fasting in the Didache. First, it was a practice that was seen
primarily in terms of the community's action rather than in relation to an
individual's penitence or asceticism. Second, it had a public, organized
and regulated structure. And third, it was something that was recognized
as part of their distinct ritual activity as a communityand as such it was
part of their ritual exposition to themselves of their identity as a group.
From this perspective, regular fasting being a marker of identity, I now
want to return to Did. 8.1 to see if it can throw any further light on the
community which produced the regulation we find in the text.
From the perspective of a group wishing to make its own identity clear
the most striking feature of the text is that the regulation requires that their
fast be distinct from 'the hypocrites'. However, with that group they not
only share the practice of a twice-weekly fast, but also a basic structuring
of time: both identify the days of the week by counting the days after the
Sabbath. So it is no simple matter of marking identity that is involved here
(e.g. 'I am from Judaea' or 'I use the calendar of Alexandria' with the
implication that that designation marks someone off from people born
elsewhere or using any other calendar), but establishing an identity within
a group who are already distinct from the larger society by the fact that
they fast to preserve identity and already have their own special timestructure to set them apart. The community of the Didache have to forge
an identity in the midst of a larger group seeking to do the same thing
within the general society of the time.
That the reference to fasting is related to the fasting of 'the hypocrites',
first brings Matthew's teaching on fasting to mind:
And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you,
they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and
wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father
who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you (6.161 8).

But there are some significant differences. The text of the Didache prohibits 'fasting with the hypocrites', while Matthew is concerned about the
intention and purpose of fasting for Christian fasts must not 'be like the
hypocrites'. What 'fasting with' means has been the subject of debate, but
the simplest explanation from the context is that 'fasting with' relates to

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sharing the same fasts, that is, times of fasting. The position would appear
to be this: if our group's fasts coincide with that of another group, then we
are one with that other group.' That a sense of sacred time, and particularities of calendar, can provide a very firm group definition64such was
one of the distinguishing features of the sectaries at Qumran65is not,
however, what is most significant about Did. 8.1. The Didache reveals a
community who believe that simultaneity in rite is a means through which
sacred union can be maintained within a larger, dispersed group of devotees
one might almost say 'communion'. The essence of this belief is that if
two physically separate groups carry out the same religious activity at the
same timewhich is marked off against an 'absolute' common to both
such as specific daysthen we have a single action, taking place in two
locations, and so one actor and one objective for the action. 'The fast' is
not just a collective name for individuals' activities in common, but was
being reified as an event in which each person participated through his or
her avoidance of food.' For a group who thought about ritual time and
action in this way, if one fasted on the same days as the others, then one
would be in union with them at a most profound level. The community of
the Didache does not want union with those Jews who are not Christians
and so stays clear of ritual union with them, and their appeals to God, by
fasting at different times; but equally, by demanding that the Christian communities fast at the same time, they see themselves establishing a union
whereby they petition God as a single bodythough physically dispersed
with their fasting.
This developed sense of ritual time should not surprise us. It was, in part,
the belief that the Jerusalem priesthood was using the 'wrong calendar'
that is, ritual was not taking place at the correct moment in absolute time
63. This is well expressed in the translation by Cody (1995: 9); and by Kraft (1965:
165) when he translates: Tut do not let your fasts fall on the same days...'
64. See Sproul (1987).
65. See Vermes (1975: 42-44).
66. This attitude to 'the fast' as an event distinct from the activity may appear logically flawed to many western Europeans today, but that approach neglects to recognize
how individuals within a religious group view their common rituals as independent of
them as actorsthey view themselves as participating in a drama which has been
taking place before their entry and in which they are duty-bound to take part. This
perception is a common element of religious traditions, with regard to fasting one has
simply to recall how Roman Catholics prior to 1961 approached 'the fast' before 'going
to communion' or 'the black fast' in Lent, or how Muslims today refer to fasting during Ramadan; cf. Douglas (1973: 59-76).

OlouGHLIN The Didache and Early Christian Communities 103

which caused those at Qumran, who had the 'true calendar', to set themselves apart. Another, intriguing, witness to this sense of time is the way
Judithan ideal Jewish womanis presented in Jdt. 9.1. Judith makes her
most intense prayer (9.2-14) deliberately 'at the very time when that evening's incense was being offered in the house of God in Jerusalem'. This
assumes a belief that one could link one's own prayer with the formal liturgy of the temple far away though using the same moment. This linking
in prayer meant that one was not praying alone, but as part of the whole of
Israel. Such combined prayer presumably added force to one's own ritual
of prayer (Judith put ashes on her head, dressed in sackcloth, and lay prone),
but also established a notion of spiritual identity: the temple may be far
away, but I too am involved in its liturgy; I am one with the whole people
and it is we who pray." This sense of sacred time joining people into
a communion which is implicit in Did. 8.1 means that we must see the
instructions on common fasting not simply as reflecting their external
church order, namely a group with a clear organizational identity. Rather,
it gives an insight into their ecclesiology: the Christians are bound together
for they participate in a single liturgy, not just as a community, but as a
body made up of geographically dispersed communities. Moreover, if
they had a sense of being unified by using the same time for their fasting,
then it has implications for how we read the Didache's instruction on
prayer, and, more importantly, the emphasis found in the Didache and
elsewhere on gathering for the weekly Eucharist on the first day of the
week. The Didache does not want Christians to pray at the same time as
`the hypocrites' (8.2), they are to pray using a special formula," and to do
so three times each day (8.3). This implies that they viewed this thrice
daily prayer as an act of collective worship, the prayer of the whole Christian community, rather than as instructions to Christian on how to organize
a personal prayer regime. Rather, three times a day, the whole church
assembler and made an act of prayer using a single formula and unified
through a common moment of time.' If so, this throws a very precise
67. This sense of the 'we who pray' would have been heightened in the case of the
community of the Didache through their belief, seen in what the Didache says of the
Eucharist, that they were one with Jesus.
68. Did. 8.2 is our earliest witness to the text known variously as 'the Lord's Prayer'
or Pater foster; cf. Carter (1995).
69. Note there is no hint in the text that there was a physical gathering of the
Christian community in this or that village or town.
70. Such a use of time to create a 'virtual' gathering while not mentioned in most
studies of the early church should be seen as another common ritual elementsuch as

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liturgical and ecclesiological slant on that prayer's use of the plural.'

Equally, the Didache expects Christians to come together on the Lord's
Day for the Eucharist (14.1), and this is a practice well attested elsewhere;72 and the implication is that if each community is holding its Eucharist simultaneous with every other community, then it is one meal they are
celebrating. This interpretation of the Eucharistunity of time cancelling
out separation by placemay appear to take us more into the territory of
liturgical scholars such as Odo Casein than to reflect the traditional concerns of students of the early church, but it certainly helps our understanding of what the Didache says of the importance of the Eucharist (14.3):
For this [the Eucharist as their sacrifice74] is what the Lord spoke about when
he said: 'In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great
king and my name is wonderful among the nations says the Lord' [Mal. 1.11].

If in fasting there are not several individual fasts, but one fast by the whole
church, so while there are many physical gatherings for the Eucharist on a
Sunday morning, there is just one sacrifice from the whole people.
However, while the community may have been concerned that they were
spiritually separate from 'the hypocrites', they also were concerned with
creating a practical social separation between two groups. The other group
is, in all likelihood, a group of Jews who considered themselves Pharisees,
for fasting on second and fifth days was a Pharisee practice.' The designation of 'the hypocrites' is probably part of the mutual dislike of the two
groups, which we find also in Matthew's Gospel (6.2, 5, 15; 15.7; 22.18;
has been studied by Rothenbuhler in cases where a modern state uses as part of its
ritual 'a minute's silence' as a precise moment and the citizens are united through the
actionfor which there is no basis for any assumption that the early Christians were
immune. Contrariwise, we can see this attitude to time in connection with fasting,
prayer, and other rituals as the link between those attitudes when found in late Secondtemple Judaism (e.g. Judith) and the sentiments later expressed by Christians about the
Liturgy of the Hours.
71. Our Father .. . give us ...our...bread...forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors...lead us not...but deliver us...
72. See 1 Cor. 16.2 and Acts 20.7; and the expectation in Lk. 24.13 and Jn 20.1931 that regular meetings of the Christians occur on Sundays. On the importance of
Sunday in the early church, see Rordorf (1968: 238-73).
73. See Casel (1999) where he develops the patristic theme that the mystery of
Christ is available momentarily in the liturgy.
74. This link between the Sunday gathering and their sacrifice is explicitly made in
Did. 14.2.
75. See Schtirer (1979: II, 383-84).

O'LOUGHLIN The Didache and Early Christian Communities 105

23.13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29). The message here is simple: have nothing to do
with them and be obviously different. We know that the Didache was composed within a very Jewish-Christian community, and as this passage makes
clear the two groups are still cheek-by-jowl; hence the desire by Christians
to demarcate themselves ritually from many of the former co-religionists.
Didache 8.1 and the Gospels
The instruction in the Didache calls to mind two texts in the Synoptic
Gospels. The first is Mt. 6.16-18 where (by contrast to the Didache which
locates its teaching as community, apostolic, regulation) the teaching on
fasting is placed directly on the lips of Jesus. For Matthew the Jewish
context is far less immediate, and the issue of physically demarcating communities is absent. Rather than being concerned with two groups of people
Pharisee-Jews and Christians the Gospel is concerned with Christians;
and its aim is to inculcate the correct intention and attitude without which
fasting is useless: 'the hypocrites' are a notional other which illustrate an
attitude to be avoided. For the community of the Didache fasting is
something one does because one belongs to a particular community, and it
is a recognized bonding ritual; it is identification with real people rather
than with an attitude that is to be avoided. Matthew takes a practice with
which his community is obviously familiar and he wishes to interpret it
spiritually;76 he shows no interest in the benefits to the community's selfperception in having shared rituals, and apparently without reference to
any notion of sacred time.' Matthew seems to take the practice of organized fastingas also prayer and almsgivingfor granted, and to be concerned that no one should use his or her success in performing these group
activities as a means of demonstrating their religious prowess in the group.
Hence, one should hide one's success in fasting from others (see Mt. 6.18),
or else one's only reward is good repute within the community (see Mt.
6.16).
There is also a difference in their approaches to the common term 'the
hypocrites'. In Matthew, this term has become a class-designation for
76. As already noted, see Glover (1958-59: 18-19).
77. The silence of Matthew on these notions cannot be seen as criticismpresumably they were part of his community's experience and common understanding,
and if criticism of those ritual notions were intended he would have made that explicit.
Rather, his concern is with the approach to fasting as a practice within his conception
of the Christian.

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Christian Origins

those who have the wrong motivationinto which anyone who fasts could
fallrather than a specific, distinct religious group referred to by a derogatory label. If one accepts this point, then it has implications for how we
read many uses of the term in Matthew, especially the 'woes' in Mt. 23,
`Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites...' (23.13, 15, 23, 25, 27,
29). In this case he is employing a usage familiar within his community
where 'hypocrites' is a vulgar synonym for 'Pharisees' while removing its
sting: Pharisees who fall into the category of hypocrites are those to whom
a curse applies. This interpretation would fit with the opening of the discourse at 23.2-3.
The other echo of Did. 8.1 in the canonical collection is the parable of
the Pharisee and the tax collector in Lk. 18.9-13. If we assume that the
Didache witnesses to widespread practices in early Christianity, not just
the idiosyncrasies of particular communities, and that there is good reason
for this assumption with regard to fasting; then starting with the Didache
alters how we read this text. It could be common knowledge that Pharisees
fast twice weekly, they are at prayer, and they give tithes which can be
seen as the equivalent of alms. These are practices including the twiceweekly fastfamiliar within Christian communities, thus the warning about
performing these practices is not a criticism of the practices or their value,
but of performing them in a useless way like the Pharisees, and without
the more basic activity of humbly seeking pardon. Certainly, for the community of the Didache that the Pharisees did those things, but equally did
them fruitlessly as hypocrites, would have been taken as common knowledge. In short, the Didache lays down what is to happen, while the Gospel
writers act as preachers recalling their audiences to what each perceives
as the intention and purpose of their churches' practice. Having isolated
the praxis, through the Didache' s evidence, the distinct theologies being
preached in the early church by writers such as Matthew and Luke become
more clearly displayed.
Enlarging the Context
The cumulative information of our first- and early second-century sources
shows that fasting was a fixed element of early Christian practice and ritual.
It was taken over from Judaism and associated, in particular, with the practice of the Pharisees and John the Baptist (Mk 2.18-22 and par.). Luke
imagines one of the earliest churches, Antioch, fasting (Acts 13.2), while
Matthew (4.2) and Luke (4.2) add the example of Jesus' own fasting during his time in the wilderness to the Markan account (1.13). However,

O'LOUGHLIN The Didache and Early Christian Communities 107

there also seems to have been hesitations about the practice or how some
gave it a rationale. Mark, followed by both Matthew and Luke, records a
tradition that Jesus and his followers, unlike the other groups, did not fast
(Mk 2.18-22), while both Matthew (6.16-18) and Luke (18.9-13) are interested in the correct attitude to fasting so that it is not mere external display.
For the Didache there is neither hesitation about fasting, instruction
about intentions, nor information on its supposed benefits; its sole concern
is with fasting correctly. Such bluntness is exactly what one expects in a
guide to group behaviour and brings us right into the atmosphere of those
who used it pastorally: get the practice right, and then wonder about what
it means and about right intentions. But, acknowledging that the Didache
does not offer explanations, can we learn anything else about the community and how it understood its activity? In the Synoptics a link is made
between fasting and mourning that the Bridegroom is no longer with them
(Mk 2.19; Mt. 9.15; Lk. 5.35), and so fasting has a connection with longing for the eschaton: it belongs to the time before the final return of Christ.
In a slightly later work, The Pastor, we also find fasting as a standard
Christian practice, but its purpose and benefits are explained in detail. It
is undertaken as a sacrifice to the Lord, and brings practical benefits to the
community (the cost of the food not eaten must be calculated and that
amount given to the poor) and the household, for the practice is a family
affair and fasting together brings about family happiness.' Moreover, in
The Pastor, as in Matthew's Gospel, there is a concern that Christians
should not simply fast, but should engage in fruitful fasting that is acceptable to God.'
We have already seen that the community of the Didache had a developed sense of sacred time. Moreover, their week had a religious structure
which reflected their Jewish past and Christian present. They celebrated
the 'Lord's Day' as the first day of the week, they still referred to the Sabbath as the seventh day for they referred to the sixth day (Friday) as 'the
Preparation Day' (Parasceve), and also following Jewish practice they referred to days by numbers rather than by names. Thus they knew that the

78. This second-century work, often linked with the name Hermas, preserves many
traditions from the first century that are related to a Jewish-Christian context. The
reference to fasting occurs in Parable (Similitudes) 5.3.56.5-9 (Holmes 1992: 432-33);
for the background cf. Snyder (1992: 148); for a detailed commentary on the passage,
see Osiek (1999: 173-74).
79. Parable (Similitudes) 5.1.54 (Holmes 1992: 426-29); cf. Osiek (1999: 168-69).

108

Christian Origins

Jewsperhaps the family next doorfasted on Mondays and Thursdays,

while they fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays. This practice spreadthere
were fixed fast days in the church of The Pastor known as 'stational
days'and it was not long before there was a standard explanation of
the significance of the two days. Tertullian, followed by later writers, says
that Christians fast on Wednesday because it was on this day that Christ
was betrayed, and on Friday as the day of crucifixion81 the one day, the
Parasceve,82 on which, as later writers were keenly aware, all the Holy
Week chronologies come into alignment." Is there any basis for supposing
that such symbolism of days stands behind the practice in the Didache and
that Tertullian is recording an already old tradition? I believe such a retrojection is without foundation and that a simpler solution can be found.
Here was a community which before becoming Christians had fasted twice
weekly on Mondays and Thursdays; now they want to continue that practice as part of their devotional livesfor a pious life without such regular
practices would have been inconceivable. But if the Pharisees do this at
one time, they must be different and alter the times of their fasts. Since the
Sabbath and Sunday are not available, the greatest difference is to be had
by opting for Wednesday and Friday, and they needed no further justification for their choice.' At a later time when the overlap with Jewish practice was long forgotten (for the process of separation was no longer
ongoing) but complete, and with that separation had disappeared any
memory of why those days were chosen, then a symbolic reason was
needed. Then, with the Jewish roots receding into the background, the link
with Holy Week provided a suitable rationale by allegorizing analogy.

80. Parable (Similitudes) 5.1.54.2 (Holmes 1992: 426-27). These were frequently
seen as Wednesday and Friday and explained by reference to the Didache (see Meloni
and De Simone 1992: 319), but as Osiek (1999: 169) has pointed out, the term seems
to be as obscure in Hermas' church as it is for modern readers: it is our assumption that
these days were weekly and followed the Didache pattern on the basis that Tertullian
later refers to Wednesday and Friday as 'station days' (on the term's possible origins,
see Osiek [1999: 169 n. 6]).
81. De iehtnio 14; and see the 'classic' statement of this interpretation by Augustine,
Epist. 36.16.30.
82. See Jn 19.31 and cf. Mt. 27.62, Mk 15.42 and Lk. 23.54.
83. For an account of this problem in pre-critical exegesis, see O'Loughlin
(1997).
84. For a list of the various attempts to explain the choice of days, see the notes to
Niederwimmer's excursus on Jewish fasting (1998: 132-33).

O'LOUGHLIN The Didache and Early Christian Communities 109

Practices and Rationales

This article has been driven by the historian's desire to understand how
people in the past understood themselves, their beliefs and their situation.
It has focused on one aspect of one, rather sparse, document to see what it
tells us about the practice of fasting in some early churches, and so in turn
about the attitudes and beliefs of those who fasted. What we have found is
a community with a keen desire for a sharp, demarcating identity which
expressed itself in a desire for a unity of discipline and action; a community which, through its Jewish inheritance, already had a rich ritual life,
with an interest not only in regular liturgical action but in a regular ascetical discipline. Their sense of community was not simply a negative desire
for segregation or group unity, but was already underpinned with an ecclesiology which saw the group capable of united action in the spiritual realm
which allowed them to share the benefits of their endeavour. However,
these insights into a group of Christians have been largely obtained by
inference from the rules for their practices rather than by an analysis of
their own reflections on their believing. This means that the Didache
stands in contrast to almost every other early Christian document: it is
without justifications, aetiologies or interpretations of the actions it finds in
its church. So perhaps the most important lesson that the Didache teaches
us as historians is that what survives in religious communities are regular
practices; these give continuity within the group's memory and so give
them group identity." These practices perdure the various rationales that
are thrown up at various times in the tradition, whether it is Mark, or
Matthew, or Hermas or Tertullian, and become the real bonds within that
tradition.' So this actual manual disappeared, but the practice of regular
fastingto which the Didache is a witness like a still from a movie
spread and continued. Old understandings were forgotten, others were
changed and developed, while new explanations were invented, but the
continuity lay in the people and their activities.'
85. See Douglas (1973: 59-76).
86. I make this statement in conscious debt to the work of Nodet and Taylor
(1998), who in the work on the Eucharist assume a continuity of practice which gave
rise a variety of theologies in the churches.
87. This has important implications for any Christian theology which appeals to the
origins of traditions as part of its theological argument, for it demands that the tradition
is really a tradition of people rather than of ideas. This is a distinction noted by J.H.
Newman (cf. Evans 1995), but more often than not ignored when early Christian
examples are cited by theologians.

110

Christian Origins

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Christian Origins
Worship, Belief and Society
The Milltown Institute
and the Irish Biblical Association
Millennium Conference

edited by
Kieran J. O'Mahony

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

Supplement Series 241

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

SUPPLEMENT SERIES

241

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