Didascalia Apostolorum
Didascalia Apostolorum, or just Didascalia, is an
The Didascalia was clearly modeled on the earlier Didache.[3] The author is unknown, but he was probably a bishop. The provenance is usually regarded as Northern Syria, possibly near Antioch.[4]
History
The Didascalia was probably composed in the 3rd century in
The work's author is unknown. R. Hugh Connolly argued the work as a unity composed by a single author; Alistair Stewart-Sykes has argued the modern form of the work came from at least two separate redactors - an unknown original document, a "deuterotic" redactor who wrote the final chapter and wrote an argument about how Jewish law was "secondary legislation" only intended as punishment for Jews, and an "apostolic redactor" whose editing increased the authority of the argument dissuading Christians from keeping Jewish law by invoking the authority of the Apostles.[5]
The Didascalia underwent a number of translations, including into Latin and Syriac. The date of the Syriac translation is usually placed between the fourth and sixth centuries[6] and played some role in forming a legal culture which influenced various other texts from the third through seventh centuries and thereafter, including the Quran.[7]
Manuscript Tradition
The Didascalia Apostolorum, whose lost original was in Greek, was first published in 1854 in Syriac by Paul de Lagarde. In 1900 Edmund Hauler published the Verona Palimpsest which includes a Latin translation of the Didascalia, perhaps of the fourth century, more than half of which has perished. In 1906 Franz Xaver von Funk published the texts, printed side by side, of both the Didascalia and the Apostolic Constitutions, in order to show the similarities.[8] A short fragment of chapter 15 has been found in Greek, and in 1996 another probable fragment in Coptic.[3]
Contents
The Latin title Didascalia Apostolorum means Teaching of the Apostles, and the full title given in Syriac is: "Didascalia, that is, the teaching of the twelve Apostles and the holy disciples of our Lord". The text never touches upon
The content can be so summarized:
- Admonitions about Christian life, prayer, orphans, martyrdom(chapters 1–3, 13, 17, 19–20)
- Rules about bishops' qualifications, conduct, duties, alms (chapters 4–11, 18)
- Rules about deacons and deaconesses and widows (chapters 14–16)
- Liturgical rules about the proper place in the church-building and about fasting (chapters 12, 21)
- The education of children and the denunciation of heresy (chapters 22–23)
- The claim of the composition of the treatise by the Twelve Apostles and a condemnation of the Jewish ritual practices directed toward Jewish Christians[9](chapter 24–26)
The church officials are bishops,
The
The
Concerning baptism, particular emphasis is placed on the pre-baptismal anointing of a catechumen. Chapters 9 and 16 give detailed instructions for anointing, including the laying on of hands by a bishop and the recitation of Psalm 2:7. After being baptized with the proper invocation, the convert is permitted to partake of the eucharist.[11]
Situation of the 3rd century Church
One of the main unknown aspects of the Didascalia is the degree to which it is descriptive and simply writing down what was already standard practice in Christian groups of Asia Minor at the time, and the degree to which it is prescriptive and advocating changes or new doctrines. Its use as a source on the early Church varies based on which is believed to be true - if a passage is prescriptive, then that implies the opposite of the teaching was practiced, and the author was invoking the authority of the apostles to advocate against that existing practice.
A notable example of this tension is the Didascalia's depiction of the status of women in the early Church, especially widows. The Didascalia takes a dim view of the status of Christian women: widows should not remarry more than once, should not be talkative or loud, should not instruct in doctrine, should stay at home and not wander, are not allowed to baptize, and should not engage in ministry unless ordered to by a bishop or deacon. Scholars who endorse the view that the Didascalia is largely prescriptive believe these specific prohibitions suggest that at least some Christian communities of the era did allow women such freedoms to evangelize, engage in ministry and baptisms of others, and so on, and the author found such practices sufficiently distasteful to write that the apostles forbade such acts.[12]
Tensions with Jewish Christianity
A major theme of the Didascalia is third century tensions with
One possibility raised by some scholars is that the author himself may have been raised in the Jewish tradition, judging by his familiarity with some of the rabbinic tradition and the style of Jewish argument in the era — even if this familiarity is used to vociferously argue against the keeping of the Jewish law. Charlotte Fonrobert argued the text is a "counter-Mishnah for the disciples of Jesus", a Jewish text opposing other Jews.[13]
Published editions
Syriac
- Gibson, Margaret Dunlop (1903). The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac: Edited from a Mesopotamian manuscript with various readings and collations of other MSS. Horae semiticae. Vol. 1. London: C. J. Clay.
English
- Gibson, Margaret Dunlop (1903). The Didascalia Apostolorum in English: Translated from the Syriac. Horae semiticae. Vol. 2. London: C. J. Clay.
- ISBN 978-1-55635-669-8.
- ISBN 978-2-8017-0104-1. (2 volumes)
- Stewart-Sykes, Alistair (2009). The Didascalia Apostolorum: An English Version. Studia Traditionis Theologiae: Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology. Brepols Publishers. ISBN 978-2-503-52993-6.
German
- Didaskalia: 1840,7/12 (in German). Bad. Post. 1840.
- Didaskalia: 1842 (in German). Bad. Post. 1842.
- Die syrische Didaskalia: collig. 2 [The Syrian Didaskalia: collig. 2]. Die ältesten Quellen des orientalischen Kirchenrechts (in German). Hinrichs. 1904.
- Achelis, Hans; Flemming, Johs (1904). Die Syrische Didaskalia: übersetzt und erklärt [The Syrian Didaskalia: Translated and explained]. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Gesch.d.altchristl. Literatur (Texts and Investigations: History of the Old Christian Literature) (in German). J.C. Hinrichs. ISBN 978-0-7905-4030-6– via Google Books.
Other languages
- de Lagarde, Paul (1854). Didascalia Apostolorum Syriace (in Latin and Syriac). Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.
- de Lagarde, Paul (1854). Didascalia apostolorum Syriace (in Latin and Syriac). Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.
- Hauler, Édmund (1900). Didascaliae apostolorum: Fragmenta ueronensia Latina: Accedunt canonum qui dicuntur apostolorum et Aegyptiorum reliquies (in Latin). Teubneri – via Internet Archive.
- Hauler, Édmund (1900). Didascaliae apostolorum: Fragmenta ueronensia Latina: Praefatio. Fragmenta. Imagines. Didascaliae apostolorum fragmenta ueronensia Latina: Accedunt canonum qui dicuntur apostolorum et Aegyptiorum reliquies (in Latin). Teubneri.
- Funk, Francis Xavier (1905). Didascalia et Constitutiones apostolorum. Didascalia et Constitutiones apostolorum (in Latin). Vol. 1. in libraria Ferdinandi Schoeningh. Alternate scan
- Bartlet, James Vernon (1917). Fragments of the Didascalia Apostolorum in Greek.
- Connolly, R. Hugh (1929). The Didascalia apostolorum in Syriac version translated and accompanied by the Verona Latin fragments. Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Clarendon Press.
- Tidner, Erik (1963). Didascalia apostolorum. Canonum ecclesiasticorum, Traditionis apostolicae: versiones latinae. Recensuit Erik Tidner (in Latin). Akademie-Verlag.
References
- ISBN 978-0-7546-1601-6.
- ^ Stewart-Sykes 2009, pp. 4, 53.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-521732-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8146-6197-0.
- ^ Stewart-Sykes 2009, pp. 22–29.
- ^ Maria E. Doerfler, "Didascalia Apostolorum," in Didascalia Apostolorum, edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay, https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Didascalia-Apostolorum.
- ^ Holger Zellentin, The Qurʾān’s Legal Culture The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure, Mohr Siebeck 2013. See pp. 31-32 for influence on various texts from the third through seventh centuries in particular.
- ^ Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, ed. F. X. Funk (2 vols. Paderborn, 1906).
- ^ Strecker, Georg. "On the Problem of Jewish Christianity," in Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (trans. Robert Kraft from the 1934 German original). Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.
- ^ Gibson, Margaret Dunlop; Connolly, R. Hugh (1929). The Didascalia Apostolorum in English. C. J. Clay and Sons, Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 28 March 2019.
- OCLC 123485489.
- ^ ISBN 9780199928033..
- ISBN 978-1-56563-763-4.
Bibliography
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Didascalia Apostolorum". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Stewart-Sykes, Alistair (2009). The Didascalia Apostolorum: An English Version. Studia Traditionis Theologiae: Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology. Brepols Publishers. ISBN 978-2-503-52993-6.
External links
- The Didascalia apostolorum in English, Margaret Dunlop Gibson's 1903 translation (Google Books version)
- Early Christian Writings: Didascalia