The Didache: Your Thoughts

[ohio jones]

There is some nonsense in it and while much of it is truth, those things are expressed just as well if not better in the Scriptures themselves.

If I had to guess, I would say none of the Anabaptist leaders encouraged reading it.

The big deal in the early 16th century was ad fontes, a return to the earliest available sources. This started with the Renaissance humanists and spread to people like Erasmus, who used the oldest texts he could get his hands on as the basis for his Greek New Testament. Then reformers like Luther and Zwingli used Erasmus' work for their own teaching and translation. The Anabaptists were starved for the Scriptures and had little interest in anything more recent until they had devoured them.

And now, some people in the Anabaptist tradition seem to be giving great weight to the writings of the early church. Hopefully not at the expense of Biblical studies, but I wonder sometimes.

[Soloist]

The reference to “the hypocrites” here was apparently a reference to the Pharisees who fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. The authors of the didache were apparently trying to create distinct Christian customs. I doubt it was really “all about Mondays.”

Yes I know who it was referring to. They were not being called out for the day but rather the way. So to pick out the day as the issue is missing it. They could have simply said as Jesus

Mat 6:16  Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Mat 6:17  But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;
Mat 6:18  That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

Luk 18:11  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
Luk 18:12  I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
Luk 18:13  And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Luk 18:14  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with a church mandating fast days, but to say as they did and not perhaps like Jesus did… they are missing it.
They literally draw a link between the day and being a hypocrite. They don’t explain why there is reason to change the fast days nor do they explain why the Jews were hypocrites.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Sattler might have, doubtful many of the others. Menno was, by his own confession, a very poorly educated priest. Manz and Grebel were not clerics, and, in Manses case, likely more of a language scholar. Hubmaier WAS well educated in classics, which almost certainly would have included the Didache, but a firmer opponent of infant baptism could not be found:

“With that it is not written explicitly, do not baptize them, to this I answer, can I also baptize my dog and my donkey … take infants to the Lord’s supper … sell the mass as a sacrifice, for [the Bible] does not prohibit anywhere with explicit words that we do these things?”

It is my understanding that Balthasar Hubmaier and Zwingli were at odds over the issue of baptism. The Hutterites follow the Schleitham Confession, yes?

Hubmaier Broke with Zwingli on that issue in particular. Hubmaier Was once a Catholic priest. The Catholics caught him in Nicholsberg, in the present day Czech Republic now called Mikulov. Was in 1526, he was taken to Vienna and burned in the square in front of the cathedral. His motto was “Truth is Unkillable.”

Zwingli was the driving force behind the Swiss Reformed Church, that continues tha practice of infant baptism to this day.

In general, Hutterites follow the principles of Schlictheim, although they have their own, written by Peter Riderman. I have it somewhere on my shelf.

[Judas Maccabeus]

There is some nonsense in it and while much of it is truth, those things are expressed just as well if not better in the Scriptures themselves.

If I had to guess, I would say none of the Anabaptist leaders encouraged reading it.

The big deal in the early 16th century was ad fontes, a return to the earliest available sources. This started with the Renaissance humanists and spread to people like Erasmus, who used the oldest texts he could get his hands on as the basis for his Greek New Testament. Then reformers like Luther and Zwingli used Erasmus' work for their own teaching and translation. The Anabaptists were starved for the Scriptures and had little interest in anything more recent until they had devoured them.

And now, some people in the Anabaptist tradition seem to be giving great weight to the writings of the early church. Hopefully not at the expense of Biblical studies, but I wonder sometimes.

Seems to me this is isolated to a few small corners, last time I was in Boston they seemed big on it, and there is always David Bercot. I don’t see him as a force that he once was.

Ultimately, it is my contention that if you accept the parasitic writers as of equal authority to the Bible, you will wind up orthodox, but you may disagree.

[Josh]

Reading the early church texts is starting to get a bad reputation in Anabaptist circles. It certainly has soured in my own denomination. The influence of early churchism seems to often be followed by immersionism, sacramentalism, “real presence” / transsubstantiation, and apostolic successionism.

All of these are in conflict with Anabaptism (with an exception carved out for German Baptist sacramental immersionism).

[Falco Knotwise]

I am not saying there is anything wrong with a church mandating fast days, but to say as they did and not perhaps like Jesus did… they are missing it.
They literally draw a link between the day and being a hypocrite. They don’t explain why there is reason to change the fast days nor do they explain why the Jews were hypocrites.

It seems pretty clear to me that the problem they were addressing was Christians fasting WITH the Pharisees in a way that was causing confusion somehow. (Fasting seems to have been taken very seriously back then, from fasting before baptism to fasting twice a week.)

8:1 Your fasts should not be with the hypocrites, for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays. You should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Glad to know what hypocrites are! It’s all about Mondays.

I don’t think you could miss the point harder…

Perhaps some contemporaries were recent Jewish converts still keeping fasts along with Pharisees and following their customs, or at least seeming to. I’m just guessing, of course, I don’t really know; but I doubt very much they were trying to say the Pharisees were hypocrites just for choosing Mondays.

[Falco Knotwise]

Reading the early church texts is starting to get a bad reputation in Anabaptist circles. It certainly has soured in my own denomination. The influence of early churchism seems to often be followed by immersionism, sacramentalism, “real presence” / transsubstantiation, and apostolic successionism.

Is that because they come to realize those things really are more in accordance with early church beliefs and practices?

All of these are in conflict with Anabaptism (with an exception carved out for German Baptist sacramental immersionism).

Yeah, so?

[ohio jones]

parasitic writers

Those who write polemics against the Eucharist, attacking the Host?

[Falco Knotwise]

parasitic writers

Those who write polemics against the Eucharist, attacking the Host?

Anabaptists?

[Swiss Bro]

I am interested in the Didache and will watch the „centerplace“ video but please note that the channel is run by this weird progressive mormon dude. He has interesting content but bear in mind he is not in any way theologically sound or trustworthy.