Church hierarchy in the Didache

[egao_gakari]

Just read through the whole Didache rather than in excerpted form, as I’d read in various collections. It seems like there’s a much more complex hierarchy at play than the bishops, priests, deacons that we see today. No priests are mentioned, but prophets, teachers, and apostles are all mentioned as people who speak with some form of authority, as well as bishops and deacons “whose ministry to you is identical to that of the prophets and teachers.” But that sounds like in practice there was still a noticeable divide between prophets/bishops and teachers/deacons. There’s far more emphasis on prophets, and how to tell if someone’s really speaking in the Spirit or not.

I’m not arguing that it doesn’t have a generally Catholic flavor, but I think a Pentecostal would read it and feel just as affirmed in his Pentecostalism as a Catholic feels affirmed in his Catholicism, if you see what I mean. It’s not exactly the slam-dunk proof of Catholicism’s historicity that I’ve seen it described as.

 

[Mintaka]

Well, we still have prophets, if you count visionaries, and people still tend to pay more attention to their words (even if they are just straight from the Bible) than to bishops, priests, and deacons. And there are still a lot of regulations needed.

But prophets weren’t part of the hierarchy, either in the OT or the NT. Prophets were almost always laypeople. (Ezekiel and Jeremiah were priests, though, and there were a few more.) They just did their prophet thing, either staying in one place or wandering around, and either living alone or with students or with big groups of prophets. They could be male or female, married or single, virgin or widow. Prophets didn’t have liturgical duties (unless you count Paul telling them to shut up during certain parts of Mass!)

The same thing was true of “teachers.” Rabbis didn’t come from any specific family background or profession, and neither did early Christian scholars of the Bible, or catechists of newbies and children. They had an important job, but they didn’t have formal liturgical duties or formal powers over other Christians.

There are all sorts of things going on with people in the Church, that aren’t hierarchical in nature.

 

[De_Maria]

It’s not exactly the slam-dunk proof of Catholicism’s historicity that I’ve seen it described as.

Are you sure you were reading the Didache?

Please produce the portions of it that make you question it’s Catholic nature. And, since the Eucharist is so powerfully presented in the document, please inform us of the non-Catholic society that might be it’s actual source, in your opinion.

 

[egao_gakari]

My friend, I am a faithful Catholic. I don’t “question its Catholic nature.” I believe that the Church was founded by Jesus. I was indeed reading the Didache, and I was previously aware of its powerful presentation of the Eucharist thanks to reading excerpts from it. I have no other opinion about any non-Catholic society that may have produced it. You’ve misunderstood my purpose in asking the question.

I spend a lot of time around very smart and knowledgeable Protestants, mostly evangelicals and Pentecostals, who have their own mental picture of the Early Church. It looks very different from the Catholic picture. Catholics read something like the Didache, note its translation of the early Eucharistic prayer, and say, “See? Catholic!” (Indeed, I find that section of the Didache very moving.) Pentecostals, on the other hand, are far more likely to note its extensive prescriptions for the treatment of prophets (almost as long as the section on the Eucharist), and say, “See? Pentecostal!” They will point to the fact that eucharisteia means “thanksgiving,” and indeed that even Catholic translations of the New Testament never once translate eucharisteia as “Eucharist” but always as “thanksgiving.” They will argue that there’s no good evidence that the writers of the Didache had the same understanding of the Eucharist that the Catholic Church does, and that translating eucharisteia as “Eucharist” rather than “thanksgiving” in this case was a poor translation choice. (I’m a translator by trade, and in general it’s not a bad argument to question whether a translator was truly aware of cultural context. Translators make weird mistakes all the time, even when translating from one modern language to another. Again, I am a Catholic, not someone hostile to the Catholic faith. I don’t know enough about the cultural context of the Didache to judge whether this would be a worthy argument in this case–I simply know enough about the craft of translation to know that translations are always questioned.)

To give another example, I’ve cited 1 Co 11:29 to a group of home churchers, imagining, again, that this was a slam-dunk “proof-text” for Catholic Eucharistic theology. Nope, they’ve heard it, they take it very seriously, but they believe it has to do with the Corinthians being greedy and taking too much of the “love-feast” food (they seem to be thinking of this as something like a weekly potluck dinner) without being conscious of the needs of the poor… and that’s why people were sick and dying, because they were starving. They accused me of taking the verse out of context!

So, when I read texts that are cited as evidence for the Early Church being the Catholic Church, I intentionally read them with a very critical, Protestant-type eye, looking for items that would suit the confirmation biases of my Protestant friends. Sometimes when I do this, I come up with a criticism that stumps me, and that’s when I turn to Catholic Answers. Mintaka’s perspective on my question was very helpful.