Posted on 11/09/2004 6:57:01 PM PST by Rocketman
What I see here is: The Cup contains the Holy Vine of David Thy Child -- The Blood or Christ -- Which thou madest known to us through Jesus your Child -- This seems refers to the Gospels or Paul's epistle as the main text because that his where we find what was made known of the cup.
I find the bread to be a departure -- This seems to be a reference from the OT.
Ezekiel 34:6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.
Nahum 3:18 Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.
Ezekiel 34:13 And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
4) As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, but was brought together and became one, so let thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy Kingdom,
I can't quite grasp this. If the didache was written in 40 AD I do not see a scattering. If it was written after the Jews scattered the church from Jerusalem this could play into this thought. But this is a departure from what is taught in the Gospels and Paul concerning the bread.
The implication of the statement would seem to be that the bread has moved from being the body of Christ having had sin imparted to it being sacrificed and them being partaken of by the priests -- to the sheep being scattered as the offering in lieu of the second coming of Christ -- This is a departure (Now in fairness the document refers to what Christ has revealed to us -- the Gospels and this is a prayer that "Adds on top of that" This prayer is not doctrine and should not be treated as such -
1 But after you are satisfied with food, thus give thanks: This implies that the eucharist was more than a sip and a wafer -- Paul implies this in Corinthians that this was a time of communing with God so people were supping with each other and God.
and didst give food and drink to men for their enjoyment, that they might give thanks to thee, but us hast thou blessed with spiritual food and drink and eternal light through thy Child
I see in this fellowship and communion enjoying the communion with God and that the cup and bread are spiritual food -- communion is not just for the body but for the spirit or soul of man __ if any man eat of my flesh and drink my blood he shall have life within him and I shall raise him up on the last day.
In the writings from Justin Martyr 160 AD we see an emphasis of the communion and the body also in that Justin Martyr tells us that they had communion when they met once a week and that for all that could not attend that they carried portions to them -- This would lead us to conclude that there was a much greater emphasis on us being one bread and one loaf -- and that whatever the thoughts were on that at the time that aspect has wholly been lost to us. And that would seem to go along with the prayer offered over the bread as opposed to the doctrine of the bread.
Yes! Thank you for the quesition I can now see that this prayer was a request of God that the body be one day rejoined as one bread or one loaf unto him -- it is not a doctrinal statement. I did not see that before.
I would like to also remark that the life span of this document was only for 100-150 years because by the time or Origen 230 AD he says:
3. Subtitle of section: In the Spiritual Israel the High-Priests are Those Who Devote Themselves to the Study of Scripture.
ME: (In a way Origen is arguing that the priesthood below is the firstfruits – virgins without guile without blemish – these were made fleshly traits whereas they are spiritual traits for who is without sin? I must comment on the effect of plucking the firstfruits and making them priests stops their growth from the vine that they were to be left in place for the local church and community – this circumvents believers to minister in their local Jerusalem their local Samaria and as the grace and power grows in them unto the utter most parts of the earth. But instead the church has a continual drain on those within who are hungry for God, and thus the local church is deprived from any benefit and instead what is most precious is scattered and hid.)
Origin: But what is the bearing of all this for us? So you will ask when you read these words, Ambrosius, thou who art truly a man of God, a man in Christ. and who seekest to be not a man only, but a spiritual man.5 ME: (This is probably a veiled reference to becoming baptized in the Spirit) Origin: The bearing is this. Those of the tribes offer to God, through the levites and priests, tithes and first fruits; not everything which they possess do they regard as tithe or first fruit. The levites and priests, on the other hand, have no possessions but tithes and first fruits; yet they also in turn offer tithes to God through the high-priests, and, I believe, first fruits too. The same is the case with those who approach Christian studies. Most of us (current failing experience of his day) devote most of our time to the things of this life, and dedicate to God only a few special acts, thus resembling those members of the tribes who had but few transactions with the priest, and discharged their religious duties with no great expense of time. But those who devote themselves to the divine word and have no other employment but the service of God may not unnaturally, allowing for the difference of occupation in the two cases, be called our Levites and priests.
ME (Origen in his day of 200 -230 AD roughly 100 years after the death of the Apostle John, speaks of the rise of a priesthood and high priests within the church devote themselves to the study of scripture and the service of God for the rest of the people. And because of the lack of spirituality and dedication of the common believer that they have adopted a Levitical order to deal directly with God for the common believers they are the churches Levites or priests – note also the lack of the mention of Apostle and Prophet in this equation for as the gifts became rare so the ministration of these higher offices.)
Origen: And those who fulfil a more distinguished office than their kinsmen6 will perhaps be high-priests, according to the order of Aaron, not that of Melchisedek. Here some one may object that it is somewhat too bold to apply the name of high-priests to men,
ME:( Origen here is saying that while the concept of priests for the people was already set in place, the concept of an order of priests for the priests themselves and their subsequent lack of spirituality and devotion was not universally accepted among in the church at that time)
Origen: when Jesus Himself is spoken of in many a prophetic passage as the one great priest, as7 "We have a great high-priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God." But to this we reply that the Apostle clearly defined his meaning, and declared the prophet to have said about the Christ, "Thou8 art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedek," and not according to the order of Aaron. We say accordingly that men can be high-priests according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchisedek only the Christ of God.
ME:(So Origen flat tells us that they have re-established the order or Aaron within their ranks. And that the Church had passed from every believer being a priest unto God -- to kingdom having a representational priesthood)
So what does this have to to with the didache -- Origen is telling us that in his day the office of prophet and apostle had passed and that a man-made levitical priesthood had been put in its place. So many of the passages within the didache had lost their meaning becausae there were no longer any wandering apsotles or wandering prophets.
Origen: Now our whole activity is devoted to God, and our whole life, since we are bent on progress in divine things. If, then, it be our desire to have the whole of those first fruits spoken of above (their man-made priesthood) which are made up of the many first fruits, if we are not mistaken in this view, Me:(By saying this I think Origen is acknowledging that he was on shaky ground and was seeking advise and consent. It is most unfortunate that there was none left alive that could reprove these growing notions and turn the church back to the old paths -- taught by Christ and the Apostles.)
The purpose of my reading of the didache and the writings of the Apostolic fathers is to compare our ideas of what scriptures mean with what they beleived.
When I was young I took a class on drafting and later worked as a carpenter. In drafting I was taught you make a starting point on the page and from that point all measurements and calculations are made. The habit of people is to measure and make a mark measure, from that mark and make another mark and measure, and from that mark they measure again and make the next mark. This distorts the design becasue I am told all human measurements are inaccurate so that when we take our measurements from previous human measurements the design pattern or even a building we are building gets farther and farther off. Now in the case that one is not certain where a certain mark is in construction and surveying theyare told to go to the last known mark that is closes to the the original and search from that point.
Justin Martyr in 160 AD said: "For the prophetical gifts remain with us, even to the present time. And hence you ought to understand that[the gifts] formerly among your nation have been transferred to us.
(Justin Martyr is saying here that this transference of the holy spirit ie the gifts of the holy spirit; tongues, healing, miracles, prophecy, etc. from Israel to the church is the clinching proof that God changed horses from Israel to the Church. If the spirit of prophecy and gifts left the church in the 4th century and it did by the apostollic father's own testimony then it would be evident that God transferred the inheritance to yet another having rejected the early Church as he rejected Israel.)
What the NT presents, differs considerably from what the Didache presents.
Commentary from Harvard Professor, Helmut Koester:
"The Eucharist prayers [in the Didache] also have their origin in Hellenistic Judaism. ... In their Christian form they relate the cup to the covenant of David and understand the bread as the symbol of the oneness of the congregation. There is no attempt to connect wine and bread... to the death of Jesus….
[T]here is no reason to assume that the communities of Syria, for whom the Didache was written, followed the same eucharistic practice and formulae that are attested in 1 Cor 11:23- 26. [This is my body, this is my blood, etc.] Rather, these prayers may well belong to a direct continuation of the fellowship meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples and friends."
[Koester, Helmut. History and Literature of Early Christianity, Volume 2, Introduction to the New Testament, 2d edition. (2000), pg. 164]
Here is more interesting commentary on the Eucharist celebration in the Didache:
http://www.geocities.com/aleph135/didache.html
http://www.geocities.com/aleph135/index.html
Also, if I have time, I will post some interesting commentary(on same topic) from a book I read last year...if I can find it.
This is your source so find in the bible the covenant of David and find how it relates to the Cup of the covenant of david.
The "covenant of David" refers to the OT "Davidic Covenant". Plug either phrase into google and you'll get all sorts of links....with appropriate chapter and verse.
Jesus' followers, no doubt, hoped/believed that he was the fulfillment of the promised messiah. That part, I can understand to some degree. However, the whole NT eucharist practice boggles my mind in light of Jewish thinking and practices with regards to blood. Since Jews would have been revolted by the idea of "drinking blood", I can see why there would be no mention of such a thing in the earlier writings (the Didache). Drinking blood was practiced in ancient cult worship, but NOT among the Jews.
"Finally, the Didache tell how the initiate, who fasts and prays before being baptized, would have learned how sharing in this simple meal of bread and wine links the human family gathered for worship with "God, our Father," and with "Jesus, [his] servant" (or his "child," as the Greek term pais may be translated). And by "breaking bread" together, his people celebrate the way God has brought together people who once were scattered, and has joined them as one:
"As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains but was brought together and became one loaf, so let your people be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom."
Those speaking this prayer in unison ended by calling - in an ancient Aramaic phrase some Christians invoke to this day - for the imminent coming of the Lord: "Let grace come, and let this world pass away....Maran atha! [Our Lord, come!] Amen." According to Draper's analysis, these are Jews who rever Jesus as "God's servant" and believe that his coming signals Israel's restoration at the end of time.
But other early followers of Jesus, like the majority ever since, saw the sacred meal in a much stranger - even macabre - way: as eating human flesh and drinking human blood. Only twenty years after Jesus' death, Paul declared that Jesus himself commanded his followers to do this. Paul, like the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, tells how on the night Jesus was betreayed,
"while [the disciples] were eating, [Jesus] took bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take: this is my body." Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of the drank from it, and he said to them, "This is my blood."
Tetullian satirized the reaction of outsiders to this practice: "We are accused of observing a sacred ritual in which we kill a little child and eat it." He writes,
"No doubt [the Christian] would say, "You must get a child still very young, who does not know what it means to die, and can smile under your knife; and bread to collect the gushing blood....Come, plunge your knife into the infant....Or, if that is someone else's job, simply stand before a human being dying before it has really lived....Take the fresh young blood, saturate your bread with it, and eat freely."
Despite his sarcasm, Tertullian cannot dispel the shocking fact that the Christian "mystery" invites initiatiates to eat human flesh - even if only symbolically. Pagans might be repelled by the practice of instructing newcomers to drink wine as human blood, but devout Jews, whose very definition of kosher (pure) food requires that it be drained of all blood, would be especially disgusted. "
Source: Beyond Belief - The Secret Gospel of Thomas, by Elaine Pagels (pages 17 - 19)
Ping to #46. (Thought you might find the excerpt interesting.)
The same is true in spades of commentaries, The writer(s) or these vluminous works are far from neutral in their views of the bible and scripture. The writers are first off either secular or members of a denomination.
If they are secular they could be a humanist or many other things. These use phrases like anthropormorphism and the J writer and second moses second Isaiah -- they have no beleif in God or miracles and do there best to do away with any references of such events -- there writings are the basis of countless shows on the learning channel and they speak of early chrstians as pagans blood thirsty who had strange foreign practice that in no way related to our highly evolved form or christianity that is used today. These don't belive in salvation by the blood of Christ they don't beleive in the virgin birth they don't beleive in Christ was without sin -- they say christ was a good teacher and a good man that teaches poeple how to be good.
And there are dozens of commentaries by these people -- there ar not written to teach truth but to express a complete viewpoint on scripture to a specific bent becasue left to their own devices when common preachers and common people like you and I read the source materials they will invariably come to the wrong conclussions and that by definition is something other than the denominations offcial sanctioned teaching or the teachings of the comentators themselves.
Moving on from secularists as I have already said all have doctrinal and religious alliegences and this is important to understand when you pick up a commentary. When we pick up the LA times we know that it is liberal and so we can compensate as we read knowing that it has a certain bent. But with a commentary Christians loose their mind the book is a holy book written by a holy man so contained therein are words that are more powerful than the word of God.
How are they more powerful? they are more powerful becasue they have the ability to define words and terms. Take Holy Communion. The doctrine of fundamentalist evangelical pentecostal and charismatic churches come all form one source. All pretend that source is the bible but it is not. Go bak to the previous post with an exaustive study of the NT and OT on communion and tell me that that is practiced in a baptist Church a methodist chruch a church or the bretheran or any independant non denominational church. If you have been to all thse types of churches you will find that they all hold communion ver similarly those wonderful communion cup holders are made for hundreds of denominations -- I was around before they were invented so I remember communtion was served out of a single cup at the from the church but I degress. Why is communion the same in all these churches that consider each other in the least deceived and in headed discussions heretics?
The answer that they can not answer is Menno Simons. The current madness in the Church like the current madness concerning the constitution has little in relation to the source material it has to do where we get all our information about it and commentaries and Menno Simons are for the protestant churchs LA times and Washington Post.
Not too many years ago when the democrates controlled the house Jim Wright the then House Majority leader smirked that We could have Reagan as president and we could have the senate but as long as the dems controlled the house they controlled the seat of power. How so you might ask? Well all legislation begins in the house and JimWright said as long as we control the house we make the rules and that defines all legislation.
In that same way the Pharisees had locked up the key of knowledge by redefining terms and making the rules to seek and find God.
So also menno Simons accomplished one of the greatest coups in church history by defining all the terms and making all the rules by which for the last 500 years fundamentalism, evagelicals, pentecostals and charismatics have taken their marching orders. What am I talking about not a conspiracy by an exroman catholic priest that had designs on starting his own denominations and then by being at the wrong place at the right time was handed the entire fundamentalist (Ana-baptist) movement in 1530.
There are secular commentaries catholic commentaries lutheran comentaries and many others.
Now all these commentaries at some point are going to quote from the ancient sources. What ancient sources the talmud the targums ancient MSS greek latin ethopic syriac. On matters of Church History they have to quote from Eusebius becasue this is the only history book for the first through the fourth century of Church history all must quote from the apostolic fathers to trace doctrine, other sources are Jospehus and Philo.
Now I did go to bible collage in the 1980's I staied there for 5 years as opposed the the two and thre year degree most got. I have learned greek, and can pick my way through hebrew I have the greek NT I have the didache in Greek you can get it online I have the greek septuagent greek lexicons the apostollic fathers in greek. Does tha make me a master no but I can look at things more closely.
But you can look at all these documents written in english and see what they generally say some words are incorrect but you can understand the very well what they are saying.
When FR discusses the constitution we do not go to the NY times or LA Times we go to the source material -- ment the meaning of he constituation in an area is not clear we go to the federalist papers and the writings of the founders
Time and again in Church history when christians had their backs to the walls on certain doctrinal issues they went to the writings of the apostollic fathers to see what they had to say. Pentecostlas baptists lutherans everyone has done this over and over. they don't pull out the commentaries. but on the day to day stuff they always return to their own vomit and use the reguritated teachings and comments of dead men until they end up in an untractible mess again.
I posted the didache because it is source material and becasue few know about it. It speaks of a church life that we know nothing about one filled with visiting apostles and prophets, of fasting to receive an more powerful water baptism its speaks of define guidelines or the path to life or the path to darkness -- things that we could gauge many of our current practices against. But sadly most people when they look at this stuff the first reponse is that it is different so its off.
We have an unrealistic beleif that somehow buy magic we hold all truth today and the people throughout the middle ages, the dark ages were all deceived and were cultic and held or sorts of strange views and that the christains of the 4th 3rd and second centuries were all screwed up and had barbaric practices -- your commentary says things about the didache that you can't find when you read it. The webstie you found quotes tertullian to bolster the arguemnt of childrens blood in communion and the arguement of some blood cult of christians and they were probably some davidic cult that we have no real documents of or can trace its practice and origins.
Now I quoted to you Justin Martyr from 160 AD on communion he talks about that there were accusations of Christians killing people and drinking their blood -- tertullian is talking about some of the same accusations when you read the writings and put it together we find that the early church beleived in transubstanciation in communion that more importantly in is in the gospels it is in pauls writings and it is based on scripture from the O.T.
The pieces of the puzzle that a protestant is missing on communion is how things were changed to what we have today and the answer is one man -- Menno Simons
He changed the beleif to the elements being the body and blood of christ to the elemnsts being a dead ritual -- an outward sign or an inward grace. In his church it went from being done at every meeting to a once amonth thing and more recently a quarterly event because the current church can see no benefit in taking communion.
And the issue of why our communion is powerless and pauls had the power to heal or make sickness curse and cause death should be more what we should be trying to explore.
The answer to where is God now? Where are the prophets and apostles? Why do our church services match those of a jewish synagogue. If you have never gone you should go and ponder what they do and then what we do.
Peter said this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel and that it was for all that would come to know the Lord. Where did this go?
When in Mark 16 It is written these signs shall follow them that beleive and they are enumerated where did these signs go?
When in 160 Ad Justin MArtry says that prophect still utters forth in the church and that the prphetic and prsence of God was removed from israel and given to the church and that this is the sign that God made that transferance what does it mean when after it left israle it left the church?
When did it depart from the church the apostolic fathers record when they lost it all.
What does all this mean to us. any things that the church catholic and protestant is not willing to come to grips with. The church has lost its way and it does not know the doctrines at all the way they pretend to know them.
consider one thought for your pondering
Israel has not had a prophet since John the Baptist that would be roughly 1970 years Israel Has had no king for about 2300 years and has had no temple for approx 1930 years No sacrifices have been offered for 1930 years
that's all good and fine we are told. God said the church was given a five fold ministry three of the nanes are untranslated greek words that may not mean what you think they mean in english. The prophet and Apostle have been missing in action for atleast 1800 years. Between the didache and the writings of Origen in 230 something really bad happened, and a lot more dirt went down the pipe between Origen and the The making of the Canon of Scripture.
If the church cared about the word of God and the apostolic fathers as much as freeepers care about the contitution and the federalist papers and the founding fathers writings the church would be in the midst of a major restoration with the office of Apostle and Prophet and God confirming his word with signs following -- the fact that the bible says this is the hall mark and it is completely missing does not send chills up the spines of preachers and beleivers -- no instead everyone assures each other that we can keep on doing business as ussual and that things have never been better and that why this great revival is just around the corner -- that has been preached in my hearing since the 1970's
And incidentally Justin Martyr has some interesting spin on alot of healings and wonders done in his day when they still had the real power.
Points to ponder.
I am not defeated, I am not oppressed with a dark view of life and the church but I am deeply troubled, and fearful for the untold millions that are Christians In Name Only -- CINO's those that have been deceived into beleiving that they can live anyway they like with as much of the world in them and that they have there ticket punched for a free ride to heaven. Know that Jesus said that before he would come that there would be a great falling away -- I see that falling away as the dead and hollow wood that is called christianity and the church. I see in the world (western europe, canada, australia, a desire and will to deliver itself of what it now considers its greatest demon -- christianity, I see the muslim sword rising to cut down the hollow dead forests of europe and lay it all waste.
But I also see an apostle rising in scripture a man that will once again be able to say this is the way walk ye in it. and in scripture this man is given the task of restoring the foundations of the temple and that the Glory of the Lord will return as in the former days and that the later temple shall be greater than the former
was the temple of herod greater than solomons? No could the prophets in the OT have seen more than Christ could they have seen the church and the end of the age? If they could then there is a lot of bad heavy duty stuff written in the OT about the church backslidding and falling away from God and if that is so we are not walking in the light we think and if that all is true a lot of things would actually make a whole lot more sense.
years and the signs and wonders have been missing from the church according to the apostolic fathers for how many years. But other early followers of Jesus, like the majority ever since, saw the sacred meal in a much stranger - even macabre - way: as eating human flesh and drinking human blood. Only twenty years after Jesus' death, Paul declared that Jesus himself commanded his followers to do this. Paul, like the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, tells how on the night Jesus was betreayed, "while [the disciples] were eating, [Jesus] took bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take: this is my body." Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of the drank from it, and he said to them, "This is my blood."
RE: " These don't belive in salvation by the blood of Christ they don't beleive in the virgin birth they don't beleive in Christ was without sin -- they say christ was a good teacher and a good man that teaches poeple how to be good. "
Your description also applies to many good, intelligent, Godly people....religious Jews to name a few.
RE: " And there are dozens of commentaries by these people -- there ar not written to teach truth but to express a complete viewpoint on scripture to a specific bent ..."
No different than the political machinations behind the Nicene Creed of 325AD.
RE: Why is communion the same in all these churches that consider each other in the least deceived and in headed discussions heretics?
I'm not sure I completely understand what you're asking...but from what i THINK you're trying to express...I'd guess it's that all those denominations are just offshoots of the original church that started the practice. Yes, they all have minor differences...but the basics are all the same. It's all in the creed.
RE:"But sadly most people when they look at this stuff the first reponse is that it is different so its off."
I have no problem with you posting from the Didache. I think it's interesting. If you think i was criticizing it as being "off"...that was not my intent, and I apologize. My point was that the eucharist celebration in the Didache seems very different than what is in the NT...and what the church stresses today. Again, there is NO mention of Jesus' body and blood in the Didache. He is referred to as "God's SERVANT"...with no mention of him being God in the flesh. This differs greatly from what most contemporary Christians stress when reading the NT. The Didache, a very early work, focusses on the kinds of things Jesus' preached. It does not focus on the doctrinal issues of the Nicene Creed or the Constantinian Christian Church.
RE:"-- your commentary says things about the didache that you can't find when you read it. "
No, that is not what the commentary says about the Didache. My commentary was that the Didache eucharist is NOT like the eucharist in the New Testament. There is NO drinking of Jesus' blood. The bread is not his body. The comments Tertullian made referred to the eucharist as described in the New Testament...not the Didache. Again, there is no drinking of blood in the Didache....so nothing for Tertullian to discuss there.
I am not criticizing the Didache. That it does not portray the eucharist in the same way Paul does, is not a negative, in my opinion.
I feel like we're going off on all kinds of tangents here. Again, my original point was to note that the Didache eucharist celebration differs from the New Testament eucharist celebration. Unlike what's in the NT, Jesus' "body and blood" are not mentioned. That's all.
Your comentary was refering to the comentary you and quoted from. And you had another post that was a had a quote from tertullian.
The huge thing about commentaries was me trying to be helpful. Sin I don't know you I was guessing that you regularly used them -- I did about 25 years ago. I would sit 4-5 side by side and I became disturbed by the sharp disagreements between them on simple texts.
At the time I had though they would have all contained the same things just differect levels of depth and expertise.
I see that all that was unescessary
Anyway if we step back a few posts I want to look again at the prayers offered and try to tie them in with scripture a little
The Didache contains much of the same good advice, for living a Godly life, that the NT does. I had to laugh a little at one line that i don't recall reading anywhere in the New Testament. Chapter 1:6 - "Let thine money sweat into thine hands until thou knowest to whom thou art giving."
I appreciate the time you've taken to answer my posts. Your writing was not disjointed. You covered several topics (easy to do on these threads!)...and I just wasn't sure that you got my main point regarding the eucharist in the Didache versus eucharist in the New Testament. Most of what's in the Didache appears to be pretty much the same good advice for living a Godly life that we read in the NT.
Happy New Year to you and yours.
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