The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

spin wrote:A good context is a more convincing home for an aphorism than a shopping list.
That is my point, yes. It looks like somebody thought the saying sounded pretty good, so s/he put it on the lips of Jesus, but decontextualized: removed from its original context as a matter of church praxis. (This happens a lot in the canonical gospels and in Thomas, I think.)
You are saying that it has a contextualization, just not in a shopping list recited by Jesus. I agree.
Right. Its most natural context, to my mind, has something to do with insiders versus outsiders, and this fits the Eucharist far better than it fits whatever context we might be able to wring out of Matthew 7. Whether it started as a specifically Eucharistic saying is what I am saying I am not sure. But I feel pretty certain its usage in the Eucharistic context is closer to its original application than whatever is going on in Matthew 7.
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spin
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Re: The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

Post by spin »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
spin wrote:A good context is a more convincing home for an aphorism than a shopping list.
That is my point, yes. It looks like somebody thought the saying sounded pretty good, so s/he put it on the lips of Jesus, but decontextualized: removed from its original context as a matter of church praxis. (This happens a lot in the canonical gospels and in Thomas, I think.)
You are saying that it has a contextualization, just not in a shopping list recited by Jesus. I agree.
Right. Its most natural context, to my mind, has something to do with insiders versus outsiders, and this fits the Eucharist far better than it fits whatever context we might be able to wring out of Matthew 7. Whether it started as a specifically Eucharistic saying is what I am saying I am not sure. But I feel pretty certain its usage in the Eucharistic context is closer to its original application than whatever is going on in Matthew 7.
Yup, and in Didache 9 it's a strong image (somewhat like Mk 7:27). Those unbaptized are like dogs in the eyes of the writer. So, it may have had some prior use, but I find its employment here appropriate enough to think it is likely to have entered the christian tradition here.
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maryhelena
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Re: The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

Post by maryhelena »

An old thread that might be of interest - from FRDB

Didache & Gospel sources

http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... l?t=304149
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spin
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Re: The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

Post by spin »

Mishna Temurah 6:5G reads, "For they do not redeem Holy Things to feed them to the dogs." This is in the strict context of temple sacrifice with a reference to the altar close by. This should place the notion of not feeding dogs holy things (sacrificial offerings) prior to the fall of the temple. There would be no reason to introduce new thoughts on the matter after the temple fall. This context gives a probable earlier form of the aphorism in Did 9:5 and embodies a literal meaning before it became allegorized, as found in Did 9:5. LXX Lev 22:10 says "gentiles shall not eat holy things." This would be enough to stimulate the allegorization while still in the second temple period. This could provide a trajectory from temple discussion of the improper consumption of holy things (sacrifices) to the improper consumption of the "eucharistia" (holy food, consumed as Jews of the period would consume sacrifices) in Did 9:5, then decontextualized in Mt 7:6.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

spin wrote:Mishna Temurah 6:5G reads, "For they do not redeem Holy Things to feed them to the dogs." This is in the strict context of temple sacrifice with a reference to the altar close by. This should place the notion of not feeding dogs holy things (sacrificial offerings) prior to the fall of the temple. There would be no reason to introduce new thoughts on the matter after the temple fall. This context gives a probable earlier form of the aphorism in Did 9:5 and embodies a literal meaning before it became allegorized, as found in Did 9:5. LXX Lev 22:10 says "gentiles shall not eat holy things." This would be enough to stimulate the allegorization while still in the second temple period. This could provide a trajectory from temple discussion of the improper consumption of holy things (sacrifices) to the improper consumption of the "eucharistia" (holy food, consumed as Jews of the period would consume sacrifices) in Did 9:5, then decontextualized in Mt 7:6.
I like it. Makes sense. Granted, this sentence is attributed to Hanina ben Antigonus, a third generation tanna, but I agree that the concept concerns affairs which predate the fall of the temple.
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StephenGoranson
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Re: The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

Post by StephenGoranson »

Forbidding feeding dogs with holy things is plausibly very old, for more than one reason. But that there were not new thoughts after the temple fell, if I recall correctly, would be questioned, fwiw, in various works of Neusner.
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Re: The eucharist in the Didache: what's missing?

Post by Charles Wilson »

StephenGoranson wrote:But that there were not new thoughts after the temple fell, if I recall correctly, would be questioned, fwiw, in various works of Neusner.
Neusner died on Oct. 8, 2016. I had E-Mailed him with a question on June 9. He stated that he had Parkinson's.

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