Didache Question
7 April 2007 - 20 ניסן 5767 by Huw
I’m reposting this from the older pages because, as some have guessed, this post from December of last year is part of the “Praxis Conversation”. I can’t transfer the comments from that post over here in any simple step, so I’ve added the comments from over there as one long comment here - including the comment from the previous discussion that I had deleted. The conversation never got very far, but it was interesting.
ENCLOSED Below the cut are the prayers from the Didache for the bread and cup, arranged as close as I can remember as they were said at St Gregory of Nyssa Church - and noting our rubrics in doing so, again, as close as I can remember. Any reader from SGN or St Macrina’s correct me as needed! All: Take a look, I have some questions.
The Cup:
Leader: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your Servant
All: Glory to you for ever.
The cup is shared with everyone
The Bread:
Leader: We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your Servant
All: Glory to you for ever.
Leader: Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom.
All: For yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.
The bread is shared round the table and Dinner is served…
After Dinner:
(If memory serves, here SGN elevated a second, common cup. This is not noted in the text of the Didache)
Leader: We thank you, holy Father, for your holy name which you have caused to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which you made known to us through Jesus Thy Servant.
All: Glory to you for ever.
Leader: Master almighty, you created all things for you name’s sake; you gave food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to you; but to us you freely give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through your Servant. Before all things we thank you that you are mighty.
All: Glory to you for ever.
Leader: Remember, Lord, your Church, to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in your love, and gather it from the four winds, sanctified for your kingdom which you have prepared for it;
All: for yours is the power and the glory for ever.
Hosanna to the Son of David!
If any one is holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent.
Maranatha. Amen.
My question is this: regardless of what this is intended as in the Didache and without regard for the way in which it is used at SGN - as a Eucharist - for my other readers (Lutheran, RC, Orthodox)… would you classify this as a Eucharist? Or a Christian form of the Kadush prayers (as, for example, on the Sabbath in *any* Jewish house?) Yes, that’s what the Christian Eucharist was at one point… that’s not what I’m asking.
What I’m saying is if you sat down to dinner at someone’s house and they did this before and after the dinner, would you feel you had been to a Eucharist/Mass or just to a very ornate form of Grace? Even if they had *intended* it to be Eucharist?
Clergy folks: if a parishioner came to you and said s/he had been at a friend’s house and this was done at dinner, what would you say?
By the same token, what would you say if someone had asked - specifically - about the Kiddush, “This looks very much like communion… when my Jewish host says Kiddush, can I partake of the bread and wine?”
Matt 12/29/06 1:07 AM
Well, the Didache says it is Eucharist: “Now concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way. First, concerning the cup…” (Ch. 9, Roberts translation)
But you said to disregard what the Didache actually intends and focus on other things.
In the scenario you present, that of being in someone’s house: No it is not Eucharist unless it is served by an Orthodox Priest. Now if it is an Orthodox Priest who serves this way I would then have to ask where is the antimens, did the bishop approve this service.
What would be my response if it was a layman or an Orthodox Priest serving in an unauthorized way? I would not eat or drink.
But what if it was a layman and that layman did not know they were pretending to something they don’t understand? I would still not eat or drink and would take the opportunity to explain how Eucharist is to be done.
Huw Raphael 12/29/06 1:34 AM
OK, so even though all the normal trappings are missing, just because the text *says* it’s a Eucharist, it is?
Huw Raphael 12/29/06 1:43 AM
Sorry: trappings here being words of institution and epiclesis and Anaphora and readings and what not.
bob 12/29/06 3:30 AM
You seem to ignore the entire context of the Didache and it’s Eucharist. The One Holy Catholic Apostolic CHURCH. What you describe is *playing church*, which neatly describes SGN and parent organization. Nothing new there. Recall, they also sang the Orthodox salutation to a bishop when Katherine Schori visited awhile back. Making the noises, wearing the clothes, doesn’t make it real. In fact, it really serves to make it more pathetic.
Yes, it is the Eucharist of the One Church, done around 100 or so AD. We *are* that Church and we don’t do it that way anymore. For very good reasons. For one verrry important thing, it allows flakes to neatly avoid sticky documents like the Nicene Creed (which, you will recall, the SGN-ites in a most slippery and dishonest way refuse to say out loud! ) which might actually require fidelity to Christianity. They likely prefer the Apostle’s Creed. Very ancient, acknowledged by all, and most important, very *vague*. Nothing as precise and as revealing as the Nicene Creed. Antique things are all too frequently invoked for “purity” and “simplicity” by people who simply want to avoid all of the Church’s teaching without coming out and saying they don’t believe.
If I was at someone’s house and they began such a charade I would kick myself for not reading them better, and leave. I’ve been stuck in similar such events; sometimes it’s a person of British or Norwegian extraction wearing a little hat and lighting candles as they pretend to be “Messianic”. It’s just embarassing. If the host says it’s “Kiddush”…
St. Ignatius of Antioch, about the same time as Didache, says pretty explicitly, to do nothing of the kind, a Eucharist or an “Agape” without the bishop. Also for good reasons!
Anyone doing this now I suspect of trying to get around the Church, period. Whether in a home or other setting. It has been illicit for only the last 1800 or so years to do so.
Huw Raphael 12/29/06 3:37 AM
Bob - you said that would be playing Church. That’s a good place to start the discussion.
However the ranting about the other things… not so good so I removed the comment. Beam in our own eye, ok?
There are scholars today who say the Didache is more of an eddy in the current than part of the Church - a community whose liturgical tradition folded under their own rules.
But what I’m hearing is that this is - at least to Matt and Bob - a “valid service” even though it’s not used any more, yes?
Huw Raphael 12/29/06 3:41 AM
Maybe I’m phrasing the question wrong. You go to your Methodist buddy’s house and - with his own pastor’s blessing he does this at table. Or you go to your Unitarian Buddy’s house and he does this at table. Or your vaguely newage Christian friend’s house.
Does this count as “Eucharist with Heretics”? Or is it just a highly liturgical grace?
Clergy? Any ideas?
Huw Raphael 12/29/06 3:41 AM
Maybe I’m phrasing the question wrong. You go to your Methodist buddy’s house and - with his own pastor’s blessing he does this at table. Or you go to your Unitarian Buddy’s house and he does this at table. Or your vaguely newage Christian friend’s house.
Pistevo 12/29/06 5:22 AM
IANAPriest, but ISTM that in the original, they could well be preparatory prayers and thanksgiving prayers, not necessarily liturgical prayers; hence, this form of grace would simply be improper and inappropriate (being as a steak is just tasty, not holy), or giving thanks for something that wasn’t actually given.
Dave 12/29/06 5:30 AM
Are you still taking comments from the non-clerical peanut gallery?
Doesn’t it hinge on intent? If it is intended as Eucharist it would be Eucharist with Heretics, if not then highly liturgical grace. Just my opinion at first blush. The Didache, for all of its historical and theological value, was not accepted into the Canon.
If you say the Eucharist was once a form of the Kiddush, wouldn’t you have to say that the Kiddush formed the basis of Jesus instituting something ontologically different. After all, the Kiddush never says the bread and wine become the body and blood of God.
Huw Raphael 12/29/06 9:11 AM
Dave - I agree with you… I think the clericals are hiding
The Church did put a bunch of new stuff in the Kiddush (either following Jesus or liturgical evolution in whichever school you wish to fall)… those things are largely missing from the Didache - for what ever reasons. So while I might know it was a Eucharist in at least one congregation in the 1st Century… it certainly needn’t be seen as such. Far different from what the pastor did at my Mom’s Methodist Church on Christmas eve and from which I excused myself as unable to participate.
But I still may not have this phrased right: because we know that at one time this was a Eucharistic form - deficient though it may be for nowadays - does that hinder any of us from participating in it if it is used with the intention of being a “liturgical grace”?
Dave 12/29/06 7:15 PM
Reading it and re-reading it, the only things I see in it that really bother me a bit are, firstly, “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills”. It seems to directly imply that the bread at the table is the body of Christ. Second, “If any one is holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent.” This implies one must be worthy to partake of the meal.
I don’t see how the previous usage as a Eucharistic form necessarily prohibits its use. Perhaps there is wisdom in not using it if it causes your brother to stumble. But if everyone is either aware that it was formerly a Eucharistic usage and is now being used as a grace, or everyone is oblivious to its provenance, then other than the caveats above (and maybe a slight re-wording of iffy bits), I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it.
But that’s just the view from the peanut gallery.
Huw Raphael 12/29/06 9:50 PM
Dave, I get the “if one is holy” idea…
But “this bread” seems… well, I don’t know. It never says “Body of Christ” or even mentions “body” at all. Any bread (including my own home made biscuits) is “this” bread in English, yes? And “scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one” is true of it all…
Even when this was done at SGN as Eucharist (as part of our Maundy dinner service, and also at the Mardi Gras dinner) I usually felt, as Pistevo says, that these might be prep prayers or postcommunion prayers… but they fail as anaphora. So, I don’t know.
I know, when going to the Methodist Church with the Folks, that should I end up there at communion time, I can’t participate. But this at dinner seems a weird grey area: an “ask your priest” area.
Bob - one other reply to the comment I deleted:
On my journey I’ve been all over the place. I would not be where I am but for where I was. It is a growth process: I don’t know where I’ll be in 5 years or even five months, but I know God keeps acting.
Feel free to make fun of people and things you want to make fun of, but don’t do it here: you seem never to realise you’re making fun of my own journey and thus of me.
I find that really rude.
Matt 12/30/06 2:08 AM
I avoided using the phrase “valid service” in my earlier comment because it is my understanding that in Orthodoxy validity is pretty much what (1) isn’t heresy and (2) approved by an Orthodox Bishop.
If heretics follow all the ruberics and serve a flawless Divine Litugy of St. John Chrysostom it is not valid. But if an Orthodox Bishop serves an ancient(e.g. obsolete) liturfy of the Orthodox Church it is valid.
I recently had to ask a priest about something like this. Priest said: Attend, be friendly, pray the trisagion silently, do not participate.
As for being at someones house where they do the SGN eucharist, well, who does that kind of stuff at home?
Huw Raphael 12/30/06 2:14 AM
You’d be surprised where the Didache service pops up. Remember this is only SGN’s in the arrangement of the words as here, but they may have sourced it from someplace else. Still, this was dinner fair at SGN - as were the Eucharists in the early church. Equally it is dinner fair in the other places it pops up, but SGN has a Sacramental mind - and so for them it was communion - But in other places it serves as a “liturgical grace” or a cool way to “do” a fellowship meal with Bible study for cell groups.
And, of course, we can still question (with the scholars) if this was ever a liturgy of “the Orthodox Church” or just one wayside community whose text has accidentally survived (a la Nag Hamadi).
Speaking exclusively for myself here, if I was visiting a friend, and they used these prayers at dinner, I would not eat the bread and wine.
A couple years ago, I discovered the Didache, which was the first I ever saw of any Christian writings between the NT and the reformation (though I knew vaguely that Augustine was in there somewhere, and I’d heard something about Chrysostom once.) That eventually led me to Orthodoxy. But along the way, I tried to use this very liturgy for communion, and did so at least once. So I don’t think I could see it as anything but Eucharist.