The Didache probably represents the type of small Christian group that met in the region of Syria, perhaps outside of the city of Antioch. By the fifth century, this hilly countryside was dotted with small churches and baptistries, but in the late first century, there were probably no buildings specifically designated as churches. Christianity was still a proscribed religion, and the Christians of a village or rural area gathered after work. Although they did not necessarily meet in secret, they certainly did not publicize their gathering loudly.
Introduction
Sunday was a workday, and the Christians gathered after work for a potluck meal, known throughout the Mediterranean world as the agape, and for the Eucharist (literally, the thanksgiving), which was the ongoing celebration of the command of Jesus to break the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of him (1 Cor. 11:26). While the Agape-meal and the Eucharist were celebrated together, as early as the time of the Didache, Christian communities were distinguishing between the agape and the Eucharist, which was only for the baptized.
The description that follows is an imaginative reconstruction of what a first-century Christian service might have looked like. Many details of such a service remain unknown.
Text: We give you thanks, our Father for the holy vine of David your servant, which you have made known to us through Jesus, your servant. Unto you be glory forevermore.
Commentary: After a full day of work on Sunday, the Christians of a small Syrian village gather for their weekly meeting in the house of their wealthiest member. The generosity of this elder in their community has made it possible to fit all forty members of the community together in the large courtyard and adjoining great room, built like all Syrian houses with a long, walled courtyard running along the south side of the home. Individually and in family groups, the community arrives at the locked gate leading from the dirt road into the paved courtyard, being admitted after knocking at the door by one of the local elders who receive their contribution of food and wine for the meal to come. Each person stops first at the fountain in the courtyard, where they wash their hands, face, and feet, assisting those who are too young or too old to reach the water themselves. Making their way to the large room, the newcomers greet the other members of the community as they anxiously draw closer to meet the visiting teacher, an apostle visiting from the city of Antioch. Eventually, everyone crowds into the large room or along the covered portico, finding a cushion or rug on which to sit. Each group of eight or ten people is gathered around common pots of food, with baskets of flatbread which will serve as the dishes. At one end of the room, the visiting teacher sits on a cushion at a low table, talking with the host of the gathering.
Eventually one of the leaders calls the people to silence by intoning a psalm, which is sung alternating between the people and the leader. The words are known by heart to the gathered community. As the psalm draws to a close, the people rise, standing in prayer with their arms raised up.
Text: As this broken bread was scattered over the hills and then, when gathered, became one, so may your church be gathered from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. For yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forevermore.
Commentary: After everyone has risen and stands attentive in prayer, the visiting prophet raises a large cup filled with wine and begins a prayer of thanks to God for the goodness of the earth and the gifts which come from God. The singsong chant, which provides the vehicle for the spontaneous prayer of the visiting teacher, is sung in the same way as the Jewish chants of meal blessings. He praises God for vines and vineyards and for the church, which is the vine grown since the time of David and revealed through Jesus. As he draws to a close, he hands the cup to the host standing next to him, resting his tired arms and signaling to the people to conclude the prayer with their sung consent to what has been done. Led once again by the same leader who began the psalm, the community sings the acclamation: “To you be the glory forevermore,” praising God with their own voices.
Text: Let no one eat and drink of your Eucharist but those baptized in the name of the Lord; to this, too, the saying of the Lord is applicable: Do not give what is sacred to the dogs.
Commentary: After the cup is returned to the low table, the visiting leader picks up a large loaf of bread and begins to chant a prayer over it, praising God for the goodness of the fields and the bounty represented by the loaf of bread. The single loaf of bread becomes a representation of the community gathered to pray on this Sunday evening. Like the grain which had once grown over the hillsides around their village and was then brought to a common threshing mill, they also have gathered in this meeting from various places and professions to become one worshiping community. The temptation to look around the room at this point in the prayer is always too great—it is easy to see in the variety of faces around the room the very image of the gathered church now being formed into a single entity. The prayer also calls the community to focus on the future; on that time when the church will be gathered together at the second coming for which everyone prays three times a day: “your kingdom come, your will be done.”
As the prophet lowers the bread to the table, the community again sings their consent to the prayer by acclaiming: “For yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forevermore.”
Text: We give you thanks, O holy Father, for your holy name which you have enshrined in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you have made know to us through Jesus, your servant. To you be the glory forevermore.
Commentary: The members of the community standing near the visiting teacher bring cups and plates to the low table and begin to pour the wine from the large cup into the smaller ones. Others break the loaf of bread into smaller pieces to fit on the plates. In later centuries, the presider would proclaim “holy things for holy people” at this point, but even in this ancient church, all those present are reminded by their very presence and participation that they are the baptized, perhaps remembering their own baptismal experience, which was most likely celebrated as an adult.
After preparing the bread and cup of wine, the leaders of the local community, men and women chosen to serve because of their faith, wisdom, and perhaps because of their suffering for the name of Jesus, begin to move among the gathered Christians, distributing the bread and the wine to everyone present.
After everyone present has finished the bread and wine, people begin to return to their cushions and rugs, gathering around the common food pots and bread baskets. When the leader invites all to eat, everyone begins with great gusto—it is getting late and those who have had very little to eat this day, especially the poor who depend on these potluck meals for sustenance, rush into the food. The business of eating and drinking quiets the talk for a while, but as the food disappears and everyone feels comfortably full, the noise level rises and the people share the problems and joys of the past week with each other. Gradually, the dishes are cleared and cleaned in the fountain outdoors, the crumbs are shaken from the rugs and cushions, and the attention of the community members focuses once more on the visiting prophet, who has been regaling those within hearing distance during the meal with tales of the Christian heroes of Antioch in the face of sporadic persecutions by civil authorities.
Text: Lord almighty, you have created all things for the sake of your name, and have given food and drink to all to enjoy that they may thank you. But to us you have given spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Jesus, your servant [or “child”].
Commentary: As the last of the dishes are cleaned and the last drop of wine is drunk (whether a specific “psalm leader” existed in the time of the Didachē is doubtful), someone signals to the people to stand, and the prayer stance of outstretched arms is again adopted.
Text: Above all, we give you thanks because you are mighty. To you be glory forevermore.
Commentary: The teacher continues the prayer of thanksgiving, focusing more particularly on God, revealed through the work and person of Jesus the Christ. Again, the gathered Christians are reminded of their own baptism, recalling the anointing with oil which “Christed” them, giving them the name of their adopted family. The response of the people, “to you be the glory forever,” rings through the room.
Text: Remember, O Lord, your church: Deliver it from all evil, perfect it in your love. Make it holy, and gather it together from the four winds into your kingdom which you have made ready for it. For yours is the power and the glory forevermore.
Commentary: The prayer continues, acknowledging the divine creation of all things, in contrast to the Gnostic groups who deny the goodness of creation and claim another god created the material realm. But the high point of the prayer is coming: In addition to all created goodness, God is now to be praised for providing the means to eternal life through Jesus. The spiritual food and drink which is the center of the Eucharist would be called the “medicine of immortality” by the bishop of Antioch, Ignatius, fifty years later. The seeds of his expression are already here in this gathering and in the prayer chanted by the leader.
Text: May grace come and this world pass away! Hosanna to the God of David.
Commentary: As this long prayer reaches its culmination, recalling the chants of great feasts in the Jewish calendar, God is proclaimed as mighty, and the confident acclamation of the people gives them courage and strength to meet the challenges of the coming week. If God is truly the Lord of all and they are part of God’s family, then surely they will be able to trust in God’s continuing presence regardless of what confronts them.
Text: If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him be converted.
Commentary: The prayer turns to petition for the church and for the return of Jesus. The prayer is expressive of the people’s identity as the church—not a building, but a gathered group of the baptized, formed into one body like the one loaf of bread. This part of the prayer also reminds people that the church is larger than their small community; it is all the small communities of Christians scattered in the four winds who are united in prayer on this day and will be drawn together on the last day.
This last part of the longer prayer of thanksgiving ends with the same acclamation, sung with more elaboration than before. As this acclamation ends, a series of acclamations are sung back and forth between the visiting apostle and the people, expressing the belief of all Jewish Christians that the promised Messiah had indeed come. The leader in turn sings, reminding all present that not only is peace among themselves necessary, but that the gift of faith is given to people when they least expect it, and that the gift of faith demands a response to God.
Text: Maranatha. Amen.
Commentary: The dialogue ends with the acclamation, “Come, Lord (Jesus), let it be so!” Even today in this congregation there were people who had known the disciples of Jesus, and one old woman who had even heard Jesus himself speak. Because of her intimate connection with God, she is revered as highly as any elder, and her prayer of “Maranatha” has special poignancy: She longed to see Jesus once again, just as she had as a young woman.
Text: But permit the prophets to give thanks as much as they wish. On the day of the Lord, come together, break bread, and give thanks, having first confessed your sins, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let none who has a quarrel with his companion join with you until they have been reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be defiled. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: “In every place and at every time offer me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.”
Commentary: At the ending of the prayer, the visiting teacher from Antioch begins to greet the members of the community individually, moving among the gathering, blessing babies, congratulating new parents, and especially welcoming the newly baptized. The local leaders of the community—those who gathered the food, saw to it that the widows and orphans were fed, and organized the weekly agape and Eucharist—move with the Antiochene apostle through the crowd, introducing him to the members. Some of the Christians embrace his scarred hands and arms, injuries received when he was imprisoned and tortured for refusing to deny Christ. His witness to the Messiah and his knowledge of Scripture, what later generations would call the Old Testament, make him a revered leader. When he leads the community in prayer, his spontaneous words, proclaimed within the structure of prayers inherited from Judaism, are recognized to be prophetic and true, representative of his faith and his personal experience of the Lord.
As evening turns into dark night, the members of the church begin to gather their children and belongings and prepare to go home. Tomorrow is another work day and it is getting late. The visiting apostle will stay the night at the home of the host, spending the next morning sharing news of the church in Antioch, such as the letters being read in Sunday gatherings in Antioch along with readings from Scripture, before moving on to a neighboring village where another group of Christians lives.
The cool of the night is filled with the quiet sounds of people whispering good night, and a single voice humming the melody of acclamation proclaiming that eternal power and glory belongs to God alone.