533557666
RESPONSE TO GARROW
SBL 2005, Philadelphia
The thesis of Alan Garrow’s paper is as remarkable as it is simple: the original ending of
the Didache “accurately preserves the tradition behind 1 Thess. 4.13-18” (p. 19).1 Garrow’s argument is insightful and largely compelling, yet his reconstruction of the original ending falls into a couple of textual and exegetical pitfalls. These flaws are by no means fatal, and an alternative reconstruction can avoid these problems and strengthen Garrow’s broader conclusion.
Garrow’s case is straightforward. First, he analyzes 1 Thess 4:13-18 to establish the existence of a founding tradition that both (a) could give rise to the Thessalonians’ worries that
their recent dead will be excluded from salvation yet also (b) could be reinterpreted by Paul.
Then, he presents a reconstruction of the Didache’s original ending, removing 16.7 from the
transmitted text and supplementing the ending truncated at 16.8a using the Apostolic Constitutions 32.4b-5, one of the independent witnesses to the original ending.2 Finally, he compares the
reconstructed chapter 16 with the founding tradition he previously identified, arguing that it both
explains the Thessalonians’ beliefs and is open to Paul’s reinterpretation.
The overall structure of Garrow’s argument is sensible, so the strength of Garrow’s finding a text within the Didache that happens to be ambiguous in such a manner as to support two
distinct yet reasonable interpretations of a tradition—both the Thessalonians’ and Paul’s—
depends on the plausibility of its premises. Garrow begins strong. His analysis of the founding
tradition for the Thessalonians is plausible and consistent with that of many commentators.
Less persuasive, however, is whether his reconstructed chapter 16 gave rise to the Thessalonians’ concerns. For example, he argues that Did. 16.5 “offers one alternative means of salvation: those who persevere through the final persecution will be saved,” contending that “[t]he
implication appears to be that, on achieving martyrdom, these individuals escape the final judgment by being taken to join the ‘holy ones’ who accompany the Lord at his parousia (16.8)” (p.
Stephen C. Carlson
Page 1 of 6
2016 Feb 15
533557666
15).
RESPONSE TO GARROW
SBL 2005, Philadelphia
The main difficulty with this possible implication is that the text itself does not mention
martyrdom of the elect and, in fact, argues against that understanding for enduring the burning
process of testing.3 Did. 16.5 states that “human creation shall pass into the fire of testing and
many will be caused to stumble and be lost but those who persevere in their faith will be saved
by the curse itself.” This burning processes, as Aaron Milavec has explained, is an eschatological fire with two functions: (1) to destroy the wicked and (2) to purify the elect. 4 Thus, rather
than inferring that Did. 16.5 is about the martyrdom of the elect who will be resurrected, a more
reasonable inference is that those who persevere through the fire are not destroyed but survive to
greet the Lord coming on clouds “and all the holy ones with him” (Did 16.8a [Garrow]).
Garrow’s reconstruction also obscures Paul’s postulated reinterpretation of the founding
tradition (p. 17). In particular, Garrow suggests that Paul exploited a “collection of small ambiguities within Did. 16.6,” especially one of them “that the Didache does not explicitly state that
all the dead will be raised, which allows scope for Paul to insert the addition ‘then the dead in
Christ will rise’.” Nevertheless, Garrow recognizes that “[t]he odds … are still heavily against
this reading: there is nothing in Did. 16 to suggest a selective rather than general, resurrection.”
This candid admission actually undercuts his argument because his text cannot explain the motivation for Paul’s interpretative jujitsu or its plausibility to the Thessalonians.
Garrow’s case can be strengthened if he permits Did. 16.7 to stand in the original text,
because that portion spells out a selective resurrection: “not of everybody, but as it is said: ‘The
Lord will come and all his saints with him’.” Indeed, the excision of 16.7 raises a more serious
concern: conjectural emendation should only a last resort and only to repair places where the
transmitted text is manifestly corrupt.5 To be sure, the inclusion of 16.7 in the reconstruction
jeopardizes Garrow’s reliance on the Apostolic Constitutions, whose ending has a general, not a
Stephen C. Carlson
Page 2 of 6
2016 Feb 15
533557666
RESPONSE TO GARROW
SBL 2005, Philadelphia
selective, resurrection.6 Indeed, this difference was one of the three anomalies that Milavec
identified in arguing against adopting the ending of the Apostolic Constitutions for the lost ending of the Didache.7
Ordinarily, a dubious conjectural emendation coupled with an implausible interpretation
of the resulting text is cause enough to be skeptical about the overall thesis, but not in this case.
These problems can be averted with greater reliance on the other independent witness to the lost
ending: Boniface’s Renunciation. In fact, Milavec’s difficulties with the Apostolic Constitutions
ending can be answered without resorting to conjecture of the Jerusalem manuscript’s text while
also providing a less problematic basis for both the Thessalonians worries about their recent dead
and Paul’s clarification of it.
The three problems Milavec identified in the Apostolic Constitutions ending are: (1)
“with his force of angels” replaces “the burning process of testing”; (2) “to repay each one according to his deed” supersedes the “resurrection of the dead, but not of everybody”; and (3)
“eternal punishment” contradicts the Didache’s position that the wicked dead are, as Milavec put
it, “forever dead, not forever punished.” None of these faults are present in Boniface and each of
these problems can be explained by the Constitutionist’s recognized tendency for assimilation to
canonical renderings. Thus, instead of the wicked departing into eternal punishment of the Apostolic Constitutions (cf. Matt 25:46), Boniface has them separated into the eternal fire.8 Instead of
repayment of each according to his deed in the Apostolic Constitutions (cf. Matt 16:27), Boniface
more vaguely refers to the judgment of all persons.9 Finally, Boniface lacks “force of angels” in
the Apostolic Constitutions, which is derived from 2 Thess 1:7.10
When Boniface has a greater role in reconstructing the lost ending of the Didache,11 the
concerns of the Thessalonians are easier to understand. A selective resurrection of the dead is
Stephen C. Carlson
Page 3 of 6
2016 Feb 15
533557666
RESPONSE TO GARROW
SBL 2005, Philadelphia
still explicit in 16.7, but it is not immediately clear in what sense the resurrection would be limited from its Zech 14:5 proof text. Jonathan A. Draper has found evidence for a strain of thought
that the Lord’s entourage consisting of “all the holy ones with him” in Zech 14:5 was interpreted
as a reference to resurrected prophet of the past.12 This interpretation explains the Thessalonians’ grief: the limited resurrection applied only to holy ones of old. The Thessalonians who died
after the onset of the current testing fire of persecution but before the parousia would have no
hope of participating in this salvation scheme.
Paul’s exegetical response to the Thessalonians becomes more comprehensible in light of
the alternative reconstruction. Rather than arbitrarily limiting a general resurrection of the dead,
Paul clarifies the selective resurrection by enlarging its scope: reading the “holy ones with him”
to include everyone in Christ, including the dead. Thus, Paul asserts that “the dead in Christ will
rise first” (1 Thess 4:16), with the signs rearranged, as Garrow noted, into a series of audible
events for waking up the Christian dead (p. 17). Paul’s unforgettable explanation that those in
Christ are still alive “will be caught up in the clouds together with them to the meet the Lord in
the air” (v. 17), is more than the statement of a happy occasion (p. 18) but an underscoring of his
identification of everyone in Christ as the “holy ones” coming with the Lord on the clouds.
Subject to these reservations about the reconstruction of the Didache’s lost ending, one
can agree with Garrow that it—or a source with a similar understanding of Zech 14:5—
“accurately preserves the tradition behind 1 Thess. 4.13-18.” Nevertheless, the fact that the Didache contains at least one tradition known to Paul’s churches is an exciting discovery, and it
opens the way for finding out how much more of the Didache is pre-Pauline. Alan Garrow is already on the trail and off to a good start. I wish him Godspeed.
Stephen C. Carlson
Page 4 of 6
2016 Feb 15
533557666
1
RESPONSE TO GARROW
SBL 2005, Philadelphia
Alan Garrow, “The Tradition Behind 1 Thess. 4.13–18: A New Text Identified” (paper presented at
the annual meeting of the SBL, Philadelphia, 21 November 2005). References to this paper are put into
parentheses in the main text.
2
In a major breakthrough, Robert E. Aldridge, “The Lost Ending of the Didache,” VC 53 (1999): 1–
15, has identified a second independent witness to the lost ending of the Didache—the eighth century De
abrenuntiatione in baptimate (“Baptismal Renunciation”) by Boniface of Mainz.
3
There is another difficulty with Garrow’s inference. In order to avoid contradicting his earlier point
that the Thessalonians felt there was no hope for their recent dead, it requires an additional assumption
that the Thessalonians believed that the final persecution had not yet begun and their dead would not
qualify as martyrs (p. 15). But this assumption is belied by Paul’s many references to their persecution
throughout 1 Thess: e.g., 1:6 (“for in spite of persecution …”) and 3:3–4 (“so that no one would be shaken by these persecutions. … we told you before hand that we were to suffer persecution; so it turned out,
as you know). See also 2:13–16 (if not a later interpolation): “… for you suffered the same things from
your compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets … .”
4
Aaron Milavec, “The Saving Efficacy of the Burning Process in Didache 16.5” in Clayton N. Jef-
ford, e.d., The Didache in Context: Essays on its Text, History and Transmission (NovTSup 77; Leiden:
Brill, 1995), 131–155. See, in particular Milavec’s, treatment at 145–151 of Isa 33:14–16; Ezek 22:20;
Mal 3:2–3, 4:1; Herm. Vis. 4.3.2–5; and Sib. Or. 2.252–54.
5
See generally, Paul Maas, Textual Criticism (trans. B. Flower; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 11:
“Now there are some anomalies which were admitted or intended by the author, while others are due to
corruption. The assumption then in making a conjecture is that we recognize that an anomaly could not
possibly have been admitted or intended by the author.”
6
Further details of his reasoning is given in Alan J. P. Garrow, The Gospel of Matthew’s Dependence
on the Didache (JSNTSS 254; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 43–44. In particular, Garrow accepted Niederwimmer’s observation that 16.7 is a disruptive gloss (citing K. Niederwimmer, The Didache [trans. L.
Stephen C. Carlson
Page 5 of 6
2016 Feb 15
533557666
RESPONSE TO GARROW
SBL 2005, Philadelphia
M. Mahoney; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998], 225 n. 27). Garrow also contended that
16.7 excludes the conventional storyline of raising of the dead, judging them, and sending them off to
punishment or reward. He also gives subjective structural reasons for preferring the deletion of 16.7.
7
Milavec, “Saving Efficacy.” 153–154.
Compare ἀπελεύσονται οἱ μὲν πονηροὶ εἰς αἰώνιον κόλασιν with discernuntur impii in ignem
8
aeternum. Accordingly, Did. 16.9a is better reconstructed as Τότε διακρινοῦνται οἱ μὲν πονηροὶ εἰς πῦρ
αἰώνιον, οἱ δὲ δίκαιοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον.
Compare ἀποδοῦναι ἑκαστῳ κατὰ τὴν πρᾶξιν αὐτοῦ with judicium omnium hominum. Thus, Did.
9
16.8b could be reconstructed as κατακρῖναι τὸν κοσμοπλάνον καὶ πάντες ἀνθρώπους.
10
Interestingly, the phrase μετ’ ἀγγέλων δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ of 2 Thess 1:7 is immediately followed by
ἐν πυρὶ φλογός (“with flaming fire”). This collocation bolsters Milavec’s observation that it is a replacement for the burning process in an eschatological scheme that was “no longer adequately understood” to
the Constitutionist (“Saving Efficacy,” 153–154).
11
I would reconstruct the ending as follows, with the differences between mine and Garrow’s in bold:
7 οὐ πάντων δέ, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐρρέθη · Ἥξει ὁ κύριος καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετ’ αὐτοῦ. 8 Τότε ὄψεται ὁ
κόσμος τὸν κύριον ἐρχόμενον ἐπάνω τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ἐπὶ θρόνου βασιλείας κατακρῖναι τὸν
κοσμοπλάνον καὶ πάντες ἀνθρώπους. 9 Τότε διακρινοῦνται οἱ μὲν πονηροὶ εἰς πῦρ αἰώνιον, οἱ δὲ
δίκαιοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, κληρονομοῦντες ἐκεῖνα, ἃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδεν οὐδὲ οὖς ἤκουσεν οὐδὲ ἐπὶ
καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου ἀνέβη, ἃ ἡτοίμασεν ὁ Θεὸς τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτόν. (I also adopt Boniface’s and Clement of Alexandria’s variant of the 1 Cor 2:9 tradition, which the Apostolic Constitutions assimilates to the
canonical rendering.)
12
Jonathan A. Draper, “Resurrection and Zechariah 14.5 in the Didache Apocalypse,” JECS 5 (1997):
155–179. Of the evidence Draper collected most pertinent are: Ruth Rabbah, Canticles Rabbah 4.11.1,
Ign. Magn. 8–9, and Origen, In Matt 11.30.
Stephen C. Carlson
Page 6 of 6
2016 Feb 15