Is the Didache the Key to Understanding Paul’s Controversy with the Judaizers?

The Didache (“Did-ah-KAY”) is a first century manual of Christian instruction, and it provides a fascinating view of life in the early Church. You can read it here.

British scholar Alan Garrow has done a lot of work on the Didache, and he has a fascinating hypothesis linking it to Paul’s controversy with the Judaizers in Acts and Galatians.

You can watch his video presenting the hypothesis here.

Key points of his hypothesis are as follows:

1. The conference Paul has with the apostles in Galatians 2 is not the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. Instead, it took place during the famine relief visit of Acts 11.
2. When the council of Acts 15 occurred, the apostles wrote a lengthy document which was the original version of the Didache (it was later supplemented to form the Didache as we have it today). Luke summarizes the original version as the letter sent to the churches in Acts 15:23-29.
3. This version of the Didache (and the one we have today) contains ambiguous statements that could be taken as requiring Gentiles to be circumcised before their deaths if they are to be saved.
4. After Paul evangelized the Galatians, Judaizers pointed to these statements as proof that both Paul and the Jerusalem apostles expected them to be circumcised.
5. When Paul learned of this, he wrote the epistle to the Galatians and vigorously denounced this interpretation. However, he did not explicitly address the statements in the Didache because the document was too ambiguous and could undermine his case.

I very much enjoyed Garrow’s presentation, though ultimately I do not believe his hypothesis succeeds. Let’s take a brief look at the key points.

 

The Famine Relief Visit

Many recent scholars have been inclined to link the Galatians 2 conference with the famine relief visit of Acts 11 because of the list of Paul’s activities described in Galatians 1:13-2:10:

• Paul’s former life in Judaism (1:13-14)
• His conversion and call (1:15-16)
• His sojourn to Arabia and Damascus (1:17)
• His visit “after three years” to Peter in Jerusalem (1:18-20)
• His sojourn in Syria and Cilicia (1:21-24)
• His visit “after fourteen years” to Jerusalem where circumcision was discussed (2:1-10)

From this catalogue, it is inferred that the two Jerusalem visits Paul mentions here were the only visits he made during this time period.

If so, then the Galatians 2 conference can’t be the Acts 15 conference because of the record of Paul’s Jerusalem visits found in Acts:

• After Paul’s stay in Damascus, Barnabas takes him to the apostles in Jerusalem (9:27-30)
• He and Barnabas make the famine relief visit (11:29-30)
• He and Barnabas go to Jerusalem for the Acts 15 council (15:1-29)

If Paul’s visit “after fourteen years” is his second visit to Jerusalem following his conversion then it must be the famine relief visit.

There is a lot that can be said about this, but it all hinges on the inference that Paul had only two visits to Jerusalem in this period, and this is not clear from Galatians.

Paul does not say that he visited Jerusalem only twice. He does indicate that he was not popularly known in the churches of Judea (Gal. 1:21-24), which implies that he did not spend a lot of time there, but it does not mean that he never made a brief visit.

This is clear from the fact that he had already made a visit lasting two weeks (Gal. 1:18-20) and this did not make him popularly known in Judea.

It’s therefore quite possible that he and Barnabas made an additional, brief visit (described in only a single verse: Acts 11:30) that he doesn’t mention in Galatians because it is not relevant to the subjects he is discussing—i.e., where he got his gospel and how circumcision is not necessary for salvation.

He thus jumps to the next major event that was relevant—the Jerusalem visit that occurred “after fourteen years.”

Identifying this event with the famine relief visit of Acts 11:30 creates multiple problems with the chronology of Acts, and one of them becomes clear beginning what Luke says next:

About that time Herod the king [i.e., Herod Agrippa I] laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword; and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter (Acts 12:1-3).

Luke then goes on to narrate Peter’s escape and Herod’s death (Acts 12:20-23).

According to Acts 12:1, the famine relief visit of 11:30 took place just before or in proximity to the events of Acts 12, which include Herod’s death.

Herod Agrippa I is commonly reckoned as having died in A.D. 44, though recent studies have indicated it was more probably in late A.D. 43 (see Daniel R. Schwartz, Agrippa I, 107-111).

Either way, this gives us an approximate time frame for the famine relief visit, and if it occurred “after fourteen years” from Paul’s conversion then Paul’s conversion (Acts 9) would have had to occur around A.D. 29 or 30.

This is too early, even on the view that the Crucifixion occurred in A.D. 30, and certainly too early on the better-established view that it took place in A.D. 33.

More could be said about the chronological problems with identifying the Galatians 2 conference with the famine relief visit, but this will suffice.

 

The Didache and the Acts 15 Letter

Garrow proposes that, after the Acts 15 council, the apostles wrote a lengthy document to be sent to the churches and that this document was the original version of the Didache.

On this view, the Didache is, in the most literal sense, what its title presents it as—“The teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the twelve apostles”—because the Jerusalem apostles wrote it.

Garrow points out that it would be unreasonable for Luke to repeat the whole of the Didache in his account of the Acts 15 council, so he argues that Luke summarized it as the letter found in Acts 15:23-29:

^23b “The brethren, both the apostles and the elders, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting. ²⁴ Since we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, ²⁵ it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, ²⁶ men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷ We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. ²⁸ For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: ²⁹ that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

To support his proposal, Garrow notes several themes that this letter and the Didache have in common. He’s also certainly correct that Luke would not have interrupted his narrative to reproduce the whole of the original Didache if it was before him.

But how likely is that the Acts 15 council wrote it?

The Didache is such an early document that it’s not unreasonable to hold that its original edition dates to this time period, but if the controversy was about the role of circumcision—as both Acts and Galatians indicate—would the apostles really have written such a lengthy document in response? The matter could be settled much more concisely.

Further, the content of the proposed first edition of the Didache is basic Christian instruction. As reconstructed by Garrow, it contained treatments of basic Christian morality, sacramental practice, and eschatology. Is that what the Jerusalem authorities would have written in response to a controversy about circumcision?

As Garrow notes, the Didache never mentions circumcision. It’s one thing to see how a brief letter like the one in Acts could omit the word “circumcision,” saying merely, “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things” and then not name circumcision as a requirement. However, it is very hard to imagine a document that goes on for chapter after chapter of basic Christian instruction without dealing in some clear way with circumcision, given that this was the issue that prompted the document to be written.

It seems much more likely that the Jerusalem authorities would write a more concise document that dealt directly with the issue at hand, which is what we find in Acts 15:23-29.

Lest modern readers of the New Testament be puzzled by the brevity of this letter, its length is entirely what we would expect. Letters in the ancient world—even by famous epistolary authors like Cicero—were typically written on a single sheet of papyrus (E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing; David Trobisch, Paul’s Letter Collection).

The most normal letters in the New Testament are 2 John, 3 John, and Jude—the very letters we tend to overlook because of their brevity.

By ancient standards, Paul’s letters are literary abnormalities. By comparison, they are enormous. And it seems that under Paul’s influence the other authors of the New Testament epistles were led to copy his practice of writing theological-pastoral treatises in letter form.

But this is not what we would expect at the time of the Acts 15 council (A.D. 49), before Paul’s literary career had taken off. Instead, we would expect exactly the kind of short letter that we find in Acts.

It was common, at the time, to write only a brief letter and then have the courier(s) orally fill in any necessary context for the readers, which is precisely what we have here (“We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth”).

Further, since Paul and Barnabas figured heavily in the controversy provoking the council (Acts 15:2), we would expect the letter to make mention of them to clarify their status in the eyes of the Jerusalem authorities, as it does (“it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ”).

Yet none of these things are in the Didache.

On Garrow’s proposal, Luke has boiled the entire original edition of the Didache down to just two verses—Acts 15:28-29—and freely composed everything else in the letter (five verses).

If Luke had taken such liberties with the apostolic decree, then he would have been subject to charges of falsification. The issue of circumcision remained a live one in Christian circles at this time (and, indeed, for several centuries in Jewish Christian circles), and it would have been much safer for him to simply summarize what the apostles said without casting it in the form of a fundamentally fictitious letter.

We are thus confronted with two hypotheses:

1. The apostles responded to the Acts 15/Galatians 2 circumcision controversy by writing an astonishingly long treatise on basic Christian instruction that never directly addresses the controversy at hand or mentions the parties involved in it, and Luke summarized this in the form of a fundamentally fictitious letter, opening him to charges of falsification by those who favored circumcision.
2. In keeping with the epistolary practices of the day, the apostles wrote a brief letter that addressed the central controversy, discussed the status of the participants, and sent couriers who could confirm its authenticity and supply needed context.

The latter is the more likely hypothesis.

 

The Didache’s Ambiguous Statements

Garrow points out that the Didache contains a pair of passages that could be misunderstood as implying that circumcision is necessary for salvation.

First, at the end of its section on basic moral instruction, it says:

For if you are able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect. But if you are not able, then do what you can.

Now concerning food, bear what you are able, but in any case keep strictly away from meat sacrificed to idols, for it involves the worship of dead gods (Did. 6:2-3).

Second, the end of the document gives an eschatological warning and says:

Gather together frequently, seeking the things that benefit your souls, for all the time you have believed will be of no use to you if you are not found perfect in the last time (Did. 16:2).

Garrow calls attention to the word “perfect” in these passages and argues that the first could be taken as indicating that to perfectly “bear the whole yoke of the Lord” one would need to be circumcised.

Failing to be circumcised might be acceptable at least temporarily, given the concession, “But if you are not able, then do what you can.” However, one could look at the second passage and conclude that, since one must be “found perfect in the last time” for the faith to profit you, one must be circumcised at some point.

It is not plausible to think that this is what the author(s) of the Didache meant the reader to understand. Circumcision has to be injected into the thought of the text at both points, for it is not mentioned in either of them or in their surrounding contexts.

However, Garrow does not claim that this is what the Didachist(s) meant, just that this is what the Judaizers made of the text.

 

Paul and the Judaizers

Garrow’s claim at this point is reasonable. If the Didache was in circulation prior to Galatians, Judaizers could, indeed, point to these passages in an attempt to bolster their claim that faith and baptism may be necessary but that one must go on to embrace circumcision if one wants to be ultimately saved.

They could further point to Paul’s circumcision of Timothy (Acts 16:3), which strikingly occurs in Acts just after the Jerusalem council and the delivery of its letter.

Timothy was from the Galatian city of Lystra and was well known in the neighboring city of Iconium (Acts 16:1-2), and his circumcision by Paul was publicly known. Paul performed the act so that Timothy could accompany him, “because of the Jews that were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek” (16:3).

It therefore would have been easy for the Judaizers to appeal to Paul’s circumcision of Timothy and claim that even the “apostle to the Gentiles” agreed with their view on the ultimate necessity of circumcision.

This would explain passages in Galatians that seem to indicate Paul was being portrayed as a preacher of circumcision:

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you [i.e., if we should preach a gospel of circumcision], let him be accursed (Gal. 1:8).

If I, brethren, still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? (Gal. 5:11)

Garrow’s hypothesis thus coheres very well at this point.

But do these passages provide positive evidence that the Judaizers were appealing to the Didache?

It does not seem so.

The passages we have just seen do suggest that the Judaizers were portraying Paul as acknowledging the necessity of circumcision, and they likely appealed to his circumcision of Timothy as evidence for this.

However, we don’t need to suppose that the Didache in particular was in circulation or that they appealed to it. All we need to suppose is that the idea was in the air that one needed to complete one’s conversion to Christ by circumcision, and we have good evidence that this idea was present, whether or not the Didache was in circulation.

 

Paul and the Acts 15 Letter

Paul was apoplectic when he learned what the Judaizers had been telling his Galatian converts, and he wrote his letter to them in a white hot fury.

In this epistle, Paul’s sharp elbows are at their sharpest, and he vigorously denounces the views of the Judaizers, including their own apparent misrepresentation of his own actions.

What, then, are we to make of the fact that he does not mention the document that the Acts 15 council wrote?

For Garrow, Paul does not do so because that document (the original edition of the Didache) was too ambiguous.

It’s true that the Didache contains passages the Judaizers could plausibly exploit. However, it’s not clear that a personality as forceful as Paul would refrain from taking those passages on.

After all, circumcision is nowhere mentioned in either context, and a careful exegesis of the Didache does not support the claim that it is necessary. In context, “the whole yoke of the Lord” for Gentiles is the material under discussion in chapters 1-6 of the document, and circumcision is not among the topics covered.

Paul easily could have pointed this out and insisted that his interpretation—bolstered by the other facts he mentions in Galatians—is the true one and that it authentically represents the view of the Jerusalem authorities.

Once again we must ask whether the Didache needed to be in circulation to explain why Paul doesn’t mention the document the council produced, and the answer again is negative.

If Galatians 2 does refer to Acts 15 (as the bulk of the evidence indicates) then Paul’s summary of it in the epistle makes all the essential points. He does not need to refer to the letter.

Further, he may not have had a copy of the letter with him. We know that Paul was sometimes separated from his personal library (2 Tim. 4:13), and he may have avoided discussing the letter if he couldn’t quote it exactly.

Even if he had the letter with him or was comfortable quoting it from memory, there are serious reasons why he might not want to, because the letter contained pastoral provisions as a concession to Jewish sensibilities. Specifically, it asked that Gentiles “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity.”

While he may not have had a problem with (or a choice regarding) these items as pastoral concessions, Paul is on record stating that there is nothing wrong in principle with eating idol meat. He discusses this explicitly in 1 Corinthians 8, and he covers the same issue from another perspective in Romans 14.

It is highly probable that he would not have had a problem in principle with eating blood or strangled things in view of his comments regarding becoming all things to all men that he might win some (1 Cor. 9:22), and specifically regarding his comment that “To those outside the law I became as one outside the law . . . that I might win those outside the law” (1 Cor. 9:21).

This is further underscored by his declaration “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink” (Col. 2:16), and by his excoriation of Peter for breaking table fellowship with Gentiles (Gal. 2:11-14).

Since the pastoral provisions of the Acts 15 letter were inconsistent with views Paul held and openly discussed with his converts, as the other letters just quoted indicate, he had ample reason not to call attention to the letter in his discussion here. Doing so would only raise the question of what status these pastoral provisions had: Were they matters of divine law that were binding on everyone or only accommodations made for the sake of harmony within the Church?

Delving into these concessions to Jewish sensibilities would have undercut Paul’s fundamental point that Gentiles only need to become Christians, not Jewish Christians, to be saved.

Further, raising the subject of the letter in his account of the council (Gal. 2:1-10) would undercut the argument he was about to make regarding Peter (Gal. 2:11-14), because the letter’s pastoral provisions would suggest to the readers that Peter might not have been wrong to withdraw from table fellowship with Gentiles.

Paul was thus incentivized to remain silent on the letter and focus instead on the points he makes about the council in verses 1-10.

 

Conclusion

Garrow has provided a fascinating discussion of the Didache and how it might have influenced first century discussions regarding the need for circumcision.

While it seems very unlikely that the Didache was produced by the Acts 15 council, it is quite possible that early versions of the document were in circulation in the mid-first century.

It also is possible, though not necessarily probable, that—either before Galatians was written or afterwards—Judaizers appealed to the document’s statements regarding perfection to bolster their argument that circumcision is necessary for salvation.

The Didache thus remains an important background document, and the light it may shed on the New Testament and its history needs to be further explored.