The Didache: Proof of Deviation From Christ's Teachings by Apostolic Fathers

[prodromos]

I think the OP ignores the fact that Jesus gave His Disciples authority, and when they established overseers (bishops) in the cities, they too were given authority. That authority is evident in the Didache.

 

[CoreyD]

Thank you.

Oh trust me I already knew your interpretation of the verse a long time ago. You’re taking an obvious prophetic passage about the antichrist who will come in the end times and twisting it into something it is not saying. The man of lawlessness is one man not several men and this one man will be killed by Christ when He returns. So your interpretation obviously DOES NOT line up with what the passage actually says. Here’s a few more problems with your interpretation.

Christ’s plan to preach the gospel of the kingdom to all nations failed in the first century of the Church.

Christ was wrong when He said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church.

Your conspiracy theory requires thousands of believers who endured persecution and even martyrdom for their faith, who were spread out thousands of miles apart to all agree to preaching a false gospel and there’s not a shred of evidence of any opposition anywhere in the history of the church or even secular history. I mean this is almost as inconceivable as the conspiracy to hide the flat earth. Either all of these people who couldn’t have possibly known each other agreed to preaching a false gospel or the entire church was killed without any shred of evidence while Jesus watched His Church disappear from the face of the earth long before it had accomplished His task of spreading the gospel to all nations. None of these scenarios sound even remotely plausible.

So your interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 2 is not as viable as you claim it is for numerous reasons. It seems to have originated from a hostility towards the Catholic Church instead of a rational assessment of the passage itself in conjunction with the other parallel prophetic passages regarding the antichrist.

Buddy. I'm only calling it as it is.
Think about it.
You admitted this:
I don’t know who is restraining him but apparently someone is.
If you don't know that, how can you say you know anything about what Paul is referring to?
You can't, can you. The scriptures don't leave us in the dark on this one... at least not those of God's people, led by spirit.

Secondly, you think, like most everyone else, that there is one antichrist coming - "the antichrist", as though some special entity is going to show up with unique features.
This is a common belief, but the Bible says there are many antichrists, and you do not know that these surround you by the thousands.
To be in the dark about this fact, is a clear signal of a need for understanding.

Third, to say that "Christ’s plan to preach the gospel of the kingdom to all nations failed in the first century of the Church", because the apostasy was allowed, is another clear signal you do not understand the words of the apostles.
Take for example, Paul's words to Timothy - 2 Timothy 4:2-6

2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.​

6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near.​

The instructions to preach came from Jesus and the apostles. Not from any clergy class.
So, faithful ones knew what they had to do, and what they will do, regardless, of the fact that "people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear".
A great number of teachers. Think about that for a moment. ....
You follow?

One cannot teach within the Church unless they have the authority.
Jesus even confirmed this when he gave John the Revelation.
Revelation 2:2, 3
2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

Revelation 2:14-16
14 Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. 15 Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

The Nicolaitans was a sect in the Church. Revelation 2:6
What did Peter warn about?
2 Peter 2:1
Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, [ destructive sects / lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition ] even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.

The existence of a sect called Nicolaitanes in the second century is attested by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria.

The name Nicolaus may be intended as a Greek equivalent of Balaam, but this is by no means certain. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria write as if the sect of Nicolaitans existed in their day. A common belief was that their founder was Nicolaus of Antioch, one of the seven deacons.

Heresy infested the Church, and spread like a virus.

At that time, heresy could easily become apostolic teachings, and followers of the original teachings could be labelled heretic.
Heresy in Christianity
The word appears in the New Testament, usually translated as sect, and was appropriated by the Church to mean a sect or division that threatened the unity of Christians. Heresy eventually became regarded as a departure from orthodoxy, a sense in which heterodoxy was already in Christian use soon after the year 100.

Acts 20:29, 30

I know that after I leave,
savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.
They will not spare the flock.
Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.​

2 Thessalonians 2:6-8

6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.
7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed​

However, this did not mean that "Christ’s plan to preach the gospel of the kingdom failed". Impossible.
This is not rocket science, yet it is unbelievable that person just dismiss these scriptures and the evidence of their fulfilment, just because... because what?
It rocks Catholicism to the core?

Christ is more important than Catholicism. In Revelation, we read of warnings by him, in Revelation Chapters 2, 3, and 18.
Those who love the truth will heed these warnings. those who don't @BNR32FAN... did you notice?
Those who don't "God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie"
That is interesting, don't you think?

Do you think one who has a strong delusion will know that they are totally wrong, and will realize they are dismissing clear scriptural and historical evidence? They won't buddy. They cannot see a thing.
Did you offer anything scripturally otherwise?
No. You are still trying to figure out what the temple of God is, since the one you had focus on was destroyed in 70 AD... and you are still in the dark of who this one is that holds restraint on the man of lawlessness.

Buddy. My heart goes out to you, but if persons do not want to accept the truth, and Jesus let's a strong delusion go to them so that they believe the lie, and perish, I do not shed a tear for them, because in their heart, they do not love Christ, or God, and his truth.

So, in conclusion...
History tells us, how truths were spread in fragments, and through fragments, and the gospel of the kingdom was then, and is now being spread throughout the earth at a significantly rapid rate.
Let those who have eyes to see, see.

So, what I have said is in agreement with the scriptures, and is not my interpretation.
It's the simple ABCs of scripture, which honest, humble ones are gobbling up, as they hunger for truth.
Remember too. I have not left out anything, due to being clueless about something.

Oh, and the "gates of hell will not prevail against His Church". Christ is not a wimp.
Babylon totally destroyed Jerusalem. Burned the city to the ground. captured every valiant warrior, and tried to indoctrinate every boy.
What happened? I don't have to tell you. you are familiar with the books of the prophets.
Where is Babylon? Gone.

So, this argument "Christ was wrong when He said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church" is a feeble one.
Why not go for the scriptures instead of ideas?
I'm with God on this one though. 1 Timothy 2:3, 4 So I still have hope for the strong contenders on this thread. I'm available anytime, buddy.

 

[CoreyD]

Yeah I mean there’s historical evidence of countless heresies the church has encountered and the magnitude that the OP is suggesting would the biggest heresy Christianity ever faced and there’s no evidence of it at all? Like I said before it’s about as plausible as the worldwide conspiracy to hide the flat earth. It just isn’t logically reasonable.

It's scripture.
Scripture beats so called logical reasoning, especially in the light of the fact that "God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie".
A deluded person believing a lie, will think that he is the most logical person on planet earth, and the evidence in front of him is conspiracy theory. isn't that true?
You honestly cannot deny that fact.

I can take you to a mad house and show you, if you doubt it.

 

[CoreyD]

I can’t believe that anyone would take offense at the common sense approach of the Didache. But then again, the entire idea of a Great Apostasy strikes me as unscriptural and unreasonable, since Matthew 16:18 clearly indicates that it is impossible, at least until the end times. There is nothing in scripture that would suggest the Church would become corrupted until the Radical Reformers and Restorationists “restored” it in the 16th-19th centuries.

Oh? The scriptures give you a date?
Please show me that scripture.

Restorationism in particular was quite a problem - of the denominations it produced, only those connected with the Stone/Campbell movement are worthy of the title, because they revived weekly celebration of the Eucharist, which had been lost in several Protestant denominations, with the exception of some Evangelical Catholic Lutherans, albeit with a deeply problematic anti-creedalism, but Restorationism also gave us the Mormons and J/Ws and several other non-Christian religions which claim to be restoring the early church, which is not good at all. Indeed I feel a distinction must be stressed between Christian restorationists like the Stone/Campbell movement, the Plymouth Brethren, the Evangelical Quakers, et al, and non-Christian restorationists like the Mormons and J/Ws and some liberal Quakers.

Have you ever heard of the Waldenses?
The Waldensians, also known as Waldenses ...are adherents of a church tradition that began as an ascetic movement within Western Christianity before the Reformation.

They also rejected a number of concepts that were widely held in Christian Europe of the era. ... They were accused, moreover, of speaking blasphemously of the Catholic Church as the harlot of the Apocalypse. They rejected what they perceived as the idolatry of the Catholic Church and considered the papacy as the Antichrist of Rome.

Were the Waldenses non-Christian?
There are others, but do you see what happened to anyone who disagreed with the ones who lifted themselves up as the authority in the Church?

Acts 20:29
I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.​

In 1211 more than 80 Waldensians were burned as heretics at Strasbourg; this action launched several centuries of persecution that nearly destroyed the movement.

The early church had quite a lot of sects, didn't they.
It looks to me like a lot of persons were vying for apostleship.
Why do you think that was occurring?

Also the Didache is important, as it is the earliest Patristic document we have that condemns homosexuality (specifically the prohibition on corrupting boys, which can be read as also applying to seducing young men who we would regard as above the age of consent). After this the next explicit condemnation I am aware of is found in Canon 73 of St. Basil the Great and I think Canon 5 of his younger brother St. Gregory of Nyssa (apparently this was a major issue in Cappadocia, enough to require specific canons). Then we find much more detailed, perhaps a bit too detailed, prohibitions, in the canons of St. John the Faster. But these are important collectively for refuting the idea claimed by some proponents of Queer Theology that the early church was not opposed to homosexuality.

This goes along with various attempts to make homosexuals of various pairs of male saints, such as Saints Sergius and Bacchus, and Saints Cosmas and Damian, which is extremely offensive to traditional Christians whether Orthodox, Roman Catholic or traditional Anglican or Lutheran.

Preaching the gospel was the most important work. Was it not?

 

[CoreyD]

Your premise has a fatal flaw. The Didache is the teaching of the 12 Apostles written at the time of the Apostles. What you suggest is that the Apostles themselves deviated from the Apostles' teaching.. with the Apostles' Teaching. It's nonsense. Whether it's unintentional or willful, I don't know, but It's ignorant.

The Didache is an anonymous document.
No one is certain that it was written by the 12 apostles, at the time of the apostles.
Didachē, the oldest surviving Christian church order, probably written in Egypt or Syria in the 2nd century.

The Didachē is not a unified and coherent work but a compilation of regulations that had acquired the force of law by usage in scattered Christian communities. Evidently several preexisting written sources were used and compiled.

 

[CoreyD]

I think the OP ignores the fact that Jesus gave His Disciples authority, and when they established overseers (bishops) in the cities, they too were given authority.

The Op does not ignore this fact.
Please state where "the OP ignores the fact that Jesus gave His Disciples authority, and when they established overseers (bishops) in the cities, they too were given authority".

That authority is evident in the Didache.

Where do you find evidence of that authority in the Didache?
Do you find evidence of such authority in all documents that state they are apostolic or Christian?

 

[FenderTL5]

The Didache is an anonymous document.

It is, which is the reason it is non-Canonical

No one is certain that it was written by the 12 apostles,

It is the teaching of the 12 Apostles, that doesn't require an Apostolic author to be true.

at the time of the apostles.

from your link, "most scholars now assign the Didache to the first century."

Just curious, have you ever read it?

 

[CoreyD]

It is, which is the reason it is non-Canonical

It is the teaching of the 12 Apostles, that doesn't require an Apostolic author to be true.

It is not the teaching of the 12 apostles, simply because ones can claim it to be.

from your link, "most scholars now assign the Didache to the first century."

The first century ended 100 AD.
Even if most scholars believe the Didache was compiled then, it does not mean the apostles were alive then.
Evidently several preexisting written sources were used and compiled.

Just curious, have you ever read it?

See here. Why?

 

[dzheremi]

I'm sorry, but all these amateur heresy hunters ever seem to be doing is trying to sanctify avoiding picking a lane. If this is wrong, and that is wrong, and this other thing is wrong, then how can we know blahblablahblah.

Because we trust that the Church is the ark of salvation, guided by the Holy Spirit, and as such has baptized all that can and ought to be baptized, and set up the proper parameters needed in order to remain in that role until the parousia. If that is not a thing you can say about yourself, then fine, but don't try to impart your own confusion and distrust onto other people who are already members of long-established Christian communities that have been around since your ancestors were busy worshipping rocks and trees and the like. The fact that some of us are not confused about the contents of the Didache or the Holy Bible or whatever other thing you can bring up is not a wound to our Christianity, though your own confusion may lead you to think so. But as they say, God is not the author of confusion, so I would be careful about what you are following instead in your effort to 'out-Christian' the Apostles and their disciples the Fathers.

 

[FenderTL5]

It is not the teaching of the 12 apostles, simply because ones can claim it to be.

It is not disproven simply because you say so, and I'll take the understanding of the Church over an internet contrarian every time. ymmv

 

[CoreyD]

It is not disproven simply because you say so, and I'll take the understanding of the Church over an internet contrarian every time. ymmv

It certainly isn't proven, but yes, the understand of the Church is always going to be correct. Thank God the Church is not the one you deem to be such - the one that used their 'authority' to burn people alive.
Don't you consider such acts sadistic?
Do you think they derived such pleasure from that. They roasted so many people.

Nowhere in the scriptures, nor the Didache, was torturing and murdering... and in the most heinous ways, taught or approved. Isn't that the truth.

 

[dzheremi]

It certainly isn't proven, but yes, the understand of the Church is always going to be correct. Thank God the Church is not the one you deem to be such - the one that used their 'authority' to burn people alive.
Don't you consider such acts sadistic?
Do you think they derived such pleasure from that. They roasted so many people.

Why does an Eastern Orthodox person need to answer for the acts of the Roman Catholic Church from over a century after the conventionalized date of the so-called 'Great Schism' (1054) that resulted in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church becoming different communions?

This is the danger of not being properly informed about history. Your question is malformed, as it is directed at someone whose Church had no part in the horrific events you are referring to.

 

[CoreyD]

Why does an Eastern Orthodox person need to answer for the acts of the Roman Catholic Church from over a century after the conventionalized date of the so-called 'Great Schism' (1054) that resulted in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church becoming different communions?

This is the danger of not being properly informed about history. Your question is malformed, as it is directed at someone whose Church had no part in the horrific events you are referring to.

It's good, we can agree on something.

 

[Lukaris]

It certainly isn't proven, but yes, the understand of the Church is always going to be correct. Thank God the Church is not the one you deem to be such - the one that used their 'authority' to burn people alive.
Don't you consider such acts sadistic?
Do you think they derived such pleasure from that. They roasted so many people.

Nowhere in the scriptures, nor the Didache, was torturing and murdering... and in the most heinous ways, taught or approved. Isn't that the truth.

Totally agree on the human conduct aspect and unfortunately there have always been people who claim to be Christian and murder their neighbor who the Lord told us to love not murder.

 

[FenderTL5]

It certainly isn't proven, but yes, the understand of the Church is always going to be correct. Thank God the Church is not the one you deem to be such - the one that used their 'authority' to burn people alive.
Don't you consider such acts sadistic?
Do you think they derived such pleasure from that. They roasted so many people.

Your accusation is misdirected.

Nowhere in the scriptures, nor the Didache, was torturing and murdering... and in the most heinous ways, taught or approved. Isn't that the truth.

Agree.

 

[FenderTL5]

This is the danger of not being properly informed about history. Your question is malformed, as it is directed at someone whose Church had no part in the horrific events you are referring to.

Agree.
An observation; those who don't understand basic Chuch history often miss the mark in other areas concerning The Church and Christianity as well.

 

[The Liturgist]

Oh? The scriptures give you a date?
Please show me that scripture.

Strawman. The Scriptures say that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. Furthermore, they stress that apostasy will happen in the end times. If a Great Apostasy had already happened, and then reversed, Matthew 16:18 would be demonstrably false.

 

[The Liturgist]

It's good, we can agree on something.

So why then did you get on the case of an Eastern Orthodox member for the Roman Catholic Church instituting the Auto da Fe? Are you unaware of the fact that the Roman Catholics martyred Eastern Orthodox Christians such as St. Peter the Aleut?

 

[The Liturgist]

Were the Waldenses non-Christian?
There are others, but do you see what happened to anyone who disagreed with the ones who lifted themselves up as the authority in the Church?

The Waldensians appeared only a few hundred years before the Reformation, but importantly, they appeared in the Western Church, which was already in schism from the Orthodox and which had embraced a number of doctrines which the early church did not teach, including Papal Supremacy, Purgatory, Indulgences, Satisfaction Atonement and indeed practically the entire program of Scholastic Theology, which was a needless reinvention of the wheel.

There is an idea propagated by Landmark Baptists and by Seventh Day Adventists that believes that certain groups such as the Cathars and Paulicans were somehow proto-Protestants, when we have their actual scriptures and know from their own writings that they subscribed to doctrines inherited from Manichaeanism, Valentinism and other related heresies, embracing a Dualist view in which matter was evil and salvation was through secret knowledge, and were not Christians, but rather Docetists who rejected the Nicene Creed and the humanity of Jesus Christ, as well as the doctrine of the Trinity, in favor of a more complex system of emanationism.

 

[CoreyD]

Totally agree on the human conduct aspect and unfortunately there have always been people who claim to be Christian and murder their neighbor who the Lord told us to love not murder.

People, yes. Apostles... No.
At least not for hundreds of years, much less one.

If you are telling me that we should expect those in the hierarchy to murder their neighbor, does that not destroy the arguments of all Catholics who are against the OP?
Are you saying that Christ's leadership can be corrupted, or only a couple of them in an entire order?

Inquisitions
The Inquisition was a powerful office set up within the Catholic Church to root out and punish heresy throughout Europe and the Americas. Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews and Muslims. Its worst manifestation was in Spain, where the Spanish Inquisition was a dominant force for more than 200 years, resulting in some 32,000 executions.

Catharists​

The Inquisition has its origins in the early organized persecution of non-Catholic Christian religions in Europe. In 1184 Pope Lucius III sent bishops to southern France to track down heretics called Catharists. These efforts continued into the 14th Century.

During the same period, the church also pursued the Waldensians in Germany and Northern Italy. In 1231, Pope Gregory charged the Dominican and Franciscan Orders to take over the job of tracking down heretics.