The date of the translation of the Didascalia into Syriac

An interesting question greeted me this morning on the date of the Syriac translation of Didascalia apostolorum. My correspondent points out that Vööbus and Connolly suggest the mid-4th century whereas Brock and Schöllgen think late 5th/early 6th century.

I had to respond that I am something of a rudus in such matters, and that this was a matter on which I did not think I could bring any real insight. Late 5th century is a reasonable date as there is concrete evidence that the Greek text was circulating in Syriac speaking areas at that time (namely the fragment published in Bartlet, “Fragments of the Didascalia apostolorum in Greek” JTS 18, (1917), 301–309), but this is not of particular probative value as the probability is that the text was produced in a bilingual part of Syria anyway. Connolly is, I think, too early in putting it in the first quarter of the third century as I do not think even the Greek text was completed at that point. Which brings me back to the observations on vocabulary in Vööbus (CSCO 402), 25-28. Given that the text originated in a bilingual area a very early translation, as Vööbus suggests, is entirely plausible.

However, I am wondering whether anyone out there has any particular insight.

PS: Some time later I received the follow-up question as to the version in which the redactions of the Didascalia were carried out. I had no hesitation in suggesting that the major redactions were carried out in Greek; the Latin version, derived from Greek, has elements of all the redactional levels, though it is possible that a few minor glosses and interpolations may have taken place within the Syriac version.
The recension which I term the E recension, however, with its large omissions towards the end and the additional material added to the third chapter, was a recension of the Syriac version. The location of the new material at the end of the third chapter indicates that the chapter divisions were established, and more to the point much, though not all, of this additional material is of Syriac origin.

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Brief notice: Chun Ling Yu, Bonds and boundaries among the early churches

Chun Ling Yu, Bonds and boundaries among the early churches: community maintenance in the letter of James and the Didache (STT29; Turnhout: Brepols, 2018) is an examination of James and the Didache in the particular light of theories concerning conflict and group maintenance derived from the social sciences.

In this brief note we concentrate on what he has to say regarding the Didache.

In the chapter on community tensions he takes the Schöllgenian line that the Didache is pointed at particular issues, rather than seeing it as a more generalized document giving ritual instructions; although I would agree that there are particular issues, I would suggest that the Didache is more generalized, though inevitably the issues that are important or controversial within the community will figure larger than others.

Yu notes a number of possible internal sources of tension, such as the inclusion of gentiles within a Jewish community, tensions with potential false prophets, transients, and false teachers, though I am not sure that he is right in suggesting that there is insufficient respect for community leaders. He points out that these provide the conditions anticipated by conflict theories, and that the document, serving as an authoritative partner in the dialectic, serves the means of conflict reduction suggested by the Allport-Pettigrew hypothesis, namely the equalization of status of members, the encouragement to co-operation to common goals, and the support of established authorities, thus both harmonizing and regulating (using the language of Kazan).

He further notes that the strong in-group is further strengthened in cohesion through the implicit and explicit identification of out-groups, both the wider gentile world and the wider Jewish world, the hypocrites. In part this is through ritual, in part through a common code (for instance the setting of particular fast days against those of the hypocrites), but chiefly, it emerges, through norms of behaviour which are distinct from either out-group and which are instilled through the two ways. Thus returning to Allport he suggests that the rituals of the community serve to maintain the community and to resolve sources of potential conflict through the common ritual life.

In summary, there are inevitable points of disagreement; however, Yu presents a far more sophisticated study of the Didache on the basis of social science models than I have previously read.