Skip to content

Add your phone number?

Optional. Nothing is sent unless you choose it.
The Historic Faith
Sign in

Jumpstarter 5 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion
The Claims of Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy  /  Apostolic Succession – Part 2  /  Discussion Questions
All Questions
Question 5
The Didache permits prophets to “make thanksgiving as much as they desire” in the Eucharist and tells churches to “appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons”; what does this suggest about early Christian assumptions regarding who may lead communion and how leaders are recognized, and what modern doctrines about clergy/laity separation does that directly unsettle?
Another way to ask: If the Didache lets prophets lead the Eucharist prayers freely and tells churches to choose their own bishops and deacons, what does that imply about who could lead communion and how leaders were recognized? Which modern ideas about a strict clergy vs. laity divide does this disrupt?

Direct Answer Bercot argues the Didache assumes communion could be led by prophets and that churches could recognize leaders locally, which undercuts a strict clergy/laity divide where only properly “succession-ordained” clergy can perform Eucharist. It unsettles the idea that sacramental validity depends on an external ordaining hierarchy.

Support from Transcript:

  • Didache on Eucharist includes prayers, then: “permit the prophets to make thanksgiving as much as they desire.”
  • Bercot infers this means communion was “often celebrated by the prophets who would not have had any form of succession.”
  • He contrasts this with a “cardinal tenet” of modern succession: a layperson “could not consecrate the bread and the wine… it will not be a true communion.”
  • Leadership development: prophets/teachers led “before bishops and deacons had been appointed” in that region.
  • Didache instruction: “Appoint, therefore, for yourselves, bishops and deacons…” with no mention of importing a bishop to ordain them.
  • Again he notes the Greek word is simply “appoint,” and it describes a twofold office: “bishops and deacons.”
Discussion Follow-ups If prophets could lead thanksgiving, what principle governed reverence and order? How should modern churches distinguish between honoring gifts and creating a priestly class?

Jumpstarter 5 of 10
Back Questions Next