Meals in antiquity were an expression of equality and friendship. To ensure these principles voluntary associations had admission rules and procedures for the meal and if this aspect of koinonia were at risk punishment rules. In the communities of the Didache the meal was the centre of cultic life. To be part at this meal you had to meet ethical and cultic expectations and undergo baptism. The rules present in the Didache are an expression of teaching and more concerned with theology then administrative procedures. This different rhetoric approaches to the same phenomenon will be discussed.
