Short one for now: Philip Jenkins shows where to find lost text. Namely, embedded in other text, as the Didache is embedded in the Apostolic Constitutions, Jude in 2 Peter, and Aristides in the Life of Barlaam and Ioasaph. This blog has occasionally delved into Archaic Hebrew works in late Classical stuff like Habakkuk. Or maybe 2 Isaiah in the 1QIsaa. Or all this stuff.
One fascinating thought is the ancient Christian liturgy. Paul in 1 Corinthians famously cites a formula of the Last Supper. Why would the Last Supper matter? Perhaps because everyone was already reënacting it. In fact the younger Pliny must report on a weekly ritual meal from Bithynia. The war of the Diaspora (mostly Cyprus and Cyrene) was approaching but Pliny's Christians were gentiles so wouldn't be affected. That liturgy was certainly the same as Ignatius was recommending at around that time.
But as Paul embeds some rituals of the, what, AD 50s; so other texts were embedding other rituals. Occasionally a gnostic text will involve people banding together to make some weird chant in a weird direction. Like the Acts of John section C chapter 94 - not just a hymn of Jesus, but stage-direction.
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