The Didache (; ),Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). "". A Greek–English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones, with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. also known as The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations (), is a brief, anonymous early Christian treatise written in Koine Greek, dated by modern scholars to the first or (less commonly) second century AD.Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Didachē". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Oct. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Didache. Accessed 28 December 2023.
The first line of this treatise is: "The teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles (or Nations) by the twelve apostles". The text, parts of which constitute the oldest extant written catechism, has three main sections dealing with Christian ethics, rituals such as baptism and Eucharist, and Church organization. The opening chapters describe the virtuous Way of Life and the wicked Way of Death. The Lord's Prayer is included in full. Baptism is by immersion, or by affusion if immersion is not practical. Fasting is ordered for Wednesdays and Fridays. Two primitive Eucharistic prayers are given. Church organization was at an early stage of development. Itinerant apostles and prophets are important, serving as "chief priests" and possibly celebrating the Eucharist; meanwhile, local bishops and deacons also have authority and seem to be taking the place of the itinerant ministry.
The Didache is considered the first example of the genre of Church Orders. It reveals how Jewish Christians saw themselves and how they adapted their practice for Gentile Christians. It is similar in several ways to the Gospel of Matthew, perhaps because both texts originated in similar communities. The opening chapters, which also appear in other early Christian texts like the Epistle of Barnabas, are likely derived from an earlier Jewish source.
The Didache is considered a product of the group of second-generation Christian writers known as the Apostolic Fathers. The work was considered by some Church Fathers to be a part of the New Testament, while being rejected by others as spurious or non-canonical.Athanasius Festal Letter 39 (excludes them from the canon, but recommends them for reading) in 367Nicephorus in Stichometria In the end, it was not accepted into the New Testament canon. However, works which draw directly or indirectly from the Didache include the , the Apostolic Constitutions and the Ethiopic Didascalia, the latter of which is included in the broader canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Lost for centuries, a Greek manuscript of the Didache was rediscovered in 1873 by Philotheos Bryennios, Metropolitan of Nicomedia, in the Codex Hierosolymitanus of the year 1056, a compilation of texts of the Apostolic Fathers found in the Jerusalem Monastery of the Most Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople. A Latin version of the first five chapters was discovered in 1900 by in an 11th-century manuscript in Munich.
Two uncial fragments containing Greek text of the Didache (verses 1:3c–4a; 2:7–3:2) were found among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (no. 1782) and are now in the collection of the Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library in Oxford. There is also a Coptic papyrus fragment containing verses 10.3b-12.2a, which came to light in 1923, was bought by the British Museum and published in 1924.Jones, F. Stanley & Mirecki, Paul A. "Considerations on the Coptic Papyrus of the Didache (British Library Oriental Manuscript 9271)." in Jefford, Clayton (editor). The Didache in Context: essays on its text, history, and transmission. Leiden: Brill, 1995, 47-87.
Date, composition and modern translations
Many English and American scholars once dated the text to the early second century, a view still held by some today, but most scholars now assign the Didache to the first century.. The document is a composite work, and the discovery of the Community Rule among the Dead Sea Scrolls, has provided evidence of development over a considerable period, beginning as a Jewish catechetical work which was then developed into a church manual.
Dating the document is thus made difficult both by the lack of hard evidence and its composite character. The Didache may have been compiled in its present form as late as 150, although a date closer to the end of the first century seems more probable to many.
The teaching is an anonymous pastoral manual which Aaron Milavec states "reveals more about how Jewish-Christians saw themselves and how they adapted their Judaism for gentiles than any other book in the Christian Scriptures". The Two Ways section is likely based on an earlier Jewish source. The community that produced the Didache could have been based in Syria, as it addressed the gentiles but from a Judaic perspective, at some remove from Jerusalem, and shows no evidence of Pauline influence. Alan Garrow claims that its earliest layer may have originated in the decree issued by the Council of Jerusalem in 49–50, that is, by the Jerusalem assembly under James, brother of Jesus.
The text was lost, but scholars knew of it through the writing of later church fathers, some of whom had drawn heavily on it."Didache." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 20 February 2016. In 1873 in Constantinople (now Istanbul), metropolitan Philotheos Bryennios found a Greek copy of the Didache, written in 1056, and he published it in 1883. Hitchcock and Brown produced the first English translation in March 1884. Adolf von Harnack produced the first German translation in 1884, and Paul Sabatier produced the first French translation and commentary in 1885.Aaron Milavec in .
Early references
The Didache is mentioned by Eusebius () as the Teachings of the Apostles along with other books he considered non-canonical:Historia Ecclesiastica III, 25.
Athanasius of Alexandria (367) and Tyrannius Rufinus () list the Didache among apocrypha. Rufinus gives the curious alternative title "Judgment of Peter." It is rejected by Nikephoros I of Constantinople (), the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius, the Synopsis of Holy Scripture and the Catalogue of the Sixty Canonical Books. It is accepted by the Apostolic Constitutions, Canon 85, John of Damascus, and in Orthodox Tewahedo churches. The by an imitator of Cyprian quotes it by name. Unacknowledged citations are widespread, if less certain.
The section Two Ways shares the same language with the Epistle of Barnabas, chapters 18–20, sometimes word for word, added to, dislocated, or abridged. Barnabas iv, 9 either derives from Didache, 16, 2–3, or vice versa. There can also be seen many similarities to the Epistles of both Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch. The Shepherd of Hermas seems to reflect it. Other theologians, including Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen also seem to use the work, and so in the West do Optatus and the "Gesta apud Zenophilum". The are founded upon the Didache.
The Apostolic Church-Ordinance used a part and the Apostolic Constitutions embody the . There are echoes in Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Cyprian, and Lactantius.
Contents The Didache is a relatively short text with only some 2,300 words. The contents may be divided into four parts, which most scholars agree were combined from separate sources by a later redactor: the first is the Two Ways, the Way of Life and the Way of Death (chapters 1–6); the second part is a ritual dealing with baptism, fasting, and Communion (chapters 7–10); the third speaks of the ministry and how to treat apostles, prophets, bishops, and deacons (chapters 11–15); and the final section (chapter 16) is a prophecy of the Antichrist and the Second Coming.
Title The manuscript is commonly referred to as the Didache. This is short for the header found on the document and the title used by the Church Fathers, "The Lord's Teaching of the Twelve Apostles". A fuller title or subtitle is also found next in the manuscript, "The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles".
Description Willy Rordorf considered the first five chapters as "essentially Jewish, but the Christian community was able to use it" by adding the "evangelical section". The title 'Lord' in the Didache is reserved usually for "Lord God", while Jesus is called "the servant" of the Father (9:2f.; 10:2f.). Baptism was practiced "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."The Didache or Teaching of the Apostles, trans. and ed., J. B. Lightfoot, 7:2,5 Scholars generally agree that 9:5, which speaks of baptism "in the name of the Lord", represents an earlier tradition that was gradually replaced by a trinity of names." A similarity with Acts 3 is noted by Aaron Milavec: both see Jesus as "the servant (pais) of God". The community is presented as "awaiting the kingdom from the Father as entirely a future event".
The two ways The first section (Chapters 1–6) begins: "There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between these two ways."Holmes, Apostolic Fathers
Apostolic Fathers (1992) notes:
The closest parallels in the use of the Two Ways doctrine are found among the Essene Jews at the Dead Sea Scrolls community. The Qumran community included a Two Ways teaching in its founding charter, The Community Rule.
Throughout the Two Ways there are many Old Testament quotes shared with the Gospels, and many theological similarities, but Jesus is never mentioned by name. The first chapter opens with the V'ahavta ("you shall love God"), the Great Commandment ("your neighbor as yourself"), and the Golden Rule in the negative form. Then come short extracts in common with the Sermon on the Mount, together with a curious passage on giving and receiving, which is also cited with variations in Shepherd of Hermas (Mand., ii, 4–6). The Latin omits 1:3–6 and 2:1, and these sections have no parallel in Epistle of Barnabas; therefore, they may be a later addition, suggesting Hermas and the present text of the Didache may have used a common source, or one may have relied on the other. Chapter 2 contains the commandments against murder, adultery, corrupting boys, sexual promiscuity, theft, magic, sorcery, abortion, infanticide, coveting, perjury, false testimony, speaking evil, holding grudges, being double-minded, not acting as one speaks, greed, avarice, hypocrisy, maliciousness, arrogance, plotting evil against neighbors, hate, narcissism and expansions on these generally, with references to the words of Jesus. Chapter 3 attempts to explain how one vice leads to another: anger to murder, concupiscence to adultery, and so forth. The whole chapter is excluded in Barnabas. A number of precepts are added in chapter 4, which ends: "This is the Way of Life." Verse 13 states that one must not forsake the Lord's commandments, neither adding nor subtracting (see also Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32). The Way of Death (chapter 5) is a list of vices to be avoided. Chapter 6 exhorts to the keeping in the Way of this Teaching: