Lably
Skip to content

Didache

Early Christian treatise

  • 17 min read
  • 4 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Constantinople

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. In the end, it was not accepted into the New Testament canon. However, works which draw directly or indirectly from the Didache include the Didascalia Apostolorum, 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 Joseph Schlecht 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.

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. 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.

Sign in to keep reading

3 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Archaeology

National Register of Historic PlacesFederal list of historic sites in the USArmeniansEthnic group native to the Caucasus and the Armenian HighlandsDioceseChristian district governed by a bishopListed buildingProtected historic structure in the United KingdomSteleStone or wooden slab erected as a markerAnthropologistPerson with an extensive knowledge of anthropology