The Didache, also called The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is the earliest surviving Christian church manual, outlining moral teaching, baptism, prayer, and church leadership.
The Didache is a short early Christian handbook also known as The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. No one knows who wrote it. Most scholars date it between AD 80 and 120, and some place parts of it even earlier. It likely comes from Syria or Palestine.
Early writers mentioned it, but the text itself was lost for centuries. In 1873 a Greek Orthodox metropolitan named Philotheos Bryennios found a copy in a manuscript dated 1056 in Constantinople. He published it in 1883.
Major Work: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
The Didache has 16 short chapters. It falls into four parts: moral teaching (chapters 1 through 6), worship practice (7 through 10), church life and leaders (11 through 15), and a closing warning about the last days (16).
It reads like instructions for new believers and the churches that received them. That is why many call it the earliest Christian catechism.
Christian Teaching and Moral Life
The book opens: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.” The way of life is to love God and love your neighbor. The Didache then quotes and expands on teachings from the Sermon on the Mount.
Its list of sins includes murder, adultery, theft, sorcery, and magic. Chapter 2 also forbids abortion and killing a newborn child. That is one of the earliest Christian statements on the subject.
Church Practice
Chapter 7 gives instructions for baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Use running water if you can. If not, use other water, cold or warm. If you have neither in enough quantity, pour water on the head three times. Both the one baptizing and the one baptized should fast beforehand.
Chapter 8 tells believers to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. Chapters 9 and 10 give thanksgiving prayers for the cup and bread, and only baptized believers may share the meal.
Testing Traveling Ministers
Chapters 11 through 13 give practical tests for traveling apostles and prophets. A true one may stay a day or two. If he stays three days, he is a false prophet. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.
Chapter 15 tells churches to appoint bishops and deacons who are humble, not lovers of money, truthful, and tested.
How to Read the Didache Today
Read the whole Didache in about 20 to 25 minutes.
Compare chapter 1 with Matthew 5 through 7 and chapter 8 with Matthew 6:9 to 13.
Use Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, or the free Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 7.
Use chapters 11 through 13 as a checklist when you evaluate teachers who ask for money.
About the Author
CK Quarterman is a USAF veteran, independent author, and publisher at CKQbooks. He writes the Malaterrestrials nonfiction series, which examines evil earthbound non-human intelligences through Scripture and history, along with the Watchers’ Universe and Sons of the Flood fiction series. Find his books at ckqbooks.com.
Truth · History · Scripture
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