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Didache

2ND-3RD century

  • It is anonymous.
  • It was not accepted into canon.
  • It's a composite letter, not backed by hard evidence.
  • It contains ethics, rituals, Church organization, and practices.
  • The name comes from the first line of the Didache: The teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles (or Nations) by the twelve apostles.
  • It is also known as Judicium Petri (Judgement of Peter) and Duae Viae (The Two Ways), and Teachings of the Apostles.
  • Irenaeus is linked to it through unacknowledged thematic similarities such as: idioms, eucharistic theology, church order, and imagery that mirrors "The Two Ways" (true and false Christian discipleship). It is possible that these originated with Irenaeus before the Didache was written.
  • One of the earliest quotes from Didache might be by Clement of Alexandria in his work The Stromata Book 1 Chapter 20, sometime in the early 3RD century. However, he doesn't name the book and it may have been a saying from another work that happened to make it into the Didache.
  • It appears dependent on Matthew, but lacks Pauline influence. If traditional dating is used, it would need to be written after Matthew (75-80CE). If it came from the apostles, we encounter an issue: tradition says (Note: no evidence) a majority of the apostles died between 60-80CE. If Paul was as influential as we're led to believe, wrote as early as claimed, and was famously labeled as the "apostle to the gentiles", it's lacking any authoritative input from him.
  • It echoes verses in 1 Timothy, Luke, and Matthew: "The laborer deserves to be paid."
  • Scholars compare the contents of Titus that outline the qualifications for church leaders to Chapter 15 of the Didache. Titus refers to the contradictory genealogies in Luke and Matthew. If the Didache relies on these works, it would need to have been created post 144CE since Luke is completely dependent upon Marcion's Evangelion. 1 Timothy must be post Marcion because it explicitly warns against Antithesis and Gnosticism.
  • It was lost for centuries. Two copies were found, the first in 1873 within the Codex Hierosolymitanus (1056CE) and a Latin version containing the first 5 chapters was discovered in 1900CE.
  • Eusebius listed it among the rejected writings.
  • Eusebius is the first to reference it directly by title: Teachings of the Apostles.
  • Athanasius of Alexandria (296CE-373CE) calls it useful but not canonical.