Didache
Home > Apocrypha > Didache Didache At a Glance Apocryphon Genre: (1/5) * Reliability of Dating: (2/5) ** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: English Estimated Range of Dating: 50-120 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Roberts-Donaldson English Translation English Translation by J.B. Lightfoot English Translation by Charles H. Hoole English Translation by Kirsopp Lake Resources Roberts-Donaldson Introduction Wace Introduction Handbook of Patrology: The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles The Ecole Glossary Introduction: Didache Catholic Encyclopedia: Didache Offsite Links English Translation by Ivan Lewis English Translation by Herbert W.
Armstrong Translation with comments by Ben H. Swett Didache - Greek The Didache or Duae Viae The Didache with Commentary Geoff Trowbridge's Introduction Glenn Davis: Didache The Reluctant Messenger: The Didache Books Kurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, translated by Linda M. Maloney, The Didache : A Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998). Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on Didache Jonathan Draper writes (Gospel Perspectives, v. 5, p. 269): Since it was discovered in a monastery in Constantinople and published by P. Bryennios in 1883, the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles has continued to be one of the most disputed of early Christian texts.
It has been depicted by scholars as anything between the original of the Apostolic Decree (c. 50 AD) and a late archaising fiction of the early third century. It bears no date itself, nor does it make reference to any datable external event, yet the picture of the Church which it presents could only be described as primitive, reaching back to the very earliest stages of the Church's order and practice in a way which largely agrees with the picture presented by the NT, while at the same time posing questions for many traditional interpretations of this first period of the Church's life. Fragments of the Didache were found at Oxyrhyncus (P. Oxy 1782) from the fourth century and in coptic translation (P.
Lond. Or. 9271) from 3/4th century. Traces of the use of this text, and the high regard it enjoyed, are widespread in the literature of the second and third centuries especially in Syria and Egypt. It was used by the compilator of the Didascalia (C 2/3rd) and the Liber Graduun (C 3/4th), as well as being absorbed in toto by the Apostolic Constitutions (C c. 3/4th, abbreviated as Ca) and partially by various Egyptian and Ethiopian Church Orders, after which it ceased to circulate independently. Athanasius describes it as 'appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of goodness' [Festal Letter 39:7]. Hence a date for the Didache in its present form later than the second century must be considered unlikely, and a date before the end of the first century probable.
Draper states in a footnote (op. cit., p. 284), "A new consensus is emerging for a date c. 100 AD." Stephen J. Patterson comments on the dating of the Didache (The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, p. 173): "Of course today, when the similarities between the Didache and Barnabas, or the Shepherd of Hermas, are no longer taken as proof that the Didache is literarily dependent upon these documents, the trend is to date the Didache much earlier, at least by the end of the first century or the beginning of the second, and in the case of Jean-P. Audet, as early as 50-70 C.E." Udo Schnelle makes the following remark about the Didache (The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings, p.