Commentaries on the Didache, emphasis JB's:

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 (ibid., 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 (The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings, p. 355):

"The Didache means by 'the gospel' (8.2; 11.3; 15.3, 4) the Gospel of Matthew; thus the Didache, which originated about 110 CE, documents the emerging authority of the one great Gospel."

Stevan Davies comments on the Didache (Jesus the Healer, p. 175):

"The Didache is a text that gives instruction on how a Christian community should treat itinerant Christian prophets. It was written sometime in the late first or early second century and gives good evidence for a structured church's shift in orientation away from spirit-possession.

The Didache is written from the view point of a community leadership that distrusts, and yet respects, Christian prophets, one that wishes the prophets to leave town as quickly as possible, yet would have them welcomed in town when they arrive. The Pastoral and Petrine epistles stem from a slightly later time, when authority in the Christian movement was based on the prerogatives of office rather than on prophetic powers."

Crossan observes the following on the text of the Didache (The Birth of Christianity, p. 364):

The scribe who copied those seven texts signed the last leaf as "Lean, notary and sinner," and dated that completion to June 11, 1056. . . The Didache, then, was a small text, fifth among others mostly larger than itself, lost in a small library in the Fener section of Istanbul, halfway up the west side of the Golden Horn. Now known as Codex Hierosolymitanus 54, that volume was removed to the Patriarchate at Jerusalem in 1887, where it remains.

Earlier Coptic and Ethiopic versions also exist for a few chapters of this text.
Especially important are two Greek fragments, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1782, dated to the "late fourth century" and published by Greenfell and Hunt in 1922 (12-15). These tiny scraps, about two inches by two inches apiece, contain verses 1:3c-4a and 2:7-3:2.

Despite small differences, the wording on those scraps is very close to Byrrenios's text.
That is very important confirmation for the basic accuracy of Codex Hierosolymitanus 54, given the gulf of centuries between it and the earlier fragments.

Burton Mack notes two interesting features of the text. One concerns alms, and the other concerns the Eucharist. Of the first, Mack writes (Who Wrote the New Testament?, p. 240):

There are several interesting features of this manual of instruction. One is an overriding concern with the practice of alms, gift giving, and the support of dependents, itinerant teachers, and others who may ask for a handout. Generosity was obviously thought to be a prime Christian virtue, but in practice one had to be careful, for others could easily take advantage of the Christian. This was especially the case with "false" prophets who showed up and wanted the congregation to feed them.

The instruction was not to "receive" any prophet who asked for food or money while speaking "in a spirit" (Did. 11:12), and not to allow any "true" prophet (who did not do that) to stay longer than two or three days unless he was willing to settle down, learn a craft, and "work for his bread" (Did. 12:2-5).

It is obvious that the Didache was written with resident congregations in mind and that their overseers and deacons had grown weary of the hype and hoopla characteristic of an earlier period of itinerant teachers and preachers. The pattern of congregational life over which they presided was sufficient. They had gotten together and agreed upon the practices, prayers, and rituals that defined the Christian way.

"We are sure that Didache 6:2-3 is of Christian and not Jewish origin. It is a precious document from the first years of Christianity. The passage fits the meagre and incomplete information about the tendencies and aims of the group in the Apostolic Church which Paul opposed, and thus it enlarges and supplements our knowledge about this trend which was once named the 'Petrine' fraction."
Flusser, D. : "Paul's Jewish Christian Opponents", in Draper, J. : Op.cit., p.210.

'Harnack argues that the Didache originated in a backward community in rural Egypt around 140-165 A.D., whereas Sabatier claims a mid first century redaction (or earlier), in Syria.9 Recently, Mack situated the text in Galilea, ca. 100 A.D.10 Hence, the precise date and place of origin of the original text remains a matter of debate, although a first century original is very likely.

The emphasis on charismatic leadership (prophecy), early baptisimal & eucharistic liturgies, the eschatological immediacy of the Parousia (or return) of Jesus Christ (founding spirito-communal life) & the strong Jewish influence all evidence that it was part of the earliest stage of the development of the myth of Christ, which apparently set in very rapidly after Jesus died (or left). The Jewish emphasis does suggest Galilea.'

I accept the "communis opinio" that the original text was written before 100 A.D. but certainly after the destruction of the second Temple and probably not before Q3 was added to Q (ca. 80 A.D.). This situates the original Didache ca. 80-100 A.D.

Its rediscovery has had a considerable influence, for the Didache is the first non-canonical text of early Christianity, probably contemporary of the narrative gospels. What is more, it seems to have been written, just as Q1, in Galilea. It predates the major works of the apostolic fathers and sheds light on the "christic" theology of Jewish Christians who at the close of the first century based their faith on the Parousia of Christ, the fact of prophecy, the Kingdom and on God.
('The DIDACHE or DUAE VIAE the handbook of instructions
of some early pneumatic Jewish Christians', Wim van den Dungen, 2001.

The Didache proves that Christian faith may exist without a paschal Jesus Christ, for only the Parousia of Christ suffices. Even a logoic Christology (Jesus the Christ as the Son of God) is not necessary, for Jesus is a mediator who serves the Holy Father and it is to God that all returns, not to Christ. Giving Jesus the title "Lord" does not justify the trinitarian identification of Jesus Christ with God (there is no Nicean trinitarian circularity here). During the eucharist, no mention is made of the paschal Jesus Christ, nor has his participation during thanksgiving to be understood as the mediation of the "logos" or "second God" (cf. Paul and Philo of Alexandria).

Thanksgiving is directed towards God, the Holy Father. It is His Name which the Didachist puts in the middle. The cup and the "broken bread" refer to Jesus Christ, the always awaited, who is scattered but who unites, for his return is imminent. He is always the mediator, never the principal subject.

'For them Jesus Christ was salvic when approached as a "child" or "servant" of the Holy Father, but not as God Himself.' But he does receive the title "Lord"
('The DIDACHE or DUAE VIAE the handbook of instructions
of some early pneumatic Jewish Christians', Wim van den Dungen, 2001.

"There is no doubt that the instruction to baptize in 'living water' in Didache 7:1 is archaic and goes back to the beginnings of the Christian mission. It has a Jewish background and was not unknown in the Greco-Roman world."
Rordorf, W. : "Baptism according to the Didache.", in : Draper, J.A. : Op.cit., p.218.

Crossan writes concerning the Coptic manuscript (ibid., p. 379):

A Coptic papyrus containing Didache 10:3b-12:2a, dated to the end of the fourth or start of the fifth century, was bought in 1923 for what was then the British Museum and catalogued as British Library Oriental Manuscript 9271. F. Stanley Jones and Paul A. Mirecki offer a photographic reproduction along with an excellent transcription, translation, and commentary on this document. They conclude that "this sheet was originally cut from a roll of papyrus in order to serve as a double-leaf in a codex," but instead it was used "as a space for scribal exercises" (87). It was, in other words, a rather casual copying of that section of the Didache for purposes of writing practice. Stephen Patterson, on the contrary, considers it the end of an earlier edition of the Didache, which concluded precisely at 12:2 (1995:319-324).

Jones and Mirecki argue against Patterson's view (The Didache in Context, pp. 82-83):

The assumption that the scribe's copy of the Didache actually ended with Did 12.2a, though such cannot be absolutely dismissed, is thus an unnecessary and excessive extrapolation. The following two points speak against this assumption:
1) There are no decorations which mark the end of the text.
2) The proposed elimination of all of the material after Did 12.2a is a rather radical solution to the open question of the disposition of the Didache. It does not really remove many "difficulties" in the logical flow of the text, and it hardly leaves an adequate ending for the writing.

To these points, Crossan adds the consideration that the reading of the Coptic text of 11:11 is likely to be secondary, while the Greek text is more difficult and earlier, and that this "would render doubtful Patterson's proposal that the Coptic fragment represented an earlier and shorter edition of the Didache" (ibid., p. 380).
Crossan comments on the provenance of the Didache (ibid., pp. 372-373):

. . . the Didache may derive from a rural rather than an urban situation. It may stem from the consensus of rural households rather than the authority of urban patrons. Willy Rordorf and Andre Tullier, writing in a major French series, located the Didache in northern Palestine or western Syria, but not in the capital city of Antioch. They noted that the text is addressed to "rural communities of converted pagans" (98). It "reveals a Christianity established in rural communities who have broken with the radicalism of earlier converts" (100). It "speaks principally to rural milieus converted early on in Syria and Palestine and no doubt furnishing the first Christian communities outside of cities" (128). Kurt Niederwimmer, however, writing in a major German series, considered it still possible that "the Didache could derive from an urban milieu," but he agreed that it was not from the great metropolis of Antioch (80). It is not enough, in any case, simply to note the mention of "firstfruits" in Didache 13:3-7, since that could indicate urban-based landowners. My own preference for a rural over an urban setting comes not from those few verses but from the Didache's rhetorical serenity, ungendered equality, and striking difference from so many other early Christian texts.

Robert A. Kraft says about the provenance of the Didache (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 2, p. 197): "That most commentators now seem to opt for Syria (Audet 1958; Hazelden Walker 1966; Rordorf and Tullier 1978) or Syro-Palestine (Niederwimmer 1977) as the place of origin is not in itself an indication that the supporting evidence is compelling; Egypt (Kraft 1965) and Asia Minor (Vokes 1970) also have their supporters."
On source criticism of the Didache, Kraft observes (ibid., p. 197):

There seems to be a general consensus that the 'two ways' material in chaps. 1-6 has a prehistory that connects with Jewish ethical concerns (see Harnack 1896) which probably took shape in both Greek and Semitic formulations. This helps to explain the similarities and differences between the two ways in Didache, Barnabas, Doctrina, and elsewhere (e.g., Goodspeed 1945; Rordorf 1972). To this basic substratum, the Didache form of the two ways has attracted addititional sections in 1:3b-2:1 (gospel sayings and related admonitions; see especially Latyon 1968; Mees 1971) and 3:1-6 (the 'fences' tradition).
Similarly, the apparent intrusion of such sections as 12:1-5 (compare 11:4-6) and 14:1-3 into the flow of the community instructions, and the evidences of developmental language even within the existing instructions (e.g., the concessions in 6:2 and 7:2-3, the change from itinerant to local ministry in 15:1-2) illustrate the evolving nature of this material even outside the two-ways section.

John S. Kloppenborg Verbin comments on the Didache (Excavating Q, pp. 134-135):

The Didache, an early second-century Christian composition, is also clearly composite, consisting of a "Two Ways" section (chaps. 1-6), a liturgical manual (7-10), instructions on the reception of traveling prophets (11-15), and a brief apocalypse (16). Marked divergences in style and content as well as the presence of doublets and obvious interpolations make plain the fact that the Didache was not cut from whole cloth. The dominant view today is that the document was composed on the basis of several independent, preredactional units which were assembled by either one or two redactors (Neiderwimmer 1989:64-70, ET 1998:42-52). Comparison of the "Two Ways" section with several other "Two Ways" documents suggests that Didache 1-6 is itself the result of multistage editing. The document began with rather haphazard organization (cf. Barnabas 18-20), but was reorganized in a source common to the Didache, the Doctrina apostolorum, and the Apostolic Church Order and supplemented by a sapiental meditation on minor and major transgressions (3.1-6) (Kloppenborg 1995c). In addition to this "Two Ways" section it is also possible to discern the presence of a mini-apocalypse related to someo f the materials that eventually found their way into Matthew 24-25 (Kloppenborg 1979).
The most obvious insertion in the Didache is a catena of sayings of Jesus (1.3-6) which interrupts the continuity between 1.1-2 and 2.2. The same hand that added 1.3b-6 (and the transitional phrase in 2.1) appears also to be responsible for a transition in 6.2-3 and for the introduction to the apocalypse (16.1-2), which like 1.3b-2.1 Christianizes the earlier document by affixing sayings designed to evoke the sayings of Jesus. It seems clear, then, that the composition history of the Didache involves at least two originally independent documents (Did. 1.1-2; 2.2-6.1; and Did. 16.3-8) which were combined with other materials by an editor into a church manual, and "Christianized" by the interpolation of sayings of Jesus.

A. D. Howell-Smith writes about the Didache (Jesus Not a Myth, p. 120):

The simple Christology of Acts confronts us again in the so-called Teaching of the Apostles, a composite work, of which the first six chapters seem to be a Christian redaction of a Jewish document entitled The Two Ways, while the rest is the work of several Christian writers, the earliest belonging to the first century and the latest perhaps to the fourth. The Jesus mentioned in this book's account of the celebration of the Eucharist is just the "Servant" (PaiV) of God, who has made known the "holy vine" of God's "Servant" David; nothing is said of the bread and wine being the body and blood of Jesus. The formula of baptism in the name of the Trinity, which is given in Chap. VII, must come from a later hand, though possibly earlier than Justin Martyr, who is familiar with it.

On the second, Mack continues (ibid., pp. 240-241):

The prayer of thanksgiving (eucharist) for the community meal in chapters 9 and 10 are also significant. That is because they do not contain any reference to the death of Jesus. Accustomed as we are to the memorial supper of the Christ cult and the stories of the last supper in the synoptic gospels, it has been very difficult to imagine early Christians taking meals together for any reason other than to celebrate the death of Jesus according to the Christ myth. But here in the Didache a very formalistic set of prayers is assigned to the cup and the breaking of bread without the slightest association with the death and resurrection of Jesus. The prayers of thanksgiving are for the food and drink God created for all people and the special, "spiritual" food and drink that Christians have because of Jesus. Drinking the cup symbolizes the knowledge these people have that they and Jesus are the "Holy Vine of David," which means that they "belong to Israel." Eating the bread symbolizes the knowledge these people have of the life and immortality they enjoy by belonging to the kingdom of God made known to them by Jesus, God's child. And it is serious business. No one is allowed to "eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who have been baptised in the Lord's name" (Did. 9:5). We thus have to imagine a highly self-conscious network of congregations that thought of themselves as Christians, had developed a full complement of rituals, had much in common with other Christian groups of centrist persuasions, but continued to cultivate their roots in a Jesus movement where enlightenment ethics made much more sense than the worship of Jesus as the crucified Christ and risen son of God.

Mack states on the provenance of the Didache (ibid., pp. 241-242): "It is not unthinkable that both the Didache and the Gospel of Matthew stem from the same or closely related communities, though at slightly different times in their histories. . . it would be easy to imagine a social location in some district of southern Syria or northern Palestine where a small group of congregations had formed."

Didache (~70 CE) The Didache ("The Teaching") is one of the most fascinating yet perplexing documents to emerge from the early church. The title (in ancient times "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles") was known from references to it by Athanasius, Didymus, and Eusebius, and Serapion of Thmuis (4th century) has a quotation from it in his Eucharistic prayer [Richardson] p. 163. But no copy was known until 1873, when Bryennios discovered the codex Hierosolymitanus, which contained the full text of the Didache which he published in 1883. Since then it has been the focus of scholarly attention to an extent quite out of proportion to its modest length. Yet such basic information as who wrote and where and when remain as much as mystery as when it was first discovered. The document is composed of two parts: (1) instruction about the "Two Ways", and (2) a manual of church order and practice. The "Two Ways" material appears to have been intended as a summary of basic instruction about the Christian life to be taught to those who were preparing for baptism and church membership. In its present form it represents the Christianization of a common Jewish form of moral instruction. Similar material is found in a number of other Christian writings from the 1st to the 5th centuries, e.g. the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didascalia, the Apostolic Church Ordinances, the Summary of Doctrine, the Apostolic Constitutions, the Life of Schnudi, and On the Teaching of the Apostles (or Doctrina), some of which are dependent on the Didache. The interrelationships between these documents has not been completely worked out. The second part consists of instructions about food, baptism, fasting, prayer, the Eucharist, and various offices and positions of leadership. In addition to providing the earliest evidence of a mode of baptism other than immersion, it records the oldest known Christian Eucharist prayers and a form of the Lord's Prayer quite similar to that found in the Gospel according to Matthew. The document closes with a brief apocalyptic section that has much in common with the so-called Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark 13; Matthew 24-25; Luke 24). Dating the Didache is difficult because there is a lack of hard evidence and it is a composite document. It may have been put into its present form as late as 150 CE, though a date considerably closer to the end of the 1st century seems more probable. The materials from which it was composed, however, reflect the state of the church at an even earlier time. A very thorough commentary, [Audet], suggests about 70 CE and he is not likely to be off by more than a decade. Egypt or Syria are mentioned most often as possible places of origin, but the evidence is indirect and circumstantial. The reference to "mountains" (9.4) would appear to suggest a Syrian (or Palestinian) provenance. The final editing, however, may have occurred elsewhere. The English translation in [LHH] pp. 149-158 is taken from these witnesses: codex Hierosolymitanus 1056 CE (Greek) complete translation, 5th century MS (Coptic) 10.3b-12.2a a papyrus fragment of 9.1-6 (Georgian) complete translation, 3rd century? MS (Latin) Two Ways

Pages created by Glenn Davis, 1997-2001.

Henry Wace.
We now come to coincidences with the Didaché in works which do not mention it by name. Far the most important of these are found in the Ep. of Barnabas, in which, after the conclusion of the doctrinal teaching, the writer proposes to pass to another doctrine and discipline (gnwsin kai didachn), and adds an appendix of moral instructions. This appendix agrees so completely in substance with the section on the Two Ways that a literary connexion between the two documents is indisputable. But there is great diversity of detail. The precepts in Barnabas are without any orderly arrangement, while the Didaché contains a systematic comment on the second table of the Decalogue. Bryennius differs from later critics and some earlier ones who consider it probable that Barnabas was the borrower. The whole character of the Didaché makes it unlikely that its author collected the precepts scattered in Barnabas's appendix, digested them into systematic order, and made a number of harmonious additions; while if in what Barnabas says about the "Two Ways" he is but reproducing an older document, his unsystematic way of quoting its precepts, just as they came to mind, is quite like his mode of dealing with O.T. We have still to inquire whether Barnabas borrowed from the Didaché or from a common source. Now a study of the Didaché, as compared with Jewish literature, shews very clearly its origin among men with Jewish training, and the work from which both borrowed may have been not only Jewish but pre-Christian. For Barnabas's letter is of so early a date that, if we suppose him to have copied an earlier Christian document, we bring that document into the apostolic age, which would give it all the authority that has been claimed for it. We must, then, in comparing Barnabas with the Didaché, distinguish carefully the specially Christian element from those parts which might have been written by a Jew unacquainted with Christianity. If Barnabas copied the Didaché, he would have naturally included the Christian element. If Barnabas and the Didaché independently copied an originally Jewish document, the Christian elements they might add would not be likely to be the same. In the section in Barnabas we are struck by the extreme meagreness of the Christian element. There is no mention of our Lord, scarcely any coincidence with N.T. language, very little that might not have been written by a Jew before our Lord's coming. In the Didaché coincidences with N.T. are extremely numerous, end it begins with a whole section embodying precepts from the Sermon on the Mount. This section is entirely absent from Barnabas. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that Barnabas did not know the Didaché in Bryennius's form. He has elsewhere coincidences with N.T., and had no motive for avoiding them. If a book before him contained a number of N.T. precepts he would never have studiously avoided these in using the work, nor have forgotten them even if he wrote from memory. The coincidences between the two works, therefore, must be explained by the use of a common document.

This conclusion is confirmed on taking into the comparison also the Latin "Two Ways," and the Egyptian Church Ordinances, both of which, like Barnabas, do not recognize the Didaché section founded on the Sermon on the Mount. Neither is this section recognized in Pseudo-Athanasius. The Church Ordinances exhibit signs of acquaintance with Barnabas; the Latin form does not. In the order of the precepts the Ordinances and the Latin both agree with the Didaché against Barnabas. The Ordinances differ from the Latin by excess, but scarcely at all otherwise. The same reasons that forbid us to think that Barnabas, if he had known the Didaché, would have left out its Christian element, prove the Ordinances and the Latin likewise independent of the Didaché. The phenomena are explained if we assume an original document in substantial agreement with the Latin, enlarged in the Didaché by additions from N.T., and afterwards independently enlarged by the framer of the Church Ordinances, who broke it up into sections supposed to be spoken by different apostles; while Barnabas worked up in his own way the materials he drew from the document. We cannot say positively whether this original proceeded beyond the "Two Ways." The Latin fragment breaks off too soon to give any information as to the length of the original: the Church Ordinances cease to present coincidences with the Didaché after the section on the "Two Ways"; but this may be because the directions for ritual and discipline had become out of date when the Ordinances were put together, the editor therefore designedly substituting what better agreed with the practice of his own age. The quotation by Pseudo-Cyprian leads us to think that the Latin Doctrina Apostolorum did go beyond the "Two Ways." No great weight can be attached to the length ascribed to the Didaché in the Stichometry, but this rather favours the idea that the document intended was longer than the "Two Ways," but shorter than the Didaché of Bryennius.

It remains to be mentioned that there is a coincidence between Barnabas and the Didaché outside the "Two Ways." The opening of the Ep. of Barnabas and the last or eschatological chapter of the Didaché both contain the warning that the disciples' faith would not profit them unless they remained stedfast in the last times. There is a good deal of difference in the wording of the warning, but not more than is usual in quotations by Barnabas. The supposition that Barnabas was acquainted with Bryennius's form of the Didaché has already been excluded; therefore either (1) the earlier form which Barnabas did use included an eschatological chapter containing this warning, or (2) the editor who changed the earlier form into that of Bryennius was acquainted with the Ep. of Barnabas. We prefer (2), on account of the reasons we shall presently give for thinking the document used by Barnabas to have been pre-Christian. If the editor of Bryennius's form knew Hermas, he might also have known Barnabas, with whom he has a second coincidence in a passage about almsgiving, which, as implying a knowledge of Acts and Romans, Barnabas was not likely to have found in his original. Possibly there is a third coincidence; for a plausible explanation of the difficult word ekpetasiV in c. xvi. is that it means the sign of the cross, being derived from Barnabas's interpretation of ezepetasain Is. lxv. 2.
Hermas also presents coincidences with the Didaché, but it is not easy to say that there is literary obligation on either side, except in one case, viz. a coincidence between the second "commandment" of Hermas and the "Sermon on the Mount" section, which we have already seen reason to think belongs to a later form of the Didaché. In this case the original seems clearly that of Hermas. His instructions as to almsgiving are perfectly clear. The corresponding passage in the Didaché has many coincidences of language, but expresses the thought so awkwardly as to be scarce intelligible without the commentary of Hermas. It begins, "Blessed is he that giveth according to the commandment, for he is blameless: woe to him that receiveth." The words "for he is blameless," as they stand, are puzzling; for we should expect the "for" to introduce something stronger than merely an acquittal of blame. By comparison with Hermas we see that the case contemplated is that of giving to an undeserving person. Then the receiver deserves the woe; the giver obtains an acquittal. We conclude, then, without disputing the greater antiquity of the original Didaché, that the interpolator who brought the work to the form published by Bryennius was later than Hermas, and drew from him.

Clement of Alexandria was certainly acquainted with the Didaché in some form. He expressly quotes one sentence as Scripture (Strom. i. 20, p. 377), "My son, be not a liar, for lying leads to theft." This saying is not quoted by Barnabas; but the Church Ordinances attest that it belongs to the earlier form of the Didaché. Even the later form of the Didaché may well be considerably older than Clement; and he might easily have met with a copy during his travels in the East. He uses (Quis Dives Salv. 20) the phrase "vine of David," found in one of the benedictory prayers of the Didaché. He shews a knowledge (Strom. vii. 7, p. 854) of the Wednesday and Friday fasts (c. 12, p. 877), but does not seem to attribute to these institutions the authority which belongs to the name Scripture bestowed by him on the Didaché.
Origen was later than Clement and must have been well acquainted with the literature current in Egypt and Palestine; so that we might naturally expect him to be familiar with the Didaché. Yet no satisfactory proof of his knowledge of it has been produced.

Place of Composition.--The Church Ordinances, at the basis of which lies the Didaché in some form, are with good reason regarded as of Egyptian origin; Clement, one of the earliest to quote the Didaché, wrote in Egypt, and so very possibly did Barnabas. Hence, it was natural to think that the Didaché also is of Egyptian origin. But attention was called to the petition in the prayer of benediction of the bread, that as it had been scattered on the mountains, and collected together had become one, so the church might be collected together from the ends of the earth into the Lord's kingdom; and it was pointed out the words "on the mountains" could not have been written in Egypt; and, moreover, the proper inference from the use made of the Didaché in the Church Ordinances is that when the latter work was put together, the former was almost unknown in Egypt. There is nothing to contradict the inference suggested by the intensely Jewish character of the book, that it emanated from Christian Jews who, after the destruction of Jerusalem, had their chief settlements E. of Jordan.

Time of Composition.--The theory set forth is that the original, alike of Barnabas and of all the forms of the Didaché, was a Jewish manual for the instruction of proselytes. If Palestinian Christians had habitually used such a manual while still Jews, it would be natural for them to employ it, improved by the addition of some Christian elements, in the moral instruction of converts before admission into the church. The document, being a formula in constant practical use, would be added to and modified; and we seem to be able to trace three stages in its growth.

(1) Barnabas represents for us the original Jewish manual; probably quoting, not from any written document, but from his recollection of the instruction he had himself received or had been given to others. Barnabas's quotations do not proceed beyond the section on the "Two Ways," corresponding to cc. i.-iv. of the Didaché.

(2) In the Church Ordinances and in the Latin Doctrina we have the manual as it was modified for use in a Christian community. The Latin book may have been the first publication of this catechetical manual of Palestinian Christians, brought to the West by one himself instructed in it. It was probably called the Teaching of the Apostles, because the authorized formulary of a church founded by apostles and claiming to derive its institutions from them. We are without evidence whether this manual contained more than the "Two Ways," though it probably did. The only clue to the date of this publication is that the Church Ordinances contain that precept about almsgiving which we have already noted as the solitary instance of use of the N.T. in this section of Barnabas. Reasons have been already given for thinking that Barnabas was not here employing a Christian document, and we find it hard to believe that the phrases in which coincidences occur are older than N.T., so we seem forced to conclude that the first editors of the Teaching of the Apostles knew Barnabas. This would not be inconsistent with a date before the end of 1st cent.

(3) In the Didaché published by Bryennius we have the manual enlarged by further Christian additions; the precepts in the original manual being expanded, others added from N.T., and also some wholly new sections. Yet the whole character of the Didaché, and in particular the lively expectation of our Lord's Second Coming in c. xvi., disposes us to give it in its present form as early a date as we can; and since we place Hermas at the beginning of 2nd cent., we have no difficulty in dating the Didache as early as A.D. 120.

Literature.--The publication of the Didaché by Bryennius produced an enormous crop of literature. The lists in Schaff's and in Harnack's editions may be supplemented by an article of Harnack's Theol. Literaturz. 1886, p. 271. Here we only mention, of editions, those by De Romestan (1884), Spence (1885), Schaff (1885 and 1886), Sabatier (1885), Hilgenfeld in a 2nd ed. of pt. iv. of his Nov. Test. ext. Can. (1884), and by Gebhardt and Harnack, Texte und Untersuchungen, vol. ii. (1884). Bp. Lightfoot's paper at the Church Congress of 1884, pub. in the Expositor, Jan. 1885; Zahn's discussions in his Forschungen, pt. iii. p. 278 (1884), and Taylor's Lectures at the Royal Institution, 1885, in which the Didaché is illustrated from Jewish literature. A new ed. with a fascimile (autotype) text and a commentary from the MS. of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, ed. by J. R. Harris, is pub. by Camb. Univ. Press, as is also an Eng. trans. from the Syriac by Dr. Margaret Gibson; while S.P.C.K. pub. an Eng. trans. with intro. and notes by Dr. C. Bigg. See also Bigg's Notes on the Didaché in Journ. of Theol. Stud., July 1904.
[G.S.]