THE DIDACHE

OR

THE TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES TRANSLATED WITH NOTES

BY

G. C. ALLEN, M.A.

THE ASTOLAT PRESS

34 GREAT CASTLE ST.

LONDON W.

MDCCCCIII

SOCIIS • ALVMNIS • CRANLEIENSIBVS

DOCTRINAE • CULTU

MECVM • LABORANTIBUS

PASTOR • SERVVS • MAGISTER

MVLTVS • IN • AMORE

DEDICAT

MCMIII

“Ἐάν τις θέλῃ τὸ θήλημα αὐτοῦ ποιεῖν γνώσεται περὶ τῆς διδαχῆς.”—John 7:17.

PREFACE

AMONG the many editions of the Didache and commentaries thereon which have been issued since it was first brought to light some twenty years ago by Archbishop Bryennios, there yet seems room for one which, without competing either in learning or research with its great predecessors, may possibly fill a gap which they have left open. The present edition is simply an attempt to bring to the notice of those who have little opportunity for the study of Patristic literature, one of the most interesting and illuminating discoveries ever made in Patristic history. The “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” is a brief work, not longer than the Epistle to the Galatians; but its suggestiveness is great and varied. I have added only such notes and illustrations as seemed best fitted to show its relation to the Teaching of the New Testament and the beliefs and practices of the Early Christian Church. Yet even these have extended themselves more than I had contemplated, though I have had to leave unsaid much that one was tempted to insert. The comments and dissertations of Bryennios, Harnack, Schaff, Taylor, Heron, and Bishop Lightfoot’s articles in the Expositor and elsewhere, form a mass of reading from which selection is not an easy task. By limiting the range of its purpose, however, it has been possible to keep the book within bounds, and I have to acknowledge with gratitude the charm and interest that I have found in the study of these authorities. It will be seen, I think, that I have not adopted their conclusions hastily or wholesale. But where I have ventured to differ from them it has been with diffidence, and with a full sense of the responsibility of so doing.

It remains to be said that the translation of the text was completed before I had seen Dr. Taylor’s admirable version. It was taken up as an amusement for the leisure hours of vacation, and it is a satisfaction to find, on comparing the two, that I have differed from him in no important particular. One may confess, however, to being haunted by the refrain of such “Sortes Vergilianæ” as “sequitur patrem non passibus æquis,” and “infelix puer atque impar congressus Achilli.”

G. C. A.

Master’s Lodge,

Cranleigh School.

INTRODUCTION

I

The Discovery of the Didache

IN the year 1873, Philotheos Bryennios, Archbishop of Nicomedia, found among the MSS. in the Jerusalem monastery of the Holy Sepulchre at Constantinople, a small, thick volume, covered with black leather, containing 120 leaves of vellum closely covered with Greek manuscript. The contents appeared to be all written by the same hand, and he was delighted to find, at ...