The Apostolic Age · AD 4–70

The Didachist (Author of the Didache)

treatise c. AD 50–70 (trad. dating) · Anonymous compiler · “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” · Syria or Palestine

The Apostolic Age

Who The Didachist (Author of the Didache) was

The unnamed compiler of the church’s earliest surviving manual: the Two Ways catechism, the baptismal and eucharistic prayers (“as this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and gathered together became one…”), the weekly fasts, and the tests for traveling apostles and prophets — “if he ask money, he is a false prophet.” The full title, “The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles,” claims apostolic doctrine, not apostolic penmanship. On the traditional early dating the community it orders is contemporary with the living apostles; its world of itinerant prophets and first-fruits offerings is the church of Acts seen from the pew.

Common questions

When did The Didachist live?

The Didachist (Author of the Didache) is dated treatise c. AD 50–70 (trad. dating) in the archive, which places The Didachist in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

What did The Didachist write?

The Didachist (Author of the Didache) has 1 catalogued writing in the archive: The Didache — The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.

Which early sources mention The Didachist?

The Didachist (Author of the Didache) is named in 3 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius of Alexandria. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was The Didachist from?

The archive associates The Didachist (Author of the Didache) with Syria or Palestine.

Writings (1)

The Didache — The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles

c. 50–70 (trad.)

There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.

Earliest witness · Codex Hierosolymitanus 54 (Bryennios codex) (AD 1056)

Read the interlinear source text →

Primary-source mentions (3)

Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Stromateis I.20 (the Teaching quoted as scripture)

c. AD 200

It is said therefore, 'My son, be not a liar; for falsehood leads to theft.'

Clement of Alexandria · Stromateis I.20 · source text

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III.25

c. AD 325

Among the spurious must be numbered… the so-called Teachings of the Apostles — known to most writers of the church, yet not canonical.

Eusebius of Caesarea · III.25 · source text

Festal Letter 39 (the Teaching among the books read to catechumens)

c. AD 367

Athanasius of Alexandria · Festal Letter 39 · source text

Names proposed by later tradition

A Syrian or Palestinian Jewish-Christian community

The consensus position (Audet; Niederwimmer; Milavec): a community rule compiled from apostolic-age tradition, most often located at Antioch or rural Syria.

An Egyptian redactor

The older view (Harnack located its use in Egypt, where Clement of Alexandria cites it as ‘scripture’).

Dependence on Matthew’s community

Massaux and others: the ‘gospel’ it cites reads closest to Matthew, placing the compiler in that orbit.