Primary source · Koine Greek
The Didache — Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
Anonymous compiler (the Didachist) · c. AD 50–70 (traditional dating)
What this text is
The earliest surviving manual of church order: the Two Ways, the forms for baptism and eucharist, the weekly fasts, and the tests for wandering apostles and prophets. Lost until Bryennios recovered the sole complete Greek copy in 1873.
Profile of The Didachist (Author of the Didache) →
Interlinear passages
Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.
Public-domain translations
Roberts–Donaldson (ANF, 1886)
There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways. …As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, and gathered together became one, so let thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.
J. B. Lightfoot (1891)
There are two Ways, one of Life and one of Death; and great is the difference between the two Ways. …As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and being gathered together became one, so may thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.
Manuscript witnesses
Codex Hierosolymitanus 54 (Bryennios codex)
AD 1056The Jerusalem-Patriarchate codex in which Metropolitan Philotheos Bryennios rediscovered the Didache in 1873 — also carrying 1–2 Clement and Barnabas.
P.Oxy. XV 1782
4th c.Two tiny parchment leaves of the Two Ways section — the only ancient Greek witness.
Bryennios editio princeps (Constantinople)
1883The publication that returned the Teaching to the world.
Provenance
Syria-Palestine; lost for a millennium, recovered at Constantinople in 1873
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- La Doctrine des douze apôtres (SC 248)W. Rordorf & A. Tuilier, 1978The critical edition with French translation.
- The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English TranslationsMichael W. Holmes, 3rd ed. 2007The standard faithful text-and-translation.