The Didache

The Didache, pronounced did-uh-kee, was originally in Greek but later translated by Roswell d. Hitchcock in 1884. The word didache comes from the Greek word related to doctrine, didactic, teaching, etc. It was discovered in a monastery in Constantinople.

It is a non-canonical book, which is from my understanding a divisional line drawn by the original church councils when deciding which writings would from the Bible. As such, it is a writing that obviously did not make it into the Bible.

The Didache is considered a writing on the teaching of the Lord to the nations through the twelve apostles. Since it is a non-canonical writing, it is not authoritative such as the Gospel, but I really enjoyed reading it. I will note that in my quick research of the text, the Catholic Church placed the text as a part of Apostolic Fathers along with the Martyrdom of Polycarp, which is another text I read today.

The Didache opens with the two ways of living, life and dead. Within this section, it talks the of the life through Christ as well as summarizing the acts of those that live in death outside of Christ. Through these sections, I see many agreements to the gospel and writings of the apostles. The next section is where it loses the parallel.

In talking about baptism, the text goes as far to describe how to baptism (temperature of water, what to do when there is no running water, timing, fasting requirement surrounding baptism, as well as the number of times to say the Lord's prayer. Legalist! It makes sense why the Catholic church held on to the writing, eh? The only thing I can see that would be missing is a diagram describing the appropriate stand-sit-kneel choreography that I remember from my days of attending the episcopal church in my youth.

The Diache ends with discussion of what I would call the "end of times".

Overall, a good text to read, but clearly not an authoritative literature. This is just opinion, but I imagine that texts were written like this that have what to pray, when to pray, how to pray, etc in order to provide help to the uneducated. Our generations are all educated to an extent. As such, maybe that is how all the rules on how to do things came across? Just a thought. Kind of like how the Greek gods were formed. Science was primitive, so if the wind blows, there must be a wind god. If the sea produces great harvest, it must clearly be the work of the seas god.

In Christ,

MOC