Date: 2026-08-15T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Apologetics

The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Didache)

Modern English Translation

Anonymous

Royal Archives

2026

Copyright

The modern English translation and the cover design are © 2026 Royal Archives. All rights reserved.

The underlying source text is in the public domain.

Published by Royal Archives

First published 2026

Translated by Royal Archives

Source: Διδαχὴ τῶν Δώδεκα Ἀποστόλων

Translated from the manuscript text of Codex Hierosolymitanus 54 (H), Patriarchal Library of Jerusalem, copied 1056.

Cover: The Pentecost by Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664), Wikimedia Commons (Museo de Cádiz), which is in the public domain.

Edition identifier: urn:royalarchives:didache:en:1

Introduction

The Author

The Didache has no author, and it never pretended to have one. Its full title in the single manuscript that preserves it complete runs The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles through the Twelve Apostles, and the shorter heading by which it is universally known — The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles — is a claim about lineage rather than about a pen. No one supposed that Peter, John, and their companions sat down together to compose these pages. The “Twelve Apostles” of the title are named the way a river is named for its distant spring: the little book means to say that what it hands on is nothing other than the tradition the apostles received and passed forward, the settled practice of the first Christian generations. It speaks throughout in an unhurried corporate voice—“my child,” “you shall,” “concerning baptism, baptize thus”—the voice of a community instructing its own, not of a personality pressing a case.

That anonymity is worth dwelling on rather than apologizing for. The Didache is a manual meant to be used and obeyed, and its authority rests on the tradition it transmits, not on a signature. Where it can be placed in time and space is a matter of reasoned inference from its contents. Most scholars assign it to the late first or early second century, and some judge its ethical core older still; its world of travelling apostles, live prophecy, and a community still measuring itself against Jewish neighbours points to the earliest decades of the sub-apostolic Church, most plausibly in Syria, though Egypt has its advocates. What the text yields with far more certainty than a date is a portrait of a congregation: small, probably semi-rural, close enough to its Jewish matrix to define its own fast days against “the hypocrites,” and near enough to the living memory of the apostles that wandering charismatic teachers still passed through its doors and had to be received, tested, and—sometimes—shown the road.

The Work: Occasion & Purpose

The Didache belongs to a genre it very nearly invented: the church order, a practical rulebook for the common life of a Christian congregation. It is not a treatise, a letter, or an apology. It argues nothing and defends nothing. It answers questions of the most concrete kind. How shall we prepare a convert for baptism? In what water, and what if there is not enough of it? On which days do we fast, and how do we pray? What words do we say over the cup and the bread? When a stranger arrives claiming to be a prophet, how long may he stay, and how do we tell a true one from a peddler? Whom do we appoint to lead us once the apostles and prophets have moved on?

Behind these questions stands a community in transition, and this is the occasion the book quietly addresses. The first Christian generation had been served by mobile, Spirit-driven ministers—apostles, prophets, teachers who came and went. That arrangement was already straining. It could be abused by frauds who traded on hospitality, and it could not by itself sustain the ordered week-by-week life of a settled congregation. The Didache meets the strain from both sides. It lays down blunt tests to protect the community from the false prophet (“if he stays three days, he is a false prophet”; “if he asks for money, he is a false prophet”), and in the same breath it provides for the future by directing the congregation to elect its own resident bishops and deacons, “for they too minister to you the ministry of the prophets and teachers.” The purpose of the whole is therefore twofold and inseparable: to hand on “the way” to those entering it, and to give a young Church the durable shape it would need to keep walking that way after the founding generation had gone, and until the day of the Lord for which the final chapter tells it to watch.

Argument & Structure

The book moves in four unequal stages, and the seams between them are clearly felt.

The first and longest stage (chapters 1–6) is a moral catechesis organized around a single ancient image: There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways. The Way of Life is built on the double commandment—love of the God who made you, love of neighbour as yourself—with the Golden Rule attached in its negative form, and it unfolds into a stream of concrete instruction: bless those who curse you, give to whoever asks, flee anger before it becomes murder and lust before it becomes adultery, honour those who teach you the word, share everything with your brother, confess your faults in the assembly. The Way of Death (chapter 5) needs no such elaboration; it is a stark catalogue of the vices and the men to be shunned. A brief transitional chapter (6) warns against being led astray, counsels the convert to bear as much of “the whole yoke of the Lord” as he can, and cautions against food offered to idols. This entire section reads as pre-baptismal instruction—the moral floor a catechumen must stand on before he comes to the water.

The second stage (chapters 7–10) turns from ethics to worship, and reads almost as a small liturgical handbook. Baptism comes first: in “living” (running) water by preference, in other water if need be, cold or warm—and, where immersion is impossible, by pouring water three times on the head, with a fast beforehand for both the baptizer and the baptized. Then fasting and prayer: Christians are to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays rather than the Mondays and Thursdays of “the hypocrites,” and to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day, in a form close to Matthew’s and sealed with the doxology for yours is the power and the glory forever. There follow the thanksgivings of the Eucharist—a prayer over the cup, then over the broken bread, with the luminous image of the loaf once “scattered over the mountains” and now gathered into one as a figure of the Church gathered from the ends of the earth into the Kingdom—and a longer thanksgiving after the meal, closing on the Aramaic cry Maranatha, “Our Lord, come.”

The third stage (chapters 11–15) governs church order and the reception of ministers. Here the community is taught discernment: welcome the true apostle and prophet as the Lord himself, but measure every one of them by conduct rather than by eloquence, “for by their ways the false prophet and the prophet will be known.” Travellers passing through are to be helped but not indulged; a prophet who settles is owed his support, the firstfruits of press and threshing-floor, “for they are your high priests.” On the Lord’s Day the congregation gathers to break bread and give thanks, having first confessed and been reconciled, “so that your sacrifice may be pure.” And, decisively, the community is to ordain for itself bishops and deacons, gentle men, free from the love of money, tried and true.

The fourth stage is a single closing chapter (16), an abrupt turn to the last things. Watch, keep your lamps lit, gather often, for you do not know the hour. In the last days false prophets will multiply, love will curdle into hatred, and a “deceiver of the world” will appear as a son of God and work signs and wonders. Then come the signs of truth—an opening in heaven, a trumpet, the resurrection of the dead—and the Lord “coming upon the clouds of heaven.” The manuscript breaks off here, mid-flight; the sentence that should describe the Lord’s coming in judgement is simply not there, and the Didache ends, as it began, without ceremony.

Theological & Spiritual Significance

The importance of the Didache is out of all proportion to its length, and it lies less in what it argues than in what it lets us see. It is the earliest surviving Christian church order, and through it we look directly into the ordinary Sunday life of a congregation of the sub-apostolic age—a vantage no theological treatise of the period can offer.

Several of its glimpses are the earliest we possess. It gives the oldest witness outside the New Testament to the Lord’s Prayer as a fixed, thrice-daily text, and the earliest attestation of the doxology that most Christians still append to it. It is the earliest source to permit baptism by pouring—affusion—when running water for immersion is not to be had, a concession that would echo through the whole later history of the rite. Its two Eucharistic prayers are among the oldest liturgical texts in existence, and they preserve features that later use would smooth away, including the order of cup before bread and the reservation of the table to the baptized alone: Let no one eat or drink from your Eucharist except those baptized in the name of the Lord. And in its regulations for ministry we catch the Church in the act of a great transition—from the mobile, charismatic authority of apostle and prophet to the stable, elected, local authority of bishop and deacon—captured not as theory but as it was actually being negotiated week to week.

There is a further significance in the shape of its teaching. The Two Ways with which the book opens was not a Christian invention but an inheritance: the image of two paths set before a person, one of life and one of death, runs deep in the moral literature of Judaism, and the Didache takes it up, fills it with the sayings of the Lord, and turns it to the work of making disciples. In doing so it shows us how the earliest Church catechized—how it drew the language of its ethics from the soil of Israel while re-centering everything on Christ—and it preserves that pedagogy in the form it actually took at the font, before it hardened into system.

Because the Didache is older than every division that would later split the Christian family, it belongs to all of it. It is a pre-schism document in the strict sense: a shared inheritance of East and West and of every communion that traces itself to the apostolic age, and it is best read that way. Its testimony to baptism, to a Eucharist understood as sacrifice and thanksgiving, to fixed days of fasting and hours of prayer, and to an ordered ministry is genuine and important, and it can be reported without being conscripted. The little book was written to form disciples, not to settle the arguments of later centuries, and it forms them still: in its patient ethics, its insistence that faith be “made perfect in the last time,” its refusal to separate right worship from right conduct, and its steady orientation toward the coming of the Lord.

Reception & Influence

The Didache was known and used long before it was lost. Its opening section, the Two Ways, circulates in close and sometimes verbatim parallel with the Epistle of Barnabas, and the exact relationship between the two—whether one borrowed from the other or both drew on a common source in Jewish moral teaching—remains an open and much-debated question. Its material was taken up and expanded in the seventh book of the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, which paraphrases it at length, and echoes of it have been heard in Clement of Alexandria and others.

Its standing in the early Church was real but carefully qualified. Eusebius of Caesarea, drawing up his lists in the Ecclesiastical History, placed “the so-called Teachings of the Apostles” among the notha — the spurious writings that stood outside the New Testament canon. Two generations later Athanasius of Alexandria, in his famous Festal Letter of 367 that fixed the canon of Scripture, assigned it to a gentler middle category: not canonical, yet “appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us and wish for instruction in the word of godliness.” That single sentence tells us how the Didache was used for centuries—as a manual for catechumens, a first book for those coming to the faith—which is very nearly what it had been written to be.

Then it vanished. In the Greek East it faded from view, and in the Latin West it survived only as fragments and quotations and a partial old translation; for the better part of a millennium the complete text was simply not to be had. Its recovery is one of the great finds of modern patristic scholarship. In 1873, Philotheos Bryennios, a Greek Orthodox metropolitan, was examining a manuscript in the library of the Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople—a codex copied in 1056 by a scribe who signs himself “Leon, notary and sinner,” containing the Epistles of Barnabas and Clement and the letters of Ignatius. Bryennios had already published the Clementine epistles from it before he returned to the volume and recognized, tucked among these treasures, the long-lost Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. He brought out the first edition in 1883, and the book that had trained the earliest Christians re-entered the life of the Church it once served.

The Text & This Edition

This edition presents a fresh modern English translation of the Didache, made directly from the Greek. Its base text is the Greek of the sole complete witness, the Codex Hierosolymitanus 54 (designated “H”), the manuscript copied in 1056 and now held in the library of the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem—the very codex Bryennios identified in 1873. Where H stands alone it is decisive, but it does not stand entirely alone: a Latin version of the Two Ways (the Doctrina Apostolorum), a small Greek papyrus fragment from Oxyrhynchus, and Coptic and Ethiopic witnesses supply independent checks on portions of the text, and the reading here has been weighed against them where they bear on the sense.

The translation is offered as an English work in its own right—not a reprint of an older version, and not a parallel or bilingual edition setting English against the Greek. It aims to render the Didache in clear, dignified contemporary English while keeping the plainness and the odd, memorable turns of the original: the drumbeat of “my child,” the enigmatic instruction about the prophet who acts “for a worldly mystery of the Church” (a genuinely obscure Greek phrase, preserved here rather than smoothed over), the untranslated Aramaic Maranatha left to stand as the first Christians left it.

A few of the house conventions of this series shape the edition. Attribution follows the text as the Church has received it: the work is anonymous, and it is presented so, with the honorific title intact and no invented author supplied. Those who have carried it into English are credited as translators, never as authors. Chapter numbers and scriptural references are given in the Arabic-numeral style familiar to modern readers rather than in Roman numerals. The result is meant to let a very old and very practical book be read straight through, as it was first meant to be—a teaching handed down, to be learned and lived.

Suggestions for Reading

A newcomer will find the Didache short enough to read at a sitting, and it rewards being read that way, whole and in order. Begin with the Two Ways (chapters 1–6) as the moral groundwork it was meant to be, and let its concrete commands land as instruction rather than argument. Then read the liturgical chapters (7–10) slowly, listening for how much of later Christian worship is already present in seed—the baptismal formula, the fixed hours of prayer, the thanksgiving over bread and cup. The chapters on ministry (11–15) come alive once one pictures the actual problem behind them: a stranger at the door, claiming the Spirit. And the closing chapter (16) is best heard as the note the whole book has been sounding all along—that the Christian life is lived facing forward, toward the coming of the Lord.

The Two Ways: Life and Death

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

2 Now the way of life is this: first, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbour as yourself; and whatever you do not want to happen to you, do not do to another.

3 Now the teaching of these words is this: Bless those who curse you and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you; for what grace is it if you love those who love you? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? But you, love those who hate you, and you will have no enemy.

4 Abstain from carnal and bodily desires. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also, and you will be perfect; if someone compels you to go one mile, go with him two; if someone takes your cloak, give him your tunic also; if someone takes what is yours, do not ask for it back; for you cannot.

5 Give to everyone who asks you, and do not ask for it back; for the Father wishes to give to all from his own spiritual gifts. Blessed is the one who gives according to the commandment; for he is innocent. Woe to the one who receives; for if someone receives because he has need, he will be innocent; but the one who has no need will give account for why he received and for what purpose; and when he is imprisoned he will be examined concerning what he has done, and he will not come out from there until he pays back the last penny.

6 But concerning this also it has been said: Let your alms sweat in your hands until you know to whom you should give.

The Second Commandment of the Teaching

1 And the second commandment of the teaching is this:

2 You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not corrupt children, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not use sorcery, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one who has been born, you shall not desire the things of your neighbor.

3 You shall not swear falsely, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall not hold a grudge.

4 You shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued, for double-tonguedness is a snare of death.

5 Your word shall not be false or empty, but fulfilled by action.

6 You shall not be greedy or rapacious or a hypocrite or malicious or arrogant. You shall not devise an evil plan against your neighbor.

7 You shall not hate any human being, but some you shall rebuke, for others you shall pray, and others you shall love more than your own soul.

Flight From Vices and Acquisition of Virtues

1 My child, flee from every evil thing and from everything like it.

2 Do not become prone to anger, for anger leads to murder; nor jealous, nor quarrelsome, nor hot-tempered, for from all these things murders are begotten.

3 My child, do not become lustful, for desire leads to fornication; nor foul-mouthed, nor haughty in your eyes, for from all these things acts of adultery are begotten.

4 My child, do not become an augur, since it leads to idolatry; nor an enchanter, nor an astrologer, nor a purifier, nor wish to see these things, for from all these things idolatry is begotten.

5 My child, do not become a liar, because lying leads to theft; nor a lover of money, nor vain; for from all these things thefts are born.

6 My child, do not become a grumbler, because it leads to blasphemy; nor arrogant, nor evil-minded; for from all these things blasphemies are born.

7 Be meek, for the meek will inherit the earth.

8 Be patient and merciful and guileless and quiet and good and always trembling at the words you have heard.

9 You shall not exalt yourself nor give boldness to your soul. Your soul shall not cling to the proud, but you shall associate with the righteous and the humble.

10 You shall receive the things that happen to you as good, knowing that nothing happens without God.

The Way of Life and the Commandments

1 My child, you shall remember night and day the one who speaks the word of God to you, and you shall honour him as Lord; for where the dominion is spoken of, there the Lord is.

2 You shall seek out daily the presence of the holy ones, so that you may find rest in their words.

3 You shall not desire division, but you shall make peace among those who quarrel; you shall judge justly, you shall show no partiality in reproving transgressions.

4 You shall not be double-minded about whether it will be or not.

5 Do not be one who stretches out your hands to receive, but draws them back when it comes to giving.

6 If you have anything by the work of your hands, give it for the redemption of your sins.

7 You shall not hesitate to give, nor grumble when you give; for you will know who is the good rewarder of your reward.

8 You shall not turn away from the one in need, but you shall share all things with your brother and shall not say that anything is your own; for if you are partners in what is immortal, how much more in what is mortal.

9 You shall not withhold your hand from your son or from your daughter, but from their youth you shall teach them the fear of God.

10 You shall not command your male servant or female servant, who hope in the same God, in your bitterness, lest they cease to fear the God who is over you both; for he does not come to call according to outward appearance, but those whom the Spirit has prepared.

11 And you who are servants, submit to your masters as to a type of God, in reverence and fear.

12 You shall hate all hypocrisy and everything that is not pleasing to the Lord.

13 You shall not forsake the commandments of the Lord, but you shall keep what you have received, neither adding to it nor taking away from it.

14 In the Church you shall confess your transgressions, and you shall not come to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life.

The Way of Death and Its Sins

1 But the way of death is this: first of all, it is evil and full of cursing: murders, adulteries, desires, fornications, thefts, idolatries, sorceries, poisonings, robberies, false witness, hypocrisies, duplicity, deceit, arrogance, vice, insolence, greed, foul speech, jealousy, audacity, haughtiness, boastfulness.

2 Persecutors of the good, hating truth, loving falsehood, not knowing the reward of righteousness, not clinging to what is good or to righteous judgement, lying awake not for what is good but for what is evil; from whom meekness and endurance are far away, loving vain things, pursuing retaliation, not showing mercy to the poor, not laboring for the oppressed, not knowing the one who made them, murderers of children, corrupters of God’s creation, turning away from the one in need, oppressing the afflicted, advocates of the rich, lawless judges of the poor, utterly sinful. Be delivered, children, from all these things.

Guard Against Error and Food Sacrificed to Idols

1 See that no one leads you astray from this way of teaching, since apart from God he teaches you.

2 For if you are able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you are not able, do what you can.

3 Concerning food, bear what you are able; but be especially on guard against food sacrificed to idols, for it is the worship of dead gods.

Baptism by immersion in living water

Concerning Baptism and Its Order

1 Concerning baptism, baptize in this way: Having first said all these things, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living water.

2 But if you do not have living water, baptize in other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, then in warm.

3 But if you have neither, pour water on the head three times in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

4 Before the baptism, let the one baptizing and the one being baptized fast beforehand, and any others who are able; but you shall command the one being baptized to fast for one or two days beforehand.

Concerning Fasting and Prayer

1 But do not let your fasts be with the hypocriteshypocrites, for they fast on the second day of the week and on the fifth; but you shall fast on the fourth day and on the Preparation.

2 And do not pray like the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in his gospel, pray in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth; give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; for yours is the power and the glory forever.

3 Three times a day pray in this way.

The Antioch Chalice (early 6th century)

Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing

1 Concerning the Eucharist, give thanks in this way:

2 First concerning the cup: We give thanks to you, our Father, for the holy vine of David your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your servant; to you be the glory forever.

3 Concerning the broken bread: We give thanks to you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your servant; to you be the glory forever.

4 Just as this broken bread was scattered over the mountains and gathered together became one, so may your Church be gathered from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.

5 Let no one eat or drink from your Eucharist except those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord; for concerning this the Lord has said, Do not give what is holy to the dogs.

Thanksgiving After the Meal

1 After you have been filled, give thanks in this way:

2 We give thanks to you, holy Father, for your holy name, which you have made to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you have made known to us through Jesus your servant; to you be glory forever.

3 You, Master Almighty, created all things for the sake of your name, and gave food and drink to human beings for their enjoyment, so that they might give thanks to you; but to us you have graciously given spiritual food and drink and eternal life through your servant.

4 Above all we give thanks to you because you are mighty; to you be glory forever.

5 Remember, Lord, your Church, to deliver her from all evil and to perfect her in your love, and gather her from the four winds, the one that has been sanctified, into your kingdom that you have prepared for her; for yours is the power and the glory forever.

6 Let grace come and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him repent; Maranatha. Amen.

7 But permit the prophets to give thanks as much as they wish.

Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment

1 So whoever comes and teaches you all these things that have been said before, receive him.

2 But if the teacher himself turns and teaches another teaching in order to destroy, do not listen to him; but if it is to add to righteousness and knowledge of the Lord, receive him as the Lord.

3 Now concerning the apostles and prophets, act according to the doctrine of the gospel as follows.

4 Every apostle who comes to you should be received as the Lord.

5 But he shall not stay more than one day; if there is need, however, then the next day also. But if he stays three days, he is a false prophet.

6 When the apostle departs, let him take nothing except bread until he finds lodging. But if he asks for money, he is a false prophet.

7 And every prophet who speaks in the Spirit you shall not test or judge; for every sin will be forgiven, but this sin will not be forgiven.

8 But not everyone who speaks in the spirit is a prophet, but only if he has the ways of the Lord. So by their ways the false prophet and the prophet will be known.

9 And every prophet who orders a meal in the Spirit shall not eat of it; otherwise, he is a false prophet.

10 But every prophet who teaches the truth, if he does not do what he teaches, is a false prophet.

11 But every prophet who has been tested and is true, who acts for a worldly mystery of the Church but does not teach others to do what he himself does, shall not be judged by you; for he has his judgement with God. For the ancient prophets did the same.[1]

12 But whoever says in the Spirit, “Give me money,” or anything else, you shall not listen to him; but if he tells you to give on behalf of others who are in need, let no one judge him.

[1] Translator’s note: ‘worldly mystery of the Church’: μυστήριον κοσμικὸν ἐκκλησίας rendered to preserve the enigmatic phrase; alt. ‘cosmic mystery’ or ‘temporal mystery’.

Concerning Those Who Come in the Name of the Lord

1 Let everyone who comes in the name of the Lord be received; then, after testing him, you will find him out, for you will have understanding of right and left.

2 If the one who comes is passing through, help him as much as you can; but he shall not stay with you more than two or three days, if there is need.

3 But if he wishes to settle among you, being an artisan, let him work and eat.

4 But if he has no trade, according to your understanding make provision so that no Christian will live among you idle.

5 But if he is unwilling to do this, he is a Christ-peddler; beware of such people.

Concerning the Support of Prophets and Teachers

1 Now every true prophet who wishes to settle among you is worthy of his support.

2 Likewise, a true teacher is worthy of his food, just as the worker is.

3 Therefore, take every first-fruits of the produce of the winepress and threshing floor, and of cattle and sheep, and give it to the prophets; for they are your high priests.

4 But if you do not have a prophet, give to the poor.

5 If you make bread, take the first-fruits and give according to the commandment.

6 Likewise, when you open a jar of wine or oil, take the first-fruits and give it to the prophets.

7 Of money and clothing and every possession, take the first-fruits, as it seems best to you, and give according to the commandment.

Concerning the Lord’s Day Sacrifice and Purity

1 On the Lord’s day, gather together, break bread, and give thanks, having first confessed your transgressions, so that your sacrifice may be pure.

2 But let no one who has a dispute with his companion join you until they are reconciled, so that your sacrifice may not be profaned.

3 For this is what was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the Gentiles.

Ordination of Worthy Bishops and Deacons

1 Therefore ordain for yourselves bishops and deaconsbishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are gentle and not lovers of money, and true and tested; for they also minister to you the ministry of the prophets and teachers.

2 So do not despise them, for they are the ones honored among you along with the prophets and teachers.

3 Correct one another not in anger, but in peace, as you have it in the gospel; and let no one speak to anyone who wrongs another, nor let him hear a word from you, until he repents.

4 Perform your prayers and your almsgiving and all your actions just as you have it in the gospel of our Lord.

Christ the Judge at the Second Coming

Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day

1 Watch over your life; let your lamps not be extinguished, and let your loins not be ungirded, but be ready; for you do not know the hour in which our Lord is coming.

2 Gather together frequently, seeking the things that benefit your souls; for all the time of your faith will not profit you unless you are made perfect in the last time.

3 For in the last days the false prophets will be multiplied and the corrupters, and the sheep will be turned into wolves, and love will be turned into hatred.

4 For as lawlessness increases, they will hate one another and persecute and betray one another, and then the deceiver of the world will appear as a son of God and will perform signs and wonders, and the earth will be delivered into his hands, and he will commit lawless deeds such as have never happened since the beginning of time.

5 Then the creation of mankind will come into the fiery ordeal of testing, and many will fall away and perish; but those who endure in their faith will be saved from the curse itself.

6 And then the signs will appear of the truth: first the sign of an opening in heaven, then the sign of the sound of a trumpet, and third the resurrection of the dead—[1]

7 not of all, but as it was said: The Lord will come and all the holy ones with him.

8 Then the world will see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven.

[1] Translator’s note: ‘an opening’: ἐκπέτασις rendered as ‘opening’ or ‘unfolding’; alt. ‘spreading out’.

Scripture Index

Every Scripture reference identified in this book, sorted in canonical Bible order. Tap a reference to jump to the verse where it appears.

Exodus

Exodus 20:142. The Second Commandment of the Teaching (2)

Exodus 20:152. The Second Commandment of the Teaching (2)

Exodus 20:162. The Second Commandment of the Teaching (3)

Exodus 20:172. The Second Commandment of the Teaching (2)

Leviticus

Leviticus 19:154. The Way of Life and the Commandments (3)

Leviticus 19:172. The Second Commandment of the Teaching (7)

Leviticus 19:181. The Two Ways: Life and Death (2); 2. The Second Commandment of the Teaching (7)

Numbers

Numbers 18:12–1313. Concerning the Support of Prophets and Teachers (3)

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 4:24. The Way of Life and the Commandments (13)

Deuteronomy 6:51. The Two Ways: Life and Death (2)

Deuteronomy 13:79. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (4)

Deuteronomy 15:74. The Way of Life and the Commandments (8)

Deuteronomy 26:213. Concerning the Support of Prophets and Teachers (5)

1 Chronicles

1 Chronicles 29:119. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (4)

Psalms

Psalms 118:2612. Concerning Those Who Come in the Name of the Lord (1)

Isaiah

Isaiah 66:23. Flight From Vices and Acquisition of Virtues (8)

Daniel

Daniel 12:116. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (4)

Zechariah

Zechariah 14:516. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (7)

Malachi

Malachi 1:1114. Concerning the Lord’s Day Sacrifice and Purity (1, 3)

Tobit

Tobit 4:104. The Way of Life and the Commandments (6)

Sirach

Sirach 4:314. The Way of Life and the Commandments (5)

Sirach 12:11. The Two Ways: Life and Death (6)

Matthew

Matthew 5:53. Flight From Vices and Acquisition of Virtues (7)

Matthew 5:23–2414. Concerning the Lord’s Day Sacrifice and Purity (2)

Matthew 5:261. The Two Ways: Life and Death (5)

Matthew 5:332. The Second Commandment of the Teaching (3)

Matthew 5:441. The Two Ways: Life and Death (3)

Matthew 5:471. The Two Ways: Life and Death (3)

Matthew 6:1310. Thanksgiving After the Meal (5)

Matthew 7:69. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (5)

Matthew 7:121. The Two Ways: Life and Death (2)

Matthew 10:1013. Concerning the Support of Prophets and Teachers (1, 2)

Matthew 10:4011. Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment (2, 4)

Matthew 11:29–306. Guard Against Error and Food Sacrificed to Idols (2)

Matthew 12:3111. Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment (7)

Matthew 17:511. Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment (2)

Matthew 21:910. Thanksgiving After the Meal (6)

Matthew 24:46. Guard Against Error and Food Sacrificed to Idols (1)

Matthew 24:1016. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (4, 5)

Matthew 24:1116. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (3)

Matthew 24:1216. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (3)

Matthew 24:1316. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (5)

Matthew 24:2416. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (4)

Matthew 24:3016. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (6, 8)

Matthew 24:3110. Thanksgiving After the Meal (5); 16. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (6)

Matthew 24:4216. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (1)

Matthew 28:197. Concerning Baptism and Its Order (1, 3); 9. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (5)

Mark

Mark 7:21–225. The Way of Death and Its Sins (1)

Luke
Luke 6:271. The Two Ways: Life and Death (3)
Luke 6:301. The Two Ways: Life and Death (5)
Luke 6:321. The Two Ways: Life and Death (3)

Luke 12:3516. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (1)

Acts

Acts 4:324. The Way of Life and the Commandments (8)

Acts 10:344. The Way of Life and the Commandments (10)

Acts 15:296. Guard Against Error and Food Sacrificed to Idols (3)

Acts 20:714. Concerning the Lord’s Day Sacrifice and Purity (1)

1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 16:2210. Thanksgiving After the Meal (6)

Galatians

Galatians 1:59. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (2)

Ephesians

Ephesians 6:54. The Way of Life and the Commandments (11)

1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians 5:223. Flight From Vices and Acquisition of Virtues (1)

2 Thessalonians

2 Thessalonians 3:1012. Concerning Those Who Come in the Name of the Lord (3)

2 Timothy

2 Timothy 3:116. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (3)

Revelation

Revelation 4:1110. Thanksgiving After the Meal (3)

Persons

Persons mentioned in this book, with short notes and back-links to every occurrence.

David

King of Israel (c. 1010–970 BC), traditional author of the Psalms; a central figure of Old Testament typology in patristic exegesis.

Mentioned in: 9. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (2); 10. Thanksgiving After the Meal (6).

God the Father

The First Person of the Holy Trinity, unbegotten and the source (μοναρχία) of the Son and the Spirit; addressed in the Lord’s Prayer and confessed in the opening clause of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Mentioned in: 9. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (2, 3); 10. Thanksgiving After the Meal (2).

the Holy Spirit

The Third Person of the Holy Trinity, proceeding from the Father (John 15:26); confessed in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed as ‘the Lord, the Giver of Life’. The Holy Spirit anoints with chrism in baptism, indwells the Church, and is invoked at every Eucharist (the epiclesis).

Mentioned in: 11. Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment (7, 9, 12).

Jesus Christ

The incarnate Son of God, second Person of the Holy Trinity; his name forms the centre of the Jesus Prayer and of all Orthodox spiritual life.

Mentioned in: 9. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (2, 3, 4); 10. Thanksgiving After the Meal (2).

Glossary

Theological and spiritual terms used in this book, with short definitions and back-links to every occurrence.

agape

Greek ἀγάπη (agapē), ‘love’—the New Testament’s preferred word for self-giving, neighbour-directed love (distinguished from ἔρος eros and φιλία philia). In the Didache the term names both the disposition required of every Christian (1:2, ‘love God who made you, and your neighbour as yourself’) and the communal meal that accompanied the early Eucharist (cf. 9:1; 1 Cor 11; Jude 12), the so-called agapē feast. The Didache’s combination of Eucharist and shared meal is the earliest evidence for the practice that Paul already presupposes in 1 Corinthians 11.

Occurs in: 10. Thanksgiving After the Meal (5); 16. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (3).

apostles, prophets, and teachers

Greek ἀπόστολος (apostolos, ‘one sent’), προφήτης (prophētēs, ‘one who speaks for God’), διδάσκαλος (didaskalos, ‘teacher’). The three itinerant ministries of the early Christian movement (Didache 11–13). Apostles travel from community to community and may stay no more than two days; prophets speak in the Spirit and may settle and be supported by their host community; teachers transmit the doctrine. The Didache devotes three chapters to discerning genuine prophets from impostors by their conduct—‘it is by their conduct that the false prophet and the true prophet can be distinguished’ (11:8). By the mid-second century these itinerant offices had largely given way to the settled bishops and deacons of chapter 15.

Occurs in: 11. Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment (7).

baptism

Greek βάπτισμα (baptisma), from βαπτίζω (baptizō, ‘to dip, immerse’). The sacrament by which a person is incorporated into the Body of Christ through threefold immersion (or, where immersion is impossible, by pouring water three times on the head) in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Didache (chapter 7) is the earliest extra-biblical source describing the rite, and the only ancient witness to permit affusion as a substitute for immersion when running cold water is unavailable—a concession that shaped Latin sacramental practice for the next two millennia.

Occurs in: 7. Concerning Baptism and Its Order (1).

bishops and deacons

Greek ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos, ‘overseer’) and διάκονος (diakonos, ‘minister, servant’). The two settled, local offices of the early Church, attested already in the Pauline epistles (Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3) and in the Apostolic Fathers (Didache 15; Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 8); the bishop presides over the eucharistic assembly while the deacons assist in its celebration and in service to the community. In Orthodox ecclesiology these offices, together with the presbyterate, constitute the threefold apostolic ministry transmitted by the laying-on of hands.

Occurs in: 15. Ordination of Worthy Bishops and Deacons (1).

Eucharist

Greek εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), ‘thanksgiving’. The central sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; the apostolic-era extra-biblical writings (Didache 9–10; Ignatius, Eph. 20:2—‘medicine of immortality’) already use the word both for the rite itself and for the consecrated elements. In patristic and Orthodox theology the Eucharist is the fullest participation in Christ, in which the Church becomes what she is.

Occurs in: 9. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (1, 5).

first-fruits

Greek ἀπαρχή (aparchē), the first portion of produce, livestock, baked goods, wine, oil, and possessions set aside for God; the same term used in the Septuagint for the firstfruits offerings of the Mosaic law (Exod 22:29; Deut 18:4). In the Didache (chapter 13) the firstfruits are given to the itinerant prophets—who ‘are your high priests’—or to the poor when no prophet is present, transposing the Temple economy directly onto the early Christian community.

Occurs in: 13. Concerning the Support of Prophets and Teachers (3).

hypocrites

Greek ὑποκριτής (hypokritēs), originally ‘one who plays a part on stage’. In the Didache (chapter 8), a polemical term for non-Christian Jewish contemporaries whose fasting and prayer practices the early Christian community deliberately distinguished itself from. The same word is used for the same target in Matthew 6—and almost in the same vocabulary—placing the Didache and Matthew within a shared sphere of Jewish-Christian polemic at the painful boundary between emerging Christianity and rabbinic Judaism.

Occurs in: 8. Concerning Fasting and Prayer (1).

Lord’s Day

Greek Κυριακή (kyriakē), short for Κυριακὴ ἡμέρα (‘the Lord’s day’). Sunday, the weekly memorial of Christ’s resurrection and the day on which Christians gather for the Eucharist (Acts 20:7; Rev. 1:10; Didache 14:1). The Lord’s Day is the earliest organising rhythm of Christian time, displacing the Jewish sabbath as the day of the assembly already in the apostolic period.

Occurs in: 14. Concerning the Lord’s Day Sacrifice and Purity (1).

Maranatha

Aramaic מרנא תא (māranā thā, ‘Our Lord, come!’) or מרן אתא (māran ăthā, ‘Our Lord has come’); the word division is disputed. Preserved transliterated into Greek both at the close of 1 Corinthians (16:22) and at the end of the Didache’s post-eucharistic thanksgiving (10:6), where it expresses the Church’s longing for the Second Coming. One of two Aramaic survivals in the Didache (the other is hosanna at 10:6), marking the work’s continuity with the earliest Aramaic-speaking Jerusalem church.

Occurs in: 10. Thanksgiving After the Meal (6).

Two Ways

Greek ὁδοὶ δύο (hodoi dyo). The moral-teaching framework of the way of life and the way of death, which opens the Didache (1:1–6:3). The same pattern is closely paralleled in the Epistle of Barnabas (chapters 18–20); both works are now generally thought to draw on a common Jewish-Christian catechetical source rather than depend directly on each other. The discovery of the Qumran Community Rule (1QS 3:13–4:26, the ‘Treatise of the Two Spirits’) has reinforced the case for a pre-Christian Jewish source.

Occurs in: 1. The Two Ways: Life and Death (1, 2); 4. The Way of Life and the Commandments (14).

Illustration Credits

Sources and attribution for every illustration in this book. Each entry lists the photographer or artist when known, the licence under which the image was released, and a link to the original page on Wikimedia Commons or the equivalent host. Images released into the public domain are listed without further obligation; images released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence are reproduced here under the same licence.

1. Baptism by immersion in living water

Image by Byzantine Institute staff.

Licence: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

2. The Antioch Chalice (early 6th century)

Image by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Licence: Open Access (CC0 1.0).

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession 50.4.

3. Christ the Judge at the Second Coming

Image by (Παραχώρηση φωτογραφίας από προσωπική συλλογή Μανουσάκη Γ. Ψηφιοποίηση Pvasiliadis..

Licence: Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Colophon

The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Didache)
by Anonymous.

This edition was produced by
Royal Archives.

The cover features
The Pentecost
by Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664), Wikimedia Commons (Museo de Cádiz), which is in the public domain.

The text is set in Palatino and Georgia. Polytonic Greek is set in SIL Gentium.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
August 16, 2026.

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Copyright
- Introduction
- The Two Ways: Life and Death
- The Second Commandment of the Teaching

- Flight From Vices and Acquisition of Virtues

- The Way of Life and the Commandments

- The Way of Death and Its Sins

- Guard Against Error and Food Sacrificed to Idols

- Concerning Baptism and Its Order
- Concerning Fasting and Prayer
- Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing
- Thanksgiving After the Meal

- Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment

- Concerning Those Who Come in the Name of the Lord

- Concerning the Support of Prophets and Teachers

- Concerning the Lord's Day Sacrifice and Purity

- Ordination of Worthy Bishops and Deacons
- Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day
- Scripture Index
- Persons
- Glossary
- Illustration Credits
- Colophon