THE “TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES”

(Nov. 1 and 8, 1891.)

[The following is a revised translation of the Διδαχὴ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων, discovered by Philotheos Bryennios, Metropolitan of Nicomedia (then of Serres), in 1873, in the library attached to the Monastery of the Most Holy Sepulchre, in the Phanar, or Greek quarter, of Constantinople. It was part of a manuscript containing several ancient documents, including two Epistles of Clement of Rome, which Bryennios published in 1875. Not till 1883 did he publish the Didachê.

Of the genuineness of the MS. there can be no reasonable doubt. That there was current in the early Church a “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” appears from Eusebius (H. E. iii, 25) and Athanasius (Festal Epistle 39, C.E. 367). There were very good reasons why the Church, as time went on, should desire to drop the Teaching from her current literature. It is obviously in origin a purely Jewish document, and the first six chapters show no trace of Jesuism. We have already stated the reasons for concluding that the primary “Teaching” was the official doctrine of the twelve Jewish apostles of the High Priest to the Jews dispersed through the Roman Empire; that the Gospels borrowed from it, and not the converse; that Judaic Jesuists adopted it, and gradually interpolated it; and that it is the real foundation of the legend of the twelve Jesuist apostles. The sub-title: “Teaching of [the] Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations” may have been the original. “Lord” here has the force of “God.”

We have followed, with but few serious variations, the translation of the American editors, Professors Hitchcock and Brown, which, on careful comparison, we find to be the most faithful. Reasons for the main variations are given in the notes. Of the elucidatory notes, some are borrowed (with additions) from the American and French editions. The English student may refer to the edition of Professors Hitchcock and Brown, or to that of Canon Spence (1885), for the literature of the matter. Needless to say, the clerical reasoning on the matter must be viewed with constant caution.]

Teaching of the Twelve Apostles

Chap. II.—And a second commandment of the teaching is: Thou shalt not kill, nor commit adultery, nor corrupt boys, not commit fornication, nor steal, nor do magic, nor use sorcery, nor slay a child by abortion, nor destroy what is conceived. Thou shalt not lust after the things of thy neighbour, nor forswear thyself, nor bear false witness, nor revile, nor be revengeful, nor be double-minded or double-tongued; for a snare of death is the double tongue. Thy speech shall not be false, nor empty, but filled with doing. Thou shalt not be covetous, nor rapacious, nor a hypocrite, nor malicious, nor arrogant. Thou shalt not take evil counsel against thy neighbour. Thou shalt hate no man, but some thou shalt reprove, and for some thou shalt pray, and some thou shalt love above thy life.

Chap. VI.—See that no one lead thee astray from this way of the teaching, because apart from God doth he teach thee. For if thou art able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, thou shalt be perfect; but if thou art not able, what thou art able that do. And concerning food, what thou art able, bear; but of that offered to idols, beware exceedingly; for it is a worship of dead Gods.

[It will be observed that while there is a very marked transition after ch. vi, a division may be held to begin after ch. v. In this connection may be noted an interesting fact, brought out by the Rev. A. Gordon in his examination of the Didachê. Nicephoros of Constantinople (fl. 750–820) knew of a certain Teaching of the Apostles, which he mentioned as containing 200 lines. Nicephoros also speaks of the combined lengths of the two Epistles of Clement as amounting to 2,600 lines. Now, in the Jerusalem MS., which is closely written, the Clementine Epistles occupy only 1,200 lines, which would give for the Didachê, in the same writing, on the proportions mentioned by Nicephoros, only 92 lines, whereas it occupies 203. Mr. Gordon simply noted the fact as a difficulty. If however he had followed up his own observation that the Didachê shows a division after the fifth chapter, he would have found that the proportion of the first five sections to the rest is nearly as 86 to 203; while with ch. vi we should have a still closer approximation—88 to 203. We have here, then, a virtual proof that Nicephoros had before him only these first five or six chapters, and that the subsequent additions were not to be found in all copies of the Teaching. The inference from the internal evidence is thus remarkably confirmed. The original Teaching, once more, was a purely Jewish document, without even a mention of Jesus.

It will be noted further that, while the first six chapters contain no suggestion of anything beyond simple monotheism and general ethics, and the sixth chapter ends with a warning against eating food offered to idols, the seventh suddenly plunges into a prescription of baptism, which introduces the formula of “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” and minutely provides for the manner of the ceremony. But the eighth chapter evidently connects directly with the sixth, a direction as to fasting following on the warning in that section against eating meat offered to idols. It is thus perfectly clear that the entire Trinitarian section on baptism is an interpolation. In the eighth chapter, again, we have an interpolation of the words “as the Lord commanded in his gospel.” In C.M. (415 sq.) are set forth the weighty reasons for concluding that the Lord’s prayer, which is lacking in Mark, and different in Luke, was a Jewish formula long before the Christian era.

While the Christist interpolations are thus obvious after the sixth chapter, it is not here assumed that the first six chapters as they stand are a single original document. On the contrary, we are inclined to think that the scheme of the “two ways” is itself a redaction of an original document which gave the first “way” without preamble, the present preamble and the fifth chapter being inserted to give the dual form. On that view, the pre-Christian document may not have stopped with the sixth chapter, though the definitely Christian redaction begins with the seventh, as the document now stands. The Trinitarian seventh chapter was almost certainly one of the latest of the Christian additions. In the ninth, rules are laid down for the Eucharist without any allusion to the Godhead of Jesus, who is spoken of in Ebionitic terms as “Jesus thy servant,” though Jesus Christ is further on spoken of in more distinctly Christist terms. These are evidently further additions. In the tenth chapter the Ebionitic tone is resumed, Jesus being still only “thy servant”; while throughout the rest of the document there is much teaching that might have come from the Judaic apostles who propagated that of the earlier chapters. As to this, however, it is difficult to come to a definite conclusion. All that is certain is that the nucleus of the document was Judaic, and that the Christian tamperings were made at different stages, the earlier indicating the primary Ebionitic creed, in which Jesus was merely a holy man, no more God than any other “Anointed.”]