Introduction – The Didache – Saint Clement of Rome – Saint Ignatius of Antioch – Saint Polycarp of Smyrna – The Epistle of Barnabas – Fragments of Papias – The Shepherd of Hermas – The Epistle to Diognetus – Saint Justin Martyr – Saint Irenaeus of Lyon – Tertullian – Saint Cyprian of Carthage

The Didache

Fresco of the Agape, Roman catacombs (3rd century)

Didache is a Greek word meaning “teaching,” hence the full title of the work is “The Lord’s Teaching to the Gentiles through the Twelve Apostles,” or in its shorter form, “The Teaching of the Apostles.” As one of the writings belonging to the group of the Apostolic Fathers, it is considered one of the most important texts of the primitive Church. Although the exact date of its composition is not known, some authors believe it was written approximately between the years AD 50 and AD 70, while others place it at the beginning or middle of the second century.

Baptism

While in the Bible we find the express command of Jesus Christ to baptize Christians (Matt 28:19–20), specific instructions as to how water is to be physically administered in baptism are not spelled out throughout the New Testament. This has given rise to various controversies among Christians regarding the correct form of baptism.

For a large segment of Protestantism today, the only valid form of baptism is by immersion — a form in which the person is completely submerged in water. To justify this view, they argue that this form of baptism is implicit in the very meaning of the word “baptism,” which is none other than “to wash” or “to immerse.” For this reason, baptism by immersion is the form typically practiced in Protestant ecclesial communities such as Baptist and evangelical churches, as well as in certain sects such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In the Catholic Church, however, several valid forms of baptism have been recognized: immersion, infusion, and aspersion, though throughout history some have been more frequently practiced than others. Today, Eastern Catholic Churches continue to practice baptism by immersion, while in the Latin Rite Catholic Churches baptism is administered by infusion. The instructions given in the Didache on the form of baptism are therefore relevant, because they describe how baptism was administered in the primitive Church, recognizing as valid the various forms — both by immersion and by infusion:

“Concerning baptism, baptize in this way: Having first recited all these things, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize in other water; and if you cannot in cold, then in warm. But if you have neither, pour water upon the head three times in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Before the baptism, let the baptizer and the one to be baptized fast, and any others who are able. Command the one to be baptized to fast one or two days before.” (Didache 7:1–4)

In the same way, Sacred Scripture itself shows that the manner of baptizing could not always necessarily have been by immersion. In this regard, one may note that Saint Paul appears to have been baptized indoors and standing upright. Acts 22:16 records a baptism in Jerusalem of three thousand people in a single day, and given that Jerusalem had no river, it is difficult to believe that so many people could have been submerged in any cistern or well from which drinking water was drawn.

The Didache also sheds light on an ancient controversy concerning the baptismal formula. Various texts in the New Testament mention that the Apostles baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5), yet the Gospel of Matthew records Jesus’ own instructions concerning the words to be used at the moment of baptism, mentioning each of the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19).

On the basis of the foregoing, there exist today Protestant denominations of a Unitarian tendency, such as the United Pentecostal Church, or those popularly known as “Jesus Only,” who baptize solely in the name of Jesus and reject baptizing in the name of the Three Divine Persons.

However, thanks to the antiquity of the Didache, it is possible to shed further light on the question. Just as in the New Testament, the Didache refers to baptism in the name of the Lord (Didache 9), but when indicating the words to be used at the moment of baptism, it employs the Trinitarian formula:

“Let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those baptized in the name of the Lord…” (Didache 9)

“…baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” (Didache 7)

This lends support to the traditional thesis that when Scripture referred to baptism in the name of Jesus, the intent was to indicate in abbreviated form Christian baptism, distinguishing it from other baptisms of the era — such as that of John the Baptist or various pagan baptisms — while the formula or words to be used at the moment of baptizing were those which Jesus himself commands in Matt 28:19. In other words, some passages identify which baptism is being referred to, while another specifies the words to be spoken during the celebration of the sacrament.

This also allows us to dismiss the hypothesis that the Trinitarian formula was a late interpolation originating in the fourth century, as has been suggested by certain sects that reject the doctrine of the Trinity.

Those who have argued that the baptismal formula in the name of the Three Divine Persons mentioned in Matt 28:19 is a late interpolation seek support in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea, the fourth-century Church historian, noting that before the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) he cited Matt 28:19 as “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in my name,” and only afterward began to cite the text as we know it today. However, this proves nothing beyond the fact that in antiquity Scripture was sometimes cited in a non-literal fashion; it carries no weight against the documentary evidence in which all existing biblical manuscripts — including the oldest — read the complete formula: “…baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The Form of Prayer

Regarding the form of prayer, the Didache recommends praying as the Lord taught us, reciting the “Our Father”:

“Neither pray as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in his Gospel, thus pray: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy 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 lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for thine is the power and the glory forever. Pray thus three times a day.” (Didache 8:2–3)

From within Protestantism, the use of pre-composed prayers has been questioned, with the understanding that it was to these that Jesus referred when he said that in praying we should not “heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matt 6:7). From the Catholic perspective, it is not believed that Jesus was criticizing repetition in itself — something that Jesus himself employed (Matt 26:43–44) and that we frequently find in prayers present in Sacred Scripture (Isa 6:2–3; Dan 3:52–57; Ps 136; 150; Rev 4:8; etc.) — nor the lengthy prayer that the Lord himself modeled at Gethsemane (Matt 26:39, 42, 44), spending the entire night in prayer. Rather, it is believed that the criticism is directed at the manner of praying of the pagans, who viewed prayer as a kind of magical formula that, mechanically repeated, would achieve their ends — as, for example, the priests of Baal demonstrated in the Old Testament, with their endless, pathological prayer practices (1 Kgs 18:26).

The Eucharist

While in the Didache we do not find an explicit testimony in favor of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist — a Catholic doctrine rejected almost unanimously by Protestantism — we do find a text that implicitly suggests it, by requiring that only the baptized may receive it, since it is a sacred food.

“Now concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way. First, concerning the cup: We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David thy servant, which thou hast made known to us through Jesus thy servant; to thee be the glory forever.

Then concerning the broken bread:

We thank thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which thou hast made known to us through Jesus thy servant; to thee be the glory forever. As this broken bread was scattered over the mountains and, when gathered together, became one, so let thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom; for thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever. But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those baptized in the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said: ‘Give not that which is holy to the dogs.'” (Didache 9:1–4)

Many non-Catholic Christian denominations, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, have also rejected the sacrificial character of the Eucharist upon reading in Heb 9:28 that “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,” and therefore for them the Catholic Mass is an abomination. In the Didache, by contrast, we see that the first Christians viewed the Eucharist as the pure and perfect sacrifice prophesied by the prophet Malachi: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.” (Mal 1:11)

“But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together and break bread, and give thanksgiving… for this is that which was spoken by the Lord: ‘In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.'” (Didache 14:1–3)

It should additionally be noted that Catholic doctrine does not teach that Christ is “re-sacrificed” at each Mass, as many Protestants have understood. What it teaches is that the one sacrifice of Christ is presented to God the Father at each Eucharist, which is why the official Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Mass “makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior” (CCC 1330), and not that it “repeats” it.

But there is in this text of the Didache an additional argument of extraordinary apologetic importance that deserves to be underscored with special attention. The document does not invent the idea of the Eucharistic sacrifice: it presents it as the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. When the Didache commands that the bread be broken and thanksgiving given “so that your sacrifice may be pure,” and then adds “In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord” — it is quoting Malachi 1:11 verbatim. This prophetic text had announced that God would reject the sacrifices of the Old Testament and in their place receive a pure offering made by the Gentiles in every place throughout the world. The Didache, the oldest Christian document after the New Testament, applies this prophecy unambiguously to the Eucharist.

The importance of this argument for the debate with Protestantism is considerable. One of the most frequent charges that Reformed thought levels against the Catholic doctrine of the Mass is that the sacrificial character of the Eucharist would be a late invention, a pagan contamination gradually introduced into original Christianity. The Didache, written around the year AD 70 or AD 80 — when eyewitnesses of the Apostles were still alive — refutes this hypothesis at its root. The first Christians not only offered the Eucharist as a sacrifice: they did so conscious of fulfilling the prophecy of Malachi, which presupposes a sacrificial theology already perfectly articulated from the very origins of Christianity.

Justin Martyr, writing barely seventy years after the Apostles, would confirm this same interpretation with even greater clarity. In his Dialogue with Trypho, the apologist explicitly cites Malachi to demonstrate to his Jewish interlocutor that the Christian Eucharist is precisely the “pure offering” announced by the prophet: “The Lord speaks by Malachi […] about the sacrifices which we, the Gentiles, offer in every place, that is, the bread and the cup of the Eucharist.” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 41). The chain is unbroken: Malachi prophesies a universal pure offering; the Didache presents the Eucharist as the fulfillment of that prophecy; Justin confirms it explicitly. Whoever maintains that the sacrifice of the Mass was invented by the medieval Church will have to explain how the first Christians understood it thus from the very beginning, and how they saw it prefigured in their own Hebrew Scriptures.

Confession of Sins

In contrast to the common practice within Protestantism — where the person confesses directly to God — in the Didache we find an early witness to the penitential discipline of the primitive Church, which initially involved a public confession of sins before the presbyters and the community, as mentioned in Sacred Scripture (Acts 19:18; Jas 5:16), and whose external form gradually developed into the auricular confession we know today.

“But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving, after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.” (Didache 14:1)

While auricular confession may have developed in its outward form over time, its essence — which consists in the reconciliation of the sinner through the authority of the Church — remains the same. For the Catholic faith, this power derives from the authority that Christ granted to his Apostles when he said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:23)

Almsgiving

There is also a brief mention of almsgiving as a pious work commanded in the Gospel.

“But concerning your prayers and almsgiving and all your deeds, so do as ye find it in the Gospel of our Lord.” (Didache 15:4)

The almsgiving mentioned here does not appear to be the tithe — neither as the Jews knew it nor as Protestants later adopted it. The tithe, along with other Mosaic laws such as circumcision, had been abolished for Christians (Acts 15), so that to support the Church in her needs, collections and almsgiving were instituted (Rom 15:26–28; 1 Cor 16:1; 2 Cor 8:10; 9:7).

The Second Coming of Christ

The author of the Didache is convinced that it is not possible to predict the moment of the second coming of Christ — a temptation into which numerous sects have fallen time and again, such as the Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Growing in Grace, and others — and therefore exhorts readiness for precisely the opposite reason: because, not knowing the day or the hour, prudence demands avoiding being caught unprepared.

“Watch for your life’s sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed, but be ready, for ye know not the hour in which our Lord cometh.” (Didache 16:1–2)

Justification and Salvation

Regarding the doctrine of justification, the Didache makes a contribution rich in doctrine for a Christian text so brief and ancient. It anticipates the rejection of the heresy of sola fide, which teaches that man is saved by faith alone even when that faith is not accompanied by obedience to the commandments and a life in conformity with the will of God. It also rejects the idea that salvation cannot be lost — the Protestant doctrine known as “once saved, always saved” — pointing out that it is of no benefit to have had faith for a long time if death does not find the believer in the grace of God.

“Be frequent in gathering together, seeking the things that are profitable for your souls; for the whole time of your faith shall not profit you if in the last season you be not made perfect.” (Didache 16:2)