A. THE PrimAaL DiIpACHE.—i. THE DIDACHE or our MS.—(a) Title.—Of the two titles in the MS, ‘ Teaching of the XII Apostles’ and ‘ Teaching of the Lord through the XII Apostles to the Gentiles,’ it seems natural to regard the latter as the more original. One can hardly imagine the fuller and more individual title being added be- tween the commoner one and the text proper. It is unlikely, however, that either of them be- longed to the earliest form of the ‘Teaching,’ corresponding roughly to chaps. i.-vi. of our MS. This bas of precepts touching the Two Ways may perhaps, in its oral stage, have had some descriptive title, such as ‘the Way of the Teach- ing’* (see ravrns Tis dd00 Tijs ddax7js in vi. 1), or ‘the Way’; or it may have been known simply as ‘the Teaching’ (see dA\nv didax7jv in_ xi. 2, ef. vi. 1; cf. Barn. xvi. 9 al évrodal rijs didaxjjs, also xviii. 1), or ‘Teaching of the Lord’ (perhaps pre- served in our second title, Acvéayi Kuplov, «.7.)., cf. évrodal Kuptov, iv. 12f.), the God of Israel (see mapexros Oeod, vi. 1). This would accord both with the contents of the original Two Ways and with the phrasing in Ac 13” exmdarropevos éml 77 ddax7n rod Kuplov, where reference has just been made to ras dd0vs To Kvuplov ras eddelas (Hos 14%). Here ‘Teaching’ has the objective sense of ‘ Doctrine.’
As Dr. C. Taylor} says, ‘the primitive Church had, instead of a New Testament, a body of teach- ing, which was at first, from the nature of the ease, wholly unwritten. To this St. Paul alludes when he lays down that a bishop must be blameless, “holding to the faithful word which is according to The Teaching” (Tit 1°). Justin Martyr again expressly refers to it, speaking of Christ as at- tested “by the words of The Teaching, and the prophecies to Him ward” (Dial. 35). This teaching would sometimes be spoken of as the Lord’s, and after a while as the Apostles’ (2 Jn 9, Ac 2”), just as the Jews spoke of a Torah absolutely, and of a Torah of Moses, and of the Lord.’ Certainly the way in which St. Paul refers to the ‘ type of teach- ing’ (in relation to ‘sin, unto death,’ and ‘ obedi- ence, unto righteousness’) unto which the Roman
* Of, 2 P 22 4 adds xs kaAnbelas (rns Dixcocsocivys, 221); and Ac 92 199.23 ‘the Way,’ 1825 ‘the Way of the Lord,” 224 ‘this Way,’ 2414 ‘the Way which they call heresy,’ 2422 sidds re repl THs Gd0d. + The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles: Two Lectures, p. 112.
Christians were ‘committed’ (Ro 6), and which forbade the causing of division (dyooracia, 16", cf. Did. iv. 3 ot} rojoes cxioua), is very suggestive of arecognized form of ‘Teaching’ to converts, on lines similar to those of our Two Ways. Still full proof is lacking that it was so styled.
Nor can we be sure of the title under which the Teaching was first written down. ‘Teaching of the Apostles’ (cf. Ac 2#) is likely enough, especi- ally if this was, as it appears, the earliest form in which it was known in Egypt. But, even were this more certain than it is, it would not necessarily be the original Palestinian form, which might be simply ‘The Teaching’ (like Didascalia, the title of a later Palestinian work suggested by our Didache). Still, the varied character of the witness to ‘Teaching of the Apostles’ rather supports this as the primitive title of the written Z’wo Ways. Thus the Lat. version, the purest form of the 7’wo Ways apart from our MS, has as its rubric de doctrina Apostolorum ; soalso Eusebius (HE£ iii. 25 Tov dmrooré\wv at eyoudvar Svdaxal, which Rufinus renders Doctrina que dicitur Apostolorum), Atha- nasius (Festal Epistles, 39, dvdaxh Kkadoupévyn T&v dt.), and Nicephorus (d:dax dmroorbhwy).
It looks, then, as if there were two distinct lines of transmission in the history of the Two Ways, of which the Latin and our MS are the types—a result borne out by textual criticism. The question of their mutual relations will be dealt with later on. Only, we may here observe that the phrase ‘XII Apostles’ is no less primitive than ‘the Apostles’ pure and simple. Thus in that part of the Ascen- sion of Isaiah which represents a time prior to A.D. 100, it is ‘the Twelve Apostles of the Be- loved’ who plant the Church (iv. 3); and it is ‘the preaching (mrpopyrela) of his Twelve Apostles’ that is forsaken by the mass of ‘disciples’ ‘on the eve of His approach’ (iii. 21). Hence the idea of ‘the Lord’s teaching through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles’ is quite in keeping with an early date for the recension so described, especially if it belong to Palestine. And as it does not claim for its contents that they are the very words of the Apostles (cf. ‘my child’ in iii. 1-iv. 1), there is nothing pseudonymous about the work. It repre- sents current teaching and usage at a time when it was natural to assume that these did but ex- press the mind of ‘the Lord’—which to the com- piler of our Didache doubtless means, as in several other places (viii. 2, ix. 5, els dvoua Kuplov, xi. 2, 4, 8, xv. 4, xvi. 1, 7f.), the glorified Christ.