Jaenen Adjacent: The Discovery of the Didache
In his 1993 book Reinventing the Truth, Kevin Daniel published his correspondence with Professor Cornelius Jaenen regarding Jaenen’s historical tract “The Nature of the First Century Church” which had been circulated among the Friends since at least the early 1960s. The specific contents of that discussion may be addressed elsewhere on this site, but the purpose of this essay is to address something that Kevin Daniel said about the Didache. In response to Mr. Daniel’s challenging questions, Professor Jaenen cited the Didache in support of a practice that was present in the early post-apostolic age. Daniel replies:
“The Didache (Didascalia), rather than ‘written at the beginning of the 2nd century’, is overwhelmingly regarded by modern scholars as having been produced during the middle of the third century. This work was regarded as a forgery by Eusebius and all other early authorities….[continuing further in a footnote at the bottom of the page]…See Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, pp. 499, 557. When a Greek manuscript for this short work was discovered during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it caused quite a stir. Previously, it had been known only in later Latin versions. There was initial speculation, which revived wide publicity, that this might be a first or early second century work. In the years since, however, significant anachronisms have been noted which preclude such an early date.” (40)
What is the Didache? Sometimes also called “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”, the Didache is an anonymous text that essentially served as a practice manual for the early Christian church. It provided instructions for conducting rituals and outlined how the church was supposed to handle itinerant prophets, teachers and bishops. It includes the earliest written directions on how to perform baptism as well as instructions on fasting, prayer and the Eucharist (communion).
Was the Didache a forgery? With respect to Kevin Daniel, whose essential book is one of the foundational works that pulls back the curtain on the secretive 2×2s Fellowship, the statement that Eusebius considered the Didache a forgery is not supportable. In his Ecclesiastical Histories (Book3, chapter 25) Eusebius organized early Christian books that were circulating among the various churches by using three specific categories:
Accepted (Ὁμολογούμενα, or Homologoumena): these included the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
Disputed (ἀντιλεγόμενα, or Antilegomena): these included scriptural books such as James, Jude, 2nd Peter and 2nd and 3rd John
Spurious (νόθα or Notha): the Didache fell into this same category as Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter and the Epistle of Barnbas
It is very important to note that, for Eusebius, the term “spurious” did not mean “false” - it simply meant that these were not considered to be authored by any of the Apostles. These books did not make it into the canon of the New Testament, but they were still considered to contain orthodox teachings. In contrast to his “spurious” category, the books that he rejected outright such as the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Matthias he labeled as “fictions of heretics” that should “be cast aside as absurd and impious”. Because the Didache was a church manual with no known author it failed his strict criteria for inclusion in the New Testament canon. This did not mean, though, that he did not consider it a legitimate Christian book. As well-known New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes in his blog, the Didache is “anonymous rather than pseudonymous”.
Also, writings that are true forgeries are not usually discovered in multiple sources. A fragment of the Didache was uncovered in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri which is a 3rd Century Greek papyrus. Fragments have also been discovered written in Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Georgian languages, which proves that the Didache was independently and widely duplicated across the ancient world as a legitimate Christian document.
Was the Didache not as ancient as initially believed? Even though the actual complete document was not discovered until 1873 in the Library of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople, the Didache was referenced by Christian writers earlier than the 3rd Century. For example, the earliest explicit citation of the Didache comes from Clement of Alexandria writing his Stromata around 190–200 AD, where he appears to even attribute at least some scriptural authority to it. This demonstrates that the Didache was already circulating in Alexandria (Egypt) by the end of the second century. Additionally, Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373 AD) refers to the Didache not as canonical but still highly useful for Christians, writing:
"But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity; that there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd [of Hermas].” - Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter, §7
Not only was the Didache referenced prior to the 3rd Century by the early Christians, there are plenty of modern Protestant scholars who validate the Didache’s authenticity and chronology. For example, Kurt Niederwimmer dates the Didache’s origin from Syria between 110-120 AD. Thomas O’Loughlin shows how the text of the Didache was written earlier than most of the documents that make up the New Testament. The aforementioned scholar Bart Ehrman dates the core material of the Didache to around 100 AD. In his commentary on Niederwimmer’s work, Thomas R. Schreiner writes “virtually all scholars date the Didache very early, and Niederwimmer opts for a date between A.D. 110-120. Other scholars, however, date the document even earlier”. Bruce Metzger, the preeminent 20th Century biblical scholar from Princeton Theological Seminary, also establishes the widespread use of Didache in the early Church and places its probable composition in the late first or early second century.
The internal evidence of the Didache also supports an earlier time frame of composition. For example, it does not yet use the precise Christological language regarding the Trinity, nor does it reference later theological controversies such as Gnosticism or Docetism or Marcionism. It also describes a church governed by traveling “prophets and apostles” alongside bishops and deacons without referencing the mono-episcopal structure (one bishop per city) that developed by the mid-2nd Century. The more likely explanation for its discovery many centuries later is because it had simply become obsolete. For one thing, once it was no longer considered canonical it was not reproduced as frequently because there was no reason to. Also, as the Christian church grew like the tiny mustard seed of Jesus’ parable, it developed new church manuals that more accurately addressed the contemporary needs of the advancing church. For example, The Apostolic Constitutions (c. 380 AD) was a large 8-book Syrian church manual that took the text of the Didache and rewrote it into its seventh book, adapting the archaic language to match 4th-century theology. Given these factors, it is almost miraculous that the Didache survived at all, preserved in a single manuscript known as the Jerusalem Codex (or Codex Hierosolymitanus) which had been copied by a scribe named Leo in 1056 AD and tucked inside a larger thick volume of collected writings by Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch until it was discovered in 1873 AD.
Summary: Published in 1982, Kevin Daniel's Reinventing the Truth occupies an important place in the study of the 2x2 Fellowship because it was among the first book-length works to critically examine and document its history and beliefs that had long remained largely unknown outside the fellowship. At a time when reliable information about the group was scarce, Mr. Daniel did yeoman’s work assembling the available historical evidence to challenge the 2×2 Fellowship's claims of unique apostolic origins and theological exclusivity. Although subsequent scholarship has expanded, and in this case corrected, portions of his work, Reinventing the Truth remains a landmark publication for breaking the movement's longstanding culture of secrecy. Its pioneering role paved the way for later historical investigations and remains highly significant for anyone seeking to understand the origins, development, and claims of the 2x2 Fellowship.
Kevin Daniel. Reinventing the Truth: Historical Caims of One of the World’s Largest Nameless Sects. Research & Information Services, 1993). p 40.
Kurt Niederwimmer. The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia, trans. Linda M. Maloney, ed. Harold W. Attridge (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), Introduction, "Reconstruction of the Origin of the Didache." pp. 51-53.
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata Book 1.20.100.4 quoting Didache 3.5.
Thomas O'Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), p. 26.
Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. I: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library 24; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 307–311.
Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 251–253.