Didascalia Apostolorum

R. Hugh Connolly argued the work as a unity composed by a single author; Alistair Stewart-Sykes has argued the modern form of the work came from at least two separate redactors - an unknown original document, a "deuterotic" redactor who wrote the final chapter and wrote an argument about how Jewish law was "secondary legislation" only intended as punishment for Jews, and an "apostolic redactor" whose editing increased the authority of the argument dissuading Christians from keeping Jewish law by invoking the authority of the Apostles.

[7] The Didascalia Apostolorum, whose lost original was in Greek, was first published in 1854 in Syriac by Paul de Lagarde.

In 1900 Edmund Hauler published the Verona Palimpsest which includes a Latin translation of the Didascalia, perhaps of the fourth century, more than half of which has perished.

In comparison with the Didache, the Didascalia moved the main focus from the moral issues to liturgical practice and church organization.

The content can be so summarized: The church officials are bishops, deacons, priests, widows (and orphans); deaconesses are also added, in one place rectors, and once subdeacons (these last may have been interpolated).

However, if a converted man "of the Jews or of the heathen" returned again to the sect in which he came from, then he was not to be received a second time into the church, but were to be regarded as unconverted.

(Didascalia 20:16) The heresies mentioned are those of Simon Magus and Cleobius (this name is given also by Hegesippus), with Gnostics and Ebionites.

The original Law of Moses (specifically the Ten Commandments) is to be observed, along with all the regulations given prior to the incident of the golden calf (Exo.

Chapters 9 and 16 give detailed instructions for anointing, including the laying on of hands by a bishop and the recitation of Psalm 2:7.

The Didascalia takes a dim view of the status of Christian women: widows should not remarry more than once, should not be talkative or loud, should not instruct in doctrine, should stay at home and not wander, are not allowed to baptize, and should not engage in ministry unless ordered to by a bishop or deacon.

Scholars who endorse the view that the Didascalia is largely prescriptive believe these specific prohibitions suggest that at least some Christian communities of the era did allow women such freedoms to evangelize, engage in ministry and baptisms of others, and so on, and the author found such practices sufficiently distasteful to write that the apostles forbade such acts.

A large amount of the text is devoted to teachings for how continuing to keep the Jewish Law was not merely unproductive, but actively immoral.

The editor who compiled the Apostolic Constitutions appears to have had a somewhat more positive view of Judaism than the author of the Didascalia, and toned down some of its rhetoric.