Glossary

Theological and spiritual terms used in this book, with short definitions and back-links to every occurrence.

agape

Greek ἀγάπη (agapē), ‘love’ — the New Testament’s preferred word for self-giving, neighbour-directed love (distinguished from ἔρος eros and φιλία philia). In the Didache the term names both the disposition required of every Christian (1:2, ‘love God who made you, and your neighbour as yourself’) and the communal meal that accompanied the early Eucharist (cf. 9:1; 1 Cor 11; Jude 12), the so-called agapē feast. The Didache’s combination of Eucharist and shared meal is the earliest evidence for the practice that Paul already presupposes in 1 Corinthians 11.

Occurs in: 10. Thanksgiving After the Meal (5); 16. Watchfulness and Readiness for the Last Day (3).

apostles, prophets, and teachers

Greek ἀπόστολος (apostolos, ‘one sent’), προφήτης (prophētēs, ‘one who speaks for God’), διδάσκαλος (didaskalos, ‘teacher’). The three itinerant ministries of the early Christian movement (Didache 11–13). Apostles travel from community to community and may stay no more than two days; prophets speak in the Spirit and may settle and be supported by their host community; teachers transmit the doctrine. The Didache devotes three chapters to discerning genuine prophets from impostors by their conduct — ‘it is by their conduct that the false prophet and the true prophet can be distinguished’ (11:8). By the mid-second century these itinerant offices had largely given way to the settled bishops and deacons of chapter 15.

Occurs in: 11. Concerning Apostles and False Prophets: Discernment (7).

baptism

Greek βάπτισμα (baptisma), from βαπτίζω (baptizō, ‘to dip, immerse’). The sacrament by which a person is incorporated into the Body of Christ through threefold immersion (or, where immersion is impossible, by pouring water three times on the head) in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Didache (chapter 7) is the earliest extra-biblical source describing the rite, and the only ancient witness to permit affusion as a substitute for immersion when running cold water is unavailable — a concession that shaped Latin sacramental practice for the next two millennia.

Occurs in: 7. Concerning Baptism and Its Order (1).

bishops and deacons

Greek ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos, ‘overseer’) and διάκονος (diakonos, ‘minister, servant’). The two settled, local offices of the early Church, attested already in the Pauline epistles (Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3) and in the Apostolic Fathers (Didache 15; Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 8); the bishop presides over the eucharistic assembly while the deacons assist in its celebration and in service to the community. In Orthodox ecclesiology these offices, together with the presbyterate, constitute the threefold apostolic ministry transmitted by the laying-on of hands.

Occurs in: 15. Ordination of Worthy Bishops and Deacons (1).

doxology

A short formula of praise glorifying God, typically appended to a prayer. The early Christian doxological formula ‘for yours is the power and the glory forever’ is attached to the Lord’s Prayer in the Didache (8:2) and to the post-Eucharistic thanksgiving (10:5); the trinitarian doxology ‘Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit’ became the standard ending of psalmody and prayer in the Byzantine liturgical tradition.

Occurs in: Introduction (3).

Eucharist

Greek εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), ‘thanksgiving’. The central sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; the apostolic-era extra-biblical writings (Didache 9–10; Ignatius, Eph. 20:2 — ‘medicine of immortality’) already use the word both for the rite itself and for the consecrated elements. In patristic and Orthodox theology the Eucharist is the fullest participation in Christ, in which the Church becomes what she is.

Occurs in: 9. Concerning the Eucharist and the Blessing (1, 5).

first-fruits

Greek ἀπαρχή (aparchē), the first portion of produce, livestock, baked goods, wine, oil, and possessions set aside for God; the same term used in the Septuagint for the firstfruits offerings of the Mosaic law (Exod 22:29; Deut 18:4). In the Didache (chapter 13) the firstfruits are given to the itinerant prophets — who ‘are your high priests’ — or to the poor when no prophet is present, transposing the Temple economy directly onto the early Christian community.

Occurs in: 13. Concerning the Support of Prophets and Teachers (3).

hypocrites

Greek ὑποκριτής (hypokritēs), originally ‘one who plays a part on stage’. In the Didache (chapter 8), a polemical term for non-Christian Jewish contemporaries whose fasting and prayer practices the early Christian community deliberately distinguished itself from. The same word is used for the same target in Matthew 6 — and almost in the same vocabulary — placing the Didache and Matthew within a shared sphere of Jewish-Christian polemic at the painful boundary between emerging Christianity and rabbinic Judaism.

Occurs in: 8. Concerning Fasting and Prayer (1).

Lord’s Day

Greek Κυριακή (kyriakē), short for Κυριακὴ ἡμέρα (‘the Lord’s day’). Sunday, the weekly memorial of Christ’s resurrection and the day on which Christians gather for the Eucharist (Acts 20:7; Rev. 1:10; Didache 14:1). The Lord’s Day is the earliest organising rhythm of Christian time, displacing the Jewish sabbath as the day of the assembly already in the apostolic period.

Occurs in: 14. Concerning the Lord’s Day Sacrifice and Purity (1).

Lord’s Prayer

The prayer Christ taught his disciples (Matt 6:9–13). The Didache (chapter 8) commands its threefold daily recitation and gives an early form of the doxology — ‘for yours is the power and the glory forever’ — appended to the petitions.

Occurs in: Introduction (3).

Maranatha

Aramaic מרנא תא (māranā thā, ‘Our Lord, come!’) or מרן אתא (māran ăthā, ‘Our Lord has come’); the word division is disputed. Preserved transliterated into Greek both at the close of 1 Corinthians (16:22) and at the end of the Didache’s post-eucharistic thanksgiving (10:6), where it expresses the Church’s longing for the Second Coming. One of two Aramaic survivals in the Didache (the other is hosanna at 10:6), marking the work’s continuity with the earliest Aramaic-speaking Jerusalem church.

Occurs in: Introduction (3); 10. Thanksgiving After the Meal (6).

parousia

Greek παρουσία (parousia), ‘arrival, presence’. In secular Greek the word for the official arrival of a king or magistrate; in the New Testament and patristic literature it is the technical term for the Second Coming of Christ in glory at the end of the age (Matt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39; 1 Thess. 4:15; 2 Pet. 3:4).

Occurs in: Introduction (1).

Two Ways

Greek ὁδοὶ δύο (hodoi dyo). The moral-teaching framework of the way of life and the way of death, which opens the Didache (1:1–6:3). The same pattern is closely paralleled in the Epistle of Barnabas (chapters 18–20); both works are now generally thought to draw on a common Jewish-Christian catechetical source rather than depend directly on each other. The discovery of the Qumran Community Rule (1QS 3:13–4:26, the ‘Treatise of the Two Spirits’) has reinforced the case for a pre-Christian Jewish source.

Occurs in: Introduction (1); 1. The Two Ways: Life and Death (1, 2); 4. The Way of Life and the Commandments (14).