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Audiobook edition · 41 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 28 pagesAbout this book
How does an early Christian community decide how to live, whom to trust, and how to worship together?
The Didache is a short handbook of Christian life with no named author. Its title links it to the teaching of the twelve apostles. It opens with the Two Ways: a way of life and a way of death. These moral instructions place everyday conduct at the heart of life together.
From there, the text turns to baptism, fasting, prayer, and the Eucharist, or shared meal of thanksgiving. It gives practical guidance on welcoming traveling teachers, testing prophets, and choosing local leaders. Its closing warning calls for watchfulness for the coming of the Lord, bringing communal worship and moral responsibility into the same brief handbook.
What you’ll discover
- Two ways to live Explore the sharp contrast between the conduct the text urges and the vices it rejects.
- Instructions for daily faith See how the handbook guides a community through baptism, fasting, and prayer.
- Thanks over cup and bread Read the Eucharistic prayers that give the shared meal its language of thanksgiving.
- Teachers put to the test Discover how the text addresses visiting apostles and prophets who claim spiritual authority.
- A community gathers Follow instructions for choosing leaders, confessing sins, breaking bread, and remaining watchful.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy early church history, original sources and the daily habits of ancient communities. It suits readers of the Bible and anyone curious how the first Christians prayed, ate, gave and chose leaders.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A young church needs practical answers
- A recovered manual reveals ordinary faith
- The way of life begins with love
- Firm standards leave room for kindness
- Shared practices can bend to circumstances
- Thanksgiving gathers the community in peace
- Test spiritual claims through everyday conduct
- Honest leadership supports a watchful community
- Exact rules serve a flexible faith
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The Didache
by Attributed to anonymous first-century authors · 100
Two roads, one of life and one of death, open a short manual for Christians who must live their faith daily.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to readEnglish
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“Let your gift sweat in your hands until you know to whom you should give it.”
In short
Picture a church with no New Testament on the shelf, no creed to recite and no fixed order of service. A new believer asks plain questions.
The Didache at a glance
- Reading time
- About 10 min10 min fast, 15 min slow
- Length
- 2,950 words16 chapters
- Pages
- 42 pages42 in large print
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- about AD 100by Attributed to anonymous first-century authors
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Listen to the whole bookOr hold it in print: paperback, hardcover or large print, at costFrom the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A lost manual surfaces after centuries of silence
The Didache is a church manual that dropped out of sight for roughly a thousand years. Early writers knew of it. Some quoted it, and in the fourth century Eusebius of Caesarea placed it among books that were disputed. After that it faded from view.
The recovery began in a library in Constantinople. There Philotheos Bryennios, a Greek Orthodox metropolitan, examined a volume known today as the Codex Hierosolymitanus, copied in 1056. Among its works lay the complete Greek text. He published it in 1883, and scholars at once began to rewrite what they knew about early Christian worship.
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Two roads, one of life and one of death, open a short manual for Christians who must live their faith daily.
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Details
- First published
- 100
- Language
- English
- Listening time
- 41 min
- Level
- Medium level
- Paperback
- 28 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print paperback
- 42 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Delivery and returns
- Printed when you order. Usually here in 12 to 14 days.Arrives Sat 14 Nov to Fri 20 Novto United States, printed for you at cost
For Christmas, order by Thu 12 Nov
Cite this edition
The Didache. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-didache-apocrypha.
The Didache. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-didache-apocrypha (Original work published ca. 100)
The Didache. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-didache-apocrypha.
@book{anonymous2026didache,
title = {The Didache},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-didache-apocrypha},
note = {First published ca. 100}
}
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What is the Didache about?
It is a short early Christian manual on how to live and worship. It covers the two ways of life and death, baptism, fasting, the Lord's Prayer, meal prayers, testing prophets, choosing leaders, and readiness for the Lord's return.
When was the Didache written and who wrote it?
The author is unknown. Scholars date it between the late first century and the early second, though some think older material lies inside it. It was written in Greek, and many place it in Syria or nearby.
Why is the Didache not in the Bible?
Church leaders judged books by apostolic origin, wide use and agreement with wider church belief. This community manual remained outside the canon, though early writers mentioned or quoted it and Eusebius listed it among disputed books.
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