Διδαχή των Δώδεκα αποστόλων = Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
Religion
Διδαχή των Δώδεκα αποστόλων = Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
Church polity -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Didache; Worship -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600
ΔΙΔΑΧΗ
ΤΩΝ
ΔΩΔΕΚΑ ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΩΝ.
Teaching
of
The Twelve Apostles.
Recently discovered and published by Philotheos
Bryennios, Metropolitan of Nicomedia.
Edited with a Translation, Introduction
and Notes,
by
Roswell D. Hitchcock
and
Francis Brown,
Professor in Union theological Seminary, New York.
New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons.
1884.
[================================================]
Introduction
In 1875 Philotheos Bryennois, then Metropolitan of Serrae
(now Serres), in ancient Mesopotamia, published the two
Epistles of Clement of Rome, from a manuscript discovered
by him in the Library of the Most Holy Sepulchre in Fanar
of Constantinople. The last six chapters (60-65) of the First
Epistle, and the last eight sections (13-20) of the so-called
Second Epistle, had never been published before. The date
of the manuscript is 1056 a.d. As described by the finder,
“it is an octavo volume, written on parchment, in cursive
characters, and consists of 120 leaves.” First comes
Chrysostom’ Synopsis of the Books of the Old and New
Testament; then the Epistle of Barnabas; then the two
Epistles of Clement; then the Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles; then the Epistle of Mary of Cassobelae to Ignatius;
followed by eight Epistles of Ignatius (the current seven,
besides one to the Virgin Mary).
The “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” Διδαχὴ τῶν
δώδεκα Ἀποστόλων, occupies leaves 76-80 of the
manuscript. It now seems strange to us that the document
thus announced attracted so little attention. This same
Bryennious, now Metropolitan of Nicomedia, in Asia
Minor, has again surprised the literary world by publishing,
with an abundance of learned illustration, this long-lost
document. It is printed in Constantinople, and the date of
publication is 1883. The genuineness of the document can
hardly be doubted. It is cited by Clement of Alexandria in
his First Stroma; by Eusebius, who speaks of it (Hist. iii. 25)
as τῶν Ἀποστόλων αἱ λεγόμεναι διδαχαί; and by
Athanasius in his 39th Festal Epistle. Bickell and
Gebhardt had recently argued that there must have been
some such document underlying both the Seventh Book of
the Apostolic Constitutions and the Apostolic Epitome.
In 1882 Kravutzky undertook, from these sources, to recover
and reconstruct the embedded earlier and simpler document;
and with a success of the most pronounced and brilliant
character, as now tested by the work just published.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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