The Didache

[struggle4progress]

1:1 There are two paths, one of life and one of death, and the difference is great between the two paths.

1:2 Now the path of life is this -- first, thou shalt love the God who made thee, thy neighbour as thyself, and all things that thou wouldest not should be done unto thee, do not thou unto another.

1:3 And the doctrine of these maxims is as follows. Bless them that curse you, and pray for your enemies. Fast on behalf of those that persecute you; for what thank is there if ye love them that love you? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? But do ye love them that hate you, and ye will not have an enemy ...

2:5 Thy speech shall not be false or empty, but concerned with action ...

3:2 Be not wrathful, for wrath leadeth unto slaughter; be not jealous, or contentious, or quarrelsome, for from all these things slaughter ensues ...

4:8 Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but shalt share with thy brother in all things, and shalt not say that things are thine own; for if ye are partners in what is immortal, how much more in what is mortal? ...

http://www.carm.org/christianity/miscellaneous-topics/didache

... Since it was discovered in a monastery in Constantinople and published by P. Bryennios in 1883, the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles has continued to be one of the most disputed of early Christian texts. It has been depicted by scholars as anything between the original of the Apostolic Decree (c. 50 AD) and a late archaising fiction of the early third century. It bears no date itself, nor does it make reference to any datable external event, yet the picture of the Church which it presents could only be described as primitive, reaching back to the very earliest stages of the Church's order and practice in a way which largely agrees with the picture presented by the NT, while at the same time posing questions for many traditional interpretations of this first period of the Church's life. Fragments of the Didache were found at Oxyrhyncus (P. Oxy 1782) from the fourth century and in coptic translation (P. Lond. Or. 9271) from 3/4th century. Traces of the use of this text, and the high regard it enjoyed, are widespread in the literature of the second and third centuries especially in Syria and Egypt ...

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Last year the local Lenten study group read it

Interesting document.

[struggle4progress]

2. Which translation?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Gee, I don't recall

It was photocopied, and I no longer have it.

[struggle4progress]

5. Good starting point for discussion or not? The stuff my church uses drives me up the wall

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. It's good for discussing church history, which was the focus of

most of the people there, in the sense of development of doctrines. (The group was held on a university campus and is usually led by a professor whose specialty is early Christianity, although he was on leave that year.)

But that might actually be good for the uninformed. A lot of evangelicals think that American evangelical/fundamentalist practice is pure Biblical Christianity.

Uh, no.

For one thing, until Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, most Christians refused to serve in the army. There are some saints who were originally soldiers who were martyred when they became conscientious objectors after their conversion.

[struggle4progress]

9. Thanks

:)

[charlie]

4. Huh. The Portable Christian

more or less. I've never heard of it before.

With an explicit prohibition of abortion! That must make fundies positively ache. There it is, but they can't use it. It's not Biblical. Haw!

[struggle4progress]

6. The "thou ... shalt not say that things are thine own" probably isn't popular with that crowd:

it has that socialist/communist smell to it

[charlie]

7. Heh

The field guide to identifying prophets reads like it was written with televangelist vermin in mind, too. If he wants money, he ain't a prophet. If you see hypocrisy in what he does, etc... There's a whole nest of traps for career-minded God marketers. They're lucky it missed the canon, the bastids.