Early Christian Writings
List of Early Christian Writings - http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/index.html
The Didache - http://bswett.com/1998-01Didache.html
The Greek word didache means "teaching and is believed to be the lecture notes of students who were taught directly by several Disciples. The Didache seems to consist of five parts. The first part shows what a genuine teacher of Christian righteousness will say and how he or she will go about teaching. The second part deals with the question of clean and unclean foods, and outlines procedures for baptism, fasting, prayer, the Eucharist and the love-feast. The third sets policies on the treatment of apostles and prophets by members of the congregation. The fourth organizes the church, and the fifth briefly summarizes teachings concerning the second coming of Christ at end of the age.
Historical Context
Many strong parallels point to Paul and Barnabas as the apostles involved in this teaching. If so, what we know about them from other sources brackets the time and place in which the Didache was written. The followers of Jesus first preached the gospel only to Jews. After several years, some of them started preaching to Gentiles in Antioch of Syria, many of whom were converted. When the leaders of the church in Jerusalem heard about this, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. He found a sizable congregation and many more people eager to hear about Jesus. So Barnabas went to Tarsus and brought Paul to Antioch. They taught there together for a year. (Acts 11:19-26)
Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world, and this took place in the days of Claudius. And the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brethren who lived in Judea; and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Paul. (Acts 11:27-30) Historical sources say there was a great famine in Judea in AD 47. Therefore, Acts 12:1-23 may be misplaced in Luke's otherwise chronological report. "About that time" King Herod killed James the brother of John and arrested Peter; but Peter escaped from prison, and King Herod died at Caesarea. There are historical records that King Herod (Agrippa I) died during a festival at Caesarea in AD 44. Luke adds a time-space: "But the word of God grew and multiplied" (Acts 12:24). In his epistle to the Galatians, Paul wrote:
Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up by revelation; and I laid before them (but privately before those who were of repute) the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, lest somehow I should be running or had run in vain. (Galatians 2:1-2) Fourteen years after Paul's first visit to Jerusalem probably equates to AD 47. The Didache may be what Paul laid before the leaders in Jerusalem -- a summary document prepared in advance for just that purpose -- or more likely from the way it sounds, a set of lecture notes taken while Barnabas and Paul and Titus were speaking. In either case it is worth noting that in the Didache and in Acts 15:12 Barnabas speaks first. He was the leader at Antioch. Paul was his assistant. when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Peter and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. (Galatians 2:9) This was when Barnabas and Paul received their charter as "The Apostles to the Gentiles." They returned from Jerusalem to Antioch, bringing Mark with them. (Acts 12:25) Shortly thereafter, all three of them set out on Paul's first missionary journey, which scholars date in AD 47. (Acts 13:1-4) They went from Antioch to and through the island of Cyprus, and then north to what is now the southern coast of Turkey. There Mark left them and went back to Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas went on establishing new churches in the Roman province of Galatia. They returned to the coast by the way they came, sailed back to Antioch of Syria, and "remained no little time with the disciples." (Acts 13 - 14)
But some men came down from Jerusalem [to Antioch] and were teaching the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." (Acts 15:1) Paul's letter to the Galatians was probably written at this time. No doubt, men from Jerusalem also told his converts in Galatia that they had to be circumcised. Paul was angry because the leaders in Jerusalem had broken their agreement by sending men to the Gentiles. Thus, his letter to the Galatians was written in late AD 48 or early AD 49. Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go [from Antioch] up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. (Acts 15:2b) Scholars date the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem in AD 49. The controversy was not between Paul and Peter. After all, Peter was the one who first preached the gospel to Gentiles (Acts 11:1-3). It was between Paul and "the circumcision party" led by James of Jerusalem, the brother of Jesus (Galatians 2:12). Peter spoke first, in favor of preaching the gospel to Gentiles. Then Barnabas and Paul presented their case. Finally, James of Jerusalem yielded. The decision was that Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to be Christians, but they must: "Abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity." (Acts 15:6-21, 29) The first part of this decision is in the Didache (6:3); the other three provisions apparently were added to it by the "apostles and elders" in Jerusalem.
With their charter thus reaffirmed, Paul and Barnabas were ready to carry the decision of the Apostolic Council back to the churches they established. Barnabas wanted to take Mark with them again, but Paul objected because Mark left them during their previous journey. Paul and Barnabas quarreled. Finally, Barnabas took Mark with him and went back to Cyprus (Acts 15:36-39). This is the last we hear of Barnabas in the New Testament, except for an indication that he was still preaching the gospel several years later (I Corinthians 9:6).
The long title of the Didache reads: "The Teaching of the Lord by the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles" but I believe the original title was "The Teaching of the Apostles to the Gentiles" and the rest was inserted later.
Certainly Barnabas and Paul were "The Apostles to the Gentiles." If the Didache is a sample of their teaching, as it certainly seems to be, then it must be dated no later than AD 49 because that was when they went their separate ways. The most probable date is either AD 44 or AD 47. In either case, those dates are earlier than anything in the New Testament. Therefore, I believe the Didache is the earliest Christian document we have. Although rightly regarded as a church handbook and not a Gospel or absolutely based on the teachings of Jesus, it provides valuable insights concerning the moral doctrines, theology, rituals, esoteric operations and congregational testing of apostles and prophets, and the basic organization of First Century Christianity.
Hellenistic diaspora Jews (those who had left Israel but continued living as Jews in the ancient Greek or Roman empire) used a Greek translation of their scriptures (known as the Septuagint) that included slightly more than a dozen texts not found in the Hebrew scriptures. As a result of this difference between the Septuagint and the Hebrew canons, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Christians include (or exclude) different books of Hebrew scripture, which are thus known as apocrypha (from a Greek word meaning "hidden things").