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Didache and early Christian practice

Timeline Event · Late first or early second century

About this date: Composition and layers of the text are debated; 120 is an approximate visual placement.

The Didache preserves teaching on the Two Ways, baptism, fasting, prayer, Eucharistic thanksgiving, and communal leadership.

Primary sources

The manual instructs:

Didache 14 directly instructs its community to gather, break bread, give thanks, and reconcile on the Lord's Day.

But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned.

— The Didache, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Chapter 14), trans. M. B. Riddle, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7

Passage context and translation

The community is instructed to assemble on the Lord's Day, reconcile through confession, and give thanks together.

Before the excerpt

of money (silver) and clothing and every possession, take the first-fruit

After the excerpt

For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice

M. B. Riddle translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7; the displayed passage contains the chapter's linked instructions on confession and reconciliation.

Sources and further reading

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