~90 · Syria (likely Antioch region)

Writing of the Didache

Around 90 AD, an unknown Christian author composed the Didache, or 'Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' a short manual of Church practice that provides the earliest surviving description of how Christians baptized, celebrated the Eucharist, and organized their communities outside the New Testament.

The Didache was lost for centuries and only rediscovered in 1873 in a monastery library in Constantinople. When scholars read it, they found a document that opened a window into Christian life barely a generation after the apostles. It is divided into sections covering moral teaching, liturgical practice, and Church organization. The moral section uses a 'Two Ways' framework — the Way of Life and the Way of Death — listing virtues and vices in plain, practical language. The liturgical instructions describe baptism by immersion in running water, with pouring allowed when immersion is not possible. It includes the oldest known eucharistic prayers outside the New Testament, giving thanks over the cup and the bread with specific wording. It instructs communities to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, distinguishing Christian practice from Jewish fasting days. The organizational section deals with how to receive traveling prophets and apostles, warning against freeloaders who stay more than two days. It tells communities to appoint bishops and deacons. The document is strikingly informal and practical. There is no elaborate theology, just working instructions for small communities figuring out how to be the Church. Scholars debate the exact date, but most place it between 70 and 120 AD, making it roughly contemporary with the later New Testament writings.

Why it matters

Provides the earliest surviving picture of how ordinary Christian communities worshipped, baptized, and organized themselves, offering evidence that core Catholic practices like the Eucharist and structured baptism existed from the very beginning.