Sophia Scriptura

Didache 1.2

Anonymous · Didache · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · place unknown · Read in context

Pseudonymous: Its title presents it as 'the teaching of the Lord through the twelve apostles'; it was compiled by unknown authors from earlier material. It was rediscovered in 1873 in a manuscript of 1056 (Codex Hierosolymitanus) and published in 1883.

Summary: The way of life: love God and neighbor, and do not do to others what you would not want done to you.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:308

Ἡ μὲν οὖν ὁδὸς τῆς ζωῆς ἐστιν αὕτη· πρῶτον ἀγαπήσεις τὸν θεὸν τὸν ποιήσαντά σε, δεύτερον τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν· πάντα δὲ ὅσα ἐὰν θελήσῃς μὴ γίνεσθαί σοι, καὶ σὺ ἄλλῳ μὴ ποίει.

English · Claude translation

Now the way of life is this: first, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbor as yourself; and whatever you would not want to happen to you, do not do to another either.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:308 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, LCL 24 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1912), 308–333 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Lake, LCL 24. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 24, 1912); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7 (1886) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Scripture
Extrabiblical texts
  • Tob 4:15 (Tobit) · echo, low confidence
Topics
Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

  • The last clause is the Golden Rule in its negative form, as in Tob 4:15.

Cite this passage

Did. 1.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/didache/1/2/).

Plain text
Did. 1.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/didache/1/2/).

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