been said by the Apostles themselves, and supported by passages from the Canonical Gospels, and as such would be what Athanasius calls it, not canonical; or to be considered a book of the New Testament, but useful to persons who had recently joined the Christian Church, and wished to be instructed in the duties of a pious life. These books were, he says, "The Wisdom of Solomon," "The Wisdom of Sirach," the Books of Esther, Judith, and Tobit, the work called "The Teaching of the Apostles " and the "Shepherd." We thus arrive at the complete nature of the work called "The Didache, or Teaching of the Apostles," and find it to be in reality a combination of two systems of teaching, perhaps of two treatises, the Duæ Viæ or Judicium Petri, and the διδαχαὶ τῶν ἀποστόλων or the doctrines of the Apostles. From the first comes the doctrine of the two paths; from the second, the directions for the administration of the Sacraments and the appointment and maintenance of ministers of religion.[1]
- ↑ The latter work seems to have been known under various titles, such as the Duæ Viæ; the Judicium Petri, αἱ διαταγαὶ αἱ διὰ Κλήμεντος, and ἐπιτομὴ ὅρων τῶν ἁγὶων ἀποστόλων. The Epitome or Judicium Petri was missing until 1842, when it was published at Giessen by Bichell, and afterwards by Hilgenfeld at Leipsic in 1866: it is referred to by Rufinus Aquitanus in the following passage, 345-450 A.D.:—"Sciendum tamen est, quod et alii libri sunt, qui non canonici, sed ecclesiastici a maioribus appellati sunt: ut est Sapientia Salomonis et ilia, Sapientia quæ dicitur filii Syrach, qui liber apud Latinos hoc ipso generali vocabulo Ecclesiasticus appellatur, quo vocabulo non auctor libelli, sed scripturæ qualitas cognominata est eiusdem ordinis est libellus Tobiæ et Judith et Maccabæorum libri. in Novo vero Testamento libellus, qui dicitur Pastoris sive Hermatis, [et] qui appellatur Duæ viæ vel Judicium Petri."—Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, c. 38.Hieronymus de Vir. Illustr. c. I (Opp. ii. 827): "Libri autem
