Didache and Moroni 2–6

In 1873, a Greek Orthodox bishop named Philotheos Bryennios was studying in a monastery in Constantinople when he came across an unusual manuscript called The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles or the Didache (a Greek word for “teaching” or “training”).¹ This document, which has been referred to as the “oldest church manual,”² contains instructions on how early Christians were to conduct themselves, perform ordinances, and govern the Church. Moroni 2–6 has similar instructions about Church administration.

In several short chapters of his final writings, Moroni recorded information about ordaining church officers (Moroni 2–3), administering the sacrament (Moroni 4–5), baptism, fasting and prayer, and the conduct of church members (Moroni 6). As demonstrated in the following chart, the Didache, which is also a fairly short document, contains similar clusters of concepts.³

Sometimes, a general concept is clearly related in both documents, even though the details differ. For example, the wording of the sacramental prayers found in Didache 9 differs from those recorded in Moroni 4–5. Yet, it is still notable that both documents discuss separate prayers for the bread and water. Moreover, each prayer is introduced with a phrase that is respectively almost identical for both prayers, and then is followed by similar formulaic language:

In other cases, the wording itself can be quite similar. Note, for example, the similarity in the following passages about how often church members should meet and why they should meet:

Intriguing similarities can also be seen in the way that related concepts are clustered together. Moroni 6:6–7, for example, discusses (1) meeting together, (2) partaking of the sacrament, (3) confessing and repenting of sins, and (4) unrepentant sinners being excluded from the people of Christ. Fairly similar concepts are mentioned in the same order in Didache 14:1:

One final thematic similarity is worth emphasizing. Moroni 6:4 states that members of the Christ’s church should be “nourished by the good word of God, to keep them in the right way” (emphasis added).  The need for initiates to follow the right way or path is a prominent theme in the Didache, which opens up by informing readers: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death! And there is a great difference between the two ways” (Didache 1:1).⁸ The first six chapters of the Didache develop this point, and are intended to help an individual not depart from the “way of training” (Didache 6:1)⁹ or, as the Book of Mormon describes it, to “keep them in the right way.”¹⁰

Conclusion

The precise date of the Didache’s composition, as well as the ultimate origin of its contents, is unknown, but many scholars believe it to be a very early text, perhaps even as early as the mid- to late-first century AD.¹¹ If so, then the Didache may indeed reflect, to so some degree or another, teachings that were given by Jesus Christ to His early disciples.

Supporting a possible shared context between the Didache and Moroni 2–6 is the fact that both texts clearly draw upon Christ’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7),¹² a version of which (often called the Sermon at the Temple) was given in 3 Nephi 12–14.¹³ Yet, in several ways, the shared concepts (and shared clustering of concepts) in both the Didache and Moroni 2–6 are unlike anything else in the Bible or Book of Mormon, making it improbable that they were derived in their entirety from either of those texts.

Thus, while not being definitive proof of anything, the similarities in Moroni 2–6 and the Didache suggest that both documents may derive from similar early Christian teachings. Seeing that the Book of Mormon portrays Jesus as personally visiting the Nephites and giving them instructions similar to those that He gave to His disciples in the Old World, the teachings found in Moroni 2–6 are just as understandable in a Nephite context as they are coming from the Middle East or Mediterranean (where the Didache was most likely composed).

John W. Welch, “From the Sermon on the Mount to the Didache,” in The Didache: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle in Early Christianity, ed. Jonathan A. Draper and Clayton N. Jefford (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2015), 335–362.

John W. Welch, Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple & the Sermon on the Mount (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999).

John W. Welch, “From Presence to Practice: Jesus, the Sacrament Prayers, the Priesthood, and Church Discipline in 3 Nephi 18 and Moroni 2–6,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5, no. 1 (1996): 119–139.

John W. Welch, “Our Nephite Sacrament Prayers,” in Reexploring the Book of Mormon: A Decade of New Research, ed. John W. Welch (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1992), 286–289.

Moroni 2–6

Moroni 2–6