The Ethiopic Didascalia

Presented as the teaching of the twelve apostles, gathered at Jerusalem; actual author unknown. The Ethiopic Didascalia is a translation of the Didascalia Apostolorum, a Syrian church order of the 3rd century AD, made from the Arabic; it is preserved here in J. M. Harden's 1920 English translation. Instructions for bishops, deacons, widows, and the faithful on judging and receiving penitents, the care of the poor, the martyrs, the keeping of the Passover, the hearing of the apostolic council, and the rites of baptism and anointing, closing with the list of bishops the apostles ordained. A church-order text, not scripture in kind: it is part of the Ethiopian Orthodox broader canon (a broader-canon book counted as authoritative for church life).