“Two ways there are, one of life and one of death, and great is the difference between the two ways”
— Opening of the Didachē tōn dodeka apostolōn (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), ca. first century, AD
By Anthony Esolen*
Mosaic of Christ in the apse of the Abbey Church of St. Maria Laach, Germany
One of the great Biblical discoveries of the late nineteenth century was an ancient vellum manuscript with the heading, in Greek, Didachē tōn dodeka apostolōn (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles). Scholars date it, at the very latest, to the early 100s, but there is nothing in it that necessitates a dating later than the first century. Its language is simple and straightforward, like that of the gospels, and though it is written in Greek, its linguistic manner is Semitic, suggesting an Aramaic original rendered into Greek, or a Greek original composed by some person or persons who were thinking first in Aramaic or in the Hebrew of Scriptures.
Its beginning, too, is Semitic: “Two ways there are, one of life and one of death, and great is the difference between the two ways” (1:1). The text goes on to enumerate the characteristics of each way. But way is the key word here. When the disciples, puzzled, asked Jesus how they could follow him, because they did not know the way he was going, Jesus replied, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6). I think I can hear the Hebrew behind it: ha derek anochi – I am the way, with the emphasis on the pronoun, anochi (“I”), coming after the noun, derek (“way”). Indeed, the followers of Jesus, after his ascension, described their faith and their worship as the Way (Acts 9:2, 22:4, 24:14); the report of such is from St. Paul.
Now, the first use of the Hebrew derek, in Scripture, is here: “And [God] drove out the man, and placed in the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword that turned roundabout, to keep the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). Let us put that verse beside what Jesus says. Satan had tempted Adam and Eve with lies, and those lies led to death, and they blocked up the way to life, but Jesus Himself is truth, and he does more than point toward the way. He is the way. His obedience undoes the disobedience of Adam. His Cross is the tree of life, and from his body flowed forth blood and water (Jn. 19:34), an endless river springing up into life everlasting (cf. Jn. 4:14).
What is a way? The word derek is widespread in the Old Testament and is used in both a literal and a figurative sense, but even when it is used figuratively, the literal is not far to seek: a way, a path, a road. So is it translated into Greek as hodos, with the same primary meaning. The way from Jerusalem to Jericho, that is, the road, one notorious for bandits in ambush, is a hodos (Lk. 10:31).
We ought to keep this literal meaning foremost. We may say that there are various ways to get a certain thing done, but the word there suggests not so much a track as a means: you can build a house out of wood or brick or stone, and each of these is a way to build, a means of building, with different building materials. But if we ask how we are to return to the garden and the tree of life, we are asking for the road that will take us there. And the thing about a road is that it does not depend on what its travelers consider it to be. It leads where it leads. If you go down it, you go where it takes you. It is an objective fact.
Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise
Thus when the author or authors of the Didache say that there are two ways, we must not interpret them as simply recommending a variety of habits of life. They are roads, as Jesus says: “Broad is the road [hodos] that leads to destruction” (Mt. 7:13). It is the easy road to take, with a lot of fellow travelers on it. Its easiness and its breadth are tempting – we may say that they too are lies, because the road leads not to the expanse of heaven and its life of pure love, but to the cramps of self-will, envy, pride and other lies, all petty and dreary, with a dull repetitiveness that mimics the eternity of heaven.
The Didache does go on to describe the two ways, and in language that suggests that the words of Jesus, especially those from the Sermon on the Mount, have so penetrated to the heart of those who follow them that they come forth naturally. The summation of the Way of Life, given at the beginning, is this: “First, you shall love the God who made you, and second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (1:2). That entails the love of enemies especially, as the Didache makes this bold but perfectly logical claim: “If you love those who hate you, you will have no enemies” (1:3; emphasis mine). I do not believe that we are meant to understand that our love will necessarily bring them around. Our love brings us around: it brings us along the road to life. Jesus loved Judas. He loved the Pharisees. He told them the truth, and they condemned him to death.
I could go on to enumerate the various manners in which this derek, this way, was not like what we in English used to call “the way of the world,” the road the world rolls along, the road to death. Those who encountered the Didache for the first time, I think, must have had two simultaneous reactions: first, that the way was obviously the right one, corresponding to all the best impulses of the human heart and approved by the feeble but still audible voice of conscience, and second, that those who travel along this way must be thought quite mad.
For the way, in its negative sense, means that “thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not corrupt boys, thou shalt not fornicate, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not engage in divination, thou shalt not use sorceries, thou shalt not put to death the child in the womb, thou shalt not slay him once he is born” (2:1-2).
We may think that most of these prescriptions are easy enough to fulfill. But then, not every society is afflicted with the same chief diseases, and it is eye-opening, at least, to see some of them placed next to one another, as if the author saw no dime’s worth of difference between them – as if the fornicator were on the same path with the thief and the murderer, and the abortionist on the same path with someone who exposes an unwanted child already born. So it may be that one party of travelers down the road of death is holding to the left side, another to the right, and each party points scornfully at the other, while all are heading in the same direction.
This being the case, and it is not an entirely comfortable one to consider, we should pray always: “Lord, be my guide, my companion, my support, my way, and my destination, and if my steps go wrong, correct me at once, and never abandon me to be my own. That is what Adam and Eve chose when they ate the fruit, to be their own. Help me to choose otherwise.”
* Dr. Anthony Esolen, currently a faculty member at Thales College in North Carolina, has been a professor of literature and humanities for 35 years and is the author or translator of more than 30 books, which include a range of English translations, analyses of culture, literary and Biblical criticisms, meditations on modern education, meditations on the Christian life, and original poetry. Dr. Esolen also serves as a senior editor and regular writer at Touchstone magazine, has published well over 1000 articles in various journals, and publishes a web magazine dedicated to language, music, poetry, and classic films called Word and Song with his wife, Debra.
