This is an English translation with ninety-one-page introduction and notes on the text commonly known as the Didascalia apostolorum, contained complete in its more extended form in eight, in its more primitive form in ten, Syriac manuscripts, the earliest of which belongs to between the seventh and eighth centuries. It was authoritatively edited and Englished by Vööbus in 1979 for CSCO. The Syriac translates a Greek text of which only minute fragments remain fortuitously. A palimpsest Latin manuscript in Verona, dated to 486, contains about two-fifths of the work. Portions of the original Greek are yielded by the Constitutiones apostolicae which incorporated them. Twenty-six (shorter form) or twenty-seven (longer form) chapters, presented as the rulings of the Apostolic conference of Acts xv, start from the foundation of Christian morality in the Golden Rule (ch. i) and proceed to admonitions on modesty and good order in the relations of men and women; on the pastoral role of bishops and deacons (priests and the minor orders are little mentioned); on the exercise of the judicial and administrative functions of episcopal office especially in relation to widows and the upbringing of orphans; on steadfastness in persecution and care for its victims; on the Resurrection and its Paschal celebration; and finally on the abrogation of Mosaic legislation other than the Decalogue in particular that part dealing with bodily issues. Read straight through from beginning to end the general impression will, I think, be of ethical values for their period liberating and equitable. Nothing about dogma; almost nothing about worship beyond allusions to its conduct and the admonition to attend it, avoiding heathen festivals, and to count it as true work in comparison with the mundane but not to be evaded chores of life: the sort of thing said in sermons throughout the ages. ‘Apostolic teaching’ in this context means ‘standard teaching’ dealing with day-to-day church life: grounded in the Bible but not actually in the Bible; nor derived from quotable canons and councils; but so ‘traditional’ that it must have come from the Apostles. Connolly, its interpreter in 1929, thought that it had one author; it can be read as such but ‘Apostles’ in its very title tells the reader the opposite. Stewart-Sykes discerns sources and redactors: a catechetical instruction, an instruction for bishops and a revised Quartodeciman source on the Pasch. These, he believes, were redacted twice: the first time round to make the text more anti-heretical, the second to add ‘Apostolic’ touches. Sources there certainly were and plausibly at least these three. Redactions are a different matter. He might be right but authors can redact their own works. Bumps in the text can be seen but I find no contradictions; those claimed here rest on misinterpretation (for example the passage about mixed bathing). Close readers of the work should consult Connolly, who gives the Latin, and of course Vööbus. Stewart-Sykes's notes are learned and adequate. My extensive soundings of the translation revealed some mostly trivial errors but feminist researchers beware some traps! ‘Appoint widows of not less than 50 years of age’ appears twice without the negative; and women are not told to read books, as the translation wrongly suggests. I reiterate two wise observations by Stewart-Sykes that are worth pondering upon: the requirement to consider carefully the level and source of any piece of information apparently derivable from this text; that the Didascalia apostolorum is to be seen as ‘living literature’. I would add ‘lived in’ literature: widely diffused in the ancient Churches and transcribed in Syriac-speaking Christianity up to modern times. So it was read, but who actually read it? It would be good to have its most recent translator write a second book to tell us.