Apostolic Constitutions
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The Apostolic Constitutions or Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (
Content
The Apostolic Constitutions contains eight books on
The structure of the Apostolic Constitutions can be summarized:[5]
- Books 1 to 6 are a free re-wording of the Didascalia Apostolorum, an earlier work of the same genre.
- Book 7 is partially based on the synagogues.
- Book 8 is a more complex section composed as follows:
- chapters 1-2 contain an extract of a lost treatise on the charismata
- chapters 3-46 are based on the Apostolic Tradition, greatly expanded, along with other material
- chapter 47 is known as the Canons of the Apostlesand it had a wider circulation than the rest of the book.
- chapters 1-2 contain an extract of a lost treatise on the
The best manuscript,
The Apostolic Constitutions is an important source for the history of the liturgy in the
Influence
In antiquity, the Apostolic Constitutions were mistakenly supposed to be gathered and handed down by Clement of Rome, the authority of whose name gave weight to more than one such piece of early Christian literature (see also Clementine literature).[4]
The Church seems never to have regarded this work as of undoubted apostolic authority. The Apostolic Constitutions were rejected as apocryphal by the
Even if the text of the Apostolic Constitutions was extant in many libraries during the Middle Ages, it was largely ignored. In 1546 a Latin version of a text was found in Crete and published.[4] The first complete edition of the Greek text was printed in 1563 by Turrianus.[6]
William Whiston in the 18th century devoted the third volume of his Primitive Christianity Revived to prove that "they are the most sacred of the canonical books of the New Testament; "for "these sacred Christian laws or constitutions were delivered at Jerusalem, and in Mount Sion, by our Saviour to the eleven apostles there assembled after His resurrection."
Today the Apostolic Constitutions are regarded as a highly significant historical document, as they reveal the moral and religious conditions, as well as the liturgical observances of
collection.Canons of the Apostles
The forty-seventh and last chapter of the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions contains the eighty-five
Canon n. 85 is a list of canonical books: a 46-book Old Testament canon which essentially corresponds to that of the Septuagint, 26 books of what is now the New Testament (excludes Revelation), two Epistles of Clement, and the Apostolic Constitutions themselves, also here attributed to Clement, at least as compiler.[7]
Epitome of the eighth book
It is also known as the Epitome, and usually named Epitome of the eighth Book of the Apostolic Constitutions (or sometime titled The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles concerning ordination through Hippolytus or simply The Constitutions through Hippolytus) containing a re-wording of chapters 1–2, 4–5, 16–28, 30–34, 45-46 of the eighth book.[8] The text was first published by Paul de Lagarde in 1856 and later by Franz Xaver von Funk in 1905.[9] This epitome could be a later extract even if in parts it looks nearer to the Greek original of the Apostolic Tradition, from which the 8th book is derived, than the Apostolic Constitutions themselves.
See also
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-19-521732-2.
- ISBN 978-0-19-521732-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8146-6085-0.
- ^ a b c d e One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Apostolic Constitutions". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- ISBN 978-0-7546-1601-6.
- ISBN 978-81-7268-111-1.
- ^ Michael D. Marlowe. "The "Apostolic Canons" (about A.D. 380)". Bible Research. Archived from the original on 29 August 2010. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
- ^ Easton, Burton Scott (1934). The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. Cambridge. p. 13.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ von Funk, Franz Xaver (1905). Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum. Vol. 2. Paderborn.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
External links
- Constitutions of the Holy Apostles public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Apostolic Constitutions: online English text from the Ante-Nicene Fathers
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Didascalia
- Collins, William Edward (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 199–201. This contains a more detailed exegesis of the writings and their possible authorship.
- Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Apostolic Constitutions and Canons