The ''Apostolic Constitutions'' or ''Constitutions of the Holy Apostles'' (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

: ''Constitutiones Apostolorum'') is a

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collection divided into eight books which is classified among the Church Orders, a

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

of early Christian literature, that offered authoritative pseudo- apostolic prescriptions on moral conduct,

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

and

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. The work can be dated from 375 to 380 AD. The provenance is usually regarded as

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, probably

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; , ) "Antioch on Daphne"; or "Antioch the Great"; ; ; ; ; ; ; . was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as ...

. The author is unknown, although since James Ussher it has been often considered to be the same author as that of the letters of Pseudo-Ignatius, perhaps the 4th-century Eunomian bishop Julian of

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Content

The ''Apostolic Constitutions'' contains eight books on

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discipline, worship, and doctrine, apparently intended to serve as a manual of guidance for the clergy, and to some extent for the laity. It purports to be the work of the

Twelve Apostles In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles (also known as the Twelve Disciples or simply the Twelve), were the primary disciples of Jesus according to the New Testament. During the life and minist ...

, whether given by them as individuals or as a body. The structure of the ''Apostolic Constitutions'' can be summarized: * 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 '' Didache''. Chapters 33-45 of book 7 contain prayers similar to

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prayers used in

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. * 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 Apostles and it had a wider circulation than the rest of the book. The best manuscript,

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gr 1506, has

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leanings, which are not found in other manuscripts because this material would have been censured as heretical. The ''Apostolic Constitutions'' is an important source for the history of the liturgy in the Antiochene rite. It contains an outline of an anaphora in book two, a full anaphora in book seven (which is an expansion of the one found in the Didache), and the complete Liturgy of the eighth book of the ''Apostolic Constitutions'', which is the oldest known form that can be described as a complete

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Influence

In antiquity, the ''Apostolic Constitutions'' were mistakenly supposed to be gathered and handed down by

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, the authority of whose name gave weight to more than one such piece of early Christian literature (see also Clementine literature). The ''Apostolic Constitutions'' were rejected as apocryphal by the

Decretum Gelasianum The Gelasian Decree () is a Latin text traditionally thought to be a decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I (492-496). The work reached its final form in a five-chapter text written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553. The second chapte ...

, and the 692

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rejected most of the work as heretical interpolations.

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accepted only part of Book 8, known as the ''Canons of the Apostles''. Nevertheless, the 1913

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describes the Constitutions as held in "high esteem" in antiquity, and as the basis for significant amounts of

canon law Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...

. The ''Apostolic Constitutions'' were accepted as canonical by John of Damascus and, in a modified form, included in the 81 book canon of the

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. Even if the text of the ''Apostolic Constitutions'' was extant in many libraries during the

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, it was largely ignored. In 1546 a Latin version of a text was found in

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and published. The first complete edition of the

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text was printed in 1563 by Turrianus. 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

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, 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 3rd and 4th centuries. They are part of the ''

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'' collection.

Canons of the Apostles

The forty-seventh and last chapter of the eighth book of the ''Apostolic Constitutions'' contains the eighty-five Canons of the Apostles, which present themselves as being from an apostolic Council at Antioch. These canons were later approved by the Eastern Council in Trullo in 692 but rejected by Pope Constantine. In the

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only fifty of these canons circulated, translated to

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on about 500 AD, and included in the Western collections and afterwards in the '' Corpus Juris Canonici''.

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

n. 85 is a list of canonical books: a 46-book

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canon which essentially corresponds to that of the

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, 26 books of what is now the

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(excludes

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), two Epistles of Clement, and the Apostolic Constitutions themselves, also here attributed to Clement, at least as compiler.

Epitome of the eighth book

It is also known as the

Epitome An epitome (; , from ἐπιτέμνειν ''epitemnein'' meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment. Epitomacy represents "to the degree of." A ...

, 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. The text was first published by Paul de Lagarde in 1856 and later by Franz Xaver von Funk in 1905. 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.

Notes

External links

*
''Apostolic Constitutions'': online English text
from the ''