Apostolic Church-Ordinances
Encyclopedia
The Apostolic Church-Ordinance (or Apostolic Church-Order, Apostolic Church-Directory or Constitutio Ecclesiastica Apostolorum) is a Christian
treatise which belongs to genre
of the Church Orders
. The work can be dated at the end of 3rd century CE. The provenience is usually regarded as Egypt
, or perhaps Syria
. The author is unknown.
This text served as a law-code
for the Egyptian
, Ethiopian
, and Arabian
churches, and it superseded in authority and esteem the Didache
, under which name it sometimes went.
, was found in a 12th century manuscript
discovered in 1843 at Vienna
and published in the same year by Johann Wilhelm Bickell, which named it Apostolische Kirchenordnung. Only other four fragmentary Greek manuscripts are extant.
A complete Syriac ancient translation, with English translation, was published in 1901 by John Peter Arendzen. The Ge'ez version was first published in 1691 by Hiob Ludolf
.
The Apostolic Church-Ordinance usually is found also in ancient collections of Church Orders
. It is the second book in the Verona Palimpsest
, it is the first book in the Alexandrine Sinodos
and in the Bohairic version of the Clementine Octateuch, while the Arabic version of the Clementine Octateuch has it in the second place, and the Syriac version of it has it in the third place. Thus we have many early translations of the Apostolic Church-Ordinance in Latin
, Ge'ez
, Bohairic Coptic, Sahidic Coptic, Arabic
and Syriac
. For the publication details of these versions, see articles about the relevant collections.
The titles found on the manuscripts can be different, so the Bohairic Alexandrine Sinodos version is entitled "Canons of our Fathers the Holy Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, which they appointed in the Churches", while the Syriac version has "Third book of Clement, Teaching of the twelve Apostles".
The names of the Apostles are so listed: John
, Matthew
, Peter
, Andrew
, Philip
, Simon, James, Nathanael, Thomas
, Cephas, Bartholomew and Judas. The presence of both Peter and Cephas, and the first place given to John, is found also in the more ancient Epistula Apostolorum
.
The content can be so summarized:
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
treatise which belongs to genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
of the Church Orders
Ancient Church Orders
Ancient Church Orders is a genre of early Christian literature, ranging from 1st to 5th century, which has the aim to offer authoritative "apostolic" prescriptions on matters of moral conduct, liturgy and Church organization....
. The work can be dated at the end of 3rd century CE. The provenience is usually regarded as Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, or perhaps Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. The author is unknown.
This text served as a law-code
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
for the Egyptian
Coptic Christianity
The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt and the Middle East. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different...
, Ethiopian
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the predominant Oriental Orthodox Christian church in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church was administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959, when it was granted its own Patriarch by Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All...
, and Arabian
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity comprises the Christian traditions and churches that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Northeastern Africa, India and parts of the Far East over several centuries of religious antiquity. The term is generally used in Western Christianity to...
churches, and it superseded in authority and esteem the Didache
Didache
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
, under which name it sometimes went.
Manuscript Tradition
The full and original text, in GreekKoine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
, was found in a 12th century manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
discovered in 1843 at Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and published in the same year by Johann Wilhelm Bickell, which named it Apostolische Kirchenordnung. Only other four fragmentary Greek manuscripts are extant.
A complete Syriac ancient translation, with English translation, was published in 1901 by John Peter Arendzen. The Ge'ez version was first published in 1691 by Hiob Ludolf
Hiob Ludolf
Hiob Ludolf was a German orientalist, and born at Erfurt. Edward Ullendorff rates Ludolf as having "the most illustrious name in Ethiopic scholarship".-Life:...
.
The Apostolic Church-Ordinance usually is found also in ancient collections of Church Orders
Ancient Church Orders
Ancient Church Orders is a genre of early Christian literature, ranging from 1st to 5th century, which has the aim to offer authoritative "apostolic" prescriptions on matters of moral conduct, liturgy and Church organization....
. It is the second book in the Verona Palimpsest
Verona Palimpsest
The Verona Palimpsest is manuscript, dated about the 494 CE, which contains a Christian collection of Church Orders in Latin...
, it is the first book in the Alexandrine Sinodos
Alexandrine Sinodos
The Alexandrine Sinodos is a Christian collection of Church Orders. This collection can be dated in the 4th or 5th century CE, even if it is composed by more ancient texts...
and in the Bohairic version of the Clementine Octateuch, while the Arabic version of the Clementine Octateuch has it in the second place, and the Syriac version of it has it in the third place. Thus we have many early translations of the Apostolic Church-Ordinance in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Ge'ez
Ge'ez language
Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...
, Bohairic Coptic, Sahidic Coptic, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
and Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
. For the publication details of these versions, see articles about the relevant collections.
The titles found on the manuscripts can be different, so the Bohairic Alexandrine Sinodos version is entitled "Canons of our Fathers the Holy Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, which they appointed in the Churches", while the Syriac version has "Third book of Clement, Teaching of the twelve Apostles".
Content
As usual in genre of the Church Orders, this texts purports to be the work of the Twelve Apostles, whose instructions, whether given by them as individuals or as a body. In antiquity this text was sometime mistakenly supposed to be gathered and handed down by the Clement of Rome.The names of the Apostles are so listed: John
John the Apostle
John the Apostle, John the Apostle, John the Apostle, (Aramaic Yoħanna, (c. 6 - c. 100) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles...
, Matthew
Matthew the Evangelist
Matthew the Evangelist was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.-Identity:...
, Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
, Andrew
Saint Andrew
Saint Andrew , called in the Orthodox tradition Prōtoklētos, or the First-called, is a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter. The name "Andrew" , like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews from the 3rd or 2nd century BC. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him...
, Philip
Philip the Apostle
Philip the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Later Christian traditions describe Philip as the apostle who preached in Greece, Syria, and Phrygia....
, Simon, James, Nathanael, Thomas
Thomas the Apostle
Thomas the Apostle, also called Doubting Thomas or Didymus was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He is best known for questioning Jesus' resurrection when first told of it, then proclaiming "My Lord and my God" on seeing Jesus in . He was perhaps the only Apostle who went outside the Roman...
, Cephas, Bartholomew and Judas. The presence of both Peter and Cephas, and the first place given to John, is found also in the more ancient Epistula Apostolorum
Epistula Apostolorum
The Epistula Apostolorum is a work from the New Testament apocrypha. The work was lost to the West until a complete version in Ethiopic translation was discovered and published in the early twentieth century. The text was used regularly by the relatively isolated Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and was...
.
The content can be so summarized:
- chapters 1-3 include a short introduction inspired by the Epistle of BarnabasEpistle of BarnabasThe Epistle of Barnabas is a Greek epistle containing twenty-one chapters, preserved complete in the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus where it appears at the end of the New Testament...
- chapters 4-14 are an evident adaptation of the first six chapters of the DidacheDidacheThe Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
, the moral precepts of which are attributed severally to the Apostles, each of whom, introduced by the formula "John says", "Peter says", etc., is represented as framing one or more of the ordinances - chapters 15-30 treat in similar manner of the qualifications for appointment and ordinationOrdinationIn general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
of bishops, presbyters, reader, deaconDeaconDeacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
s and widowers, and this section treats also of the duties of lay male and female and of deacons.
External links
- Henry Tattam The Apostolical Constitutions... 1848: English text of the Bohairic version (at pages 2–30)
- J. P. Arendzen in Journal of Theological Studies October 1901: English text of the Syriac version (at pages 61–73)