History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

Syria. It numbered from twelve to eighteen bishops (the lists vary), several of whom eleven years

afterwards attended the Council of Nicaea. Marcellus of Ancyra who acquired celebrity in the Arian

controversies, presided, according to others Vitalis of Antioch. Its object was to heal the wounds

of the Diocletian persecution, and it passed twenty-five canons relating chiefly to the treatment of

those who had betrayed their faith or delivered the sacred books in those years of terror. Priests

who had offered sacrifice to the gods, but afterwards repented, were prohibited from preaching and

all sacerdotal functions, but allowed to retain their clerical dignity. Those who had sacrificed before

baptism may be admitted to orders. Adultery is to be punished by seven years’ penance, murder

by life-long penance.

263

63

A similar Council was held soon afterwards at, Neo-Caesarea in Cappadocia (between

314–325), mostly by the same bishops who attended that of Ancyra, and passed fifteen disciplinary

canons.

264

64

§ 56. Collections of Ecclesiastical Law. The Apostolical Constitutions and Canons.

Sources.

I. 

                                    μ     

, etc., Constitutiones Apostolicae, first edited by Fr Turrianus, Ven. 1563, then

in Cotelier’s ed. of the Patres Apostolici (I. 199 sqq.), in Mansi (Collect. Concil. I.), and Harduin

(Coll. Conc. I.); newly edited by Ueltzen, Rost. 1853, and P. A. de Lagarde, Lips. and Lond.

1854 and 1862. Ueltzen gives the textus receptus improved. Lagarde aims at the oldest text,

which he edited in Syriac (Didascalia Apostolorum Syriace, 1854), and in Greek (Constit.

Apostolorum Graece, 1862). Hilgenfels: Nov. Test. extra Canonem rec., Lips. (1866), ed. II.

(1884), Fasc. IV. 110–121. He gives the Ap. Church Order under the title Duae Viae vel Judicium

Petri.

Thos. Pell Platt: The Æthiopic Didascalia; or the Æthiopic Version of the Apostolical Constitutions, received in the Church of Abyssinia, with

an Engl Transl, , Lond. 1834.

Henry Tattam: The Apostolical Constitutions, or Canons of the Apostles in Coptic. With an Engl.

translation. Lond. 1848 (214 pages).

II. 

                             .          

, Canones, qui dicuntur Apostolorum, in most collections of church law, and

in Cotel. (I. 437 sqq.), Mansi, and Harduin (tom. I.), and in the editions of the Ap. Constitutions

at the close. Separate edd. by Paul De Lagarde in Greek and Syriac: Reliquiae juris ecclesiastici

antiquissimae Syriace, Lips. 1856; and Reliquiae juris ecclesiastici Graece, 1856 (both to be

had at Trübner’s, Strassburg). An Ethiopic translation of the Canons, ed. by Winand Fell, Leipz.

1871.

W. G. Beveridge, (Bishop of St. Asaph, d. 1708): 

         

, s. Pandectae Canonum S. G. Apostolorum

et Conciliorum, ab Ecclesia Gr. reliquit. Oxon. 1672–82, 2 vols. fol.

John Fulton: Index Canonum. In Greek and English. With a Complete Digest of the entire code of

canon law in the undivided Primitive Church. N. York 1872; revised ed. with Preface by P.

Schaff, 1883.

263

Hefele, vol. I. 222 sqq., gives the canons in Greek and German with explanation. He calls it a Synodus plenaria, i.e., a

general council for the churches of Asia Minor and Syria. See also Mansi II. 514 sqq. Two Arian Synods were held at Ancyra

in 358 and 375.

264

See Hefele I. 242-251.

117

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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Critical Discussions.

Krabbe: 

Ueber den Ursprung u. den Inhalt der Apost. Constitutionen des Clemens Romanus

. Hamb. 1829.

S. v. Drey (R.C.): 

Neue Untesuchungen über die Constitut. u

. 

Kanones der Ap.

 Tüb. 1832.

J. W. Bickell (d. 1848): 

Gesch. des Kirchenrechts.

 Giess. 1843 (I. 1, pp. 52–255). The second part appeared,

Frankf., 1849.

Chase: Constitations of the Holy Apostles, including the Canons; Whiston’s version revised from

the Greek; with a prize essay(of Krabbe) upon their origin and contents. New York, 1848.

Bunsen: Hippolytus

u. seine Zeit.,

 Leipz. 1852 (I. pp. 418–523, and II. pp. 1126); and in the 2d Engl.

ed. Hippolytus and his Age, or Christianity and Mankind, Lond. 1854 (vols. V – VII).

Hefele (R.C.): 

Conciliengeschichte

 I. p. 792 sqq. (second ed. 1873). The Didache Literature (fully noticed

in Schaff’s monograph

Philoth. Bryennios: 

                           

. Constantinople, 1833.

Ad. Harnack: 

Die Lehre der Zwölf Apostel.

 Leipz., 1884. 

Die Apostellehre und die jüdischen beiden Wege,

 1886.

Ph. Schaff: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or the Oldest Church Manual. N. York, 1885.

3d ed. revised and enlarged, 1889.

Several church manuals or directories of public worship, and discipline have come down to us

from the first centuries in different languages. They claim directly or indirectly apostolic origin

and authority, but are post-apostolic and justly excluded from the canon. They give us important

information on the ecclesiastical laws, morals, and customs of the ante-Nicene age.

1. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is the oldest and simplest church manual, of Jewish

Christian (Palestinian or Syrian) origin, from the end of the first century, known to the Greek fathers,

but only recently discovered and published by Bryennios (1883). It contains in 16 chapters (1) a

summary of moral instruction based on the Decalogue and the royal commandment of love to God

and man, in the parabolic form of two ways, the way of life and the way of death; (2) directions on

the celebration of baptism and the eucharist with the agape; (3) directions on discipline and the

offices of apostles (i.e. travelling evangelists), prophets, teachers, bishops (i.e. presbysters), and

deacons; (4) an exhortation to watchfulness in view of the coming of the Lord and the resurrection

of the saints. A very remarkable book. Its substance survived in the seventh book of the Apostolical

Constitutions.

2. The Ecclesiastical Canons of the holy apostles or Apostolical Church Order, of Egyptian

origin, probably of the third century. An expansion of the former in the shape of a fictitious dialogue

of the apostles, first published in Greek by Bickell (1843), and then also in Coptic and Syriac. It

contains ordinances of the apostles on morals, worship, and discipline.

3. The Apostolical Constitutions, the most complete and important Church Manual. It is,

in form, a literary fiction, professing to be a bequest of all the apostles, handed down through the

Roman bishop Clement, or dictated to him. It begins with the words: "The apostles and elders, to

all who among the nations have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with you, and peace."

It contains, in eight books, a collection of moral exhortations, church laws and usages, and liturgical

formularies which had gradually arisen in the various churches from the close of the first century,

the time of the Roman Clement, downward, particularly in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and

Rome, partly on the authority of apostolic practice. These were at first orally transmitted; then

committed to writing in different versions, like the creeds; and finally brought, by some unknown

hand, into their present form. The first six books, which have a strongly Jewish-Christian tone,

were composed, with the exception of some later interpolations, at the end of the third century, in

118

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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