Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
formula, fixing the date of the forgery at the period of the
Arian controversy, somewhere between A.D. 340 and A.D. 350
(§ 50, 2).--The =eighth book= is in great part an unmistakeable
forgery compiled from older sources belonging to the 3rd century,
some of which are still to be found, and forms a handbook for
the discharge of clerical, especially episcopal, duties in
the conducting of worship and other clerical functions, _e.g._
ordination, baptism, etc., together with the relative liturgical
formularies, drawn up in a thoroughly legal-like style, in
which the Apostles one by one give their contribution with the
formula Διατάσσομαι. The composition is probably ante-Nicene,
but the date of its incorporation with the other seven books
is uncertain.--In most, though not in all, MSS. the =Canones
Apostolorum=, sometimes 50, sometimes 85, in number, are appended
to the eighth book as its last chapter. Their standpoint is that
common to the canons of the early councils from which they are
chiefly borrowed. In respect of contents they treat mainly of
the moral behaviour and official functions of the clergy. The
85th contains a Scripture canon of the Old and New Testaments,
including the two Epp. of the Roman Clement (§ 30, 3), as well
as the Apost. Constitutions, but omitting the Apocalypse of John
(comp. § 33, 9). The collection of the apostolic canon cannot
have been made before the beginning of the 5th century, and most
likely in Syria. Dionysius the Little admitted only the first 50
as _Canones qui dicuntur Apostolorum_, but Johannes Scholasticus
quite unhesitatingly ascribes all the 85 to Clement of Rome. The
Second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 (§ 63, 2) acknowledged the
genuineness of the 85, but rejected the Apostolic Constitutions
as a heretical forgery which had found no general acceptance in
the West.--While hitherto it has been surmised that the 7th bk.
of the Apost. Constit., as an independent and original work,
should be assigned to another and a much later author than the
first six bks., Harnack, founding upon his study of the Didache,
has come to a clear understanding of their mutual relations. He
shows that the original documents lying at the basis respectively
of the Didache and the Didascalia are fundamentally distinct in
respect of composition and character, but the two in the form in
which they lie before us in the Apost. Constit. are undoubtedly
the work of one and the same interpolator. We further obtain
the equally convincing and surprising result that the author of
this forgery is also identical with the author of the =thirteen
Pseudo-Ignatian Epistles= (§ 30, 5), and had in the one case and
in the other the same object in view. Finally, he characterizes
him as a Syrian cleric well versed in Scripture, especially
the Old Testament, but also a shrewd worldly politician,
opposed to all strict asceticism, who sought by his forgeries
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