The Puritan severity of the canons well accords with the temper of the writer to whom the Arabic title attributes them; and it is to be noted that the exhortation at the close contains a quotation from 2 Peter actually attributed to the apostle, and Hippolytus is perhaps the earliest author who can with certainty be said to have used this epistle. But the general style of Hippolytus, which is simple, straight-forward and strong, is in marked contrast with that of the closing passage of the canons; moreover, his mind, as presented to us in his extant writings, appears to be a much larger one than that of the writer of these canons; it is as difficult to think of Hippolytus as it would be to think of Origen in such a connexion. How, then, are we to account for the attribution? There is evidence to show that Hippolytus was highly reverenced throughout the East: his writings, which were in Greek, were known, but his history was entirely unknown. He was supposed to be "a pupil ([Greek: gnorimos]) of apostles" (Palladius, 4th century), and the Arabic title calls him "chief of the bishops of Rome," i.e. archbishop of Rome. It is hard to trust this attribution more than the attribution of a Coptic discourse on the _Dormitio Mariae_ to "Evodius, archbishop of the great city Rome, who was the second after Peter the apostle" (_Texts and Studies_, iv. 2-44)--Evodius being by tradition first bishop of Antioch. A whole group of books on Church Order bears the name of Clement of Rome; and the attribution of our canons to Hippolytus may be only an example of the same tendency. The fact that Hippolytus wrote a treatise _Concerning Spiritual Gifts_, and that some such treatise is not only referred to in the Latin preface to the Egyptian Church Order, but is actually found at the beginning of book viii. of the Apostolic Constitutions, introduces an interesting complication; but we cannot here pursue the matter further. Dom Morin's ingenious attribution of the canons to Dionysius of Alexandria (on the ground of Eusebius, _H.E._ vi. 46., 5) cannot be accepted in view of the broader church policy which that writer represents. If the Hippolytean authorship be given up, it is probable that Egypt will make the strongest claim to be the locality in which the canons were compiled in their present form. The authorities of chief practical importance are H. Achelis, _Texte u. Unters._ vi. 4 (1891); Rahmani, _Testamentum Domini_ (1899); Hauler, _Didascaliae Apostolorum_ (1900); Riedel, _Kirchenrechtsquellen des Patriarchats Alexandrien_ (1900). (J. A. R.)