world religion world religion maps world religion symbols |
Encyclopedia of Religion entry forApostolic Canons and ConstitutionsThe " Canons Apostolici " are eighty-five canons or precepts which purport to have apostolic authority and are sup-posed to have been communicated to the Church by Clement of Rome. They are first heard of in A.D. 494, when they were declared by Pope Gelasius and seventy bishops to be apocryphal. John Scholasticus, however, who afterwards became Bishop of Constantinople (A.D. 565), decided that they were of apostolic origin, and his decision was supported by the Trullan Council at Constantinople in A.D. 692 and by the second Nicene Synod in A.D. 787. They were therefore accepted in the Eastern Church. The verdict of the Western Church, on the other hand, has continued to be against them. In 1562 the Magdeburg Centuriators argued powerfully against the apostolic origin, and it would seem that in their present form they are not older than the fourth century. Some of them, it is now thought, belong to the sixth century. It has been suggested that the sources of sixty of the eighty-five canons may be found in the " Apostolic Constitutions " and the Canons of Nicaea (A.D. 325), Antioch (A.D. 341), and Ephesus (A.D. 431). The editor seems also to have had before him the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." It has also been pointed out that in many places the teaching is not apostolic, and things are mentioned which were of post-apostolic date and origin. The Canons are given in C. J. Hefele’s History of the Councils (2nd German edition, 1873-1890), J. Mansi‘s Collection of the Acts of the Councils (1759-1781), and W. Beveridge‘s Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Primitivae Vindicatus (1678). The " Constitutiones Apostolicae " purport to have been dictated by the twelve Apostles in the first person to Clement of Rome. They are in eight books, and deal with the customs, homiletic teaching, liturgical forms, and official titles in the Eastern Church. William Whiston (1667-1752) translated them, and believed that he had discovered In them the true "primitive Christianity," which happened to be Arian. But the post-apostolic origin of the Constitutions Is proved by absurd anachronisms, and in 1883 it was seen that a large part of one of the books was a reproduction of the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." C. J. Hefele assigns the work to the second half of the third century. The whole work is a compilation. It was perhaps put together by a Syrian between A.D. 364 and 378. The " Constitutions " will be found in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, quarto, vol. i., 1857, and Pitra, Juris Ecclesiastici Graecorum Historia et Monumenta, vol. i., 1864. See F. von Funk, Die Apostolischen Honstitutionen, 1891; Prot. Dict. citations: Encyc. of Rel., Canney
article created 2006-04-12 , last updated 2006-04-12 |
|
|
|
||