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Introductory NoticetoConstitutions of the Holy Apostles.___________________ Having learned from the erudite Beveridge what I long supposed to be a just view of the Constitutions, I have found in the recent literature of the subject not a little to increase my confidence in the general conclusions to which he was led by all that could be known in his times. The treatise of Krabbe guided me to some results of more modern investigations; and Dr. Bunsen, though not apart from his critics, has enabled me still further to correct some of my impressions. But, in connection with the late discovery of Bryennios, the field of discussion and inquiry has been so much enlarged, that I have felt it due to the readers and students of this republication to invoke the aid of Professor Riddle, who is able to enrich the work with the results of genuine learning and much patient research. Whatever may be my own convictions on some subordinate points, I have been glad to secure the judgment of a critical scholar who, I am persuaded, aims to shed upon the subject the colourless light of scientific investigation. This is all I can desire, anxious only to see facts clearly established and historic truth illustrated, no matter to what results they may seem to point. Where the professor’s decisions coincide with my own impressions, I am naturally gratified by his valued and independent corroboration: where the case is otherwise, I am hardly less gratified to present my indulgent readers with opinions deserving of their highest respect, and by which they will be stimulated, as well as influenced, in forming convictions for themselves. The Constitutions are so full of material on which it is well for one in my position not to speak very freely in such a work as this, that I rejoice all the more to confide the task of annotation almost exclusively to another and to one from whom American Christians must ever be glad to hear on subjects requiring in an almost equal degree the skill of an expert critic and the candour of a conscientious Christian. I prefix Professor Riddle’s Preface to the Introductory Notice of the Edinburgh editor, as follows:— New interest has been awakened in the Apostolic Constitutions by the discovery of an ancient manuscript in Constantinople.2524
We may accept as established the following positions:— 1. The Apostolic Constitutions are a compilation, the material being derived from sources differing in age. 2. The first six books are the oldest; the seventh, in its present form, somewhat later, but, from its connection with the Teaching, proven to contain matter of a very ancient date. The eighth book is of latest date. 3. It now seems to be generally admitted that the entire work is not later than the fourth century, although the usual allowance must be made for later textual changes, whether by accident or design. Dr. Von Drey2525
This is, at all events, a more reasonable view than that of Krabbe, who assigns the first six books to the end of the third century, and the eighth to the beginning of the fifth. The latter, it is true, he regards a compilation from older sources. The purpose of the whole, in his view, was to confirm the episcopal hierarchy, and to establish the unity of the Catholic Church on the basis of the unity of the priesthood, etc. But it is now generally held that the purpose of the compilation was merely to present a manual of instruction, worship, polity, and usage for both clergy and laity. Had it been designed to further some ecclesiastical tendency, it would be far less valuable, since it would less fairly reproduce the ecclesiastical life of the age or ages in which it originated. Bishop Beveridge at first attributed the Constitutions to Clemens Alexandrinus (end of second century), but afterwards accepted the third century as the more probable date. The views now prevalent do full justice to his opinions, but seem to be better sustained in detail. The collection of Canons at the close of the Constitutions is undoubtedly a compilation. Some are evidently much more ancient than others, and there is every evidence that various collections or recensions existed. That of Dionysius (about a.d. 500), in Latin, contained fifty canons; that of John (Scholasticus) of Antioch (about a.d. 565) contained eighty-five canons: and “it is undeniable that the Greek copy which Dionysius had before him belonged to a different family of collections from that used by John Scholasticus, for they differ frequently, if not essentially, both in text and in the way of numbering the canons.”2528
Bishop Beveridge sought to trace these to the synods of the first two centuries, while Daillé held that the collection was made as late as the fifth century. The latter view is not generally accepted, though the existence of a variety of collections tells against some of the views of Bishop Beveridge.2529
[The following is Dr. Donaldson’s Introductory Notice:—] There has always existed a great diversity of opinion as to the author and date of the Apostolical Constitutions Earlier writers were inclined to assign them to the apostolic age, and to Clement; but much discussion ensued, and the questions to which they give rise are still unsettled. The most peculiar opinion in regard to them is that of Whiston, who devoted a volume (vol. iii.) of his Primitive Christianity Revived to prove that “they are the most sacred of the canonical books of the New Testament;” for “these sacred Christian laws or constitutions were delivered at Jerusalem, and in Mount Sion, by our Saviour to the eleven apostles there assembled after His resurrection.” Krabbe, who wrote an elaborate treatise on the origin and contents of the Apostolical Constitutions, tried to show that the first seven books were written “towards the end of the third century.” The eighth book, he thinks, must have been written at the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth. Bunsen thinks that, if we expunge a few interpolations of the fourth and fifth centuries, “we find ourselves unmistakeably in the midst of the life of the Church of the second and third centuries.”2531
Modern critics are equally at sea in determining the date of the collections of canons given at the end of the eighth book. Most believe that some of them belong to the apostolic age, while others are of a comparatively late date. The subject is very fully discussed in Krabbe. Bovius first gave a complete edition of the Constitutions (Venice, 1563), but only in a Latin form. The Greek was first edited by the Jesuit Turrianus (Venice, 1563). It was reprinted several times. Cotelerius gave it in his Apostolical Fathers. In the second edition of this work, as prepared by Clericus (1724), the readings of two Vienna manuscripts were given. These V. mss. and Oxford ms. of book viii. are supposed by Bunsen to be nearer the original than the others, alike in what they give and in what they omit. The Constitutions have been edited by Ültzen (1853), and by Lagarde in Bunsen’s Analecta Ante-Nicœna, vol. ii. (1854). Lagarde has partially introduced readings from the Syriac, Arabic, Æthiopic, and Coptic forms of the Constitutions. Whiston devoted the second volume of his Primitive Christianity to the Constitutions and Canons, giving both the Greek and English. It is his translation which we have republished, with considerable alterations. We have not deemed it necessary to give a tithe of the various readings, but have confined ourselves to those that seem important. We have also given no indication of the Syriac form of the first six books. We shall give this form by itself. The translation of Whiston was reprinted by Irah Chase, D.D., very carefully revised, with a translation of Krabbe’s Essay on the Origin and Contents of the Constitutions, and his Dissertation on the Canons (New York, 1848).2536
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