Canons of The Apostles - Content

Content

They deal mostly with the office and duties of a Christian bishop, the qualifications and conduct of the clergy, the religious life of the Christian flock (abstinence, fasting), its external administration (excommunication, synods, relations with pagans and Jews), the sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Marriage); in a word, they are a handy summary of the statutory legislation of the Early Church.

The last of these decrees contains a very important list or canon of the Holy Scriptures. In the original Koine Greek text they claim to be the very legislation of the Apostles themselves, at least as promulgated by their great disciple, Pope Clement I. Nevertheless, the claim to genuine Apostolic origin is generally considered untenable. Some, like Beveridge and Hefele, believe that they were originally drawn up about the end of the second or the beginning of the 3rd century. Most modern critics agree that they could not have been composed before the Council of Antioch of 341, some twenty of whose canons they quote; nor even before the latter end of the 4th century, since they are certainly posterior to the Apostolic Constitutions. Franz Xaver von Funk, admittedly a foremost authority on the latter and all similar early canonical texts, locates the composition of the Apostolic Canons in the 5th century, near the year 400. Thereby he approaches the opinion of his scholarly predecessor, Johann Sebastian Drey, the first among modern writers to study profoundly these ancient canons; he distinguished two editions of them, a shorter one (fifty) about the middle of the 5th century, and a longer one (eighty-five) early in the 6th century. Von Funk admits but one edition. They were certainly current in the Eastern Church in the first quarter of the 6th century, for about 520 Severus of Antioch quotes canons 21-23.