Testamentum Domini - Content

Content

The Testamentum is usually incorporated in the collection of Church Orders named Clementine Octateuch. Of this the Testament forms the first two books; and according to the title it contains the "testament, or words which Our Lord spake to His holy Apostles when He rose from the dead". The division into books, however, is clearly not original.

It falls into three distinct parts: an apocalyptic introduction, a "church order" proper, and a conclusion of the same apocalyptic character as the introduction.

• The Introduction (book 1:1-18) professes to contain the record of the revelation of Himself by the Lord to his Apostles, with whom are Martha, Mary and Salome, on the evening after his resurrection. He is represented as unfolding to them, at their request, the signs of the end, and giving them instruction on various other topics. Incidentally, the fact becomes plain that this section is composed from the standpoint of Asia Minor and Syria, that it dates from soon after the time of Maximin (235-38) and Decius (249-51), and that it springs from a Christian community of a strictly morally rigorous type.
• The Church Order (book 1:19 - book 2:24) follows the general lines of the Canons of Hippolytus and similar documents. It describes the Church and its buildings (1:19) ; the office of the bishop and his functions (1:19-27) : the mystagogic instruction (1:28) common to this and the Arabic Didascalia, where it occurs in an earlier form, and based in part upon the Gnostic Acts of Peter; the presbyter (1:29-32); the deacon (1:33-38); confessors (1:39); the “widows who have precedence in sitting" (1:40-43), apparently the same persons who are spoken of elsewhere as "presbyteresses" (1:35,2:19); the subdeacon (1:44) and the reader (liturgy) (1:45), the order of whose offices seems to have been inverted; virgins of both sexes (1:46); and those who possess charismata or spiritual gifts (1:47). Next come the regulations for the laity, including the whole course of preparation for and admission to baptism (2:1-8), confirmation (2:9), and the Eucharist (2:10) after which there follows a series of miscellaneous regulations for Easter and Pentecost (2:11-12), the agape (2:13), the funds of the Church (2:17-20), the visitation of the sick (2:21), the use of psalmody (2:22), the burial of the dead (2:23), and the hours of prayer (2:24).
• The Conclusion (book 2:25-27) brings us back to the injunctions of the Lord as to the keeping of these precepts, a special charge to John, Andrew and Peter, and a statement that copies of the Testament were made by John, Peter and Matthew, and sent to Jerusalem by the hands of Dosithaeus, Sillas, Magnus and Aquila.