Content
The Apostolic Constitutions contains eight treatises on Early Christian discipline, worship, and doctrine, intended to serve as a manual of guidance for the clergy, and to some extent for the laity. It purports to be the work of the Twelve Apostles, whose instructions, whether given by them as individuals or as a body.
The structure of the Apostolic Constitutions can be summarized:
- Books 1 to 6 are a free re-wording of the Didascalia Apostolorum
- Book 7 is partially based on the Didache. Chapters 33-45 of book 7 contain prayers similar to Jewish prayers used in synagogues.
- Book 8 is composed as follows:
- chapters 1-2 contain an extract of a lost treatise on the charismata
- chapters 3-46 are based on the Apostolic Tradition, greatly expanded, along with other material
- chapter 47 is known as the Canons of the Apostles and it had a wider circulation than the rest of the book.
The best manuscript has Arian leanings, which are not found in other manuscripts because this material would have been censured as heretical.
The Apostolic Constitutions is an important source for the history of the liturgy in the Antiochene rite. It contains an outline of an anaphora in book two, a full anaphora in book seven (which is an expansion of the one found in the Didache), and the complete Liturgy of the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, which is the oldest known form that can be described as a complete divine liturgy.
Read more about this topic: Apostolic Constitutions
Famous quotes containing the word content:
“You can hardly convince a man of an error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,—to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)