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APOSTOLICAL

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 522 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS). (a) The most important of these is what is now commonly called the See also:

Egyptian See also:Church See also:Order. This is preserved to us in Coptic and Aethiopic versions, of which Achelis, in his synopsis, gives See also:German See also:translations. The subject-See also:matter and arrangement of these canons correspond generally to those of See also:Hippolytus; but many of the details are modified to bring them into See also:accord with a later practice. A new See also:light was thrown on the See also:criticism of this See also:work by Hauler's See also:discovery (190o) of a Latin version (of which, unfortunately, about See also:half 'is missing) in the See also:Verona See also:palimpsest, from which he has also given us large Latin fragments of the Didascalia (which underlies books i.-vi. of the Apostolic Constitutions, and which hitherto we have only known from the See also:Syriac). The Latin of the Egyptian Church Order is somewhat more See also:primitive than the Coptic, and approaches more nearly, at some points, to the Canons of Hippolytus. It has a See also:preface which refers to a See also:treatise Concerning Spiritual Gifts, as having immediately preceded it; but neither this nor the Coptic-Aethiopic See also:form has either the introduction or concluding exhortation which is found in the Canons of Hippolytus. (b) The Testament of the See also:Lord is a document in Syriac, of which the opening See also:part had been published by See also:Lagarde, and of which Rahmani (1899) has given us the whole. It professes to contain instructions given by our Lord to the apostles after the resurrection. After an introduction containing apocalyptical matter, it passes on to give elaborate directions for the ordering of the Church, embodying, in a much-See also:expanded form, the Egyptian Church Order, and showing a knowledge of the preface to that document which appears in the Latin version. It cannot be placed with See also:probability earlier than' the latter part of the 4th See also:century. (c) The A postolic Constitutions is a composite document, which probably belongs to the end of the 4th century.

Its first six books are an expanded edition of a Didascalia which we have already mentioned: its seventh See also:

book similarly expands and modifies the See also:Didache; its eighth book begins by treating of " spiritual gifts," and then in c. 3 passes on to expand in like manner the Egyptian Church Order. The See also:hand which has wrought up all these documents has been shown to be that of the interpolator of the Ignatian Epistles in the longer See also:Greek recension. (d) The Canons of See also:Basil is the See also:title of an Arabic work, of which a German See also:translation has been given us by Riedel, who thinks that they have come through Coptic from an See also:original Greek book. They embody, in a modified form, considerable portions of the Canons of Hippolytus. 3. We now approach the difficult questions of date and author-See also:ship. Much of the material has been quite recently brought to light, and criticism has not had See also:time to investigate and pronounce upon it. Some provisional remarks, therefore, are all that can prudently be made. It seems See also:plain that we have two lines of tradition: (I) The Canons of Hippolytus, followed by the Canons of Basil; (2) the Egyptian Church Order, itself represented (a) by the Latin version, the Testament of the Lord, and the Apostolic Constitutions, which are linked together by the same preface (or portions of it); (b) by the Coptic and Aethiopic versions. Now, the preface of the Latin version points to a time when the canons were embodied in a corpus of similar materials, or, at the least, were preceded by a work on "Spiritual Gifts." The Canons of Hippolytus have a wholly different preface, and also a See also:long exhortation at the See also:close. The question which criticism must endeavour to See also:answer is, whether the Canons of Hippolytus are the original from which the Egyptian Church Order is derived, or whether an earlier See also:body of canons lies behind them both.

At See also:

present it is probably See also:wise to assume that the latter is the true explanation. For the Canons of Hippolytus appear to contain contradictory regulations (e.g. cc. 2 and 4 of the presbyters), and also suggest that they have received a consider-able supplement (after c. 23). There is, however, no doubt that they present us with a more primitive See also:stage of Church See also:life than we find in the Egyptian Church Order. The mention of sub-deacons (which, after Riedel's fresh See also:manuscript See also:evidence, cannot now be dismissed as due to See also:interpolation) makes it difficult to assign a date much earlier than the See also:middle of the 3rd century. The Puritan severity of the canons well accords with the See also:temper of the writer to whom the Arabic title attributes them; and it is to be noted that the exhortation at the close contains a See also:quotation from 2 See also:Peter actually attributed to the apostle, and Hippolytus is perhaps the earliest author who can with certainty be said to have used this See also:epistle. But the See also:general See also:style of Hippolytus, which is See also:simple, straight-forward and strong, is in marked contrast with that of the closing passage of the canons; moreover, his mind, as presented to us in his extant writings, appears to be a much larger one than that of the writer of these canons; it is as difficult to think of Hippolytus as it would be to think of See also:Origen in such a connexion. Ilow, then, are we to See also:account for the attribution? There is evidence to show that Hippolytus was highly reverenced through-out the See also:East: his writings, which were in Greek, were known, but his See also:history was entirely unknown. He was supposed to be " a See also:pupil (yvc.peµos) of apostles " (See also:Palladius, 4th century), and the Arabic title calls him " See also:chief of the bishops of See also:Rome," i.e. See also:archbishop of Rome. It is hard to See also:trust this attribution more than the attribution of a Coptic discourse on the Dormitio Mariae to "Evodius, archbishop of the See also:great See also:city Rome, who was the second after Peter the apostle " (Texts and Studies, iv.

2-44)—Evodius being by tradition first See also:

bishop of See also:Antioch. A whole See also:group o books on Church Order bears the name of See also:Clement of Rome; and the attribution of our canons to Hippolytus may be only an example of the same tendency. The fact that Hippolytus wrote a treatise Concerning Spiritual Gifts, and that some such treatise is not only referred to in the Latin preface to the Egyptian Church Order, but is actually found at the beginning of book viii. of the Apostolic Constitutions, introduces an interesting complication; but we cannot here pursue the matter further. Dom See also:Morin's ingenious attribution of the canons to See also:Dionysius of See also:Alexandria (on the ground of See also:Eusebius, H.E. vi. 46., 5) cannot be accepted in view of the broader church policy which that writer represents. If the Hippolytean authorship be given up, it is probable that See also:Egypt will make the strongest claim to be the locality in which the canons were compiled in their present form. The authorities of chief See also:practical importance are H. Achelis, Texte u. Linters. vi. 4 (1891); Rahmani, Testamentum Domini (1899); Hauler, Didascaliae Apostolorum (190o); Riedel, Kirchenrechtsquellen See also:des Patriarchats Alexandrien (190o). (J. A.

R.) HIPPONA%,'of See also:

Ephesus, Greek See also:iambic poet. Expelled from Ephesus in S40 B.C. by the See also:tyrant See also:Athenagoras, he took See also:refuge in See also:Clazomenae, where he spent the See also:rest of his life in poverty. His deformed figure and malicious disposition exposed him to the See also:caricature of the Chian sculptors Bupalus and Athenis, upon whom he revenged himself by issuing against them a See also:series of satires. They are said to have hanged themselves like Lycambes and his daughters when assailed by See also:Archilochus, the•model and predecessor of Hipponax. His coarseness of thought and feeling, his See also:rude vocabulary, his want of See also:grace and See also:taste, and his numerous allusions to matters of merely See also:local See also:interest prevented his becoming a favourite in See also:Attica. He was considered the inventor of See also:parody and of a See also:peculiar See also:metre, the scazon or choliambus, which substitutes a spondee for the final iambus of an iambic senarius, and is an appropriate form for the See also:burlesque See also:character of his poems. Fragments in See also:Bergk, Poetae lyrici Graeci; see also B. J. Peltzer, De parodica Graecorum pohsi (1855), containing an account of Hipponax and the fragments.

End of Article: APOSTOLICAL

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