The Constitutions were compiled around 375, either in Syria or Constantinople. The author had no hesitation about drastically rewriting archaic material, but the great bulk of his expansions are simply expository and homiletic. His verbosity is irksome to modern readers, but it was quite in accord with the taste of his age. Theologically he shows Arian leanings, but these are often rather difficult to detect without comparing his text with its sources; his work as a whole is certainly not “Arian”.

The extent of the later influence of the Constitutions has not yet been satisfactorily estimated. That the work in its entirety was not apostolic was recognized at once and various church councils branded it as apocryphal. But later writers not infrequently cite passages from the Constitutions as authoritative; these citations as a whole, however, have not thus far been collected and analysed. Apparently the most influential part of the book was its “Clementine Liturgy”, which deeply influenced subsequent Eastern rites.

The classic edition of the Greek text is that of Funk. The English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers is generally adequate.

THE APOSTOLIC CANONS

A collection of eighty-five canons, appended to the Constitutions. They were compiled by its author partly from earlier synodic sources, partly from the Constitutions themselves. In the Eastern Church these canons were accepted as a whole and were translated into many languages; in the Western Church only the first fifty were received.

THE EPITOME

“The Epitome of the Eighth Book of the Apostolic Constitutions” is the title—and something of a misnomer—for what is little more than a copy of the sections of this Book of the Constitutions that deal with organization and discipline. It is divided into five parts, A-E. The first two chapters of the Constitutions are reproduced in A, chapter 32 in C, chapter 46 in E. D contains chapters 33-34, 42-45, practically intact.

B is headed “The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles concerning Ordination through Hippolytus”, a title not infrequently[30] used to describe the entire work as “The Constitutions through Hippolytus”. It begins with chapter 3 of the Constitutions, describing the election of a bishop. But the ordination prayer that follows is taken directly from Hippolytus’s Apostolic Tradition, not from the Constitutions. Then comes chapter 16 of the Constitutions on the ordination of presbyters. The opening sentences are given literally, but the ordination prayer is about midway in length between the compact version in Hippolytus and the elaborate wording of the Constitutions. Chapters 18-21 are copied with minimal variations, but in chapter 22 the ordination of readers is dismissed in a brief sentence from Hippolytus. Chapters 23-28 and 30-31, almost unchanged, conclude the section.

Even as late as the beginning of the twentieth century the Epitome was often taken to be a source used in the Constitutions. But this is now recognized to be wrong: the Epitome is extracted from the Constitutions, with a few reversions to Hippolytus. As it contains nothing independent there is no way to judge its date or place of origin.

The Greek text will be found in Funk, II, pp. 72-96. The three passages that really differ from the Constitutions are translated in the present volume.[31]

THE TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD

This work is divided into two Books, of 47 and 27 chapters respectively. In Book I, after an apocalyptic introduction in chapters 1-13, the risen Christ solemnly declares (chapters 14-18) to the apostles the divine obligation of the rules that follow. The remainder of the work is based on Hippolytus’s Apostolic Tradition, although often greatly changed and expanded: there are added, for instance, rules for church architecture, descriptions of clerical duties and much liturgical matter. But Hippolytus’s order is faithfully followed and his text is often reproduced verbally. Book I, chapter 28, a “mystagogic” treatise on Christology in semi-credal form, is perhaps a later addition.

The date of the Testament is probably a little later than that of the Constitutions; in any case it is hardly earlier than 360. For its place of origin Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt all have their advocates, with Egypt probably the least likely. The original Greek is lost, but the work has been transmitted in Syriac, Ethiopic and Arabic. Its Christology has an “Apollinarian” flavour, but “there is no actual heresy in the Testament”.[32] The English version of Cooper and Maclean is standard, although certain of their elaborate notes now require revision.

THE CANONS OF HIPPOLYTUS

A work containing thirty-eight “canons”, which “Hippolytus, the chief of the bishops of Rome, wrote according to the commands of the apostles”. This paraphrase for his “Apostolic Tradition” indicates the source with an explicitness unusual in a Church Order. Its alterations are much less radical than those in the Testament, and wholly new matter is limited to a brief introduction and an appendix concerned chiefly with moral and ascetic directions. The revision was made almost certainly in the fifth century and beyond reasonable doubt in Egypt.

The text (originally Greek) has been preserved only in an Arabic version. The only reliable edition is the German translation by Riedel; an English version is badly needed.

For the sake of completeness there may be added:

SARAPION’S PRAYERS

This work is not a true Church Order: it makes no pretence to apostolic origin and consists wholly of a collection of prayers drawn up by Sarapion, bishop of Thmuis, about 350. It opens with the celebrant’s part at the eucharist and closes with various benedictions. The eucharistic prayer has been strongly influenced by the Didache, the ordination prayers by Hippolytus. The most accessible edition of the Greek text is in Funk, II, pp. 158-195. Bishop John Wordsworth edited an excellent English translation.

II. HIPPOLYTUS

Hippolytus is a unique figure in Christian history, for he, a schismatic bishop of Rome, is honoured by the Roman church as a saint and martyr. This curious combination of qualities made him for centuries a highly enigmatic personality, of whom almost nothing was known. Many of his voluminous works were preserved and studied, and were translated into Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian and even Old Slavic. But his creation of a schism and his acceptance of its episcopate were acts so contrary to established principles that Eusebius, writing less than a century later, can describe him only as the bishop “of a church somewhere”;[33] to which description Jerome adds: “the name of whose city I have been unable to learn”.[34] That this city was in fact Rome is, to be sure, stated by not a few late patristic and medieval writers, especially in the East, but these do not hint that there was anything irregular about his tenure. Or he is assigned sees in widely different localities, sometimes as far off as Arabia and sometimes as near Rome as Portus: this last place—due, apparently, to confusion with some other martyr—was especially popular. But among Western writers Hippolytus’s episcopal rank is commonly ignored and he appears simply as “a presbyter”: the present Roman Catholic service books[35] do not call him “bishop”. The sole general agreement was as to the date of his death, which the martyrologies and other early testimony place about 235.

In 1551 excavations in Rome brought to light a third-century statue of Hippolytus, now in the Lateran Museum; the upper part of the body has been “restored”. On the sides are inscribed an “Easter Canon” that he computed and a partial list of his works.[36] The posture of the body, which is that of a seated teacher, made episcopal dignity more than probable, so for the official description of the statue Pius IV, the next pope, adopted the Portus tradition. Hence as “Bishop of Portus” the saint was generally known until the middle of the nineteenth century.

In 1701 Jakob Gronov published, in the tenth volume of his Thesaurus Graecarum Antiquitatum, Book I—no more was then known—of a work called “Philosophumena” or “Philosophizings”, that was commonly, although not universally, referred to Origen. Books IV-X of this work were discovered in 1842 and nine years later were published as Origen’s by the editor, B. E. Miller.[37] But the contents of the work were soon proved by competent scholars—notably Döllinger[38]—to make Origen’s authorship impossible; the necessary conditions were fulfilled by Hippolytus alone. This proof established also the Hippolytean authorship of certain other disputed works; and the evidence thus assembled showed that Hippolytus was both a bishop and a Roman. Incidentally, it has been established also that the correct title for the above work is “Refutation of All Heresies”, and that “Philosophumena” was the sub-title of Books I-IV (not as is sometimes stated of Book I alone). But “Philosophumena” is generally accepted by modern writers.

The Portus tradition, however, still lingered on for a time and is accepted in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, both by the original editor J. H. Macmahon (1868) and by the American reviser Bishop A. C. Coxe (1886). Bishop Lightfoot supported a compromise theory that made of Hippolytus a sort of suffragan bishop of Rome with special jurisdiction over Portus.[39] But neither position is now tenable.