View source for Apostolic Canons

{{Short description|4th-century Syrian ancient church order}}
{{About|the ecclesiastical rules attributed to the Apostles|the papal documents|Apostolic constitution}}
[[File:Jean_Hardouin,_Acta_conciliorum_et_epistolae_decretales,_vol._1,_p._10_(cropped)_-_Canons_of_the_Apostles,_1-4.jpg|thumb|[[Canon (canon law)|Canons]] 1 to 4 of the Apostolic Canons [[Ancient church orders|attributed]] by some to the [[Apostles in the New Testament|Apostles]], in [[Greek language|Greek]] (left) and [[Latin]] (right) from a 1715 edition]]
{{canon law}}
The '''Apostolic Canons''',<ref name=":0">{{CathEncy|wstitle= Apostolic Canons |volume= 3 |last= Shahan |first= Thomas Joseph |author-link= Thomas Joseph Shahan |short=1 }}</ref> also called '''Apostolic canons'''<ref>{{Cite book|url=|title=The history of Byzantine and Eastern canon law to 1500|date=2012|publisher=Catholic University of America Press|isbn=978-0-8132-1947-9|editor-last=Hartmann|editor-first=Wilfried|series=History of Medieval canon law, 4|location=Washington, D.C.|pages=119|oclc=815276580|editor-last2=Pennington|editor-first2=Kenneth}}</ref> ([[Latin]]: ''Canones apostolorum'',<ref>{{Cite web|title=Carolingian Canon Law Project|url=https://ccl.rch.uky.edu/dionysiana-article|access-date=2021-08-29|website=ccl.rch.uky.edu}}</ref> "Canons of the Apostles"), '''Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles''',<ref>{{cite book |url=https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07/anf07.ix.ix.vi.html |title= Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries |section=THE ECCLESIASTICAL CANONS OF THE SAME HOLY APOSTLES |volume=VII |publisher= Christian Classics Ethereal Library |access-date=2025-01-27}}</ref> or '''Canons of the Holy Apostles''','''<ref>{{Cite book|last=Vasile|first=Mihai|title=Orthodox canon law reference book|publisher=Holy Cross Orthodox Press|year=2017|isbn=978-1-935317-45-6|location=Brookline, Massachusetts|pages=5–6|chapter=Introduction|oclc=856076162}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Viscuso|first=Patrick|url=|title=Orthodox canon law: a casebook for study|date=2007|publisher=InterOrthodox Press|isbn=978-1-935317-16-6|edition=2nd|location=Berkeley, Calif.|pages=5|orig-year=2006}}</ref>''' is a 4th-century [[Christianity in Syria|Syrian]] Christian text. It is an [[Ancient Church Orders|Ancient Church Order]], a collection of ancient ecclesiastical [[Canon (canon law)|canons]] concerning the government and discipline of the [[Early Christian]] Church, allegedly written by the [[Apostles in the New Testament|Apostles]].<ref name="The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium">[http://staropomor.ru/Bogoslovie(4)/odb/ap-at.pdf The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium] : in 3 vol. / ed. by Dr. Alexander Kazhdan. — N. Y. ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1991. — 2232 p. — {{ISBN|0-19-504652-8}}. — T. 1, P. 141</ref><ref>[https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ncd/c/canons-apostolic.html Canons, Apostolic], 1910 ''New Catholic Dictionary'', accessed 16 April 2016.</ref> This text is an [[Addendum|appendix]] to the eighth book of the ''[[Apostolic Constitutions]]''.<ref name="The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium" /><ref name=":1">{{cite EB1911|wstitle= Apostolic Canons |volume= 02 | page = 201 |short=x}}</ref> Like the other Ancient Church Orders, the Apostolic Canons uses a [[pseudepigraph]]ic form.

These eighty-five canons were approved by the [[Council in Trullo]] in 692 but were rejected by [[Pope Sergius I]]. In the [[Latin Church|Western Church]] only fifty of these canons circulated, translated in [[Latin]] by [[Dionysius Exiguus]] in about 500 AD, and included in the [[Collections of ancient canons|Western collections]] and afterwards in the ''[[Corpus Juris Canonici]]''.

The document contains a list of [[Biblical canon|canonical]] books.

==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 [[paganism|pagans]] and [[Jews]]), the sacraments ([[Baptism]], [[Eucharist]], [[Marriage]]); in a word, they are a handy summary of the [[canon law|statutory legislation]] of the [[Early Church]].<ref name=":0" />

The last of these decrees contains a very important list or [[Biblical canon|canon of the Holy Scriptures]].<ref name=":0" />{{rp|location=canon 85}}

Most modern critics agree that they could not have been composed before the [[Synods of Antioch|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 in about 520 [[Severus of Antioch]] quotes canons 21-23.<ref name=":0" />

== Authorship ==
The original Greek text claims the Apostolic Canons are the very legislation of the [[Apostles in the New Testament|Apostles]] themselves, at least as promulgated by their great disciple, [[Pope Clement I|Clement]]. Nevertheless, the ''[[Catholic Encyclopedia]]'' considers their claim to genuine Apostolic origin is "quite false and untenable" despite the fact that they are "a venerable mirror of ancient Christian life and blameless in doctrine".<ref name=":0" /> At least half of the canons are derived from earlier constitutions, and probably not many of them are the actual productions of the compiler, whose aim was to gloss over the real nature of the ''[[Apostolic Constitutions|Constitutions]]'', and secure their [[Development of the New Testament canon|incorporation]] with the [[Epistles of Clement]] in the [[New Testament]] of his day. The ''[[Codex Alexandrinus]]'' does indeed append the Clementine Epistles to its text of the New Testament. The Canons may be a little later in date than the preceding ''Constitutions'', but they are evidently from the same Syrian theological circle.<ref name=":1" />

=== Author ===
The author seems to be from [[Syria (region)|Syria]], since the [[Syro-Macedonian calendar]] is utilized. The contents are borrowed mostly from the Syrian council ([[Synods of Antioch|Council of Antioch, 341]]). According to Von Funk the Canons are identical with the compiler or interpolator of the Apostolic Constitutions, who was certainly also Syrian.<ref name=":0" />

=== Date ===
Scholars agree that genuine composition by the Apostles is "quite false and untenable". While some, like Beveridge and [[Karl Josef von Hefele|Hefele]], believe they were written around the late 2nd to early 3rd century, most believe they could not have been written before the Council of Antioch in 341, since around twenty of those canons are quoted, or even later around the end of the 4th century since they "certainly" post-date the Apostolic Constitutions.<ref name=":0" />

Von Funk, a foremost authority on the Apostolic Canons and all similar early canonical texts, locates the composition of the Apostolic Canons in the 5th century, seeing two editions a shorter 50 canon list, and a longer 85 canon list composed later in the 6th century, where it was quoted by Severus of Antioch.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|title=Apostolic Canons|url=https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/apostolic-canons|access-date=2021-09-13|website=Catholic Answers}}</ref>

== Reception ==

There is some controversy over the number of these canons. In the ''Apostolic Constitutions'', the Apostolic Canons are eighty-five (occasionally eighty-four, a variant in the Manuscripts that arises from the occasional counting of two canons as one). In the latter half of the 6th century, [[John Scholasticus|Joannes Scholasticus]], [[Patriarch of Constantinople]] from 565 to 577, published a collection of synodal decrees in which he included these eighty-five canons, and this number was finally consecrated for the Greek Church by the Trullan or [[Quinisext Council]] of 692, which also confined the current Greek tradition of their Apostolic origin.<ref name=":0" />

On the other hand, the [[Latin Church]], throughout the [[Middle Ages]], recognized only fifty canons of the Apostles. This was the number finally adopted by [[Dionysius Exiguus]], who first translated these canons into [[Latin]] about 500. It is not very clear why he omitted canons 51-85; he seems to have been acquainted with them and to have used the Apostolic Constitutions. Dionysius made three versions of the Apostolic Canons; it is the second of these versions which obtained general European currency by its incorporation as the opening text of his famous Latin collection of canons (both synodal decrees and [[Decretal|papal decretals]]) known as the ''[[Dionysiana Collectio]]'',{{Efn|{{cite book|title=[[Patrologia Latina]]|volume=LXVII|pages=9 sq}}|name=Dionysiana}} made public in the first decade of the 6th century. Later collections of canons (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, etc.) borrowed from him; the text passed into [[Pseudo-Isidore]], and eventually [[Gratian (jurist)|Gratian]] included (c. 1140) some excerpts from these canons in his [[Decretum Gratiani|''Decretum'']], whereby a universal recognition and use were gained for them in the law schools. At a much earlier date [[Justinian]] (in his Sixth [[Novellae Constitutiones|Novel]]) had recognized them as the work of the Apostles and confirmed them as ecclesiastical law.<ref>{{cite CE1913|wstitle= Apostolic Canons |volume= 3 |last= Shahan |first= Thomas Joseph |author-link= Thomas Joseph Shahan}} which adds: for the Western references in the early Middle Ages see {{cite book|last=Von Funk|first=Franz X.|title=Didascalia|volume=II|pages=40–50}} and for their insertion in the early Western collections of canons, see {{cite book|last=Maassen|first=Friedrich|title=Gesch. der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts im Abendlande|publisher=Gratz|year=1872|pages=438–40|author-link=Friedrich Maassen}}</ref>

Nevertheless, from their first appearance in the West they aroused suspicion. Canon 46 for example, that rejected all heretical baptism, was notoriously opposed to Roman and Western practice. In the so-called [[Decretum Gelasianum|''Decretum'']] traditionally attributed to [[Pope Gelasius I|Pope Gelasius]] (492-96) they are denounced as an [[apocryphal]] book, i. e. not recognized by the Catholic Church, though this note of censure was probably not in the original ''Decretum'', but with others was added under [[Pope Hormisdas]] (514-23). Consequently, in a second edition (lost, except preface) of [[Collectiones canonum Dionysianae|his ''Collectio canonum'']], prepared under the latter pope, Dionysius Exiguus omitted them; even in the first edition he admitted that very many in the West were loath to acknowledge them (''quamplurimi quidem assensum non prœbuere facilem)''. [[Hincmar of Reims]] (died 882) declared that they were not written by the Apostles, and as late as the middle of the 11th century, Western theologians ([[Cardinal Humbert]], 1054) distinguished between the eighty-five Greek canons that they declared [[apocryphal]], and the fifty Latin canons recognized as [[Orthodoxy|orthodox]] rules by antiquity.<ref name=":0" />

==Influence==
The influence of the Apostolic Canons was greatly increased by the various versions of them soon current in the [[Christianity|Christian Church]], [[Eastern Christianity|East]] and [[Western Christianity|West]]. They were also translated (more or less fully) into [[Syriac language|Syriac]], [[Arabic]], [[Coptic language|Coptic]], and [[Armenian language|Armenian]]; in general they seem to have furnished during the 5th and 6th centuries a large element of the [[canon law|ecclesiastical legislation]] in the Eastern Church. The fifty Latin canons were [[editio princeps|first printed]] in [[Jacques Merlin]]'s edition of the Councils (Paris, 1524); the eighty-five Greek Canons by G. Holoander, in his edition of [[Justinian's Novels]] (Nuremberg, 1531), whence they made their way into the earlier editions of the ''[[Corpus Juris Civilis]]'', the ''[[Corpus Juris Canonici]]'', and the large collections of acts and decrees of the councils.<ref name=":0" />

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
{{wikisource|Apostolic Canons}}
* [https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07/anf07.ix.ix.vi.html CCEL: The Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles]
* [https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3820.htm New Advent: The Apostolic Canons]

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