y Christian
Worship_ (Lond., 1904); J. Wordsworth, _The Ministry of Grace_, pp. 18
ff; J.P. Arendzen, "The Apostolic Church Order" (Syriac Text, Eng.
trans. and notes) in _Journ. of Theol. Studies_, iii. 59. Trans. of
_Apost. Constitutions_, book viii., in Ante-Nicene Christian Library.
(W. E. Co.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Why he did not go on to give the remaining thirty-five is not
clear; they belong to the same date as, and are not inferior to, the
first fifty.

[2] At a later date various collections were made of the documents
above mentioned, or some of them, to serve as law-books in different
churches--e.g. the Syrian Octateuch, the Egyptian Heptateuch, and the
Ethiopic Sinodos. These, however, stand on an entirely different
footing, since they are simply collections of existing documents, and
no attempt is made to claim apostolic authorship for them.

APOSTOLIC CANONS, a collection of eighty-five rules for the regulation
of clerical life, appended to the eighth book of the _Apostolical
Constitutions_ (q.v.). They are couched in brief legislative form though
on no definite plan, and deal with the vexed questions of ecclesiastical
discipline as they were raised towards the end of the 4th century. 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 _Constitutions_, and
secure their 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.

APOSTOLIC FATHERS, a term used to distinguish those early Christian
writers who were believed to have been the personal associates of the
original Apostles. While the title "Fathers" was given from at least the
beginning of the 4th century to church writers of former days, as being
the parents of Christian belief and thought for later times, the
expression "Apostolic Fathers" dates only from the latter part of the
17th century. The idea of recognizing these "Fathers" as a special group
exists already in the title "Patres aevi apostolici, sive SS. Patrum qui
temporibus apostolicis floruerunt ... opera," under which in 1672 J.B.
C