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Christ the Shepherd |
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Christ the Shepherd |
The Following is adapted from: The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Cross, Livingstone; (OUP, 1983).
DIDASCALIA APOSTOLORUM, An early ‘Church Order’, professedly ‘the Catholic Teaching of the Twelve Apostles and holy Disciples of our Redeemer’ (Syriac title). Its author, prob. a physician who had been converted from Judaism, seems to have composed it in N. Syria in the earlier half of the 3rd cent. The work is addressed to readers in various states of life, esp. married persons (chs. 2–3), and deals with such subjects as the Bishop’s duties, penance, liturgical worship, behaviour during persecution, widows and deaconesses, the settlement of disputes and the administration of offerings; but the arrangement is unmethodical and disorderly. A double anointing precedes Baptism; none follows. It is esp. directed against Christians who regard the Jewish ceremonial law as still binding. The author is far more lenient than his W. contemporaries (Tertullian, Cyprian) in allowing repentant sinners back to Communion. A six-days’ fast before Easter is enjoined.
The work, orig. in Gk., survives complete only in a Syriac version, with substantial portions in Latin. As it was worked over and embodied in the Apostolic Constitutions, much of the Greek text can be reconstructed with tolerable certainty. Among the sources used are the ‘Pericope Adulterae’ (Jn 7:53–8:11), the Didache, the Ignatian Epp., Hermas, and the Sibylline Oracles (Book 4); the author prob. also made use of other 2nd cent. sources.
Syr. text ed. P. de Lagarde, Leipzig, 1854; crit.edn., with Eng. tr., by A. Vööbus (CSCO 401–2 and 407–8, Scriptores Syri, 175–6 and 179–80; 1979). Lat. text, partly constructed by Funk, in F. X. Funk (ed.), Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, 1 (Paderborn, 1905), pp. 2–384, with introd., pp. iii–xiv. R. H. Connolly, OSB, Didascalia Apostolorum: The Syriac Version translated and accompanied by the Verona Latin Fragments (Oxford, 1929). Lat. version ed. E. Tidner (TU 75; 1963). Gk. frags. ed. J. V. Bartlet, ‘Fragments of the Didascalia Apostolorum’, JTS 18 (1916–17), pp. 301–9. Convenient Eng. tr. by S. [P.] Brock and M. Vasey, The Liturgical Portions of the Didascalia (Grove Liturgical Study, 29; 1982). P. Galtier, SJ, ‘La Date de la Didascalie des Apôtres’, RHE 13 (1947), pp. 315–51. K. Rahner, SJ, ‘Busslehre und Busspraxis der Didascalia Apostolorum’, ZKT 72 (1950). pp. 257–81., repr. in revised form in id., Schriften zur Theologie, 11 (1973), pp. 327–59 (Eng. tr., 15, 1983, pp. 225–45). G. Schöllgen, Die Anfänge der Professionalisierung des Klerus und das kirchliche Amt in der Syrischen Didascalie (JAC, Ergänzungs band 26; 1998). CPG 1 (1983), p. 229 (no. 1738), and Suppl. (1998), p. 38. J. Quasten, Patrology, 2 (Utrecht, 1953), pp. 147–52.RHE Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique (Louvain, 1900 ff.).
ZKT Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie (Innsbruck, 1877–1940; Vienna, 1947 ff.).
JAC Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum (Münster, 1958 ff.).
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