CANONS
280
CANONS
Quinisext Council (692), which also confirmed the
current Greek tradition of their Apostolic origin. On
the other hand the Latin Church, throughout the
Middle Ages, recognized but 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 Apos-
tolic Constitutions. In reality Dionysius made three
versions of the Apostolic Canons (the oldest of them
first edited by C. H. Turner, Eeclesice Occidentals
monumenta juris antiquissima, Oxford, 1899, fasc. I,
1-32); it is the second of these versions which ob-
tained general European currency by its incorpora-
tion as the opening text of his famous Latin collection
of canons (both synodal decrees and papal decretals)
known as the " Dionysiana Collectio" (P. L., LXVTI,
9 sqq.), made public in the first decade of the sixth
century. Later collections of canons (Italy, Spain,
France, Germany, etc.) borrowed from him; the text
passed into Pseudo-Isidore, and eventually Gratian
included (c. 1140) some excerpts from these canons
in his "Decretum", whereby a universal recognition
and use were gained for them in the law schools. At
a much earlier date Justinian (in his Sixth Novel) had
recognized them as the work of the Apostles and con-
firmed them as ecclesiastical law. (For the Western
references in the early Middle Ages see Von Funk,
"Didascalia" etc. quoted below, II, 40-50, and for
their insertion in the early Western collections of can-
ons, Maassen, "Gesch. der Quellen und Literatur des
eanonischen Rechts im Abendlande, Gratz, 1S72,
438-40.) Nevertheless, from their first appearance in
the West they aroused suspicion. Canon 46 for ex-
ample, that rejected all heretical baptism, was notori-
ously opposed to Roman and Western practice. In
the so-called " Decretum " of Pope Gelasius (429-96)
they are denounced as an apocryphal book, i. e. not
recognized bv the Church (Thiel, Epistoke Rom. pon-
tificum genuine, 1867, I, 53-58, 454-71; Von Funk,
op. cit., II, 40), though this note of censure was prob-
ably not in the original " Decretum", but with others
was added under Pope Hormisdas (514-23). Conse-
quently in a second edition (lost, except preface) of
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 (quam plurimi quidem
assensum non pnebuere jacilem). Hincmar of Reims
(d. 882) declared that they were not written by the
Apostles, and as late as the middle of the eleventh
century, Western theologians (Cardinal Humbert,
1054) distinguished between the eighty-five Greek
canons that they declared apocryphal, and the fifty
Latin canons recognized as "orthodox rules" by an-
tiquity.
The influence of the Apostolic Canons was greatly increased by the various versions of them soon cur- rent in the Christian Church, East and West. We have already indicated the influence of the second Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus. They were also translated (more or less fully) into Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, and Armenian; in general they seem to have furnished during the fifth and sixth centuries a large element of the ecclesiastical legislation in the Eastern Church (see the detailed description of the so-called "127 Copto-Arabic canons", by F. Nau in Diet, de theol. cath., II, 1612-19; also Funk, Die apostolischen Konstitutionen. Kottenburg, 1891, and the articles Apostolic Church-Ordinance, Egyptian Church- Ordinance, Didache, Didascalia Apostolorum). The manuscripts of the (< ireek) Apostolic Canons are described by Pitra, ".Juris vcr. GrSBCOrum historia et monumenta", Rome, 1864, I, 3-4; the manuscripts of the Latin versions of Dionysius Exiguus, by ('. 11. Turner, op. cit. supra, fasc. I. p. 1; cf. Von Funk,
"Didascalia et Constitutiones apostolorum", (Pader-
born, 1906), I, xlviii-liv, also xxiv-xlviii. The
fifty Latin canons were first printed in Jacques
Merlin's edition of the Councils (Paris, 1524); the
eighty-five Greek Canons by G. Holoander, in his edi-
tion 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.
A few other ancient canonical texts that pretend to Apostolic origin are described by F. Nau, op. cit., 1620-26; the most interesting of them is a brief col- lection of nine canons that purport to date from an imaginary Apostolic Council of Antioch. They may be read in Pitra, "Hist, et monumenta Juris eccl. Gnecorum" (Rome, 1864), I, 88-91; also in Lagarde, " Reliquiae juris eccl. antiquissima 3 grace", 18-20, and in Harnack, "Mission und Ausbreitung" (Leipzig, 1902). They recommend the faithful not to practice circumcision, to admit the Gentiles, to avoid Jewish and pagan customs, the distinction of clean and un- clean foods, the worship of idols, the vices of avarice and gluttony, frequentation of theatres, and taking of oaths. The earliest Christian literature offers numerous parallels to the content of these canons, which, in general, recall the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Didache. In the six- teenth century the Jesuit Turrianus (Torres) defended their authenticity, his chief argument being a refer- ence of Innocent I (401-17) to an Apostolic Council of Antioch (Mansi, III, 1055). A notable literary controversy followed that is not yet quite closed (see Nau, op. cit., 1621-22). Interest centres chiefly in the first canon, which decrees that the Galileans shall henceforth be called Christians (see Acts, xi, 26), a holy people, a royal priesthood (see I Peter, ii, 9) ac- cording to the grace and title of baptism. Some crit- ics see in this canon a defiant reply to the contemptu- ous use of "Galileans" by Julian the Apostate (Har- nack, "Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums", Leipzig, 1902; Paul Lejav, in "Revue du clerge fran- cais", 15 Oct., 1903, 349-55, with a Fr. tr. of the nine canons). F. Nau is of opinion that they are much older than the latter quarter of the fourth century and calls attention (op. cit., 1624) to Origen, "Contra Celsum", VIII, 29 (P. G., XI, 1560— "it seemed good to the Apostles and the elders assembled at Antioch, and in their own words to the Holy Spirit to write a letter to the Gentiles who believed"). This state- ment contradicts Acts, xv, 6, 23, 28, according to which the Apostolic letter was written from Jeru- salem. Nevertheless, it seems that this collection of canons was known to Origen, all the more as it claims (in the title) to come from the library of Origen at Cssareaand to have been found there by the blessed martyr, Pamphilus (cf. Eus., H. E., VI, 32, 3). F. Nau thinks that they may represent a personal rule of conduct drawn up by some second-century Chris- tian (on the basis of Apostolic precepts) who mis- copied Acts, xi, 26, into the form of the afore-men- tioned canon 1, and then added the other precepts — canon 9 reproduces the decree of Acts, xv, 29. At any rate Dalteus (Daill6) was wrong in charging Tur- rianus with downright forgery of all these canons (De pseudepigraphis apostolicis libri tres, 1653, III, cc. xxii-xxv, pp. 6S7-737), and deliberate corruption of the text of Ps. xvi, 14. " they are full of children " (four), making it read Muv — i. e. "they are filled with pork". This reading of the fifth canon of Antioch is found im! only in the oldest Latin Psalters, and in other reliable fourth to sixth century Latin witnesses I,, the Scripture-text, but also in the best Creek manu- scripts (Yatioanus. Sinaiticus). In other words the Scripture-text used by these canons antedates Origen , ami is, in itself, a conclusive evidence of their greal
antiquity.
