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A P O L D A—A POSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS tantius (Inst. VII. xv. 19; xviii. 2-3). According to the Ascension of Isaiah, of which large fragments are Lactantius, it prophesied the overthrow of Rome and the preserved in the Greek Legend. This recension, which •advent of Zeus to help the godly and destroy the wicked, preserves several passages which are either abbreviated or but omitted all reference to the sending of the feon. of omitted by the later recension, was translated into God. According to Justin, it prophesied the destruction Ethiopic and Latin. Most of the latter version is lost. of the world by fire. According to the Apocryph of Paul, The original work was used by Ignatius and the author of Actus Petri Vercellenses, and in part preserved in cited by Clement, Hystaspes foretold the conflict of the the Messiah with many kings and His advent. Finally, an Epiphanius. Accordingly we assign its composition to unknown 5th-century writer (see Buresch, Klaros, 1889, the close of the 1st century a.tx (For the various texts, pp. 87-126) says that the Oracles of Hystaspes dealt with the translation and interpretation, see Charles, Ascension the incarnation of the Saviour. The work referred to in of Isaiah, 1900.) The Vision of Isaiah is valuable for the the last two writers has Christian elements, which were knowledge it affords us of Ist-century beliefs in certain absent from it in Lactantius’s copy. The lost oracles were circles as to the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, therefore in all probability originally Jewish, and subse- the Resurrection, and the Seven Heavens. (For the bibliography, see section on “ Martyrdom of Isaiah,” p. 487.) quently re-edited by a Christian. Apocalypse of Peter.—Till 1892 only some five or more Vision of Isaiah.—This writing has been preserved in its fragments of this book were known to exist. These are entirety in the Ascension of Isaiah, of which it constitutes chaps, vi.-xi. Before its incorporation in the latter work preserved in Clem. Alex, and in Macarius Magnes (see it circulated independently in Greek. Thus we have Hilgenfeld, N. T. extra Can. iv. 74 sgq.; Zahn, Gesch. independent versions of these chapters in Latin and Kanons, ii. 818-819). It is mentioned in the Muratorian Slavonic. In the course of its incorporation in the Canon, and according to Eusebius (H. E. vi. 14. 1) was Ascension of Isaiah it underwent certain changes to which commented on by Clement of Alexandria. In the fragwe shall advert later. This work was written in Greek. ment found at Akhmim there is a prediction of the last In the 4th century two distinct recensions of this work things, and a vision of the abode and blessedness of already existed. The later of these, which contained the righteous, and of the abode and torments of the 1 Cor. ii. 9 in xi. 34, was known to Jerome. This wicked. For further information see the editions of recension (now lost) was translated into Latin and James, Lods (1892), Harnack, and Dieterich (1893). (r. h. c.) Slavonic. The earlier recension is that which appears in
Apolda, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar, 9 miles by rail E. by N. from Weimar. Population (1885), 18,061 ; (1895), 20,798. Apostles, Teaching: Of the. See Teaching of the Apostles. Apostolical Constitutions. —The Apostolical Constitutions (Atarayat or Atara^et? rwv dytW aTroo-ToAwv 6i<x KA^evros rov 'Pw/xaiW eTrio-KOirov re koI ttoXltov. KadoXinr] SiSa.o-/<ttA/a) are a collection of ecclesiastical regulations in eight books, the last of which concludes with the eighty-five Canons of the Holy Apostles. By their title the Constitutions profess to have been drawn up by the apostles, and to have been transmitted to the Church by Clement of Rome; sometimes the alleged authors are represented as speaking jointly, sometimes singly. From the first they have been very variously estimated; the Canons, as a rule, more highly than the rest of the work. For example, the Trullan Council of Constantinople (quini-sexturn) a.d. 692 accepts the Canons as genuine by its second canon, but rejects the Constitutions on the ground that spurious matter had been introduced into them by heretics; and whilst the former were henceforward used freely in the East, only a few portions of the latter found their way into the Greek and oriental law-books. Again, Dionysius Exiguus (c. a.d. 500) translated fifty of the Canons into Latin, although under the title Canones qui dicuntur Apostolorum, and thus they passed into other Western collections ; whilst the Constitutions as a whole remained unknown in the West until they were published in 1563 by the Jesuit Turrianus. At first received with enthusiasm, their authenticity soon came to be impugned; and their true significance was largely lost sight of as it began to be realized that they were not what they claimed to be. Vain attempts were still made to rehabilitate them, and they were, in general, more highly estimated in England than elsewhere. The most extravagant estimate of all was that of Whiston, who calls them “ the most sacred standard of Christianity, equal in authority to
the Gospels themselves, and superior in authority to the epistles of single apostles, some parts of them being our Saviour’s own original laws delivered to the apostles, and the other parts the public acts of the apostles ” (Historical preface to Primitive Christianity Revived, pp. 85-86). Others, however, realized their composite character from the first, and by degrees some of the component documents became known. Bishop Pearson was able to say that “ the eight books of the Apostolic Constitutions have been after Epiphanius’s time compiled and patched together out of the didascaliae or doctrines which went under the names of the holy apostles and their disciples or successors” (Vind. Ign. i. cap. 5); whilst a greater scholar still, Archbishop Usher, had already gone much further, and concluded, forestalling the results of modern critical methods, that their compiler was none other than the compiler of the spurious Ignatian epistles (Epp. Polyc. et Ign. p. Ixiii. f., Oxon. 1644). The Apostolical Constitutions, then, are spurious, and they are one of a long series of documents of like character. But we have not really gauged their significance by saying that they are spurious. They are the last stage and climax of a gradual process of compilation and crystallization, so to speak, of unwritten church custom; and a short account of this process will show their real importance and value. These documents are the outcome of a tendency which is found in every society, religious or secular, at some point in its history. The society begins by living in accordance with its fundamental principles. Origin By degrees these translate themselves into ap- Mature! propriate action. Difficulties are faced and solved as they arise; and when similar circumstances recur they will tend to be met in the same way. Thus there grows up by degrees a body of what may be called customary law. Plainly, there is no particular point of time at which this customary law can be said to have begun. To all appearance it was there from the first in solution and gradually crystallizes out; and yet it is being continually modified as time goes on. Moreover, the time comes when
