Apostolic Constitutions
Christian collection of eight treatises which belongs to genre of the Church Orders
The Apostolic Constitutions or Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (Latin: Constitutiones Apostolorum) is a Christian collection divided into eight books which is classified among the Church Orders, a genre of early Christian literature, that offered authoritative pseudo-apostolic prescriptions on moral conduct, liturgy and Church organization. The work can be dated from 375 to 380 AD. The provenance is usually regarded as Syria, probably Antioch. The author is unknown, although since James Ussher, it has been often considered to be the same author as that of the letters of Pseudo-Ignatius, perhaps the 4th-century Eunomian bishop Julian of Cilicia.
Content
The Apostolic Constitutions contains eight books on Early Christian discipline, worship, and doctrine, apparently intended to serve as a manual of guidance for the clergy, and to some extent for the laity. It purports to be the work of the Twelve Apostles, whether given by them as individuals or as a body.
The structure of the Apostolic Constitutions can be summarized:
Books 1 to 6 are a free re-wording of the Didascalia Apostolorum, an earlier work of the same genre.
Book 7 is partially based on the Didache. Chapters 33-45 of book 7 contain prayers similar to Jewish prayers used in synagogues.
Book 8 is a more complex section composed as follows:
chapters 1-2 contain an extract of a lost treatise on the charismata
chapters 3-46 are based on the Apostolic Tradition, greatly expanded, along with other material
chapter 47 is known as the Canons of the Apostles and it had a wider circulation than the rest of the book.
The best manuscript, Vatican gr 1506, has Arian leanings, which are not found in other manuscripts because this material would have been censured as heretical.
The public source identifies “Apostolic Constitutions” as christian collection of eight treatises which belongs to genre of the Church Orders. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Apostolic, Constitutions and Christian.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q620033. VIAF identifies the subject as 179858868. The Library of Congress control number is n85018293. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1506.
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This entry incorporates text from “Apostolic Constitutions” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.