Apostolic Tradition

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The Apostolic Tradition (or Egyptian Church Order) is an early Christian treatise which belongs to the genre of the ancient Church Orders. It has been described to be of "incomparable importance as a source of information about church life and liturgy in the third century". [1]

Contents

Rediscovered in the 19th century, it was given the name of "Egyptian Church Order". In the first half of the 20th century, this text was commonly identified with the lost Apostolic Tradition presumed to have been written by Hippolytus of Rome. Due to this attribution, and the apparent early date of the text, Apostolic Tradition played a crucial role in the liturgical reforms of many mainstream Christian bodies. The attribution of the text to Hippolytus has since become a subject of continued debate in recent scholarship. [2] [3]

If the Apostolic Tradition is the work of Hippolytus of Rome, it would be dated before 235 AD (when Hippolytus is believed to have suffered martyrdom) and its origin would be Rome; this date has been defended by scholars such as Brent and Stewart in recent debates over its authorship. [3] [4] Against this view, some scholars (see Bradshaw [2] ) believe that the key liturgical sections incorporate material from separate sources, some Roman and some not, ranging from the middle second to the fourth century, [5] being gathered and compiled from about 375-400 AD, probably in Egypt or even Syria. Other scholars have suggested that the Apostolic Tradition portrays a liturgy that was never celebrated. [6]

Manuscripts and sources

The text was found in the late 5th century Latin manuscript known as Verona Palimpsest, where it is the third item in the collection.

A much earlier Ethiopic version translated directly from the Greek around the late 5th century, was discovered in Ethiopia in 1999 in a 13th-century, or earlier, manuscript, amongst the works in a compendium of synodical materials, known as the 'Aksumite Collection'. This version survives complete, albeit that it adds selected further material (taken from the Didache and Didascalia) before the concluding chapter 43. [7] The text transmitted in the Aksumite Collection lacks the Anaphora of the Apostolic Tradition from Chapter 4.

Chapter 36 [8] of the probable Greek original text was identified in 1975 as one item in a florilegium of patristic fragments. [9]

Editions and publications

The first comprehensive critical editions were those of Gregory Dix in 1937, [10] and then in 1946 by Bernard Botte. [11]

Date and place of composition

Recent scholarship, such as that by Bradshaw [2] and Johnson, [5] has called into question the degree to which the liturgical texts witnessed in the Apostolic Tradition may be taken as representing the regular forms of worship in Rome in the 3rd century. They propose that, over the centuries, later and non-Roman liturgical forms have accumulated within an older, and substantially Roman, Church Order.

Title

None of the manuscript versions carry a title, and so there is no direct evidence as to how the 'Apostolic Tradition' was originally known. The quotation of chapter 36 in the Ochrid fragment is labelled, Diataxis (Ordinances) of the Holy Apostles: Given through Hippolytus; and this has been plausibly suggested as the probable title under which the whole text of the Apostolic Tradition circulated in Syria. [12]

Attribution to Hippolytus

Roman sculpture, maybe of Hippolytus of Rome, found in 1551 and used for the attribution of the Apostolic Tradition Statues of Saint Hippolytus.jpg
Roman sculpture, maybe of Hippolytus of Rome, found in 1551 and used for the attribution of the Apostolic Tradition

The section of the Alexandrine Sinodos, rediscovered in the 19th century, which was given the name of Egyptian Church Order, was identified with the lost Apostolic Tradition attributed to Hippolytus of Rome by Edward von der Goltz in 1906, [13] and later by Eduard Schwartz in 1910 [14] and by R.H. Connolly in 1916. [15] This attribution was unanimously accepted by the scholars of that period, and became well-recognized through the works of Gregory Dix, in particular his famous The Shape of the Liturgy (1943, 1945). In addition to the above, according to Paul Bradshaw, the attribution to Hippolytus was based on the following data: [16]

More recently, the attribution of the Apostolic Tradition to Hippolytus of Rome has come under substantial criticism. [17] According to several scholars, the Apostolic Tradition is a work written by another priest named Hippolytus, but who probably lived in Alexandria, [18] or it contains material of separate sources ranging from the middle second to the fourth century. [5] The reasons given to support this understanding are the following:

Content

The Apostolic Tradition, as the other Church Orders, has the aim to offer authoritative "apostolic" prescriptions on matters of moral conduct, liturgy and Church organization. It can be divided in a prologue (chapter 1) and three main sections.

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References

  1. ↑ Cuming, Goffrey J. (1976). Hippolitus A Text For Students. Grove Books. p. 5. ISBN   978-0-905422-02-2.
  2. 1 2 3 Bradshaw, Paul F. (2002). The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship. Oxford University Press. pp. 78–80. ISBN   978-0-19-521732-2.
  3. 1 2 Stewart, Alistair. C. (2015). On the Apostolic Tradition, Hippolytus; An English version with introduction and commentary: 2nd edition. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. pp. 28–38. ISBN   978-088141-520-9.
  4. ↑ Brent, Allen (1995). Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century . Brill. pp.  412.
  5. 1 2 3 Bradshaw, Paul; Johnson, Maxwell E.; Philips, L. Edwards (2002). The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN   978-0-8006-6046-8.
  6. ↑ Johnson, Lawrence J. (2009). Worship in the Early Church: An Anthology of Historical Sources. Vol 1. Liturgical Press. p.  194. ISBN   978-0-8146-6197-0.
  7. ↑ Bausi, Alessandro (2012). 'La nuova versione etiopica della Traditio Apostolica' in Paola Buzi and Alberto Camplani eds., 'Christianity in Egypt: Literary production and intellectual trends'. Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum. pp. 19–69.
  8. ↑ cod. Ochrid 86 f. 192 of National Museum of Ochrid, and gr. 900 f. 112 of National Museum of Paris
  9. ↑ M. Richard, Opera minora, I, Leuven-Tournhout 1976, pages 52-53
  10. ↑ Gregory Dix The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome London 1937, reprinted with correction by Alban Press, 1995 ISBN   978-0-7007-0232-9
  11. ↑ B. Botte, La Tradition Apostolique de S. Hippolyte, SChr 11, Paris 1946
  12. ↑ Peretto, Elio (1996). Tradizione Apostolica. p. 27. ISBN   88-311-3133-8.
  13. ↑ Edward von der Goltz, Unbekannte Fragmente altchristicher Gemeindeordnungen in Sitzungsberichte der Preussichen Akademie der Wissenschaten 1906 pp. 141-57
  14. ↑ Eduard Schawartz, Uber dei pseudoapostolischen Kinrchenordnungen Trubner, Strasbourg 1910
  15. ↑ Richard H. Connolly, The so-called Egyptian Church Order and derived Documents Cambridge 1916
  16. ↑ Bradshaw, Paul F. (2009). Reconstructing early Christian worship. SPCK. pp. 47–51. ISBN   978-0-281-06094-8.
  17. 1 2 Ashbrook Harvey, Susan; Hunter, David G. (2008). The Oxford handbook of early Christian studies. Oxford University Press. p. 430. ISBN   978-0-19-927156-6.
  18. ↑ J.M. Hanssens, La liturgie d'Hippolyte. Ses documents, son titulaire, ses origines et son caractere, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 155, Roma 1965
  19. 1 2 3 Margherita Guarducci, in Ricerche su Ippolito, Volume 13 of Studia ephemeridis "Augustinianum", Institutum patristicum Augustinianum, Roma 1977, pag 17-30
  20. 1 2 J. Magne, Tradition apostolique sur les charismes et Diataxeis des saints Apostoles, Paris 1975

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