Didascalia Apostolorum

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vi DIDASCALIA. I have endeavoured to translate each Syriac word by an English word conveying its original meaning, and to avoid any expression that savours of ambiguity. I am glad to see that Professor Nau also translates *^ca^ = lepevs, alone as "priest," and Turn = Trpeafivrepos, which I call " Elder," he calls " vieillard." He has not condescended to adopt the still more appropriate word "ancien," used by his Protestant countrymen; and is obliged, in consequence, still further to explain it by drawing attention to the fact that the persons in question are not laymen (La Didascalie, Paris, 1902, note, p. 75). The most salient feature of the Didascalia is its exaltation of the authority of the Bishops ; yet it is noteworthy that there is no mention of the Bishops of Rome as superior over other Bishops. So far does the author go in the claim he makes for them, that M. Nau is impelled to introduce a foot-note to the passage at the foot of p. 51, to the effect that " it looks as if the author of the Didascalia had been a Bishop." Whether this were so or not, he had evidently forgotten our Lord's injunction to the Apostles : " It shall not be so among you." It is curious how the writers of this apocryphal literature loved to take Clement of Rome as their imagined author. The quotations from the Didascalia in the writings of Epiphanius are given by Lagarde in Bunsen's Christianity and Mankind, Vol. III. pp. 41, 42. They are as follows (from Migne, as the Basle edition of 1544 is not in the University Library, and Lagarde's citations from it contain several misprints). Epiph. adv. haereses, Kara ^evrjpiavmv, p. 170, ed. Basiliensis 1544: Migne (Paris 1858) I. 836. 'AXXa /cat ot a-TrocrToXot fyaa-w ev ry Atara£et rf] KaXov/JLevy, ore (frvreia ©eoO /cat duTreXaiv r/ tca6o\L/crj e/e/eX^o-ia. Against the Severians. And the Apostles say in the so-called Con- stitution, that the planting and vineyard of God is the Catholic Church. See p. 2, 11. 9, 10. Kara AvSiavdav, p. 350, Basil. : Migne II. 356, 357. Ot avrol AvSiavol vcri rrjv rwv dtro(Tro\a)v &idra£iv .... Trepl rov 7rdcr%a .... opl^ovfft, ev rf} avrfj Aiard^ei, ot' aTrocrroXot art vueis fj,rj -^"^(jji^rjre, aXXa Troieire ol dBe\(f)ol vpcov ol IK TrepiTOurjs. Mer' aVT&v (i/j.a Trotetre' /cat OVK ol dSe\(j)ol VJJLWV ol ev ireptroft/g, aXXa, ol GK Trepiro/Jirj^, 'iva Sei Treptroyu,^? et9 rr/v 'E/c/cXi;crtav fi€re\06vTa<; ap^jyov^ elvat, eKelvov rov xpovov .... TLapd rot? a7ro«7ToXot? Be TO prjrov St ouovoiav ea^eperai, to? eirLfjiaprvpova-i \eyovres, on, Kdv re TrkavyQwa-i arjSe vfilv p,e\era> .... <f)d<TKOvcri <ydp rrjv dypvTrviav <f>epeiv, fjuecra^ovrwv rdov