Primary source · Greek

The Apostolic Constitutions

Anonymous compiler (pseudonymously ascribed to Clement of Rome) · c. AD 375–380

What this text is

The great late-4th-century church-order compilation. Book VII.46 preserves the church's oldest connected register of first bishops — who ordained whom at Jerusalem, Caesarea, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Ephesus, Smyrna, and a dozen lesser sees — naming Linus 'the son of Claudia', Strataeas 'the son of Lois', Cornelius of Caesarea, Philemon of Colossae, Archippus of Laodicea, Crescens of Galatia, and Aquila of Asia. Pseudonymous and honestly so labeled: the apostolic voice is a literary fiction of c. 380, but the succession traditions it fixes are far older.

Public-domain translations

ANF translation (Donaldson, 1886, public domain)

Now concerning those bishops which have been ordained in our lifetime, we let you know that they are these: James the bishop of Jerusalem, the brother of our Lord; upon whose death the second was Simeon the son of Cleopas; after whom the third was Judas the son of James. Of Caesarea of Palestine, the first was Zacchaeus, who was once a publican; after whom was Cornelius, and the third Theophilus. Of Antioch, Euodius, ordained by me Peter; and Ignatius by Paul. Of Alexandria, Annianus was the first, ordained by Mark the evangelist; the second Avilius by Luke, who was also an evangelist. Of the church of Rome, Linus the son of Claudia was the first, ordained by Paul; and Clemens, after Linus's death, the second, ordained by me Peter. (VII.46)

Manuscript witnesses

Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare LV (53) — Didascalia palimpsest

5th–6th c.

Ancient Latin fragments of the Didascalia Apostolorum, the 3rd-century base text the compiler reworked into Books I–VI — older than any copy of the Constitutions themselves.

WITNESS TO THE SUBSTRATUM

Byzantine Greek tradition

10th–12th c.

The complete eight-book text survives only in medieval Greek copies; the eastern canonical collections carried Book VIII's canons separately.

EARLIEST FULL WITNESSES

Editio princeps (Francisco Torres, Venice)

1563

First printed Greek text; the chapter numbering behind every later citation, including ANF VII.

PRINTED PROXY

Provenance

Syria (the Antioch region); Books I–VI rework the 3rd-century Didascalia, Book VII the Didache, Book VIII the Apostolic Tradition

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (23)

Complete public-domain text ↗