The Alexandrine Sinodos (or ''Clementine Heptateuch'') is a
Christian collection of
Church Orders.
This collection of earlier texts dates from the 4th or 5th century CE. The provenience is
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
and it was particularly used in the ancient
Coptic and
Ethiopian Christianity
Christianity in Ethiopia is the largest religion in the country, as 63% of the country, Islam follows behind. Christinaity in Ethiopia dates back to the early medieval Kingdom of Aksum, when the King Ezana first adopted the faith in 4th century A ...
.
Manuscript tradition
The original text, which was probably written in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
is now lost. Translation in
Ge'ez,
Bohairic Coptic,
Sahidic Coptic and
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
remain extant.
The Sahidic translation is found in
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
manuscript or.1820, dated 1006, and was published in 1883 by
Paul de Lagarde
Paul Anton de Lagarde (2 November 1827 – 22 December 1891) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest orientalists of the 19th century. Lagarde's strong support of anti-Semitism, vocal opposition ...
. A new edition was published in 1954 by Till and Leipold The Sahidic version lacks of some prayers found in other manuscripts.
The Arabic translation is complete and dates to before 1295 CE. It is found in
Vaticanus manuscript ar.149, and was published in 1904 by
George William Horner
George William Horner (1849–1930) was a British biblical scholar, an editor of the text of the New Testament in the dialects of the Coptic language.
In the Bohairic version, Horner edited in four volumes from 1898 to 1905. In the Sahidic versi ...
. Later editions were published by J. Perier in 1912 and Turnhout in 1971.
The Ge'ez translation, which dates from the 13th century, is a complete copy of the original with additional interpolations. It is found in British Museum manuscript or.793, and was published in 1904 by George William Horner.
The Bohairic translation was made in 1804 from the Sahidic text, and was published in 1848 by
Henry Tattam
Henry Tattam (28 December 1789 – 8 January 1868, Stanford Rivers, Essex) was a Church of England clergyman and Coptic scholar.
Life
Tattam was Rector of St Cuthbert's Bedford, 1822–1849, and from 1831 to 1849 also Rector of Great Woolston ...
.
The more ancient translations are the Sahidic and Arabic versions (probably both coming through a common lost Sahidic version of about 500 CE). The Ge'ez version is derived from the Arabic one
[See the table at page 42 of ]
Content
The ''Alexandrine Sinodos'' is a collection of
Church Orders, usually divided in seven books. It is so composed:
* Book 1 includes the
Apostolic Church-Order
The ''Apostolic Church-Ordinance'' (or ''Apostolic Church-Order'', ''Apostolic Church-Directory'' or ''Constitutio Ecclesiastica Apostolorum'') is an Oriental Orthodox Christian treatise which belongs to ''genre'' of the Church Orders. The work ...
* Books 2 and 3 include the ''Egyptian Church Order'' (better known as
Apostolic Tradition)
* Books 4 to 7 include the ''eighth book of the
Apostolic Constitutions'', without the last chapter (
Canons of the Apostles
The Apostolic Canons, also called Apostolic canons (Latin: ''Canones apostolorum'', "Canons of the Apostles"), Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles, or Canons of the Holy Apostles, is a 4th-century Syrian Christian text. It is an Anc ...
) and without the liturgical prayers.
The numbering of the chapters is different in each version. The Sahidic and Bohairic versions divide the ''Apostolic Church-Order'' in 30 chapters, while the Arabic and Ge'ez versions divide it in 20 chapters. The Sahidic and Bohairic versions have the ''Apostolic Tradition'' from the 31 to 62, while the Arabic and Ge'ez versions from 21 to 47.
See also
*
Apostolic Constitutions
*
Verona Palimpsest
The Verona Palimpsest (or ''Fragmentum Veronese'') is a manuscript, dated about the 494 AD, which contains a Christian collection of Church Orders in Latin. The manuscript, which contains many lacunae, is the only source of the Latin version of t ...
Notes
{{Reflist, 2
External links
G.W. Horner, ''The statutes of the apostoles or Canones Ecclesiastici'', 1904 English text of the Ge'ez version (at pages 127-232), of Arabic version (at pages 233-293) and of the Sahidic version (at pages 295-363)
Henry Tattam ''The Apostolical Constitutions, or Canons of the Apostles'' 1848 English text of the Bohairic version
Ancient church orders
5th-century Christian texts