Oriental Sources of Canon Law: Edition and Translation of Pseudo-Apostolic Church Ordinances in Arabic Tradition

The oldest Oriental Christian canonical texts have come down to us as pseudo-Apostolic writings on the one hand, and as synodal decisions on the other. In light of their volume and their deficient state of treatment, the project concentrates first of all on the pseudo-Apostolic literature, especially since this may be regarded as primary from a chronological viewpoint, and as more fruitful in terms of its history of reception.

These church ordinances are also of great interest from a sociological perspective, as they represent a model case for progressive organization and institutionalization as a result of the expansion of a social system. Specifically, they provide a vivid picture of social evolution, that is, functional specialization and structural differentiation in the realm of early Christianity – an example that requires further analysis.

Another aspect, especially of the Oriental versions of these texts, concerns their proximity to the respective culturally or denominationally shaped practice. Whereas patristic research had previously focused on the aim of reconstructing the original text, the Oriental translations can also be read in terms of the life circumstances surrounding them.

Beyond its philological significance, the project also has a theological, especially canonical significance. A further treatment of the subject matter in this broader perspective, however, necessitates first of all the preliminary philological work here intended. Even if, in the long term, editions of the texts in all surviving versions, i.e. Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Syriac, would be desirable, the project must be limited in scope to a section that can be realized within a reasonable period of time. A simultaneous treatment of single texts in all languages seems less reasonable in light of the previous research history, rather the whole text corpus should be the focus of consideration and should be treated in a single linguistic tradition. In this context, the most noticeable research gaps are in the area of the Christian-Arabic tradition, so that the Arabic versions of the pseudo-Apostolic church ordinances will be edited first.

Through editorial indexing and translation of the selected texts, the project fulfils a desideratum that has long been known and repeatedly formulated among experts, and thus makes a substantial contribution to further research beyond the philological yield.