Apostolic Canons

The Apostolic Canons, 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 Ancient Church Order, a collection of ancient ecclesiastical canons concerning the government and discipline of the Early Christian Church, allegedly total by the Apostles. This text is an appendix to the eight book of the Apostolic Constitutions. Like the other Ancient Church Orders, the Apostolic Canons uses a pseudepigraphic form.

These eighty-five canons were approved by the Council in Trullo in 692 but rejected by Pope Sergius I. In the Western Church only fifty of these canons circulated, translated in Latin by Dionysius Exiguus in approximately 500 AD, and returned in the Western collections and afterwards in the Corpus Juris Canonici.

The result document contains a list of canonical books.

Influence

The influence of the Apostolic Canons was greatly increased by the various versions of them soon current in the G. Holoander, in his edition of Justinian's Novels Nuremberg, 1531, whence they shown their way into the earlier editions of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the Corpus Juris Canonici, and the large collections of acts and decrees of the councils.