Jus novum (c. 1140-1563) Jus novissimum (c. 1563-1918) Jus codicis (1918-present) Other Sacraments Sacramentals Sacred places Sacred times Supra-diocesan/eparchal structures Particular churches Juridic persons Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law Clerics Office Juridic and physical persons Associations of the faithful Pars dynamica (trial procedure) Canonization Election of the Roman Pontiff Academic degrees Journals and Professional Societies Faculties of canon law Canonists Institute of consecrated life Society of apostolic life The Apostolic Constitutions or Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (Latin: Constitutiones Apostolorum) is a Christian collection divided into eight books which is classified among the Church Orders, a genre of early Christian literature, that offered authoritative pseudo-apostolic prescriptions on moral conduct, liturgy and Church organization.
[3] The Apostolic Constitutions contains eight books on Early Christian discipline, worship, and doctrine, apparently intended to serve as a manual of guidance for the clergy, and to some extent for the laity.
Nevertheless, the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia describes the Constitutions as held in "high esteem" in antiquity, and as the basis for significant amounts of canon law.
[6] William Whiston in the 18th century devoted the third volume of his Primitive Christianity Revived to prove that "they are the most sacred of the canonical books of the New Testament; "for "these sacred Christian laws or constitutions were delivered at Jerusalem, and in Mount Sion, by our Saviour to the eleven apostles there assembled after His resurrection."
Today the Apostolic Constitutions are regarded as a highly significant historical document, as they reveal the moral and religious conditions, as well as the liturgical observances of 3rd and 4th centuries.