---
title: "Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions"
author: "Various Church Fathers"
translator: "A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 84 of 148
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-lactantius-didache-apostolic-constitutions/84/
cite: "Various Church Fathers, tr. A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.), Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions, section 84. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-lactantius-didache-apostolic-constitutions/84/"
---

# Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions

*Various Church Fathers, tr. A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)*

Lactantius, the Didache, the Apostolic Constitutions and early liturgies.

## 84. Chapter XV.—Bishops and Deacons; Christian Reproof

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-lactantius-didache-apostolic-constitutions/84/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-lactantius-didache-apostolic-constitutions/84/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Appoint, therefore, for yourselves, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, and not lovers of money, and truthful and proved; for they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers. 2. Despise them not therefore, for they are your honoured ones, together with the prophets and teachers. 3. And reprove one another, not in anger, but in peace, as ye have it in the Gospel; but to every one that acts amiss against another, let no one speak, nor let him hear aught from you until he repent. 4. But your prayers and alms and all your deeds so do, as ye have it in the Gospel of our Lord.

### Chapter XVI.—Watchfulness; The Coming of the Lord

[¶2] 1. Watch for your life’s sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ye ready, for ye know not the hour in which our Lord cometh. 2. But often shall ye come together, seeking the things which are befitting to your souls: for the whole time of your faith will not profit you, if ye be not made perfect in the last time. 3. For in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate; 4. for when lawlessness increaseth, they shall hate and persecute and betray one another, and then shall appear the world-deceiver as the Son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands, and he shall do iniquitous things which have never yet come to pass since the beginning. 5. Then shall the creation of men come into the fire of trial, and many shall be made to stumble and shall perish; but they that endure in their faith shall be saved from under the curse itself. 6. And then shall appear the signs of the truth; first, the sign of an out-spreading in heaven; then the sign of the sound of the trumpet; and the third, the resurrection of the dead; 7. yet not of all, but as it is said: The Lord shall come and all His saints with Him. 8. Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven.

### Elucidations

[¶4] (Thus baptize ye, p. 379.)

[¶5] If we compare this chapter with the corresponding one in the Apostolic Constitutions, the Teaching seems to me to be a somewhat abridged form of a common original. This being designed for the catechumens, there is an omission of what they are afterwards to know. A form originally drawn up for clergy and people has been very inartificially expurgated for the instruction of young disciples. This appears from the ninth chapter (p. 380), where only certain receptive or responsive forms are given. The liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, book viii., embodies what was studiously kept from all but the τέλειοι, i.e., those “of full age.”

[¶6] (Concerning Apostles, p. 380, note 16.)

[¶7] The reference to “apostles,” probably itinerant, in Rev. ii. 2, corresponds with this. There were officers known in the Apostolic day (compare 2 Cor. viii. 23, Greek) as ἀπόστολοι ἐκκλησιω̑ν, for the pseud-apostles of the Apocalypse could not have pretended what they did had it been otherwise. Neither would it have been needful to “try those who said they were apostles,” in that case: the mere assertion of such a pretence would have sufficiently convicted them.

[¶8] The very childish directions (suited to mere catechumens) given in the text illustrates Rev ii. 2, and is, so far, evidence of the very early origin of the Teaching.

[¶9] The name apostles was made technical by Christ Himself: “He named them Apostles” (Luke vi. 13). And the word is never used in the loose way which Bishop Lightfoot hazardously suggests, as I must venture to believe.

### III

[¶11] (Incipient fanaticism, p. 381, note 25.)

[¶12] Unquestionably, for even in St. Paul’s day his admonitions imply nothing less. See 1 Cor. cap. xiv., passim. But, as in the Introductory Notice I hinted my suspicions of incipient Montanism in the Teaching, so I am strengthened in this idea by the learned critic to whose note I venture to append this remark for the purpose of asking a reference to my annotations of Hermas in vol. ii. of this series. May I also ask a reference to the same volume, pp. 4, 5, and 6? The “meal” (note 23, p. 380) of the Teaching is doubtless the Agape, which had been abused at so early a day, that St. Peter himself was forced to denounce the “false prophets” who polluted this feast of charity.

### Constitutions of the Holy Apostles

[¶14] [Edited, with Notes, by James Donaldson, D.D.]