The Statutes of the Apostles (Apostolic Tradition)

No edition of the Arabic, nor any translations, have been published before. Only a part of the Ethiopic has hitherto appeared in print, edited and translated into Latin by the statesman and linguist Job Ludolf in 1691, who titled his work Statuta Apostolorum Latin: "Statutes of the Apostles.". This name has been retained as a convenient, rather than an accurate or significant, title. The Arabic heading uses a word which, coming from a verb whose primary meaning is "to join together," may imply a "testament" in the sense of a commandment or order. In the Saidic, there is no heading, but both Saidic and Arabic describe the subject as "canons." As already observed, these canons sometimes show a tripartite composition. Such is the case with the Ethiopic and Arabic, while the Saidic makes four divisions, adding—along with the Bohairic version—the so-called Apostolic Canons, which have been omitted from the present publication because they do not occur in the Ethiopic and Arabic as part of the specific collection that Ludolf termed Statuta.

Though tripartite in form, the three divisions are regarded as one document, numbered throughout in one series of sections or canons. These, however, betray their independent origin by a variety of forms in their headings or titles. These sections present much variation, and some manuscripts of the same version do not agree in their numeration. In every case, the numbers are intended to follow from beginning to end according to one order, and this unity of form prevails—even though in the Arabic and Ethiopic, if not also in the Saidic, this one composite document belonged to a larger body where the sections began to be numbered.