The Oriental manuscripts, all comparatively modern,[65] are fairly numerous,[66] and are likewise collections of laws. The Sahidic—known also as the Egyptian Heptateuch, from its seven Books—begins with the Apostolic Church Order. Then (Book II) comes Hippolytus’s work, in which chapters 1, 3, 4. 4-13, 5-6, 8. 2-5, 9. 9-12 are omitted and chapters 11-14 are arranged in the order[67] 12, 14, 11, 13; there are also minor variations to which attention is usually called in the translation and notes. Books III-VI are parallel to Constitutions VIII; Book VII contains the Apostolic Canons. Like other Coptic ecclesiastical writings it teems with transliterated Greek words, so that the original terms are obvious. But the first translator was evidently often in doubt as to the meaning of the original, and his indecisions have not been clarified by later copyists.
The Bohairic was made from an inferior Sahidic manuscript in the early nineteenth century. All readings of any consequence are listed by Horner.
The Arabic was made from the Sahidic, which it follows in most regards, although chapters 11-14 are not disarranged; it was therefore made from a manuscript other than the archetype of the known Sahidic codices and has a certain independent textual value. Otherwise its features are just about those to be expected in a secondary version.
The Ethiopic is divided into seventy-two “Statutes”, of which the first twenty-one are the Apostolic Church Order. Statute 22 = Hippolytus’s chapters 2-5, concluding with communion prayers. Chapter 6 of Hippolytus is omitted. Statutes 23-27 = chapters 8-15, with no changes in order. Statutes 28-35 = chapters 16-24, concluding with a brief additional section on the regular weekly eucharists ([p. 58]). Statutes 36-38 = chapters 25-26, followed by sections on the communion of the sick and on evening services ([p. 58]) and a repetition of chapter 26. 2, 10b-13. Statute 39 = chapter 27. Statute 40 is a long baptismal office, containing reminiscences of chapters 21-23 but opening with chapter 1, which is not in the Sahidic or Arabic. Statutes 40 (end)-48 = chapters 28-38. The remaining Statutes parallel Constitutions VIII, like the other versions, but there are certain variations; Statute 52, for instance, contains a considerable section of the Didache, a little of the Didascalia, and a bit (38. 4) of Hippolytus. At the end there is a collection of prayers.
The Ethiopic is a tertiary version, made from the Arabic. Statute 40, which gives chapter 1, was evidently derived from a different source which used the Apostolic Tradition independently, and its inclusion here was more or less accidental. But the presence of the other chapters not in the present Arabic texts is best explained by assuming that the Ethiopic was derived from an older Arabic form—which in turn presupposes an older Sahidic form; in these the omissions to avoid conflict with local usages had not yet taken place.[68]
The additional material in Statutes 5, 35 and 37-38 is printed by both Connolly and Jungklaus, although both[69] recognize the liturgical prayers in 5 to be post-Hippolytean; it is consequently not included in the present edition. But neither do the other two sections appear to be genuine. The rules in Statute 35 are so general and unobjectionable that their omission in the Sahidic and Arabic would be difficult to explain, while the reverence deacons must pay to presbyters seems to point to a later date. Similarly the description of the care of the sick and of the evening service in Statute 37 presents nothing that could have troubled the Sahidic and Arabic translators; the insertion of such widespread usages is easier to understand than their omission. And the repetition of earlier matter at the end of Statute 37 and in all of Statute 38 shows a bad textual tradition.
In general, then, the evidence of the Ethiopic is of minor consequence. In the only place where it stands alone (9. 11-12) it has a text that does not appear to be possible.
Summarizing: The original Greek of the Apostolic Tradition has not been recovered, except in small fragments. The Latin is generally trustworthy, but is incomplete. The only other primary version, the Sahidic, is likewise incomplete, and the results of the moderate abilities of its translator have been further confused in later transmission. The Arabic is a secondary text, offering little that the Sahidic does not contain. The only practically complete version,[70] the Ethiopic, is tertiary and is otherwise unreliable. All four of these versions presuppose a common Greek original, in which two different endings have been conflated. The other sources, the Constitutions, the Testament and the Canons, are frank revisions, in which the original is often edited out of recognition or even flatly contradicted. Under these conditions the restoration of a really accurate text is manifestly impossible.
None the less the material is abundant and independent enough to warrant confidence that the substance and in most cases even the original wording of Hippolytus’s rules have really been preserved: only the ordination prayer for deacons presents difficulties that appear insuperable.
The chapter divisions are those of Jungklaus, altered only at chapter 22. To facilitate reference the sentences have been numbered as “verses”.