Excerpt from The Work Claiming to Be the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Including the Canons: Whiston's Version, Revised From the Greek, With a Prize Essay, at the University of Bonn, Upon Their Origin and Contents

IN reading these Constitutions and Canons of the Apostles, the Christian of the present day will be likely to exclaim, A splendid specimen of pious fraud! A strange mixture of good and of evil! He will readily perceive, however, that he has before him documents exceedingly important for illustrating the ecclesiastical history of a very remote period, a period during a portion of which, at least, heathenism was dominant, the sighing of Christian prisoners was heard, the blood of martyrs was ¿owing. Here, too, are seen indications of the bitter controversies which rent the church before and after the Nicene Council, assembled by Constantine the Great, ad. 325, here, some of the seminal principles from which gradually arose monasticism and the Papal hierarchy, and other great departures from the spirit and practice of the primitive Christians. And yet, with all the error, and superstition, and bitterness, and fraud, there is so much that is true, so much that is opposed.

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