Ancient Church Orders Ancient Church Orders is a genre of early
Christian literature, ranging from 1st to 5th century, which has
the aim to offer authoritative "apostolic" prescriptions on
matters of moral conduct, liturgy and Church organization. These
texts are extremely important in the study of early liturgy and
served as the basis for much ancient ecclesiastical legislation.
A characteristic of this genre is their pseudepigraphic form.
Many of them profess to have been handed down by the Twelve
Apostles, in some case purported to have been gathered by
Clement of Rome or by Hippolytus of Rome. In the earliest of
them, the Didache, extends to the title: The teaching of the
Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles. The later
Testamentum Domini declares itself to be the legacy left by
Jesus Christ himself to his Apostles before the Ascension, and
to give his own words and commands as to the government of the
Church. Apart from the Apostolic Constitutions, which was
printed before 1563, all other texts hav