The Acts of the Apostles

THE APOSTOLIC DECREE 259
blood is not to be found in the most ancient Christian
documents earlier than the Epistle from Lyons
and Vienne, and that there is absolutely no evidence
in primitive times for the prohibition of sacrificial
flesh sold in the markets. The prohibition in the
Epistle from Lyons is not based upon the Apostolic
Decree—indeed we know from Irenaeus that in that
part of the world the Apostolic Decree was at that
time regarded as a code of ethical precepts. But
the polemic against €iSa)\60vTov was, as a rule, a
polemic against participation in idolatrous sacrificial
feasts. The Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists
know nothing of regulations concerning meats bind-
ing upon Christians. If it is otherwise with the (payeiv
eiScoXoOvra of the Revelation, and with the eiScoXoOvrov
of the Didache (vi. 3)—and this cannot be proved—no
reference is at any rate made to the Apostolic Decree.
(8) The whole Western Church understood the
Apostolic Decree as an ethical rule^ and even Fathers
(like Teiiidlian ^) who already recognised the prohibition
of blood and of things strangled as binding upon
Christians, so understood it.
From these considerations, as it seems to me, it
follows that St. Luke (who did not write ttvlktov at
all) understood the three clauses a7r€')(€(r6ai rcov aXia--
yrj/uLcxTcov tu>v eiSdoXwv (eiScoXoOvTwv) Kai rrjg iropveiag
Kol Tov aljuLaTog as an abstract of an ethical catechism,
and that he intended his readers so to understand
1 TertuUian when mentioning the prohibition of blood does not
appeal to the Decree (Apol. 9 ; De Monog. 5 ; De Jejun. 4) ; neither
does he appeal to the Decree in support of abstaining from flesh
offered to idols, but to Revelation and 1 Corinthians (De Spect, 13
De Corona 10 ; De Prsesc. 33 ; De Jejun. 15).
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