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3-14; directions concerning church building, i. 19; and a church order, specifying the duties of the clergy and of the laity, i. 20-ii. 25. To instructions for the consecration of bishops a long liturgy is appended. There are other liturgical parts, e.g., i. 32, 34-35. Noteworthy are the canons on widows, i. 40-43; there are female clerics, ranking above the deaconesses. The sources of the work are as various as its parts. The Apocalypse is no doubt borrowed; chaps. xix.-xxii. correspond to chaps. xxxv.-xxxviii. of the Arabic Didascalia; yet the Testament is probably the prior source. From i. 20 there is so much resemblance to the Egyptian church order that this main part may be considered as an elaboration of the same. Here and there occur analogies to the Apostolic Constitutions and the " Canons of Hippolytus," and T. Zahn points out verbal agreements with the prayers of the Gnostic " Acts of Peter." These desultory parts are held together by the literary fiction to which the Testament owes its name. After the resurrection, it is represented, Christ appears to the apostles, imparts to them the Holy Spirit, and, at the request of Peter and John, gives them a description of the end, i.e., the Apocalypse (i. 1-15). John, Peter, and Matthew wrote down the New Testament and sent it into the world through Dositheus (perhaps Erastus of Aristarchus), Silas, Magnus (perhaps Manaen), and Aquila. Further on, the author does not take pains to sustain the disguise. In the form of the Testament of Christ may be seen the culmination of the apostolic fiction that attaches to church orders from the beginning. In the conviction that church orders were derived from the apostolic tradition, all books on the subject since the Didache were ascribed to the apostles. The fiction increases in the Apostolic Church Order and the Apostolic Constitutions, viii (see APOSTOLIC CHURCH DIRECTO$Y; APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS AND CANONS) where each apostle in turn is made to give his directions verbally; finally, in the Testament all is put into the mouth of Christ himself. This form was facilitated by the apocalyptic introduction. Even the eschatological address of Mace. xiii. 5 sqq., Revelation, and the Apocalypse of Peter are represented as spoken or communicated by Jesus. It can not be doubted that the falsification was generally accepted in good faith. The Apocalypse seems to have originated in Syria, as this (i. 10) stands at the head of the lands that are to suffer from Antichrist. Zahn suggests that it might have originated in a separatist church, having first in mind the Audians (q.v.); A. Baumstark ascribes it to the Monophysites; A. Harnack and P. Drews refer it to Egypt, as the formulas and usages are Egyptian. The time of its production is assumed by most to have been the fifth century; it is already cited in the " Theosophy " of Aristocritus, at the end of the fifth century, as a pseudepigraphical work.

(H. ACFIELIB.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The first edition was by Lagarde in Reliquim juris ecclesiastici autiquissirrea Syriace, Grace, pp. 2-19, 80-89, Leipsic, 1856, from a ninth-century manuscript; and the complete edition was by I. E. Rahmani, patriarch of Antioch, Mainz, 1899. There is an Eng. transl. by J. Cooper and A. J. Maclean, Edinburgh, 1902 (cf. Nestle in AJT, vii. 1903, pp. 749 sqq.). Consult: A. Ehrhard, Die altchristliche Litteratur and Are ErJorschunp 1884-

1900, pp. 532 sqq., Freiburg, 1900; Harnack, in SBA, 1899, pp. 878 sqq.; Aehelis, in Theologische Llteraturseitunp, 1899, pp. 704 sqq.; Zahn, in NKZ, 1900, pp. 438 sqq.; Baumatark, in TQS, 1900, pp. 1 sqq.; Drewa, iz< TSK, 1901, pp. 141 sqq.

TETRAPOLITAN CONFESSION: The Confession presented by the four cities of Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau to the Diet of Augsburg, and properly speaking the first confession of the Reformed Church. The call of the Diet by the emperor at Augsburg, Apr. 8, 1530 (see AUGSBURG CONFESSION AND ITS APOLOGY, § 1 ), declaring for an open discussion and final reconcilement, though met with misgiving in upper Germany, where the delegates were advised rather to work for a future free general council, yet encouraged electoral Saxony and several imperial cities in southern Germany to prepare arguments in writing for the defense of their respective beliefs and forms. By Apr. 26, Wolfgang Capito (q.v.) was at work at Strasburg. However, the instructions to the delegates, Johannes Sturm (q.v.) and Matthis Pfarrer, aimed at two things; the avoidance of the disunion of the Protestant states, and of the examination of the meaning of doctrines. When they arrived at Augsburg this policy proved impracticable, because Johann Eck's 404 articles included the Strasburg party in its attack; because there were present a number of Lutheran theologians holding themselves entirely aloof; and in the opening address the demand of a written presentation and defense in Latin and German was made of each constituent. Again and again the delegates sent back to Strasburg for theologians, but no invitation or freedom of passage having been assured, the council hesitated to send Martin Butzer and Capito for fear of their arrest. Meanwhile the two had started and arrived June 23 and 26, but for three weeks longer they deferred their public appearance. It was already certain that the princes would not admit the cities dissenting on the doctrine of the sacrament to a subscription of their Confession (Augsburg); and only by the sacrifice of those dissenting on the sacrament, Melanchthon hoped to save the cause of the Evangelicals, since it was known that the emperor would not submit the corporeal presence in the Eucharist to question. Simultaneous with the arrival of Butzer, it happened that Landgrave Philip of Hesse, in spite of scruples as to the article on the sacrament, signed the Saxon Confession. The Strasburg theologian, therefore, had to prepare in haste his own confession. In substance it followed as closely as possible the Confession of the princes. Accordingly, in the article on the sacrament it is declared that " the Lord in this sacrament according to his Word gives to his followers his true body and true blood to eat and drink, to the nourishment of their souls and to eternal life, that they may remain in him and he in them." Zwingli's influence appears in the twenty-three articles in the first place given to the Scripture-principle, followed by Christ and his grace as the chief content and the critical measure of ecclesiastical tradition. Zwinglian also is the stress on the Church invisible as the " Bride of Christ." The sacraments are so called not only because they are visible tokens