IN preparing an English translation of the Didascalia Apostolorum from the Syriac (the original Greek being lost), I have been guided by the consideration that the student of Ecclesiastical History ought to familiarize himself with the ideas and practices of bygone ages, and that it is especially useful to us to know by what means the clergy, in the early centuries of our era, obtained for themselves, whether for good or evil, the unquestioning obedience of Christian people. To this