Ancient church orders

Ancient church orders are a genre of early Christian literature, produced from the first through the fifth centuries, that set out authoritative guidance on morality, worship, and church organization. Early examples such as the Didache emphasized moral conduct, while later texts increasingly focused on liturgy and canon law. Many of these works are pseudepigraphic, falsely claiming apostolic authorship or attributing their content to figures such as Clement of Rome or Jesus Christ to lend them authority. Most were rediscovered and published only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and by the fifth century they had ceased to carry authority, gradually replaced by the canons of church councils and bishops' own sacramentaries. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/