A specialist in the Apostolic church of early Christianity, Steward-Sykes presents a thoroughly annotated English translation of Arthur Vööbus' 1979 edition of a Syriac document that sets out various aspects of church life and of the life of a Christian. Such works are called church order literature, he explains, are widespread across the Christian east, and either are attributed explicitly to the apostles or claim apostolic sanction. His extensive introduction discusses such aspects as interpretive assumptions, the search for sources and redactors, date and provenance, the significance of observing redactional layers, and opponents of the tract. He appends material secondary to the main text that is found in one family of manuscripts. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)