Excursus on the Deaconess of the Early Church.
It has been supposed by many that the deaconess of the
Early Church had an Apostolic institution and that its existence may be
referred to by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 1) where he speaks of Phœbe as being a διάκονος of the Church of Cenchrea. It moreover has been suggested that the “widows” of 1 Tim. v. 9 may have been deaconesses, and this seems not unlikely from the fact that the age for the admission of women to this ministry was fixed by Tertullian at sixty years (De Vel. Virg. Cap. ix.), and only changed to forty, two centuries later by the Council of Chalcedon, and from the further fact that these “widows” spoken of by St. Paul seem to have had a vow of chastity, for it is expressly said that if they marry they have “damnation, because they have cast off their first faith” (1 Tim. v. 12).
These women were called διακόνισσαι, πρεσβυτίδες (which must be distinguished from the πρεσβυτέραι , a poor class referred to in the Apostolic Constitutions (ii. 28) who are to be only invited frequently to the love-feasts, while the πρεσβυτίδες had a definite allotment of the offerings assigned to their support), χῆραι, diaconissæ, presbyteræ, and viduæ.
The one great characteristic of the deaconess was that
she was vowed to perpetual chastity. The
Apostolical Constitutions (vi. 17) say that she must be a chaste
virgin (παρθένος
ἁγνὴ) or else a widow. The writer of
the article “Deaconess” in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities says: “It is evident that the ordination of deaconesses included a vow of celibacy.” We have already seen the language used by St. Paul and of this the wording of the canon of Chalcedon is but an echo (Canon xv). “A woman shall not receive the laying on of hands as a deaconess under forty years of age, and then only after searching examination. And if, after she has had hands laid on her, and has continued for a time to minister, she shall despise the Grace of God and give herself in marriage, she shall be anathematized and the man who is united to her.” The civil law went still further, and by Justinian’s Sixth Novel (6) those who attempted to marry are subjected to forfeiture of property and capital punishment. In the collect in the ancient office there is a special petition that the newly admitted deaconess may have the gift of continence.
The principal work of the deaconess was to assist the
female candidates for holy baptism. At that time the sacrament of
baptism was always administered by immersion (except to those in
extreme illness) and hence there was much that such an order of women
could be useful in. Moreover they sometimes gave to the female
catechumens preliminary instruction, but their work was wholly limited
to women, and for a deaconess of the Early Church to teach a man or to
nurse him in sickness would have been an impossibility. The
duties of the deaconess are set forth in many ancient writings, I cite
here what is commonly known as the XII Canon of the Fourth Council of
Carthage, which met in the year 398:
“Widows and dedicated women
(sanctimoniales) who are chosen to assist at the baptism of
women, should be so well instructed in their office as to be able to
teach aptly and properly unskilled and rustic women how to answer at
the time of their baptism to the questions put to them, and also how to
live godly after they have been baptized.” This whole
matter is treated clearly by St. Epiphanius who, while indeed speaking
of deaconesses as an order (τάγμα), asserts that
“they were only women-elders, not priestesses in any sense, that
their mission was not to interfere
in any way with Sacerdotal functions, but simply to perform certain
offices in the care of women” (Hær. lxxix., cap. iij). From all this it is evident that they are entirely in error who suppose that “the laying on of hands” which the deaconesses received corresponded to that by which persons were ordained to the diaconate, presbyterate, and episcopate at that period of the church’s history. It was merely a solemn dedication and blessing and was not looked upon as “an outward sign of an inward grace given.” For further proof of this I must refer to Morinus, who has treated the matter most admirably. (De Ordinationibus, Exercitatio X.)