260 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
the preparation of women for baptism by private instruction. Formerly, from regard to the apostolic precept in 1 Tim. v. 9, the deaconesses were required to be sixty years of age/ The general council of Chalcedon, however, in 451, reduced tlie canonical age to forty years, and in the fifteenth canon ordered : "N^o female shall be consecrated deaconess before she is forty years old, and not then without careful probation. If, however, after having received consecration, and having been some time in the service, she marry, despising the grace of God, she with her husband shall be anathematized." The usual ordination prayer in the consecration of deaconesses, according to the Apostolic Constitutions, runs thus : " Eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of man and woman, who didst fill Miriam and Deborah and Hannah and Huldah with the Spirit, and didst not disdain to suffer thine only-begotten Son to be born of a woman ; who also in the tabernacle and the temple didst appoint women keepers of thine holy gates : look down now upon this thine handmaid, who is designated to the office of deacon, and grant her the Holy Ghost, and cleanse her from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, that she may worthily execute the work intrusted to her, to thine honor and to the praise of thine Anointed ; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honor and adoration forever. Amen." '
' Comp. Pelagiua ad Rom. xvi. 1. Neander (iii. p. 314, note; Torrey's iransl. ri. p. 158) infers from a canon of the fourth council of Carthage, that the latter custom prevailed also in the West, since it is there required of " viduse quae ad ministerium baptizandaium mulierum oliguntur," " ut possint apto et sano sermoue docere imperitas et rusticas mulieres."
" Comp. Codex Theodoa. 1. xvi.. Tit. ii. lex 27 : " Nulla ni.si emensis 60 annia secundum praeceptum apostoli ad diaconissarum consortium transferatur."
* Const. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 20. We have given the prayer in full. Neander (iii. p. 322, note) omits some passages. The custom of ordaining doacones.ses la placed by this prayer and by the canon quoted from the council of Clialcodon beyond dispute. The 19th canon of the council of Nice, however, appears to conflict with this, in reckoning deaconesses among the laity, who have no consecration (xfipo^eCTi'a). Some therefore suppose that the ordination of deaconesses did not arise till after the Nicsenum (325), though the Apostolic Constitutions contradict this; while others (as BaroLius, and recently Ilefele, Concilien-Gesch. 1855, vol. i. p. 414) would resolve the contradiction by distinguialvng between the proper
§ 52. THE LOWER CLEEGT. 261
The noblest type of an apostolic deaconess, wliicL L s con o down to us from this period, is Olympias, the friend of Chrys ostom, and the recipient of seventeen beautiful epistles from liim,' She sprang from a respectable heathen family, but received a Christian education ; was beautiful and wealthy married in her seventeenth year (a. d. 384) the prefect of Con etantinople, Nebridius ; but in twenty months after was left a widow, and remained so in spite of the efforts of the emperor Theodosius to unite her with one of his own kindred. She became a deaconess ; lived in rigid asceticism ; devoted her goods to the poor ; and found her greatest pleasure in doing good. When Chrysostom came to Constantinople, he became her pastor, and guided her lavish benefaction by wise counsel. She continued faithful to him in his misfortune ; survived him by several years, and died in 420, lamented by all the poor and needy in tlie city and in the country around.
In the West, on the contrary, the office of deaconess was first shorn of its clerical character by a prohibition of ordination passed by the Gallic councils in the fifth and sixth centuries;' and at last it was wholly abolished. The second
X(:tpoS>fffia and the simple benediction. But the consecration of the deaconesses Avas certainly accompanied with imposition of hands in presence of the whole clergy ; since the Apost. Const., 1. viii. c. 19, expressly say to the bishop : "Eti iS>ri cr e i avrrj ras YcTpas, Traptcrrwroi rov irpfafiuTepioi) kuI tUv SiaKovcov koI twu Sia/co inaa-wv. The contradiction lies, however, in that Nicene canon itself; for (accordin|, to the Greek Codices) the deaconesses arc immediately before counted among the clergy, if we do not, with the Latin translation, read deacons instead. Neander helps himself by a distinction between proper deaconesses and widows abusive m called.
' They are found in Montfaucon's Bened. edition of Chrysostom, torn. iii. p. 524- 604, and in Lomler's edition of Joann. Chrysost. Opera prajstantissima, 1840, p. 168-252. These seventeen epistles to Olympias are, in the Judgment of Photius aa quoted by Montfaucon (Op. iii. 624), of the epistles of Chrysostom, " longissimsB, elegantissimffi, omuiumque utilissimae." Compare also Montfaucon's prefatory remarks on Olympias.
" A mere benediction was appointed in place of ordination. The first synod of Orange (Arausicana i.), in 441, directed in the 26th canon : " Diaconte omnimodii non ordinandaj [thus they had previously been ordained in Gaul also, and reckoned with the clergy] ; si quae jam sunt, benedictioni, quis populo impenditur, capita Bubmittant." Likewise was the ordination of deaconesses forbidden by the council of Epaou in Burgundy, in 517, can. 21, and by the second council at Orleans, ir. B33, can. 17 and 18.