RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Deaconess
esses fell into desuetude is in part the abuses of the Montanists, who allowed women to preach, while Montanus himself went about with two women, a thing which gave much scandal. Some of the heretics, following Simon Magus, were mixed up with prophetesses who were supposed to be subjects of revelation and taught contrary to the teaching of Paul. Other reasons were the moral dangers besetting such women. Rules were required distinctly forbidding clerics of the lower orders to visit widows and deaconesses without special permission from the bishop or priest and then not without an attendant (Synod of Hippo, 393; of. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, ii. 58). Still other reasons were the growth of monastic houses for nuns which offered a safe refuge as well as a distinct religious and clerical calling for women, and the cessation of the need of female ministries after adult baptism gave way to infant baptism.
The age at which women might enter the class of widows was reduced from sixty (Apostolic Constitutions, iii. 1). Tertullian {De virginibus velandis, ix.) tells of a virgin who had been admitted into the order of widowhood at the age of twenty, but speaks of it as a notorious irregularity. The Theodosian code of 390 (cf. Hefele, ut sup., ii. 519) required obedience to the Pauline rule requiring the age of sixty. As for the 2. Age. deaconesses, the Council of Chalcedon (451; canon xv.; cf. Hefele, ut sup.) allowed their consecration at the age of forty, but only after probation. The Justinian code (Novellce, cxxiii. 13) likewise prescribed the age of forty. In case a deaconess married, both she and her husband were to be anathematized. According to the Justinian code, if she married or allowed herself to be seduced, she became liable to the death penalty and the man suffered death by the sword (Pfannmuller, ut sup., p. 72). Olympias (d. 420), the deaconess of Constantinople praised by Chrysostom and to whom he addressed seventeen letters, became a widow at eighteen and seems to have immediately entered upon diaconal functions.
The statement of the Apostolic Constitutions (iii. 15) is regulative of the functions of these women : " A deaconess is to be ordained for the ministrations toward women." She is called the assistant or minister of the deacon (viii. 28). She was to be sent to do certain services for which it was distinctly ordered that the deacon should not be sent (iii. 15). At baptism she assisted the presbyter " for the sake of decency " (viii. 28). The bishop was instructed to anoint only the head of a 3- Duties, woman and the anointing of the other parts was left to the deaconess (iii. 15). A change, however, took place and this custom was deliberately set aside. The Synod of Dovin in Armenia (527; Hefele, ut sup., p. 718) forbade the ministry of deaconesses at baptism. The prohibition prolsably grew out of the unwillingness to allow to women even the appearance of performing clerical services. Tertullian (De baptismo, xvii.) allowed laymen to baptize, but expressly forbade women both to baptize and to teach. The Apostolic Constitutions (iii. 9; also
Origen, Homily on Isa. vi.) state expressly that deaconesses were not to serve at the altar, and forbid them to teach and baptize or in any wise perform the functions of the priest. Another duty of the deaconess was to stand at the entrance to the church through which the women passed to their own place in the auditorium to greet those that entered, to show them seats, and to preserve order (Apostolic Constitutions, ii. 57).
Roman Catholic scholars in interpreting the patristic statements on the induction of the deaconess into office deny that there was any rite of ordination. This interpretation has plainly in its favor the nineteenth canon of the Council of Nicaia (Hefele, ut sup., i. 427), which distinctly states that " the deaconesses are without any imposition of hands and are to be ranked with the laity." The Synod of Laodicea, a generation or two later, which speaks of presbutides and prokathemenai, that is, female presbytids (not presbyters; cf. Epiphanius, Ixxix.) and overseers, seems to deny them official position in the Church, but the meaning of the passage is vague (cf. Hefele, i. 757). On the other hand, there are plain statements that a nt&^ of ordination was performed. There was an imposition of hands (Epiphanius, ut sup.), and such
imposition was made by the hands of 4. Ordina- the bishop and in the presence of the tion. presbytery, the deacons, and those
already belonging to the order of deaconesses (Apostolic Constitutions, viii. 19). The code of Justinian treats of their ordination (cf. Pfannmuller, ut sup., p. 72). The form of prayer used on such occasions is given in the Apostolic Constitutions (viii. 20). The Synod of Orange in 441 (canon xxvi. ; Hefele, ii. 295) forbade the further ordination of women and allowed them only the consecration imparted to the laity. By the Synod of Epao in 317 (Hefele, ii. 684) such ordination was forbidden in all Burgundy. Similarly the Second Synod of Orleans in 533 (Hefele, ii. 758) denied to women " on account of the weakness of their sex " the diaconal benediction. This would seem to have been of the same nature as ordination to the diaconate. During the Middle Ages the heretical sects ordained deaconesses (cf. Dollinger, i. 186, 203, and elsewhere).
III. In the Protestant Churches. — 1. The Earlier Period: The Reformers made no provision for the official recognition of women as functionaries in the Church. Among the rare notices of deaconesses are those in connection with the Church of Wesel from 1575 to 1610 and the Puritan church of Amsterdam. One of the first acts of the Church of Wesel was to decide to employ women. After long delay the Synod of Middelburg in 1581 pronounced against the proposition " on account of various inconveniences which might arise out of it, but in times of pestilence and other _ sicknesses where any service is required among sick women which would be indelicate to deacons they ought to attend to this through their wives or others whose services it may be proper to engage." The conclusions drawn up by Thomas Cartwright (q.v.) and Walter Travers as the result of several confessions of Puritan ministers in 1575 contained a clause
Deaconess