234 CHAPTER X. ORGANIZATION OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. Philippi the deacons took their rank after the presbyters, at Rome.713 and are addressed with them in Paul’s Epistle. The deaconesses were usually chosen from elderly The office of there deacons, according to the nar- widows. In the Eastern churches the office continued to rative in Acts, was to minister at the table in the daily the end of the twelfth century.714 love-feasts, and to attend to the wants of the poor and § 63. Church Discipline. the sick. The primitive churches were charitable societHoliness, like unity and catholicity or universality, is ies, taking care of the widows and orphans, dispensing an essential mark of the Church of Christ, who is himself hospitality to strangers, and relieving the needs of the the one, holy Saviour of all men; but it has never yet been poor. The presbyters were the custodians, the deacons perfectly actualized in her membership on earth, and is the collectors and distributors, of the charitable funds. subject to gradual growth with many obstructions and To this work a kind of pastoral care of souls very natu- lapses. The church militant, as a body, like every indirally attached itself, since poverty and sickness afford the vidual Christian, has to pass through a long process of best occasions and the most urgent demand for edify- sanctification, which cannot be complete till the second ing instruction and consolation. Hence, living faith and coining of the Lord. exemplary conduct were necessary qualifications for the Even the apostles, far as they tower above ordinary office of deacon.711 Christians, and infallible as they are in giving all the Two of the Jerusalem deacons, Stephen and Philip, instruction necessary to salvation, never during their labored also as preachers and evangelists, but in the ex- earthly life claimed sinless perfection of character, but ercise of a personal gift rather than of official duty. felt themselves oppressed with manifold infirmities, and In post-apostolic times, when the bishop was raised in constant need of forgiveness and purification. above the presbyter and the presbyter became priest, the Still less can we expect perfect moral purity in their deacon was regarded as Levite, and his primary function churches. In fact, all the Epistles of the New Testament of care of the poor was lost in the function of assisting contain exhortations to progress in virtue and piety, the priest in the subordinate parts of public worship and warnings against unfaithfulness and apostasy, and rethe administration of the sacraments. The diaconate be- proofs respecting corrupt practices among the believers. came the first of the three orders of the ministry and a The old leaven of Judaism and heathenism could not be stepping-stone to the priesthood. At the same time the purged away at once, and to many of the blackest sins the deacon, by his intimacy with the bishop as his agent and converts were for the first time fully exposed after their messenger, acquired an advantage over the priest. regeneration by water and the Spirit. In the churches of 712 Deaconesses, or female helpers, had a similar Galatia many fell back from grace and from the freedom charge of the poor and sick in the female portion of the of the gospel to the legal bondage of Judaism and the church. This office was the more needful on account of “rudiments of the world.” In the church of Corinth, Paul the rigid separation of the sexes at that day, especial- had to rebuke the carnal spirit of sect, the morbid desire ly among the Greeks and Orientals. It opened to pious for wisdom, participation in the idolatrous feasts of the women and virgins, and chiefly to widows, a most suit- heathen, the tendency to uncleanness, and a scandalous able field for the regular official exercise of their peculiar profanation of the holy Supper or the love-feasts congifts of self-denying charity and devotion to the welfare nected with it. Most of the churches of Asia Minor, acof the church. Through it they could carry the light and cording to the Epistles of Paul and the Apocalypse, were comfort of the gospel into the most private and delicate 713 Rom. 16:1, where Phoebe is called (η) διάκονος της relations of domestic life, without at all overstepping ἐν Κεγχρεαις. Comp. 16:3, 6, 12. On the question whether the their natural sphere. Paul mentions Phoebe as a dea- widows mentioned 1 Tim. 3:11; 5:9-15, were deaconesses, see coness of the church of Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, my Hist. of the Ap. Ch., p. 536. 714 In the Roman Church, sisterhoods for charitable and it is more than probable that Prisca (Priscilla), Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis, whom he commends work have supplanted congregational deaconesses; and similar institutions (without the vow of celibacy) were established for their labor in the Lord, served in the same capacity 711 Acts 6:3; 1 Tim. 8:8 sqq. 712 ἡ διάκονος, afterwards also διακόνισσα, diaconissa, diacona.
among the Moravians, in the Lutheran, Episcopal, and other churches. The Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity, and the Evangelical Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth are worthy of special honor. See art. Deacon, Deaconess, and Deaconesses in Schaff ’s Rel. Cyclop., vol. I. (1882), pp. 613 sqq.
