{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/214/2140195.htm","path":"chr/ecf/214/2140195.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/214/2140195.htm","text":"Excursus on the Minor Orders of the Early Church.\n(Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Ignatius, Vol. I., p. 258.)\nSome of these lower orders, the subdeacons, readers, door-keepers, and exorcists, are mentioned in the celebrated letter of Cornelius bishop of Rome (a.d. 251) preserved by Eusebius (H. E., vi., 43), and the readers existed at least half a century earlier (Tertull., de Pr\u00e6scr., 41). In the Eastern Church, however, if we except the Apostolic Constitutions, of which the date and country are uncertain, the first reference to such offices is found in a canon of the Council of Antioch, a.d. 341, where readers, subdeacons, and exorcists, are mentioned, this being apparently intended as an exhaustive enumeration of the ecclesiastical orders below the diaconate; and for the first mention of door-keepers in the East, we must go to the still later Council of Laodicea, about a.d. 363, (see III., p. 240, for the references, where also fuller information is given). But while most of these lower orders certainly existed in the West, and probably in the East, as early as the middle of the third century the case is different with the \u201csingers\u201d (\u03c8\u03ac\u03bb\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9) and the \u201clabourers\u201d (\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b9\u1fb6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9). Setting aside the Apostolic Constitutions, the first notice of the \u201csingers\u201d occurs in the canons of the above-mentioned Council of Laodicea. This, however, may be accidental. The history of the word copiatai affords a more precise and conclusive indication of date. The term first occurs in a rescript of Constantius (a.d. 357), \u201cclerici qui copiatai appellantur,\u201d and a little later (a.d. 361), the same emperor speaks of them as \u201chi quos copiatas recens usus instituit nuncupari.\u201d\n(Adolf Harnack, in his little book ridiculously intituled in the English version Sources of the Apostolic Canons, page 85.)\nExorcists and readers there had been in the Church from old times, subdeacons are not essentially strange, as they participate in a name (deacon) which dates from the earliest days of Christianity. But acolytes and door-keepers (\u03c0\u03c5\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03af) are quite strange, are really novelties. And these acolytes even at the time of Cornelius stand at the head of the ordines minores: for that the subdeacons follow on the deacons is self-evident. Whence do they come? Now if they do not spring out of the Christian tradition, their origin must be explained from the Roman. It can in fact be shown there with desirable plainness.\nWith regard to subdeacons the reader may also like to see some of Harnack\u2019s speculations. In the volume just quoted he writes as follows (p. 85 note):\nAccording to Cornelius and Cyprian subdeacons were mentioned in the thirtieth canon p. 145 of the Synod of Elvira (about 305), so that the sub diaconate must then have been acknowledged as a fixed general institution in the whole west (see Dale, The Synod of Elvira, Lond., 1882). The same is seen in the \u201cgesta apud Zenophilum.\u201d As the appointment of the lower orders took place at Rome between about the years 222\u2013249, the announcement in the Liber Pontificalis (see Duchesne\u2019s edition, fasc. 2, 1885, p. 148) is not to be despised, as according to it Bishop Fabian appointed seven subdeacons: \u201cHic regiones dividit diaconibus et fecit vii. subdiaconos.\u201d The Codex Liberianus indeed (see Duchesne, fasc. 1, pp. 4 and 5; Lipsius, Chronologie d. r\u00f6m Bisch\u00f6fe, p. 267), only contains the first half of the sentence, and what the Liber Pontif. has added of the account of the appointment of subdeacons (\u2026qui vii notariis imminerent, ut gestas martyrum in integro fideliter colligerent) is, in spite of the explanation of Duchesne, not convincing. According to Probst and other Catholic scholars the subdiaconate existed in Rome a long time before Fabian (Kirchl. Disciplin, p. 109), but Hippolytus is against them. Besides, it should be observed that the officials first, even in Carthage, are called hypo-deacons, though the word subdiaconus was by degrees used in the West. This also points to a Roman origin of the office, for in the Roman church in the first part of the third century the Greek language was the prevailing one, but not at Carthage.\nBut to return to the Acolythes, and door-keepers, whom Harnack thinks to be copies of the old Roman temple officers. He refers to Marquardt\u2019s explanation of the sacrificial system of the Romans, and gives the following resum\u00e9 (page 85 et seqq.):\n1. The temples have only partially their own priests, but they all have a superintendent (\u0153dituus-curator templi). These \u0153ditui, who lived in the temple, fall again into two classes. At least \u201cin the most important brotherhoods the chosen \u0153dituus was not in a position to undertake in person the watching and cleaning of the sacellum. He charged therefore with this service a freedman or slave.\u201d \u201cIn this case the sacellum had two \u0153ditui, the temple-keeper, originally called magister \u0153dituus, and the temple-servant, who appears to be called the \u0153dituus minister.\u201d \u201cTo both it is common that they live in the temple, although in small chapels the presence of the servant is sufficient. The temple-servant opens, shuts, and cleans the sacred place, and shows to strangers its curiosities, and allows, according to the rules of the temple, those persons to offer up prayers and sacrifices to whom this is permitted, while he sends away the others.\u201d\n2. \u201cBesides the endowment, the colleges of priests were also supplied with a body of servants\u201d\u2014the under officials\u2014; \u201cthey were appointed to the priests,\u2026by all of whom they were used partly as letter-carriers (tabellarii), partly as scribes, partly as assistants at the sacrifices.\u201d Marquardt reckons, (page 218 and fol.) the various categories of them among the sacerdotes publici, lictores, pullarii, victimarii, tibicines, viatores, sixthly the calatores, in the priests\u2019 colleges free men or freedmen, not slaves, and in fact one for the personal service of each member.\nHere we have the forerunners of the Church door-keepers and acolytes. Thus says the fourth Council of Carthage, as far as refers to the former: \u201cOstiarius cum ordinatur, postquam ab archidiacono instructus fuerit, qualiter in domo dei debeat conversari, ad suggestionem archidiaconi, tradat ei episcopus claves ecclesi\u00e6 de altari, dicens. Sic age, quasi redditurus deo rationem pro his rebus, qu\u00e6 hisce clavibus recluduntur.\u201d The ostiarius (\u03c0\u03c5\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2) is thus the \u00e6dituus minister. He had to look after the opening and shutting of the doors, to watch over the coming in and going out of the faithful, to refuse entrance to suspicious persons, and, from the date of the more strict separation between the missa catechumenorum and the missa fidelium, to close the doors, after the dismissal of the catechumens, against those doing penance and unbelievers. He first became necessary when there were special p. 146 church buildings (there were such even in the second century), and they like the temples, together with the ceremonial of divine service, had come to be considered as holy, that is, since about 225. The church acolytes are without difficulty to be recognised in the under officials of the priests, especially in the \u201ccalatores,\u201d the personal servants of the priests. According to Cyprian the acolytes and others are used by preference as tabellarii. According to Cornelius there were in Rome forty-two acolytes. As he gives the number of priests as forty-six, it may be concluded with something like certainty that the rule was that the number of the priests and of the acolytes should be equal, and that the little difference may have been caused by temporary vacancies. If this view is correct, the identity of the calator with the acolyte is strikingly proved. But the name \u201cacolyte\u201d plainly shows the acolyte was not, like the door-keeper, attached to a sacred thing, but to a sacred person.\n(Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Ignatius, ad Antioch, xj., note. Vol. II., Sec. II., p. 240.)\nThe acolytes were confined to the Western Church and so are not mentioned here. On the other hand the \u201cdeaconesses\u201d seem to have been confined to the Eastern Church at this time. See also Apost. Const., iii., 11.; viii., 12; comp. viii., 19\u201328, 31; Apost. Can., 43; Conc. Laodic., Can. 24; Conc. Antioch, Can. 10. Of these lower orders the \u201csubdeacons\u201d are first mentioned in the middle of the third century, in the passage of Cornelius already quoted and in the contemporary letters of Cyprian. The \u201creaders\u201d occur as early as Tertullian de Pr\u00e6scr. 41 \u201chodie diaconus, qui cras lector,\u201d where the language shows that this was already a firmly established order in the Church. Of the \u201csingers\u201d the notices in the Apostolical Constitutions are probably the most ancient. The \u201cdoor-keepers,\u201d like the sub-deacons, seem to be first mentioned in the letter of Cornelius. The \u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 first appear a full century later; see the next note. The \u201cexorcists,\u201d as we have seen, are mentioned as a distinct order by Cornelius, while in Apost. Const., viii., 26, it is ordered that they shall not be ordained, because it is a spiritual function which comes direct from God and manifests itself by its results. The name and the function, however, appear much earlier in the Christian Church; e.g., Justin Mart., Apol. ii., 6 (p. 45). The forms \u1f10\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03ba\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f74\u03c2 and \u1f10\u03be\u03bf\u03c1\u03ba\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f74\u03c2 are convertible; e.g., Justin Mart., Dial., 85 (p. 311). The \u201cconfessors\u201d hardly deserve to be reckoned a distinct order, though accidentally they are mentioned in proximity with the different grades of clergy in Apost. Const., viii., 12, already quoted. Perhaps the accidental connexion in this work has led to their confusion with the offices of the Christian ministry in our false Ignatius. In Apost. Const., viii., 23, they are treated in much the same way as the exorcists, being regarded as in some sense an order and yet not subject to ordination. Possibly, however, the word \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u1f76 has here a different sense, \u201cchanters,\u201d as the corresponding Latin \u201cconfessores\u201d seems sometimes to have, e.g., in the Sacramentary of Gregory \u201cOremus et pro omnibus episcopis, presbyteris, diaconibus, acolythis, exorcistis, lectoribus, ostiariis, confessoribus, virginibus, viduis, et pro omni populo sancto Dei;\u201d see Ducange, Gloss. Lat., s.v. (11. p. 530, Henschel).\nIn a law of the year 357 (Cod. Theod., xiii., 1) mention is made of \u201cclerici qui copiat\u00e6 appellantur,\u201d and another law of the year 361 (Cod. Theod. xvi., 2, 15) runs \u201cclerici vero vel his quos copiatas recens usus instituit nuncupari,\u201d etc. From these passages it is clear that the name \u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 was not in use much before the middle of the fourth century, though the office under its Latin name \u201cfossores\u201d or \u201cfossarii\u201d appears somewhat earlier. Even later Epiphanius (Expos. Fid., 21) writes as if the word still needed some explanation. In accordance with these facts, Zahn (I. v., A. p. 129), correctly argues with regard to our Ignatian writer, urging that on the one hand he would not have ascribed such language to Ignatius if the word had been quite recent, while on the other hand his using the participle (\u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2) rather than the substantive indicates that it had not yet firmly established p. 147 itself. For these \u201ccopiat\u00e6\u201d see especially de Rossi, Roma Sotteranea, III., p. 533 sq., Gothofred on Cod. Theod., II., cc., and for the Latin \u201cfossores\u201d Martigny, Dict. des Antiq. Chr\u00e9t. s.v. See also the inscriptions, C. I. G., 9227, Bull. de Corr. Hellen., vii., p. 238, Journ. of Hellen. Stud., vi., p. 362.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XIV: The Ca...","type":"page"}