Deaconesses in Europe

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By combining the different references we obtain a tolerably clear
picture of the deaconess and her duties. She must be a "pure virgin," or
"a widow once married, faithful, and worthy" (Book vi, chap. xvii). Her
special duties were as follows:

(a.) She was a door-keeper at the women's entrance to the church. This
was an ancient service, dating back to the oldest times.[7] Ignatius
died a martyr's death not long after the beginning of the second
century, and in a letter which bears his name is written, "I greet the
doorkeepers of the holy doors, the deaconesses who are in the Lord."

This guardianship was maintained not only in times of persecution, but
as a matter of order and discipline in times of peace.

(b.) She showed women their places in the congregation, being especially
bound to look after the poor and strangers, giving each due attention.

(c.) She instructed the female catechumens. She also visited the
women's apartments, where male deacons could not enter, carried messages
to the bishops, and acted as a missionary. Teaching was an important
part of the duties of the early deaconesses.

(d.) The deaconess had certain duties in connection with the baptism of
women that were considered important and indispensable.

(e.) In times of persecution she visited those who were oppressed or in
prison, and ministered to their bodily and spiritual needs. She seems to
have been less endangered in performing these acts than were men. Lucian
alludes to the service of these devoted women in prisons. She also cared
for the sick and sorrowing, being especially "zealous to serve other
women."

(f.) On occasion she was a mediator when there was strife in families,
or among friends. Both to deacons and deaconesses "pertain messages,
journeys to foreign parts, ministrations, services." The
ever-to-be-remembered journey of Phebe to Rome, when a whole system of
theology was committed to her keeping, was quite within the sphere of
her duties. It has also been said that to them was given the
safe-keeping of the holy books in periods of persecution. The
enumeration of these principal duties implying so many lesser details
helps us to understand that "deaconesses are needed for many purposes"
(Book ii, chapter xv). The deaconess was ordained to her work, as is
attested by a great number of authorities.[8] "It was because men felt
still that the Holy Ghost alone could give power to do any work to God's
glory that they deemed themselves constrained to ask such power of him,
in setting a woman to do Church service."[9]

The following beautiful prayer of ordination, attributed to the apostle
Bartholomew, bears within it certain proofs of the very early existence
of the ceremony, as well as of the order of deaconesses:

"Eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of man and women,
who didst fill Miriam and Deborah and Hannah and Huldah with thy Spirit,
and didst not disdain to suffer thine only-begotten Son to be born of a
woman; who also in the tabernacle and temple didst appoint woman-keepers
of thine holy gates, look down now upon this thine handmaid, who is
designated to the office of deaconess, 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."

The allusion to the creation of man and woman, to the women in the Old
Testament who were called to special service, as well as to Mary, the
mother of the Lord, while no reference is made to the women of the
apostolic Church who were so highly commended, and held in veneration as
worthy of all imitation, go to prove that the origin of this prayer was
so near the time of the apostles as to be almost contemporary with them.

The office of the deaconess, as described by the _Apostolic
Constitutions_, fitted into the needs of the Eastern Church and the
requirements of Greek life. It was in the East that the diaconate of
women originated, and here that it attained its greatest growth. In the
West custom did not demand the careful separation of the sexes as in the
East, and church relations were less bound by social usages;
consequently we meet with fewer references to deaconesses in the works
of the Latin fathers, and the diaconate of women is not so deeply rooted
in the affections of the church communities as we have found it in the
Greek Church.[10]

The fourth century was the blossoming period of woman's diaconate, when
it attained its highest importance. All the leading Greek fathers and
Church authorities of the age make mention of it. The office is spoken
of as worthy of all honor, filled by women of rank from noble families,
and those of wealth and ability. It found its special advocate and
protector in Chrysostom, "John of the Golden Mouth," who was Bishop of
Constantinople from 397 until 407 A.D. He seems to have had the
ability, rare for that age, of understanding the value of the services
of Christian women, and through his wise guidance and encouragement had
over them almost unbounded influence. Forty-six deaconesses were under
his direction--forty attached to the mother church at Constantinople,
and six belonging to a small church in the suburbs. A number of these
were closely identified with his history, either as relatives or
friends, and through his writings their memory is preserved. Of these
are Nicarete, of a noble family of Nicomedia. We are told she was of a
modest, retiring nature, and would not take places of responsibility
when urged to do so by Chrysostom. We note a strong tendency toward the
later celibate life of the nuns when we read that she was extolled for
"her perpetual virginity and holy life." Sabiniana was the aunt of
Chrysostom. To Amprucla the bishop wrote two letters still extant.[11]
They are filled with words of consolation for the religious persecution
she has undergone. In one of them he says: "Greatly did we sympathize
with your manliness, your steadfast and adamantine understanding, your
freedom of speech and boldness." "Manliness of soul" seems to have held
a high place in the bishop's favorite qualities. In another place,
writing to the same deaconess, he praises "your steadfast soul, true to
God; yea, rather, your noble and most manly soul."

Pentadia and Procla were closely associated with Olympias. In a letter
to Pentadia, Chrysostom writes: "For I know your great and lofty soul,
which can sail as with a fair wind through many tempests, and in the
midst of the waves enjoy a white calm."[12] Reading such words of
appreciation, words that in other places approach dangerously near to
adulation, we better understand the influence Chrysostom exercised over
the women of his time, and their steadfast devotion to him. They had the
conviction that all their efforts met with his sincere and profound
appreciation and quick responsive acknowledgment.

Pre-eminent among the friends of the great bishop was Olympias, of whom
Dean Howson said, "She is the queenly figure among the deaconesses of
the primitive Church." To understand her life we must recall the scenes
by which she was surrounded and the age in which she lived.[13]

In the great capital of the Eastern Empire, where the luxuriance and
magnificence of the Orient combined with the keen, quick intellectual
life of the Greeks; in the circle of the imperial court, with its
intrigues, its fashions, its favoritisms; at a time when outwardly much
respect was paid to the forms of religious life, but when the great and
vital dogmas of the Church were made the sport of witty sophistical
disputations; when those who endeavored to lead an earnest Christian
life met with nearly as much to oppose them as in periods of active
persecution; such were her environments. They were little favorable to
the strength of mind, the fixedness of purpose, the self-denial and
Christian devotion that marked this noble deaconess. Born in 368 A.D. of
a heathen family of rank, owing to her parents' early death she was
educated a Christian. In her seventeenth year she married Nebridius, the
prefect of the city, but after a married life of twenty months he died,
leaving her at eighteen years a widow, rich, beautiful, and free to
decide her future. The Emperor Theodosius desired her to marry one of
his kinsmen, but she refused, saying, "Had God designed me to lead a
married life he would not have taken my husband; I will remain a widow,"
and shortly after she was consecrated a deaconess by Bishop Nectarius.
The emperor, angered at her refusal, took from her the use of her large
fortune, and put it under the care of guardians until she should be
thirty years old, whereupon she only thanked him for relieving her of
the heavy responsibility of administering her estate, and begged him to
add to his kindness by dividing it between the poor and the Church.

Shamed out of his anger, the emperor soon restored her rights, and when
Chrysostom came to Constantinople her lavish and often unwise generosity
was felt in every direction, being compared to "a stream which flows to
the end of the world." He reproved her unbounded liberality, and advised
her to administer alms as a wise steward who must render an account.
This counsel guided her into safer paths. Finally, when Chrysostom was
driven forth to banishment, by his advice she remained in the city, and
became a support for his followers and those who had been dependent upon
him. She met contemptuous treatment and judicial persecutions, but
continued her works of charity, and outlived the man whose mind and
heart had so influenced hers by eleven years. Chrysostom wrote her many
letters, of which seventeen are extant.[14] They plainly show the
estimate he set upon the diaconate of women, and his endeavor to wisely
cherish it. Unfortunately, they also show exaggeration of compliment and
praise which detract from his words of sincere and honest admiration.
Too often, also, he gives undue value to works of mercy, and exalts acts
of ascetic self-denial.

The question of the age at which deaconesses could be received is a
vexed one. The confusion of apprehension touching deaconesses and widows
led to differing enactments at different times and places. The
restriction of age, however, must now have lost its force, as we find
Olympias a deaconess when not yet twenty years of age, and Makrina, the
sister of Gregory of Nyssa, was ordained when a young girl. Deaconesses
retained control of their property. In truth, a law of the State forbade
them to enrich churches and institutions at the expense of those having
just claims on them. Deaconesses also existed in the Church of Asia
Minor. Ignatius mentions them as at Antioch in Syria. They were in Italy
and Rome. The Church of St. Pudentiana, in the Eternal City, keeps
alive the memory of two deaconesses whose house is said to have stood on
this site; Praxedes and Pudentiana, the daughters of a Roman senator,
who devoted themselves, with all they had, to the service of the Church.
Deaconesses also penetrated to Ireland, Gaul, and Spain, lingering in
the last named country many years after they had passed out of knowledge
elsewhere.

We find very little about this order of Christian workers in the Western
Church. There is a passage of Origen in a Latin translation which speaks
of the ministry of women as both existing and necessary, but in the
great Latin fathers, the contemporaries of Chrysostom, scarcely a
mention occurs. From the last half of the fifth century the diaconate of
women declined in importance.[15] It was deprived of its clerical
character by the decrees passed by the Gallic councils of the fifth and
sixth centuries. It was finally entirely abolished as a church order by
the Synod of Orleans, 593 A.D., which forbade any woman henceforth to
receive the _benedictio diaconalis_, which had been substituted for
_ordinatio diaconalis_ by a previous council (Synod of Orange, 441). The
withdrawing of church sanctions made the deaconess cause a private one.
But as such it existed for hundreds of years, often under the patronage
and protection of those high in authority. About the year 600 A.D. the
patriarch of Constantinople, godfather of the Emperor Mauritius, built
for his sister, who was a deaconess, a church which for centuries was
called the "Church of the Deaconesses." It is still standing and, only
slightly changed, is now used for a Turkish mosque.[16]

In the twelfth century there were still deaconesses at Constantinople.
Balsamon, a distinguished professor of Church law, writing at the time,
says that deaconesses were still elected in that city and took charge of
conferences among women members, but in other places the order had
passed completely away.

There was no historian of the diaconate of the early Church. We learn of
it only from isolated and occasional references in works devoted to
other subjects. Yet these references are sufficient to enable us to
affirm that deaconesses were a factor in the life of the Church for from
nine to twelve centuries, or two thirds of the Christian era.

The same influences led to its decay that affected the entire life of
the Church during these centuries. The superior sanctity attached to
the unmarried state, that brought about the celibacy of the priests,
gradually changed the active beneficent existence of the old-time
deaconesses into the cloistral life of nuns. Statutes were passed
forbidding her to marry. Gradually grew up the dangerous superstition of
the marriage of the individual soul with Christ, that made of the nun
the Bride of Christ in an especial sense. It was this false conception
that led the vow of the nun to be regarded as the vow of marriage, and
to be guarded from infringement in the same way as the human marriage
tie, and like it to be lasting for life. The glorious doctrine of
justification by faith was replaced by ascetic mortifications of the
flesh based upon the belief in meritorious works. The cell of the monk
and the nun were esteemed more sacred than the family circle, and in the
darkness of mediaeval times that settled down upon the life of the Church
we lose sight of the busy, active ministrations of women deacons, who
had once been esteemed so needful to her usefulness.

There are other minor causes that aided in the downfall of the order;
the abuses that arose in some cases; the changes in the ceremony of
baptism by which the aid of women was not so indispensable, and
especially the fact that since the time of Constantine the care of the
sick and poor was placed under the charge of the State.[17]

These causes combined removed from the life of the Church a powerful
agency for good, and for centuries deprived it of the pre-eminent gifts
of ministration which belong to Christian women.

[5] _Woman's Work in the Church_, J. M. Ludlow, p. 21.
[6] _Die Weibliche Diakonie in ihrem ganzen Umfang_, Theodor Schaefer,
3 vols. Stuttgart: D. Gundert, 1887. Vol. i, p. 45.
[7] _Der Diakonissenberuf nach seiner Vergangenheit und Gegenwart_,
Emil Wacker. Guetersloh: E. Bertelman, 1888. p. 33.
[8] Neander, _Hist. of Chr. Religion and Church_, vol. i, p. 188;
Schaff, _Hist. of Chr. Church_, vol. iii, p. 260; McClintock &
Strong's _Encyclopaedia_, art. "Deaconesses."
[9] J. M. Ludlow, _Woman's Work in the Church_, p. 17.
[10] Neander, _Hist. of Chr. Rel. and Church_, vol. i, p. 188; Schaff,
_Hist. of Chr. Church_, vol. iii, p. 260.
[11] _Sancti Johannis Chrysostomi opera om_, t. ii, pp. 659, 662.
Paris, 1842.
[12] Chrys., _Op._, vol. ii, p. 658.
[13] _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, Theodor Schaefer, vol. i, p. 8.
[14] Chrys., _Op._, vol. ii, p. 600.
[15] Schaff's _History of Chr. Church_, vol. iii, p. 260.
[16] _Denkschrift zur Jubelfeier_, J. Disselhoff, Kaiserswerth, 1880,
p. 5.
[17] Herzog's _Protestantische Real Enc._, vol. iii, p. 589.

CHAPTER III.

DEACONESSES FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE NINETEENTH
CENTURIES.

During these seven centuries whenever there arose a reviving spirit of
true love to God, whether within the Church of Rome or in any of the
churches formed from reforming elements that separated from it, then we
find traces of the diaconate of woman assuming some form of devotion to
Christ and work for him. One of these movements well worth our study
originated in Belgium while the last of the Greek deaconesses were still
daily walking the arched pathway that led to their church in
Constantinople. Toward the close of the twelfth century great corruption
of morals and open abuses prevailed in society, and also in the Church.
One of those who protested against the evils of the times was the priest
Lambert le Begue, as he was called, meaning the stutterer. He lived at
Liege, in Belgium, and just without the city walls owned a large garden.
He determined to make use of this to found a retreat for godly women,
where they could lead in common a life of well-doing. Here he built a
number of little houses, and in the center a church, which was dedicated
to St. Christopher in 1184. Then he presented the whole to some godly
women to be used and owned in common. His earnest words of rebuke
brought persecution upon him from those whose consciences he disturbed,
but he went to Rome and appealed to the pope, who not only protected him
from his assailants, but made him the patriarch of the order he had
founded. Only six months after his return, however, he died, and was
buried before the high altar of the church he had erected in 1187.
Whether he was indeed the founder of the Beguine houses has been called
in question. Be that as it may, fifty years after his death fifteen
hundred Beguines were living around St. Christopher's Church,[18] and
Beguine courts were found throughout Belgium, in the Netherlands, south
along the Rhine, in eastern France, and in Switzerland. The Crusades
made many widows, and both widows and young girls sought shelter in the
community life of the Beguines. As a rule they lived alone, in separate
small houses built closely together and surrounded by a wall. Each house
bore on its door the sign of the cross, and with every Beguine court
there were invariably two large buildings--a church and a hospital; the
one for the worship of the sisters, the other the field of their
self-denying ministrations. At first they were in no wise distinguished
in their dress from other women, but in time they wore a habit which
varied in color with each establishment, but was generally blue, gray,
or brown. The veil was invariably white. The sisters had to earn, or
partly earn, their own livelihood. In the time remaining they rendered
essential service in performing acts of charity. They received orphans
to bring up and educate, taught little children, nursed the sick,
performed the last offices for the dead, and bound themselves by good
deeds closely with the lives of the people. They were in no sense
isolated from the world, but lived busy, useful lives in the midst of
the world. They could leave the community at any time, and after
severing their connection with it were free to marry. They also retained
control of their own property.

There were certainly many points of resemblance between these women who
were so active in the sphere of Christian charity in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries and the deaconesses of Europe to-day. The most
prosperous period for the Beguines was the first half of the thirteenth
century, when they were numbered by thousands.[19] Gradually persecution
was directed against them. The nuns looked upon them with disfavor, and
the pope withdrew his protection. In the Netherlands many became
Protestants at the time of the Reformation, but the Beguines of to-day,
changed in many respects from the original type, and now, closely
resembling the other sisterhoods of Catholicism, are frequently to be
seen in the cities of Belgium and north-eastern France.

A new current of spiritual life swept over the church in the fourteenth
century, and again we find women living together in community life, and
devoting themselves to common service in good deeds, and known as the
Sisters of the Common Life. There was also a Brotherhood of the Common
Life, as there were Beghards, communities of Christian men corresponding
to the Beguines. The Brotherhood and the Sisterhood of the Common Life
honored as their founder Gerhard Groot, of Deventer, who was born in
1340. Of a singularly attractive personality, a creative mind, and an
ardent, enthusiastic nature, he was born to influence and command. He
was already known as a priest of eloquence and wide learning when, in
1374, he met with a deep spiritual change, and from that year dated his
conversion. Henceforth, with every power of a rarely gifted nature, he
sought to lead those who heard him to lives of purity and holiness.
Gradually there grew up about him a circle of like-minded friends,
occupied in writing books to spread his ideas, and aiding him as they
could. His friend Florentius proposed that they live together and form a
community. "A community!" answered Groot. "The begging orders will never
permit that." But Florentius, the planner and organizer, persisted,
offering his own house as a home, and held to the advantages of his plan
until Groot yielded, and said, "In the name of the Lord begin your
work."

Such was the origin of the Brotherhood of the Common Life, and from its
circle proceeded that immortal book, the _Imitation of Christ_, by
Thomas a Kempis, keeping alive in the hearts of choice spirits of every
generation the thoughts and sentiments of the men of whom its author was
the interpreter. For a community of women of similar aims and purposes
it needed only that Groot should make a few changes in the house that he
had already set apart from his paternal inheritance as a home for
destitute women, and the first sister house began. Like the Beguines,
the Sisters of the Common Life took no obligations binding them to
life-long service, but they differed from them in living more closely
together in one family, and had a common purse. They wore a gray
costume, and also worked for their own support. The special virtues they
inculcated were obedience to those above them in authority, humility
that would not shun the meanest task, and friendliness to all. Their
charitable duties were much the same as the Beguines; they cared for
children, nursed the sick, and often acted as midwives. In the first
half of the sixteenth century there were at least eighty-seven
sister-houses, mostly in the Netherlands.[20]

It will be noticed that these freer communities of religious women, that
bear so much closer resemblance to the deaconesses of the early Church
than to the sisterhoods of nuns contemporary with them, mostly existed
in the great free cities of Germany and the Netherlands, which were the
cradles of political and religious liberty, the centers of commerce and
of civilization at that time.

Among the Waldenses, the Poor Men of Lyons, who were already prominent
in the last half of the twelfth century, we find there were
deaconesses. We learn of them again, too, among the Bohemian brethren,
the followers of Huss. With deep Christian faith they endeavored to form
a Church after the apostolic model, and in 1457 appointed Church
deaconesses. "They were to form a female council of elder women, who
were to counsel and care for the married women, widows, and young girls,
to make peace between quarrelers, to prevent slandering, and to preserve
purity and good morals,"[21] aims which keep close to the apostolic
definition of this office.

Luther, the great master-mind of the Reformation, was too clear-sighted
to fail to appreciate the importance of women for the service of the
Church. Speaking of the quality which is an inherent part of the
diaconate of women, he says: "Women who are truly pious are wont to have
especial grace in comforting others and lessening their sorrows." In his
exposition of 1 Pet. ii, 5, he uttered truly remarkable words, for the
age in which he lived, concerning women as members of the holy
priesthood. He says: "Now, wilt thou say, Is that true that we are all
priests, and should preach? Where will that lead us? Shall there be no
difference in persons? shall women also be priests? Answer. If thou
desirest to behold Christians, so must thou see no differences, and must
not say, That is a man or a woman, that is a servant or a lord, old or
young. They are all one, simply Christian people. Therefore are they all
priests. They may all publish God's word, save that women shall not
speak in the church, but shall let men preach. But where there are no
men, but women only, as in the nuns' cloisters, there might a woman be
chosen who should preach to them. This is the true priesthood, in which
are the three elements of spiritual offerings, prayer, and preaching for
the Church. _Whoever does this is a priest. You are all bound to preach
the Word, to pray for the Church, and to offer yourself to God._"[22]

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