chapter 9 (= Constitutions II, 26, 4-7): “Let the bishop ... be

honoured by you as God.... The deacon is with you as a type of Christ, so let him be loved by you. Let the deaconess be honoured by you as a type of the Holy Spirit. Let the presbyters be looked on by you as a type of the apostles”.

1. The reference is apparently to chapter 2, with no explanation how choice by the people is reconciled with 3. 6. The Sahidic, the Testament and the Canons agree with the Latin, but the Arabic, Ethiopic and the Constitutions speak only of the bishop. But the close relations between the bishop and the deacons would seem to make his freedom of choice necessary.

Does the absence of any provision for election in chapter 8 indicate that the presbyters were still chosen by the presbytery?

2-4. Any (surviving?) remnant of the conception of deacons as “serving presbyters” is dismissed summarily.

5-8. Hippolytus is attempting to reconcile a ceremonial survival of the days when presbyters ordained with the doctrine that ordination is the prerogative of bishops. The result is incoherent; if a presbyter has no power to “give”, what is said of the “common and like Spirit” is pointless. And, although the passage appears intact (or expanded) in the other versions, 7-8 read like a later addition. But perhaps these are a theory of Hippolytus’s, glossed on a traditional phrase.

10-12. The original text of this passage is very uncertain. The Latin breaks off with “offere”, and the following words in the Ethiopic and the Testament stress what in Hippolytus is a minor and not characteristic function of the deacons (4. 2), while their chief duties are ignored. Moreover, neither the Constitutions, the Canons nor Sarapion have anything corresponding; all three—in widely different terms—petition for “faithfulness” and “wisdom”; all three, incidentally, quote Acts 6. It is worth noting that none of the sources call the deacons “Levites”; this title[191] appears to come in a later age when—through the change from local to diocesan episcopacy—the deacons became the assistants of the presbyters.

The Ethiopic[192] and the Constitutions speak of the diaconate as a preparation for the presbyterate: this conception belongs to the fourth, not the third, century.

10 CONFESSORS

1. A true confessor is, _ipso facto_, a presbyter. This declaration—which other conceptions have altered in the Ethiopic and the Constitutions—follows logically from the original definition of a presbyter’s duties: since his primary function is to bear witness to the truth, and since no witness can be more impressively borne than when in danger of death, a confessor proves that he has the Spirit of the presbyterate. Hence ordination would be otiose.

A still earlier theory is that set forth in Hermas, _Visions_ III, i, where the correct ranks of those who occupy the “bench” (of the clergy) is given as “confessors,[193] prophets, presbyters”, as three distinct orders; in Hippolytus the prophets disappear and the confessors are merged with the “regular” presbyters.

In the third century, as confessors multiplied, observance of this rule would have overloaded the presbyterate to an impracticable degree,[194] although in the small community of Hippolytus the difficulty would not be felt and the traditional practice could be maintained inviolate. But elsewhere the modification in Constitutions VIII, 23 was no doubt widely accepted: the office of a confessor was one of great dignity,[195] but it did not include its holder among the clergy.[196] The Ethiopic compromises: a confessor is not yet a presbyter, but can claim episcopal ordination to the presbyterate as a right.

2. Hippolytus treats these “minor” confessors as the Constitutions treat the true confessors. The other sources (except the Constitutions) deal with them more generously. In the Ethiopic they can _claim_ ordination to the diaconate, in the Arabic and the Canons to the presbyterate, in the Sahidic to any office of which they are worthy; compare the Testament.

The Canons have a curious provision for a confessor who is a slave (and therefore incapable of receiving ordination); such a one is “a presbyter for the congregation”, even though he does not receive “the insignia of the presbyterate”.

CONCLUSION OF ORDINAL

3. “At every ordination the eucharist must be offered.”

4. Compare Justin, _Apology_ 67, where the “president” offers prayers “according to his ability” (ὅση δύναµις αὐτῷ), and Tertullian, _Apology_ 30: “we pray ... without a monitor, for our prayers are from the heart”. But extempore prayer in no way excludes frequent use of traditional formulas.

11-15 MINOR ORDERS

In the major orders an endowment of the Spirit is sought by the imposition of hands; in the minor orders persons are officially admitted to the exercise of gifts that they already possess.

11

2-3. The eventual source is 1 Timothy 5. 1-16.

4-5. In 1 Timothy the widows engage both in prayer (verse 5) and in active work (verse 10). In the Didascalia and Constitutions these duties are divided: prayer is the sole task of the “widows”, while those to whom the active work is committed are called “deaconesses”. The latter, except that they have no part in the liturgy, correspond in all respects to the deacons, and so naturally receive an ordination, while the “widows” are merely “named”. So, before the distinction was established, ordination of (all?) widows was presumably fairly usual; otherwise the vigour of Hippolytus’s protest is difficult to explain.

In Rome, unlike Syria, active church work by women was discountenanced and the deaconesses did not make their appearance. On the general subject of women’s work the Didascalia is a mine of information.

12

Men who could read easily and clearly from a manuscript were not too common, so that the reader had a position of some dignity. The Constitutions, in fact, make a major order of the office and the prayer (VIII, 22) beseeches “the prophetic Spirit”, suggesting that readers were expected to give some exposition and teaching. Both the Constitutions and the Testament treat readership as a step toward higher advancement. In the Sahidic the reader is given St Paul’s Epistles; Schwartz (p. 32) thinks this is original.

13

For the development of the status of virgins in the church reference must be made to the special literature. Hippolytus, in marked contrast to the Testament, dismisses the subject very briefly and refers to virgins again only in 25. 1, although this brevity of treatment in a law book does not prove lack of practical interest in the subject. As the “purpose” was publicly announced, it corresponded to the later formal vow.

14

The account in Acts 6 was generally interpreted as limiting the number of deacons in any place to seven, far too few for effective service in large churches. So each deacon was given an assistant to “serve” him; compare chapter 30. But even this was inadequate in very large communities, and at Rome _ca._ 250 the seven deacons and their subdeacons were further assisted by forty-two acolytes (“followers”).[197] The subdiaconate eventually became a major order and it is so treated in the Constitutions and the Testament.

15

The gift of healing (1 Corinthians 12. 28, etc.) was the only one of the primitive charismatic gifts to survive into the third century in its original form, and in Hippolytus its purely charismatic nature is still recognized; not only is there no ordination but the healer is not even “named”. But healers in the specialized form of “exorcists” form a minor order in Rome a generation later.[198] One of their most important functions was to assist in preparing catechumens for baptism; compare 20. 3.