Video Transcripts: Women Deacons

We've talked about ordination. We've talked about women in ordination. So now we're going  to get a little more specific and talk about women deacons. And, of course, the first person of  the Phoebe. And I said a lot of about her before. And let's focus now on the fact that that Paul  calls her a diakonos, which is the masculine word. This is not a word that's invented by  Christians. It's a word that is in general use. And it has at least two different, slightly different  meanings that are related. A diakonos, in the general population is, first of all, a servant of  some kind. It is a word that can be used of slaves in certain positions. It's a function, not a  social status. Someone who is performing the work of service someone who does the service  of diakonia. And that is, that's understood as a service of some kind. To people there. There  are examples in the gospels, where Luke for instance, uses the word diakonia. In the story of  Martha and Mary, hosting Jesus for dinner, and remember Mary's that is feed in and Martha's  doing diakonia she's doing all this diakonia and wants her sister to help her. So in a case like  that, it probably means ordinary service, particularly household service. But there's another  designation another meaning as well, and that's agency, being a delegate a delegated  representative of a more powerful person, with the the authority to make decisions for that  person. So that's also part of the whole world of meaning of this word diakonos, which seems  to have been used very early very early in the Pauline churches because here you have  Phoebe, this is late 50s or early 60s And she's a diakonos in the church of Cenchrea one of the seaports of Corinth. And if you look at the beginning of Philippians, the letter to the  Philippians 1:1, Paul says to the the church at Philippi, with its episkopos and diakonia. the  plural, the two plural words of episkopos, the word that becomes Bishop, but at this point it's  not Bishop, it's Administrator, Superintendent, that's another word that is used generally in  the society with the meaning of kind of superintendent, but then the other one is diakonos. So the people in Philippi are not named. Phoebe in Cenchrea is named Phoebe is the only person  in the New Testament, who is named. And given that title. And whatever the diakonoi are  doing in Philippi, is what Phoebe is doing in country. So the one single person we have, who is  called a diakonos of a specific church is a woman Phoebe. Now the word diakonos occurs all  over Paul will call himself a diakonos often. And in that way, it's a more general understanding of the servant, the servant of the word servant of Christ, but not a specific church. There only  those two incidences where Phoebe in Cenchrea is a diakonos of the Church of Cenchrea. And  in Philippi, there are diaconoi, but they're not named. So we know that very early very early.  They are using some of these titles for a service that are in general use. And they're adapting  them for the specific use of the church. Another reference that comes in is in the early second century Pliny, Pliny the younger, is a Roman aristocrat an elite, and he's governor of Bithynia  and Pontus, which is Northern Asia Minor, today, northern Turkey. And he writes a series of  letters back to the Emperor Trajan, whom he serves, he's accountable to and in one of them,  he he talks about this group called Christians that had been denounced to him. And he  doesn't know much about them. And so he tried to get some information and he found that  they, they met early in the morning to sing hymns to Christ as if to a god and then they met  later on in the day for a meal. But it was a harmless meal. There were rumors about this being really awful, and that didn't pan out. So he didn't know what to do with them. But the people  that he interrogated were two women who were called ancillae ministrae. Ancillae is a Latin  word for a female slave, it means a girl. But it's the same way that that enslaved people are  also often demeaned by using young terms for the my boy. And so ancillae almost always is  an enslaved woman. And he says that they're they're. That's their social status. But they have this title of ministrae, ministra would be the singular, and a minister, you know, and it's a, it's  a Latin word that is pretty closely equivalent to diakonos. And so what we think, is that PlIny  of course is writing in Latin he's thinking in Latin. And he's, whereas these people were  probably Greek speaking that he was interrogating. He's translated into Latin. And so, we  seem to have a reference there to two enslaved women now, who are also are called diakonoi. In their church, there is not yet a feminine word for this, it is the masculine word that is used  here. Now, both of men and women, clearly women in the case of Phoebe, very clearly in  Greek and probably the same thing in Latin. Now, I said that there was only the masculine  word at the beginning. By the third century, there are two other words besides diakonos that  refer to women, one is diakone and the other is diakonissa, and diakonissa directly translates 

as as Deaconess. So by the third century, we have developed the term a feminine term to  refer to women who are in this ministry. Often on an inscription, the abbreviation is simply  diak. So you don't know if it's going to be diakonos, diakone or diakonissa. But that's the  abbreviation. And the photo you have here and the inscription the would you call it  transcription? Of it is of a Greek inscription that was found on the Mount of Olives, in about  1916, outside Jerusalem, and is today in in one of the local museums in Jerusalem. And as you see it was found pieces and it was put back together but the lower lower piece was never  found, and lower piece was going to give the date of her death. And so we don't have that but they this is usually dated fourth century, but it says, Here lies the slave and bride of Christ.  doula, doulas, doulos is the normal word for slave in Greek. So slave or we might want to  translate servant, though I think, actually translating doulas as slave is better because that's  what it is, is the social reality and it gives us the sense of the slave and bride of Christ Sophia. diak well in this case is diakonos I'm sorry, it wasn't abbreviation Here is diakonos and she's  called the second Phoebe. And she fell asleep in peace and then it begins to to it was one of  the days in March and, and the rest of the inscription is lost as to when exactly as she was in,  she died and there are a few other things to say about her. But the most interesting thing  there is that she is a diakonos and she's a second Phoebe. Now, that that literary form of  calling somebody a second something, you know, is is fairly common for men. It's rare for  women, and she is compared to Phoebe, which means a number of things. First of all, it  means that in the fourth century, probably when this was done the character of Phoebe, you  know, the memory of Phoebe was alive, that they would think of doing this, that Phoebe is still venerated in Christian memory for what she did. And what are they what are they implying  with this second Phoebe that she replicated in some way. The the role that Phoebe had is  called a diakonos, of course, and Phoebe is also a prostatis. She's also a patroness. And so  maybe Sophia also exercise the same kind of patronage in Jerusalem, she must have lived in  Jerusalem because she was buried just outside on the Mount of Olives. So this is one of many  inscriptions that we have of women deacons. And this is one I thought that you might be  interested in now, when we get to the the, the didascalia is a Syriac document from the third  century and it is incorporated into a much larger document longer document called the  Apostolic Constitutions, which is thought to come from the fourth century from the Eastern  Church. And by the time we get to these two documents, there is a full blown Ministry of  Deaconess and the Deaconess is, is part of the clergy. There are there is now one episcopos  bishop in every local church. There are presbyters, and there are deacons and deaconesses.  So this is the the organization of the clergy. And by this time what I have said previously  about the idea of appropriating sacrifice, the idea of sacrifice from ancient Israel is very, very  much alive. And so the priestly function of the of the bishop is is very important. It's a  monarchical leadership and he is the only one who can ordain. He is the only one who can  really perform official functions of leadership. It's a mystery actually what the presbyter is  doing. We'll talk about that later. They seem to be a sort of an advisory council. But the  bishop is the one who celebrates the Eucharist. The deacons and deaconesses are the people  who are his close assistants. It kind of bypasses the presbyters and that's why I say it's a  mystery with presbyters are really up to because the deacons and deaconesses are the ones  who are the assistants to the bishop and carry out the bishops wishes. So they have their  distinctive ordination prayers, and there are role descriptions for them. The role description of the deacon and of the Deaconess are not the same, the deacon because of the whole  situation of the public role of men in the, the presumed more private role of women. There,  the deacons have a more public role and public face. They are the ones who extend the  bishops work of charity, that is a primary role for the deacons that they will, they will visit  before they will distribute things to the poor. They really are the people who carry on the the  social ministry of the church. They also assist the bishop in the celebration of Eucharist. They  are the doorkeepers for men. And it seems as if at this point, men and women are separated  in worship, and they're the doorkeepers. For the men, the deaconesses is for the women. So  the the Ministry of Women of the deaconesses is to is primarily a ministry to women. And it's  because of this seclusion of women, which is typical of Eastern cultures, that it was not  appropriate for a male Deacon, for example, to visit sick women at home. And it was certainly

not appropriate for the male deacon or the male bishop to completely anoint the body of  women who were being baptized. This is adult baptism. We don't know whether they practice  child baptism or at all that's very disputed. But what's envisioned here is is the baptism of  adult women and baptism, of course, was done by immersion. And by this time, there is a part of the church that is separate. The baptistry is usually circular. We have some archaeological  evidence of that. And it's a place that is kept closed most of the time except at the  celebration of Easter and that's the time when the baptism takes place and so some of these  places were beautifully ordained, or or not ordained, beautifully decorated with adorned with  mosaics, and in candlelight it must have been just really splendid. They have steps to go  down into water and then steps to come out on the other side. And the person to be baptized  removes all clothes and goes down completely naked into the water stands in the water about waist high while the bishop pours water on the head and does an anointing of the head, the  deacon or Deaconess anoint the rest of the body. And so you're obviously it's the bishops not  going to do that for the women. And so it's the it's the deaconesses that do that. For the case  of a woman baptized, the Deaconess helps her out the other steps on the other sides clothes  her in a new white robe, which is what they did for the newly baptized and the whole  congregation is waiting while this goes on. And then they they process in with lighted candles  into the congregation to the roaring applause of the congregation. So it's a wonderful  celebration. But that's that's a primary role of the deacon to see assistants at baptism, but it's also instruction of women both before and after baptism. chaperoning Baptists chaperoning  women on pilgrimages, chaperoning women when they want to talk to the bishop. The  Deaconess comes with the woman to when she has something to say to the bishop and, and  the visiting of sick women in their home. So at this point, there is a ministry a well developed  ministry by women to women. Now, there's some interesting kind of typology that's going on  here. Go back to the second century, now, early second century Ignatius of Antioch, who has  this, this structure of a bishop presbyter, and deacon in his churches, and it's one that he is  trying to encourage elsewhere. He, he does a kind of a typology, where he says the bishop  should be honored, as God is honored. So here's the beginning, the God the Father, the  deacon, as Christ, the deacon should be honored the way you honor Christ, just as Christ  fulfills the wishes of the Father. So the deacon fulfills the wishes of the bishop. So you see the  typology that's going on there. Now, it's not Trinitarian. It's binitarian. At this point, it's father  and Christ, because then he says that the presbyters are like the counsel of the apostles. And  again, that's odd, you know, why aren't they somehow worked in there with God in Christ?  They are, they're the counsel of the apostles. So they're a group of advisors. So that's where  Ignatius stops. Now the apostolic constitution picks that up. And, and adds the Deaconess of  the Deaconess is to be honored, like the Holy Spirit. And so we now we have a Trinitarian  typology, where the bishop is like the father, the deacon is like Christ, and the Deaconess is  like the Holy Spirit. So they, you can see that there's, there's meditation on this typology,  which is very old, two centuries old by that time, and they're able to complement it here with  the Deaconess. And so we have a well known Ministry of deaconesses in the Eastern  churches, and and I just cite one other thing here in the sixth century, Justinian, the Emperor  Justinian had edited a whole series of legal texts, and one of them is called the NuValets, the  new laws. And in one of them, he talks about who is to be supported materially, monetarily in  the Great Church of Hagia Sophia this church in Constantinople, and among others, there's a  long list, but there are 100, male deacons and 40 Female deacons who are to be maintained  by the church. So this is a big operation and to have. So obviously, you have more deacons  there, they're doing different kinds of things, but to have 40 Female Deacons who are  maintained all the time means that there is quite an operation going on there even in regard  to women. So to sum it up, The Deaconess in this context in the fourth and fifth centuries in  the Eastern Church has this very important and very recognized role that is part of the whole  operation of a very organized church