DEACONESS (Gr. Atadwuraa, dee ak-on'is-sa).
1. Deaconesses of the Early Church. That the order of Deaconess existed in the Christian church, even in Apostolic days, is evident from Rom. xviii : 'I commend unto you Phebe, our sister, which is a servant (acrav SekKopop, a deacon ess) of the church which is at Cenchrea.
(1) Early Mention. The earliest Fathers of the church, moreover, speak of the same order of persons.
(2) Ordination. It is a disputed point with some learned men whether deaconesses were or iained by imposition of hands. However, the fifteenth Canon of the Council of Clialcedon ex pressly declares that deaconesses were so or dained, and this is fully confirmed by the author of the Apost. Constitutions, viii :19. Still, deacon esses were not consecrated to any priestly func tion. Some heretics, indeed, allowed women to teach, exercise, and to administer baptism; but all this he sharply rebukes as being contrary to the apostolic rule (Tertullian, De Pra•script. 41).
2..2ualifications. Certain qualifications were necessary in those who were taken into this order.
(1) Widowhood. It was necessary that she should be a widow. On this Tertullian (Ad Uxorem, i :7, p. 275) thus expresses himself : 'The discipline of the church and apostolical usage (al luding to I Tim. v :9) forbid that any widow be elected unless she have married but one husband.' Virgins, it is true, were sometimes admitted into the order of deaconesses; but this was the excep tion, and not the rule.
(2) Motherhood. No widow, unless she had borne children, could become a deaconess. This rule arose out of a belief that no person but a mother can possess those sympathizing and tender feelings which ought to animate the deaconess in the discharge of her peculiar duties.
(3) Once Married. The early church was very strict in exacting the rule which prohibits the elec tion of any to be deaconesses who had been twice married, though lawfully, and successively to two husbands, one after the other. Thus Tertullian (Ad Uxorem, iv:7) says, 'The apostle requires them (deaconesses) to be univirt•--'the wives of one man.' Others, however, give to these words
of the apostle another sense. They suppose the apostle to exclude only those widows who, having divorced themselves from their former husbands, had married again. (see Suicer's Thesaurus, tom. i. p. 866.) 3. Duties. (1) Baptism of Women. One of the peculiar duties, then, of the deaconesses was at the baptism of women. The custom of the early church being to baptize all adult persons by im mersion (see Suicer's Thesour, tom. i. p. 634), it was necessary to have the assistance of this order of persons. Epiphanius speaks of this practice in his Exp. Fid. xxi; also Justin. Novel. vi. p. 6.
(2) Instructors. Another duty the deacon esses had to perform was to instruct and prepare the catechumens for baptism.
(3) Visitation of Prisoners. In times of danger and persecution it was the duty of the deaconesses to visit the martyrs in prison, because they could more easily gain access to them, and with less suspicion and hazard than the deacons.
(4) Station at Chureh Door. The deaconesses stood at the entrance of the church in order to di rect the women as to the place each one should occupy during divine service. How long this or der continued in the Christian church is not quite certain (Suicer's Thesaurus, tom. i. p. 69). It was not however discontinued everywhere at once, and it was not till the tenth century that it was wholly abrogated, see Bona, Rcp. Liturg. i :25, 15; How son, Deaconesses, etc. (Lond.) ; Ludlow, ll'om an's Work in the Ch. (Lond.) ; Ripley, Ch. Polity (Boston) ; Schaff. Apostolic Hist. sec 13J; Hist. of the Christian Ch. ii. sec 52).
DEAD (ded), (Heb. meth, to die; Gr. veNp6s, nek-ros', dead).
1. Deprived of natural life (I Pet. iv :6; Ruth i :8).
2. Without spiritual life; under the dominion of sin; void of grace; incapable to perform any spiritual exercise (Eph. ii it ; I Tim. v :6) ; of even desperately obstinate in wickedness (Luke XV :24).