DEACONNESS (Attu;6vIrraa,-batcinovos). That in the early Church there were females who were officially set apart for certain duties under the title of deaconesses seems beyond doubt (see Bingham, Bk. II., ch. xxii.) ; but whether such were found in the churches of the apostolic age is very doubt ful. The grounds for the affirmative are extremely slender. Phoebe is called 4) olcircovos of the church at Cenchrex ; and Paul specifies certain qualifica tions which were to be required before a widow was taken into the number (as is alleged) of dea connesses. On such evidence nothing can be built. The former passage proves nothing as to any official status held by Phoebe in the church ; for aught the word teaches she may have been the door-keeper or cleaner of the place where the church assembled. The latter passage is made to bear on the subject only by assuming the thing to be proved ; not a word does Paul say in it of dea connesses ; he says certain widows are not to be received ' into the number,' without saying of what. The context can alone determine that, and as he is speaking there of who are to receive pecuniary aid from the Church, the conclusion to which we are naturally led is, that ' the number' to which he refers is the number of those who were to be so aided. To assume in the face of this that ' the
number' referred to is the number of office-bearers of a certain class in the Church is illegitimate ; and to make this assumption for the purpose of proving that such an office existed in the Church, is to set all logic at-defiance. To these arguments some add the reference in r Tim. iii. i r, etc., to -yavatrEs, and in Titus ii. 3 to as intimating the existence of deaconnesses in the Church ; but in the former case the parties referred to are probably, as the A. V. gives it, the wives of the deacons ; in the latter they are undoubtedly simply ' old women.' In certain states of society and public feeling, it may be quite proper to appoint females to discharge certain functions in the Church which properly be long to males ; but that any institution to this effect was made by the Apostles is wholly without proof.—W. L. A.