![]() Besides, it should be observed that the officials first, even in Carthage, are called hypo-deacons, though the word subdiaconus was by degrees used in the West. According to Probst and other Catholic scholars the subdiaconate existed in Rome a long time before Fabian ( Kirchl. has added of the account of the appointment of subdeacons (…qui vii notariis imminerent, ut gestas martyrum in integro fideliter colligerent) is, in spite of the explanation of Duchesne, not convincing. 267), only contains the first half of the sentence, and what the Liber Pontif. subdiaconos.” The Codex Liberianus indeed (see Duchesne, fasc. 148) is not to be despised, as according to it Bishop Fabian appointed seven subdeacons: “Hic regiones dividit diaconibus et fecit vii. The same is seen in the “gesta apud Zenophilum.” As the appointment of the lower orders took place at Rome between about the years 222–249, the announcement in the Liber Pontificalis (see Duchesne’s edition, fasc. 85 note):Īccording to Cornelius and Cyprian subdeacons were mentioned in the thirtieth canon 145of the Synod of Elvira (about 305), so that the sub diaconate must then have been acknowledged as a fixed general institution in the whole west (see Dale, The Synod of Elvira, Lond., 1882). ![]() In the volume just quoted he writes as follows (p. With regard to subdeacons the reader may also like to see some of Harnack’s speculations. It can in fact be shown there with desirable plainness. Whence do they come? Now if they do not spring out of the Christian tradition, their origin must be explained from the Roman. And these acolytes even at the time of Cornelius stand at the head of the ordines minores: for that the subdeacons follow on the deacons is self-evident. But acolytes and door-keepers ( πυλωροί) are quite strange, are really novelties. (Adolf Harnack, in his little book ridiculously intituled in the English version Sources of the Apostolic Canons, page 85.)Įxorcists and readers there had been in the Church from old times, subdeacons are not essentially strange, as they participate in a name (deacon) which dates from the earliest days of Christianity. 361), the same emperor speaks of them as “hi quos copiatas recens usus instituit nuncupari.” 357), “clerici qui copiatai appellantur,” and a little later ( a.d. The term first occurs in a rescript of Constantius ( a.d. The history of the word copiatai affords a more precise and conclusive indication of date. Setting aside the Apostolic Constitutions, the first notice of the “singers” occurs in the canons of the above-mentioned Council of Laodicea. But while most of these lower orders certainly existed in the West, and probably in the East, as early as the middle of the third century the case is different with the “singers” ( ψάλται) and the “labourers” ( κοπιᾶται). 240, for the references, where also fuller information is given). 341, where readers, subdeacons, and exorcists, are mentioned, this being apparently intended as an exhaustive enumeration of the ecclesiastical orders below the diaconate and for the first mention of door-keepers in the East, we must go to the still later Council of Laodicea, about a.d. ![]() In the Eastern Church, however, if we except the Apostolic Constitutions, of which the date and country are uncertain, the first reference to such offices is found in a canon of the Council of Antioch, a.d. E., vi., 43), and the readers existed at least half a century earlier (Tertull., de Præscr., 41). Some of these lower orders, the subdeacons, readers, door-keepers, and exorcists, are mentioned in the celebrated letter of Cornelius bishop of Rome ( a.d. (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Ignatius, Vol. Excursus on the Minor Orders of the Early Church.
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