special notice. The reader is the only minor official mentioned
by Tertullian {Praescr. 41). An ancient church order which
belongs to the latter part of the 2nd century (see Harnack's
Sources of Apostolic Canons, Engl. Transl. p. 54 scq.) mentions
the reader before the deacon, and speaks of him as filling " the
place of an evangelist." We are justified in believing that both
exorcists and readers, whose functions differed essentially from
the mechanical employments of the other minor clerics, belonged
originally to the " charismatic " ministry, and sank afterwards
to a low rank in the "orders" of the church (see Exorcist
and Lector). There were also other minor orders in the
ancient church which have fallen into oblivion or lost their
clerical character. Such were the copialac or grave-diggers, the
psalmislaeoT chanters, and the parabolani, who at great
personal risk — whence the name — visited the sick in pestilence.
The modern Greek Church recognizes only two minor orders,
viz. those of subdeacons and readers, and this holds good of the
Oriental churches generally, with the single exception of the
Armenians.' The Anglican Church is content with the threefold
ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, but in recent times the
bishops have appointed lay-readers, licensed to read prayers
and preach in buildings which are not consecrated. The Latins,
and Armenians who have borrowed from the Latins, have subdeacons,
acolytes, exorcists, readers and doorkeepers. Since the
pontificate of Innocent III., however, the Latin Church has
placed the subdiaconate among the greater or sacred orders, the
subdeacon being obliged to the law of celibacy and bound to the
daily recitation of the breviary offices. The minor orders, and
even the subdiaconate and diaconate, are now regarded as no
more than steps to the priesthood. Roman theologians generally
reckon only seven orders, although, if we count the episcopate
an order distinct from the presbyter ate, the sum is not seven,
but eight. The explanation given by St Thomas {Supp. xl. 5.)
is that, whereas all the orders have reference to the body of
Christ present on the altar, the episcopate, so far forth, is not a
separate order, since a simple priest no less than a bishop
celebrates the Eucharist. The Council of Trent takes the same
view; it enumerates (Sess. xxiii. cap. 2) only seven orders, and
yet maintains (cap. 4) the ecclesiastical hierarchy of bishops,
priests and ministers, the bishops as successors of the Apostles
holding the highest place. The Roman Church forbids ordination
to higher grades unless the candidate has received all the
inferior orders. Further, a cleric is bound to exercise the minor
orders for a year before he can be ordained subdeacon, he must
be subdeacon for a year before he is ordained deacon, deacon for
a year before he is made priest. However, instances of men
elevated at once from the condition of laymen to the priesthood
were known in the early church, and Chardon (Hist. des sacraments,
vol. v. part 1, ch. v.) shows that in exceptional cases men
were consecrated bishops without previous ordination to the
priesthood.
Passing to the effect of ordination, we meet with two views, each of which still finds advocates. According to some, ordination simply entitles a man to hold an office and perform its functions. It corresponds to the form by which, e.g., a Roman official was put in possession of his magistracy. This theory is clearly stated by Cranmer: " In the New Testament he that is appointed bishop or priest needed no consecration, by the Scripture, for election or appointment thereto is sufficient. "^ This view, widely held among modern scholars, has strong support in the fact that the words used for ordination in the first three centuries (xn-pOTOvetv, Ko.diaTa.vtiv, Kr]povadai, constitucre, ordinare) also expressed appointment to civil office. Very different is the medieval theory, which arose from the gradual acceptance of the belief that the Jewish was the prototype of the Christian priest. According, then, to the Roman view,
1 The Syrian Jacobites and the Maronites also ordain " singers, " Denzinger, Rit. Oriental, i. p. 118 seq.; Silbernagl, Kirchen des Orients, pp. 254. 315.
2 Cranmer's works are to be found in Burnet, " Collection of Records " appended to his History of the Reformation (ed. Pocock), iv. 478. Cranrner also maintained that " bishops and priests are but both one office in the beginning of Christ's religion, " ib. p. 471.
holy order is a sacrament, and as such instituted by Christ; it confers grace and power, besides setting a mark or character upon the soul, in consequence of which ordination to the same office cannot be reiterated. Such is the teaching of the Roman Church, accepted by the Greeks and with certain modifications by Anglicans of the High Church school, who appeal to i Tim. iv. 14, 2 Tim. i. 6. We may conclude with brief reference to the most important aspects of the Roman doctrine.
The ordinary minister of orders is a bishop. The tonsure and minor orders are, however, still sometimes conferred by abbots, who, though simple priests, have special faculties for the ordination of their monks. Some account has been already given of scholastic opinion on presbyteral ordination to the diaconate and even to the priesthood. Can a heretical or schismatical bishop validly ordain? Is a simoniacal ordination valid? All modern theologians of the Roman Church answer these questions in the affirmative, but from the 8th to the beginning of the 13th century they were fiercely agitated with the utmost divergence of opinion and practice. Pope Stephen reconsecrated bishops consecrated in the usual way by his schismatical predecessor Constantine. Pope Nicholas declared orders given by Photius of Constantinople null. St Peter Damian was grievously perplexed about the validity of simoniacal ordinations. Similarly William of Paris held that degradation deprived a priest of power to consecrate.' St Thomas, on the contrary, contends that " heretics and persons cut off from the church " {Sutntn. Suppl. xxxviii. 2) may ordain validly, and that a priest who has been degraded can still celebrate the Eucharist (Summ. iii. 82. 8) validly, though of course not lawfully. This opinion, defended by Bonaventura, Alexander of Hales, Scotus and others, soon became and is now generally accepted.
The Schoolmen had no historical sense and little historical information; hence they fell into one error after another on the essentials in the rite of ordination. Some of them believed that the essential matter in the consecration of a bishop consisted in the placing the book of the gospels on his head and shoulders. True, this rite was used both in East and W'est as early as the 4th century; it was not, however, universal. According to common opinion, the matter and form of ordination to the episcopate were the imposition of the consecrating bishop's hands with the words, " Receive the Holy Ghost." The words in question, and indeed any imperative form of this kind, are still unknown to the East and were of very late introduction in the West. The final imposition of hands and the bestowal of power to forgive sins at the end of the ordination rite for priests in the Roman Pontifical is later even than the tradition of instruments. For Like reasons the tradition of the instruments, i.e. the handing over of paten and chalice in ordination to the priesthood, are admittedly non-essential, unless we adopt the opinion of some Roman theologians that our Lord left the determination of matter and form to the church, which has insisted on different rites at different times.
The necessity of reference to sacerdotal power in the ordination of priests and bishops will be considered a little farther on in connexion with Anglican orders.
Deaconesses in the East received the imposition of the bishop's hands, but could not ascend to the priesthood. The Roman theologians regard them as incapable of true ordination, alleging 1 Tim. ii. 12. An unbaptized person is also incapable of vaHd ordination. On the other hand, St Thomas holds that orders may be validly conferred on children who have not come to the use of reason. For lawful ordination in the Roman Church, a man must be confirmed, tonsured, in possession of all orders lower than that which he proposes to receive, of legitimate birth, not a slave or notably mutilated, of good life and competent knowledge. By the present law (Concil. Trid. Sess. xxiii. de Ref. cap. 12) a subdeacon must have begun his twenty-second, a deacon his twenty-third, a priest his twenty-fifth year.^ The
In reality this is a survival of the primitive view that holy order is institution for an office which the local church confers and can therefore take away.
- The canon law fixes the thirtieth year as the lowest age for
episcopal consecration.
