The Ordained Deaconess
Clipped from: https://anglicanaesthetics.substack.com/p/the-ordained-deaconess?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3weavl&triedRedirect=true
By Sean Luke
A survey of the evidence
In this post, I want to follow up on my review of Preston Sprinkle’s book. This post also starts something of a research project for myself. I’ve put off the question of a robust theology of gender for a bit now since, honestly, there’s a lot to wade into. The trouble I’m finding with this conversation is that we are in dire need of following the threads of Scripture and tradition into discerning the coherent whole in which those threads make sense concerning sex and gender. In truth, I have historically argued from Scripture and tradition that, unambiguously, “complementarianism” is the clear winner. As soon as one allows tradition to bound and inform their reading of Scripture, the case isn’t even close to my lights: tradition decisively settles the question of male ordination to the priesthood.
But in truth, there are many more questions to ask that all emerge from the simple “why” question. That “God’s word says men alone are eligible to be Priests” is a good place to start, but it is not a good place to stay. We need a framework from which we can begin to speak into the “why” questions.
I do intend to give that framework in time. I simply raise the problem to say that complementarians need to start doing theology of gender to actually provide a coherent narrative or story about the role and function of gender that can account for all the data.
Now to the task at hand: wrestling with some data we have not yet adequately wrestled with generally in complementarian spaces.
I’ve argued against Preston Sprinkle that he is simply wrong about several important texts. Well and good. But I also recognize that there are data pieces he has raised about women in leadership that we need to wrestle with as we work towards constructing a coherent picture. For instance, as mentioned in the last post, Sprinkle rightly points out that:
-Women were probably lectors in the early Church
-Women were the first ones to notify the apostles about the resurrection
-Deborah was a judge and the text gives no indication that this was a concession to not having men around
-Huldah was a prophet, as was Miriam a worship leader
-The Blessed Virgin (mine, not his—but important nonetheless); our Lady is the chief exemplar of saintliness in the Church so much so that she raised our Lord according to his humanity. She is the Mother of God and as such is the chief Queen among all kings and queens of the new creation.
I’ll add the following pieces from the tradition of the Church:
-St. Macrina instructed St. Gregory of Nyssa in the doctrine of the resurrection, and he wrote a whole treatise about it.
-St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Catherine of Sienna, Julian of Norwich, were theologians in their own right. It is useless to pretend otherwise.
My argument here will be twofold. It cannot make sense that women in an office instituted by the apostles are not permitted to do as much as Old Testament saints, and the presence of the above women show an awareness that the theological task cannot exclude women as such. To reiterate Chrysostom’s words, the prohibition on women teaching is indexed to presbyterial authority—the “seat of the bema”:
“How is this? A woman again is honored and proclaimed victorious! Again are we men put to shame. Or rather, we are not put to shame only, but have even an honor conferred upon us. For an honor we have, in that there are such women among us; but we are put to shame in that we men are left so far behind by them. But if we come to know whence it comes that they are so adorned, we too shall speedily overtake them. Whence then is their adorning? Let both men and women listen. It is not from bracelets, or from necklaces, nor from their eunuchs either, and their maid-servants, and gold-broidered dresses, but from their toils in behalf of the truth. For he says, ‘who bestowed much labor on us,’ that is, not on herself only, nor upon her own advancement (for this many women of the present day do, by fasting and sleeping on the floor), but upon others also, so carrying on the race the Apostles and Evangelists ran.
“In what sense then does he say, ‘I suffer not a woman to teach’? He means to hinder her from publicly coming forward, and from the seat on the bema, not from the word of teaching. Since if this were the case, how would he have said to the woman that had an unbelieving husband, ‘How do you know, O woman, if you shall save your husband?’ Or how came he to allow her to admonish children, when he says, ‘But she shall be saved by child-bearing, if they continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety’? How came Priscilla to instruct even Apollos? It was not then to cut in sunder private conversing for advantage that he said this, but that before all, and which it was the teacher’s duty to give in the public assembly; or again, in case the husband be believing and thoroughly furnished, able also to instruct her. When she is the wiser, then he does not forbid her teaching and improving him.
“And he does not say, ‘who taught much,’ but ‘who bestowed much labor,’ because along with teaching she performs other ministries besides: those in the way of dangers, in the way of money, in the way of travels. For the women of those days were more spirited than lions, sharing with the Apostles their labors for the Gospel’s sake. In this way they went travelling with them, and also performed all other ministries. And even in Christ’s day there followed Him women, which ministered unto Him of their substance, and waited upon the Teacher.”
Second, we have dual traditions concerning women deacons in the Church. There is indeed a tradition that sees them as a lay office (Nicaea). In this post, I will focus on the evidence that sees them as an ordained office. Using the Anglican principle that Holy Scripture must settle controversies in cases where the tradition is fragmented—which is true here, whereas it is untrue with respect to presbyters and Bishops—I will argue that Scripture pushes us towards ordaining women deaconesses. Thus, I will focus on the evidence that clearly show deaconesses were not a mere lay office. Then, I will post a provisional vision of the deaconess within the threefold office. I’ll conclude by making some suggestions as to how this might inform our overall picture of gender.
The Ordained Deaconess in the Church’s Memory
The earliest patristic commentaries on 1 Timothy 3 and Romans 16 show an awareness of the reality of “women deacons”. This will be a tad technical, but it is necessary to delve into the issue. In the ESV, 1 Timothy 3 reads:
8] Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. [9] They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. [10] And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. [11] Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. [12] Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. [13] For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. (ESV)"
Case closed—nothing about women deacons here, right? Wrong. This is one of those dreadful times I have to pull a “the Greek says”, but alas: I do it on patristic authority and not my own. The contested verse is verse 11, which here reads “their wives likewise”. The problem is that this simply is not what the text says. “Their wives” is typically indicated by a possessive (“their women = their wives”). But the possessive simply is not present here.
The Greek:
11 Γυναῖκας ὡσαύτως σεμνάς, μὴ διαβόλους, νηφαλίους, πιστὰς ἐν πᾶσιν.
Translation: Likewise women must be dignified etc.
In other words, there is no possessive here. That this was read as a descriptor of women deacons is the earliest reading we have of this verse.
Clement of Alexandria in the Stromata calls them “women deacons” (διακόνων γυναικῶν), commenting on this verse (Stromata, 3.6, PG 8, 1157A–B.). Origen in his commentary on Romans 16 says:
“And this passage teaches with apostolic authority that women are likewise appointed to the diaconate of the Church. With great praise and commendation Paul honors Phoebe, who was placed in this service in the church in Cenchreae, as he enumerates her illustrious accomplishments and says, ‘She has assisted everyone to such an extent,’ that is, in her being at hand for necessities, ‘that she even gave assistance to me in my necessities and apostolic labors’ with complete dedication of mind. I would call her work similar to the hospitality of Lot, who, while he received strangers at all times, one time even merited to receive angels in hospitality. In a similar way Abraham too, while he was always meeting strangers, merited even to have the Lord, together with angels, turn aside to his tent. So also this devout Phoebe, while she stands near everyone and accommodates everyone, merited to assist and to accommodate the Apostle as well.
“And therefore, this passage teaches two things at the same time: as we have said, women are to be considered deacons in the Church, and those who have assisted many and who through good services have merited attaining unto apostolic praise ought to be received into the ministry. He exhorts even this: that those who look after good works in the churches should receive, in turn, recompense and honor from the brothers, so that in whatever things there is a need, whether in spiritual or even fleshly services, they should be held in honor.”
Chrysostom testifies to the fact that the female diaconate is a rank in the structure of the Church in his Homilies on Romans 16:
“See how many ways he takes to give her dignity. For he has both mentioned her before all the rest, and called her sister. And it is no slight thing to be called the sister of “ Paul. Moreover he has added her rank, by mentioning her being deaconess.
Similarly, he comments on 1 Timothy 3:11:
Some have thought that this is said of women generally, but it is not so, for why should he introduce anything about women to interfere with his subject? He is speaking of those who hold the rank of Deaconesses.
Now, the Didascalia gives us evidence that deaconesses did more than merely Baptize women, but they also catechized women.
“Those that please thee out of all the people thou shalt choose and appoint as deacons: a man for the performance of most things that are required, but a woman for the ministry of women. For there are houses whither thou canst not send a deacon to the women, on account of the heathen, but mayest send a deaconess. Also, because in many other matters the office of a woman deacon is required.
“In the first place, when women go down into the water, those who go down into the water ought to be anointed by a deaconess with the oil of anointing; and where there is no woman at hand, and especially no deaconess, he who baptizes must of necessity anoint her who is being baptized. But where there is a woman, and especially a deaconess, it is not fitting that women should be seen by men. But with the imposition of hand do thou anoint the head only. As of old the priests and kings were anointed in Israel, do thou in like manner, with the imposition of hand, anoint the head of those who receive baptism, whether of men or of women; and afterwards—whether thou thyself baptize, or thou command the deacons or presbyters to baptize—let a woman deacon, as we have already said, anoint the women. But let a man pronounce over them the invocation of the divine Names in the water.
“And when she who is being baptized has come up from the water, l et the deaconess receive her, and teach and instruct her how the seal of baptism ought to be kept unbroken in purity and holiness. For this cause we say that the ministry of a woman deacon is especially needful and important. For our Lord and Saviour also was ministered unto by women ministers: Mary Magdalene, and Mary the daughter of James and mother of Jose, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee, with other women beside.
“And thou also hast need of the ministry of a deaconess for many things; for a deaconess is required to go into the houses of the heathen where there are believing women, and to visit those who are sick, and to minister to them in that of which they have need, and to bathe those who have begun to recover from sickness.” -Didascalia 16, Connolly, 70–71.
That deaconesses in some places served at the altar is evident from the Justinian codes:
In order for them to be ordained, they must be neither too old nor too young, and not liable to temptation, but they should be of middle age, and, in accordance with the sacred canons, about fifty years old, and, having arrived at that age, they shall be eligible to ordination, whether they are virgins, or have previously been married to one man; for We do not permit women who have contracted a second marriage, or who (as We have already stated), have led a vicious life, to be ordained, but they must be free from all suspicion in order to be admitted into the holy service of the Church, to be present in baptism, and assist in the celebration of the mysterious and sacred rites which form part of their duties. When, however, it is necessary for a woman under the age of fifty to be ordained a deaconess, ordination can be conferred upon her in some convent where she must reside; for she can by no means be permitted to mingle with men, or to live where she chooses, but by her withdrawal from society she must give evidence of her retirement and the simplicity of her life. -Novellae 6, Ch VI
The Barberini Codex, preserving Byzantine practice in Italy up to 780AD, has the following lines in the ordination rite (see the full one in the link):
§1. ‘Prayer at the ordination (cheirotonia) of a deaconess’
§2. After the sacred offertory, the doors [of the sanctuary] are opened and, before the Deacon starts the litany ‘All Saints’, the woman who is to be ordained Deacon is brought before the [Arch]bishop. And after he has said the ‘Divine Grace’ [statement] (see text) with a loud voice, the woman to be ordained bows her head. The Bishop imposes his hand on her forehead, makes the sign of the cross on it three times, and prays:
§3. “Holy and Omnipotent Lord, through the birth of your Only Son our God from a Virgin according to the flesh, you have sanctified the female sex. You grant not only to men, but also to women the grace and coming of the Holy Spirit. Please, Lord, look on this your maid servant and dedicate her to the task of your diaconate, and pour out into her the rich and abundant giving of your Holy Spirit. Preserve her so that she may always perform her ministry (leitourgia) with orthodox faith and irreproachable conduct, according to what is pleasing to you.”
…
§6. “Lord, Master, you do not reject women who dedicate themselves to you and who are willing, in a becoming way, to serve your Holy House, but admit them to the order of your ministers [leitourgôn]. Grant the gift of your Holy Spirit also to this your maid servant who wants to dedicate herself to you, and fulfil in her the grace of the ministry of the diaconate, as you have granted to Phoebe the grace of your diaconate, whom you had called to the work of the ministry [leitourgia].
“Give her, Lord, that she may persevere without guilt in your Holy Temple, that she may carefully guard her behaviour, especially her modesty and temperance.
“Moreover, make your maid servant perfect, so that, when she will stand before the judgement seat of your Christ, she may obtain the worthy fruit of her excellent conduct, through the mercy and humanity of your Only Son.”
….
§7. After the ‘Amen’, he [= the Archbishop] puts the stole of the diaconate [to diakonikon horarion] round her neck, under her [woman’s] scarf [maphorion], arranging the two extremities of the stole towards the front.
§8. When [at the time of communion] the newly ordained has taken part of the sacred body and precious blood, the Archbishop hands her the chalice. She accepts it and puts it on the holy table.
Once again, we do not merely have a description of a laywoman baptizing other women in emergencies. She is ordained formally by the Bishop and serves at the holy table—and a justification is given from the sanctification of women via the Blessed Virgin for service at the altar. This rite is echoed identically in 1040AD.
Further, consider the prayer prayed at the ordination of a deaconess in the Apostolic Constitutions (375-380AD):
“Eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of man and woman; who didst with the Spirit replenish Miriam, and Deborah, and Anna, and Huldah; who didst not disdain that thine only-begotten Son should be born of a woman; who also, in the tabernacle of the testimony and in the temple, didst ordain women to be keepers of thy holy gates: do thou thyself also now look upon this thy handmaid, appointed to the office of a Deaconess, and grant her the Holy Spirit, and cleanse her from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, that she may worthily discharge the work which is committed to her, unto thy glory and the praise of thy Christ.””
The deaconess is considered to continue in the Spirit of Miriam, Deborah, Anna, and Huldah; these are obviously not accidentally chosen figures, but were prophetesses, judges, and worship leading singers. Once again, we cannot restrict this vision to simply Baptizing women in emergencies.
Finally, we read the following in the Didascalia:
II, 26, 3. “These [the bishops] are your high priests; what the Levites once were, now the deacons are; the presbyters, widows, and orphans are likewise. For you, the high priest is the Levite bishop: he is your teacher and, after God, your father who regenerates through water; he is your prince and he is your chief and your powerful king. And may he who reigns in place of God be honored like God, since the bishop presides over you as the image of God (in typum Dei).
“On the contrary, the deacon is there as an image of Christ; therefore, may he be loved by you. May the deaconess be honored by you as image of the Holy Spirit. May also presbyters be considered by you as images of the Apostles. Consider the widows and the orphans as images of the altar.”
Fascinatingly, the hierarchy here has an obvious correlation to types and shadows. The deacons are the image of Christ, and the deaconesses are the image of the Holy Spirit; it cannot be argued that one is an inferior order to the other (ironically the Presbyters are images of the Apostles—probably as a “greatest shall be last” thing).
I could say more, but I’ll attach a relevant text for further reading here:
A Constructive Theological Proposal: Marian Deaconesses
I am well aware of the push back. There are ordination rites to the contrary that clearly see the female deaconess as a lay order. Indeed, this is the basis for the Reformed Episcopal Church maintaining the order as a lay order. And this is true. Citing all of the ordination rites to the contrary however does not undermine my argument: when we have competing threads in the tradition, we have to resolve the disagreement by appeal to Holy Scripture and theological principles contained therein. That is Anglicanism 101.
I think it is quite clear that the relevant theological principles both push us to a) reject female ordination to the presbytery and episcopate (for the reasons described already in my review) and b) accept female ordination to the diaconate as an ordained role.
So why favor the ordination of women to the diaconate as opposed to the thread that sees them merely as a lay order? There are at least five reasons for this that, together, lead me to think of the order of deaconess as a Marian distinction within the diaconate.
1.) The New Covenant is more expansive with respect to gifting and not less so.
Now, complementarians get nervous at this point because this is exactly how egalitarians argue for a female priesthood. But this is a slippery slope fallacy; it does not lead to accepting a female priesthood. That gifts are more expansive in the new covenant does not mean any office is open to anyone. That the women told the apostles that the Lord is risen does not thereby confer on them the same role as the organs of Divine Revelation endowed on the Twelve. Whereas Preston Sprinkle tries to hand-waive this away, I don’t think his attempt works for the reasons already mentioned in my review there. Further, in Church History, we find no record of the founding Apostle of a Church ever being a woman—an episcopal line tracing to a woman as its origin. The argument is therefore moot; it does not elide all distinctions between gender to acknowledge that, nevertheless, the Blessed Virgin’s role in redemption is greater than Miriam or Huldah’s, or that the charisms given to Deborah cannot be reduced in the New Covenant equivalent of a Deborah (which the Apostolic Constitutions give us reason to think is the role of the Deaconess). Hence, whatever authority those figures had cannot be intrinsically an overstep for women to exercise in the New Covenant.
2.) Women should teach theology to women
This should be obvious, since it is an apostolic command that older women teach younger women (Titus 2:3-5) in the word of godliness. That simply is the application of Christian doctrine to the Christian life. Women can shepherd women particularly in ways men cannot shepherd women. Can you imagine if deacons and deaconesses took a more active role in our Churches alike to cultivate virtue in the life of their people on a particular level?
3.) Women have not been chewed out even for instructing men in certain settings.
St. Macrina was not told “stop teaching St. Gregory of Nyssa about the resurrection.” Nor was St. Gregory of Nyssa censured for promulgating the conversation he had. Rather, she was canonized. That of course does not mean she should therefore be teaching “in the seat of the bema”; Chrysostom has already adequately dealt with that. It does mean, however, that there is space in the Church for women theologians. And insofar as Miriam or the Blessed Virgin herself can rightly be considered such, what in principle objection is there to allowing deaconesses who are theologically and philosophically talented to operate in ways sufficiently analogous to St. Macrina, St. Bridget of Kildare, Julian of Norwich, Sybil on the Rhine, Priscilla to Apollos, etcetera?
4.) Serving at the altar and distributing food from the Table is not intrinsically masculine
The role of the Presbytery is to authoritatively proclaim the “thus says the Lord” Word—they are entrusted with expositing the Word as though the Apostles were speaking in their voice (hence why it is such a weighty task). There is no room for error; error is therefore strictly judged by the Lord in presbyters. This happens “in the seat of the Bema” and at consecration, historically. But there is no reason why women cannot, in the mode of the women anointing the crucified body of the Lord, take the deified body of the Lord to God’s people. In fact, in some ways, there is maternal fittingness there (more on that in a bit).
5.) There is no apostolic distinction between a “holy order deacon” and a “lay deaconess.” The only reasonable basis for this distinction lies in an order instituted by the Apostles for the structuring of the Church. And if this is the basis, it is obvious that women are included as deacons (per Phoebe, 1 Timothy 3, and the above mentioned reasons)
Our historic basis for the concept of a “holy order” in the first place is an order that is apostolic. Remember that the term “holy order” wasn’t itself even used for centuries. The first attempts at distinguishing holy orders—or sacred orders—from lay orders were not…erm…successes.
Hence one of Aquinas’s L’s:
On the contrary, The sacred Orders are an impediment to the contracting of marriage and annul the marriage that is already contracted. But the four lower orders neither impede the contracting nor annul the contract. Therefore these are not sacred Orders.
I answer that, An Order is said to be sacred in two ways. First, in itself, and thus every order is sacred, since it is a sacrament. Secondly, by reason of the matter about which it exercises an act, and thus an Order is called sacred, if it exercises an act about some consecrated thing. In this sense there are only three sacred Orders, namely the priesthood and diaconate, which exercise an act about the consecrated body and blood of Christ, and the subdiaconate, which exercises an act about the consecrated vessels. Wherefore continency is enjoined them, that they who handle holy things may themselves be holy and clean. -Supplement q.37 a.3
But of course, this is nonsense. As Aquinas himself knows and every historian on the planet knows, clerical celibacy simply was not universal. “It is a discipline and not a dogma”, after all, hence why Eastern Catholic Priests who are married (or Ordinariate Priests) do not have their marriages “annulled” (and don’t get me started with the whole problem of retroactive annulment; never mind that annulment is supposed to recognize that a marriage was never valid in the first place, not that it was valid and is retroactively made invalid).
But what of Aquinas’s second criteria? By it, there are certainly places where the female diaconate would have qualified in acts of taking the Eucharist to the sick or, as shown above, even ministering at the Altar.
But perhaps one might say that a holy order always contains a potency to the episcopate. It is a threefold singular order.
But that the lesser orders from the Bishop are an extension of the Bishop no more excludes women from the diaconate than the fact that it would exclude women from any ministry of the Church since the ministry of the Church as such is the extension of the Bishop’s ministry.
So what do we do, then? How can we posit a vision of the deaconess that respects gendered difference and yet also accords with the threads sketched above?
I suggest that we should think of the role of the deaconess as the ongoing presence of the Marian charism particularized in the Church. The Blessed Virgin is the exemplar of the deaconess, in many ways. She receives the Divine Word and renders him visible in the world and is therefore forever considered blessed. Her womb catalyzes the Divine Word into the world and consequently becomes an image of the Church’s work in the world. And she is our highest exemplar of Motherhood in the Church.
If the presbyters signify the presence of fathers, the deaconess signifies the presence of church mothers. And the truth is that we need both. Fathers speak the authoritative word from which the order of the household proceeds; Mothers bring that speech to its visible perfection. “It is not good for man to be alone”; he is brought into a state of good with her presence bringing goodness to its proper telos. And in this way, deaconesses signify the visible fecundity of the Church’s ongoing mission in the world.
Often deaconesses were widowed or older; it is no surprise insofar as older women—even older virgin women—functioned as spiritual mothers. The deaconess models feminine virtue in a way that others cannot—and in that way, she continues on the historic role of the Blessed Virgin. And in an analogous way to how one would be foolish to say “the BVM’s got no authority over me!”, a layperson cannot similarly treat a deaconess that way. It is, as Chrysostom says, a rank.
The distinctive gift of the deaconess is her ability, it seems to me, to shepherd women and provide the ongoing visible instantiation of feminine virtue (once again, she catechizes women who are newly Baptized). If that is the case, then we need to put the images of the deaconess, the role of the Holy Spirit (per the aforementioned rites), Deborah, Huldah, Anna, and Miriam in conversation with each other.
We need exemplars of fathers in the presbyters and deacons as well as mothers in the deaconess.
Now, I know the objection: “but Sean, [insert slippery slope fallacy].” But slippery slope fallacies are just that. That egalitarians have abused this sort of argument to pave the way for female ordination to the priesthood and episcopate does not destroy proper use— “abuse does not destroy proper use” after all. What the detractors of this sort of argument must show is that the logic of the ordained deaconess sketched here leads to egalitarianism. But it seems obvious to me that it does not. If a deaconess is a formally ordained church mother, and mothers cannot be fathers, then there is no sense in which the gendered distinction of the orders—which carry forth motherhood and fatherhood into their ecclesial key—is elided.
These are some initial thoughts towards a theology of gender, of course. Much, much more needs to be said. Lord-willing, in time, much more will be for the good of the Church and the glory of Christ.