The Synod of Laodicea - A.D. 343/381

Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival

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Page 34

Here we have the forerunners of the Church door-keepers and acolytes. Thus says the fourth Council of Carthage, as far as refers to the former: "Ostiarius cum ordinatur, postquam ab archidiacono instructus fuerit, qualiter in domo dei debeat conversari, ad suggestionem archidiaconi, tradat ei episcopus claves ecclesiae de altari, dicens. Sic age, quasi redditurus deo rationem pro his rebus, quae hisce clavibus recluduntur." The ostiarius (puloros) is thus the aedituus minister. He had to look after the opening and shutting of the doors, to watch over the coming in and going out of the faithful, to refuse entrance to suspicious persons, and, from the date of the more strict separation between the missa catechumenorum and the missa fidelium, to close the doors, after the dismissal of the catechumens, against those doing penance and unbelievers. He first became necessary when there were special church buildings (there were such even in the second century), and they like the temples, together with the ceremonial of divine service, had come to be considered as holy, that is, since about 225. The church acolytes are without difficulty to be recognised in the under officials of the priests, especially in the "calatores," the personal servants of the priests. According to Cyprian the acolytes and others are used by preference as tabellarii. According to Cornelius there were in Rome forty-two acolytes. As he gives the number of priests as forty-six, it may be concluded with something like certainty that the rule was that the number of the priests and of the acolytes should be equal, and that the little difference may have been caused by temporary vacancies. If this view is correct, the identity of the calator with the acolyte is strikingly proved. But the name "acolyte" plainly shows the acolyte was not, like the door-keeper, attached to a sacred thing, but to a sacred person.

(Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Ignatius, ad Antioch, xj., note. Vol. II., Sec. II., p. 240.)

The acolytes were confined to the Western Church and so are not mentioned here. On the other hand the "deaconesses" seem to have been confined to the Eastern Church at this time. See also Apost. Const., iii., 11.; viii., 12; comp. viii., 19-28, 31; Apost. Can., 43; Conc. Laodic., Can. 24; Conc. Antioch, Can. 10. Of these lower orders the "subdeacons" are first mentioned in the middle of the third century, in the passage of Cornelius already quoted and in the contemporary letters of Cyprian. The "readers" occur as early as Tertullian de Praescr. 41 "hodie diaconus, qui cras lector," where the language shows that this was already a firmly established order in the Church. Of the "singers" the notices in the Apostolical Constitutions are probably the most ancient. The "door-keepers," like the sub-deacons, seem to be first mentioned in the letter of Cornelius. The kopiontes first appear a full century later; see the next note. The "exorcists," as we have seen, are mentioned as a distinct order by Cornelius, while in Apost. Const., viii., 26, it is ordered that they shall not be ordained, because it is a spiritual function which comes direct from God and manifests itself by its results. The name and the function, however, appear much earlier in the Christian Church; e.g., Justin Mart., Apol. ii., 6 (p. 45). The forms eporkistes and exorkistes are convertible; e.g., Justin Mart., Dial., 85 (p. 311). The "confessors" hardly deserve to be reckoned a distinct order, though accidentally they are mentioned in proximity with the different grades of clergy in Apost. Const., viii., 12, already quoted. Perhaps the accidental connexion in this work has led to their confusion with the offices of the Christian ministry in our false Ignatius. In Apost. Const., viii., 23, they are treated in much the same way as the exorcists, being regarded as in some sense an order and yet not subject to ordination. Possibly, however, the word homologetai has here a different sense, "chanters," as the corresponding Latin "confessores" seems sometimes to have, e.g., in the Sacramentary of Gregory "Oremus et pro omnibus episcopis, presbyteris, diaconibus, acolythis, exorcistis, lectoribus, ostiariis, confessoribus, virginibus, viduis, et pro omni populo sancto Dei;" see Ducange, Gloss. Lat., s.v. (11. p. 530, Henschel).

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