Annotation CCXXV

”They chose Stephen, and Philip, and Prochorus.” — Acts 6:5

Whether the seven [of Acts 6] were true deacons.

Ambrosius [Catharinus], bishop of Compsa [Conza], is gravely indignant at Thomas Cajetan, because — against the tradition of all the saints — he wrote, in the Commentaries on Acts, that the seven men whom the Apostles set over the tables were not truly deacons and ministers of the sacred altar. I, more diligently inquiring into this matter, found among ecclesiastical writers grave authors and witnesses on both sides. For Thomas [stand] almost all the Greek Fathers; among whom Chrysostom, in the fourteenth homily on Acts, speaking of these seven men: “HOW GREAT a dignity these had,” he says, “and what ordination they received [as] necessary, it will [be hard] to say. Was it, perchance, that which is of the deacons? And assuredly this is not [so] in the churches; but this dispensation is [that] of the presbyters. And yet [at that time] there was as yet no bishop, but the Apostles alone. Whence I think this [office] to be the name neither of the deacons nor of the presbyters.” Oecumenius, in the Collectanea of the explanations on Acts, explaining this more clearly, writes thus: “The Apostles created the elect [not as] deacons according to the grade which is now in the Church, but [as] διακόνους [diakónous], that is, ‘ministers’ [servants] — so that, with all diligence and not negligently, they might distribute to the widows and orphans together those [things] which had been laid up for [their] nourishment; and this, especially, to the widows and orphans, on account of whom chiefly the murmur had arisen. And he calls the daily ministry ‘alms,’ as being both a medicine to those who do [it], and an honor to those affected by its benefit. But it was not of malice that the widows were despised, but of the sloth of many. Therefore also, when it seemed fitting that care should be applied, the grief of mind was soothed. Or they also call [it] a ‘public administration’; for this the name διακονία [diakonía] wishes to signify — since indeed the Greeks call a public store [that] into which each one strives, with great zeal, to contribute liberally, toward the common expense, [the things] which abound to him [privately].” In the opinion of Ambrose [that they were true deacons] I find nearly all the Latins; of whose number Arator the deacon, in the first book of the Apostolic History, expressed the office of these deacons in these verses:

The rights of the ministry, fit for the sacred altars, they established in seven men, whom — chosen from every side — it pleases [us] to call Levites, [at the time] when the Church, splendid, began to shine with a hand [ministry] which [bore] the cups of life,

[the Church began to shine with a hand which] mixes, and offers the liquids [water and wine] with the blood of the Lamb. The honor conferred by this number [seven] carries with it sublime sacraments, through which the measure of [my] road [i.e. brevity] does not permit me to go further, etc.

The presbyter Bede, subscribing to Arator the deacon: “HENCE now,” he says, “the Apostles, or the successors of the Apostles, decreed [that there be], throughout all the churches, seven deacons, who should be of a more sublime grade than the rest, and, as [it were] the nearest columns of the altar, should stand by around the altar — and not without some mystery of the septenary number.”