Women Deacons in the Early Church Historical Texts and Contemporary Debates

by Wijngaards, John

• ISBN13: 9780824523930
• ISBN10: 0824523938
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-01
• Publisher: Herder & Herder

Summary

Would the ordination of women deacons represent a break with tradition? Wijngaards beautifully demonstrates through new evidence that tens of thousands of women deacons served in early Catholic communities, showing there is no reason not to ordain women deacons today.

Table of Contents

THE ARGUMENT
1. Enigma at Constantinople	3	(8)
2. The evidence for women deacons	11	(8)
3. The manuscripts that preserved the rite	19	(11)
4. The rite of ordaining a woman deacon	30	(12)
5. The ritual for men and women compared	42	(8)
6. Is talk of "sacrament" an anachronism?	50	(10)
7. Excluded from "any sacred service"?	60	(7)
8. Just a minor role at baptism?	67	(10)
9. No anointing of the sick?	77	(7)
10. Merely nuns, and not true deacons?	84	(7)
11. Only a rare and local phenomenon?	91	(8)
12. Did the bishops not intend to ordain real deacons?	99	(9)
13. Tackling the underlying assumptions	108	(9)
14. How certain are our conclusions?	117	(13)
15. Facing up to the past, for the sake of the future	130	(15)
THE TEXTS
Women deacons in ancient Greek sources	145	(1)
St. Paul	146	(1)
Disciple of St. Paul	147	(1)
Pliny the Younger	147	(1)
St. Clement of Alexandria	148	(1)
Origen	148	(1)
The Ecclesiastical Canons of the Apostles	149	(2)
The Didascalia of the Apostles	151	(2)
The Council of Nicea I	153	(1)
Epiphanius of Salamis	154	(2)
St. Basil of Caesarea	156	(1)
St. John Chrysostom	156	(1)
St. Gregory of Nyssa	157	(1)
The Apostolic Constitutions	158	(3)
Ordination rite in the Apostolic Constitutions	161	(1)
Emperor Theodosius	162	(1)
Pelagius	162	(1)
Theodore of Mopsuestia	163	(1)
Sozomenos	164	(3)
Pseudo-Ignatius	167	(1)
Theodoret of Cyrrhus	167	(1)
The Council of Chalcedon	167	(1)
First Synod of Dvin in Armenia	168	(1)
Severus of Antioch	168	(1)
Code of Emperor Justinian I	169	(3)
Joannes Moschus	172	(2)
The Council of Trullo	174	(1)
Codex Barberini gr. 336	175	(1)
Sinai Codex gr. 956	176	(2)
Codex Grottaf errata Γ β	178	(2)
Coislin Codex gr. 213	180	(1)
Bodleian Codex E.5. 1 3	181	(2)
Codex Vaticanus gr. 1872	183	(2)
Cairo Codex gr. 149-104	185	(2)
Xenophon Codex gr. 163	187	(2)
Notes	189	(22)
Glossary	211	(4)
Select bibliography	215	(4)
Index	219