Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

To the Chorepiscopi.
Letter LIV. 2199
I am much distressed that the canons of the Fathers have fallen through, and that the
exact discipline of the Church has been banished from among you. I am apprehensive lest,
as this indifference grows, the affairs of the Church should, little by little, fall into confusion.
According to the ancient custom observed in the Churches of God, ministers in the Church
were received after careful examination; the whole of their life was investigated; an enquiry
was made as to their being neither railers nor drunkards, not quick to quarrel, keeping their
youth in subjection, so as to be able to maintain “the holiness without which no man shall
see the Lord.” 2200 This examination was made by presbyters and deacons living with them.
Then they brought them to the Chorepiscopi; and the Chorepiscopi, after receiving the
suffrages of the witnesses as to the truth and giving information to the Bishop, so admitted
the minister to the sacerdotal order. 2201 Now, however, you have quite passed me over;
you have not even had the grace to refer to me, and have transferred the whole authority to
yourselves. Furthermore, with complete indifference, you have allowed presbyters and
deacons to introduce unworthy persons into the Church, just any one they choose, without
any previous examination of life and character, by mere favoritism, on the score of relationship
or some other tie. The consequence is, that in every village, there are reckoned many
2199 Placed at the same time as the foregoing.
2200 Heb. xii. 14.
2201 The Ben. note runs, “Ministros, sive subdiaconos, sacratorum ordini ascribit Basilius. Synodus Laodicena
inferiores clericos sacratorum numero non comprehendit, sed numerat sacratos a presbyteris usque ad diaconos,
ἀπο πρεσβυτέρων ἕως διακόνων, can. 24, distinguit canone 27, ἱερατικοὺς, ἢ κληρικοὺς ἢ λαικοὺς, sive sacratos,
sive clericos, sive laicos. Et can. 30. ῞Οτι οὑ δεῖ ἱερατικὸν ἢ κληρικὸν ἢ ἀσκητὴν ἐν βαλανειῳ μετὰ γυναικῶν
ἀπολούεσθαι, μηδὲ πάντα Χριστιανὸν ἢ λαϊκόν. Non oportet sacratum vel clericum aut ascetam in balneo cum
mulieribus lavari. sed nec ullum Christianum aut laïcum. Non sequuntur hujus synodi morem ecclesiastici
scriptores. Basilius, epist. 287, excommunicato omne cum sacratis commercium intercludit. Et in epist. 198,
ἱερατεῖον intelligit cœtum clericorum, eique ascribit clericos qui epistolas episcopi perferebant. Athanasius ad
Rufinianum scribens, rogat eum ut epistolam legat ἱερατεί& 251· et populo. Gregorius Nazianzenus lectores sacri
ordinis, ἱεροῦ ταγματος, partem esse agnoscit in epist. 45. Notandus etiam canon 8 apostolicus, ει τις ἐπίσκοπος
ἢ etc. πρεσβύτερος ἢ διάκονος ἢ ἐκ τοῦ ἱεραρικοῦ καταλόγον, etc. Si quis episcopus vel presbyter vel diaconus,
vel ex sacro ordine. Hæc visa sunt observanda, quia pluribus Basilii locis, quæ deinceps occurrent, non parum
afferent lucis.” The letter of the Council in Illyricum uses ἱερατικὸν τάγμα in precisely the same way. Theod.,
Ecc. Hist. iv. 8, where see note on p. 113. So Sozomen, On the Council of Nicæa, i. 23. Ordo, the nearest Latin
equivalent to the Greek τάγμα, was originally used of any estate in the church, e.g. St. Jerome, On Isaiah v. 19,
18. On the testing of qualifications for orders, cf. St. Cyprian, Ep. lxviii.
To the Chorepiscopi.
469