Neither Deacon, Presbyter nor Major wore any dress distinctive of their order. Of the Majors it was said: "He is clothed in good work, fastings and prayers; his mitre is spiritual, i.e. his authority to rule is from God and man; his pastoral staff also is spiritual, viz. the threatenings of Holy Scripture against sinners, and his encouragements of the weaker brethren by word and deed; his episcopal ring was his integrity in the Faith."
The first Pontifical Major was ordained in the same way as a Major, but afterwards only a Pontifical could ordain a Pontifical. If, however, there was no Pontifical available, either by death or absence, the authority to ordain reverted to the Presbyters and Deacons.
Full disciplinary powers were vested in a Major, and therefore there could not be two Majors in one local Church. In the discipline of Deacons, he was not bound to consult the Church; for the Deacon vowed direct obedience to the Major, and therefore the Major could inflict and remove penalties for offences. He could expel a Deacon from the Church and re-admit him. The rite for reconciliation of a Deacon was imposition of hands, but this did not imply re-ordination. In the Major alone was vested the power to impose penance upon and to receive lapsed brethren, but the addition of treachery ipso facto precluded any re-admission, for treachery was the unpardonable sin. Penance was imposed in a prescribed form.[66] The Order of Major also carried with it the duty of preaching and making (conficere) the Body and Blood of Christ, and authority to commission Presbyters to do the same, except that at Easter only Majors could consecrate at Holy Communion.[67]
The heretics regarded their Orders as in no whit inferior to those of the Roman Church. To their own and Roman Bishops alike they denied the powers of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, as then understood, but their powers of absolution were the same, seeing that both had the Apostolic Succession through the Holy Spirit. But this recognition of Roman Orders was only ideal and theoretical, because the heretics maintained that the Roman Church had practically forfeited its authority through its corruptions and persecutions. The Catharists regarded this forfeiture as irremediable and final: the Waldenses as recoverable by repentance and reformation along the lines of their own tenets. In this way we may reconcile the conflict of evidence as to the relationship between Catholic and heretical Orders.
[52] Inquis. of Carcassonne "De Manichaeis moderni temporis" (p. 58).
[53] Inquis. of Languedoc, beginning of fourteenth century (Cod. Vat. 4070).
[54] "Quidem mali erant, sed comparatione aliorum haereticorum longe minus perversi."
[55] M. Chabaneau ("Revue des langues romanes," XXXIII, 462) remarks that several of the passages quoted in the ritual from the N.T. as well as the ritual itself present features characteristic of the dialect in Vaudois books, a fact which, he points out, should not be overlooked in considering the problem, "qu'on croit peut-être à tort pleinement résolu," of the origin of the ritual of Lyons.
[56] vide infra, p. 84.
[57] vide infra, pp. 73, 83.