[844] Clericus quantumlibet verbo Dei eruditus, artificio victum quærat.—Conc. Carth., 4, can. 51. The example of Paul, the tentmaker, who, though asserting the right of the ministry to a support, yet “wrought with labour and travail night and day,” that he might not be chargeable to the church, will occur to the reader. Chrysostom, speaking of the rural bishops of Antioch, says: “These men you may see sometimes yoking the oxen and driving the plough, and again ascending the pulpit and cultivating the souls under their care; now uprooting the thorns from the earth with a hook, and now purging out the sins of the soul by the word.”—Hom. ad Pop. Antioch., xix. “How glorious to see the gray-haired pastor approach, like Abraham, his loins girt, digging the ground and working with his own hands.”—Hom. in Act., xviii.
[845] A similar office obtained in the Jewish synagogue, the פַרְנַסִים.
[846] This was especially the case in verse, as the word diaconus was unsuitable for hexameters.
[847] In Constantinople there were more than one hundred deacons, and more than ninety sub-deacons.—Justin., Nov., iii, 1.
[848] This was probably a memorial of a later period than the times of persecution. The epithet sanctus was not applied till comparatively late. The office of deacon, however, was particularly obnoxious to persecuting greed. Witness the martyrdom of Lawrence the deacon, antea.
[849] Rome was divided into seven ecclesiastical districts corresponding to its seven deacons.
[850] John III., bishop of Rome.
[851] They are mentioned by Tertullian (De Præscrip., c. 41) and Cyprian, (Ep., 24, 33,) and by many later writers. The office was possibly derived from the Synagogue.
[852] Socrat., iii, 1. Sozom., v. 2.
[853] cxxiii, c. 54.