[854] Leo X. was a priest at seven and a cardinal at ten. Among the five hundred clergy destroyed by the Vandal persecution in Carthage were many infant readers—quam plurimi erant lectores infantuli.—Victor de Persec. Vandal., lib. iii.
[855] On the tomb of a youth of fourteen occurs the words, VOTVS DEO, “Dedicated to God.”
[856] Ἀκόλουθος, “A servant.”
[857] Cornelius, bishop of Rome in the third century, says there were in that church forty-two acolytes, (Euseb., H.E., vi, 43;) and, according to Eusebius, a great number attended the bishops at the council of Nice.
[858] See the vagabond Jew exorcists of Acts xix, 13. They were probably also magicians and soothsayers. Exorcism was common also among the pagan soothsayers, with whom the Christians were sometimes confounded. It is probable against them that a law of Ulpian was directed, condemning those who used incantations, imprecations, or, to use the common word of impostors, exorcisms—Si incantavit, si imprecatus est, si (ut vulgari verbo impostorum utar) exorcisavit.
[859] Apol., 23.
[860] Cont. Cels., vii. Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Wonder-worker, won especial fame by his exploits of this nature.—Socrates, iv, 27. Antony, of Egypt, could detect dæmons by the sense of smell!
[861] A somewhat analogous practice to the ancient exorcism was that of touching for king’s evil, for which there was a recognized form in the prayer-book of the time of George II.—De Strumosis Attrectandis. Charles II. “touched” one hundred thousand persons.
[863] Primus in clericis fossariorum ordo est, etc.—De Sept. Ord. Eccles. They were also called lecticarii, from their carrying the corpse on a lectica or bier, and copiatæ, a word of uncertain origin. Constantine organized the copiatæ into a corporation at Constantinople, where they numbered four hundred. Compare the Parabolani of Alexandria.