A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

DIPTYCH. A kind of sacred book, or register, made use of in the ancient Christian Church, and in which were written the names of such eminent bishops, saints, and martyrs, as were particularly to be commemorated, just before oblation was made for the dead. It was called diptych (δίπτυχος) from its being folded together; and it was the deacon’s office to recite the names written in it, as occasion required. Some distinguish three sorts of diptychs: one, wherein the names of bishops only were written, such especially as had been governors of that particular church; a second, in which the names of the living were written, such in particular as were eminent for any office or dignity, or some benefaction and good work, in which rank were bishops, emperors, and magistrates; lastly, a third, containing the names of such as were deceased in catholic communion.

Theodoret mentions these kind of registers in relation to the case of St. Chrysostom, whose name, for some time, was left out of the diptychs, because he died under the sentence of excommunication, pronounced against him by Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, and other Eastern bishops, with whom the Western Church would not communicate until they had replaced his name in the diptychs; for, to erase a person’s name out of these books was the same thing as declaring him to have been an heretic, or some way deviating from the faith.—Bingham.

DIRECTORY. A kind of regulation for the performance of religious worship, drawn up by the Assembly of Divines in England, at the instance of the parliament, in the year 1644. It was designed to supply the place of the Liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer, the use of which the parliament had abolished. It consisted only of some general heads, which were to be managed and filled up at discretion; for it prescribed no form of prayer or circumstances of external worship, nor obliged the people to any responses, excepting Amen. The use of the Directory was enforced by an ordinance of the Lords and Commons at Westminster, which was repeated August 3rd, 1645. By this injunction, the Directory was ordered to be dispersed and published in all parishes, chapelries, donatives, &c. In opposition to this injunction, King Charles issued a proclamation at Oxford, November 13th, 1645, enjoining the use of the Common Prayer according to law, notwithstanding the pretended ordinances for the new Directory.

To give a short abstract of the Directory: It forbids all salutations and civil ceremony in the churches. The reading the Scripture in the congregation is declared to be part of the pastoral office. All the canonical books of the Old and New Testament (but none of the Apocrypha) are to be publicly read in the vulgar tongue. How large a portion is to be read at once is left to the minister, who has likewise the liberty of expounding, when he judges it necessary. It prescribes heads for the prayer before sermon; among which part of the prayer for the king is, to save him from evil counsel. It delivers rules for managing the sermon; the introduction to the text must be short and clear, drawn from the words or context, or some parallel place of Scripture; in dividing the text, the minister is to regard the order of the matter more than that of the words; he is not to burden the memory of his audience with too many divisions, nor perplex their understandings with logical phrases and terms of art; he is not to start unnecessary objections; and he is to be very sparing in citations from ecclesiastical, or other human writers, ancient or modern.

The Directory recommends the use of the Lord’s Prayer, as the most perfect model of devotion. It forbids private or lay persons to administer baptism, and enjoins it to be performed in the face of the congregation. It orders the communion table at the Lord’s supper to be so placed that the communicants may sit about it. The dead, according to the rules of the Directory, are to be buried without any prayers or religious ceremony.

The Roman Catholics publish an annual Directory for their laity, which serves the purpose of a book of reference in matters of ceremonial as settled by their communion.—Broughton.

DISCIPLE, in the first sense of the word, means one who learns any thing from another. Hence the followers of any teacher, philosopher, or head of a sect, are usually called his disciples. In the Christian sense of the term, disciples are the followers of Jesus Christ in general; but, in a more restrained sense, it denotes those who were the immediate followers and attendants on his person. The names disciple and apostle are often used synonymously in the gospel history; but sometimes the apostles are distinguished from disciples, as persons selected out of the number of disciples, to be the principal ministers of his religion. Of these there were twelve; whereas those who are simply styled disciples were seventy, or seventy-two, in number. There was not as yet any catalogue of the disciples in Eusebius’s time, i. e. in the fourth century. The Latins kept the festival of the seventy or seventy-two disciples on the 15th of July, and the Greeks on 4th of January.

DISCIPLINE, ECCLESIASTICAL. The Christian Church being a spiritual community or society of persons professing the religion of Jesus, and, as such, governed by spiritual or ecclesiastical laws, her discipline consists in putting those laws in execution, and inflicting the penalties enjoined by them against several sorts of offenders. To understand the true nature of church discipline, we must consider how it stood in the ancient Christian Church. And, first,

The primitive Church never pretended to exercise discipline upon any but such as were within her pale, in the largest sense, by some act of their own profession; and even upon these she never pretended to exercise her discipline so far as to cancel or disannul their baptism. But the discipline of the Church consisted in a power to deprive men of the benefits of external communion, such as public prayer, receiving the eucharist, and other acts of Divine worship. This power, before the establishment of the Church by human laws, was a mere spiritual authority, or, as St. Cyprian terms it, a spiritual sword, affecting the soul, and not the body. Sometimes, indeed, the Church craved assistance from the secular power, even when it was heathen, but more frequently after it was become Christian. But it is to be observed, that the Church never encouraged the magistrate to proceed against any one for mere error, or ecclesiastical misdemeanour, further than to punish the delinquent by a pecuniary mulct, or bodily punishment, such as confiscation or banishment; and St. Austin affirms, that no good men in the Catholic Church were pleased that heretics should be prosecuted unto death. Lesser punishments, they thought, might have their use, as means sometimes to bring them to consideration and repentance.

Nor was it a part of the ancient discipline to deprive men of their natural or civil rites. A master did not lose his authority over his family, a parent over his children, nor a magistrate his office and charge in the state, by being cast out of the Church. But the discipline of the Church being a mere spiritual power, was confined to, 1. The admonition of the offender; 2. The lesser and greater excommunication.