work intrusted to her, to thine honor and to the praise of thine Anointed ; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honor and adoration forever. Amen." ' ' Comp. Pelagius ad Rom. xvi. 1. Neander (iii. p. 314, note; Torrey's iransl. ii. p. 158) infers from a canon of the fourth council of Carthage, that the latter custom prevailed also in the West, since it is there required of "viduoe quag ad ministerium baptizandarum mulierum eliguntur," " ut possint apto et sano sermone docere imperitas et rusticas mulieres." ^ Comp. Codex Theodos. 1. xvi.. Tit. ii. lex 27 : " Nulla nisi emensis 60 annis secundum praeceptum apostoli ad diaconissarum consortium transferatur." ^ Const. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 20. We have given the prayer in full. Neandcr (iii. p. 322, note) omits some passages. The custom of ordaining deaconesses is placed by this prayer and by the canon quoted from the council of Chalcedon be- yond dispute. The 19 th canon of the council of Nice, however, appears to conflict witlr this, in reclioning deaconesses among the laity, who have no consecration (xfipo^eaia). Some therefore suppose that the ordination of deaconesses did not arise till after the Nica^num (325), though the Apostolic Constitutions contradict tliis ; while others (as Baronius, and recently Hefele, Concilien-Geseh. 1855, vol. i. p. 414) would resolve the contradiction by distinguishing between the proper § 62. THE LOWER CLEKGY. 261 The noblest type of an apostolic deaconess, whicli lias como down to us from this period, is Olympias, the friend of Ohrys- ostom, and the recipient of seventeen beautiful epistles from him.' She sprang from a respectable heathen family, but re- ceived a Christian education ; was beautiful and wealthy ; married in her seventeenth year (a. d. 384) the prefect of Con- stantinople, Nebridius ; but in twenty months after was left a widow, and remained so in spite of the efforts of the emperor Theodosius to unite her with one of his own kindred. She became a deaconess ; lived in rigid asceticism ; devoted her goods to the jDOor ; and found her greatest pleasure in doing good. When Chrysostom came to Constantinople, he became her pastor, and guided her lavish benefaction by wise counsel. She continued faithful to him in his misfortune ; survived him by several years, and died in 420, lamented by all the poor and needy in the city and in the country around. lu the West, on the contrary, the office of deaconess was first shorn of its clerical character by a prohibition of ordina- tion passed by the Gallic councils in the fifth and sixth cen- turies ; ^ and at last it was wholly abolished. The second xetpo^eaia and the simple benediction. But the consecration of the deaconesses was certainly accompanied with imposition of hands in presence of the whole clergy ; since the Apost. Const., 1. viii. c. 19, expressly say to the bishop : 'Ew iSt) o-e j s avT^ ras