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COWLEY PUBLICATIONS is a ministry of the brothers of the Society of Saint
John the Evangelist, a monastic order in the Episcopal Church. Our mission
is to provide books and resources for those seeking spiritual and theological
formation. Cowley Publications is committed to developing a new
generation of writers and teachers who will encourage people to think and
pray in new ways about spirituality, reconciliation, and the future.

MANY SERVANTS
AN INTRODUCTION TO DEACONS
REVISED EDITION
Ormonde Plater

A COWLEY PUBLICATIONS BOOK
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY
United Kingdom
Copyright © 2004 by Ormonde Plater
First Rowman & Littlefield edition 2009
Scripture quotations are taken from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, ©
1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Plater, Ormonde.
Many servants : an introduction to deacons / Ormonde Plater.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
978-1-56101-270-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Deacons. I. Title.
BV680.P55 2004
262’.14—dc22

2004018750
Printed in the United States of America.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

CONTENTS
Preface to the Revised Edition
Introduction
One: Origins
Two: The Early Church
Three: Episcopal Church: Early Deacons
Four: Episcopal Church: Contemporary Deacons
Five: Other Churches
Six: The Finding, Nurture, and Care of Deacons
Seven: The Ordination of Deacons
Eight: Deacons and Their Stories
Nine: Paschal Deacons in a Paschal Church
Appendix A: Historic Documents
Appendix B: Calendar of Deacon Saints
Endnotes
Select Bibliography
Index of Names

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
First published in 1991, this book was printed three times before going out
of print. Along the way, it proved useful, educational, and even inspirational
to many deacons, persons in discernment, candidates in formation, and
others curious about deacons.
After more than a dozen years, the time has come for a second edition.
The meaning and functions of deacons have evolved, the order has grown in
numbers and importance, new canons governing diaconal ministry have
been enacted, and new issues are affecting the practice of the diaconate.
Above all, deacons have stories to tell, defining their role in God’s plan, and
I have let them speak with little editorial interference. I have also added a
calendar of deacon saints, compiled from several sources over the past
decade. All this has resulted in a book in many ways original. Some parts I
have kept, some altered, some put away, some added.
During revision I shared the draft manuscript with the current class of
deacon candidates in the Diocese of Louisiana, and I thank one of them,
Lydia Hopkins, for her close reading and many helpful comments.
Quotations from the Bible are from the New Revised Standard Version,
and quotations of psalms are from the Book of Common Prayer of the
Episcopal Church.

INTRODUCTION
This book is my attempt to tell the story of the deacons of the church.
Among many forms of religious renewal in the last two generations,
Christian churches have experienced the recovery of the order of deacons
after centuries of neglect and misuse. Once perceived as partially formed
clerics growing toward the complete priesthood, or as purely liturgical
assistants, deacons now appear in a mature role as persons specifically
chosen and committed for life to ordained ministry. Although this book is
mainly about the deacons of the Episcopal Church, the renewal of the
diaconate plays an important role in the Canadian and other Anglican
churches, in the Roman Catholic Church, in Lutheran and Reformed
churches, in Orthodoxy, and in ecumenical endeavors at the national and
international levels.
In all churches that have recovered the diaconate, the work has involved
efforts to determine the meaning and functions of the order, and its
relationship to other orders and forms of ministry, based on its origins,
unfolding, and evolution in the early church and its re-emergence in recent
times. In this recovery no motivation has been more influential than the
biblical models of agape and diakonia. Both agape (divine love) and
diakonia (sacred agency) are linked to charity or care of the needy, derived
from the ancient responsibility of all Jews and Christians to serve other
persons and fortified by the urgent need for such service in our own age. A
significant interest in social care arose in Europe in the early nineteenth
century, a continent afflicted by war, poverty, and social upheaval, and

continued into the turbulent twentieth century. In our time, in a world even
more devastated and unstable, one attribute of all Christian churches has
been a concern to care for the needs of the world outside. Churches that
once served mainly their own members have learned again to serve others.
In every diocese and every congregation—through church, ecumenical, and
secular organizations, as members of groups and as individuals, at work and
at home—Christians reach out to those in need. In this renewal they bring
to life an ancient Hebrew and Christian tradition: mercy, peace, and justice
for the poor of Yahweh and Jesus.
Since about 1980, the work of deacons in the Episcopal Church has
become closely identified with the baptismal ministry of ordinary Christian
people who reach out to the poor, sick, and oppressed. Although care of the
needy thus became established as an essential ministry of deacons, attempts
to restore the order have caused controversy, debate, and resistance in some
places. If care of the poor is the common obligation of every Christian, why
bother to ordain deacons to do this same work? It is not enough, apparently,
to appeal to the Bible and ancient tradition for the meaning and role of the
order, or to point out that the liturgy of the church includes deacons as a full
and equal order. Attempts to answer questions about the necessity of a real
and vibrant diaconate have involved two main approaches, both based on
the diaconate as it existed in the early church. First, as distinct symbols of
Christ the Servant, deacons function among the faithful as special models of
common Christian service who lead, enable, and encourage other Christians
in charitable service. Second, the functions of deacons extend beyond the
ordinary charitable work of all Christians into areas where official sanction,
lifelong commitment, and sacramental grace strengthen the activity of the
church. Many deacons serve in administrative positions, often within the
diocesan structure, and deacons in general take seriously the bishop’s
command at their ordination to interpret the world to the church.
These two approaches are not without their own problems. One is the
ambiguous meaning of symbol in the world today. In earlier centuries the
symbols or sacramental signs of the church, including its ordained ministry,
were supposed to be elevated, distant, often inaccessible, and clearly
defined. Although this attitude has not entirely disappeared, we now live in
a society in which many people prize function for its practicality and
disparage symbols for their inefficiency, playfulness, and uncertain effect.
To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor (who was defending the Eucharist at a

dinner party), if it’s just a symbol, to hell with it! In this mentality ministry
has become reduced to the performance of necessary ecclesial tasks, for
which ordination is less an essential than is training and competency. Since
priests and other baptized persons between them can perform all the
liturgical, pastoral, and charitable tasks of deacons, a diaconate defined in
terms of symbol makes little practical sense to many persons. Moreover, the
diaconate appears to complicate, and to clutter with additional clericalism, a
church that is trying to restore the ministry of all the baptized.
All ministry in the church—not just ordained—appears headed for drastic
change and an unpredictable future in what is commonly called “the
millennium of the laity.” This is especially true of the diaconate, which
tends to avoid not only a fixed definition but also a fixed place in the
church. Deacons explore their origins, try new directions, and test the limits
of their ministry. They like to speak of themselves as occupying some
vague space between church and world, or between clergy and laity, as a
bridge or as dancers on a razor’s edge, whereas many others in the
leadership of the church prefer to cling to established roles with distinct
duties and responsibilities. Those who prefer simple meanings, rigid
structures, and clear answers will not find them in the modern diaconate,
which seems always in the process of becoming something else with elusive
meanings and shifting functions. Dioceses and congregations that
encourage deacons to evolve and change in their ministry, and that give free
rein to local imagination and creativity, have the least difficulty with
problems of definition and role.
Another problem concerns a fundamental contradiction in the way the
church uses the order. To renew the diaconate, we have had to take a
medieval practice—the deacon as temporary intern for priest—and
alongside it reestablish an ancient practice—the deacon as permanent agent
of the church. The two forms of the diaconate, ancient and medieval, carry
the same name and are entered through the same ordination rite, but they
are by no means equivalent, and they coexist in an uneasy parallel. The
restoration of the ancient practice of the diaconate has resulted in
differences between deacons and priests (including deacons on the way to
the priesthood) in status, lifestyle, and ministry. As with all reforms, these
distinctions have produced confusion, anger, and resistance—among lay
persons who view deacons as a threat to their baptismal ministry, among
priests who cherish the diaconate through which they once passed, and even

among those few deacons who identify themselves closely with the
priesthood. The restoration of the diaconate challenges the church to find
new ways of expressing the ancient bond between deacons and bishops, and
to develop a healthy relationship among deacons, priests, and other
Christian ministers based on a theology of mutual and distinct ministry, not
on practices that nourish disorder and competition.
Even in places where the order has been successfully restored, it tends to
evolve in unexpected ways, creating new and often surprising forms of an
ancient order. Changes in the diaconate tend to change the church.
Ultimately, the only answer to the problem of change is to allow the change
to take place, to observe what happens, and to share the story.
Deacons have a strong awareness of their historic role as go-between or
herald, carrying words and deeds from one place to another. Recent
scholarly studies challenge the popular translation of the Greek word
diakonia and its cognates, including diakonos, as “service” in the sense of
care of the needy and even menial labor. An Orthodox bishop and
theologian, Paulos Mar Gregorios, argues that diakonia involves not only
mercy, justice, and prophecy, but also worship, upbuilding the church, royal
priesthood, and prayer and intercession.1 This broadening of definition is
reflected (although with different findings) in the writings of John N.
Collins. In his study of hundreds of diakon- words used in Greek writings
from the late fifth century before Christ to the fourth century of the
Christian era, Collins finds that ancient sources fail to support the linguistic
assumptions many make when they speak of baptized “servants” in a
“servant church” and of deacons as particular “servants.” The interpretation
of diakon- words as referring solely to social care appears to date from the
early nineteenth century, when German Lutherans sought to recover the
original ministry of deacons and deaconesses as servants of the poor, the
sick, neglected children, and prisoners. The interpretation survived,
flourished, was recorded in German theological dictionaries in the 1930s,
and after World War II surfaced in Germany as part of the rationale for the
establishment of the permanent diaconate by the Roman Catholic Church.
Along the way, it influenced the understanding of diakonia—now usually
translated “service” instead of “ministry”—and the restoration of the
diaconate in Anglican and other churches.
When early Christians called someone “deacon,” though, they had more
in mind than the service that all Christians are obliged to perform. Collins

finds remarkable consistency among pagan, Jewish, and Christian writers of
the ancient Greek world, who tended to use words of diakonia and its
cognates in three related and often overlapping groups of meaning.
First, they used these terms in the sense of “message,” to talk about a go-
between, mouthpiece, or courier, who travels from one place to another and
conveys goods, who carries messages on behalf of persons in high places
(sometimes from a god to mortals, and vice versa), who bears the sacred
word as a herald, who interprets the words of others, who intervenes on an
important mission, who mediates through writing, and who even stirs the
emotions of an audience through song.
Second, they used these terms in the sense of “agency,” to talk about an
agent, instrument, or medium who conducts an operation, acts on behalf of
others, carries out the desires or commands of a superior, implements
another’s plan, performs civic duties and undertakings, who gets done
whatever needs to be done, and who functions within the social system like
a tutor, butler, major domo, personal secretary, or other important factotum.
Third, they used these terms in the sense of “attendance,” to talk about
one who attends to a person or household, waits on others, fetches objects
and persons, cares for the needs of a guest, and on formal and hence
religious occasions bears the wine cup and conducts the feast with decency
and taste.2
Early Christian writers used diakon- words, including eighty places in the
New Testament, to talk about Jesus, themselves, and others as
spokespersons and emissaries of heaven, emissaries in the church, and
others who exercise commissions within Christian communities to act under
God, the church, and the Spirit. When early Christians wrote of a “deacon”
of the church, they meant an agent in sacred affairs, who worked closely
with the bishop, spoke for him, acted for him, and attended him. Even when
the context of the agency was care of the needy, they perceived the activity
as ministry to the Lord and not as ministry or service to the poor and the
widows.
The design of this book, then, is to reflect on the history of deacons in the
church, and to record the emerging meanings and functions of diakonia and
deacons in the modern church and the directions in which they appear to be
heading. Many dioceses of the Episcopal Church select, form, and deploy
deacons. Dioceses of the Anglican Church of Canada have joined this
renewal, and other churches are observing the Anglican experience for help

in their own efforts. Thus another purpose of this book is to provide
information and guidance for the revival of the diaconate.
The book consists of two parts. In the first, I treat scholarly and practical
matters: scriptural origins, history of deacons, ecumenical spread, and
selection, formation, and ministry in dioceses of the Episcopal Church. In
the second, I speak about the meaning and practice of the diaconate, as
revealed in the ordination liturgy, in the stories of twenty-five deacons, and
in closing reflections on those stories and their significance.
Years ago the late Wesley Frensdorff, bishop of Nevada, told me about an
old Yiddish curse: “May you have many servants!” The curse has in mind
those servants who are lazy afflictions, who corrupt the house with
lewdness and theft, and who bind their master and mistress in chains of
disorder. In this book I extol the virtues of good servants, as articulate and
cheerful as Figaro and Susanna, as resourceful and intelligent as Jeeves, as
loyal and energetic as Bunter, as strong and enduring as Dilsey, and I argue
that God will provide good servants to those who seek them and sustain
them.3 Good servants free those they serve, and many good servants free
many.

CHAPTER ONE
ORIGINS
To understand deacons in the church, one must bathe deeply in two rivers
flowing through the biblical landscape. In the first stream, agape, run the
waters of God’s unconditional love for human beings and of our human
duty “to do justice and to love kindness” (Micah 6:8). From the second
stream, diakonia, God sends forth human beings as emissaries on a dusty
but holy mission, with orders to proclaim the good news and heal the sick.
Common to both biblical themes is the concept of service, called by various
names and interpreted in a variety of ways. Scripture abounds with sayings
and stories about servants. In the ancient writings of the Hebrew people,
commandments and prophecies lay down a strict law of mercy and justice,
and in the Christian writings, which contain several references to early
deacons, Jesus and his followers teach us, by word and deed, to love others
and perform acts of compassion. This scriptural basis has reinforced the
modern understanding of the diaconate as a sacred ministry of liturgy, word,
and charity, as a sacramental representation of the deacon Christ and his
diaconal church, and as part of God’s ordering of the church in a divine plan
of creation and salvation.1
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES

The biblical tradition of charity is older than the Torah, older even than
the Hebrew people, and broader in ethnic scope. The desire to help the
oppressed and dispossessed is primitive and widespread, a natural tendency
in the human race. Over countless ages human beings have inherited and
absorbed the practice of caring for others. By the design of God we are born
to care, with good fortune we learn care in the hospitality of our first home,
and at our best we hand over care to the young, who do the same in their
turn. Our inclination to love God and each other comes from our nature as
creatures made in the image of God. In the older, Yahwist account of
creation, the first activity of Adam is to till and keep the garden of Eden
(Gen. 2:15). In a myth passed on by oral tradition and finally written down,
Adam begins existence as a farmhand of the Lord. Even when he falls, and
is sent forth from Eden, his work is “to till the ground from which he was
taken” (Gen. 3:23). In the account of the great flood Noah gathers and
keeps animals and feeds them (Gen. 7). He is a livestock servant, an agent
of the Lord. These myths consistently place human beings in a relationship
to God.
Our relationship to God inspires our relationship to our neighbor, service
for the benefit of other people. A particular concern of ancient Near Eastern
legal codes is relief of the suffering of the poor, widows and orphans,
aliens, and the oppressed. This concern carries over into the legal
collections of the Old Testament, which were descended from ancient case
law. The major legal collections of the Torah or Pentateuch show consistent
concern for the poor, or anawim, a term that includes all those in need. In
all of the collections the people of God are commanded to treat the poor
with charity and justice, and this concern is linked with regulations for
worship.
The earliest of these is the Covenant Code (Exod. 20:2–23:19). Among
its many cultic regulations and laws protecting human beings and property
are prohibitions against wronging aliens, widows and orphans, the poor, and
others in need (Exod. 22:21–27; 23:1–9). The central episode of Israel as
the people of God includes their experience as slaves in Egypt, saved
through the mercy and justice of God. Thus, when the Covenant Code
forbids the listener to wrong and oppress a stranger, it adds: “you know the
heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 23:9).
This refrain appears also in the later codes.

The Deuteronomic Code (Deut. 12–26), believed to be the famous scroll,
or Book of the Law, “discovered” in the temple in 621 BCE, stresses justice,
equity, care of the poor, and hospitality for the sojourner (or resident alien):
“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field,
you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and
the widow” (24:19). And the reason for the command: “Remember that you
were a slave in the land of Egypt” (24:22). The law proves sensitive even to
ecology: “If you come on a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with
fledglings or eggs, with the mother sitting on the fledglings or on the eggs,
you shall not take the mother with the young” (22:6).
Finally, the Holiness Code (Lev. 17–27) contains mainly religious and
cultic laws. Israel must be holy as God is holy. But in one section, chapter
19, the code groups commands that are primarily ethical, in the tradition of
the Decalogue, the Covenant Code, and the Deuteronomic Code. Gleanings
from fields and vineyards shall be left “for the poor and the alien” (19:10);
“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the
alien” (19:33). And again the reason: “for you were aliens in the land of
Egypt” (19:34).
In all of these collections, the memory of the Exodus informs the Hebrew
understanding of humanitarian needs and concerns. Yet the Hebrew
experience and remembrance of salvation also include the profound
knowledge that God is the source and example of mercy. Justice is the
beginning and goal of ritual. Service of the poor embraces service of the
Lord. Praise of God includes praise of the Lord who uplifts the poor:
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great
God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribes,
who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves
the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love
the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deut.
10:17–19)
Justice for the poor persists as a major theme in other Hebrew writings.
In the Song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2:1–10) she praises the Lord who “raises up
the poor from the dust” and “lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make
them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.” Hannah’s prayer is the
model for the Song of Mary (Magnificat) in Luke; both songs speak about

God’s power to raise the downtrodden. Hannah prays to the Lord as his
“servant” (1:11), and she conceives Samuel, consecrating him to the service
of the Lord.
Justice for the anawim is also a prominent theme in many psalms.
Whatever the tangled history of their date and authorship, the psalms, once
attributed to David, represent the heart of Hebrew worship. There the God
who brought Israel out of Egypt is “the helper of orphans” (Ps. 10:15), who
“does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty” (Ps. 22:23), and who
will set right the victims of crooked deeds. The law is the subject of the
extended meditation of Psalm 119, in which righteousness is defined as
service of the Lord according to his commandments. Another prominent
theme of the psalms is praise of the Lord who helps the poor. Psalm 146
sings of God
Who gives justice to those who are oppressed,
and food to those who hunger.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down.
The LORD loves the righteous;
the LORD cares for the stranger;
he sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked. (Ps. 146:6–8)
This passage, important in prophetic literature, appears in slightly
different form in Isaiah 61:1–2, which Jesus reads in the synagogue at
Nazareth:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to
bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to
the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed
go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18–19)

Concern for the poor is also a major message of the prophets. A prophet,
a nabi, is also an advocate, a goel, who speaks for God as a voice for the
voiceless. Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah attack the corruption and
injustice typical of both kingdoms in the eighth century, and the prophets
just before and during the exile in Babylon continue the old theme. In the
Temple Sermon, Jeremiah ascribes God’s protection not to the presence of
the temple but to the morality of the people:
For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act
justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan,
and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do
not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you
in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever
and ever. (Jer. 7:5–7)
The temple was built to house the commandments, but the people forgot
to obey the commandments, especially those to ensure justice and true
worship. The great prophet of the Exile, Ezekiel, defines righteousness as
individual deeds of justice. The righteous one “does not oppress anyone, but
restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the
hungry and covers the naked with a garment, does not take advance or
accrued interest” (18:7–8). Ezekiel’s famous vision in which the spirit of
God enters the dry bones of the exiles while sinews and flesh grow upon
them (37:1–14) must be interpreted as a people restored not only to a place,
but also to deeds of justice.
From the earliest legal collections to the prophetic writings after the
Exile, therefore, the Hebrew scriptures are consistent in their moral
teachings about care for the poor. Among the poor (anawim) they number
all the afflicted, especially the powerless and the oppressed, the humble and
meek, widows and orphans, and “strangers” (sojourners and aliens). All
these categories of the poor remind the Hebrew people not only of their
ancient history as slaves and outcasts, but also of their obligation to help the
poor always.
Biblical references to servants are varied and often confusing in meaning.
A common word in the Hebrew scriptures is the noun ’ebed, which means
servant (in a number of senses) but also household slave, child, subject of a
king, and worshiper of God. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew scriptures of

Hellenistic Jews and Christians, ’ebed is never translated diakonos (minister
or servant) but doulos (slave) or pais (child). Although many early
Christians appear to have emphasized the latter meanings, the most
common interpretation today is servant. Of all the many meanings of this
term and its cognates, however, its cultic or liturgical aspect has been the
most neglected. The purpose of the exodus from Egypt is not solely
freedom from slavery, for God saves the people of Israel out of Egypt to
render ’abodah, or worshipful service, to Yahweh. This is the context, a
fundamental affinity with God, in which servants perform compassion. Out
of their sacrifices of blood and incense, of praise and thanksgiving, flow
works of mercy and justice.
Most uses of ’ebed involve a common or ordinary use of servant imagery,
applied to God’s creation, to men and women made in the image of God,
and to God’s chosen people. But there is also a specific, theologically
heightened dimension—the ’ebed Yahweh, or servant of the Lord. The
’ebed Yahweh is a specially designated person, a servant of the Lord but
also united with the Lord, carrying out God’s commandments and God’s
plan of creation and salvation. In the Hebrew scriptures this servant acts as
divine agent principally in the prophecies of Second Isaiah (Isa. 40–55),
and, most important, in the great Servant Songs, written in joyful hope of
the restoration from exile in Babylon. For the author of the songs, ’ebed
Yahweh appears to be the nation of Israel, chosen by God, suffering in exile,
ultimately faithful, and restored out of death. For Christians, Isaiah’s
portrayal of the suffering servant of the Lord constitutes the most explicit
prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures of the incarnation, death, and
resurrection of Jesus. The songs live on in the gospel when Jesus says that
he came not to be served but to serve. He is God’s agent, the servant whom
the Lord has chosen to save the people of God. The church, the image of
Christ, is the body which makes the servant of the Lord present among us,
and the deacons, the servants of the church, continually remind the people
of the image of the diakonos Christ.
THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
When we turn to the New Testament, the tradition that we found in the
Hebrew writings persists abundantly in the teachings and deeds of Jesus and

in the stories, sayings, and writings of early Christians. The biblical
tradition is commonly identified with the teaching of Christ that “whoever
wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever
wishes to be first among you must be slave of all,” and with the description
of Christ as one who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his
life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43–45). This passage and related ones
have been widely used to depict Christ as the model for the service of all
baptized Christians, as well as for the deacons who serve in a special way.
When the passage is taken in its entirety, however, the diakonia that Christ
came to render becomes not care of the needy but death on the cross.
There is no question that care of the needy is a Christian imperative.
When he is challenged to justify his actions on the basis of the law, Jesus
summarizes and interprets the ancient legal tradition in the great
commandment (Matt. 22:34–40; Mark 12:28–34; Luke 10:25–28). To the
question of a Pharisee, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the
greatest?” Jesus replies:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first
commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the
law and the prophets. (Matt. 22:37–40)
The second commandment requires us to determine the meaning of the
terms neighbor and love. Is neighbor the person who lives next door or in
the same village, or just the poor and oppressed, or everybody? Luke
answers the question by following the commandment with the parable of
the Good Samaritan. A neighbor is someone we encounter who is helpless,
who needs our mercy, and love is showing mercy to the helpless one. Of the
three persons who encounter the helpless man—a priest, a Levite, and the
Samaritan—only the Samaritan stops and helps. Christ asks: “Which of
these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands
of the robbers?” The questioner answers correctly: “The one who showed
him mercy” (Luke 10:36–37). The parable contains the traditional three
elements—a caring person, a poor person, and mercy and justice—and thus
renders an image of the Trinity in human form.

Care of the poor and oppressed was a central feature of Jesus’ ministry,
alongside proclamation of the good news. In Matthew’s account of the
commissioning of the twelve, Jesus tells them: “As you go, proclaim the
good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise
the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7–8). Charity, in
the form of miracles of mercy, is a sacred activity that reveals the kingdom
of heaven. Christ sends this message to John the Baptist: “the blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead
are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matt. 11:5, cf.
Luke 7:22). Those who are healed, “the lame, the maimed, the blind, the
mute,” respond by giving glory to “the God of Israel” (Matt. 15:30–31).
Proclamation and mercy take place in a setting of worship here and in
Christ’s preaching at Nazareth, where he quotes from Isaiah 61:1–2 that
God “has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18).
In the teachings of Christ and the prayers and songs of his followers, we
have the new revelation: the hungry hunger for the bread of life, the thirsty
thirst for living water, the blind see the light of Christ and the deaf hear the
good news, lepers are cleansed so that they can perform rites of praise, the
dead are raised as signs of the kingdom. Jesus’ most explicit teaching about
the poor and oppressed in the New Testament occurs in Matthew’s account
of the great judgment. The passage helps to explain the nature of Christian
loving service. The blessed will inherit the kingdom if they show mercy:
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me,
I was in prison and you visited me. (Matt. 25:35–36)
Here the symbolic meaning of the poor achieves a profound dimension.
The poor are Christ, Christ is the poor. The list implies another mode of the
real presence of Christ, alongside his presence in the gathered people of
God, in the word proclaimed and preached, and in the bread and wine of the
Eucharist. Because our encounter with the poor brings us face to face with
Christ, Christian ministry is not only service to the poor but also, and
mainly, service to God.

In the Greek of the New Testament what occurs between the followers of
Christ and the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the
prisoner is called diakonia, which means agency, ministry, or service of
several kinds, including running errands, delivering messages, and
performing assigned tasks. The immediate context is table-service: “For
who is greater, the one who is at table or the one who serves? Is it not the
one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27)—
the Greek translates literally as “the one attending.” Assuming the role of
waiter, Jesus reverses convention and waits on his disciples. In a similar
reversal, at the Last Supper Jesus washes the feet of his followers (John
13:1–11). Washing feet is the humble action of a slave—Jesus uses the
word doulos—but Jesus expands slavery, the abysmal, abject, and
involuntary labor of an owned-inferior for an owner-master, into a sacred
act under God similar to his sacrifice on the cross. Waiting on others is a
divine action as well as an ethical disposition. Christ leaves this supper and
this discourse to offer himself on the cross.
Like the Hebrew word commonly translated “servant,” the Greek word
diakonos offers a variety of meanings and problems of definition. It appears
to have descended from the Indo-European roots dia, meaning thoroughly,
and ken (or its suffixed o-form kono), meaning active. Another possible
etymology, popular among early Greeks, combines two Greek words
meaning “through the dust,” and hence diakonoi may have been originally
“dusty ones” in the sense of hurried activity on the road. As a Greek
common noun, diakonos came to mean a particular kind of servant on a
prominent level, especially the messenger, go-between, or personal
attendant who delivers the orders and carries out the desires and commands
of a superior. Because early Christian deacons were heavily involved in
ministry to the needy, centuries later the word evolved to mean an ordained
servant of charity. This complex verbal ancestry suggests a definition
important for our contemporary understanding of the deacon. A deacon is
one appointed and given grace to be thoroughly active and dusty in the
service of the church, which necessarily involves care of the poor. Often
overlooked in studies on deacons, but pertinent to diakonia, is the account
of Jesus sending missionaries to proclaim the good news and cure the sick.
If ill-received by those at their destination, they are to shake the dust from
their feet (Matt. 10:14; Luke 10:11). In Luke’s version he follows this

diakonia event with the agape commandment and the Good Samaritan,
another person who pursues a mission on a dusty road.
Paul sometimes uses the term diakonos to refer to himself and others who
speak the message of God: Paul and Apollos are “diakonoi through whom
you came to believe” (1 Cor. 3:5). Paul also uses the term doulos, slave or
lowest form of servant, to signify a menial way of life, voluntarily chosen,
referring to himself as “doulos of Christ” (Gal. 1:10). Far more prominent is
his use of the word in the majestic hymn on the Incarnation:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though
he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God
something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a
slave, being born in human likeness. (Phil. 2:5–7)
In the midst of many parables and sayings about servants, two passages
in the gospels have significant implications for the pastoral and sacramental
life of the church. In the first passage John tells of the marriage at Cana,
which is the first sign to reveal the glory of Christ (John 2:1–11). The
account includes wine-bearing servants (diakonoi) and a chief steward, or
headwaiter. This is the imagery of a feast, and these servants are table
waiters whose function is to prepare and serve the wine. Obeying an order
from an unexpected source, the mother of Jesus, they become agents and
witnesses of the transformation of water into wine, but also of old life into
new life.2 In the second passage Jesus sends two disciples to prepare the
Passover (Matt. 26:17–19; Mark 14:12–16; Luke 22:7–13). They are a
model for all who prepare, and in particular they suggest the deacons and
others who prepare the altar and set upon it the bread and wine of the
Eucharist, our celebration of the paschal lamb.
In the grand sweep of diakonia and diakonoi that fills the New
Testament, actual deacons play a tiny role. Even when deacons are
mentioned, they may not exercise a formal, cultic office in the community.
As we now know, the three orders did not appear full blown on the Day of
Pentecost; formal offices evolved gradually, at different times and at
different places, during the period in which the Christian scriptures were
written and even afterwards. There is a gap in time, and yet a conceptual
development, between the deacons we hear of in Paul’s letters to the
Philippians and Romans (probably written in the 50s), and the deacons of

Acts (after CE 70) and 1 Timothy (near the end of the first century). When
deacons are mentioned, usually they are linked with bishops, indicating a
direct and personal association.
In the salutation of his letter to the Philippians, Paul greets the episkopoi
kai diakonoi, who, despite the usual translation “bishops and deacons,” may
be simply “overseers and agents.” In Paul’s list of gifts exercised for the
good of the community (Rom. 12:6–8), several gifts suggest roles
associated with deacons from early times; the term diakonia (in NRSV
translated “ministering,” in RSV “serving”) refers to delivering the word of
God. The issue of women as deacons is raised in Romans 16, where Paul
winds up his letter by commending to his readers in Rome “our sister
Phoebe, a deacon [diakonon] of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may
welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever
she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of
myself as well” (16:1–2). Phoebe may be a church emissary in the informal
sense, or she may be a formal deacon. When she travels to Rome with
Paul’s letter, however, she functions in the diaconal role of a messenger or
ambassador acting under the direction of a church leader.3
The later writings refer clearly to a specific office, and by the last third of
the first century we can speak with assurance of deacons in the church. In
Acts 6:1–6 Luke does not use the word diakonos for the seven men
appointed “to wait on tables,” and the passage thus cannot be said to speak
of historical deacons. But he does use words related to diaconal work:
Now during those days when the disciples were increasing in
number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because
their widows were neglected in the daily distribution [diakonia] of
food. And the twelve called together the whole community of the
disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of
God in order to wait on [diakonein] tables.” [Acts 6:1–2]
A diakonia of tables probably refers to serving the word of God, instead
of, or as well as, serving food. The preferred work of the apostles is
similarly described as prayer and “serving [diakonia] the word” (6:4).
Luke’s intention appears not to record the first ordination of deacons in the
infant church but, using a past event in conscious anticipation, to comment

on diakonia and the related ministries of bishops and deacons in his own
time.4
The passage offers guidance in our time also. It tells us that the
community bestows orders for ministry at the direction of its leaders, and
that the selection is a simple, brief process in which the community chooses
the best of many, those “of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom”
(6:3). The community discerns those who have gifts, charismata, from God.
Prior qualification as a faithful and prudent Christian is more important than
competency or training for specific tasks—which are not even mentioned.
The appointment, or ordering, consists of a prayer together with the laying
on of hands by those who preside, which represents solidarity among those
who perform diakonia, or commissioned duties, in the community. Their
deployment is diverse; although originally chosen for ministry at the tables
of Greek-speaking widows, a public function under the direction of the
apostles, Stephen goes on to preaching and martyrdom, while Philip spreads
the good news and baptizes. It is important to recognize that the community
does not ordain simply to fill an occasional need; in the long run the daily
ministerial structure of the community, for the purpose of mission, is more
important than discrete diaconal “jobs.”
In 1 Timothy 3:8–13, a list of qualifications for deacons, reflecting a
church that is struggling to organize itself, also offers guidance for our time.
First, the passage occurs immediately after a similar list for bishops and
thus suggests a close relationship between the two offices. Second, it
reinforces the scriptural evidence of Romans 16:1 that women are suitable
to become deacons, for the writer gives two parallel and similar lists of
qualifications, one for men deacons and one for “women.” Third, the
passage offers clues for selection based on public respect, and for family
life based on elemental decency. Deacons, men and women, must be
serious, discreet, temperate, and faithful. Like all Christians, deacons “must
hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience” (1 Tim. 3:9).
Furthermore, they should be tested to see if they are “blameless,” which
may refer to a private assessment of character or even to a public
examination before election or ratification. Male deacons should be
“married only once” (whether concurrently or consecutively, the author
does not say) and good managers of their families; presumably a similar
standard applies to women. There is no mention of formation or function.
Deacons who serve well “gain a good standing for themselves and great

boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.” This promise does not refer to
advancement to the presbyterate or episcopate, because sequential grades of
Christian office are not mentioned in Scripture and remain foreign to church
life for at least three more centuries.
Although actual deacons of the church are minor figures in the New
Testament, the ancient tradition and theology whereby the Christian
community orders itself constitutes a major element in God’s scheme of
creation. In our time the biblical tradition provides a guide to diakonia and
deacons in the modern church. We need to keep in mind the scriptural
sources. Against servitude to despotic masters stands service to a just and
benevolent God. God’s deliverance of the Hebrews out of oppression and
slavery in Egypt moves them to render mercy and justice and to offer true
worship. God’s deliverance of all people from sin and death, through the
servant of the Lord, Christ on the cross, encourages them to wash each
other’s feet and to break the bread of life.

CHAPTER TWO
THE EARLY CHURCH
In the first three centuries the church adopted two practices that have
inspired the modern revival of deacons. First, while continuing the ancient
tradition of mercy and justice as an obligation of all the faithful, the church
added the practice, in many places, of making deacons responsible for the
institutional administration of charity. Second, the church began to use
deacons as officers of the church, closely attached to the bishop, ordained as
his helpers and co-workers. In the major evolutions of church life in the
fourth and later centuries, however, both practices gradually underwent
drastic changes, as the diaconate declined in importance, lost purpose, and
eventually became absorbed, with other ministries, by the presbyterate. This
concentration of many ministries in one order still affects the life, ministry,
and liturgy of Christian communities. Our contemporary understanding of
the diaconate—and of ministry in general—in the modern church thus rests
partly on issues and problems raised in the early church.
CHARITY AND LOVE
When modern Christians think of service, in the sense of charity, they
often have in mind the church of the first three centuries, especially the first

century, when believers “would sell their possessions and goods and
distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:45). In many ways
this ideal picture of life as a common and sacred bond was real. Early
Christians practiced social charity as individuals and as a community; they
collected funds for the poor, and the deacons administered practical care. In
the local church of each city or central town, small, persecuted groups of
believers lived close to each other and to the neighboring poor. They
collected money for the needy at the Eucharist and communal meals, visited
the sick and those in prison, and sent offerings to Jerusalem and the other
churches.
The writings of the early church fathers strongly emphasize the element
of agape in Christian life. One of the earliest non-canonical documents of
the young church is the Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a
Syrian text from early in the second century (c. 110). It begins with a
statement about two ways, life and death. The way of life is the way of the
great commandment: love God and love your neighbor. The way of life is
closely associated with forgiveness, kindness, abstinence, and generosity. It
is the way of love. About the year 95 Clement of Rome writes: “In love the
Master took hold of us. For the sake of the love he had for us, Jesus Christ
our Lord, by the will of God, gave his blood for us, his flesh for our flesh,
and his life for our lives.”1
The principal purpose of agape, as early Christians understood it, is to
help the poor and others in need. This duty fell equally on all believers. In
the middle of the second century Justin Martyr in his First Apology writes
that the Christians in Rome share their wealth and property with needy
persons. After the Eucharist, Justin says, the president distributes the
collection to orphans and widows, the sick, prisoners, sojourners, and all in
need. Tertullian in his Apology about the year 197 reports that Christians
collect modest amounts of money and expend it
for the burial of the poor, for boys and girls without parents and
destitute, for the aged quietly confined to their homes, for the
shipwrecked; and if there are any in the mines or in the islands or in
the prisons, if it be for the reason that they are worshipers of God,
then they become the foster sons of their confession. But it is
mainly the practice of such a love which leads some to put a brand
upon us. “See,” they say, “how they love one another,” for they

themselves hate each other. “And how ready they are to die for one
another,” they themselves being more inclined to kill each other.
In the early church the Didache’s “way of life” was expressed also
through a communal meal called an agape, or love feast. Practically
speaking, the meal was a means of collecting money and food for social
relief. Presided over by the bishop, or, if he were absent, by a presbyter or a
deacon, the meal included prayers, readings, hymn singing, and the giving
of pieces of blessed bread (not from the Eucharist). The agape meal
incorporated elements of friendship and community, much like a parish
covered-dish supper in the modern church, but its main purpose was charity.
Under the supervision of a presbyter or a deacon, offerings and leftover
food were distributed to the sick, widows, and poor.
Christians also continued the Jewish tradition of individual almsgiving
and other relief, and the rich and privileged were expected to care for the
poor and deprived. But social care was too essential a duty to leave to
spontaneous charity or random philanthropy. The church had a strong
perception of its corporate responsibility for care, and in each local church
the chief agents for charity were deacons acting in the service of the bishop.
After the peace of Constantine in 313, however, the church gradually
shifted from a small and familiar organism to a large and often remote
institution. Although Christians in many places continued to practice agape,
the church’s picture of itself as a loving people became hazy. As an imperial
institution, with a bureaucracy, terminology, and practices modeled on those
of Rome, it absorbed itself in broad issues of doctrine and structure.
Eventually, by the middle ages, the official exercise of charity became the
obligation chiefly of parish priests and monastic communities. The role of
deacons in the church eventually changed to reflect this shift in emphasis.2
ORDAINED TO THE BISHOP
In the thirty years between Paul of Tarsus and Clement of Rome, the
diaconate became established firmly in the young churches; in the second
through the fourth centuries, it accumulated functions and symbols that
have endured to the twentieth. When diakonoi were interpreted as the

principal symbols of Jesus in the church, deacons began to acquire
theological significance.
Three writers near the end of the first century mention deacons. The
Didache instructs each local church: “Elect for yourselves, therefore,
bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, humble and not lovers of money,
truthful and proven; for they also serve you in the ministry of the prophets
and teachers.” The deacons’ assistance to their bishops presumably includes
service at the eucharistic table. Clement of Rome introduces the typology,
later widely copied, of the bishop and presbyter as the Hebrew priest, while
the deacon is the Christian equivalent of the Hebrew Levite—a ritual waiter
in a divinely ordered cult. The Shepherd of Hermas, dated early in the
second century, depicts the church as a tower under construction in which
the square, white fitting-stones are apostles, bishops, teachers, and deacons.
Centuries later this metaphor reappears in some icons of deacons, who hold
a church building in the left hand (and usually a censer in the right hand).
The Shepherd of Hermas also rebukes deacons who plunder widows and
orphans and otherwise profit from charity. These early documents tell us
that deacons were elected as important officers in the church, acting in a
community structure that included oversight of relief for the poor and
needy.
Ignatius of Antioch, on his journey to martyrdom in Rome, wrote letters
to seven churches. These letters mention deacons frequently; they are his
“fellow servants,” integral and respected officers in the church and personal
assistants to the bishop. Ignatius is the first Christian to propose a symbolic
structure for the three orders: “In like manner let everyone respect the
deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the
bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and
college of apostles.” As sacred symbols, derived from the relationship of
Jesus with his Father, deacons are intimately connected with their bishop.
They exercise important functions in liturgy and charity. In their active role
within the sacred ministry of bishop, presbyters, and deacons, they are
“dispensers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ” (a variant of the “mystery of
the faith” in 1 Timothy). Yet they are not deacons of food and drink but
officers of the church of God.”3 The two deacons who accompanied
Ignatius on his journey carried his letters and the story of his martyrdom to
the seven churches.

Still another writer of the second century who comments on deacons is
Justin Martyr, whose First Apology gives us the first clear description of the
liturgical duties of a deacon:
After the president has given thanks and all the people have shouted
their assent, those whom we call deacons give to each one present
to partake of the eucharistic bread and wine and water; and to those
who are absent they carry away a portion.
Justin doesn’t mention other liturgical functions. Apparently at this time
the gospel was sung by a reader, but we do not know who led the
intercessions. It is worth noting that deacons administered both the bread
and the wine (according to ancient custom, mixed with water for sobriety).
In a letter supposedly written by Clement of Rome, deacons are to be “as
eyes to the bishop” by finding out who is about to sin. Deacons are also to
keep order in Christian meetings and inform “the multitude” about the sick,
so that they may visit them and supply their needs under the bishop’s
direction.
We can tell a great deal about the meaning and functions of deacons in
the early church from the Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus, a
presbyter of Rome, about the year 215. This work, of immense influence in
modern revisions of liturgy, not only reveals the prevailing customs in
Rome at the start of the third century, but also gives an indication of church
order throughout the whole ancient church over an extended period of time.
Like a bishop or presbyter, a deacon is elected by all the people of the local
church and ordained on the Lord’s Day. At the ordination all give assent,
and the bishop lays hands on the person chosen, in silence, while all pray
for the descent of the Spirit. The author comments:
In ordaining a deacon, the bishop alone lays hands, because [a
deacon] is ordained not to the priesthood but to the servanthood of
the bishop, to carry out commands. [A deacon] does not take part in
the council of the clergy, but attends to duties and makes known to
the bishop what is necessary. . . .
After the silence, the bishop prays:

God, who created all things and set them in order by the Word,
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom you sent to serve your will
and to show us your desires, give the Holy Spirit of grace and care
and diligence to this your servant, whom you have chosen to serve
your church and to offer [to bring forward] in your holy of holies
the gifts which are offered you by your appointed high priests, so
that serving without blame and with a pure heart, he may be
counted worthy of this high office and glorify you through your
Servant Jesus Christ.4
These accounts of ordination rites in ancient Rome have several
implications for the church in our time:
Selection. God chooses, as the ordination prayer says, but the choice is
wielded by the people of God. The laos elect a deacon. We do not know
exactly how the process of selection took place, but apparently it involved a
gathering of all the Christian people in a city, the local church, who in some
way chose one of their number. The bishop’s role in the process was to
ordain on the next convenient Sunday—implying that he could also refuse
to ordain. Selection was thus swift and concentrated in the local assembly
of Christians, whereas in most churches today selection is lengthy and
spread among several select committees.
Terminology. In the early house churches “priesthood” referred
primarily to Christ. Later it became the term for bishops, and finally for
bishops and presbyters. In this development “priesthood” and “clergy”
included the bishop (the high priest) and his presbyters, but not his deacons.
Although deacons did not belong to the clergy, they were also not members
of a separate group called laity. At that time laos still meant all the people
of God. The distinction between clergy (kleros, or those on the rolls) and
laity (laos, or people) was only beginning to be worked out. (By the end of
the third century, deacons and maybe others were considered members of a
distinct body called clergy.) Like all Christians, deacons were members of
the laos, ordained to diakonia but not to the priestly college called kleros.
This early practice stands in contrast to the later, and still current, treatment
of clergy and laity as two separate bodies within the one church.
Relationships. Ordination rites symbolize ministerial relationships on
several different primary levels. In ancient Rome, the laos elected bishops,
presbyters, and deacons; hence all three orders had a fundamental

relationship with the baptized body of Christ, from whose ranks the
ordinand came. This ancient practice has important implications today for
connections among church leaders. Within the orders of both bishops and
presbyters there is strong collegiality as the “priesthood” (of the bishop).
The ministerial relationship of deacons, the diaconal college, is primarily
with the bishop and not with each other or with the presbyters. The role of
deacons as members of the bishop’s household or staff, however, provides
them with collegial harmony as the “servanthood of the bishop.” A healthy
community of deacons means healthy deacons.
Theology. The opening phrases of the ordination prayer set forth a
theology of the diaconate based on Christ as eternal Word and incarnate
Servant. God “created all things and set them in order by the Word,” and
God the Father sent Christ “to serve your will and to show us your desires.”
Word and Servant are thus scriptural types of the church and the deacon.
God’s ordering of creation is a type of God’s ordering of the church, and the
service of Christ (who reveals God and carries out the work of ordered
creation) is a type of the service of the deacon. Deacon is to bishop as Word
is to God, servant Christ to Father. Like Ignatius of Antioch, therefore, the
author of Apostolic Tradition provides a basis for the symbolic appreciation
of deacons today.
Functions. The ordination prayer also reveals two areas of function.
First, the deacon ordained to the servanthood (or service or ministry,
probably diakonia in the lost Greek original) of the bishop is “to serve” the
church. The term probably refers not primarily to care of the poor and
needy but rather to ecclesial roles such as speaking for, acting for, and
attending on the bishop in several important areas. These areas included
social care but were not limited to them. Second, the deacon is “to offer”—
or, preferably, to bring forward—in the Eucharist the gifts offered by the
high priest (bishop). These are two different but related liturgical offerings.
The deacon presents the people’s offerings of bread and wine mixed with
water to the bishop, and the bishop offers them to God in the eucharistic
prayer. Thus we have the ancient foundation for an ordained ministry that
must function both in the world and in the church, as focused in the actions
and ministerial relationships of the liturgy.
Another third-century document, the Didascalia Apostolorum (Teaching
of the Apostles), paints a rich picture of the evolving office of deacon, both
male and female.5 Here the deacon’s work for the bishop clearly included

social welfare: visiting all in need and informing the bishop about those in
distress, accepting alms for the bishop, helping the bishop supervise the
order of widows. In this diakonia of agape (ministry of love) the deacon
worked closely with the bishop, “a single soul dwelling in two bodies,”
often as a full-time, paid factotum, and this activity carried over into the
liturgy. One deacon stood by the oblations, and another guarded the door as
the people entered. The deacon inside saw that each person went to the
proper place (in a congregation segregated by ecclesiastical status, sex, and
age) and prevented whispering, sleeping, laughter, and signaling. The
deacon made announcements and at the kiss of peace called out, “Is there
anyone who holds a grudge against his companion?” In baptism the bishop
alone invoked the name of God, but both bishop and deacons were involved
with undressing, oiling, completing the oiling, dressing, and giving ethical
instruction. In Gaza women deacons stayed for eight days with newly
baptized young women who were orphans. In short, deacons did whatever
needed to be done.6
The deacon described in early church orders and by the author of
Apostolic Tradition and many others comes alive in the person of Laurence
of Rome. The church of Rome limited its deacons to seven, based on the
precedent of Acts 6, and each administered a diaconal district, one of the
seven hills of Rome. As the diaconus episcopi, or bishop’s deacon, with
especially close and personal ties to his bishop, Laurence had custody of
alms for the poor. On 7 August 258, bishop Sixtus II and his seven deacons
were arrested in the Roman catacombs. As Sixtus and the six other deacons
were being carried away for beheading, Laurence cried after him,
“Regarding him to whom you entrusted the consecration of the Savior’s
blood, to whom you have granted fellowship in partaking of the sacraments,
would you refuse him a sharing in your death?”7 (In less stilted English this
is perhaps better translated: “Holy priest, don’t leave me! We shared the
blood of Christ. Let’s share each other’s blood”) Laurence was kept alive
because he knew where the silver and gold were. Finally he gathered the
poor, the lame, and the blind for whom he had cared, showed them to the
city prefect, and said, “These are the treasures of the church.” He was
martyred on August 10, supposedly roasted alive on a gridiron but probably
beheaded like his bishop.
Another early deacon with close ties to his bishop was Vincent of
Saragossa, martyred on 22 January 304. Vincent was not only the eyes and

ears of his bishop, but literally his mouth. Because Valerius stuttered badly,
Vincent often preached for him. According to legend, they were arrested by
the governor of Spain, threatened with torture and death, and pressured to
renounce their faith. Vincent said, “Father, if you order me, I will speak.”
Valerius replied, “Son, as I have committed you to dispense the word of
God, so I now charge you to answer in vindication of the faith which we
defend.” Vincent defied the governor and was tortured to death.
As with the men, the legends of women deacon saints of the early church
tell us more than any other document. In addition to Phoebe, these saints
include a prominent martyr, the aged Apollonia, burned to death by a mob
in Alexandria on 2 February 249. Refusing to renounce the faith, she
walked into a bonfire her tormentors had set. Because they first knocked out
her teeth, she became the patron of dentists and toothache victims.
According to an apocryphal legend in the early church, the female martyr
Thekla was converted in the 50s or 60s at Iconium, became a deacon
(perhaps), and after much persecution for her dedication to virginity, was
martyred at the age of ninety. Thekla was immensely popular in the early
church. The Orthodox honor her as the first woman martyr, parallel to
Stephen, with a feast day on September 23.
Scholars may question the historical accuracy of these legends about
Laurence and Vincent, Apollonia and Thekla, and other early martyrs, but
their stories tell us a good deal about deacons in the early church. They
stood close to their bishop, they brought help to the poor and brought the
word to the people, and they held the mystery of the faith with a clear
conscience, even to death.
The end of the third century and beginning of the fourth was a time of
great change for the church and its deacons. After Constantine and his co-
emperor adopted a policy of toleration for the Christian church in 313,
which thus began to grow, new rules evolved to define the roles of deacons.
Some of these governed the moral and sexual conduct of presbyters and
deacons. In about 250 Cyprian and other bishops had written with approval
of the excommunication of a deacon “who dallied often with a virgin,”
while later on there may also have been concern about nepotism. At the end
of the third century, the reform-minded Council of Elvira tried to impose
celibacy with the rule, widely ignored, that bishops, presbyters, and deacons
“are to keep themselves away from their wives and are not to beget
children,” while the Council of Ancyra in 314 set the rule that deacons may

marry after ordination only if they announce their intention to marry before
ordination; otherwise they are to be deposed. The early purpose of celibacy
was to prevent church property from getting into private hands.
Rules governing clerical conduct were repeated and reinforced by the
Council of Nicaea in 325. No cleric may have a woman living with him,
except his mother, sister, aunt, or other woman beyond suspicion (Canon 4).
Because of “great disorder and contentions.” no cleric is allowed “to move
from city to city” (Canon 15). Specifically about deacons, Canon 18 reveals
a drift in practice and is ominous for future discipline: Deacons must keep
within their rank, not sit with the presbyters, and not give communion to
presbyters, for they are “the servants of the bishop and . . . less than
presbyters.” By the end of the fourth century, a male deacon is defined in
negative terms. He may not bless, baptize, or offer the Eucharist, although
he may excommunicate those of lesser rank. A subdeacon, lector, cantor,
and deaconess may do even less, “for they are the inferior of deacons.”8
The church of this period seemed more interested in hierarchical rank than
in service of the bishop defined as ministry carrying out the work of God.
The most celebrated eastern deacon of this period was Ephrem, whom
the Syrians called “the harp of the Holy Spirit.” He may have accompanied
his bishop, James of Nisibis, to the Council of Nicaea. After the fall of
Nisibis to the Persians in 363, he retired to a cave near Edessa, where he
lived a harsh life, preached in the city, cared for the poor and sick, and
wrote hymns, sung by a choir of women, as a weapon against the Gnostic
and Arian heresies. In combating heresy, Ephrem considered himself an
agent of his bishop. His writings in Syriac are famous both for their
scriptural inspiration and metaphorical style. Still another Syrian poet was
the deacon Romanos the Melodist, who in the sixth century moved to
Constantinople, where he wrote metrical sermons and hymns. Some of his
kontakia, brief hymns in the form of prayer, are still sung in eastern
churches.
Several women deacons are remembered partly because of famous
relatives or friends, such as Nonna, mother of the bishop Gregory
Nazianzus. In another prominent family of the fourth century, the bishops
Gregory of Nyssa and Basil the Great had as their elder sister the deacon
Macrina the Younger, famous in her own right as head of a community of
nuns on the family estate in Cappadocia; her friend the deacon Lampadia
led a chorus of virgins. In Constantinople the deacon Olympias, a rich

widow, ran a convent called the Olympiados that included four deacons and
some two hundred fifty virgins. She taught catechumens and cared for
widows, the old, the sick, and the poor. When John Chrysostom, the new
bishop, arrived in 397, she became his friend, advisor, and benefactor, and
upon his exile she suffered persecution from his enemies.
The church of the West apparently had few women deacons, and they
were mainly in Gaul. The most famous Gallican deacon is Radegund of
Poitiers, who died in 587. As a child she was kidnapped from Thuringia and
eventually forced to marry the brutish king Clothaire I of the Franks. She
endured him for ten years until he murdered her brother. Radegund then
fled to Noyon, where she persuaded the bishop to ordain her a deacon, and
began a ministry of caring for the sick, including lepers, and visiting
prisoners. After her ordination she founded Holy Cross monastery near
Poitiers, which at her death numbered some two hundred nuns. Her friend
the poet Venantius Honorius Fortunatus wrote hymns in honor of the sliver
of the true Cross housed in her monastery, Vexilla Regis prodeunt and
Pange lingua (The Hymnal 1982, Hymns 161, 162, 165, and 166).
Deacons did not vanish after the fourth century, and no “Golden Age” (as
some have dubbed the first three centuries) gave way to a “Leaden Age.”
Every age is both golden and leaden. Few scholars, however, have traced
the steps of deacons over that great expanse of history, the middle ages and
early modern age. The reality is that deacons remained visible and active in
the lives of many parish churches and cathedrals, in big cities and small
villages. As Christian life increasingly focused on the Mass and on those
who celebrated that holy sacrifice, originally called presbyters and later
priests, the diaconate shrank in both permanence and substance. The
practice of sequential ordination—ordaining persons to a prior order in
preparation for a later order—originated in the early church as a means of
gaining experience in ordained ministry. In a common pattern during the
first millennium, persons were ordained as deacons at age twenty-five
before ordination as presbyters five years later. The practice was not
universal, however, and in Rome for several centuries none of the powerful
seven (later fourteen) deacons became presbyters, which would have been a
step down. Instead, several of them rose to the papacy without passing
through the presbyterate. In the twelfth century sequential ordination
became a canonical obligation in the West, and it also put on a theological
cloak: the diaconate was regarded as necessary for priestly character, and

hence as indelible. Once a deacon, always a deacon, as some still say, but
deacons as priests, not as deacons.9
THE LESSONS OF THE EARLY DIACONATE
The development of the diaconate in the first three centuries and the
changes over subsequent centuries are not isolated incidents in the history
of the early church. They have meaning today, shedding light on issues in
the modern church and providing guidance for our understanding.
One of these is the question of women deacons. The Episcopal Church
and most other provinces of the Anglican Communion ordain women as
deacons. The Roman Catholic Church resists ordaining them, citing a
tradition of masculinity in the order, and the Orthodox, despite their
tradition of women deacons, even in recent times, are hesitant. Even in
places where women deacons are accepted, they are sometimes treated as
inferior to men deacons. The historical evidence, however, supports the
ordination of women as deacons. In the early church women deacons
functioned in ways parallel to the role of men deacons, caring for women
and children as men cared for men, although they often had subordinate
status. Numerous and widespread in the East, especially in Syria and
Greece, women deacons flourished in the fourth through the seventh
centuries and continued to function in Constantinople until the twelfth
century. Although less numerous in the West, they were ordained in Gaul
and other areas where women exercised authority. There may even have
been a few in Rome, where Jerome corresponded with a woman deacon but
never admitted the existence of women deacons. The ordination rites for
women paralleled those for men, and they received the orarion, or stole.
Frequently these women were the wives of men deacons or presbyters, until
mandatory celibacy abolished clerical families. Some were the wives of
bishops; when the man was made a bishop and separated from his wife, the
woman, if suited for the office, became a deacon. Some were abbesses, who
by custom had to be deacons.
In the East, men and women deacons functioned both pastorally and
liturgically. In the Eucharist women deacons ministered together in church,
oversaw and made announcements to the women, who were seated off to
one side or in the gallery, led their responses, supervised their offerings, and

administered their communion. They arranged the lamps, washed the
vessels, and mixed the water and wine in the chalice. In liturgies composed
only of women, they read the lessons and taught. In baptism, in which the
candidates were nude, they anointed and clothed the female neophytes.
They took communion to the housebound and chaperoned interviews
between male clerics and women. The Didascalia, expanding on Ignatius of
Antioch, says that the woman deacon stands “in the position of the Holy
Spirit.”
In the West, after about the fourth century, the position of women
deacons appears to have suffered as a result of the high regard in which
virgins were held, a regard not extended to widows. When women deacons
reached Gaul, typically it was widows who became deacons. Most likely
their duties were similar to those in the East, with an emphasis on teaching.
The document of Nicaea has something to tell us about the status of women
deacons. In mentioning the problem of the Paulianists, anti-Trinitarian
heretics who are returning to the church, Canon 19 of Nicaea states that
they are to be rebaptized, and their clergy reordained or deposed.
“However, we note concerning those who have assumed the garb of
deaconess: because they have not had any ordination, they are to be
numbered among the laity.”10 The feminine form diakonissa appears here
for the first time in a legal document. By referring to the garbed but
unordained heretics as lay persons, the canon implies that ordained women
deacons (who also wear special dress) are members of the clergy.
After the fourth century, presbyters became parish priests, and bishops
became the administrators of large dioceses. With this change, only a few
highly placed deacons could be the eyes and ears of the bishop, and most
deacons became instead clerics in transit to the priesthood. Before, deacons
were the agents of the bishop’s oversight of agape in the parish; after, they
tended to be actors playing a liturgical bit part. This shift resulted in a new
distinction between diocesan and parish deacons, one that has reappeared in
our time. Before the fourth century, deacons in a church or parish had been
a small group attached to the bishop, like Laurence of Rome, who is a
classic example of the early diaconate. After the peace of Constantine,
however, deacons became scattered throughout the diocese and served as
pastoral assistants to presbyters. Eventually they became detached from
their bishop, were seen as inferior to presbyters, and functioned mainly in

the liturgy—servants not so much of agape in the fullest sense as of sacred
rites alone, on the threshold of the priesthood.
We have a similar situation in the modern church. Because bishops are
chief pastors of dioceses, not pastors of parishes, requiring deacons to serve
directly under the bishop means something vastly different from what it
meant to Laurence or Vincent. Parish pastors in most denominations
function much as early bishops did—except that they may not ordain. The
question for the modern church is twofold: first, how is the deacon to serve
adequately under both bishop and priest, and second, how is the bishop to
get back in the business of overseeing agape?
Another issue facing the contemporary church is the balance of roles in
the liturgy according to order and appropriate function. In the second
century, the scriptural definition of diakonos as chief factotum was fully
acted out in the Eucharist—deacons set the table and served the bread and
wine. In the third century, deacons invited the people to exchange the kiss
of peace, received the offerings of bread and wine, and brought them to the
bishop, but they served only the wine. By the fourth century, diaconal
functions expanded into the liturgy of the word. Deacons began to represent
angels and messengers as well as table waiters. They proclaimed the gospel
(formerly read by a reader), sang litanies of intercession, announced stages
of the liturgy, and at the paschal vigil blessed the candle.
Gradually, however, priests took over the diaconal functions. This
assumption resulted in a loss to both orders, and hence in a loss of
symbolism for the church. As the priesthood reached to include within itself
all ministries, it lost focus and priestly presence. The main priestly function,
singing the eucharistic prayer, became reduced to a mostly inaudible
mumble in an action barely visible to the congregation. As the diaconate
became absorbed into the priesthood, as a step on the hierarchical pyramid,
it too lost presence, the special significance of those who are publicly
visible as agents of the church and who spend their lives in active service.
The roles of priest and deacon became unbalanced.
In modern liturgies throughout the West, the church has recovered almost
everything deacons slowly accumulated over the first four centuries. The
issue facing the church now is keeping a balance among a diversity of many
roles. Deacons may share some of their role with other members of the
laos; the Episcopal Church does not restrict the prayers of the people or the
administration of the sacrament to deacons. Some other Anglican churches,

following the practice in the first three centuries, will even allow any
baptized person to proclaim the gospel. Bishops and presbyters may
relinquish to others some of their (usually minor) functions in the liturgy,
but the other members of the laos also need to show restraint by respecting
the liturgical tradition of the early church. Liturgy should accurately
symbolize both the priesthood of Christ and the diakonia carried out on the
cross and in the world.
The issue of diversity of roles, however, deals with far more than orderly
worship. Liturgy reflects the entire life of the church, and the balance of
roles in the liturgical assembly reveals all too accurately how the bishop,
presbyters, deacons, and all the faithful of a diocese relate to each other,
minister in the church and the world, and serve the will of God.

CHAPTER THREE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH: EARLY DEACONS
Until recent decades, the deacon most churchgoers saw and knew was a
young man in an interim state. After graduating from seminary, he awaited
his ordination to the priesthood, passed a brief internship, and learned his
craft from an older, wiser priest. This temporary office inherited from the
classic diaconate only the name and liturgy of deacon. By its nature it was
intended neither to provide diakonia to the poor and needy, nor to assist the
bishop in important matters, but to season apprentice clerics in sacerdotal
and—particularly after the Reformation—pastoral ministry. This view of
the diaconate was common to the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox,
and some protestant churches. But early in the nineteenth century, renewal
movements, evangelical and catholic revivals, the rediscovery of patristic
sources, new attitudes toward the poor, and new opportunities in mission
fields slowly caused the churches to respond with experiments in diaconal
ministry.
Since the early nineteenth century, the Episcopal Church in particular has
seen four types, or “waves,” of deacons: missionary or indigenous deacons
(male), deaconesses (female), perpetual deacons (male), and deacons today
(male and female).1 These categories are not neatly exclusive; to a large
extent they overlap. But they demonstrate that the order of deacons has
developed and changed as the church has responded to the needs of the

world in different historical circumstances. In this chapter I will speak of
the first three waves, the early deacons who preceded the deacons of today.
MISSIONARY OR INDIGENOUS DEACONS
The missionary or indigenous deacon, existing from the 1840s through
the 1930s and usually ordained on an ad hoc basis, was virtually unknown
to most Episcopalians in settled parts of the nation, and was rare even on
the frontier. His ministry was diverse and often eccentric, as the following
stories will reveal. The first deacon in the Episcopal Church of whom we
have extensive knowledge worked in what is now the diocese of Western
North Carolina. In 1842 Bishop Levi S. Ives of North Carolina decided to
begin mission work in a wild area near Boone where two valleys cross. He
bought two thousand acres and called the area Valle Crucis. There Ives
established a monastic community called the Society of the Holy Cross, and
for the first monk he professed a farmer, William West Skiles.
Skiles was born in North Dakota and came to Valle Crucis in 1844 at the
age of thirty-seven. He supervised the farming operation and dairy herd,
taught school, kept store, practiced medicine, raised funds to build the local
Church of St. John the Baptist (contributing a third of the $700 construction
cost), and became the spiritual leader of the community. Bishop Ives
ordained Skiles a deacon in August 1847. In 1852 Ives resigned his office,
sold the land, and became a Roman Catholic. The monastic order and
school disbanded, but Skiles was the only one of the original monks not to
marry. “Brother Skiles,” as he was called, continued to care for the poor
valley people until he died on 8 December 1862, and his body was buried
next to the church he helped to build.2
Skiles was a missionary deacon, ordained to provide for religious life on
the frontier. As the American people pushed west, beyond the settled life of
the eastern seaboard, the need grew for trained missionaries who were part
of frontier society. There were probably priests and deacons ordained
casually to fill the needs of remote communities. Rather late, in 1871, by a
resolution of General Convention, the church finally made canonical
provision for these deacons. From 1871 through 1904, under this canon,
men were ordained as deacons for missionary fields and ethnic—especially
Native American—communities to which they were indigenous.

Two outstanding examples of missionary or indigenous deacons ordained
in the late nineteenth century are Milnor Jones and David Pendleton
Oakerhater. In 1895 Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire of North Carolina
decided to revive the Valle Crucis mission around another fascinating
character. This was Milnor Jones, born in 1848 of a prominent Maryland
family, who fought as a Confederate soldier and then became a lawyer in
Texas before suffering injury in a riding accident. Left with a limp, he
devoted the rest of his life to God. After graduating from seminary at
Sewanee and being ordained deacon in 1876, he decided to remain a deacon
and, in the words of his bishop, to make himself “all things to the lowly
whom he had chosen for his own.” Most of his work was among the poor
people of Western North Carolina, in 1879–92 around Tryon and in 1894–
96 at Valle Crucis. He died in Baltimore in 1916.
We know about Jones from his biographer, Bishop Cheshire. Milnor
Jones, Deacon and Missionary (actually a long obituary, dated 1916) was
published in the diocesan newspaper and later as a pamphlet. Jones was
outspoken, crusty, and cantankerous, qualities that delighted the bishop. He
was especially fond of denouncing the local Baptists and Methodists, and
sometimes came close to inciting a riot. One mob of unruly men even
threatened the bishop. Nevertheless, Bishop Cheshire took delight in a
deacon “who did not scruple on occasion to tell his bishop that the sermon
he [the bishop] had just preached, ‘did no more good than pouring water on
a duck’s back.’ ” An undisciplined oddball who cared nothing for settled
work, and who preferred to minister in backwoods places, Jones traveled
the mountain trails in the saddle, made friends of all he met, handed out
prayer books, baptized everyone he could (often by immersion in a nearby
creek), preached wild sermons from house to house, and only on rare
occasion encountered his bishop, a priest, or any other member of the
Episcopal establishment.
Another early deacon was David Pendleton Oakerhater of Oklahoma,
whose Cheyenne name means “Sundancer” or “Making Medicine.”
Oakerhater was a war chief; as a young man, he distinguished himself for
bravery as a member of an elite Cheyenne warrior society. After the futile
battle of Adobe Walls in 1874, in which warriors of five tribes attacked a
camp of white buffalo hunters in Texas, he was captured as one of the
ringleaders and taken in chains, without trial, to the cavalry post at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma. Later he was moved to Fort Marion, an old military prison at St.

Augustine, Florida. In prison Oakerhater showed his natural leadership and
was placed in charge of Indian youth there. He also drew sketches of
Cheyenne life, using colored pencils and paper, and gave archery and art
lessons to visitors. Mainly through his friendship with the young daughter
of Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio, he converted to Christianity,
was sent to upstate New York to receive a Christian education, and was
baptized on 6 October 1878.
Ordained deacon on 7 June 1881, Oakerhater left immediately for the
Cheyenne nation of Oklahoma accompanied by a white priest, John B.
Wicks. He returned to the people he had once led in war. When he met their
leaders for the first time as a Christian he spoke in words long remembered
among the Cheyenne. His address began:
Men, you all know me. You remember when I led you out to war I
went first and what I told you was true. Now I have been away to
the east and I have learned about another captain, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and he is my leader. He goes first, and all he tells me is true.
I come back to my people to tell you to go with me now in this new
road, a war that makes all for peace, and where we [ever] have only
victory.3
In the Indian territory of northwest Oklahoma, Oakerhater touched the
lives of hundreds of Cheyenne through his counseling, preaching, baptizing,
and teaching. Within three years the whole Cheyenne nation converted to
Christ. Among the new Christians was Whirlwind, a great peace chief, who
at the turn of the century gave land for the new Episcopal mission at an old
Indian village near Watonga. This religious and educational center for the
Cheyenne still bears the name of Whirlwind Mission of the Holy Family. In
1904 Oakerhater opened a school at the mission that lasted until 1917, when
the church closed it under government pressure.
The priest left after three years because of ill health, and soon Oakerhater
was alone. The leaders of the Episcopal Church abandoned work among the
Indians in Oklahoma. For twelve years Oakerhater was the only ordained
Episcopalian in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Even after he retired in
1917 on a small pension, he continued to counsel and preach, marry the
young and bury the dead, baptize, visit the sick, and find food for the
hungry, until he died in 1931.

Many other Native Americans ministered as deacons among their people.
By the 1860s, Dakota deacons included Daniel C. Hemans, Philip Johnson
Wahpehan (called Philip the Deacon), and Christian Taopi (a former
warrior, called Wounded One). The Kiowa deacon Paul Zotom traveled
with Oakerhater on his trip west in 1881, but his work soon failed. Thomas
P. Ashley ministered among the Sioux around the turn of the century until
he was divorced in 1907. A Canadian of mixed Indian and white ancestry,
Wellington Jefferson Salt worked with the Chippewa from 1911 until his
death in 1920. Athabascan deacons include William Loola of Fort Yukon,
Alaska, ordained in 1903, and Albert Tritt, ordained in the 1920s.4
These missionary or indigenous deacons of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries functioned more as priests than as deacons. Often
solitary, exercising their ministries without oversight and rarely in contact
with their bishop, these men kept the Christian faith alive among their
people. They presided over a community and built it up by preaching,
teaching, and caring. These deacons administered the sacraments in every
way except the one essential to leading a community in the complete
Christian life: they were not permitted to preside at the Eucharist.
DEACONESSES
The deaconess movement arose out of a sincere desire in many churches
to organize women to work with the poor and sick. In the early nineteenth
century this desire emerged in the Lutheran churches of Germany and
helped shape a definition of diakonia that has lasted until the present: care
of the needy. In the middle ages, social care was handled mainly by parish
priests and monastic orders, but by the sixteenth century this system of
charity had begun to break down. In the early nineteenth century, in the
rubble of the Napoleonic wars and the human wreckage of the industrial
age, secular and Christian social reformers drew attention to the plight of
the poor, and both the evangelical revival and the Oxford movement
awakened interest in social care as a crucial concern of the church. In
Germany in 1831 the Lutheran pastor Theodor Fliedner founded a training
institution at Kaiserswerth for women deaconesses after the New Testament
model. Their pastors “consecrated” them, although Lutherans did not
consider this ordination. These women began with ministries such as

visiting the sick and poor in the parish, teaching young children and girls,
and bringing ill children back to their infirmary for nursing. They shaped
the Kaiserswerth institution into the deaconess mother-house (sisterhood or
association) movement, exercising a ministry of social welfare that
flourishes to this day. In 1849 Fliedner brought four Lutheran deaconesses
to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and began a work that continues in the twenty-
first century. Florence Nightingale trained at Kaiserswerth in 1851 and
returned to England to found a secular school for nurses.
Anglicans in England and America soon attempted to imitate Fliedner,
and in England a group of women dedicated themselves in 1861 “to
minister to the necessities of the church” as “servants of the church.” On 18
July 1862 Bishop Archibald Campbell Tait of London (who had visited
Kaiserswerth in 1855) admitted Elizabeth Ferard to the office of deaconess
with the laying on of hands. Ferard was thus the first woman deacon in the
Church of England after a lapse of several centuries. She founded a
community of women in 1861 that gradually grew into a religious order of
deaconesses still in existence, the (formerly Deaconess) Community of St.
Andrew.5
In America interest in the German deaconess movement began earlier
than in England but did not immediately result in ordained deaconesses. In
1845 William Augustus Muhlenberg, rector of the Church of the Holy
Communion in New York City, formed a sisterhood based on the German
model. The first formal admission of deaconesses in the Episcopal Church
took place forty years later in Alabama. The first bishop of Alabama,
Nicholas H. Cobbs, planned a cathedral in Montgomery with a group of
institutions around the building and, more important, around the bishop as
“the heart” of the diocese. These were to include a house for deacons (for
missionary and pastoral work) and a house for deaconesses (for care of the
sick and poor), but the Civil War interrupted these plans. In late December
1864 his successor, Richard Hooker Wilmer, “instituted”—without laying
on hands—three deaconesses, who formed a sisterhood after the
Kaiserswerth model, with a constitution and rules approved by the bishop,
and set to work caring for the many orphans left by the war. By 1885
Wilmer had overcome his scruples about imposing hands, and he set apart
two deaconesses, Mary W. Johnson on Epiphany and Mary Caroline
Friggell on St. Peter’s Day. Strictly speaking, they were the first ordained
deaconesses in the Episcopal Church.6

In 1889 General Convention passed Canon 10, “Of Deaconesses,” which
remained in effect, occasionally amended, until it was repealed in 1970. The
existence of the canon was the result of the lobbying efforts, starting in
1871, of William Reed Huntington, rector of Grace Church, New York City.
His parish immediately provided facilities for deaconesses and established a
training center called Huntington House. Other training schools were
opened in San Francisco, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Philadelphia,
Berkeley, and Chicago. Most of these, funded by the diocese or local
supporters, encountered financial difficulties and soon closed. Some
became general training schools. In 1953, with the help of Millard Street,
bishop suffragan of Chicago, the Central House for Deaconesses was
established in Evanston, Illinois. This continued in existence until it
changed its name in 1974 to the National Center for the Diaconate.
Deaconesses in the Episcopal Church were “unmarried or widowed”—
that is, celibate—for most of the existence of the order. A substantial
change in the canon occurred in 1964, when General Convention, in
response to the spirit of the times, removed the phrase “unmarried or
widowed.” But the ancient order, as restored in the Episcopal Church, had
already begun to decline. Thus the final form of Canon 51, “Of
Deaconesses,” adopted in 1964, begins:
A woman of devout character and proved fitness may be ordered
Deaconess by any Bishop of this Church, subject to the provisions
of this Canon.
The canon goes on to list charitable and pastoral functions. A deaconess
is to care for “the sick, the afflicted, and the poor,” to instruct in the faith, to
prepare candidates for baptism and confirmation, to “work among women
and children,” and to “organize and carry on social work” (including the
education of women and children). They are also to assist at baptism, to
read the daily offices and litany “in the absence of the Minister,” and when
licensed by the bishop “to give instruction or deliver addresses at such
services.”
Above all else, the order of deaconesses was a service order with a strong
sense of community. Although its members often lived apart and in lonely
circumstances, they supported each other in prayer, giving, and the common
life. It was a society of women church workers, an historic order of

deaconesses, and a quasi-religious order—a community of sisters with
distinctive dress and pectoral cross, austere lifestyle, and concept of social
work. Although the dress appeared to many to be a religious habit, it was
modeled on Kaiserswerth apparel or common female dress of the early
nineteenth century, with a simple veil and collar. In England celibacy was
not required except in the Community of St. Andrew; there was a married
deaconess as early as the 1880s. Deaconesses worked in many different
settings: as parish assistants, teachers, institutional and school
administrators, prison and hospital chaplains, inner-city workers, and
missionaries, often in remote areas such as Appalachia and Nevada. A few
were wealthy, but most lived in poverty and performed hard work for low
wages over many years of loyal dedication.
One important source for the work of deaconesses is the dozen diaries
and hundreds of letters, pictures, and other artifacts of Mary Douglass
Burnham (1832–1904), which her great-granddaughter found in a trunk in
the attic. Long before she was set apart as deaconess, Burnham helped to
found the Dakota League in Massachusetts in 1864, in support of Indian
missions, and in the 1870s she went to work among the Ponka tribe in
Nebraska. There she taught women and girls to sew. Her letters indicate the
practical nature of Christian charity which deaconesses had to perform. In
one letter she writes, “Between women sitting on the floor, some with
babies strapped to a board beside them or older ones crawling around, it
requires considerable dexterity to get from one side to the other without
doing any damage.” She also assisted the sick and dying, although she
knew “so little about sickness that I don’t venture much beyond Nitro for
fever and Quinine for chills.” Throughout her life she remained keenly
interested in Indian work and influenced Oakerhater in his conversion to
Christianity. Later she served as head of several charity institutions and
hospitals until shortly before her death.7
During World War II another deaconess, Julia A. Clark, spent five years
in Yunan, China, in the war-torn district of Hankow. Her work included
carrying supplies to hospital bases and helping with nursing. She was
several times under bomb attack; often she had to prepare bodies for burial.
Her story includes one account interesting for its implications about liturgy
and authority:

Perhaps some of you may be shocked when I tell you of another
thing that I did. The clergy were hard-pressed. Near the air bases,
there would sometimes be over 100 aviators at the Holy
Communion. One of the missionary bishops over there asked me to
assist, I being a deaconess. I could only ask him to speak to my
bishop and to the other bishops. You see, the Church is all one
Church in China—English, Chinese, American—all making one
Holy Catholic Church. I told the Chinese bishop that I was the
American deaconess, and that American deaconesses did not assist
at the Holy Communion. And he said, “You are a Chinese
deaconess out here.” Everyone consented, so I thought it right to do
what I was asked to do. I administered the cup. I thought that I
would wear just a cotta, but they had me wear a surplice, and they
insisted upon a stole. So I wore that also, over the shoulder as a
deacon does.8
The order of deaconesses also included feisty characters. One was Mary
Sandys Hutton, who worked in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia from
1934 on. This remarkable woman was paralyzed from polio and had walked
on crutches since the age of three. Nevertheless, she founded missions,
directed a doctor’s clinic and a clothing bureau, visited mountain homes,
preached, conducted prayer book services, held revivals, ran a school bus,
and sponsored children for baptism (as a deaconess, she was not allowed to
baptize), many of whom were named after her. Several documents testify to
the love and respect in which mountain folk held her. At her funeral the
preacher recalled one incident. Hutton was conducting morning prayer at a
remote mission where the people were not speaking to each other. She
decided to delay the service until there was peace.
“I want everybody here to turn to the person next to him and shake
hands,” she said. “If you can say, ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ do it. If
you can’t, don’t. You won’t fool God and you won’t fool me. But
you can shake hands.”
“They just stared at me and did nothing,” she remembered. “I said, ‘I’m
not going to start services until you do. You can have a Christian church or
belong to the devil.’ They shook hands.”

Another Random Document on
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Benoodigd.
Ik wensch vijf en twintig fiksche negers,—mannen en vrouwen, tusschen 18 en 25 jaren—
te koopen, waarvoor ik de hoogste contante prijzen betalen zal.
20 October A. A. McLean,
Cherry Street.
Memphis Daily Eagle and Enquirer:
Vijfhonderd Negers benoodigd.
Wij zullen de hoogste contante prijzen betalen voor alle goede negers, die ons aangeboden
worden. Allen, die negers te koop hebben, noodigen wij uit ons te komen spreken aan ons
kantoor, tegenover de beneden-aanlegplaats der stoombooten. Wij zullen ook eene groote
partij Virginia-negers in voorraad hebben. Wij hebben eene gevangenis, die even veilig is
als eenige andere in het land en waar wij de negers, die men zou willen doen opsluiten,
veilig kunnen bewaren.
Bolton, Dickins & Co.
Land en Negers te koop.
Voor een prijsje wenscht men ongeveer 400 acres land over te doen, waarvan 200 in
goeden staat van bebouwing, gelegen bij den spoorweg, omstreeks tien mijlen van
Memphis. Alsmede 18 of 20 fraaije negers, bestaande in mannen, vrouwen, jongens en
meisjes. Voor de betaling van een gedeelte van den koopprijs zal uitstel gegeven worden.
17 October J. M. Provine.
Clarksville Chronicle, 3 December 1852:
Negers benoodigd.

Wij wenschen 25 geschikte negers te huren voor eene stoombootdienst tusschen New-
Orleans en Louisville. Wij zullen zeer hooge prijzen betalen voor het saisoen, beginnende
omstreeks 15 November.
10 September. McClure & Crozier,
Agenten.
Uit Missouri:
Daily St. Louis Times, 14 October 1852:
Reuben Bartlett,
wonende nabij de Stadsgevangenis, zal de hoogste contante prijzen betalen voor alle goede
negers, die hem aangeboden worden. Aan zijn kantoor zijn ook andere gegadigden bekend,
die gaarne koopen en de hoogste contante prijzen betalen zullen.
Negers worden bij hem tot den laagsten prijs in den kost genomen.
Negers.
Blakely en McAfee hunne vennootschap met wederzijdsch goedvinden ontbonden
hebbende, zal de ondergeteekende blijven voortgaan met ten allen tijde de hoogste contante
prijzen te betalen voor negers van iedere soort. Hij zal zich ook belasten met den verkoop
van negers in commissie, daar hij eene gevangenis heeft, ingerigt om hen in den kost te
nemen.
Steeds zijn bij hem negers te koop.
A. B. McAfee, 93, Olive Street.
Honderd Negers benoodigd.
Juist van Kentucky teruggekeerd zijnde, wensch ik, zoo spoedig mogelijk, honderd fraaije
negers te koopen, bestaande in mannen, vrouwen, jongens en meisjes, waarvoor ik steeds

vijftig à honderd dollars per stuk meer zal geven dan eenig ander handelaar te St. Louis of
in den Staat Missouri. Men kan mij steeds vinden in „Barnum’s City Hotel,” te St. Louis.
John Mattingly.
Uit een ander blad van Missouri:
Negers benoodigd.
Ik betaal steeds de hoogste contante prijzen voor alle goede negers, die mij te koop
geboden worden. Ik koop voor de markten van Memphis en Louisiana, en kan en zal zoo
hooge prijzen betalen als eenig handelaar in dezen Staat. Allen, die negers te koop hebben,
zullen wel doen zich tot mij te vervoegen aan mijne woning, no. 210, hoek van de Sixth en
Wash-streets, te St. Louis.
Thos. Dickins, van de firma Bolton, Dickins & Co.
Honderd Negers benoodigd.
Juist van Kentucky teruggekeerd zijnde, wensch ik zoo spoedig mogelijk, honderd fraaije
negers te koopen, bestaande in mannen, vrouwen, jongens en meisjes, waarvoor ik steeds
vijftig à honderd dollars per stuk meer zal geven dan eenig ander handelaar te St. Louis of
in den Staat Missouri. Men kan mij steeds vinden in „Barnum’s City Hotel,” te St. Louis.
John Mattingly.
B. M. Lynch,
No. 104, Locust-street, te St. Louis in Missouri, is bereid de hoogste contante prijzen voor
goede en fiksche negers te betalen; of voor anderen op eene goede plaats en onder eene
veilige bewaring negers in den kost te nemen. Hij belast zich ook met den koop en verkoop
van negers in commissie.
Steeds zijn bij hem negers te koop.

Wij bidden u, Christelijke lezer, te overwegen, welke soort van tooneelen in
Virginia onder die advertentiën plaats grijpen. Gij ziet uit hare met zorg
gekozene bewoordingen, dat alleen jongelieden genomen worden; en zij
zijn slechts een proefje van de advertentiën, die maanden achtereen in de
bladen van Virginia voorkomen. In een volgend hoofdstuk zullen wij den
lezer het inwendige van die slaven-gevangenissen laten zien en hem het een
en ander mededeelen van de dagelijksche voorvallen in deze soort van
handel. Wij willen thans nog een blik werpen op de soortgelijke
advertentiën in de zuidelijke Staten. De neger-karavanen, die in Virginia en
de andere Staten gevormd worden, vindt men als volgt aangekondigd op de
zuidelijke markt.
Uit den Natchez (Mississippi) Free-Trader, 20 November:
Negers te koop.
De ondergeteekenden zijn zoo even aangekomen, regtstreeks van Richmond in Virginia,
met een nieuwen en fraaijen voorraad negers, bestaande in: veld-arbeiders, huisbedienden,
naaisters, keukenmeiden, waschvrouwen en strijksters, een uitstekend metselaar en andere
ambachtslieden, die zij nu te koop bieden aan den Driesprong nabij Natchez in Mississippi,
tot de billijkste prijzen.
Zij zullen gedurende het saisoen verschen toevoer van Richmond in Virginia blijven
ontvangen en aan alle orders voor elke soort van negers, die te Richmond verkocht worden
kunnen, voldoen.
Gegadigden zullen weldoen, onzen voorraad te komen bezigtigen, alvorens elders te
koopen.
20 November. Matthews, Branton & Co.
Aan het Publiek.
Koop en Verkoop van Negers.
Robert S. Adams en Moses J. Wicks hebben heden eene vennootschap aangegaan onder de
firma Adams & Wicks, voor den koop en verkoop van negers in de stad Aberdeen en
elders. Zij hebben een agent aangesteld, die in de beide laatste maanden negers voor hen in
de oude Staten heeft opgekocht. Een lid der firma, Robert S. Adams, vertrekt heden naar

Noord-Carolina en Virginia en zal daar een groot getal negers voor deze markt aankoopen.
Zij zullen gedurende het aanstaande najaar en den winter in hun depôt te Aberdeen een
ruimen voorraad uitgezochte negers voorhanden hebben, die zij verkoopen zullen tot lage
prijzen à contant, of voor wissels op Mobile.
Aberdeen in Mississippi,
7 Mei 1852.
Robert S. Adams.
Moses J. Wicks.
Slaven! Slaven! Slaven!
Wekelijks versche aanvoer.—Daar wij ons gevestigd hebben aan den Driesprong, nabij
Natchez, bij een contract voor verscheidene jaren, hebben wij thans voorhanden, gelijk wij
het geheele jaar door zullen hebben, een uitgebreiden en goed gesorteerden voorraad
negers, bestaande in veld-arbeiders, huisbedienden, ambachtslieden, keukenmeiden,
naaisters, waschvrouwen, strijksters, enz., welke wij even laag of lager dan eenig ander
huis alhier of te New-Orleans kunnen en willen verkoopen.
Personen, die aankoopen wenschen te doen, worden aangemaand ons te bezoeken alvorens
zich elders te verbinden, daar onze geregelde aanvoer ons steeds voorziet van een goed en
aanzienlijk assortiment. Wij geven den verkoopers vele faciliteiten. Komt en ziet!
16 October 1852. Griffins & Pullam.
Negers te koop.
Ik ben zoo even aan den Driesprong teruggekeerd met vijftig fraaije jonge negers.
22 September R. H. Elam.
Let wel!
De ondergeteekende berigt het geëerde publiek, dat hij zijne plaats aan den Driesprong
voor eenige jaren gehuurd heeft en voornemens is gedurende den loop van het jaar aldaar
eene aanzienlijke partij negers in voorraad te houden. Hij zal die even laag of lager
verkoopen dan eenig handelaar alhier of te New Orleans.

Hij is juist van Virginia teruggekeerd met eene fraaije partij veld-arbeiders en arbeidsters
en huisbedienden, drie keukenmeiden, een timmerman en drie paarden. Komt en ziet.
Thos. G. James.
Daily Orleanian, 19 October 1852.
W. F. Tannehill,
No. 159, Gravier-street.
Slaven! Slaven! Slaven!
Zij zijn steeds in voorraad, en worden gekocht en verkocht tot de billijkste prijzen. Veld-
arbeiders, keukenmeiden, waschvrouwen, strijksters en in het algemeen alle huisbedienden.
Er kunnen informatiën gegeven worden.
14 October.
(De volgende advertentie was in het Fransch gesteld.)
Slavendepôt te New Orleans,
No. 68, Rue Baronne.
Wm. F. Tannehill & Co. hebben steeds een compleet assortiment met zorg gekozene slaven
te koop. Ook koopen en verkoopen zij slaven in commissie.
Zij hebben thans in voorraad een groot getal negers, die per maand verhuurd worden, en
waaronder zich bevinden jonge knapen, huisbedienden, keukenmeiden, waschvrouwen,
strijksters, minnen, enz.
Inlichtingen te verkrijgen bij:
Wright, Williams & Co. Moon, Titus & Co.
Williams, Phillips & Co.
S. O. Nelson & Co.
Moses Greenwood. E. W. Diggs.

New-Orleans Daily Crescent, 21 October 1852:
Slaven!
James White, No. 73, Baronne-street, te New Orleans, zorgt met naauwgezetheid voor de
ontvangst, het onderhoud en den verkoop van aan hem geconsigneerde slaven. Hij koopt en
verkoopt ook in commissie. Inlichtingen te verkrijgen bij de heeren Robson & Allen
McRea, Coffman & Co.; Pregram, Bryan & Co.
23 September.
Negers benoodigd.
Er worden vijftien of twintig goede mannelijke negers gevraagd voor eene plantage. Het
beste loon zal gegeven worden tot 1 Januarij 1853.
Men adressere zich aan
11 September. Thomas G. Mackey & Co.
5, Canal-street, hoek van het Magazijn, bovenverdieping.
Uit een ander nommer van den Natchez Free Trader nemen wij het
volgende over:
Negers.
De ondergeteekende berigt aan het geëerde publiek, dat hij thans eene partij van vijf en
veertig negers in handen heeft, daar hij heden eene bezending van vijf en twintig heeft
ontvangen regtstreeks uit Virginia, twee of drie goede keukenmeiden, een wagenvoerder,
een goede huisknecht, een vioolspeler, eene keurige naaister, en een fiksch partijtje veld-
arbeiders en arbeidsters; al dewelke hij met eene kleine winst zal van de hand doen, daar
hij wenscht uit te verkoopen en naar Virginia terug te keeren om een partijtje voor den
najaarshandel uit te zoeken. Komt en ziet.
Thomas G. James.

De slavenkweekerij der noordelijke Staten is meermalen aangetoond,
besproken en erkend, zoo in de handelstatistiek dier Staten, als in de
redevoeringen van regtschapene mannen, die dit teregt betreurd hebben als
eene vernedering huns vaderlands.
In 1811 rigtte de „British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society” eenige vragen
betreffende den binnenlandschen Amerikaanschen slavenhandel aan de
„American Anti-Slavery Society”. Ter voldoening daaraan werd een
veelzijdig onderzoek in het werk gesteld, welks resultaten te Londen het
licht zagen, en uit dat boekdeel nemen wij het volgende over:
De Virginia Times (een weekblad dat te Wheeling in Virginia verschijnt) schat in 1836 het
aantal slaven, die ten verkoop uit dien Staat alleen uitgevoerd zijn gedurende de
voorafgegane twaalf maanden, op veertig duizend, wier gemiddelde waarde op vier en
twintig millioen dollars berekend wordt.
Zoo men wil aannemen, dat Virginia alleen de helft van den uitvoer in het genoemde
tijdvak heeft geleverd, dan komen wij tot het ontzettende cijfer van tachtig duizend slaven,
die in één enkel jaar uit de slavenkweekende Staten zijn vervoerd. Wij kunnen niet met
zekerheid bepalen in welke evenredigheid door de andere Staten tot den uitvoer
bijgedragen is; maar Maryland komt ten aanzien der getallen het naast bij Virginia, Noord-
Carolina volgt op Maryland, Kentucky op Noord-Carolina en dan komen Tennessee en
Delaware.
De Natchez (Mississippi) Courier zegt, „dat de Staten Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama en
Arkansas gedurende 1836 twee honderd en vijftig duizend slaven uit de meer noordelijk
gelegene Staten ingevoerd hebben.”
Dit zou volstrekt ongeloofelijk schijnen; maar vermoedelijk zijn hierin al de slaven
begrepen, die met hunne meesters medegekomen zijn toen deze zich hier nedergezet
hebben. De volgende zinsneden uit den Virginia Times schijnen die stelling te bevestigen:
„Door deskundigen hebben wij het getal slaven, die in de laatst verloopen twaalf maanden
van Virginia uitgevoerd zijn, hooren schatten op honderd en twintig duizend, makende,
elken slaaf gemiddeld ten minste op zes honderd dollars gerekend, eene som van twee en
zeventig millioen dollars. Van het getal uitgevoerde slaven is niet meer dan een derde
gedeelte verkocht, zijnde de andere medegenomen door hunne meesters die verhuisd zijn.”
Zoo men een derde gedeelte als het getal der verkochten beschouwt, zijn er meer dan
tachtig duizend ten verkoop ingevoerd in de vier Staten Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama
en Arkansas. Onderstelt men dat de helft van tachtig duizend verkocht zijn in de overige

aankoopende Staten, Zuid-Carolina, Georgia en het gebied van Florida, dan komt men tot
de conclusie, dat eenige jaren vóór de groote financieele crisis van 1837, meer dan honderd
en twintig duizend slaven van de aankweekende naar de verbruikende Staten werden
uitgevoerd.
De Baltimore American neemt het volgende over uit een blad van den Staat Mississippi,
van het jaar 1837:
„Uit het rapport over de bestaande financieele crisis, opgemaakt door de in eene
bijeenkomst der burgers van Mobile benoemde commissie, blijkt, dat er een zoo uitgestrekt
gebruik is gemaakt van slaven-arbeid, dat Alabama sedert 1833 jaarlijks voor ongeveer tien
millioen dollars van die soort van eigendom van andere Staten gekocht heeft.”
„Het handelen in slaven,” zegt het Baltimore (Maryland) Register van 1829, „is een veel
omvattend bedrijf geworden; op verscheidene plaatsen in Maryland en Virginia zijn
etablissementen opgerigt, waar zij als vee verkocht worden. Deze bewaarplaatsen zijn
stevig gebouwd en ruim voorzien van ijzeren duimschroeven en mondproppen, en
opgetooid met allerlei soorten van lederen zweepen, waaraan men dikwijls het bloed ziet
kleven.”
Professor Dew, thans president van de „University of William and Mary”, in Virginia, zegt
op blz. 120 van zijn overzigt van de debatten, in 1831 en 1832 in de wetgevende
vergadering van Virginia gehouden:
„Aangezien een volkomen equivalent in de plaats van den slaaf gelaten wordt (de
koopprijs), is deze emigratie een voordeel voor den Staat, en vermindert de zwarte
bevolking niet zoo veel als bij den eersten oogopslag zou schijnen, dewijl de meester hierin
alle aanleiding vindt, om goed voor de negers te zorgen, hunne vermeerdering te
bevorderen en er het grootst mogelijke getal van aan te kweeken.” En iets verder zegt hij:
„Virginia is inderdaad eene slavenkweekschool voor de andere Staten.”
De heer Goode zeide in 1832 in eene redevoering, die hij in de wetgevende vergadering
van Virginia hield:
„Het overgroote nut der slaven in het Zuiden zal daarnaar zooveel vraag doen ontstaan, dat
zij er door van onze grenzen verwijderd zullen worden. Wij zullen hen uit onzen Staat
zenden, dewijl ons belang dit zal medebrengen; maar er zijn leden, die vreezen, dat de
markten van andere Staten voor den invoer onzer slaven gesloten zullen worden. Mijne
heeren, de vraag naar slavenarbeid moet toenemen,” enz.
Bij de debatten van de Conventie van Virginia in 1829, zeide de regter Upshur:
„De waarde der slaven, als eigendom, hangt veel af van den toestand der buitenmarkt. Uit
dit oogpunt beschouwd, is het de waarde van land in andere Staten, niet hier, die den

maatstaf aan de hand geeft. Niets is wisselvalliger dan de waarde der slaven. Eene onlangs
in Louisiana aangenomene wet, deed, twee uren nadat hare aanneming bekend was
geworden, hunne waarde vijf en twintig percent dalen. Zoo, gelijk ik ook vertrouw, de
aanwinst van het landschap Texas ons beschoren ware, zal hun prijs weder vooruitgaan.”
De heer Philip Doddridge zeide in de zoo even genoemde Conventie (blz. 89 der debatten):
„De aanwinst van Texas zal de waarde van den bedoelden eigendom (de slaven) grootelijks
vermeerderen.”
Door Dr. Graham, van Fayetteville, in Noord-Carolina, werd in eene bijeenkomst van
belanghebbenden bij de kolonisatie, gehouden in het najaar van 1837, gezegd:
„In den afgeloopen winter werden ongeveer zeven duizend slaven op de markt van New-
Orleans te koop geboden. Alleen van Virginia werden jaarlijks zes duizend naar het Zuiden
gezonden, en uit Virginia en Noord-Carolina waren in de laatste twintig jaren drie honderd
duizend slaven naar het Zuiden gevoerd.”
De heer Henry Clay, van Kentucky, zegt in de rede, die hij in 1829 voor de „Colonisation
Society” uitsprak:
„Het is te gelooven, dat nergens in de landbouwende streken der Vereenigde Staten van
slaven-arbeid algemeen gebruik zou gemaakt worden, indien de grondeigenaren niet
verlokt werden om slaven op te kweeken, door hun hoogen prijs op de markten in het
Zuiden.”
In het New-York Journal of Commerce, van 12 October 1835, komt een brief voor van een
Virginiër, wien de redacteur „een achtenswaardig en gevoelig man” noemt, en die daarin
opgeeft dat in genoemd jaar, hetwelk nog slechts voor drie vierde gedeelten verstreken
was, twintig duizend slaven uit Virginia naar het Zuiden waren vervoerd.
De heer Gholson zeide in eene rede, welke hij den 18 Januarij 1831 in de wetgevende
vergadering van Virginia uitsprak (zie den Richmond Whig):
„’t Is er door lieden van den ouderwetschen stempel altijd voor gehouden (misschien ten
onregte), dat de eigenaar van een land een beslist regt heeft op de jaarlijksche opbrengst; de
eigenaar van boomgaarden, op de jaarlijksche vruchten; de eigenaar van merries op hare
veulens, en de eigenaar van slavinnen op hare kinderen. Wij bezitten het fijn geslepene
verstand niet, noch de regtskennis, om het technische onderscheid te kunnen zien, dat door
sommigen gemaakt is,” (namelijk het onderscheid tusschen merriën en slavinnen.) „De
regtsregel partus sequitur ventrem is te gelijk ontstaan met het eigendomsregt-zelf, en
gegrond op wijsheid en regtvaardigheid. Het is uithoofde van de regmatigheid en
onschendbaarheid van dezen stelregel, dat de meester zich berooft van de diensten der
slavin, haar laat verplegen en oppassen en haar hulpeloos kind opvoedt. De waarde der

bezitting regtvaardigt de kosten, en ik aarzel niet te zeggen, dat in de vermeerdering
daarvan veel van onzen rijkdom bestaat.
Kan eenig vertoog over den toestand, waarin de openbare meening door het
stelsel der slavernij gebragt wordt, zooveel zeggen als deze woorden,
wanneer wij bedenken dat zij in de wetgevende vergadering van Virginia
uitgesproken zijn? Zou men niet gelooven, dat Washington moet blozen in
zijn graf, dat de Staat, waar hij het levenslicht aanschouwde, zoo diep
gevallen is? Dat er echter nog harten in Virginia klopten, die gevoelig voor
de schande waren, blijkt uit het volgende antwoord van den heer Faulkner
aan den heer Gholson, in de Virginische kamer van afgevaardigden in 1832
(zie den Richmond Whig):
„Maar hij (de heer Gholson) heeft trachten aan te toonen, dat de afschaffing der slavernij
onstaatkundig zou zijn, dewijl uwe slaven den geheelen rijkdom van den Staat uitmaken,
het geheele productief vermogen vormen, dat Virginia bezit; en, mijne heeren, zoo als de
tegenwoordige stand van zaken is, geloof ik dat hij gelijk heeft. Hij zegt, dat de slaven den
geheelen beschikbaren rijkdom van oostelijk Virginia uitmaken. Is het waar, dat gedurende
twee honderd jaren de eenige vordering in den rijkdom en de middelen van Virginia een
gevolg geweest is van de natuurlijke toeneming van dat rampzalige geslacht? Kan het zijn,
dat deze Staat geheel afhankelijk is van dien aanwas? Vóór dat ik deze verklaringen
hoorde; had ik de afgrijselijke diepte van dit kwaad niet volkomen gepeild. Deze heeren
voeren een feit aan, dat door de geschiedenis en den tegenwoordigen toestand der
Republiek maar al te zeer bevestigd wordt. Hoe, mijne heeren, hebt gij twee honderd jaren
zonder persoonlijke inspanning of productieve nijverheid geleefd, in buitensporigheden en
vadsigheid, alleen staande gehouden door de opbrengst van den verkoop der vermeerdering
van de slaven en slechts die behoudende, welke uwe thans verarmde landerijen kunnen
onderhouden als voortkweekers?”
De heer Thomas Jefferson Randolph voerde de volgende taal in de
wetgevende vergadering van Virginia (Liberty Bell, bLz. 20):
„Ik ben het met de heeren eens, aangaande de noodzakelijkheid om den Staat voor de
binnenlandsche verdediging te wapenen. Ik zal met hen medewerken tot alle middelen om
het vertrouwen bij het algemeen te doen herleven en onze vrouwen en kinderen een gevoel
van veiligheid in te boezemen. Blaar toch, mijneheeren, moet ik vragen, op wie de last van
deze verdediging drukken zal? Niet op de weelderige meesters van hunne honderd slaven,
die nimmer zullen uittrekken dan om met hunne gezinnen te vlugten als het gevaar dreigt.
Neen, mijne heeren, hij zal drukken op de minder rijke klasse onzer burgers, voornamelijk

op hen die geene slavenhouders zijn. Ik heb patrouilles gezien waaronder niet één
slavenhouder was, en dit is het doorgaande gebruik des lands. In tijden van beroering heb
ik rustig geslapen, zonder door eenige zorg gekweld te zijn, terwijl die personen, die niets
van al dien eigendom bezaten, door dwang genoodzaakt, voor de kleinigheid van vijf en
zeventig cents in de twaalf uren, rondom mijn huis patrouilleerden en dien eigendom
bewaakten die even gevaarlijk was voor hen als voor mij. In allen gevalle is dit ook slechts
een hulpmiddel. Naarmate deze bevolking talrijker wordt, is zij minder voortbrengend.
Uwe wacht moet vermeerderd worden, tot eindelijk de voordeelen niet meer opwogen
tegen de kosten om haar in toom te houden. De slavernij heeft de vermindering der vrije
bevolking van een land tot gevolg.
„Mijnheer heeft de kinderen van de slavinnen als een gedeelte van het voordeel
opgenoemd. Dit wordt toegegeven; maar geen groot kwaad kan uit den weg geruimd, geen
goed tot stand gebragt worden, zonder dat er eenige bezwaren uit voortvloeijen. ’t Is nu de
vraag in hoe verre het wenschelijk is, dezen tak van voordeel te bevorderen en aan te
moedigen. Het is in sommige gedeelten van Virginia eene practijk, en wel een toenemende
practijk, slaven voor de markt op te kweeken. Hoe kan een man van eer, een vaderlander,
een beminnaar van zijn geboortegrond, het gezigt dulden, dat de oude Staten, verheerlijkt
door de zelfopoffering en vaderlandsliefde hunner zonen in den kamp der vrijheid,
veranderd worden in ééne groote menagerie, waar menschen voor de markt worden gefokt
gelijk runderen voor de slagtbank? Is het beter, neen, is het niet nog slechter dan de
slavenhandel, een handel die slechts door de vereenigde pogingen van alle deugdzamen en
verstandigen van elk geloof en elke hemelstreek kan afgeschaft worden? De handelaar
ontvangt den slaaf, die door taal, voorkomen en zeden voor hem een vreemdeling is, van
den koopman, die hem uit het binnenland gehaald heeft. De banden van vader, moeder,
echtgenoot en kind zijn alle vaneen gerukt; eer hij hem ontvangt, is zijne ziel verstompt.
Maar hier, mijne heeren, worden personen, die de meester van kindsbeen aan gekend heeft,
die hij heeft zien dartelen in de onschuldige buitelingen der kindschheid, die zich gewend
hebben tot hem op te zien om bescherming, door hem ontrukt aan de armen der moeder en
verkocht in een vreemd land, onder vreemde menschen en neêrgebogen onder de zweep
van wreede opzigters.
Hij heeft de slavernij hier pogen te verdedigen op grond dat zij bestaat in Afrika, en voorts
beweerd, dat zij over de geheele wereld bestaat. Op denzelfden grond kon hij het
Mahomedaansche geloof voorstaan, met de veelwijverij, de voortdurende strooptogten en
rooverijen en moorden, of eenige andere afschuwelijkheid van de wilden. Bestaat de
slavernij in eenig gedeelte van het beschaafde Europa? Neen, mijne heeren, nergens.
De berekeningen in het boekdeel, waaruit wij onze aanhalingen
overgenomen hebben, dagteekenen van het jaar 1841. Sedert dien tijd is de
oppervlakte van de zuidelijke slavenmarkt verdubbeld en heeft de
slavenhandel eene daarmede gelijken tred houdende uitbreiding ondergaan.

De bladen in het Zuiden wemelen van advertentiën dienbetreffende. Het is,
om de waarheid te zeggen, de groothandel van die streken. Alleen uit de
haven van Baltimore zijn in de twee laatste jaren duizend en drie en dertig
slaven verscheept naar de zuidelijke markt, zoo als blijken kan uit de
volgende opgave van het tolkantoor.
LIJST van het aantal schepen met slaven aan boord, die van 1 Januarij
1851 tot 20 November 1852 in het district Baltimore naar zuidelijke havens
uitgeklaard zijn:
DATUMS. SOORT. NAMEN. BESTEMMING. GETAL
SLAVEN.
1851.
Jan. 6 Sloep, Georgia, Norfolk (Virg.), 16
Jan. 11 Bark, Elizabeth, New Orleans, 92
Jan. 20 Bark, Cora, New Orleans, 14
Feb. 6 Bark, E. A. Chapin, New Orleans, 31
Feb. 8 Bark, Sarah Bridge, New Orleans, 34
Feb. 12 Sloep, Georgia, Norfolk (Virg.), 5
Feb. 24 Schoener, H. A. Barling, New Orleans, 37
Maart 10 — Edward
Everett,
New Orleans, 20
Maart 21 Sloep, Georgia, Norfolk (Virg.), 11
Maart 19 Bark, Baltimore, Savannah, 13
April 1 Sloep, Herald, Norfolk (Virg.), 7
April 2 Brik, Waverley, New Orleans, 31
April 18 Sloep, Baltimore, Arquia Creek
(Virg.),
4

SLAVEN.
April 23 — Charles, New Orleans, 25
April 28 Sloep, Georgia, Norfolk (Virg.), 5
Mei 15 Sloep, Herald, Norfolk (Virg.), 27
Mei 17 Schoener, Brilliant, Charleston, 1
Junij 10 Sloep, Herald, Norfolk (Virg.), 3
Junij 16 Sloep, Georgia, Norfolk (Virg.), 4
Junij 20 Schoener, Truth, Charleston, 5
Junij 21 — Herman, New Orleans, 10
Julij 19 Schoener, Aurora, Charleston, 1
Sept. 6 Bark, Kirkwood, New Orleans, 2
Oct. 4 Bark, Abbott Lord, New Orleans, 1
Oct. 11 Bark, Elizabeth, New Orleans, 70
Oct. 18 — Edward
Everett,
New Orleans, 12
Oct. 20 Sloep, Georgia, Norfolk (Virg.), 1
Nov. 13 — Eliza F. Mason, New Orleans, 57
Nov. 18 Bark, Mary
Broughtons,
New Orleans, 47
Dec. 4 — Timoleon, New Orleans, 22
Dec. 18 Schoener, H. A. Barling, New Orleans, 45
1852.
Jan. 5 Bark, Southerner, New Orleans, 52
Feb. 7 — Nathan Hooper, New Orleans, 51
Feb. 21 — Dumbarton, New Orleans, 2
Maart 27 Sloep, Palmetto, Charleston, 36
Maart 4 Sloep, Jewess, Norfolk (Virg.), 34
April 24 Sloep, Palmetto, Charleston, 8
April 25 Bark, Abbott Lord, New Orleans, 36
Mei 15 — Charles, New Orleans, 2

SLAVEN.
Junij 12 Sloep, Pampero, New Orleans, 4
Julij 3 Sloep, Palmetto, Charleston, 1
Julij 6 Sloep, Herald, Norfolk (Virg.), 7
Julij 6 Sloep, Maryland, Arquia Creek
(Virg),
4
Sept. 14 Sloep, North Carolina, Norfolk (Virg.), 15
Sept. 23 — America, New Orleans, 1
Oct. 15 — Brandywine, New Orleans, 6
Oct. 18 Sloep, Isabel, Charleston, 1
Oct. 28 Schoener, Maryland, New Orleans, 12
Oct. 29 Schoener, H. M. Gambrill, Savannah, 11
Nov 1 — Jane
Henderson,
New Orleans, 18
Nov. 6 Sloep, Palmetto, Charleston, 3
1033
Zoo wij nog een blik slaan op de advertentiën zullen wij zien, dat de
handelaars alleen de jonge slaven nemen, tusschen de tien en dertig jaren.
Maar hier betreft het slechts ééne haven en slechts ééne wijze van uitvoer;
want groote getallen worden in karavanen over land verzonden; en evenwel
vindt de heer J. Thornton Randolph goed, de negers van Virginia voor te
stellen als levende in landelijke rust, vreedzaam hunne pijp rookende onder
hunne eigene wijnstokken en vijgenboomen, terwijl de patriarch van den
troep verklaart, „dat hij in zijn heele leven niet gehoord heeft van het
verkoopen van een neger naar Georgia, tenzij die neger zich uiterst slecht
gedragen had.”
De commissie tot de opstelling van het boek, dat wij boven hebben
aangehaald, geeft eene treffende schets van den invloed van dien handel op
meester en slaaf beide, die wij niet kunnen nalaten over te nemen:

Dit stelsel drukt met ontzettende zwaarte op den slaaf. Het houdt hem onder voortdurende
vrees van aan den zieldrijver1 verkocht te zullen worden, hetwelk voor den slaaf de
verwezenlijking is van alle denkbare jammer en ellende en door hem erger gevreesd wordt
dan de dood. Een ontzettend voorgevoel van dit lot hangt den rampzalige dag en nacht, van
de wieg tot aan het graf, boven het hoofd. Hij weet, dat er geen uur voorbijgaat, hetzij hij
slape hetzij hij wake, dat niet het laatste welligt zal zijn, hetwelk hij bij vrouw en kinderen
doorbrengt. Elken dag of week wordt een bekende van zijne zijde weggerukt, en zoo blijft
de herinnering aan zijn eigen gevaar voortdurend bij hem levendig. „Eerlang zal gewis de
beurt aan mij komen,” is zijne folterende gedachte; want hij weet, dat hij daarvoor
opgekweekt is, als een os voor het juk, als een schaap voor de slagtplaats. In dezen staat
van zaken is de toestand van den slaaf waarlijk onbeschrijfelijk. Wachten, al betreft het
geene zaak van gewigt en al duurt het slechts een nacht, is moeijelijk te verduren. Maar
wanneer iets vreeselijks hangt boven alles, volstrekt boven alles wat dierbaar is, en over het
tegenwoordige zijne schaduw en over de toekomst eene sombere tint werpt, dan waarlijk
moet het hart er onder breken. En dat is het zwaard, dat iederen slaaf in de
slavenkweekende Staten, voortdurend boven het hoofd hangt. Zijn gering deel van geluk
wordt er door vergiftigd. Zoo hij vader is, kan hij niet naar den arbeid gaan zonder in
gedachten zijne vrouw en kinderen vaarwel te zeggen. Hij kan niet aêmechtig en afgemat
van het veld terugkeeren, met de zekerheid dat hij zijne stulp niet beroofd en ledig zal
vinden. Evenmin kan hij zich neêrstrekken op zijn bed van stroo en lappen zonder de
snerpende vrees, dat zijne vrouw vóór den morgen uit zijne armen gescheurd zal worden.
Nadert een blanke zijns meesters huis, hij vreest dat de zieldrijver gekomen is en verwacht
met schrik des opzigters bevel: „Gij zijt verkocht; volg dien man.” Er is geen wezen op
aarde, die den slaven in de slavenkweekende Staten zooveel schrik inboezemt als de
handelaar. Hij is hun wat de roofzuchtige ronselaar voor hunne minder beklagenswaardige
broederen in de wildernissen van Afrika is. De meester weet dit, als ook dat er geene zoo
krachtige straf is om eenig werk verrigt te krijgen of hen van slecht gedrag af te houden,
dan de bedreiging dat hij hen aan den zieldrijver zal overleveren.
„Een ander gevolg van dit stelsel is de aanmoediging van losbandigheid. Deze is inderdaad
overal eene der zwartste vlekken op de slavernij; doch voornamelijk heeft zij onbeteugeld
de bovenhand waar het aankweeken van slaven als een bedrijf wordt uitgeoefend. Zij is
eene der regtstreeksche gevolgen van het stelsel en onafscheidelijk daarvan.
* * *
De geldelijke verlokking tot een algemeen zedenbederf moet zeer sterk zijn, daar de winst
van den meester met de vermeerdering der slaven stijgt, en voornamelijk sedert voor het
gemengde bloed een aanmerkelijk hoogere prijs besteed wordt dan voor het zuiver zwart.”

Het overige van deze beschouwing treedt in bijzonderheden, die te
schrikkelijk zijn om hier overgenomen te worden. Men vindt ze in het
bedoelde boekdeel op blz. 13.
De dichters van Amerika, getrouw aan hunne heilige roeping, hebben over
sommige der ontzettende realiteiten van den slavenhandel het zachte licht
der poëzij uitgestort. Longfellow en Whittier hebben in verzen, zoo
schitterend als paarlen, doch tevens zoo smartelijk als de tranen eener
moeder, eenige voorvallen uit dit onnatuurlijk en akelig bedrijf geschetst.
Laten wij, om de wille der menschheid, hopen dat in het eerste gedicht geen
alledaagsch voorval beschreven wordt.
De Quarteronne.2
Des slavenhalers schip lag daar
Voor anker op de reê;
Hij wachtte nog op ’t maanlicht maar
En de avond-eb der zee.
Zijn boot lag aan den wal en ’t volk
Joeg met een driesten moed,
Den alligator uit zijn kolk
Naar ’t midden van den vloed.
Oranjegeur woei keer op keer
Hun tegen van het strand,
Als aâmde er een uit beter sfeer
Een wereld toe vol schand.
De planter rookte kalm en zoet
In schaaûw van ’t rieten dak;
De slavenhaler maakte spoed,
De hand aan ’t hek, en sprak:
„Mijn schip ligt ginder kant en klaar

Voor anker op de reê;
Ik wacht nog op het maanlicht maar
En de avond-eb der zee.”
Vòòr hen, met opgeheven blik,
Maar toch door schroom geplaagd,
Zat, half nieuwsgierig, half vol schrik,
Een Quarteronne-maagd.
Haar groot schoon oog—het glansde als git,
Haar arm en hals was bloot,
Zij droeg een rok slechts, blinkend wit,
En ’t hair, dat haar omvloot.
En om haar mondje speelde een lach,
Zoo als uw oog misschien
Ter kerk in ’t beeld van marmer zag,
En heilgen dacht te zien.
„De grond wordt schraal, de hoeve is oud,”
Zei toen de planter weêr,
En sloeg nu eens het oog op ’t goud
En dan op ’t meisje neêr.
Er kampte een tweestrijd in zijn ziel
Om winst, zoo laag als snood;
Hij wist van wien ze ’t leven hiel,
Wiens bloed haar borst doorvloot.
In ’t eind—zijn beter ik bezweek;
Hij nam het blinkend goud.
Toen werd het meisje doodlijk bleek,
Haar hand als ijs zoo koud.
De slavenhaler greep die hand,
En bragt, bij maanlichtschijn,
Ze aan boord, om in het vreemde land

Hem ter boelin te zijn.
H. W. Longfellow.
Klagt
Eener slavenmoeder van Virginia over hare dochters, naar het Zuiden als
slavinnen verkocht.
Ach, verkocht of ’t slagtvee was,
Naar het vunzig rijstmoeras,
Waar de slavenzweep staâg prest.
Waar ’t insect venijnig kwetst,
Waar de koorts haar gift in ’t bloed
Met den nachtdauw vloeijen doet,
Waar het zieklijk zonlicht kampt
Met den pestwalm die er dampt!—
Weggevoerd door beulenhand
Uit Virgienje’s heuv’lig land.
Wee mij! van zijn waterstroomen,
Zijn mijn kindren weggenomen!
Naar het vunzig rijstmoeras!
Daar hoort ’s moeders oor haar nooit,
Ziet geen moederoog haar ooit;
Nooit, wanneer de geeselriem
’t Lijf haar voort met striem bij striem,
Streelt een moederhand haar teêr,
Vlijen ze aan haar borst zich neêr.
Ach, enz.

Als zij ’s avonds, God weet hoe!
’t Veld verlaten, loom en moê,
Flaauw van pijn, en uitgeput
Keeren naar heur sombre hut,—
Snelt geen broeder ze in ’t gemoet,
Brengt geen vader haar zijn groet.
Ach, enz.
Verre van den boom waar ’t paar
Speelde en stoeide met elkaâr;
Van de bronwel, aan wier rand
Zij vaak dwaalden hand aan hand;
Van de woning van ’t gebed,
Waar zij hoorden van Gods wet.
Ach, enz.
Over dag geen oogwenk rust,
’s Nachts ter prooi aan ’s planters lust.
Och, greep nu de dood ze maar!
Rustten zij slechts naast elkaâr,
Waar geen dwing’land haar meer pijnt,
En de boei niet langer schrijnt!
Ach, enz.
Om ’t gekrookte riet, dat Hij
Spaart uit Vadermedelij’,
Zij Hij, die alleen maar weet
Wat mijn dierbaar kroost al leed,

Steeds haar toevlugt in de smart,
Met een meer dan moederhart!
Weggevoerd door beulenhand
Uit Virgienje’s heuv’lig land.
Wee mij! van zijn waterstroomen
Zijn mijn kindren weggenomen!
John G. Whittier.
Het volgende uittreksel uit een brief van Dr. Bailey, voorkomende in de Era
van 1817, behelst een overzigt nopens deze zaak, dat sommige Virginische
familiën meer eer aandoet. Moge het getal van hen, die weigeren om anders
dan door emancipatie van hunne slaven afstand te doen, meer en meer
toenemen!
De verkoop van slaven naar het Zuiden is zeer uitgebreid. Zoo ver ik heb kunnen
vernemen, kweeken de slavenhandelaars hen niet opzettelijk met dat doel aan. Maar er is b.
v. een man, met een twintigtal slaven, gevestigd op eene uitgeputte plantage. Deze moet het
onderhoud voor allen opleveren; maar dit neemt af naar mate zij vermeerderen. Het gevolg
is, dat hij hen moet emanciperen of verkoopen. Maar hij is in schulden geraakt, en verkoopt
hen om zijne schuld te kwijten, als ook om zich van een aantal monden te ontslaan. Of hij
heeft geld noodig om zijne kinderen eene opvoeding te geven; of eindelijk worden de
slaven verkocht op regterlijk gezag. Door deze en andere oorzaken verdwijnen voortdurend
aanzienlijke getallen slaven uit den Staat, zoodat de eerstvolgende census ongetwijfeld
eene groote vermindering in de slavenbevolking zal aanwijzen.
Het saisoen voor dezen handel duurt gemeenlijk van November tot April; en sommigen
berekenen, dat het gemiddeld getal slaven, dat gedurende zes maanden wekelijks langs den
zuidelijken spoorweg vervoerd wordt, ten minste 200 bedraagt. Een slavenhandelaar
verhaalde mij, dat hem een voorbeeld bekend was, dat er 100 op éénen avond vervoerd
waren. Doch dit is slechts één weg. Er worden ook groote getallen westelijk gezonden, of
over zee langs de kust. De Davises, te Petersburg, zijn de groote slavenhandelaars. Zij zijn
Joden, die vele jaren geleden daar kwamen als arme marskramers; en thans, verneem ik,
zijn zij leden van eene familie, die hare vertegenwoordigers te Philadelphia, New-York en
elders heeft. Deze lieden zijn altijd aan de markt en geven den hoogsten prijs voor slaven.
Gedurende den zomer en het najaar echter koopen zij die allerwege op voor lage prijzen,

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