674277

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ITQ0010.1177/0021140016674277Irish Theological QuarterlyO’Loughlin

Article

Irish Theological Quarterly

The Order of Deacons in Early

2017, Vol. 82(1) 19­–36
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
Irish Canonical Sources: A sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0021140016674277
Contribution to Understanding itq.sagepub.com

the Evolution of a ‘Major

Orders’ in the Western Church

Thomas O’Loughlin
University of Nottingham, UK

Abstract
At a time when we are asked to investigate the origins of the diaconate, this paper argues that it
is no easy task to recover its history nor relate that history to later questions on the nature of
ordination. However, early canonical sources do throw important light on that history, and the
case examined here is that of the Collectio canonum hibernensis and texts related to it. This later
seventh- and early eighth-century material shows that while the diaconate was recognized as one
of the sacred orders, it was, in effect, seen primarily as a function within the liturgy.

Keywords
canon, clergy, collectio, diaconate, law, liturgy, ministry, monasticism, ordination

T he history of the diaconate in the Latin church is a complex affair. On the one hand,
this is one of ‘the major orders’ and as such merits consideration in legislation on
clergy, the priesthood, and the legal consequences of ordination, so there is a wealth of
material to examine. On the other hand, probably by the time of Gregory the Great (pope:
590–604), or, certainly, very shortly after that, when the missa priuata had become the
most common form of Eucharistic celebration, in monasteries at least, the need for dea-
cons in the day-to-day liturgy receded, and with that came a significant diminution in

Corresponding author:
Thomas O’Loughlin, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham, University
Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.
Email: thomas.oloughlin@nottingham.ac.uk
20 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

status.1 Resulting from the rise of the missa priuata (even when there was a congregation
present) as the most common form of celebration,2 there flowed two consequences
affecting deacons. First, the possession of the ‘power to consecrate’ became the corner-
stone both of ministry and of the theology of the Eucharist, and so no young monk/cleric
wished to remain ‘below the bar,’ and, secondly, in this form of celebration the deacon
was not a practical necessity, which meant that the deacon’s actual role was confined to
the community Mass of the monastery (the missa conuentualis3) or the increasingly rare
‘High Mass’ where a priest was assisted by two other ministers.4 Therefore, in practice,
the deacon became an addition to what was ‘necessary’ and so someone whose presence
was seen principally as indicating added solemnity.
This picture is further complicated in that virtually all our early evidence comes from
monastic, or monastic-affected, sources. Hence, we do not know what was happening in
the average village where, possibly, earlier patterns continued for much longer that in
monasteries even though these were seen as establishing the standard of what constituted
liturgical excellence. Furthermore, our legal evidence cannot be taken at face value as
indicative of the practice of any particular time or region. Almost all legal collections
recorded earlier laws as precedents or simply as part of the body of law, imagined as
stretching back to Moses the legislator, without necessarily seeing it as relevant to their
day-to-day needs. Therefore, any assumption that one can view law as a mirror of actual
practice, or of specific difficulties, is wide of the mark. Much of the legislation enacted
at synods was a repetition of earlier legislation which served to demonstrate that the
synod stood in orthodox continuity with the earlier fathers, while regulations mentioned
in collections of law often included inherited elements since collections, of their nature,
tried to gather as many sententiae—legal decisions—as possible into one place.
However, if we are to have a history of the diaconate, and in a church which sees itself
in historical continuity with its past in matters relating to Holy Orders having such a history
as this is desirable, then we must search that canonical record for whatever light it can

  1. See Thomas O’Loughlin, ‘Treating the “Private Mass” as Normal: Some Unnoticed Evidence
from Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis.’ Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 51 (2009): 1–12.
  2. Liturgists, such a J.A. Jungmann, often stressed that the missa priuata was not ‘the norm,’
but such statements reflect concern that what was liturgically less correct should not be seen
as normative (a norma normans). Such precision should not be interpreted as implying that
what was ‘the norm’ was also common in practice. Most of the baptized would have expe-
rienced ‘the norm’ perhaps once or twice annually—at most—and many would never have
experienced it. In this paper I am not concerned with such ‘normative’ forms but with what
most clergy, and virtually every other Western Christian, experienced as ‘the normal situation’
which was the missa priuata with a congregation present in the same aula. That this was the
normal situation can be illustrated by the fact that the Council of Trent’s missal was a text for
the celebration of a missa priuata which did not even envisage a congregation among which
some might want to receive communion as part of a ‘normal’ celebration.
  3. This—seen as a specific ritual event in the monastic day—became a named ritual as a conse-
quence of the rise of the missa priuata as the normal Mass to which attention was paid.
  4. The legacy of this situation is still within the memory of some Catholics in the distinction
between ‘Low Mass’ (one ordained minister), which was the day-to-day ‘basic’ form of the
liturgy, and ‘High Mass’ which was usually seen only on the great feasts and which required
three ministers (usually presbyters carrying out the roles of the deacon and subdeacon).
O’Loughlin 21

throw on how Christians in various places and times viewed this matter. While it is true that
in looking at the legislation we cannot assume that it is a ‘snapshot’ of the past nor treat it
as a guide to some ideal of the diaconate nor a body of precedent, it is also true that the
history of canon law can often throw light on how what happened, happened. In this the
historical theologian is the antithesis of the canonist: the canonist looks to the past for prec-
edent or for a decision one way or another; the historical theologian looks at the past in
order to understand more accurately how the churches’ perceptions of various matters have
altered over time and how those changes have had long-term consequences, with the under-
lying hope that by knowing the past more fully we are enabled to situate ourselves more
accurately, and look towards the future with a clearer vision of what is possible.5

What Constitutes ‘Early Evidence’?

So where should one begin? The usual answer to this is with the earliest documents: those
from the first and second centuries, some of which are in the canonical collection such as
1 Timothy, which are used in investigations of the ‘church order question’ by scholars
engaged in the early Christian and New Testament studies.6 However, while this may
throw light on origins, it is often so far away from the actual practices of the later churches
that it bears little relationship to the key factors that have shaped practice down the centu-
ries and which are still influential today. For instance, the debate about the relationship of
the diaconate to the sacerdotium (seen as including bishops and presbyters because both
groups as sacerdotes could offer sacrifice, i.e. confect the Eucharist) is a major issue still
today in the Catholic Church where a deacon is an ‘optional’ minister, while a priest is
not.7 But this issue has no counterpart in the evidence for 400 to 500 years after ‘the three-
fold ministry’ became commonplace sometime in the second century.8 Consequently, our

  5. This is the perspective of this paper: it is an essay in historical theology seeking to deepen our
understanding of the diaconate—itself a reality in the church today; it does not seek to make
a contribution to the study of the history of canon law qua tale.
  6. See Thomas O’Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians (London 2010),
105–28, for a discussion of this approach with regard to deacons; on the larger problems of
such ‘appeals to antiquity’—whose products still form the historical backdrop to many theo-
logical discussions regarding ministry—see Thomas O’Loughlin, ‘Divisions in Christianity:
The Contribution of “Appeals to Antiquity”’ in Simon Oliver, Karen Kilby, and Thomas
O’Loughlin eds, Faithful Reading: New Essays in Theology and Philosophy in Honour of
Fergus Kerr OP (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 221–41.
  7. Put at its simplest: if there is no priest, there is no Mass, while one could have Mass without a
deacon.
  8. This evolution is not nearly so neat when described by scholars working on early Christian
documents, than it appears in many doctrinal histories: see Francis A. Sullivan, From Apostles
to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church (New York: Newman,
2001) for a survey. There is, as yet, no history of ministry that takes full account of the work
produced over the past 30 years by those working with those early texts, while equally there is
a tendency to see the origins of a ‘three-fold ministry’ reaching back into the first century. This
latter notion is based on dating Ignatius of Antioch’s works as sometime in the first decade of
the second century whereas they need to be seen as originating in its third quarter at the earli-
est; see Timothy D. Barnes, ‘The Date of Ignatius,’ Expository Times 120 (2008): 119–30.
22 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

investigations needs to be focused on a later period that can be seen as both early enough
to exhibit variations from the later normality, and sufficiently late to manifest the begin-
nings of later attitudes and concerns. In historical evidence that has this Janus-quality, we
have the best chance of understanding crucial moments in theological evolution.
Where can one find such materials? The terminus ad quem must be the canonists of
the Carolingian period, because it was from them, and their accompanying theologians,
that the debate on ministry in the Catholic Church took on its familiar parameters.9 The
paradigm was established sometime between 800 and 900, and refined and developed by
the canonists of the 12th century and the theologians of the 13th,10 and it is that shape,
with some minor refinements, that we still have. The terminus a quo must be after, firstly,
the rise of the clergy as an established part of the social stratigraphy of the Roman empire,
when they became part of the ordo (hence our term sacra ordo for the collection of min-
istries that go to make up the clergy)11 and, secondly, after the emergence of the notion
that the Eucharist is a power-filled sacrifice. Since the Dialogi of Gregory the Great (the
basis for multiple ‘Gregorian Masses’ [for the recently deceased] until recent times12) are
our best evidence for this approach to the Eucharist (in a document that was rapidly dif-
fused throughout the West, and that was even translated into Greek), we can take
Gregory’s death in 604 as a starting point.
Therefore, any document that comes from approximately the mid-point between 600
and 800 is especially deserving of our attention, and the Collectio canonum hibernensis
must date from the closing decades of the seventh century or the first decade of the
eighth, as it was being copied on the continent in the second decade of the eighth cen-
tury.13 This collection has two further advantages for the historical theologian as a source

  9. See R.E. Reynolds, ‘Unity and Diversity in Carolingian Canon Law Collections: The Case of
the Collectio Hibernensis and Its Derivatives’ in U.-R. Blumenthal ed., Carolingian Essays
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1983), 99–135.
10. See Stephan Kuttner, Harmony from Dissonance: An Interpretation of Medieval Canon Law
(Latrobe, PA: Archabbey, 1960).
11. There is no equivalent in our non-stratified society to the notion of ‘[the] ordo’; but if we
think of it as having some elements contained in the notion of an ‘officer class,’ some of
the elements hinted by the name ‘the gentry,’ and some of those we link to the term ‘the
clergy.’ The ordo was composed of those who kept the Roman Empire running and enjoyed
the privileges that went with office. To see how this status was a keenly felt desire of the
new elite emerging at the end of the third century, those with positions in the Church, see
Samuel Laeuchli, Power and Sexuality: The Emergence of Canon Law at the Synod of Elvira
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1972).
12. Some of the cultural baggage of the Gregorian Masses still survives in the importance some
still attach to the custom of ‘the Month’s Mind’ Mass one month after a death. In Gregory’s
teaching this was the day on which, the requisite number of Masses have been celebrated, the
soul was released from painful bondage. See O’Loughlin, ‘Treating the “Private Mass” as
Normal’ for further details; and Karl Rahner and Angelus Häussling, The Celebration of the
Eucharist (London: Herder, 1968), 38–60 for a theological analysis of the phenomenon.
13. For dating, background, and a guide to further reading, see Thomas O’Loughlin, Celtic
Theology: Humanity, World, and God in Early Irish Writing (London: Bloomsbury, 2000),
109–27.
O’Loughlin 23

for understanding Latin theology over the whole spectrum of the Christian life. First, it
is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, systematic collections of canon law.14 In contrast
to the earlier ‘historical collections’ which simply arranged the canons, decretals, and
other sententiae (‘judgements’) in chronological order, the revolution of the systematic
collection was that the material was arranged by topics. This meant that the collection
formed an overall picture of each issue; and the relationship of specific issues with other
matters covered by the law came into focus. Furthermore, the collection was arranged
deliberately with another need in mind: the desire to produce concordance, consistency
and coherence, between various decisions. This desire for harmony between canons led
to the development of a jurisprudence that would eventually become a central part of
classical canon law, in the work of Gratian, and of scholastic theological method. So
while the actual content of the law may or may not reflect the concerns of the church that
produced it, the way it was put together, its arrangement, and the matters it did not make
into topics are specific to particular ecclesial situations—and it reveals the theological
world of the compilers. In their work of editing their legal inheritance, even more than in
the actual sententiae, we can discern their operative theology. This would not necessarily
be true to later collections because later collections copied their form and arrangement
from earlier ones, but in the systematic arrangement of the early collections we do have
a fleeting glimpse at how one generation of canonists actually saw the world. The second
advantage is this: although the Collectio canonum hibernensis was produced in the insu-
lar region, it rapidly diffused into England and the continent. It played a major role in the
evolution of Carolingian law,15 and its influence can be traced from collection to collec-
tion down to the 12th century and the work of Gratian. In examining this collection,
therefore, we are not engaging with a text of antiquarian interest or only of local interest,
but looking at the initial state of a document that was formative of, and which is truly
representative of, the canonical/theological tradition of the Latin church over a consider-
able period of time.

The Diaconate within the Structures of the Law

The Collectio, in the form most commonly found in the manuscripts, is divided into 67
books.16 Each of these books corresponds to what the compilers saw as a major theme
found within their legal inheritance and the structures of the church as they experienced
it.17 Within this arrangement, and reflecting the importance attached to such matters in
the compliers’ minds, the first ten books are devoted to the clergy, their origins, their
status within the church, and their qualifications, powers, duties, and rights. The Collectio

14. See A.M. Stickler, Historia Iuris Canonici Latini (Rome: Libraria Pontif. Athenaei Salesiani,
1950), vol. 1, 93–95.
15. See Reynolds, ‘Unity and Diversity.’
16. The edition being used is that by Hermann Wasserschleben ed., Die irische Kanonensammlung
(Leipzig, 1885); it will be cited by book, heading, and sentence; all translations, unless other-
wise noted, are my own.
17. See Colmán Etchingham, Church Organisation in Ireland: AD 650 to 1000 (Maynooth:
Laigin, 1999) who makes extensive use of the Collectio.
24 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

was made, although most probably in a monastery,18 by clerics for clerics. So, apart from
those first ten books, many other books are solely of concern to clerics19 or else are writ-
ten from the cleric’s perspective looking at the laity in the church.20
The first seven books are devoted to what that they saw as the seven grades of order:
bishop, presbyter, deacon, subdeacon, lector, exorcist, and porter. These, collectively,
related to the most significant category of human beings in the world of the compilers: the
clergy. Moreover, these were the human groupings that had attracted the greatest amount
of canonical attention in the body of material they were presenting systematically. So
diaconate takes its expected place, third in line of importance within the church, and with
several lesser forms of ministry between that of deacon and that of the ordinary Christian.
However, a better appreciation of the place of deacons within these lawyers’ firmament can
be obtained by noting how many headings (capitula) are devoted to each of the orders, because
each heading related to an actual legal situation upon which the law might need to be consulted
and then used in forming an actual judgement. There is, usually, a fairly direct relationship
between the number of headings within a book in the Collectio and the significance of an issue
within the law and within the historic life of the church that the compilers knew.
The amount of attention given to the seven orders is:

Bishop: 22 headings;
Presbyters: 27;
Deacons: 10;
Subdeacons: 4;
Lectors: 4;
Exorcists: 1;
Porters: 3.

We might begin by noting that the order of deacon receives far more attention than lesser
orders. However, when we consider that for the lesser orders, with the exception of exorcist,
the first two headings in each case concern the meaning of the name and then ‘the origin’
(the exordium) of the order in a biblical event,21 we see that deacon does not fare that well in
terms of canonical concern. Indeed, we see that the diaconate receives less than one-third of
the coverage devoted to presbyters, and barely one-sixth as much as sacerdotes, i.e. bishops
and presbyters combined.22 Deacons within in this clerical world may be located near the
front of the queue, but they are of very minor importance in the overall scheme.

18. There is only one book devoted explicitly to monastics: book XXXIX: de monachis.
19. For instance, book LII on the tonsure.
20. For instance, book XVIII on who can be buried where.
21. On this method of analysis and categorization, by name and origin (‘etymology’), see Thomas
O’Loughlin, ‘Isidore’s Hermeneutic: The Codification of the Tradition’ in Tarmo Toon ed.,
Patristic Theories of Interpretation: The Latin Fathers (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2016), 206–31.
22. For the use of sacerdos as a generic word encompassing bishops and priests in the culture of
the Collectio, see Adomnán, De locis sanctis, exordium, in D. Meehan ed., Adamnan’s De
Locis Sanctis (Dublin, 1958), 36.
O’Loughlin 25

This is significant because in the same insular culture, 150 years earlier, the most
significant theologian of the period, Gildas, who saw himself fulfilling a unique vocation
within his church which was parallel to that of the prophets in Israel preaching before
wicked kings, and whom later generations, including the compilers of the Collectio
would cite as an authority23 and sometimes refer to as ‘Gildas Sapiens,’ was prepared to
carry out his ministry and write his great work, the De excidio Brittanniae while a dea-
con.24 While still earlier, probably in the fifth century, Patrick, a bishop, remarks that his
father was Calpornius, a deacon, and his grandfather, Potitus, was a priest.25 Both exam-
ples indicate that at a time before that of the compilers of the Collectio, the diaconate was
a distinct and significant order within the clergy to which individual clerics were proud
that they or their relatives belonged.

The Content of the Law

The first heading in Collectio III has this title: ‘Regarding the word deacon.’26 And under
this heading falls a single sentence: ‘Deacon is a Greek word, and in Latin we would use
minister [servant] because he ministers at the altar’; and another manuscript has this
addition ‘because he ministers at the altar and to the priestly (sacerdotalis) grade.’ So we
are, at once, in a wholly liturgical setting: this is where the notion of a deacon has mean-
ing for the collector.
This staccato description of a deacon is typical of the introductions found across the
theological works of the Latin West in the early Middle Ages. It is not a definition of
terms in the scholastic sense (using genus and specific difference), for there the aim was
to remove as much ambiguity from debate as possible by ensuring that all knew the value
of words in a particular discourse. This is based on a notion of an intimate extra-mental
interconnection between the nature, purpose, inner reality of an object and the name by
which it is known. It is an assumption of most writers in the period that by being able to
analyse names, one can gain an insight into the object named. Hence the great popularity
of the encyclopaedia by Isidore of Seville entitled the Etymologiae. His etymologies
were ‘real’ rather than ‘verbal’ etymologies: by finding the meaning in the original lan-
guage, one was discovering the primal form of the reality and so an ab origine basis for
understanding. We may think this a trivial game or imagine its intellectual basis

23. For example, Gildas is cited as an authority at I,16,b.

24. This was first suggested by Owen Chadwick in ‘Gildas and the Monastic Order,’ Journal of
Theological Studies, n.s. 5(1954): 78–88; my own recent research has put the matter of his
status as a deacon beyond dispute, see my Gildas and the Scriptures: Observing the World
through a Biblical Lens (Turnhout, 2012), 24–25 and 135.
25. See Confessio 1, in Thomas O’Loughlin, Discovering Saint Patrick (London: Paulist, 2005),
142.
26. The Latin reads: de nomine diaconi which some might translate ‘regarding the name deacon’
but while this would be accurate as regards a dictionary, it is also false. It is not simply the
name deacon nor the noun / d e a c o n / that is being examined but the reality as addressed by
a particular sound which is recording in writing with these marks: d i a c o n u s. Hence, what
we are translating is a sound and sign that also embraces the signified reality.
26 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

ludicrous, but without acknowledging etymology’s role in pre-scholastic theology many

later theological disputes become inexplicable.
This explanation of ‘deacon’ is, as we should expect, derived from Isidore’s
Etymologiae.27 However, while Isidore is the formal source—as he is for virtually every
Greek word that was carried into Latin, with its ending appropriately changed, as a
technical Christian usage—of this sentence, the information was widely diffused.
Augustine, preaching on Stephen the Protomartyr, had written: ‘Now the word which
we use in Latin [for Stephen] is ‘minister’ while in Greek it would be ‘diaconus,’ for in
reality the Greek word ‘diaconus’ is ‘minister’ in Latin.’28 So the core of the notion that
any Latin speaker was to think, upon hearing the sound ‘diaconus,’ was that it meant ‘a
servant.’29
But inherent in the notion of ‘servant’ is that of serving someone or something. Here
the Collectio adds a further explanation to that given in Isidore: ‘because he serves the
altar.’ The significance of this addition shows that at the time of the compilation of the
Collectio the only service that could be imagined for a deacon was liturgical, and appar-
ently nothing beyond that. The deacons have a liturgical role at the altar, i.e., at the
Eucharist, and apparently this liturgical role exhausts their purpose. When we relate this
limited understanding of the diaconate to the state of the development of the practice of
the missa priuata in the same ecclesiastical culture, we can see that the eclipse of the
deacon is already an established fact by the end of the seventh century. This blunt conclu-
sion is corroborated by the rest of the headings in Collectio III.
Accepting that the diaconate was an order, it must then have a moment of institution,
and this is the subject of the second heading. This is not, in the context, an historical ques-
tion about origins, but a legal question about its mandate, and its authenticity in the
Christian scheme as coming from God. In the terminology of the Council of Trent this is
the question: is the diaconate a iure diuino?30 In the early medieval context it is framed in
this form: De exordio diaconorum in utraque lege (Regarding the basis of the diaconate in
both laws). Since the diaconate is a Christian ministry—taken as a fact: there are men
ordained to it—that they should be seeking for its origin in the New Law, i.e., the New
Testament writings, is not surprising: such searches for its ‘scriptural mandate’ would be a
feature of disputes about ‘the three-fold ministry’ until well into the 20th century. What
may be surprising is that they also wanted a mandate from the Old Law. This reflects both
the older patristic notion that everything in the new law had an anticipation, an antetype, in
the old, but it also represents a growing aspect of Latin Christianity in the early Middle

27. Etymologiae VII, 12,22 .

28. Sermo 319, 3,3 (Patrologia Latina 39, 1441).
29. This can be seen in the Vulgate in Rom 16:1 and 1 Tim 3:10 where variants of minist- are used
when the Greek uses variants of diakon-.
30. One of the difficulties encountered in studies of the origins of Christian ministry is the dif-
ferent questions of those making the enquiries: for many of the 16th-century Reformers, and
those following them, this is a quest for an historical connection with the words of Jesus as
found in the Bible; for those defending the status quo, such as those taking part in the Council
of Trent, it is the older question, seen here, of a finding legal precedents by analogy. The sub-
tle differences in perspective explain why dialogue was so often impossible.
O’Loughlin 27

Ages of seeing the Old Testament as a direct source for precedent and regulation for the
Church. We see the beginnings of this tendency in works such Gildas’s De excidio
Britanniae where the correction of the lives of both bishops and princes is decided by
searching the entire scriptures book by book.31 For the Collectio this relevance of both
testaments/laws to the Church is simply another fact of theological discourse. We see this,
for example, in the way that the regulations regarding the ‘cities of refuge’ in Num 35 and
Jos 20–21 were taken as having a direct bearing on the granting of sanctuary/amnesty after
a crime,32 and in the steadily growing habit, in the same culture as that which produced the
Collectio, to view Sunday through the lens of the Law’s regulations for the Sabbath.33
We shall look first at how the diaconate is imagined in terms of the Old Testament.
The origins lie in the event of Moses selecting the tribe of Levi, as the Lord commanded
him, and his selection of the sons of Aaron as priests when they were ordained for the
service of the divine cult. This statement is based on conflation of several texts relating
to the Aaronic priesthood found in the Pentateuch, but especially Ex 28:1–4 and Num
3:6–8 which is echoed in the language of the Collectio.

Collectio III,2,a Num 3:5–8

Diaconorum ordo a tribu Leui accipit exordium;
Precipit enim Dominus ad Moysen
ut per ordinationem Aaron sacerdotis et
filiorum eius rursus Leui tribus in diuini cultus
ministerio ordinarentur …
locutus est Dominus ad Moysen dicens
adplica tribum Leui et fac stare in conspectu
Aaron sacerdotis ut ministrent ei et excubent et
obseruent quicquid ad cultum pertinet multitudinis
coram tabernaculo testimonii et custodiant uasa
tabernaculi seruientes in ministerio eius

As Aaron the priest was served (ut ministrent ei) by the Levites, so a contemporary
priest can be served in his cultic work. The Tribe of Levi and the deacons are analogous
to one another.
The Collectio continues by noting that that tribe was to be consecrated to the Lord in
order to serve God on behalf of Israel as substitutes for all the firstborn of the Israelites,
which is a statement closely following the prescriptions and view of the role of the priest-
hood in Num 3:12–15. This group, specially segregated from the rest of the people and act-
ing on their behalf, were to carry the ark and the tabernacle and all its vessels. This statement
is a summary of instructions found in several places in the Pentateuch (most especially Num
1:50 and 3:31) and with a more elaborate place in the memory from references elsewhere to
the carrying of the ark (e.g., Jos 3:3). And the members of this group have been given an
order (mandatum) to serve in the tabernacle from the time that they reach the age of 25; this
statement is based on Num 8:24, which echoes verbally in the language of the Collectio.

31. See O’Loughlin, Gildas and the Scriptures, 93–109.

32. See Collectio XXVIII: de ciuitatibus refugii; and for commentary on this, see Thomas
O’Loughlin, ‘Map and Text: A Mid Ninth-Century Map for the Book of Joshua,’ Imago
Mundi 57:1 (2005): 7–22 and pl. 1.
33. See Thomas O’Loughlin, ‘The Significance of Sunday: Three Ninth-Century Catecheses,’
Worship 64 (1990): 533–44.
28 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

This image of the deacons from the Old Law sees them as part of a very clearly
defined group—the clergy as the new tribe of Levi—who are separate from the people
and act on their behalf. Using this explicitly Old Law view of the Christian priesthood
allows the Collectio to locate the diaconate firmly within the special group, and there is
no hint of any perceived tension in that vision of the priesthood with any explicitly
Christian notion of ministry such as that of the ministers been part of the whole priestly
people, but with special responsibilities. So the diaconate is a liturgical and cultic group
distanced from the rest of the baptized in terms of purity, status, and contact with the
holy, just as the Levites were distant from the other tribes of Israel.
In contrast to the complex picture of the group in the Old Law, the Collectio states that
its ‘origin in the New [Law] can be read about in the Acts of the Apostles’ and it quotes
6:2–4:

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 tables. Therefore, friends, select
from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom
we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to
serving the word.

The fact that this group of seven are never called deacons does not trouble the compil-
ers. The identification of these seven men of good repute as the original deacons was
already centuries old by this time—we have already noted a case of the identification
by Augustine and Gildas compares himself with this group34 and it is just an assumed
fact, which does not even raise a question, for the compilers. More surprising perhaps
is that in this passage from Acts ‘the deacons’ are there to do all the practical acts of
service that are needed within the community as distinct from what could be seen as
cultic work. Again, this does not bother the compiler, not because there is a tension in
Acts in that when we meet these men later they are preaching (Stephen in Acts 6:8 for
instance), but because he takes the fact of the actual men he meets who perform a litur-
gical function and are called ‘deacons’ as his starting point, and then seeks analogues
in the past for this group. It is agreed in the tradition that the text in Acts appoints
deacons, and this is sufficient.
It is worth noting how different this theological hermeneutic is from our own or those
of the recent past. The compiler is not searching the history/experience of the church
looking for original identity, vision, or ‘job description’ for these deacons; nor is he seek-
ing to establish them as part of a scripturally defined universe. The compiler’s experience
of the present is simply accepted: the church’s behaviour is not being queried or doubted,
nor is a reform being suggested; rather he looks in the New Law and finds a precedent
that locates the practice in the mind of the divine lawgiver. This is neither the Reformation’s
quest for ‘a sure warrant of Scripture’ nor the near contemporary search for an ‘original
purpose’ or ‘foundational insight’ about the nature of the diaconate.

34. See De excidio Britanniae 1 (H. Williams ed., Gildas (London, 1899–1901); early medieval
writers such as Gildas believed that that there was a basis for the identification of the seven as
deacons from a supposed reference to one of them in Apoc 2:1–7.
O’Loughlin 29

Once the compiler has established that the group are part of the Levitical class, and so
belong to the ordo, the next question is how are they ordained: Collectio III, 4. The head-
ing has only one sentence: the statement from the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua that a deacon
is ordained by a single bishop imposing hands on the candidate with the proviso that he
is not consecrated for priesthood but for ministry (non ad sacerdotium sed ad ministe-
rium).35 This is sufficient information to answer the question and so there is nothing
further said. That the sententia’s explanation of the difference between the sacerdotium
(bishops and presbyters) and the diaconate is empty, a mere verbal quibble: non ille sed
hic, does not trouble the compiler. The compiler knows, firstly, how the ordination is
done, and, secondly, has an authority say that this is ‘not for priesthood but service’ and
that is enough. To suggest that ordination to priesthood might also involve ordination to
service, assumes a degree of critical distance between his questioning and his authorities
that is wholly foreign to him.
The next heading, ‘Regarding how deacons should behave with due care’ (de diligen-
tia diaconorum), is unusual as it does not answer a question about status nor does it either
permit or prohibit anything. It seems more like a piece of good advice rather than law.
The first sententia under the heading is a citation of 1 Tim 3:8–10:36

Deacons likewise must be serious and chaste (pudicos), not double-tongued (bilingues), not
indulging in much wine (non multo uino deditos), not greedy for money (non turpe lucrum
sectantes); they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them
first be tested; then, if they prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons.

The second sententia under this heading is a glossing exegesis on four phrases from
this scriptural passage by Isidore of Seville in his De ecclesiasticis officiis.37 Isidore com-
ments that pudicos means that they should be abstainers from sexual desire;38 non bilingues

35. The Statuta ecclesiae antiqua is an earlier canonical collection that comes from southern
Gaul dating from the latter half of the fifth century, but was cited in the Collectio as a canon
from a Synod of Carthage. The sententia cited is Statuta, n. 92 (Corpus Christianorum, Series
Latina 148, 181). For an introduction to it, see C. Vogel, ‘Statuta ecclesiae antiqua’ in The
New Catholic Encyclopedia, second ed., (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America,
2003), 13, 501.
36. It goes without saying that the Pastoral Epistles were taken to be as authentically Pauline as
Romans or Galatians, but what is more easily forgotten is that when Paul is credited with the
authorship of the Pastorals, it alters our perception of Paul and the subject of law: rather than
seeing Paul as the one who imagines a clash between law and gospel, he becomes someone
far closer in ecclesial temperament to that of a canonist as he, after all, had laid down many
canons regarding church organization in the letters.
37. De ecclesiasticis officiis 2, 8, 5 (Patrologia Latina 83, 790).
38. There is a textual variation in the Latin text of 1 Tim used in the Collectio. As we edit
the Vulgate the text reads simply diaconos similiter pudicos, with pudicus (honourable in
the sense of being chaste) rendering the Greek word semnos, a word that can also mean
‘honourable in the sense of serious’ (hence most modern translations). The Collectio’s text
reads ‘graues esse et pudicos’ (= ‘they should be serious and chaste’) taking both senses
into account.
30 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

means they should not be disturbers of peaceful people; non multo uino deditos because
wherever there is drunkenness, there desire and fury rule; and they should be non turpe
lucrum sectantes lest they would seek early reward for heavenly service! The general
thrust of Isidore’s exegesis, endorsed as the comment of an authority by the Collectio, is
that an ideal deacon, as indeed an ideal cleric, is, in fact, a monk bound by obedience, celi-
bacy, and poverty—and this is imagined as stemming from the earliest times.
The inclusion of this material from 1 Tim in the collection is explained not by there
being a legal need for this information, but the possession of an apostolic text which,
because it made practical demands, had to be located somewhere in the Collectio. Its
inclusion tells us little about their understanding of deacons within their actual situation,
but quite a lot about their attitude towards Scripture: if there is a text that could be seen
as a precedent, then it needs to be included; and, thereby, that text’s ‘authority’ as the
consistent and unchanging ‘tradition’ of the Church is given new emphasis. This heading
is a reminder of the limitations of trying to ascertain actual conditions from what the law
permits, condemns, or even simply reports. Likewise, it is a reminder that repetition
becomes its own authority within theology while it does much to create the illusion of the
actual transmission being one that is ‘unchanging’ or as Vincent of Lerins sought to pre-
sent it: quod ubique, quod semper, [et] ab omnibus.39
The remaining six headings are all concerned with the liturgical functions of the
deacon and stress the liturgical differences which put a distance between the diaconate
and the priesthood. The fifth heading is entitled ‘the distance between the service of the
priest (sacerdos) and the deacon’ and contains a rather confused quotation from Isidore.40
Many of these differences in ritual activity are those still found in the Western church
today. The text assumes that we know what the priest does, and then notes that deacons
are to announce when the people are to pray or to kneel, they are to make the petitions, and
they are to proclaim the gospel. Some of the differences are more for the sake of pointing
up distinctions in ministry than in giving us insight into the diaconate as such. Thus, while
consecration belongs to the priest, to the deacon belongs the dispensing of the sacrament
(dispensatio sacramenti); while priests pray, deacons sing; priests sanctify the offerings,
deacons dispense the sanctified. One detail does, however, point out the differences
between their liturgy and that of modern times; a priest is not to presume to take the Lord’s
cup from the table, rather it should be handed to him by the deacon. This last detail is a
survival from the time prior to the missa priuata becoming the normal form of celebration
and recalls a time when one or more deacons were taken for granted at a eucharistic cel-
ebration, Moreover, it may also reflect a practical point: early medieval chalices were
large vessels by modern standards and it may have been convenient to have it handed to
you before drinking rather than seeking to lift it and drink from it in a single movement.
One other detail is included under this heading, though it does not sit well with the
other points based on the distinction between deacons and priests. While in the Old Law
the Levite had to be over 25 years of age before he could have care of the sacred vessels,

39. Commonitorium 1, 2, 5 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 64, 149).

40. De ecclesiasticis officiis 2, 8, 3–4 (Patrologia Latina 83, 789); my concern here is not with
what Isidore said, but with what the Collectio records as his opinion for it was in that form
that it became influential in Western canon law.
O’Loughlin 31

so in the New Law the deacons can serve the churches until venerable old age!41 What
the users of the Collectio made of this jumble of details we cannot ascertain, but there is
widespread agreement among the manuscripts which is usually indicative that it was not
the subject of close argument. In all likelihood this lack of concern is the result of the fact
that deacons did in the liturgy whatever was customary in that particular place, and this
was not a matter of controversy.
The next heading is also liturgical and taken from Isidore: it decrees that when at the altar
the deacon should wear white garments. This is presented as related to the desire that they
have heavenly life, and because he is approaching the immaculate Victim.42 This comment
would have been heard as an echo of the Western Eucharistic Prayer’s hostiam puram …
immaculatam and reinforces the notion of ritual purity that we have already noticed.43 This
final sententia is taken from the Statuta and adds further support to the issue of dress: when
taking part in the Eucharist (tempore oblationis) he should wear a white garment.44
The compilers were also aware of four other pieces of legislation, canons from synods,
relating to deacons; and, therefore, they incorporated each under a heading that acts as an
interpretation of the canon’s purpose. These acts of interpretation were necessary in all
four cases because what the synod had in mind was a liturgical situation that no longer had
currency in the time of the Collectio, but since the law stood, it had to be given some
context and value. A deacon is subject to both a presbyter and a bishop in his service.45
This regulation from the Statuta (thought of as a synod) was originally wholly liturgical:
a deacon could help either a priest or a bishop.46 Now it is presented in terms of whose
canonical subject the deacon is: he must see himself as servant to both the higher orders.
Can a deacon distribute the Eucharist (eucharistia) to the people, if a priest is present?
Yes, if it is thought necessary.47 And can he give a sermon (praedicatio) if a presbyter is
present? Apparently, because there is an earlier law that stated that the deacon in the sight
of the priests can give voice to the ‘interrogatus.’48 However, it is not clear that the

41. The rhetoric of the sentence is based on a contrast (i.e. what was once in the old, is now dif-
ferent in the new), but the point made is not a contrast but simply an extension.
42. III, 6, a and b.
43. See J.A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (New York:
Benziger, 1955), 2, 225.
44. Statuta, n. 60 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 148, 176); the text reads alba … ueste
and we are probably on safe ground to assume this is somewhat similar to our alb.
45. III, 7.
46. Statuta, n. 57 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 148, p. 175).
47. III, 8 using canon 16 from the Council of Arles of 314 (Corpus Chrstianorum, Series Latina
148, p. 12) which supposes an urban church at a time just before Christianity became a law-
ful religion, while the Collectio imagines a far more formalized liturgy in a monastic church.
It is worth noting that at no time in its history did the liturgy in the West change more than
between the opening years of the fourth century and the closing years of the seventh; see
Tom O’Loughlin, ‘The Commemoratio pro vivis of the Roman Canon: A Textual Witness
to the Evolution of Western Eucharistic Theologies?’ in J. Day and M. Vinzent eds, Studia
Patristica: Early Roman Liturgy to 600 71 (2014): 69–91.
48. III, 9 using Statuta, n. 61 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 148, p. 176).
32 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

Collectio is familiar with the practice of a deacon preaching but merely that it is possible:
it may be that here we see the diaconate being treated as a transient stage on route to a
higher order, and in that case the junior might be expected to yield precedence in preach-
ing to the more senior. This last canon also reminds us that we need to avoid the, quite
natural for us, tendency, to inquire what that canon meant ‘originally’—because that
enquiry supposes our historical awareness and empirical attitude towards the acquisition
of knowledge. Rather, we must note the different epistemology of the compilers: a canon
exists; it must make sense; here is a situation in which it makes sense; here, therefore, lies
its legislative force.49 Finally, they had a canon from Nicaea that the deacons were not to
be given precedence over the presbyters nor were they to sit in their presence, which they
interpreted as ‘that the deacon was not to occupy the presbyter’s chair.’50
There is one other mention of deacons that merits attention. In the book dealing with
bishops there is a section on the age and experience needed before a man can be ordained
a bishop.51 It assumes three different backgrounds. Firstly, if the man is a celibate from
youth, he can be ordained lector or exorcist at 20, porter and subdeacon at 24, deacon at
25, presbyter at 30, and bishop at 40.52 Secondly, in the case of a young man who is ‘mar-
ried to one wife’ (1 Tim 3:2): 30 for exorcist, 34 for subdeacon, 35 for deacon, 40 for
priest, and 50 for bishop. Thirdly, in the case of an elderly layman: he should spend two
years as a lector, then after five years he can become a subdeacon, after ten a deacon, and
after 12 years he can be asked to become either a presbyter or a bishop.

The Vision of the Law

One of the most significant developments that took place, almost unnoticed, with the
development of the systematic collection was that the law no longer only dealt with
cases, but could enshrine a vision of a legal ideal in the very arrangement of the law:
something we are only too familiar with today with many countries, and indeed the
church, having codified law.
We see this larger ecclesial vision of the compilers of the Collectio in the arrangement
of books, but we also see it in a summary book on the various grades of holy order which
shows how they imagined that the Christ contained within himself each of the orders,
and therefore surpasses all of them, while from the perspective of those ordained each of
the grades exists in the Christ. These ‘summaries,’ all of which are quite similar, of the
grades of order have been given labelled ‘the Ordinals of Christ’ by Roger Reynolds, and
there is one in the Collectio.53

49. See Kuttner, already cited, for an exposition of this ever-present hodie of the law.
50. III, 10 citing the 14th canon of Nicaea (325).
51. I, 11.
52. There is some corruption in the text at this point, but it does not affect what the Collectio says
about the diaconate.
53. Roger E. Reynolds, The Ordinals of Christ from their Origins to the Twelfth Century (Berlin:
De Gruyter, 1978) which contains editions and commentary; and see also: Joseph Crehan,
‘The Seven Orders of Christ,’ Theological Studies 19 (1958): 81–93.
O’Loughlin 33

Here is the ‘ordinal’ from the Collectio:54

The Christ took on himself the grade of doorkeeper when he opened the entrances of the
underworld (see, for example,55 Mt 16:18 and Apoc 1:18);56
he became an exorcist when he ejected seven demons from Mary Magdalene (cf. Mk 16:9 and
Lk 8:2);
he became a lector when he opened the Book of Isaiah (cf. Lk 4:17);
he became a subdeacon when he made wine from water at Cana (cf. Jn 2:1–11);
he became a deacon when he washed the feet of his disciples (cf. Jn 13:4–12);
he became a priest (sacerdos) when to took a loaf and broke and blessed (cf. 1 Cor 11:23–24
and Mt 26:26);57
and he became a bishop when he lifted his hands to heaven and blessed his apostles (cf. Lk
24:50–51).

This text makes its appearance in the Collectio as ‘recapitulatio’:58 a gathering together
so that the ‘big picture’ can be seen after all the details. All ministries are expressions of
Christ’s ministry and, just as they find their origin in his acts, so they find their intercon-
nection and unity in him. In the case of the event of the diaconate, the washing of the
disciples’ feet, the event is a careful harmonization of the event in John and the a debate
on which of them was greater in Lk 22, the connection with the diaconate being that Jesus
in Lk 22:27 replies that he is among them as one who serves (ego autem in medio uestrum
sum sicut qui ministrat) which is imagined as demonstrated in the footwashing in John.59
The link with the diaconate being that Jesus acted as a minister: the Latin for deacon.
However, there is another aspect to this recapitulation approach: in seeing every min-
istry formed in the life of the Christ as he acted towards his disciples/followers, the
Collectio fosters a binary vision of the Church. On one side is the agent, the Christ, the
clergy; and on the other the recipients, those who are the laity, i.e., the non-clergy. In
imagining the clergy standing in place of the Christ the church is made into two sections
with the same distinctiveness as that of Jesus to his followers. This paradigm, which still
has enormous popularity in parts of the Church today, makes the notion of him sharing
his priesthood with his people in baptism, where ministry is the performance of

54. VIII, 1.
55. The biblical texts being cited here are token texts as this is a study of the diaconate, in a study
of the ordinal, qua tale, one would need to relate the contents of the ordinal with far greater
precision.
56. See Thomas O’Loughlin, ‘“The Gates of Hell”: From Metaphor to Fact,’ Milltown Studies 38
(1996): 98–114.
57. See Thomas O’Loughlin, ‘The Praxis and Explanations of Eucharistic Fraction in the Ninth
Century: The Insular Evidence,’ Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 45 (2003): 1–20; and idem,
‘Translating Panis in a Eucharistic Context: A Problem of Language and Theology,’ Worship
78 (2004): 226–35.
58. The title of book VIII is de recapitulatione septem graduum.
59. A full study of the scriptural background to these ‘Ordinals’ is long overdue; on this see
Thomas O’Loughlin, Washing Feet: Imitating the Example of Jesus in the Liturgy Today
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2015), 31–52.
34 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

Spirit-given skills by and for Church, an irrelevance. The understanding of the Church
fostered in Vatican II, for example, of an empowered community of the baptized, the
priestly People of God, is not so much excluded by the ecclesiology of the Ordinals as
made quite impossible: hierarchical distinctiveness, of the Son of God to his creatures,
so likewise the hierarch to the baptized, is made the basis for both ministry and the rela-
tionships within the Church. Moreover, it makes the incarnation, viewed as the Christ
gathering a people who with, through, and in him bless the Father, the fundamental in-
built theology of the liturgy which all these clerics were celebrating, almost invisible, or,
at least, reduces ‘the sharing of our humanity’ to a soteriological exemplarism.60 In short,
we have paid, and are still paying, a heavy, long-term price for the approach to ministry
that is manifested in those ‘ordinals.’

The Operative Theology of Ministry

The compilers and users of the Collectio canonum hibernensis had an elaborate memory
of the diaconate. It began in the great desert ceremonial of the ark and the tabernacle, and
continued in the ceremonies of the temple. It was then exemplified and embraced by
Jesus at the Last Supper, and then burst forth in the choosing of the seven in the apostolic
gathering in Jerusalem, and gained its great patron and model in the death of Stephen,61
one of their number, who as the proto-martyr they recalled each year next to the birth of
Jesus.62 However, their operative theology, the understanding that informed their day-to-
day praxis, was rather different.
The clergy formed a clear group apart, and this group was stratified into two major
layers: those with the power of the sacerdotium as the superior part, and those who did
not have it as the inferior part. Deacons, while forming the highest stratum of the inferior
part, were still very distant from the next step: the presbyterate. The boundary between
the diaconate and the priesthood was indeed the boundary within the whole church: the
power to consecrate at the Eucharist. Consequently, the office of deacon was already
being seen as a stepping-stone to ‘greater things’ and this transitional status even had
specific durations attached depending on the canonical status of the person making the
journey through the orders. In itself, it was only conceived of in terms of a supporting
liturgical role carrying out specific tasks that were already being thought of, from the
way the questions about preaching and distribution of the Eucharist are posed, as tasks
more normally belonging to the presbyterate. Moreover, with the growing practice of
monk-priests celebrating missae priuatae (and this steadily becoming the more general

60. This tension between the texts of the liturgy and the ecclesiological hermeneutic with which those
texts were approached can be seen in the development of the text of the Commemoratio pro uiuis
of the Western Eucharistic Prayer; see, O’Loughlin, ‘The Commemoratio pro vivis of the Roman
Canon: A Textual Witness to the Evolution of Western Eucharistic Theologies?’ See n. 47.
61. Gildas imagines Stephen as the model for his own ministry.
62. See the place of Stephen’s memorial in such texts as the Félire Oengusso where his ‘luminous
name is like a fair sun that warms thousands’ in Whitley Stokes ed., The Martyrology of Oengus
the Culdee Henry Bradshaw Society 29 (London, 1905), 254, and Pádraig Ó Riain, Feastdays
of the Saints: A History of Irish Martyrologies (Brussels, 2006), chs 1–5, for the context.
O’Loughlin 35

norm as the ‘low Mass’), even this auxiliary role was becoming more ceremonial: adding
solemnity, and probably being reserved to the more significant moments within liturgical
time. As such, the new role of the deacon, and the way the diaconate was perceived as a
ministry, can be seen as the outcome of the growing dominance of the missa priuata as
the principal Western experience of the Eucharist. This has important consequences for
any new imagining of the diaconate today in that we must not fail to recognize that many
of the inherited images of the deacon do not relate to any specific tradition of theology
regarding the diaconate but are a function of the earlier acceptance of the missa priuata
as the Western eucharistic norm. In so far as that view of the Eucharist has been the sub-
ject of theological criticism since before the Second Vatican Council,63 and indeed its
underlying theology,64 to that extent the diaconate is part of our theological inheritance
that is open to creative development in our own day.

Further Investigations
This study, which is by its nature preliminary, has restricted itself to one kind of evi-
dence, indeed to just one document. The full significance of that document, and of the
role of the diaconate in the period, will only become clear when this study is incorporated
in a larger study that would include the following: first, an analysis of the evidence for
the use of deacons in the liturgical texts from the period; second, a study of the place
assigned to the diaconate in that other source of legal guidance from this period—the
penitentials; third, a study of passing references to deacons in the narrative literature of
the period, and this, in large measure, means a study of deacons who are mentioned or
described in hagiography; and, finally, a study of the exegesis that was produced at the
time of those scriptural passages that were seen (as exhibited in works like the Collectio)
as having a bearing on the diaconate, such as Numbers, Acts, and 1 Timothy. There is no
shortage of work for willing hands with the right theological and historical skills!

63. The work of Rahner and Häussling, already cited, is still the most comprehensive critique;
and see Thomas P. Rausch, ‘Is the Private Mass Traditional?’ Worship 64 (1990): 227–42.
64. This topic has generated an extensive literature in German, and to a lesser extent in French, but
is not well known in English; see Otto Nussbaum, Kloster, Priestermönch und Privatmesse:
Ihr Verhältnis im Westen von den Anfängen bis zum hohen Mittelalter (Bonn: Hanstein, 1961);
and again by Angelus Häussling, Mönchskonvent und Eucharistiefeier: Eine Studie über die
Messe in der abendländischen Klosterliturgie des frühen Mittelalters und zur Geschichte
des Messhäufigkeit (Münster-Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1973) in his reply to what he saw as
weaknesses in Nussbaum’s argument. It has been further explored by Arnold Angenendt,
‘Missa specialis: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Entstehung der Privatmessen,’ Frümittelalterliche
Studien 17 (1983): 153–221 (and see a summary of this in Arnold Angenendt and Thaddäus
A. Schnitker, ‘Die Privatmesse,’ Liturgisches Jahrbuch 33 (1983): 76–89); A. Angenendt, T.
Braucks, R. Busch, T. Leutes, and H. Lutterbach, ‘Gezählte Frömmigkeit,’ Frümittelalterliche
Studien 29 (1995): 1–71; C. Vogel, ‘La multiplication des messes solitarires au Moyen Age:
Essai de statistique,’ Revue des Sciences religieuses 55 (1981): 206–13; and again in ‘La vie
quotidienne des moines-prêtres à l’époque de la floraison des messes privées’ in A.M. Triacca
and A. Pistoia eds, Liturgie, spiritualité, culture: Conférences Saint-Serge, 30e Semaine
d’Etudes Liturgiques, Paris, 29 juin–2 Juillet 1982 (Rome, 1983), 341–60.
36 Irish Theological Quarterly 82(1)

Conclusions
But why should we bother to investigate this obscure period, which has neither the splen-
dour of the earlier patristic period nor, apparently, the theological meatiness of the scho-
lastics? The answer lies, firstly, in the place this period had in the minds of those who
formed the canon law of the Latin church in the 12th century: when they sought out
‘ancient practice’ and ‘ancient tradition’ on any number of issues it was not to the docu-
ments of the early centuries of the Church that they turned, but what they thought was the
expression of those early centuries in the form of the canonical legislation of the
Carolingian era. In so far as the work of Gratian and his colleagues still gives shape to
the Latin church—and Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917 merely codified that legal inherit-
ance—this obscure period is still exercising influence on us. It surely merits more study.
Secondly, in so far as the remembered history of the diaconate, for more than 1300
years, can be seen as dependent on the dominance of the missa priuata/Low Mass as the
West’s eucharistic paradigm, in so far as that has been rejected by the Second Vatican
Council, so must our inherited perceptions of the diaconate. Freed from those assump-
tions inherited from the early medieval period we can see that the diaconate is a ministry
whose ambit is open for fresh explorations.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.

Author biography
Thomas O’Loughlin is Professor of Historical Theology in the University of Nottingham. His most
recent monograph is The Eucharist: Origins and Contemporary Understandings (2015). He directs
the series Studia Traditionis Theologiae, and is currently President of the Catholic Theological
Association of Great Britain.