“I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a
servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: That ye receive her in the Lord, as
becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of
you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also.” King James
Version (1611, as updated in 1769)
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cen′chre-ae, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well.” Revised Standard Version (1946)
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a
deacon 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.” New Revised Standard Version (1989)
These two verses are all we know about Saint Phoebe,
whose feast day in the Episcopal Church is September 3, but they tell a more
than one might expect. Paul is entrusting her with the letter, which she will carry
and read to the house churches of Rome. She,s also a benefactor, or patron of
both the church and Paul’s mission.
Episcopalians and most Anglicans recognize Saint
Phoebe as a deacon, but as the translations above show, that has not always
been the case. The issue is twofold: historical practice and the interpretation
of the Greek word “diakonos,” literally meaning “servant.” The word itself is
masculine, but it’s one of a few Greek nouns with common gender—that it can
change gender due to context.
The translation of “diakonos” closely follows the
status of the female diaconate. In seventeenth century England, where there
were no female deacons, or even deaconesses, the translators of the King James
Version rendered “diakonos” as “servant.” For Anglicans, the King James Version
was the only authorized version of the Bible until 1881, when English Revised
Version was published. But both it and the 1901 American Standard Version kept
“servant.”
The Revised Standard Edition of the New Testament,
published in 1946 by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, translates
“diakonos” as “deaconess.” By this time, numerous Protestant churches,
including the Episcopal Church, had deaconesses. In our church, women’s
religious orders emerged during the Anglo-Catholic movement of the mid-19th
century, and in a few dioceses, bishops appointed deaconesses to perform social
service work, such as nursing. The General Convention of 1889 passed a canon which
officially recognized the office of deaconess. A deaconess had to be "a
devout woman of proved fitness, unmarried or widowed." If she married, her
appointment was vacated. Deaconesses were “set apart,” rather than ordained. And
according to priest and theologian Royden Keith Yerkes, as of 1953, “The Bishop
was directed to lay his hand (not his hands) upon the head of the candidate
and, after a prayer of blessing, to say ‘N, I admit thee to the office of
Deaconess. In the Name of . . . etc.’ Thus it was made a little easier to say
that she had not been ordained and that her Office was not part of the official
ministry of the Church.” Yerkes, writing in March 1957, asks “What is a
Deaconess?” He argues that the “…General Convention leaves the whole subject
bathed in mist.”
Yerkes reminds his audience that in the early
church, “…both men and women could be made deacons. The word deaconess was not
used until the fourth century; men and women were both called deacons.” But the
status of deaconesses remained “bathed in mist” until the 1964 General
Convention adopted a canon defining the office of deaconess as “ordered,”
rather than “set apart.” It also allowed married women to be ordained deaconesses.
California Bishop James Pike, in 1965, pushed a bit
beyond the canon to ordain Deaconess Phyllis Edwards as a deacon. According to
the Associated Press, “Bishop Pike draped a red stole over the right shoulder
of the white-robed deaconess as a symbol of her ministry…. The rites found the
48-year-old widow bright-eyed, pink-cheeked and far more calm than her fellow
clergymen at the altar.”
Pike was five years ahead of General Convention,
which in 1970, eliminated all distinctions between male and female deacons,
except, of course, that of being a precursor to the priesthood. The title
“deaconess” was dropped.
By the NRSV’s 1989 publication, women in the Episcopal
Church were priests and bishops, as well as deacons. Most other denominations
in the National Council of Churches included women in all levels of their
ministry. Based on these changes, and more important, updates in historical
understanding, the translators of the New Revised Standard Version described
Phoebe as a deacon
Today, the Episcopal Church is blessed with deacons,
both male and female. And here at St. John’s, we are particularly blessed by
Deacon Melissa Renner, who enlivens and enlightens our parish, and who can
trace her ecclesial lineage back to St. Phoebe.
Note: In researching this article, I relied primarily
on the following:
What
Can We Say About Phoebe? | CBE (cbeinternational.org)
What
is a Deaconess? by Royden Keith Yerkes (no date) (anglicanhistory.org)
“The Episcopalians” (2005) by Gardiner H. Shattuck,
Jr. and David Hein
No comments:
Post a Comment