> Peter Abelard discusses deaconesses in his Romans commentary at 16:2,
>which speaks of Phoebe along the lines of a deaconness, or as a woman
>appointed in the ministry of the church. He quotes a number of earlier
>sources--Origen, Jerome/Pelagius, Epiphanius, Cassiodorus, and Claude of
>Turin. Peter says nothing about any deaconnesses in his time, though
>clearly one wonders if he is thinking of Heloise. I know of no other
>commentator on Romans who devotes so much space (only about a page) to
>discussing deaconnesses at this passage.
>
>Steve Cartwright
Very true; and Heloise is often referred to by the courtesy title of
Deaconess in their correspondence. She uses the term of herself; cf. the
Penguin translation, p. 127, "I am surprised, my only love, the contrary to
custom in letter-writing and indeed, to the natural order, you have thought
fit to put my name before yours in the greeting which heads your letter; so
that we have woman before man, wife before husband, handmaid before master,
nun before monk, deaconess before priest and abbess before abbot."
Nevertheless we may be quite certain at this time that she was not formally
ordained as a deaconess.
Oriens.
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