DEACONESSES FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE NINETEENTH
CENTURIES.
During these seven centuries whenever there arose a reviving spirit of
true love to God, whether within the Church of Rome or in any of the
churches formed from reforming elements that separated from it, then we
find traces of the diaconate of woman assuming some form of devotion to
Christ and work for him. One of these movements well worth our study
originated in Belgium while the last of the Greek deaconesses were still
daily walking the arched pathway that led to their church in
Constantinople. Toward the close of the twelfth century great corruption
of morals and open abuses prevailed in society, and also in the Church.
One of those who protested against the evils of the times was the priest
Lambert le Bègue, as he was called, meaning the stutterer. He lived at
Liège, in Belgium, and just without the city walls owned a large garden.
He determined to make use of this to found a retreat for godly women,
where they could lead in common a life of well-doing. Here he built a
number of little houses, and in the center a church, which was dedicated
to St. Christopher in 1184. Then he presented the whole to some godly
women to be used and owned in common. His earnest words of rebuke
brought persecution upon him from those whose consciences he disturbed,
but he went to Rome and appealed to the pope, who not only protected him
from his assailants, but made him the patriarch of the order he had
founded. Only six months after his return, however, he died, and was
buried before the high altar of the church he had erected in 1187.
Whether he was indeed the founder of the Béguine houses has been called
in question. Be that as it may, fifty years after his death fifteen
hundred Béguines were living around St. Christopher's Church,[18] and
Béguine courts were found throughout Belgium, in the Netherlands, south
along the Rhine, in eastern France, and in Switzerland. The Crusades
made many widows, and both widows and young girls sought shelter in the
community life of the Béguines. As a rule they lived alone, in separate
small houses built closely together and surrounded by a wall. Each house
bore on its door the sign of the cross, and with every Béguine court
there were invariably two large buildings--a church and a hospital; the
one for the worship of the sisters, the other the field of their
self-denying ministrations. At first they were in no wise distinguished
in their dress from other women, but in time they wore a habit which
varied in color with each establishment, but was generally blue, gray,
or brown. The veil was invariably white. The sisters had to earn, or
partly earn, their own livelihood. In the time remaining they rendered
essential service in performing acts of charity. They received orphans
to bring up and educate, taught little children, nursed the sick,
performed the last offices for the dead, and bound themselves by good
deeds closely with the lives of the people. They were in no sense
isolated from the world, but lived busy, useful lives in the midst of
the world. They could leave the community at any time, and after
severing their connection with it were free to marry. They also retained
control of their own property.
There were certainly many points of resemblance between these women who
were so active in the sphere of Christian charity in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries and the deaconesses of Europe to-day. The most
prosperous period for the Béguines was the first half of the thirteenth
century, when they were numbered by thousands.[19] Gradually persecution
was directed against them. The nuns looked upon them with disfavor, and
the pope withdrew his protection. In the Netherlands many became
Protestants at the time of the Reformation, but the Béguines of to-day,
changed in many respects from the original type, and now, closely
resembling the other sisterhoods of Catholicism, are frequently to be
seen in the cities of Belgium and north-eastern France.
A new current of spiritual life swept over the church in the fourteenth
century, and again we find women living together in community life, and
devoting themselves to common service in good deeds, and known as the
Sisters of the Common Life. There was also a Brotherhood of the Common
Life, as there were Beghards, communities of Christian men corresponding
to the Béguines. The Brotherhood and the Sisterhood of the Common Life
honored as their founder Gerhard Groot, of Deventer, who was born in
1340. Of a singularly attractive personality, a creative mind, and an
ardent, enthusiastic nature, he was born to influence and command. He
was already known as a priest of eloquence and wide learning when, in
1374, he met with a deep spiritual change, and from that year dated his
conversion. Henceforth, with every power of a rarely gifted nature, he
sought to lead those who heard him to lives of purity and holiness.
Gradually there grew up about him a circle of like-minded friends,
occupied in writing books to spread his ideas, and aiding him as they
could. His friend Florentius proposed that they live together and form a
community. "A community!" answered Groot. "The begging orders will never
permit that." But Florentius, the planner and organizer, persisted,
offering his own house as a home, and held to the advantages of his plan
until Groot yielded, and said, "In the name of the Lord begin your
work."
Such was the origin of the Brotherhood of the Common Life, and from its
circle proceeded that immortal book, the _Imitation of Christ_, by
Thomas à Kempis, keeping alive in the hearts of choice spirits of every
generation the thoughts and sentiments of the men of whom its author was
the interpreter. For a community of women of similar aims and purposes
it needed only that Groot should make a few changes in the house that he
had already set apart from his paternal inheritance as a home for
destitute women, and the first sister house began. Like the Béguines,
the Sisters of the Common Life took no obligations binding them to
life-long service, but they differed from them in living more closely
together in one family, and had a common purse. They wore a gray
costume, and also worked for their own support. The special virtues they
inculcated were obedience to those above them in authority, humility
that would not shun the meanest task, and friendliness to all. Their
charitable duties were much the same as the Béguines; they cared for
children, nursed the sick, and often acted as midwives. In the first
half of the sixteenth century there were at least eighty-seven
sister-houses, mostly in the Netherlands.[20]
It will be noticed that these freer communities of religious women, that
bear so much closer resemblance to the deaconesses of the early Church
than to the sisterhoods of nuns contemporary with them, mostly existed
in the great free cities of Germany and the Netherlands, which were the
cradles of political and religious liberty, the centers of commerce and
of civilization at that time.
Among the Waldenses, the Poor Men of Lyons, who were already prominent
in the last half of the twelfth century, we find there were
deaconesses. We learn of them again, too, among the Bohemian brethren,
the followers of Huss. With deep Christian faith they endeavored to form
a Church after the apostolic model, and in 1457 appointed Church
deaconesses. "They were to form a female council of elder women, who
were to counsel and care for the married women, widows, and young girls,
to make peace between quarrelers, to prevent slandering, and to preserve
purity and good morals,"[21] aims which keep close to the apostolic
definition of this office.
Luther, the great master-mind of the Reformation, was too clear-sighted
to fail to appreciate the importance of women for the service of the
Church. Speaking of the quality which is an inherent part of the
diaconate of women, he says: "Women who are truly pious are wont to have
especial grace in comforting others and lessening their sorrows." In his
exposition of 1 Pet. ii, 5, he uttered truly remarkable words, for the
age in which he lived, concerning women as members of the holy
priesthood. He says: "Now, wilt thou say, Is that true that we are all
priests, and should preach? Where will that lead us? Shall there be no
difference in persons? shall women also be priests? Answer. If thou
desirest to behold Christians, so must thou see no differences, and must
not say, That is a man or a woman, that is a servant or a lord, old or
young. They are all one, simply Christian people. Therefore are they all
priests. They may all publish God's word, save that women shall not
speak in the church, but shall let men preach. But where there are no
men, but women only, as in the nuns' cloisters, there might a woman be
chosen who should preach to them. This is the true priesthood, in which
are the three elements of spiritual offerings, prayer, and preaching for
the Church. _Whoever does this is a priest. You are all bound to preach
the Word, to pray for the Church, and to offer yourself to God._"[22]
There is no mention in Luther's writings, however, of the diaconate of
women. It would be more natural that he should have tried to adjust the
lives of the monks and nuns as he knew of them to the new relations
arising from the Reformation rather than to bring to life an office of
which he had no personal knowledge. This was what he did when he wrote
to the burghers of Herford in Westphalia. In their new zeal they wanted
to drive the inmates from the religious houses, although the latter had
been the means of teaching them the reformed doctrines. In his letter
of January 31, 1532, Luther says: "If the brothers and sisters who are
by you truly teach and hold the true word it is my friendly wish that
you will not allow them to be disturbed or experience bitterness in this
matter. Let them retain their religious dress and their accustomed
habits which are not opposed to the Gospel."[23]
Certainly Luther would have seen no harm in allowing deaconesses the
protection of a special garb.
Passing to another great reformer, Calvin, we find not only references
to deaconesses as filling a "most honorable and most holy function in
the Church," but in the Church ordinances of Geneva, which were drawn up
by him, there is mention of the diaconate as one of the four ordinances
indispensable to the organization of the Church.
In the Netherlands several attempts were made to revive the ancient
office. The General Synod of the Reformed Church at Wesel, in 1568,
first considered the question. A later synod, in 1579, expressly
occupied itself with the work and office of the deaconess, but the
measures taken were not adapted to advance the interests of the cause,
and it was formally abandoned by the Synod of Middleburg in 1581. In
the city of Wesel, however, there continued to be deaconesses attached
to the city churches until 1610. In Amsterdam local churches preserved
the office still later than at Wesel. Already in 1566 we read that in
the great reformed Church not only deacons but deaconesses were elected.
The terrible days of the Spanish fury swept away all Church organization
for a time, but when it was restored in 1578 both classes of Christian
officers again resumed their duties. From 1582 lists of deaconesses were
kept, showing at first three; later, in 1704, twenty-eight, and in 1800
only eight. At the present time there are women directors of hospitals
and orphanages in Amsterdam who are called by the title of deaconesses.
The helpless, sick, and neglected children are now gathered in
institutions instead of being cared for individually as was formerly the
custom, and women having positions of control in these institutions are
designated by the name formerly applied to those who had the personal
care of the same needy classes.
It is interesting to note that there was one association of women in the
century of the Reformation that bears close resemblance to the Béguines
and the Sisters of the Common Life. These were the Damsels of Charity,
established by Prince Henry Robert de la Mark, the sovereign prince of
Sédan in the Netherlands. In 1559 he, together with the great majority
of his subjects, embraced the doctrines of the Reformed Church, and
instead of incorporating former church property with his own
possessions, as did so many princes of the Reformation, he devoted it to
founding institutions of learning and of charity. These latter he put
under the care of the "Damsels of Charity," an association of women
which he had instituted. The members could live in their own homes or in
the establishments, but in either case they devoted themselves to the
protection and succor of the poor and sick and the aged. While taking no
vows, they were chosen from those not bound by the marriage vow, and
were subject only to certain rules of living. The Damsels of Charity
have been held by some to be the first Protestant association of
deaconesses, although not called by the name.[24]
There are two evangelical societies, small in numbers, but one at least
powerful in influence, which have retained deaconesses from their origin
to the present time. These are the Mennonites or Anabaptists, and the
Moravians. It was among the Mennonites in Holland that Fliedner saw the
deaconesses, who so interested him in their duties that he obtained the
convictions which in the end led him to devote his life to their
restoration in the economy of the Church. Among the Moravians,
deaconesses were introduced at the instance of Count Zinzendorf in 1745,
but only as a limited form of woman's service, by no means measuring up
to the place accorded them to day in Germany.
We have now reached the nineteenth century, and from the early Church to
the present time we find successive if sporadic attempts to incorporate
into the Church the active diaconate of women. These constantly
recurring efforts imply a consciousness, deep, if unexpressed, of the
need to utilize better the especial gifts of women in Christian service.
We have reached the moment when this consciousness is to take a suitable
and enduring form; when the Church machinery, long defective in this
particular, is to be re-adjusted and made complete.
[18] _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, vol. i, p. 67.
[19] _Woman's Work in the Church_, Ludlow, p. 117, note. "Matthew
Paris mentions it as one of the wonders of the age, for the
year 1250, that in Germany there rose up an innumerable multitude
of those continent women who wish to be called Béguines, to that
extent that Cologne was inhabited by more than a thousand of
them."
[20] _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, Schäfer, vol. i, p. 70.
[21] _Der Diakonissenberuf_ E. Wacker, p. 82.
[22] _Denkschrift zur Jubelfeier_, J. Disselhoff, p. 5. Gütersloh,
1888.
[23] _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, vol. i, p. 73.
[24] _Histoire de la principauté de Sédan_, Pasteur Pegran, vol. ii,
chaps. i, ii.