ot slanderers, sober,
faithful in all things." Now the word _wives_ has no authority from the
Greek word, which is simply _women_. Bishop Lightfoot remarks, in his
book on the authorized version of the New Testament, "If the theory of
the definite article (in the Greek) had been understood our translators
would have seen that the reference is to deaconesses, not to wives of
the deacons."

Many eminent scholars are of the same opinion, among whom are
Chrysostom, Grotius, Bishop Wordsworth, and Dean Alvord. Dean Howson
adds: "It should be particularly noticed in connection with this that in
the early part of the chapter no such directions are given concerning
the wives of the bishops, though they are certainly as important as the
wives of the deacons; so that it can scarcely be thought otherwise than
that the apostle's directions were for the deaconesses, an order which
we find in ecclesiastical records for some centuries side by side with
that of deacons."[4]

Those mentioned in Tit. ii, 3, and in 1 Tim. v, 9, cannot be considered
as holding the office of a deaconess. They belong distinctively to the
class of widows, who held a position of honor in the Church. St. Paul
had clear conceptions of the administrative needs of the Church, and it
is not probable that he would set apart to the service of deaconesses,
which had many difficult duties, those who were already sixty years old.

The many names of faithful women mentioned in his letters as helpers in
the Church are important witnesses for the great apostle's appreciation
of woman's co-operation in the work of the Church, although his judgment
was necessarily limited in some directions by the influence of the times
in which he lived.

Let us examine the requirements for the diaconate of the early Church.
The word diaconate means service; helpful service. We use the word to
designate service for the Church of Christ; service that more
particularly concerns itself with administering the charities of the
Church and performing its duties of compassion and mercy. The men who
were selected for this office were to be men of "honest report." They
must have led a blameless life. Those who had repented of wrong-doing
and reformed their lives were excluded from the office, because they
had lost a good report "of them which are without." Pre-eminently they
must be men of spiritual experience, proven Christians, "full of the
Holy Ghost and of wisdom." They were also to have prac