At
the imperial command he began a persecution of the Christians, but
interrupted it for a time to obtain further instructions from the
emperor. His letter and the reply still exist. In the course of what he
wrote Pliny says that he had sought to learn from two maids, who were
called "ministrae" ("ex duabus ancillis, quae ministrae dicebantur," Book
x, chap. xcvii), or helpers, the truth of what the Christians had said,
and had even deemed it necessary to put them to torture, but could
obtain evidence of nothing save unbounded superstition. Here is
independent testimony of singular interest that deaconesses, followers
of Phebe, were found in Christian communities of Asia Minor at the
beginning of the second century, and that they kept the faith, when put
to cruel martyrdom.

The clearest conceptions of the characteristics and duties of
deaconesses of the early Church we obtain from the _Apostolic
Constitutions_, a collection of ecclesiastical instructions that
gradually grew up in the Eastern Church, and were gathered into one work
in the fourth century. These instructions were of unequal antiquity,
ranging from the earliest usages to the rules and practices last
determined upon. Whether the _Apostolic Constitutions_ have all the
authority that some claim for them is a question not here to be
decided. If not genuine, they must have been written at a very early
time, and from that fact possess a historical value of their own. "They
prove beyond a doubt that there was a time in the history of the Church
when a clear idea was held by some writer of the office of the female
deacon as essential to the discipline of the Church."[5] From them we
learn of three distinct types of women connected with the administration
of the Church--deaconesses, widows, and virgins. Deaconesses and widows
date from apostolic times, the Church virgins from a somewhat later
period. The distinction between widows and deaconesses was not at first
clearly maintained. By some Church fathers widows were called
deaconesses, and deaconesses widows. It was only after the lapse of time
that we find the classes clearly distinguished, and when that time is
reached the deaconesses have become exalted in office, being regarded as
belonging to the clergy,[6] while the widows have lost somewhat the
honorable position first accorded to them. The deaconesses are active
ministering agents, caring for the necessities of others; the widows
have passed the period o