The Henson Journals

[9]

Thursday, March 16th, 1922.

Bishop Lightfoot, in his Primary Charge, wrote:–

"As I read my New Testament, the female diaconate is as definite an institution as the male diaconate. Phoebe is as much a deacon as Stephen or Philip is a deacon".

Turner says: "The devout women who run parishes are no invention of modern days: their activities in the patristic age were on an even larger scale". Bp. Lightfoot connects the rise of deaconesses with the situation of women in the ancient Church. "The strict seclusion of the female sex in Greece & in some Oriental countries necessarily debarred them from the ministrations of men: & to meet the want thus felt, it was found necessary at an early date to admit women to the diaconate". (v. Dissertation, p. 191).

Bp. Collins:– "In the West, not only is there no evidence for the existence of the deaconess during the first four centuries, but all the evidence points clearly in the opposite direction".

When the anointing of the whole body had been dropped in most parts of the East, and adult baptisms had become so rare as not to require any regular provision, the ordination of deaconesses gradually ceased. I can find nothing in the precedents to authorise the admission of deaconesses to the work of public ministry to mixed congregations. Their work has always had reference to their own sex & to children, and it has never extended to "the ministry of the Word & Sacraments". The modern demand goes far beyond Scripture & Tradition.

[10]

The 'Durham University Journal' prints under the heading "The Bishop, the Dean and the University" not only a considerable extract from my Commemorative Sermon, but also Welldon's observations on the scheme therein propounded. He categorically "accepts the Bishop's policy".

I sent to Michell Pierce a parcel of books, viz:

1. Glover's Jesus in the Experience of Men.

2. Gore. Sermon on the Mount.

3. Lang. Lessons from the Parables.

4. Lang. Lessons from the Miracles.

5 Peake. The Christian Religion.

6 Glover. The Historic Jesus.

Canon Gouldsmith came to dine and sleep. Mrs Gouldsmith arrived last night. Lord Thurlow & his wife came in to dine. I had some talk with Gouldsmith, who represents the Evangelicals & was himself a C.M.S. missionary in India. He says that the strain of the factions in Salisbury Square is becoming unendurable. Unfortunately the large subscriptions come from the narrowest faction, whom the aged Webb–Peploe represents a final authority. If the reasonable sections of C.M.S and S.P.G. could unite in a single society, & shed the fanaticks in both bodies, the result might be excellent. G. tells me that Shebbeare caused great alarm among the Sunderland clergy by expressing frankly modernist opinions.

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