De decreto unico quo Caio adscribitur

CONCERNING THE SINGLE DECREE ATTRIBUTED TO CAIUS, REGARDING THOSE TO BE ORDAINED. Of this Pope, not only has no genuine letter been transmitted to us, but none is anywhere recorded. Only in the Pontifical Book is it said that he decreed: that all orders in the Church should be ascended thus: If anyone were to merit becoming a bishop, he should be ordained as porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte, then subdeacon, deacon, presbyter, and thereafter bishop. If by this decree he is understood to have established that each person should ascend to the episcopate through those ecclesiastical offices, not by a precipitate leap, Cyprian bears witness that this was already customary before the time of Caius, when he proves that the ordination of Cornelius was legitimate (Cornel., ep. 10, n. 7) because he did not arrive at the episcopate suddenly, but "promoted through all ecclesiastical offices, and having often merited God in divine administrations, he ascended to the sublime pinnacle of the priesthood through all the grades of religion." Moreover, what those grades are, Cornelius himself teaches us, when he records that in his church there then existed (Ep. 9, n. 4) "46 presbyters, 7 deacons, the same number of subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists and lectors together with porters." Yet I would not dare to affirm that Cornelius had served in the offices of all those grades, without exception.

But if the aforementioned statute is regarded as an ecclesiastical law, from which no one is exempt except by the one who enacted the law, it is easily demonstrated by several examples that this decree is far more recent than Caius. Later than this pope is the Council of Sardica, held in the year 347, whose canon (Isidore Mercator 13) decrees that if anyone from the forum, whether rich or a scholar, is deemed worthy to become a bishop, he shall not be appointed before he has completed the ministry of lector, deacon, and presbyter; and it requires that he have a not insignificant length of time in each order's grade, through which both his faith and the probity of his morals... can be known. To those three grades the Greeks add the subdiaconate, who recognize only these four grades of orders together with the episcopate, as is evident from various monuments, and specifically from the acts of the Eighth Synod, act 10, chapter: "If anyone... is found to have passed through all ecclesiastical grades with blameless life for defined periods, so that he has completed one year in the office of lector, two in that of subdeacon, three in that of deacon, and four in that of priest, he shall be raised to the honor of the episcopate." Now it remains for us to prove that even in the Latin Church, and specifically the Roman, it was not required of all that they first pass through the seven aforementioned grades before they could be elevated to the episcopate.

Siricius, in his first letter to Himerius, nos. 10 and 5, and likewise Zosimus, in his ninth letter to Hesychius, nos. 5 and 5, defining by which grades each person should be advanced to the dignity of bishop or priest, prescribe that one be placed not in the grade of doorkeeper, but first in that of lector, "to use the words of Zosimus, the beginnings of divine service." Indeed, when Siricius decrees concerning one who is baptized at an advanced age, that if he hastens to enter sacred military service, he should immediately (after receiving baptism) "be joined to the number of lectors or exorcists," he seems to require not both grades from him, but only one or the other. Zosimus, concurring with him, decrees concerning the same matter, "that after baptism, if he desires to be enlisted in divine military service, he should be held either among the lectors or among the exorcists." Although this passage of Zosimus can be explained in such a way that "either among the lectors or among the exorcists" is equivalent to "both among the lectors and among the exorcists," especially since he prefaces this with: "Let him become accustomed in the Lord's camp, first in the grade of lector, to the beginnings of divine service; and let it not be beneath him to become an exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon in order." It is remarkable that although Siricius and Zosimus, in the aforementioned letters, so accurately describe each of the grades by which they wish one to arrive at the summit of the priesthood, they nevertheless consistently remain silent about the doorkeeper. They would certainly not have passed over this in silence if the decree concerning Gaius had been issued earlier.

In this matter, the spurious yet nonetheless ancient Constitutum Silvestri, or the Roman Council II under Silvester, agrees with them, in whose second chapter it is established: "I. That no lay person should be raised to the honor of acolyte up to the episcopate, unless he had first been a lector for thirty years, then an exorcist for one day, and afterwards take up the burden of acolyte, and remain in that same order of acolyte for ten years, so that he might take up the burden of subdeacon, and be in the subdiaconate for five years, etc." Just as here no mention is made of the doorkeeper, so also in those same chapters of the Constitutum: "That from subdeacon down to lector, all should be subject to the cardinal deacon of the city of Rome, representing honor only in the Church, but to the pontiff, the presbyters, subdeacons, deacons, acolytes, exorcists, and lector representing obedience in every place." Yet the same Constitutum or council, in chapter 1, mentions the doorkeeper, where we read: "That a presbyter should not bring any accusation against a bishop, nor a deacon against a presbyter, nor a subdeacon against a deacon, nor an exorcist against a subdeacon, nor a lector against an exorcist, nor a doorkeeper against a lector." Therefore, from the silence of Siricius or Zosimus, it is by no means to be inferred that the grade of doorkeeper was unknown to them, which, as we have said, Cornelius acknowledged.

Nevertheless, it can be inferred from this that they judged it by no means necessary to require that those who were enrolling in the clergy should actually perform the office of doorkeeper. Certainly, infants, whom they wished to enroll in the sacred militia, could serve as lectors for a short time, but they could not so quickly become strong and fit to fulfill the duties of doorkeeper. For it was the doorkeepers' role to repel the unworthy from the entrance of the Church. Augustine, in his book *De Pastoribus*, now Sermon 46, n. 31, describes how among the Donatists the doorkeeper, "standing or sitting at the door" of the basilicas, would question those who wished to enter and would cast out those who were not of the same communion. Infants were unequal to this task. Long after the times of Siricius and Zosimus, Gelasius, in his Epistle XI, chapter 2, although he recognizes the grade of doorkeeper, nevertheless prescribes there: "If anyone, even from a religious profession and trained in monastic disciplines, comes to the clerical office... he immediately becomes a lector, or a notary, or certainly a defensor; after three months he becomes an acolyte, especially if his age also favors this; in the sixth month he receives the name of subdeacon." And thus he permits not only the grade of doorkeeper but also that of exorcist to be passed over. There is no need here to adduce examples of those who, with one or even several of the aforementioned seven grades omitted, attained the episcopate.

Therefore, the decree in question seems no more to pertain to Gaius than that which was published under the name of the Third Roman Council under this pope pertains to Sylvester: "If anyone desires to merit the clerical state, it is just that he be a doorkeeper for one year, a lector for twenty years, an exorcist for ten years, an acolyte for five years, a subdeacon for five years, a deacon for five years, and if he proceeds to the honor of the presbyterate, and spends six years in that order... thus let him be chosen by the whole Church to be consecrated bishop." COUSTANT.