Clerics

 

1. The clergy and clerics are so called because Matthias, who as we read was the first person ordained by the apostles, was chosen by lot for κλῆρος in Greek means "allotment" or "inheritance." 2. Therefore they are called clerics because they are of the allotment of the Lord, or because they have a portion of the Lord. And in general all who serve in the Church of Christ are named "clerics." Their ranks and names are these: 3. doorkeeper, psalmist, reader, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, presbyter, bishop. [...] 13. The "pontifex" is the chief of priests, as if the word were "the way" of his followers. And he is also named the "highest priest" and the pontifex maximus, for he creates priests and levites (i.e. deacons); he himself disposes all the ecclesiastical orders; he indicates what each one should do. [...] 17. A priest has a name compounded of Greek and Latin, as it were "one who gives a holy thing", for as ruler is named from "ruling", so priest from "making sacrifice" – for he consecrates and sanctifies. [...] 20. "Presbyter" in Greek is interpreted "elder" in Latin. They are named elders not because of their age, or their exhausted senility, but rather for the honor and status that they have received. 21. Presbyters are also called priests, because they perform the sacraments, as do bishops; but although they are priests they do not have the highest honour of the pontificate, for they neither mark the brow with chrism nor give the Spirit, the Comforter, which a reading of the Acts of the Apostles shows may be done by bishops only. Whence, among the ancients, bishops and presbyters were the same, for the former name is associated with rank, the latter with seniority.

 

(trans. by S.A. Barney 2006: 170-171; slightly altered)