Section 541
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COUNCIL OF NICE. 59 ministers of the bishops, and inferior to the presbyters. Let thazn receive the eucharist in their proper place, after the presbyters, whether it be administered by a bishop or presbyter. Nor is it permitted to deacons to sit among the presbyters, as that is against rule and order. If any one will not obey, even after these regula tions, let him desist from his ministry.* * The order of deacons was instituted to serve tables, and chiefly tho table of the Lord. It is mentioned by Justin Martyr, towards the close of his second apology for the Christians, that they were employed to carry the bread and wino to such communicants as were absent. They had the administration of the of ferings, and of all the temporal concerns of the churches. The poor received from their hands the alms of the faithful, and the clergy, their stipends and remuneration. All this was adapted to increase their consequence, and gave them, says Fleury, a kind of authority over the priests. The council of Aries had already begun to check the aspiring views of the deacons, by prohibiting that order, in their eighteenth canon, " ut diaconus nihil sine presbytcro sttQ a^at," from taking updn themselves any functions belonging to tho priests.