Whereas, therefore, in the New Testament, the Catholic Church has received, from the institution of our Lord, the holy visible sacrifice of the Eucharist; it must of necessity also be confessed, that there is, in that [Church], a new, visible, and external priesthood, into which the old has been translated.[1] And the sacred Scriptures show, and the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught, that this was instituted by the same Lord our Saviour, and that to the apostles, and to their successors in the priesthood, the power was delivered of consecrating, offering, and administering His Body and Blood, as also of remitting and of retaining sins.
CHAPTER II.
Touching the Seven Orders.
But whereas the minister of so holy a priesthood is a divine thing; to the end that it might be exercised more worthily, and with greater veneration, it was meet that, in the most well-ordered arrangement of the church, there should be several and diverse orders of ministers,[2] to minister unto the priesthood, by virtue of their office, [orders] so distributed as that those who were already marked with the clerical tonsure should ascend through the lesser to the greater orders. For the sacred Scriptures make open mention not only of priests, but also of deacons;[3]and teach, in the most weighty terms, what things are especially to be attended to in the ordination thereof; and, from the very beginning of the Church, the names of the following orders, and the proper ministrations of each one of them, to wit, those of subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, reader, and door-keeper, are known to have been in use; though not of equal rank: for the subdeaconship is classed amongst the greater orders by the fathers and sacred councils, wherein also we very often read of the other inferior orders.
