DEACONESS DEAD SEA 725 deacons constitute an order in the ministry, are ordained by the bishop, and assist the elders in divine service. In the Presbyterian and some other churches the deacons care for the poor, and to them may be committed the temporal affairs of the church. Among Congregation- alists the deacons, besides attending to the poor, assist the pastor in the celebration of the sacraments. DEACONESS, a female officer of the early church. The institution of deaconesses origi- nated with the apostles, as is clear from Rom. xvi. 1. They are called Trpeapvridec, elders, in canon xi. of the council of Laodicea, and by St. Epiphanius, because none were chosen for this office but elderly widows. Tertullian says that deaconesses were "widows, mothers, at least 40 years of age, and married only once." Their principal functions were to have charge of the door by which women were admitted to the matroneum, or that part of the church set apart for them, and to preside over them while there; to instruct the catechumens of their own sex ; to assist the bishop in the sol- emn baptism of females, and to perform for him all the unctions, except those on the head; to have especial care of the female sick and poor, and to be present in all conversations held by bishops, priests, and deacons with women. In the times of persecution, when prudence forbade sending deacons to visit im- prisoned Christians, the deaconesses performed this office of charity. (Const. Apost., iii. 19.) The order of deaconesses was still in existence in the East at the beginning of the 8th cen- tury, and it is quite uncertain when it entirely disappeared there. In the greatest number of Latin churches it had fallen into disuse in the 5th century, and its very name was unknown in the 10th. The order was abrogated in France by the council of Orange, A. D. 441, and after this gradually died out in the western church, but in the Greek church continued until the 12th century. Its place is taken in the Ro- man Catholic church by their various religious orders and congregations. (See Ziegler, De Diaconis et Diaconissis veteris Ecclesics, xix.) In recent times the title has been revived in Protestant churches for the so-called institu- tions or houses of deaconesses, which are com- munities of women established in several Prot- estant denominations for purposes of Christian charity, and in particular for nursing the sick. Several attempts made by the reformed church- es in the 16th century to revive the apostolical institution of deaconesses proved unsuccessful. In 1836 Pastor Fliedner, of the United Evan- gelical church of Prussia, established an in- stitution of deaconesses at Kaiserswerth in Rhenish Prussia. The sisters, after a proba- tionary period, engage to serve at least five years, but are allowed to leave during this time if nearer personal or family duties should call for a change of situation. The institution of Kaiserswerth has gradually enlarged its sphere of action and added to the original infirmary an orphan asylum, a normal school, an insane asylum, and a house of refuge for dissolute wo- men. The number of stations established in other parts of Germany and in foreign coun- tries amounted in 1870 to 400; among them were Pesth, Bucharest, Bosna-Serai, Constan- tinople, Smyrna, Beyrout, Jerusalem, and Al- exandria. After this model of Kaiserswerth other "mother houses" (Mutterhauser) of dea- conesses have been established at Strasburg (1842), Dresden (1842), Berlin (1843), London (1848), and other places. A house was estab- lished in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1849, by Pastor Fliedner in person. In 1872 there were alto- gether 48 mother houses or distinct communi- ties of deaconesses, with an aggregate of 2,'657 sisters and 648 stations. General conferences of representatives of all the institutions take place from time to time. The fourth was held on Sept. 18 and 19, 1872, at Kaiserswerth, and was attended by representatives of nearly all the institutions. (See SISTEEHOODS.) DEAD SEA (Lat. Lacus Mphaltites ; Arab. BaJir Lut, sea of Lot ; also called the sea of Sodom, and in the Scriptures the salt sea, sea of the plain, and eastern sea), a salt lake of Palestine, between the mountains of Moab on the east and those of Hebron on the west, about 18 m. E. of Jerusalem, 42 m. long from N. to S., and nearly 10 m. in greatest breadth. The locality is that of the ancient vale of Siddim, which Lot selected when he parted from Abra- ham, and which was then an attractive region, watered by the Jordan, and containing the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even at th*at early period the district was probably of pecu- liar geological character, the vale being de- scribed as "full of slime pits" (Gen. xiv. 10). The catastrophe which resulted in the destruc- tion of these cities, and in the formation of the sea, is computed to have occurred about 1900 years before the Christian era. By earth- quake, accompanying volcanic action (Gen. xix. 28), the valley appears to have sunk to a great depth, and the waters of the Jordan flowing in produced this sea, which was made intensely salt by the saline strata exposed to their action. On its S. W. side is a mountain retaining the name of Sodom (Dsdum), con- taining strata of salt, out from which stands a lofty pillar of the same material, observed by Lieut. Lynch of the United States navy, which is probably what travellers often describe by the name of Lot's wife. It is about 40 ft. high, standing upon an oval pedestal, the top of which is 40 or 50 ft. above the water. The pillar is capped with limestone. Josephus speaks of a similar pillar, perhaps the same, which he himself saw, and believed to be that into which Lot's wife was transformed. Clem- ent of Rome and Irenseus also mention it. Bitumen or asphaltum, from which the sea receives one of its names, is found along the shores of the lake, and during some recent earthquakes, to which the region is still subject, it was thrown up in large quantities at th
