Note 189 — VII. MONACHISM.
Reading edition
See Leon. I. Epist. lxxxvii. cap. 2. (Harduin. I. 1775). This was not so in the earlier periods. Tertullian (De Præscription. iii.), in alluding to the various classes of ecclesiastics, places the widows immediately after the order of deacons, and before the virgins.