Note 217 — Chapter I

For the canons of councils which regulated the minimum age of deacons and priests reference may be made to the article "Orders, Holy," by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 1482 f. From a very early date they were respectively twenty-five and thirty years, in accordance with the statement of the text, though there were some exceptions in remote places. The eighth-century Irish Canons, known as the Hibernensis, prescribe the same minimum ages for the diaconate and presbyterate, and add a clause, the gist of which seems to be that a bishop at the time of his consecration must be thirty or forty years of age (Wasserschleben, Irische Kanonesammlung, 1885, p. 8). As late as the year 1089, at the Council of Melfi, presided over by Pope Urban II., it was decreed (can. 5, Mansi, xx. 723) that none should be admitted deacon under twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, or priest under thirty. But at the Council of Ravenna, 1315 (can. 2, ibid. xxv. 537), the ages were lowered to twenty and twenty-five respectively.