ORDERS, sacred, or major, we have already observed, are three: viz. those of deacon, priest, and bishop.
The council of Trent, retrieving the ancient discipline, forbids any person being admitted to the major orders, unless he be in peaceable possession of a benefice sufficient for a decent subsistence; allowing no ordinations on patrimonies or pensions, except where the bishop judges it for the service of the church.
A person is said to be promoted to orders per salutem, when he has not before passed the inferior orders. The council of Constantinople forbids any bishop being ordained without passing all the degrees; yet church-history furnishes us with instances of bishops consecrated, without having passed the order of priesthood; and Panormus still thinks such an ordination valid.
Military Orders, are companies of knights, instituted by kings and princes, either for defence of the faith, or to confer marks of honour, and make distinctions among their subjects.
Religious Orders, are congregations or societies of monastics, living under the same superior, in the same manner, and wearing the same habit. Religious orders
(A) In his work De Mirabilibus Mundi, at the end of his book De Secretis Mulierum, Amstelod. 1702, 12mo, p. 100. Experimentum mirabile quod facit hominem ire in ignem sine lesione, vel portare ignem vel ferrum ignitum sine lesione in manu. Recipe succum bismalvæ, et albumen ovi, et semen psylli et calcem, et pulveriza, et confice cum illo albumine ovi succum raphani; commisce; ex hac confectione illineas corpus tuum vel manum, et dimitte siccari, et postea iterum illineas, et post hoc poteris audacter sustinere ignem sine nocumento.
Order II
Ordinance. II
ders may be reduced to five kinds; viz. monks, canons, knights, mendicants, and regular clerks. See MONK, CANON, &c.
Father Mabillon proves, that till the ninth century, almost all the monasteries in Europe followed the rule of St Benedict; and that the distinction of orders did not commence till upon the reunion of several monasteries into one congregation: that St Odo, abbot of Cluny, first began this reunion, bringing several houses under the dependence of Cluny: that, a little afterwards, in the 11th century, the Camaldulians arose; then, by degrees, the congregation of Vallombrosa; the Cistercians, Carthusians, Augustines; and at last in the 13th century, the Mendicants. He adds, that Lupus Servatus, abbot of Ferrières, in the ninth century, is the first that seems to distinguish the order of St Benedict from the rest, and to speak of it as a particular order.
White ORDER denotes the order of regular canons of St Augustine. See AUGUSTINES.
Black ORDER denoted the order of BENEDICTINES. These names were first given these two orders from the colour of their habit; but are disused since the institution of several other orders, who wear the same colours.
Gray ORDER was the ancient name of the CISTERCIANS; but since the change of the habit, the name suits them no more.