in Ecclesiastical History, a name given to certain virgins and widows, who, in the ancient church, associated themselves with and attended on ecclesiastics, out of a motive of piety and charity.

In the primitive days there were women instituted deaconesses, who, devoting themselves to the service of the church, took up their abode with the ministers, and assisted them in their functions. In the fervour of the primitive piety, there was nothing scandalous in these societies; but they afterwards degenerated into libertinism; insomuch that St Jerome asks, with indignation, unde agapetarum peste