Supposing now that this canon simply treats of deaconesses, a fresh doubt arises as to how the last words—“they are not to be appointed in the Church” are to be understood. For it may mean that “from henceforth no more deaconesses shall be appointed;” or, that “in future they shall no more be solemnly ordained in the church.” The first interpretation would, however, contradict the fact that the Greek Church had deaconesses long after the Synod of Laodicea. For instance, in 692 the Synod in Trullo (Can. xiv.) ordered that “no one under forty years of age should be ordained deaconess.” Consequently the second interpretation, “they shall not be solemnly ordained in the church,” seems a better one, and Neander decidedly prefers it. It is certainly true that several later synods distinctly forbade the old practice of conferring a sort of ordination upon deaconesses, as, for instance, the first Synod of Orange (Arausicanum I. of 441, Can. xxvj.) in the words—diaconæ omnimodis non ordinandæ; also the Synod at Epaon in 517 (Can. xxj.), and the second Synod at Orleans in 533 (Can. xviij.); but in the Greek Church at least, an ordination, a χειροτονεῖσθαι , took place as late as the Council in Trullo (Can. xiv.). But this Canon of Laodicea does not speak of solemn dedication, and certainly not of ordination, but only of καθίστασθαι. These reasons induce us to return to the first interpretation of this canon, and to understand it as forbidding from that time forward the appointment of any more chief deaconesses or “presbytides.”