listing men and women as deacons together, and later specifying one hundred deacons who were men and forty who were women. Evidence of continuing liturgical and pastoral roles is provided by Constantine Porphyrogenitus' 10th-century manual of ceremonies (), which refers to a special area for deaconesses in Hagia Sophia. Pauline text Paul's earliest mention of a woman as deacon is in his Letter to the Romans 16:1 (AD 58) where he says: "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is the servant of the church at Cenchreae". The original Greek says: , , being [the] [female] servant of the church at Cenchreae. The word means servant in nearly all of its 30 uses in the New Testament, but may also be used to refer to the church office of deacon. There is no scholarly consensus regarding whether the phrase here denotes "an official title of a permanent ministry." The term may refer to her serving in a more generic sense, without holding a church office. This is the primary meaning, and also how Paul uses the term elsewhere in the Letter to the Romans. A reference to the qualifications required of deacons appears in Paul's First Epistle to Timothy 3:8–13: This verse about "the women" appears in the middle of a section that also addresses the men. However, the words regarding "the women" may refer to the wives of male deacons, or to deacons who are women. The transition from deacons generally to female deacons in particular may make sense linguistically, because the same word covers both men and women. To indicate the women, the Greeks would sometimes say ("deacon women"). This expression appears in the church legislation of Justinian. This interpretation is followed by some early Greek Fathers such as John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia. However, this is not the phrase used here, where Paul refers simply to (women). Commentary on 1 Corinthians 9:5 "Have we not the right to take a woman around with us as a sister, like all the other apostles?" by Clement of Alexandria (150 AD to 215 AD): Stromata Book 3, chapter 6, 54, 3-4 "But the latter [the apostles], in accordance with their ministry [], devoted themselves to preaching without any distraction, and took women with them, not as wives, but as sisters, that they might be their co-ministers [] in dealing with women in their homes. It was through them