of imperial officials in another basilica, he writes: Ego tamen mansi in munere,
missam facere coepi (I then remained on duty and began to say mass; Epistle 20,
PL 16, c. 995), where munus can only designate the function that he was carrying out. In another letter, by contrast, it is the very death of Christ that is defined
significantly as publicum munus: quia cognoverat per filii mundi redemptionem aula regalis, etiam sua morte putaverat aliquid publico addituram muneri (since the redemption of the world would prove to be royal power for the son, thus he held his
death to be something added to his public duty; Epistle 63, PL 16, c. 1218). As in the Letter to the Hebrews, Christ’s sacrifice appears here as a public performance,
a liturgy done for the salvation of humanity.
The Latin term that seemed destined to designate par excellence the litur-
gical function at first, however, is ministerium. Not only is it with this term
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(together with minister and ministrare) that Jerome translates the term leitourgia in the Vulgate of the Letter to the Hebrews and the Pauline corpus, but he also
uses it to translate diakonia (for example, in Ephesians 4:12, 2 Corinthians 6:3,
and Romans 11:13). And that this must have reflected an ancient usage is proved
by the Latin translation of Clement’s letter to the Corinthians, which scholars
believe goes back to the second century. Here we find, to translate the lexical
group in question in the passages we have cited, ministerium (9.4, 41.1, 40.2–5,
44.2–3), ministrationem (20.10), minister (8.1, 41.2), ministrare (9.2; but in three cases—32.2, 34.5, and 34.6— leitourgeō is rendered with servire and deservire).
Ambrose sometimes uses ministerium loosely alongside officium ( remittuntur peccata . . . per officium sacerdotis sacrumque ministerium [Sins are forgiven . . . in the priest’s sacred office and mystery]; Cain et Abel, 2.4.15; thus in Cyprian: officii ac ministeri sui oblitus; Epistle 3.1), and in the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, to indicate the episcopal function we find, in addition to ministerium, also officium ( episcopatus officium: 3.66.4; thus in Clement’s Epistle to James, 4.4; in Rufinus’s prologue, apostolatus officium).
It is in this context that one must situate Ambrose’s decision—apparently an
arbitrary one—to entitle his book on the virtues and duties of the clergy De offi-
ciis ministrorum, thus inaugurating the sequence of treatises—from Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis to the Liber officialis of Amalarius of Metz, from Jean Beleth’s Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis and Sicardus of Cremona’s Mitrale up to the monumental Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand—that would lead
to the affirmation of the term officium as a general designation of the liturgical praxis of the Church.
2. In an archaeology of the term officium, the inaugural moment is when
Cicero, in the course of his repeated attempts to elaborate a Latin philosophical
vocabulary, decides to translate the Stoic concept of kathēkon with the term officium and to inscribe under the rubric De officiis a book that, rightly or wrongly, was to exercise an enduring influence over Western ethics. The phrase expressing
doubt, “rightly or wrongly,” is here justified by the fact that neither the Greek
concept nor the Latin equivalent proposed by Cicero has anything to do with
what we are accustomed to classify as morality, that is, with the doctrine of good
and evil. “We count appropriate action neither a good nor an evil [ officium nec
in bonis ponamus nec in mali],” Cicero declares unreservedly in the work that
he dedicates to the supreme good ( De finibus 3.17.58). Nor is it a matter of a
concept belonging to the sphere of law. The De officiis is not a treatise on the
good or on absolute duty, nor on what one is juridically obligated to do or not
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to do. Rather it is, as has been suggested, a treatise on the devoir de situation
(Goldschmidt, 155), on what is respectable and appropriate to do according to
the circumstances, above all taking account of the agent’s social condition.
Since the theoretical intent of the treatise is indissoluble from a strategy
of translation from Greek into Latin ( semper cum graecis latina coniunxi . . . ut
par sis in ultriusque orationis facultate [I have always combined Greek and Latin
studies . . . so I recommend that you should do the same, so that you may have
equal command of both languages]; De officiis 1.1), only correctly situating this
will allow us to fully understand its results and contents.
According to Diogenes Laertius, the first to introduce the term kathēkon
(which in common language means “what is appropriate, opportune”) into phil-
osophical vocabulary had been Zeno, who defines it in this way: “an action for
which a reasonable defense can be adduced [ eulogon . . . apologismon], such as
harmony in the tenor of life’s process, which indeed pervades the growth of
plants and animals; for even in plants and animals, they hold, you may discern
kathēkonta” (7.107; Arnim, 1:230). The Stoics distinguished from kathēkon what they called katorthōma, the action rightly done (that is, according to the good).
With respect to this, which, being an act in conformity with virtue ( kat’aretēn
energēmata), is always good and always appropriate ( aei kathēkei) independently of circumstances and is for this reason called teleion kathēkon, perfectly appropriate, simple kathēkonta acts, whose appropriateness depends on the circum-
stances, are defined as “intermediate” ( mesa). “Another division is into duties
which are always incumbent and those which are not. To live in accordance with
virtue is always a duty, whereas dialectic by question and answer or walking-
exercise and the like are not at all times incumbent” (7.109; Arnim, 2:496). Inter-
mediate appropriate actions are situated, in this sense, between right actions and
bad or mistaken actions: “Of actions, some are right ( katorthōma), others are er-
roneous ( hamartēmata), and others are neither one nor the other. The following
are right actions: to have judgment, to be wise, to act justly, to rejoice, to help
others, to live prudently. The following are erroneous actions: to act senselessly,
to be intemperate, to act unjustly, to be sad, to steal, and in general to do things
contrary to right reason. Things that are neither right nor bad are to speak, to
ask questions, to respond, to walk, to emigrate, and the like” (Stobaeus 2.96.18,
qtd. in Arnim, 2:501).
The difference between kathēkon and katorthōma is obvious in a passage
from Cicero’s Paradoxa stoicorum. He takes up the case of a gubernator (pilot) who, by negligence, causes his ship to be shipwrecked. From the point of view
of the good in itself ( katorthōma), the fault of the pilot, who is committed to
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the art of navigation, is the same if the ship was loaded with gold as it would
be if it was loaded with straw. From the point of view of kathēkon, by contrast,
the circumstances prove determinative and the fault is greater if the ship was
loaded with gold. Ergo in gubernatione, Cicero will write when he takes up the
example again in the De finibus (4.76), nihil, in officio plurimo interest quo in genere peccetur. Et si in ipsa gubernatione neglegentia est navis eversa, maius est
peccatum in auro quam in palea. (Hence the nature of the object upon which
&
nbsp; the offence is committed, which in navigation makes no difference, in conduct
makes all the difference. Indeed in the case of navigation too, if the loss of the
ship is due to negligence, the offence is greater with a cargo of gold than with
one of straw.) Navigation in itself is not an officium but an action that, mea-
sured according to the rules of the art, can only be correct or incorrect, good
or bad. From the perspective of officium, by contrast, the same action will be
considered according to the subjective and objective circumstances that deter-
mine it. It is thus even more surprising that the book destined to introduce the
notion of duty into Western ethics would not attend to the doctrine of good
and evil but that of the eminently variable criteria that define the action of a
subject “in a situation.”
3. It is in this context that one must situate Cicero’s decision to translate the
Greek term kathēkon with the Latin officium. Despite the confidence with which Cicero seems to put forward his translation ( quod de inscritione quaeris, non dubito
quin kathēkon officium sit [As to your query about the title, I have no doubt that kathēkon corresponds with officium]; Letters to Atticus 16.11.4), this must be far from settled, if a first-rate connoisseur of the Greek language like Atticus ( sic enim Graece loquebatur, Cicero says of him, ut Athenis natus videretur [he speaks Greek so well that he seems to have been born in Athens]) does not seem to be completely
convinced of it ( id autem quid dubitas quin etiam in rempublicam caderet? Nonne
dicimus consulum officium, senatus officium, imperatori officium? Praeclare convenit;
aut da melius [But why should you doubt whether the word fits appropriately in
political affairs? Don’t we say the officium of consuls, of the Senate, of generals? It is quite appropriate; if not, suggest a better word]; ibid., 16.14.3).
The scholars who have worked on De officiis have been focused above all
on its Greek sources—in particular Panaetius’s treatise Peri tou kathēkontos—
and on the relation between the work and contemporary political events, which
marked the definitive crisis of the Ciceronian idea of the res publica, faithful to the model of the Scipionian aristocracy. Here what interests us rather is the sense
of the strategy inherent in the very choice of the term officium on Cicero’s part.
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While modern scholars derive the etymology of officium from a hypothetical
*opficium, “the fact of actualizing a work” or “the work effectuated by an opifex (artisan) in his officina” (Hellegouarc’h, 152), it is significant that the Latins instead traced it back to the verb efficere (Donatus, Ad Ter. Andr. , 236.7, qtd. in ibid.: officium dicitur ab efficiendo, ab eo quo quaeritur in eo, quid efficere unum-quemque conveniat pro condicione personae). Thus what was decisive for them was
the sense of an “effective completed action or an action which it is appropriate to
carry out in harmony with one’s own social condition.”
The term’s sphere of application was so broad, however, that Cicero can write
at the beginning of his treatise that nulla enim vitae pars neque publici neque priva-
tis neque forensibus neque domesticis in rebus, neque si tecum agas quid, neque si cum alterum contrahas vacare officio potest (no phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns
oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without officio; De officiis 1.4). In this sense Plautus, in addition to an officium scribae and a puerile officium, can mention an officium of the prostitute opposed to that of the matron ( non matronarum officium est sed meretricium [it’s not the duty of matrons, but of whores]; Casina 585) and, in a negative sense, an improbi viri officium (an “office of the rascal,” as elsewhere there is a question of a calumniatoris officium [the method of a petti-fogger]; Rhetorica ad Herennium 2.10.14). In all these cases the subjective genitive shows that it is a matter of the behavior that we expect from a certain subject in a
situation, behavior that can, in turn (as in the case of the patronus with respect to the freedman or the client), be configured as a genuine obligation (as in Terence’s
tu tuum officium facies in relation to the obligation of the patron to protect and assist the client).
The peculiar nature of officium appears with greater clarity, however, pre-
cisely where there is not an obligation or duty in the strict sense. It is the case of
observantia or adsectatio, which, in a heavily ritualized society like Rome, designates the behavior of the client who wants to render the proper honor to his pa-
tron, above all when, as was often the case, he was an influential public person.
We know that adsectatio is expressed in three forms (Hellegouarc’h, 160–61):
1 Salutatio, which was not our salutation or greeting but the client’s visit to
pay respects in the patron’s house. Not all salutatores were admitted into the
intimacy of the master of the house: many were received only in the atrium,
to receive the sportula there when the nomenclator called their name. With respect to the salutatio, a source informs us that, even though it was considered the lowest form of officium ( officium minimum), it could be done ( effici) in a way that could be much appreciated by the patron.
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2 Deductio, which designated the act of accompanying ( deducere) the patron from his house to the forum (and perhaps, if one wanted to be particularly
obsequious, from the forum to his house on the way home). This was an im-
portant officium, because the patron’s prestige also depended on the number of
his companions (ibid., 36: deductorum officium maius est quam salutatorum).
3 Finally, there is adsectatio in the broad sense, which included salutatio and deductio, but was not limited like they were to a specific occasion, but consisted in securing for the patron a kind of permanent court.
To assess what was officiosior (more in conformity with officium) in these situations was a question that obviously could not be decided once and for all but
had to take account of all kinds of circumstances and nuances, which it was the
duty of the officiosus vir to evaluate.
Particularly instructive in this sense is the obscene usage of the term, which
we find, for example, in Ovid and in Propertius ( officium faciat nulla puella mihi
[no girl does her duty to me]; Ovid, Ars 2.687; saepest experta puella officium tota nocte valere meum [often a girl has felt my duty all night long]; Propertius
2.22.24, qtd. in Platter, 220) and, with customary wit, in Petronius (“instantly
lowering his eyes to my middle, he officiously laid his hands on those parts, and
greeted me by name” [ ad inguina mea luminibus deflexis movit officiosam manum
et “salve” inquit]; Satyricon 105.9). Even though it is certainly a matter of an intentional antiphrastic extension of a word that, as Cicero never stops repeating,
belonged first of all to the sphere of honestum, decorum, and friendship, precisely this usage of the word in an obscene context can help us understand the proper
meaning of the term. Seneca the Elder relates the unconscious gaffe of the or-
ator Quintus Haterius, who in the course of defending a freedman accused of
having had sexual relations with his patron candidly declared that impudicitia in
ingenuo crimen est, in servo necessitas, in liberto officium (unchastity is a crime for the freeborn, necessity for the slave, and duty for a freedman) (Platter, 219–20).
Officium is neither a juridical or moral obligation nor a pure and simple nat-
ural necessity: it is the behavior that is expected among persons who are bound
by a relation that is socially codified, but the compulsory nature of which is suf-
ficiently vague and indeterminate that it can be connected—even if in a derisory
way—even to behavior that common sense considered self-evidently offensive
to decency. In the last analysis, it is a matter of taking up again the terminology
of Zeno, of a question of “plausibility” and “coherence”: officium is what causes
an individual to comport himself in a consistent way—as a prostitute if one is a
prostitute, as a rascal if one is a rascal, but also as a consul if one is a consul and,
later, as a bishop if one is a bishop.
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4. Although the translation of officium as “duty” became common starting
from the seventeenth century, the strong sense of (moral or juridical) obligation
that duty would acquire in modern culture is lacking in the Latin term. Cer-
tainly when Seneca, responding to Hecaton’s question of whether slaves could
benefit the master of the house, evokes the distinction between beneficium, officium, and ministerium, officium is defined as the necessity that obliges sons and wives to do certain things in encounters with the father or husband ( officium
esse filii, uxoris, earum personarum quas necessitudo suscitat et ferre opem iubet [a responsibility attaches to a son or a wife or to those roles in which a relationship
motivates them and urges them to help out]; On Benefits 3.18.1), while in the case of the duties of slaves toward the master one speaks rather of ministerium. And
moreover, even though officium toward parents had in this sense the character of
a necessitudo, nothing shows better than a passage of the Digest that the necessity of officium, while having a character that was in some way juridical, was however
formally distinct from a contractual obligation:
Just as the making of a loan for use is an act of free will or of officium, rather than of necessity, so also it is the right of the party who confers the favor to
prescribe terms and limits with reference to the same. When, however, this has
been done (that is to say, after the loan has been made), then the prescribing
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