42. St. Ambrose extolled the virtue of St. Lawrence, who as a deacon desired to be led to martyrdom together with Pope St. Sixtus. He imagines him speaking as follows: "Test me, and see if you have appointed a suitable minister to be entrusted with the distribution of the Lord's Blood!" We know, of course, that some copies read "consecration" for "distribution," but here "consecration" merely means the ministry of assistance given to the consecrating priest. Peter of Blois says: "to us deacons the consecration of the saving Host is entrusted, not so that we may consecrate it but that we may humbly help those who do" (epistle 123). Similar is the explanation of Peter Cantor given in Menard, in notis et observationibus ad librum Sacramentorum S. Gregorii, p. 287. It has always been forbidden to subdeacons to administer the Eucharist to the people either under the appearance of bread or under the appearance of wine, according to canon 25 of Laodicea (see the notes on this canon by Balsamon, Zonaras and Aristenus in Beveregius, vol. 1, p. 464). But this was not the case with deacons, who of old were particularly entrusted with the sole distribution of the Lord's Blood. Later this privilege was taken from them on account of certain abuses which had developed (Cotelerius, Constitutionum, quae Apostolicae dicuntur, vol. 1, on bk. 8, chap. 13).