The Priest a Shepherd of Souls. (On the Priesthood, B. Vi., C. I.)
You have heard what is to be expected here on earth, but how shall we bear what is to come hereafter, when we shall be compelled to answer for everyone who has been entrusted to us? The punishment there does not stop with shame, but is a chastisement which never ends. If I began by quoting the words, Render obedience and submission to those who are over you, and who are responsible for your souls, as giving an account for them, I will not now withhold them. Fear of this judgment keeps me in a state of perpetual trembling. If, indeed, for scandalising one, and that one the least of all, it is better for a man to have a millstone about his neck and to be cast into the sea; and if all who inflict a blow upon the conscience of their brethren sin against Christ Himself, what will be the suffering on their account of those who destroy not one, or two, or three, but so great a multitude? It will not do to throw the blame on want of practice or to take refuge in ignorance, or to allege necessity or main force: it would be easier for a subject, if he required it, to make use of this excuse for his own sins than for rulers in those of others. What is meant by this? That he whose part it is to correct the ignorance of others, and to guard against the devil’s coming attack, may not allege his own ignorance, or say, ‘I did not hear the trumpet,’ or ‘I did not foresee war’. As Ezechiel said, this is the very reason why he is seated in his place, that he may sound the trumpet to others and warn them of coming troubles. On this account the chastisement is inexorable, even if only one be lost. For if, when the sword is brandished, the watchman does not sound the trumpet to the people, nor signal to them (he says), and the sword appearing destroys a life, that life has been lost through the man’s own lawlessness, but I will require his blood at the watchman’s hand.18 Cease, then, to push us into that inevitable judgment. We have to do, not with armies and kingdoms, but with an action which requires angelical goodness. The soul of a priest should be purer than the very rays of the sun, so that the Holy Spirit may never leave him to himself, that he may be able to say: I live, not I, but Christ liveth in me. If dwellers in the desert, who are removed from the cares of city, market-place, and all that these entail, and are ever in rest and peace, are unwilling to presume of their security in such a life, but add numberless cautions, fortifying themselves on all sides, ardent to do and to speak with much care, so that they may approach God as fearlessly and purely as it lies in human capacity to do, what think you the power and strength of the priest should be, to enable him to put off all defilement from his soul and to preserve spiritual beauty undamaged? For he ought to be much purer than they, and the more so as he incurs greater necessities than they, which may sully his purity, unless by constant watchfulness and strenuous effort he makes his soul inaccessible to their influence. Thus, there are fair faces, and luxurious movements, and a studied walk, and a mincing tone of voice, and painted eyes, and rouged cheeks, beautiful plaits, dyed hair, rich clothes, variegated golden ornaments, fine precious stones, the perfume of scents, and all other things of the kind, dear to the female sex, which are calculated to upset a soul that is not armed in the austerity of wisdom. It is no wonder if a man be troubled by these things; but that the devil should be able by the contrary things to wage war against the souls of men and to wound them,—this is most surprising and embarrassing. Already some who have escaped the former snares have allowed themselves to be taken by that which was so different. For an unstudied address, neglected hair, a dirty garment, a disordered appearance, a careless demeanour, a natural manner, frank language, an unartificial gait, an artless voice, a life of poverty, the being despised, and unprotected, and in solitude, have inspired a man at first with pity, and from that have led him to utter destruction. And many who have escaped the former snares, the snares of gold, and perfume, and clothes, and the rest which go with them, as I said, have fallen into these so far removed from those, and have been lost. Now, when the battle strikes on the spectator’s soul, and weapons of war surround him on all sides, whether by poverty or by riches, by adornment or by simplicity, by a studied manner or by unaffectedness, or in any other of the ways which I have enumerated, whence is refreshment to come to him who is thus hemmed in? How are we to meet the case, not of being taken by force, for this is not so very difficult, but of keeping our mind in tranquillity from impure thoughts? I pass over honours, which are the causes of a thousand evils. Those which come from women lower the tone of the tempered mind, and often work ruin whenever a man is not wholly on his guard against such plottings. And as to honours coming from men; if they be not received with much high-mindedness, they involve a man in two opposite sufferings—the slavishness of flattery and the foolishness of boasting. On the one hand, he is forced to stoop to those who serve him; on the other, he is puffed up against his inferiors through these honours of theirs, and thrust into an abyss of folly. We say this, but the harm of it can only be properly ascertained by experience. And, necessarily, things much worse and more dangerous than these would happen to those who are in the midst of the fight. The lover of the desert is exempted from all this, for if a foolish thought did suggest something of the kind to him, this imagination is weak and easily overcome, because the flame of the eyes is not fed by outward things. Now the monk fears for himself alone: even if he were obliged to think of others, these would be very few. Or if they were many, they would be fewer than those in churches, and give their superior little anxiety, not through their small numbers alone, but because they are removed from worldly business, and have neither children, nor wife, nor anything else of the kind to trouble about. It is this and the common life which have made them disposed to obey their rulers. Thus they are able to see and to correct their faults, for the constant watchfulness of the teacher is no slight thing towards increase of virtue. Now, the majority of men under the priest’s charge are taken up with worldly cares, and this makes them slack in the fulfilment of their spiritual duties. Hence the teacher should scatter the seed, so to speak, day by day, in order that the teaching by constantly falling should take root in the listener’s mind. For superfluous wealth, and great power, and the softness arising from luxury, and many other things joined to these, suffocate the seeds, and often the density of thorns does not allow the seed to shoot forth so as to be seen. Moreover, excessive tribulation, the necessities of poverty, constant reproaches, and everything else of the kind which is opposed to the former things, lead a man away from a holy zeal. Not even the smallest part of sins incurred can become manifest to them. How should it not be so when they know not the greater number even by sight? Thus onerous are a priest’s duties towards the people. But if anyone would consider duties towards God, he will find the others nothing at all, so much more careful and diligent a zeal do these require. For what sort of man should he be who rules an entire city—and why do I say a city?—the whole world rather—and has to propitiate God for the sins of all—not the sins of the living only, but those of the dead also. I hold that the courage of Moses and Elias is all insufficient for this ministry. Entrusted as if with the world itself, and the father of all, the priest thus approaches God in order to extinguish wars in every place and to appease strife, to bring about peace and plenty, and to ask both privately and publicly a speedy deliverance from the evils which are pressing upon every man. He himself ought to be as much above what he asks for as the ruler should be in everything above the ruled. Now, what place are we to assign to him when he calls down the Holy Spirit, and offers up the most tremendous Sacrifice, and continually holds in his grasp the common Lord of all? What purity shall we not expect him to have, what piety? Think what the hands should be which thus minister! What the tongue which utters those words! What should be purer or holier than the soul which receives so great a Spirit? Then angels surround the priest, and the sanctuary and all the place about the Sacrifice are filled with heavenly powers in honour of Him Who is lying there. And this can be sufficiently believed from the rites. But I once heard some one say that an old man, who was held in veneration and accustomed to revelations, told him he himself had been made worthy of this vision. At the time of the sacrifice he had suddenly seen a multitude of angels, as many as his eye could grasp, in shining garments surrounding the altar, bending low, as a man might see soldiers in the presence of the king, and this I believe. And another man told me, not what he had learnt from a third person, but what he himself had been allowed to see and to hear. This was it. When the departing, who have chanced to partake of the mysteries with a pure conscience, draw their last breath, angels, serving them as a body-guard for the sake of what they have received, lead them out of this world. Do you not tremble to come with this soul to this holy sacrifice, and to be at these solemn rites the man in soiled garments whom Christ cast out from the rest of the guests? The soul of the priest should be a light of justice to the world, but ours is so surrounded with the darkness of an evil conscience as to be always overclouded and unable to look fearlessly at its Lord. Priests are the salt of the earth; who could bear easily with our folly and our ignorance in everything if you were not accustomed to give us an exaggerated love? And it is not enough that he who has been entrusted with so wonderful a ministry should be pure; he should also be wise and experienced in many things; he should know worldly business not less than those engaged in the midst of it, and still be further removed from all things than monks in their desert. As he must come into contact with men who are married and have children to bring up, and keep servants and have much wealth, who are engaged in public business, who are in power, he should be many-sided. I say many-sided, not a schemer, neither a flatterer nor a hypocrite, but made up of much liberality and fortitude, knowing how to lend a useful hand whenever circumstances demand it, at once kind and austere. All subjects are not to be used in the same way, since the children of physicians deem it not good to apply one treatment to all the sick, nor has the pilot only one course at his command against the wind. Storms are ever hanging over this bark, and these storms assail not only from without, but arise also within, and we need to have much condescension and much care. All these things which are different in themselves have one end in view—the glory of God and the strengthening of the Church.