De dignitate sacerdotii
by Peter Damian
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/145/de-dignitate-sacerdotii/
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## THE ARGUMENT.

He is here wholly taken up with showing what the dignity of a priest is, what his office, how great the innocence that must be furnished by one who sustains so lofty a charge; and how not only a crime, but even the suspicion of a crime, is to be fled. At the beginning, moreover — which I had forgotten to say — he gives thanks to the same man because he had sent him many gifts.

[0491A]To the lord A., the venerable archbishop, PETER, a sinner and a monk, offers the affection of fullest devotion.

Since the patriarch Jacob says to his son Joseph: « The blessings of thy father are strengthened by the blessings of his fathers [n: (Gen. XLIX)]; » I can fittingly say that the blessings of my father — not of his fathers, but of that same father of mine — have been strengthened by blessings. For so many were the blessings which your liberality directed to me, that one commended another, and those that followed strengthened those that had gone before, as Scripture says. But further, if David deserved thanksgivings when, out of the spoils he had taken from the Amalekites, he sent gifts to the elders of Judah, saying: « Receive a blessing from the plunder of the enemies of the Lord [n: (I Reg. XXX)]: » how much [0491B] greater thanks do I owe, who have received blessings not made bloody by the hands of the enemies of the Lord, but hallowed, and brought forth from the sanctuary of the Lord! But that the discourse may direct itself, from the occasion of bodily gifts, to the mystery of spiritual blessings: since the Apostle sets this among great happiness when he says: « Unto this you were called, that you may possess a blessing by inheritance [n: (I Petr. III)]; » how great is the dignity conferred beforehand upon you, that is, upon the highest priests of the Church, that you can not only possess the blessing shown to you, but can also hand it on to others! And not any sort of blessing whatever, but the episcopal blessing as well, by which, namely, it belongs to your right to ordain a bishop; and since it is a matter of no small terror and dread to be a priest even of the lower order, [0491C] and to him too it is assuredly enjoined by the law that he bear the iniquity of the people [n: (Num. XVIII)], how fearful a thing it is, and to be dreaded with trembling inwardly, now to excel all men in ecclesiastical dignity — men for whom it is equally necessary to answer, and before all others, at the examination of the dread judge! Whence it must be anxiously considered that he whom the sublimity of the highest priesthood raises up to obtain the fillets of the ecclesiastical summit should be lifted also by the height of a praiseworthy and arduous manner of life; and that, as he stands out above the rest through the lofty pinnacle of the dignity he has received, so a life surpassing the rest, and the splendor of spiritual character, may adorn him beyond the rest. Whence it is said through Moses: « The high priest, that is, the greatest priest among his brethren, upon whose head the oil of anointing has been poured, and whose hands have been consecrated in the priesthood, [0491D] and who is clothed with the holy vestments, shall not uncover his head, shall not [0492A] rend his garments, and shall not go in at all to any dead person: over his father too, and his mother, he shall not be defiled, nor shall he go out from the holy places, lest he pollute the sanctuary of the Lord, because the oil of the holy anointing of his God is upon him [n: (Levit. XXI)]. » For the head of the priest is anointed with oil when his mind is fattened with the richness of the Holy Spirit. And the same oil consecrates his hands when the zeal of good will, which the priest turns over in his mind, he also visibly shows in his work.

## ON THE DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD.





## CHAPTER ONE. *What it is for a priest to go out from the holy places.*

It plainly belongs to a holy priest both to think the things that are holy, and also to express plainly in his works what he has conceived in his mind: otherwise what does it profit [0492B] to think anything good, unless he skillfully keeps watch to bring this very thing to completion in action as well?

The priest must therefore labor that his head be consecrated through the regard of a devout will, and that his hands be anointed with the charism of spiritual oil through the plain evidence of holy work. He is also said to be clothed with holy vestments, because it is fitting that the priest be always adorned with the garments of devotion *497* and of justice, as it is written: « Let thy priests put on justice [n: (Psal. CXXXI)]. » He is commanded not to uncover his head, that is, not to spread his heart open to the desires of this world, but to keep it always hidden in the intention of gaining the heavenly kingdom. He is bidden also not to rend his garments — namely, that he walk always so covered with the vesture of honorable and devout [0492C] conduct that he never, which God forbid, tear it apart by the interpretation put upon any perverse deed. He is forbidden besides to go in to a dead man: namely, that he take care warily to withdraw his foot from the evils by which the soul dies, and to guard himself from dead works with ever-wakeful concern. Of which the Apostle says: « Christ has rescued us from dead works, to serve the living God [n: (Hebr. IX)]. » It is added also that he be not defiled over his father and mother, that is, that he be polluted neither by the affairs of the world nor by desire for this mortal life. Whence it is well added, he shall not go out from the holy places, lest he pollute my sanctuary. For a priest goes out from the holy places when, the care of souls neglected, he wanders about through earthly desires. He goes out from the holy places when, [0492D] ecclesiastical discipline set aside, he entangles himself too immoderately in the business of passing affairs. Where [0493A] there is at once fitly added: « Lest he pollute my sanctuary. » For the sanctuary is polluted when any priest, scattered abroad by earthly desires and dissipated by secular causes, does not fear boldly to stand at the most holy altars; when, namely, that comes to pass which is said through the prophet: « And it shall be, as the people, so the priest [n: (Isa. XXIV)]. » Wherefore, that the Church of Christ may be strong to flourish in her own cleanness, and may not grow filthy with the obscene contagion of those who minister ill, there is still fitly added in that place: « He shall take a virgin to wife, not a widow, not one put away; and a defiled woman and a harlot he shall not take, but a maiden of his own people, lest he mingle the stock of his own race with the common folk of his nation; for I am the Lord, who sanctify him [n: (Levit. XXI)]. » The priest's wife is not unfittingly taken to be his life and his manner of life [0493B]; which is commanded to be a virgin, in that it should be kept unharmed and uncorrupted from the worn-out wantonness of the unclean spirit, who is the violator of souls. Let her not be a widow, but joined to the heavenly bridegroom by a happy covenant. She is forbidden also to be one put away, or defiled, or even a harlot: namely, lest, if she is polluted by the filthy defilement of lust and of riotous vices, she be separated by a deadly divorce from that same bridegroom of souls. To this defiled wife the Apostle had given a bill of divorce when he said: « The things that were gains to me, these I have counted losses for Christ, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as dung [n: (Philip. III)]. » As if he were to say: That defiled and harlot wife, to whom I had been joined in Judaism, I forsake by divorce [0493C], and, a bill of repudiation intervening, I cast her off like dung. For from a priest's wife of this kind there are not begotten such children as may offer sacrifice to God, but rather such as incur the severity and vengeance of divine chastisement. Hence it is that, when it is said by the divine voice to the prophet Hosea: « Go, take to thyself a wife of fornications, because the land, committing fornication, shall commit fornication away from the Lord, » he, as Scripture testifies, « went, and took Gomer, the daughter *498* of Debelaim; and she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said to Hosea: Call his name Jezrahel [n: (Osee I)]. » Which name, although it seems to signify something prosperous, in that it is interpreted *the seed of God,* here nevertheless sounds *the vengeance of God* and *fury,* since there is straightway subjoined: « For yet a little while, [0493D] and I will visit the blood of Jezrahel upon the house of Jehu, and I will make the kingdom, the house of Israel, to rest [sic: *requiescere*] [var: Vulg. *quiescere*, "cause to cease"], and in that day I will break the bow of Israel, in the valley of Jezrahel *(Ibid)*. » But that here by Jezrahel not salvation or prosperity, but rather the anger of God is signified, is intimated in this also, since there is straightway subjoined: « She conceived again, and bore a daughter, and the Lord said: Call her name, Without mercy, because I will no more add to have mercy on the house of Israel, but with forgetfulness I will forget them. And when she had borne a third also, he says: Call his name, Not my people; because you are not my people, and I will not be your God. » In which names of the sons of the fornicating woman we plainly learn that whoever is joined as a husband to an unclean life as to a wife [0494A], and takes delight in her ill-flattering embraces, cannot beget from her children who may please God; because neither can sweet fruit be brought forth from a bitter root: « For a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruits [n: (Matth. VI)]. » Whence the priest must beware of taking a defiled wife or a harlot, but must always display the honorableness of a chaste and modest manner of life. From her, assuredly, he may be able to beget not bastard but lawful sons, while he takes pains, by the bounty of divine grace, to bring forth the freeborn fruits of good works. It is necessary therefore that a priest take a priestly wife, from whom he may beget offspring that will answer to its father's stock. Whence there too it is fittingly added: « Let him not mingle the stock of his own race with the common folk of his nation [n: (Levit. XXI)]. » For the priest [0494B] joins the stock of his own race to the common folk of his nation when, living in a common way, he is not at variance with the people by the merit of a more shining life: when, in short, he walks along the broad and spacious way of worldly conduct, and does not separate himself from the vulgar crowds by the honorableness of [sic: *spritiualium*] character. But that a priest may beget offspring worthy of his race, let him too not stray from the footsteps of his fathers, that is, of the holy priests who went before: lest, if by living ignobly he degenerates from their distinguished lineage, he lose the right of the priestly office, which, plainly, he was discharging unworthily.



## CHAPTER II. *That the nobility of priests is a holy life*

Hence it is that in the book of Esdras, when it has first been set down [0494C] concerning the sons of the priests — the sons of Hobia, the sons of Accos, the sons of Berzellai, who took a wife of the daughters of Berzellai the Galaadite, and their name was called after them — there is straightway added: « These sought the writing of their genealogy, and found it not, and they were cast out from the priesthood [n: (I Esdr. II)]. » Plainly, those who do not find the writing of their genealogy are driven back from the priesthood; because when men consider that they have degenerated, through the ignobility of a secular life, from the freeborn lineage of the fathers who went before, it is surely fitting that the vigor of canonical censure expel them from the priesthood *499*. The priest of the Church must therefore be noble, so that he who is the minister of the Lord may blush to be the slave of sin. To which nobility he has advanced us of whom the Apostle says: « Who has rescued us from the power of darkness, [0494D] and has carried us over into the kingdom of the Son of his love, and whose blood has wiped away from us the slavery of sin [n: (Coloss. I)]; » of whom it is said through John: « Who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood [n: (Apoc. I)]. » But that the priest may be able to possess this cleanness in himself beyond the rest, let him take pains to express in himself, in a marked way, the brand of the blood of Christ; as the Apostle says: « I always bear the marks of Jesus in my body [n: (Gal. VI)]. » Whence in the law also it was commanded that with the blood of the sacrificed ram there be touched the tip of the right ear of the high priest, and likewise of the right hand and of the foot [n: (Levit. II)]. And so, that the discourse may quickly disengage itself from this point: the priest bears in his ear the blood of the sacrificed ram when it delights him [0495A] to hear with eager longing the mystery of Christ's passion. The same blood is smeared upon his right hand also when he effectually carries out what, as an earnest hearer, he understands. The right foot too is marked with the same gore when the priest's life is fortified against the temptations of the devil by the remembrance of Christ's passion; so that, as he has received the power, he may walk upon serpents and scorpions, and yet not fear their bites and the poisons of their feeble rage; or else surely, because the foot is the body's extremity, what is designated by this but the end of a good work? Namely, that every good which we begin we should also perseveringly carry through even to a happy end. Hence it is that the divine voice says to the people of Israel: « If thou shalt hear, he says, the voice of the Lord thy God, so as to do and to keep his commandments, [0495B] the Lord thy God will make thee higher than all the nations [n: (Deut. XX)]. » In which words there is plainly expressed what is figured in the members: « If thou shalt hear, he says, the voice of the Lord thy God, » behold, the blood of the sacrificed ram grows red on the ear of the priest. But what follows, « so as to do, » behold the hand of one at work. And what is subjoined last, « and to keep his commandments, » behold the perseverance of good work. For it profits no one to begin a good work, unless he takes pains also to keep it until he brings it to completion.

And it is to be noted that only the right ear, hand, and foot of the priest are commanded to be smeared with that blood; whereby, namely, he should so always hold in all things the rightness of a right-hand manner of life and of faith, that he may not, with his steps straying [0495C] from the way, run into the wandering turns of the left. Or else surely that he should so always hold the mystery of the Lord's passion for the right hand, that he may despise all the allurements of this world as utterly left-handed and worthless. For indeed, because the priest is the leader and standard-bearer of the Lord's army, he is bidden to walk adorned with these badges of honor, and ought to carry before him the banners of the blood and of the cross of Christ for the squadrons of the ecclesiastical soldiery that follow. This the prophet Zacharias figured when he said: « In that day, that which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord [n: (Zach. XIV)]. » But further, before the coming of the Savior, what was the human race but like an unbridled horse, which unrestrained liberty *500* was snatching away everywhere through the fields of its own pleasures? But our Redeemer [0495D] applied a bridle to its mouth when he set before it the holy Gospel, by which, namely, all the vices of wanton licentiousness are curbed. And upon this bridle is placed the holy thing of the Lord, that is, the cross, because all the precepts of the holy Gospel breathe the cross, and invite that the cross be carried after Christ.



## CHAPTER III. *That even the least suspicion of a crime is to be fled by a priest.*

This same thing that golden plate also signified, which the high priest bore upon his head for glory and for beauty, on which, namely, the tetragrammaton name of the Lord was inscribed [n: (Exod. XXVIII)]. For as there were four letters there, so none the less are there four [0496A] horns of the cross, embracing the parts of the fourfold world. This the priest bore for glory and for beauty; since the Apostle also says: « But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ [n: (Gal. VI)]. » Let the priest therefore bear the golden plate upon his head, that he may continually turn the cross of Christ over in his mind. Let him likewise, as a consequence, apply the holy thing of the Lord to the bridle of his horse, that he may crucify his flesh with its vices and concupiscences. For then the priest applies both the golden plate to his head and the holy thing of the Lord to the bridle of his horse, when he directs the gaze of his mind to the cross of Christ, and restrains his body, like a fierce horse, from all liberty of wanton vices. Assuredly it is on account of this twofold mystery of bearing the cross that it is written that both Elias [n: (IV Reg. II)] and John the Baptist [0496B] had leathern girdles about their loins [n: (Matth. III)]. But of our Savior John says in the Apocalypse: « That he had a golden girdle about his breasts [n: (Apoc. I)]. » Now it is agreed that between the two breasts the heart of man is set. Whence the bride says in the Canticles: « My beloved shall abide between my breasts [n: (Cant. I)]; » that is, he shall continually rest in my heart. What then is it to gird the loins, where lust is most of all vigorous, with leathern girdles — which, namely, are made from dead animals — but to bridle on every side, through the affliction of the body, all the unlawful motions and kindlings of carnal passions? And what is it to have a golden girdle about the breasts, but to keep watch always with anxious guard against the troublesome phantasms of assaulting thoughts as well? We gird our loins, therefore, with the leathern [0496C] girdle when we check the wantonness of the flesh by the continence of fasting. But we have the golden girdle about our breasts when we fight with implacable struggle against the onslaught of harassing thoughts. And so then will come to pass what follows there; for as soon as the prophet had premised that the holy thing of the Lord would be upon the bridle of the horse, he at once subjoined: « And there shall be caldrons in the house of the Lord, like bowls before the altar, and every caldron in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be sanctified to the Lord of hosts [n: (Zach. XIV)]. » Plainly the Lord was commanding in the Gospel that caldrons be turned into bowls, and that a golden girdle be had about the breasts, when he said: « Take heed lest your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this world [n: (Luc. XXI)]: » in surfeiting, namely, and drunkenness understand the caldrons; in the cares of this world [0496D] *501* understand the girdle that is to be had about the breasts. Caldrons, plainly, were the breasts of those who sighed after the fish of Egypt, who, sick of the manna, hungered for melons and gaped after onions and garlic. Or were they not caldrons, who cried out, seething, that « we were sitting over pots of flesh? » [n: (Num. XI.)] For those hearts are caldrons in which gluttony reigns, and in which, through the boiling heat of greed, dainties and a varied abundance of foods are cooked down. But these caldrons are turned into bowls, and are before the altar, and sanctified to the Lord, when the Holy Thing of the Lord is set upon the bridle for horses, when, in short, the golden girdle is applied to the inner breasts. Then assuredly the caldrons and the pots of flesh are turned into golden bowls, namely full of sweet odors, [0497A] which are the prayers of the saints [n: (Apoc. V)]. And these are set as bowls before the altar which before, while they were caldrons, were rather busied in the reek of the kitchen.

*502* But then the mind of the priest is a golden bowl, and full of the sweet odors of spiritual perfumes, when it is watchfully intent upon prayers and devout works. And this bowl is said to be before the altar, because it does not cease to offer to God, as a sacred shrine, everything that it thinks. And then that caldron is sanctified to the Lord, and therefore the grace of consecration, which he himself received inwardly [0498A] from the gift of the highest bestower, he now deservedly, [sic: *e*], pours over into others by the imposition of hands applied to them. But I, forgetful as it were of who it is that speaks, while I draw out the discourse too long, exceed the bound of epistolary brevity. Let these things therefore now suffice, only that I, who had begun from a blessing, may conclude my word in a blessing.

May the right hand of God, venerable father, fill thee with its blessings; and, with the flock committed to thee accompanying thee, bring thee into the heavenly kingdoms.

*Blessed be the name of the Lord.*
