all Christians, how peremptory is the warning to all priests. He says again, Solus Deus melior se ipso esse non vult, quia non valet.[1]
If such be our predestination, what is our state?
1. Of a sinful priest no words are needed. Since the fall of the angels there was nothing ever so hideous as the fall of Judas, and since the fall of Judas nothing so full of dread as the fall of a priest. Mane eras stella rutilans: vespere conversus es in carbonem. In the morning, like a star in the brightness of purity: at evening, black and dead as a coal. And this may be not only by sins of the flesh—which to the angels were impossible—but of the spirit, such as the sins against charity, piety, and humility. The sin of Judas was, so far as is written, a spiritual sin, ending in the sale and the betrayal of His Divine Lord. We are not safe from mortal sin by being only chaste and pure. S. Jerome says: Perfidus Judæus, perfidus Christianus, ille de latere, iste de calice sanguinem Christi fundit.
2. Of a worldly priest little need be said. If the love of the Father cannot be in him who loves the world, then chastity and purity will not save us; for if the "concupiscence of the eyes" or "the pride of life" be in us, we are dead already: nondum apparuit
- ↑ S. Bernard, Epist. xci. 2, 3, tom. i. p. 265.
