great thing it is for a man still clothed in flesh and blood to be able to approach nearer to that high and perfect nature, he would then clearly see what honour the grace of the Spirit has vouchsafed to confer upon the priest. For through his ministry both these things are accomplished and other things which, in regard to our dignity and salvation, are in no way inferior. Dwellers on the earth, sojourners here, are entrusted with the things of heaven, and have received an authority which God has given neither to angels nor to archangels. Not to them are those words said: _Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose shall be loosed_. It is true that those in power on earth have authority to bind, but in the case of bodies only: now _that_ chain affects the soul, and penetrates into heaven, so that whatsoever the priest does here below, God ratifies it above; the Lord of all sanctions the action of His servants. What indeed did He give to them if not all authority in heaven? _Whose sins_, He says, _you shall forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained_. What could be greater than this authority? The Father has given all judgment to the Son: now I see them set over all judgment by the Son as if they were already in heaven, and had passed beyond nature, and had thrown off our passions also, to so great an authority have they been raised. Thus, if a king entrusts to one of his subjects power to throw into prison those whom he chooses, and to release them, that man will be an object of singular distinction to all. He who receives from God an authority greater in proportion as heaven surpasses earth and souls bodies, has seemed to some to be favoured with an honour so small as to make it credible that some one might look down upon the gift of men so trusted. God forbid such unreason, for it _is_ a consummate unreason to despise so exalted an authority, without which we can arrive neither at salvation nor at the promised goods. If a man cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he be born again of water and the Spirit, and if he who does not eat the Flesh of Christ and does not drink His Blood shall have no part in eternal life, and all these things are brought about by no one else, but only by those sacred hands, those of the priest, I mean, how without them will it be possible for a man either to escape hell-fire or to reach the crowns which are laid up for us? For priests are those who have been trusted with throes of the Spirit, and they generate through baptism: through them we put on Christ and unite ourselves to the Son of God, and become members of that august Head. Hence they might justly be held by us in greater veneration than not rulers and kings only, but than our own fathers. These have generated us by ties of the flesh and of inclination: priests are the authors of our birth from God, of that blessed regeneration of our true