[Footnote 85: A city of France, and capital of the department of Lozére, situated on an eminence near the Lot: before the Revolution, the See of a Bishop. The number of inhabitants is about 5000.'--Cruttwell's _Gazetteer_, s.v.] [Footnote 86: Apocalypse iii, 7.] [Footnote 87: Cant, ii, 4.] [Footnote 88: Psalm viii, 2. See also Wisdom x, 21.] [Footnote 89: S. John iii, 8. ] [Footnote 90: I Cor. xii, II.] 2. Sacraments we have received to be signs or figures, not in themselves virtues, but the significations of virtues, by which men are taught as by letters. Now of signs there be that are natural, and there be that are positive: concerning which, and also of the nature of a Sacrament, we shall speak hereafter. {3} 3. Therefore the priests and the bishops to whom 'it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God,' [Footnote 91] as He saith in Luke, and who be the stewards and dispensers of sacred things, ought both to understand the sacred mysteries, and to shine in the virtues which they signify: so that by their light others may be illuminated: otherwise 'they be blind leaders of the blind.' [Footnote 92] As saith the Prophet, 'Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not.' [Footnote 93] But, woe therefore is me! in these days they apprehend but little of those things which day by day they handle and perform, what they signify, and wherefore they were instituted: so that the saying of the Prophet seemeth to be fulfilled, 'As is the people, so is the priest.' [Footnote 94] For when they bear the bread of Prothesis [Footnote 95] to the Lord's Table and the Mysteries, they understand not its signification more than brute beasts which carry bread for the use of others. Of which ignorance they shall give account in the day of vengeance and wrath. 'When the cedars of Paradise shall tremble, what shall the bush of the desert do?' [Footnote 96] For to them is that saying of the Prophet, 'They have not known My ways: so I swear in my wrath, if they shall enter into My rest.' [Footnote 97] [Footnote 91: S. Luke viii, 10.] [Footnote 92: S. Matthew xv, 14.] [Footnote 93: Psalm lxix, 23.] [Footnote 94: Isaiah xxiv, 2.] [Footnote 95: Here is a distinct reference to the Prothesis: the more valuable because in writers of the Middle Ages it does not hold so prominent a place as we might have expected: and the table of Prothesis appears not to have occupied a certainly defined situation in Catholic churches. There is also a reference to Lev. xxi, 8, and the showbread.] [Footnote 96: S. Luke xxii, 3.] [Footnote 97: Psalm xcv, 11.]