Untitled - Saints' Books

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CHAP, ix.] The Zeal of the Priest. 155
what greater dignity, says the Apostle, than that of co
operating with Jesus Christ in saving the souls which he
has redeemed ? Hence St. Denis the Areopagite calls
the dignity of the priest a divine dignity, and even the
1
most divine of all divine things. For, as St. Augustine
says, it requires more power to sanctify a sinner than to
create heaven and earth. 2
St. Jerome used to call priests the saviours of the
world. 3 St. Prosper calls them the administrators of
the royal house of God. 4 And, long before, Jeremias
called them the fishers and sportsmen of the Lord:
Behold, I will send many fishers, saith the Lord, and after
this I will send many hunters, and they shall liunt them from
every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the
rocks? St. Ambrose explains this passage of priests
who gain to God the most abandoned sinners, and de
liver them from all their vices. The mountain signifies
pride; the hill, pusillanimity; and the holes of the rocks,
bad habits, which bring with them darkness of under
standing and coldness of heart. Peter de Blois says
that in the work of creation God had no one to assist
him, but in the mystery of redemption he wished to
have coadjutors.
7
Who on this earth is
superior to the
priest?
"To the king are intrusted earthly things; to
me, a priest, heavenly things,"
8
says St. Chrysostom.
1 See page 46.
2
See page 35.
21.
3
Sacerdotes Dominus mundi "
esse voluit salvatores."
InAbdiam,
4 "
Dispensatores regiae domus." De vita cont. 1. 2, c. 2.
Ecce ego mittam piscatores multos, dicit Dominus, et piscabuntur
eos; et post haec, mittam eis multos venatores, et venabuntur eos de
omni monte, et de omni colle, et de cavernis petrarum." -Jer, xvi. 16.
6
In Ps. 1 1 8, s. 6.
"In
opere creationis, non fuit qui adjuvaret; in mysterio vero
redemptionis, voluit habere coadjutores." Set in. 47.
Regi, quse hie sunt, commissa sunt; mini coelestia, mihi Sacerdoti."
De Vcrbis Is. horn. 4.