Untitled - Saints' Books

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CHAP, ii.] The End of
tJie Priesthood. 39
CHAPTER II
THE END OF THE PRIESTHOOD.
I.
The Priesthood Appears to the Saints a Formidable Charge.
ST. CYPRIAN said, that all those that had the true
spirit of God were, when compelled to take the order
of priesthood, seized with fear and trembling, as if
they
saw an enormous weight placed on their shoulders, by
which they were in danger of being crushed to death.
"I
see,"
said St. Cyril of Alexandria, all the saints
frightened at the sacred ministry, as at an immense
St. Epiphanius writes, that he found no one
1
charge."
willing to be ordained a priest. A Council held in
Carthage ordained that they that were thought worthy,
and refused to be ordained, might be compelled to be
come priests.
St. Gregory Nazianzen says: "No one rejoices when
he is
5
ordained priest."
In his life of St. Cyprian, Paul
the Deacon states that when the saint heard that his
bishop intended to ordain him priest, he through humil
ity concealed himself. 3 *
It is related in the life of St.
Fulgentius that he too fled away and hid himself. 4 St.
Athanasius also, as Sozomen relates, took flight in order
to escape the priesthood. St. Ambrose, as he himself
1 "
Omnes sanctos reperio divini ministerii ingentem veluti molem
formidantes." De Fest. pasch.
horn. I.
2 " Nemo
laeto animo creattir Sacerdos."
3 "
4 "
Humiliter secessit. Vita S. Cypr.
Vota eligentium velociori prseveniens fuga, latebris incertis abscoaditur."
Vita S. Fulg. c. i6