Commentaria in Leviticum
Note: God here ordains so gravely and severely that the unclean should not approach to sacred things and eat the flesh of sacrifices, partly out of reverence for sacred things and his worship, partly allegorically, to signify how strictly he would exact purity of soul in those receiving communion of the body and blood of the Lord, which is the one sacrifice of the new law, of all these old ones. So Abulensis, on whom see St. Basil, sermon 2 On Baptism, chapter 3 and following. Rightly, then, the vengeance of God has raged against impure priests and clerics. Hear examples. Gregory of Tours, book 5 of the History of the Franks, chapter 5: When, he says, by the death of Sylvester the see of the Church of Langres was vacant, the people of Langres, demanding a Bishop, received Pappolus, who had once been Archdeacon of Autun: who did many unjust things, as they assert, which we pass over, lest we seem to be detractors of the brethren: yet what end he had I will not omit. In the eighth year of his episcopate, as he went round the dioceses and estates of the Church, one night as he slept Blessed Tetricus appeared to him with a menacing countenance, saying: “What dost thou here, Pappolus? why dost thou pollute my see? why dost thou invade the Church? why dost thou so scatter the sheep committed to me? Yield the place, leave the see, depart far from the region.” And saying this, he struck him on the breast with a strong blow with the staff which he had in his hand. Whereupon he awoke, and while he was thinking what it was, he was fixed to that place and tortured with very great pain. He loathes food and drink, and awaits death, now near him. What more? On the third day, casting blood from his mouth, he expired. Carried thence, he was buried at Langres. Hear Peter Damian, Bishop of Ostia, in his epistle to Pope Hildebrand, vol. 3 of the Library of the Holy Fathers: “This now comes to memory,” he says, “which it happened that I heard was established in the city of Benevento long ago. The prince of that city cultivated a man of holy conversation, one assiduous without ceasing in the divine offices and especially at the solemnity of Masses; who when he daily reverently attended the sacred mysteries, an angel of the Lord came as was his custom, and, the prince looking on, took the sacrament of the Lord’s body from the hands of the offerer. But, O slippery and uncertain condition of this criminal life! for he who enjoyed angelic service suddenly fell into the whirlpool of foul lust. What more? The time came for performing the sacred mystery: the priest is compelled by outward custom, but is gravely tormented by conscience biting within; he is vested, approaches, trembles, quakes, yet presumes to offer. And behold the angel, as had been his wont, came, and, the prince looking on, squeezed a sponge soaked with water over his head, and poured again over all his limbs all the filth and squalor which he had before contracted from his body. The prince, seeing this, was amazed and stupefied, and, all being sent away, spoke with the priest in private. The priest, therefore, being questioned whether he had recently committed any crime, at first indeed shuddering denies the deed; then, ill-conscious, and compelled by the prince’s authority, at length he confesses that on the night just past he had fallen with a certain chambermaid of that same prince.”
Hear the same in his epistle to the Bishop of Turin, and from him Baronius, vol. 11, year of Christ 1057: “When Pope Stephen, who emulated the ardour of the zeal of Phinees, had commanded all the clerics of Rome who after the interdict of Pope Leo had remained incontinent to go out from the assembly and choir of clerics, that although, having left their women, they should amend themselves by laments of penance, yet because they had been disobedient to the holy man, they should for a time depart from the sanctuary and not hope thereafter for licence to celebrate Mass: near the Canonry of Blessed Cecilia, situated beyond the Tiber, lived a priest who in no way consented to cast off his woman, nor could ever judge these statutes anything but altogether vain and frivolous. One day, therefore, while he was sound, lively and robust, in the evening hours he laid himself on his bed to rest, but was struck by the sudden visitation of divine vengeance. In the morning a lifeless corpse was found. At once the religious of the aforesaid Canonry sent two clerics to me, asking what they should do about such a dead man. We, if I rightly remember, advised that, since he had been a priest, they should bury him indeed near the church, but render him no office of hymns or psalmody, that terror might grow among the unchaste, and the glory of chastity might sprout more vigorously, and that he might surely seem worthy, being dead (according to the Prophet), to have the burial of an ass, who while he lived despised being bound by human law.”
St. Epiphanius (as Surius relates from Metaphrastes in his Life, chapter 17, on 12 May): “The Bishop of Constantia at this time kept the time of the oblation: he never completed it until he had seen a vision. He was wont to say certain words beforehand, and it was at once revealed to him. When therefore once he had said the word three times, no vision offered itself to him. As he grieved, and prayed that the cause might be shown him, he first observed a deacon, who on the left held the ministering fan. Observing him, Epiphanius saw that leprosy appeared on his forehead. It was manifest to no one that the deacon suffered from that disease; Epiphanius therefore stretched out his hand, and lifted the ministering instrument, saying kindly to him: ‘Go, son, to thy house, and take not now the divine mysteries.’ He at once went out and went to his house, and Epiphanius gave the office to another deacon. Then he asked the cause from the first; and when he said that he had slept that night with his wife, having summoned the whole sacred order, Epiphanius said to them kindly: ‘Whosoever, O sons, you are who have been held worthy of the clergy, loose your sandals, that you enter not in them, and that you may honour the holy man who preaches in the Church and says: And they that have wives, as if they had none.’ From this time, therefore, Epiphanius no longer ordained those who had a wife, but holy men who practised the monastic life, and approved widowers; then it was truly possible to see the Church, as a fair bride adorned with the priesthood.”
Listen to William of Malmesbury, On the Deeds of the English, book 2: “The Emperor Henry had a cleric in his court who disfigured both his skill in letters and the elegance of his voice by a vice of the body, that he burned violently for a little harlot of the village; having wallowed with her on a solemn night, in the morning he stood with bold front at the Emperor’s Mass. Dissembling his knowledge, Caesar ordered him to prepare himself for the Gospel, for he was delighted with his melody; for he was a deacon. He, from consciousness of sin, tried to evade by many pretexts; the Emperor, on the other hand, pressed with messages, to test his constancy; at last he refused outright: ‘I,’ said Caesar, ‘because you will not obey me in so easy a service, command you to be an exile from my whole land.’ The cleric, embracing the sentence, departed at once; footmen were sent to pursue him, so that, if he thought of persisting, they might recall him when he had already left the city. So, delaying, having gathered all his goods and put them in bundles, he already set out and was brought back by great violence and awaited the presence of Henry. Who, smiling gladly, said: ‘Well hast thou done, and I congratulate thy probity, that thou didst value the fear of God above thy country, and regard for heavenly wrath above my threats: therefore have the bishopric which shall first fall vacant in my empire; only renounce thy unseemly love.’”
Finally, the unhappy and terrible tragedy of Udo, Bishop of Marburg, is known, which St. Antoninus, Nauclerus and Fulgosius relate at length: “When Bishop Udo,” they say, “warned not even by signs and divine voices, did not restrain himself from impurity, religious men prayed God either to correct the Bishop or take him away. Among them, when by night in the church of St. Maurice the Canon Frederick was giving himself to such prayers, he perceived that by the blast of a rather violent wind all the lights that were in the temple were put out; and not long after, he saw two youths come bearing two candlesticks with lighted tapers, and Christ with his mother and the Apostles follow. By these, when holy men whose bodies rested in the temple had been called, Maurice was seen to come among them, who with a long and grave speech accused Bishop Udo; whom not long after Christ commanded to be brought naked by two, and condemned. Then, being struck heavily in the midst of the loins by a fist from one of those who carried him, the Christian host which he had received in communion the day before