Commentaria in Leviticum
For this comes about gradually through exercise. Hence he says, godliness. “Monks who give themselves to this exercise were called Ascetics, that is, those who exercise themselves; whence St. Basil called his monastic constitutions Asceticon, that is, exercises. For everything,” he says, “is increased by domestic exercises. How is there learning without practice, or progress without use? He who wishes to attain military discipline exercises daily with arms, and, as if drawn up in battle array, rehearses the fight. And those who seek the crown by bodily strength and the lawful contest of wrestling, hardening their limbs by the daily practice of the wrestling-school, nourishing patience, grow accustomed to toil.” Aristotle used to say that “three things are required for acquiring wisdom: nature, instruction, and exercise.” The same is true of virtue, which is practical wisdom. Plato warned “that we should exercise neither the body without the soul, nor the soul without the body, that we may have equal care of both. For the one is the part of athletes, the other of the idle.” So Laertius, book 3. Hercules confirmed himself in patience of labours by daily exercises, being wont to pluck up and root out all the thorns that sprang up in that place. So Pausanias, book 6.
Lycurgus, when asked why he wearied the bodies of maidens with running, wrestling, and javelin-throwing, answered: That they may grow accustomed to bear the pains of childbirth and other pains, and to fight for their country, if need be.
Cato used to say that “the genius of man is like iron, which shines by use and is covered with rust in idleness; and that it must be exercised by learning and virtue.”
So also Plutarch: “As iron,” he says, “gleams with use, so the vigour of the mind shines forth when exercised in affairs, while by idleness it is dulled and darkened.”
St. Chrysostom, hom. 3 on Matthew: “As every art,” he says, “is preserved and increased by bodily practice, so all grace is increased by exercise and diminished by sloth.”
Pope Pius, in a letter: “Nature,” he says, “is blind without discipline; each has little weight if you take away exercise; but perfection is obtained by these three together.”
32. AND YOU SHALL NOT DEFILE MY NAME (ver. 32)—do not, by disobedience and an infamous life, cause the Gentiles to blaspheme my name.
I AM THE LORD WHO SANCTIFY YOU—who command you to be holy.
See here how God inculcates holiness upon the priests, and commands them to be holy. And first, because they represent the person of God on earth, they ought therefore to express and bear in themselves the holiness of God: for this is what God says, Levit. 20: “Be holy, because I am holy.” For this reason the high priest bore on his tiara the inscription: “Holy to the Lord.” Hence God himself also says, Psalm 131:16: “Her priests will I clothe with salvation, and her saints shall rejoice with exceeding joy.”
Secondly, because priests are compared to angels, and indeed in office surpass them; for an angel cannot forgive sins or consecrate the body of Christ, as the priests of the New Law can. “The lips of the priest,” says Malachias, chap. 2, “shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth; because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts.”
Thirdly, because they must sanctify all others. “You are the salt of the earth, and the light of the world,” he says. Hence St. Dionysius teaches that priests ought to be like transparent and shining crystal, on which the rays of the sun falling are poured back upon the other things that are near; and St. Chrysostom says that a priest ought to excel the rest in such great virtue as to be, as it were, a man among brutes, a man among boys, nay, an angel among men. St. Hilary and Gregory assert that priests ought to be sowers of eternity.
Fourthly, because they are mediators between God and men, and therefore eat and consume the sins of the people. Hence of old the priest, when about to deal with God, bore on his breast the names of the twelve tribes inscribed on the rational, with the Urim and Thummim, that is, doctrine and truth. With good reason, therefore, is it said to them:
“You are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people.”
Fifthly, because their duties are most holy, namely to baptize, to absolve from sins, to sacrifice, to consecrate, to anoint, etc. “The priestly office,” says St. Bernard in his Sentences, “is fourfold: first, to immolate living flesh, which is Levitical; secondly, to offer to God the chrisms of virtues, which is to burn aromatic spices, and belongs to the sons of Aaron; thirdly, to enter heaven with the fervour of martyrdom, which is to enter with blood into the Holy of Holies; fourthly, to send up to heaven the vows of grace and prayers, which is to offer bread and wine to God.”
Most holy is the flesh and humanity of Christ, which priests consecrate with their mouth, touch with their hands, and behold with their eyes, though veiled under the species of bread and wine. Whence St. Chrysostom, hom. 60 to the People, concludes thus: “Who therefore ought not to be purer, enjoying such a sacrifice? What sunbeam should not be outshone by the hand that divides this flesh? by the mouth that is filled with spiritual fire? by the tongue that reddens with that most awful blood?”
Hence holy men, as unworthy of it, have shrunk greatly from the priesthood. St. Francis never suffered himself to be made a priest, and used to say: If an angel met me on one side and a priest on the other, I would leave the angel and go to the priest, and kiss his hands: for he ministers to me both the bread and the words of life. The same, writing to the priests of his Order (which epistle is extant in vol. 5 of the Bibliotheca of the Holy Fathers, at the end): “See,” he says, “your dignity, O priests, and be holy, because he himself is holy. It is a great misery, and a pitiable weakness, when you have him thus present, and care for anything else in the whole world. Let the whole man tremble, let the whole world quake, and let heaven rejoice, when upon the altar, in the hands of the priest, is Christ the Son of the living God. O wonderful height, O astounding condescension, O humble sublimity, that the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself as to hide himself, for our salvation, under a small form of bread! See, brethren, the humility of God, and pour out your hearts before him, and be humbled, that you also may be exalted by him. Keep therefore nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that he may receive you wholly who gives himself wholly to you.” St. Mark, not the Evangelist but the Anchorite, cut off his own thumb that he might not be made a priest; so St. Anthony, St. Hilarion, and many thousands of monks declined the priesthood, so that in many monasteries of Egypt not one monk could be found who was a priest, as is plain from the Lives of the Fathers.
Sixthly, because holiness is the proper dowry of the priest: for hence he is called sacerdos, as it were sacer and holy; secondly, because he is consecrated and sanctified to God by a holy consecration; thirdly, because the rest are laymen and profane, but he is holy, and as it were divine, one whom it is not lawful to touch or violate: hence again he must be holy, that is, entire and unspotted by every vice, especially of lust and gluttony. For holiness, says St. Dionysius, is freedom from all defilement, a most uncontaminated and most perfect purity. And Origen says: hagios, that is, holy, is said as it were a-ge, that is, without earth, that is, one who is set apart from earthly dregs, pure, heavenly, and cleaving and devoted to God: such let the priest be, that his conversation may be in heaven, with the Angels and Saints. For this reason the Church reads through almost daily in the canonical Hours the holy and heroic deeds of some Martyr or Saint occurring on that day, that she may imitate them, even to death and martyrdom.
Let the priest therefore say with St. Augustine: Grant, O Lord, that I may be held in mind where it is most certain that true joys are had; keep my heart with thee, because without thee it is not raised to higher things. Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight: graciously accept the perpetual sacrifice of me and of the people, nay, of thy Christ. Grant that in this present life I may receive no consolation, until I come to thy kingdom, where, rejoicing, I shall say: I am joined to him on the hills whom I loved on earth with all my strength.