Institutio Vitae Sacerdotalis (Mainz, 1499)

On the Institution of the Priestly Life (Mainz, 1499)

Trithemius, Johannes / Mernicensis, Nicolaus / Ruscher, Thomas Instruction in the Priestly Life, dedicated to Nicolaus Mernicensis. With a letter to Nicolaus Mernicensis by Thomas Ruscher, 22 October 1494.

4 Inc. 15 a 1871a Trithemius Hain 15621 Vesp Instruction in the Priestly Life of Dom Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, of the Order of the holy father Benedict, of the diocese of Mainz, addressed to Nicolaus Mernicensis, priest of the diocese of Trier.

Gne. Ioa. 1871a Thomas Ruscher of Gamundia, professor of sacred letters, unworthy preacher of the evangelical word in the church of Mainz, sends perpetual greeting to the well-reputed and catholic priest Nicolaus Mernicensis.

Lest I should seem cold in giving thanks before him from whom every best gift and every perfect gift is given, most learned Nicolaus, there comes first to mind the Scripture of Deuteronomy, chapter 30: “I have set life and death before your face.” I give thanks because today he grants this also to the one who clings to him who is true life. And I say: he who recently, in my own times, breathed into the face of someone a breath of new life; for this I give thanks to the creator of all.

And to you, O father Trithemius, worthy of praise for your understanding, I give thanks because you have chosen life not only for yourself, but establish life also for me and for many others, so that they may live, in this most flourishing little work of instruction of yours, which soon had been brought all the way to me. Giving place to nothing else, as one in need of the breath of life, I looked into it with affection of mind and desire of soul.

But, O father worthy of praise for your understanding, what you have effected in me, most devoted to you, through this so flourishing little work of your instruction, and what I felt while reading it, I would not wish to hide from my contemporaries. For when I advanced into its inner parts, it so flooded into me that my cheeks were wet.

O brother Nicolaus Mernicensis, most devoted to prayer and charity, how fortunate and how holy was your request for this flourishing little work. O man, spouse of Christ, and son Nicolaus Mernicensis, and confessor of God, how necessary are the things contained in this little work, especially in these present stormy times, when the Christian faith is torn and oppressed by harmful errors that are everywhere sown and sprout up. Necessary, I say, beyond measure.

When this flourishing instruction for the pilgrimage of the priestly life has been cast aside, all vices and disgraces rise up. For I know by the tradition of our elders that the soul of a man is nourished by understanding and by knowledge as by a certain food. I rightly judge the minds of those who have been instructed by no disciplines, by no training in morals or life, and who have drunk in nothing of the good arts, to be fasting and almost famished; yet their minds are full, but full of vices and wickedness.

MONACENSIS.

Nicolaus, know that I would wish myself and my contemporaries to be persuaded by this: that we should turn ourselves wholly to this flourishing little work. For through it we are able not only to avoid the penalty of crime, but also to obtain the favor of praise. For whoever does not apply to this the sense of smell of the soul will quickly be brought to ruin. For that reason you know that this very thing was fruitful for me before the first impression of its letters.

Especially since the father and lord of praiseworthy understanding, Dom Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, gathered, compiled, and handed it down with no small sweat. He is, by the manifold grace of letters, far more abundant than I am; watchful in talent, ready in eloquence, burning with zeal, and a useful householder in the house of the Lord. By providing instruction in holy life through his flourishing little work, he instructs me, weak as I am, and at the same time the whole clergy, unskilled and learned alike, for their protection.

And surely, brother, if this instruction in life is lacking to us, who, I ask, judges that we are alive? If this is lacking to us, Nicolaus, we are not worthy. For in it everything is supplied to us so fully that without these things no one is worthy of life. For if, according to the flourishing instruction of our reverend father in the Lord, Trithemius, which is at hand, we shall wholly establish ourselves while we live here, true salvation is truly promised to us; and it is never taken away from any who live a life worthy of it.

Therefore all who wish to be regarded as worthy must order their life according to the things handed down in this flourishing little work, so that they may not die, but live forevermore. Most worthy Nicolaus, so that you may be able to comprehend this, farewell always in him who created all things, and may he preserve in his mercy us who cannot stand by our own strength. Amen.

Given in the Studium at Mainz, in the year of our salvation 1494, in the month of October, on the twenty-second day of the same month.

Here begins the opening of the treatise of Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, of the order of the holy father Benedict, On the Life of Priests, addressed to Nicolaus of Mernick, priest.

You ask me, Nicolaus, most beloved brother, and press me with frequent letters, to commend to you in writing a pattern for living praiseworthily in the priesthood. You compel me to labor beyond the powers of my intellect, and expose me to be torn by the bites of rivals, who will judge me presumptuous in this, because I wish to show you a way on which I myself have not yet learned to walk. And although the matter is so, nevertheless I prefer to undergo the judgment of rivalry rather than suffer harm to my charity toward you. For I have always cherished you with such affection that I have never been accustomed to deny you anything you asked. Therefore, desiring to satisfy your prayers, I wished to commend to you a rule of living from the writings of the saints: not because it would be altogether sufficient for your state in every respect, but so that, as some kind of beginning, it may lead you, if you wish, to honorable conduct.

First, then, I admonish you to weigh, from the definition of the name, the state of the conduct enjoined. For we are called clerics, all of us who have been specially chosen into the lot of the Lord. Let us therefore interpret the word of the name, and we shall understand the quality of the prescribed honorableness. For cleros in Greek is interpreted in Latin as “lot.” From cleros, therefore, clerics are said to be those chosen into the Lord’s lot. If, then, we recognize that we have been called into the lot of God, why do we still serve the world? Why do we seek an inheritance on the earth of the dying, we who await God, who promises himself to us? For in the Old Testament we read that the Lord commanded the priests and Levites not to receive an inheritance among the children of Israel, their brothers, because he himself was their inheritance. Now, therefore, if you consider yourself to be a cleric, you ought to walk more honorably than other men in the excellence of your conduct, and by no means love the perishable riches of this world. But if you subject your soul to the inheritance of the age, you will be placed with the foolish outside the Lord’s lot. For the Lord will not deign to receive you among his elect if, going after gold, you have resolved to love the world. Avarice is most disgraceful in a priest of Christ, for it makes a servant of God a minister of idols. If it once takes hold of your soul, it never again lets it go in possession of itself. For no one can serve two masters who are at odds. “You cannot,” he says, “serve God and mammon.” You will not be able to be a good cleric if you are avaricious. I know, however, and by long experience in living with you I have learned, that nature made you sparing; beware lest you turn a gift of grace into fuel for avarice. For indeed those who wish to become rich in this world often fall into the temptations of the devil.

But a minister of God must be set apart from solicitude for the world, because the mind cannot go freely to God if it has been entangled in earthly cares. For this reason we wear shaved crowns on our heads, so that, having cast off superfluities, we may prepare a free ascent to God in thought. For the hairs of the head signify the superfluities of earthly action. And just as the hairs of the head arise from an excess of humor, so the anxieties of the world grow from the love of money. When, therefore, we shave the hair of the head in the form of a crown, we are admonished that, being applied to the ministry of God, we should despise all the cares of the world. And just as the head is the higher part of the body, so the mind is the highest power of reason. Therefore we wear the crown on the head so that, released from earthly cares, we may be raised more freely in mind to the contemplation of God.

Hence we cloistered men, who are called monks, adorned with very broad crowns, leave fewer cares on the head, to show that, dead to the active life, we are more fully at leisure in contemplation of heavenly things. We must attend to the definition of the name, and with fitting merits of life correspond to the lot of the heavenly Creator. Guard your heart with all vigilance, lest cupidity sink you into the depth of avarice; lest the heat of lust drag your soul, with sinners, into the filth of luxury; lest the arrogance of pride draw you with it to the lower regions to be tormented without end. Beware lest through the cares of this world you fall away from the lot of God; beware lest you lose the reputation of a good name; beware lest you proceed on the way of those who despise God. Consider the ruins of many priests around you, and always fear a similar danger for yourself.

Nowhere among mortals is life lived more securely than when danger is always feared. Hence it is written: Blessed is the man who is always fearful; but he who is hard of mind will fall into evil. Indeed, he who fears danger takes precautions; he who neglects it falls into it. The minister of Christ, the priest of God, must be a man, not a boy, so that he may know and understand what a burden he has undertaken, for the administration of which he will have to render account in the strict judgment of God. Let him therefore be prudent, sober, chaste, and quiet; let him be modest, kind, and gentle, so that, being appointed teacher of an unlearned people, he may suffer no contempt on account of his manner of life. It belongs to the priest, when questioned, to answer concerning the law, constantly to rebuke the vices of his subjects by words of holy preaching, and to fear no adversities for love of the truth. He who performs the priestly office among the people of God must be a man learned in divine law, so that he may know how, in due season, to bring forth new things and old, lest among the mute dogs unable to bark he lose the dignity of his office.

Now it is your duty, O Nicolaus, to rebuke the vices of others with diligent admonition and to show yourself alien to the vices of others, lest, if you are vicious and rebuke crimes, you render yourself worthy of condemnation. For no one can confidently reprove in another what he remembers, with conscience as witness, that he himself has committed. Therefore the man who sits to judge the sins of others must be irreproachable, because he who commits in himself what he rebukes in others does not correct but provokes. But today many among priests are found like hypocrites: they are angry at brothers who offend in lighter matters, and do not want anyone to be indignant at themselves. Wretched condition of human frailty: one sinner condemns another sinner, and in the same crime he pronounces an unequal sentence. I should be lying if an adulterer did not very often rebuke his neighbor for fornication; a judge vicious in many things condemns a few vices in another, and, so that he may be able to hide his own depravity, he makes manifest the offenses of all. Against such a man it is said by the Lord: Hypocrite, first cast out the beam that you carry in your own eye, and then you will see the mote in another's. Why does a sacrilegious man reprove a thief? Why does a criminal rebuke a vicious man? Every correction will be wholly fruitless when an equal foulness of life stains it. Therefore, in order that you may lack the reproach of hypocrites, beware lest, while correcting another, you offend in a similar sin.

Correction will never be useful among subjects while the man who presides submits his neck to public sins. Indeed, the right of correction is lost when the conduct of the corrector is defiled by the vices of his subjects. The authority of the priesthood becomes cheap if public iniquity corrupts the uprightness of one’s manner of life. Therefore every correction should take its beginning in its own author, and only then proceed securely into public. Let the man whom his own conscience bites over a similar crime suspend for a time the sentence of rebuke.

The state of believers is already for the most part corrupt, and as the people are, so too is the priest; all pursue avarice, from the greater even to the least. Woe to the sinful nation, which always slips down toward graver things while it sees its own judges guilty of an equal offense. Ecclesiastical authority has now come to such misery that we are commanded to embrace the words of priests, not their deeds. For unhappy priests say of themselves, bearing witness to their own defilement: “O faithful Christians, attend to the words of our instruction; beware of our examples.” O words most worthy of everlasting confusion, which, as much as they ought to have instructed the people of God by doctrine, so much do they scandalize them by perverse works.

The unlearned and rude now come to the priesthood without any discernment of merit; by their most evil morals they unhappily kill the sheep of Christ. No holiness of life is now required in clerics to be ordained; no learning in letters is demanded; purity of conscience is not considered. Among them it suffices if they can construe the current lot, if they can answer of what part of speech “Lord” is, if they can understand “yes” and “no.” Woe to the bishops of our tempestuous age, who, intent on secular business, do not examine the ordinations of clerics but entrust the care of examination to the unskilled; they will undergo a strict sentence, since they present themselves as the cause of every evil in the Church. Indeed, since a priest of the faithful ought to be learned and holy, by what rashness do the unskilled come to the priesthood, who can instruct neither themselves nor others? For neither does a good life without doctrine suffice in a cleric, nor does doctrine without life instruct the people healthfully. For doctrine without morals destroys the teacher; life without doctrine makes him useless. For by the barking of dogs and the bawith the staff of the shepherd, the madness of wolves must be driven off. Therefore the ecclesiastical shepherd should, by a good life, offer his sheep an example of justice, and by salutary doctrine feed the minds of his hearers, lest, if he does one without the other, he either neglect himself or exercise care of the flock fruitlessly. Alas, what shall I say about our priests who are unlearned and vicious, avaricious, luxurious, and utterly wicked? I am ashamed to speak, and I cannot be silent. Take thought for yourself, dearest Nicolaus, lest you become an imitator of those who, despising the books of the Scriptures, spend the whole day free for games and drinking parties; who stain themselves by mingling with women; who by their depraved conduct scandalize many in the law of God. Be in the people of God a model of honorable conduct; in all things, so far as can be done, show yourself irreproachable, so that you may remove every occasion for evil suspicion concerning you. For you ought to have testimony even from those who are outside, since the sermon of a preacher is easily despised when his life is marked among the people by evil suspicions. Therefore show yourself a cultivator of good works, so that you may be able to instruct the people of God no less by example than by speech. In order that you may be able to accomplish this salutarily, take care to avoid the companionship of the undisciplined; for he who does not flee the companionship of the wicked can scarcely live without reproach. For Scripture says: “With the holy you will be holy, and with the perverse you will be perverted.” And again: “He who touches pitch will be defiled by it.” Each person delights to have companions of his own purpose. If, therefore, you are good, love the company of the good. For if you do not keep your foot from the assembly of evildoers, you will at all times be subject to the slanders of those under you. A youthful mind is easily deceived by the companionship of the perverse. You are young, and flexible in either direction; therefore you must watch over yourself with the greatest diligence, lest you be corrupted by the company of the undisciplined. For nothing harms young men so much as the bad examples of their elders. Indeed, the younger you are, the greater the solicitude with which you must take care to guard your life in sincerity of the fear of the Lord. For it is written: “A young man according to his way, even when he has grown old, will not depart from it.” What you have learned as a young man, you will practice in old age.

On fleeing the companionship of women. Chapter 2

But what shall I say about familiarity with women, which is most destructive to the priests of God, since the decrees of the holy fathers forbid it to them by a sufficiently strict prohibition? If I set before you the admonitions of the most blessed father Jerome, you will immediately cry out: “I cannot govern a household without the service of a maidservant; I am not able to prepare food for myself; I do not want to clean dirty clothes. Why,” you say, “do you bring forward Jerome’s precepts against me, which bind no one except the willing? Who appointed Jerome as my lawgiver?” The sacrosanct universal Church, I say, approves his sayings; it places among the canons his precepts set forth on this matter; and do you presume to mutter against so great an authority? But you will say: “Contrary custom has abrogated this law, and after a long time it must be regarded as law.” But iniquity lies to itself, and by foolish reasoning is deceived in itself. A custom contrary to good morals can never either take away or establish law. And what is so contrary to priestly honor as to delight in the household intimacy of young women? Chastity is endangered where the society of priests passes among little women. For the first and strongest temptations of clerics arise from frequent access to women. Foolish presumption has overthrown many, who, as I might say, have handed the instruments of victory to their enemies with their own hands. Danger is avoided with the greatest difficulty if the occasion is not avoided. For while a woman stays with a cleric, and sits alone with him alone, prepares food for him as he eats, arranges his little bed as he sleeps, speaks with him, smiles at him, she supplies the kindling of lust. However holy a woman may be, she must always be feared by a cleric. For just as sparks leap out from coals, so the poison of concupiscence spreads from the constant familiarity of women. A woman familiar with a chaste man is the gate of the devil, the door of hell, the way of iniquity, the dreadful sting of the scorpion, and a harmful kind of deception. When she comes near she pricks; when she speaks she inflames; when she touches she burns fiercely ...burns fiercely. We do not condemn the sex, but we warn of the danger to chastity. We read that Saint Augustine fled women so greatly that he would not allow even his own sister to enter his episcopal house. We ourselves have known several priests who for many years governed both their household and the people entrusted to them innocently, without the service of a maidservant. Nor indeed will it be difficult for you to imitate what you see others have practiced. Beware, therefore, and do not draw near to the company of young women, since it is difficult to live chastely even among old women.

Remember with whom you speak at the altar, and do not pour out in kisses for prostitutes a mouth consecrated to divine ministries. It is most shameful, with hands consecrated by the oil of holy anointing, by which the Son of God is held and sacrificed, to touch a woman with polluted contacts. Do not give a stain to your glory and your name as a reproach to all. Everyone in public, and in the field the peasant plowmen and vine-dressers, will daily tear you fiercely apart if, as a young man, you presume to live with women, especially younger ones. You will be a proverb and a mockery to all the people if you often enter the dwellings of young women.

Against your invisible enemy, who always flies around your side laying snares, keep watch at every time, and according to Naso, resist evils at their beginnings, when the temptations are still weaker. For, as we see, after a cleric has once offered his body to the embraces of prostitutes, rarely or never does he return to perfect amendment. For all who are troubled by perverse love, the longer they have lain in the filth of lust, the more difficultly do they return to health of mind. A vice strongly grown old fixes its roots in the human heart.

O how many priests there are today in the Church of God who, submerged in the depth of lust, despise the long-suffering of God, as it is written: When the impious man has come into the depths of evils, he despises. There are, no doubt, many among clerics defiled by lust who, although at the beginning of their promotion they resolved to live chastely, deceived by negligent guarding of the senses, now without any fear of God consort with prostitutes as if licitly and by custom. Nothing is worse than the custom of sin, by which the gravest crimes come to be esteemed as if very slight.

The strongest bond of sin is the habit of sinning, which grows with time and from delay takes increase of strength. Therefore he who said in verse gave very good counsel against the fires of the flesh: Resist at the beginnings; medicine is prepared too late when evils have gained strength through long delays. But hasten, and do not defer yourself to coming hours: he who is not ready today will be less ready tomorrow. Do not delay to be converted to the Lord, says Scripture, and do not put it off from day to day, since the longer you have delayed repentance, the less fit you will be for repenting.

Now ascend the watchtower of your mind, and see the madness of foolish priests who are led captive by base concubines, so that they do not do whatever they wish, but what is commanded them by prostitutes. You would meanwhile see a solid cleric sitting beside his concubine, gazing at her with open mouth; and if she smiles at him, he laughs; if she becomes angry, he flatters her until she is reconciled to favor. The unhappy priest is led captive by a woman, and he who ought to have ruled others is overcome by the dominion of his maidservant.

O who would believe what great groans the wretch emits amid these things, whenever he thinks of casting off this harshest yoke of the arch-devil, what pains he carries in his heart? Sometimes, indeed, he is touched by such great displeasure against his beast that he plans to drive her away from himself on the next day. Meanwhile he gives insulting words and receives them; finally after words they come to blows: he strikes and is struck back; he curses and is blasphemed. O astonishing spectacle: the hands of a prostitute tear, strike, and bruise the head of a priest, which a prince is not permitted to touch.

Finally, after curses and blows, the woman turns herself to weeping; with the devil pouring them in, she sheds tears, until at last she recalls the unhappy captive to mercy and renders him appeasable to herself. You would then see the cleric suddenly changed, and so moved by the tears of his concubine that he who had suffered the injury is the first to beg forgiveness. Then a full table is set out, a feast is renewed, sighs are mixed with words, and the bargains of new nuptials are negotiated. Amid these things the solid priest sits disputing about patience and gentleness; he sighs that he has offended against his mistress, and labors with all his strength to recover her favor.

What is done after the friendship has been renewed, you may rather think than I may say. There is no fear of God before the eyes of a priest bound by the chains of a concubine; there is no dread of the punishments of hell, no thought of priestly dignity, no memory of public honor. This vice of incontinence has now prevailed so much among the clergy that what is public has almost begun to be lawful. Wretched condition of the human race: those who ought to have corrected the crimes of others commit graver ones themselves.

Shameful to say, in villages and cities priests sit openly, notorious for intercourse with their concubines. So great a number of them is found today that if some prelate wished to correct such men in his own diocese alone, overcome by sheer multitude, he would be frightened away from his purpose. If you entered the house of any one of such men, you would sometimes come upon the priest carrying in his arms his little child, the witness of his fatherly fornication, and, while reading the canonical hours, consoling the crying child with words and songs. You would also see the father, rising from bed, taking the ill-fated offspring onto his knees, offering kisses, placing him on his right knee and the breviary on his left. While praying, he smiles back at the smiling infant, soothes him when he cries, and, when he is silent, addresses him often with words and nods.

Meanwhile the coaxing mother runs up; the sweet pledge snatches the book from the father’s hand, handles the leaves, tears them, and, with saliva flowing from his mouth, stains it with his parent’s permission. Amid all this there is no devotion in the one praying, no attention given to the words; instead, all concern is spent in consoling the crying child. The words fall confused from the mouth of the one praying, interrupted by the infant’s frequent kisses, so that when the prayer is finished he scarcely remembers that he has prayed.

Meanwhile the sacristan rings the bell; the altar is prepared for sacrifice; the priest is awaited by the people in the church. The priest rushes in, his hands washed in place of the child, puts on the sacred vestments with all the haste he can, and performs the sacrifice of God with a distracted mind. O conscience, where do you remain meanwhile? Where do you lie despised? O miserable man, you who handle the Son of God with polluted hands, how long will you wound, tear, and destroy your soul? With what rashness, finally, do you approach the altar, polluted in body and soul?

If the great mercy of almighty God did not spare you for a time, the angels, provoked, would strike you at the altar with grave indignation. Where is the vow of perpetual chastity that you promised into the hands of the bishop when he ordained you? Where is the reverence due to the priesthood you have assumed? You have sinned: why do you not do penance? How long will you despise the long-suffering of God? Or do you not know that the patience of God leads you to penance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the just judgment of Jesus Christ.

I think, indeed, that you plan to repent in the future; but you give no thought at all to how near death is, the cutter-off of penance. Truly, the merciful God who promised pardon to the penitent did not pledge tomorrow’s day to the one who delays. But a cleric whom a cohabiting woman has once led away captive she never, or rarely, releases as free unless death intervenes.

I pass over the fact that many, through the deceits and sorceries of their concubines, are often driven so far out of their minds that they cannot in any way shake themselves free from those women’s most shameful love. The hearing shudders at the crimes of harlots, and the purity of chastity cannot bear to hear what things are sometimes perpetrated by priests’ concubines. They prepare food for their masters from menstrual blood, and while they desire to entice them to love them, they turn them toward colic and madness. With dreadful sorceries and superstitions they entangle priests in their lusts, until, their strength gradually drained away, they render them utterly useless.

Blessed is the man whom God has guarded from an evil and lustful woman. There is no wickedness above the malice of a woman who enjoys evil loves. Whatever she devises, she attempts; whatever she can do, she dares. No one believes what efforts, ways, and inventions she uses, so that she may cast down, by an indissoluble bond to her pleasures, the man whom she plans to deceive. She joins herself to her master for the sake of her own desires, not because she loves him, but because she covets. For the crowd of concubines follows the prey, not the priest. So long as he is rich and abounds in all things, she does not leave her master’s side; but if he begins to lack bread, the concubine turns herself to another. Sometimes, however, because of the children, the priest and the concubine are glued together to such a degree that by no means can they be separated from one another, except by death. that by no means can they be separated from one another, except by death. It also often happens that some prefer to give up their prebends rather than their concubines. You know what happened to your first preceptor. He, wretchedly seduced by the savage love of that prostitute whom you know, since he did not dare live with her openly for fear of her husband, despised his homeland, home, relatives, and the benefices he had, and secretly fled away with her so that he might enjoy her freely. And to this day no one knows where he has gone.

I know a certain priest who kept concubines. When at one time I rebuked him for his sin, between myself and him, I finally brought him to the point that he was willing to promise perpetual continence from then on into my hands. But when I urged him to cast out his concubine at once, he answered, “I cannot.” “Why?” I said. “If I cast her out,” he said, “who would look after my little children?” For he already had two boys by her. “I am poor,” he said; “I cannot hire people to care for them for wages. Therefore I will not cast out their mother until the little children grow up, lest I be guilty of bloodshed. Yet I will be chaste with her as with a chaste woman, and from now on I will be joined to her in no intercourse.” And I said, “What will you do if, before these children grow up, others arise in their place?” He swore that he wished to take care that this not happen. “You will not amend your fault,” I said, “unless you cast out the concubine.” It is difficult to leave habitual things behind and, while the occasion is present, to abstain from former vices. No one will warm a serpent in his bosom and remain unharmed. The man went away to his house, and to this day he has not abandoned his domestic crimes.

I have considered the works of God: whom he has despised, no one can correct. So difficult is it for a priest who has once fallen into fornication to rise again to true chastity that among all of them you can scarcely find one. For according to Scripture, “He who commits sin is the servant of sin,” and he who once submits to filthy love is scarcely ever wholly set free. For fornication is more easily fled than corrected. Therefore I warn you and entreat you to flee the company of women, lest you lose the reputation of a good name. For once a priest has been disgraced by the charge of fornication, he will never recover the honor he has lost. Avoid even conversations with women; decline frequent greetings in the marketplace, because by light words one comes to the worst deeds. For many have been deceived by a woman’s careless speech.

Be watchful at all times, and never think that you should trust yourself so long as you live in the flesh. For we have known many who fell in old age, though they seemed secure because of past victory. Indeed temptation is never absent from a person so long as he lives in this life. But if you cannot manage your household affairs without the service of a maidservant, take a respectable old woman from your own kin, one whose living with you could give rise to no suspicion among the people. Yet take care of this above all: do not take a married woman as your servant. For what God has joined, let no man separate. The cohabitation of another man’s wife is not free from suspicion of evil. I want you, so far as possible, to have a good testimony from everyone. Let the dangers of others make you cautious; and where you see that many have fallen, do not choose to walk carelessly.

Remember how many very strong and very wise men, from the beginning of the world down to this day, have perished through the company of women. A woman deceived Adam, the first-formed man, and when he had been overthrown she killed us all. From the beginning of the created world the sons of God sinned through women, and by their crimes brought the flood upon the whole world. Women of the foreigners also laid low the children of Israel as they came out of Egypt, in the desert. Why do we recount these, when a vile prostitute, having captured Samson, the strongest of all men, by her loves, handed him over to death and disgrace? Let no one presume upon his own strength; let no one trust in former chastity, since often the man who today is seen to stand bravely is tomorrow seen to fall into the depths of fornication. The wisest Solomon could not guard against the deceits of women; who, then, will now be safe? The strong and wise man fell by the sword of women, and do we, frail and foolish, presume upon security? For the man who fell says, “Better is the iniquity of a man than a woman doing good.” It is safer to live with a wicked man than with a good woman.

For the devil, the adversary of chastity, never ceases to set snares for a chaste man, if he can find material for deceiving him. Since he is crafty, he knows how to dissemble for a time, until at last in a single hour he can overturn all the labor and reward of past continence. He gradually insinuates himself among those who love. and, under the appearance of Christian charity, he sows sweet words about virtues and vices, until he draws the unwary into the snare of crime. Then they begin to speak more familiarly; each opens his more secret matters to the other; little by little they grow accustomed to touching one another with their hands. Finally, through mutual laughter, future marriages are prepared; and while they live familiarly by habit, they suddenly fall into the devil’s pit.

After they have once fallen into mutual guilt, the deed seems to them somewhat abhorrent; but they cannot easily withdraw from what they have begun. Therefore they go on in the way they had started; and although at the beginning conscience abhors the crime, nevertheless through habit it gradually bears it more lightly. At first, indeed, they begin to act wantonly with a certain bashful fear; but afterward, blinded by wicked habit, they no longer blush. Meanwhile the belly, conscious of the secret, begins to swell and to reveal publicly the crime that had lain hidden. At last a little child is born; for a short time father and mother blush, and immediately they return to their customary crimes.

Thereafter all shame is now cast far away; the eye of conscience is blinded; the fear of God and of hell is driven utterly from memory. Now, joined by the devil’s glue, they live freely in sins, disgraced before men, alienated from God. Soon the long-established crime turns into despair; the remedy of penitence is mocked; the long-suffering patience of God is despised. Meanwhile the priest is made a slave to lust to such a degree that he thinks he cannot live without his concubine. He can indeed amend his sin, but he refuses, because he feels himself pleasantly entangled in the bonds of lust. He promises himself that later he will undertake penitence in the future; he promises to amend his life. But while, amid so many crimes, he delays with the intention of repenting, he loses both the time and the ability alike. Hence it happens that such priests who keep concubines rarely come to the remedies of saving penitence, because they hope that their life will still be prolonged for a long time. Indeed, some are so driven mad by devilish enticements that they can think of nothing except carnal things, and care nothing for future repayment. They love a wicked concubine more than eternal happiness.

What sort of penitence do you think these men perform at the end, when they are driven not by will but by necessity? Those who have consumed the whole time of their life in lust rarely obtain true penitence in the final moments of their life. For even if the late penitence of such men, by God’s mercy, is sometimes true, nevertheless they will not be able to reach the kingdom of heaven without the most grievous torments of purgatory. Finally, if revelations are to be believed, a very great multitude of clerics among the dead suffer unimaginable punishments, to last forever, because of the vice of incontinence.

You see to what end incautious familiarity with women drags a cleric: it condemns him to the eternal torments of hell. Therefore the beginnings of temptations must be resisted, because lust is never conquered better than if it is avoided by flight. For if it has once entangled you through habit, it never lets you go free without the special grace of God. If you hesitate to put faith in our words, look for examples, since you can find proofs before your eyes. Behold, today we know many old priests whose life we know to be incontinent. We see age grow old in them, and the vices of youth by no means cease. And when they come to extreme old age, they do not abandon their wicked habits; but as they always were from the beginning, so also they go to death.

You would see among them priests already decrepit who have drunk in the poison of lust to such a degree that, when because of old age they can no longer act wantonly in deed, they burn for their customary practices in thought, word, and gestures. Of such men the Lord says through the prophet: If the Ethiopian can change his skin and the leopard his spots, then you also will be able to do good, when you have learned evil. The concubinage of women can cease in old men, but the desire for the act remains as before. Therefore, as you desire to be as an old man, so live now also as a young man. For it is difficult for an old man to correct his habits and to think new things in an old mind. Indeed, old age has habits; it does not receive them. He who acts wantonly with a woman as a young man is mad as an old man. Therefore it is good for a man when he has borne the yoke of the Lord from his youth, because if anyone is evil in youth he has been, he will rarely be good in old age.

On the remedy against lust. Chapter 3

Physicians have been accustomed first to show the sick the seriousness of their disease by careful discussion, and only then to apply the help of remedies. For once the seriousness of the illness is known, the bitterness of the potion causes less fear. Since I am about to do this with you, I have first disclosed to you, by many kinds of demonstration, the danger of cohabitation with women, and, as far as I could, I have declared what the end of this disease is. It follows now, therefore, that we should think about the remedy. For the flesh always desires against the spirit, and unless it is restrained by salutary exercise, it casts both itself and him down into the depth of damnation.

Hence the poet aptly admonishes us, saying: “If you take away idleness, Cupid’s bows have perished; his torches lie despised and without light.” Holy Scripture also declares that every idle person is in his desires. Therefore anyone who wishes to extinguish the vice of lust must continually exercise himself in some holy work. For idleness is the enemy of the soul. Hence blessed Jerome admonishes someone, saying: “Always do some good thing, so that the devil may find you occupied.” The best remedy against evil thoughts is, indeed, occupation in some holy work. For when the mind is pleasantly intent on some good exercise, it does not think of anything else. No access will lie open to the devil if the mind is occupied in some exercise.

Take an example from holy David: when occupied with matters of war he subdued lust; when idle, remaining at home, he committed adultery. When the hand is free from work, the mind grows weak in thought. Therefore, if you wish to conquer lust, flee idleness. As for the exercises to which you ought to adapt your time, receive them in a few words, if you please. Accustom yourself to rise from sleep in the morning before daylight, and to devote some little time to prayers, both canonical and votive. And when by devout prayer you have completed the due measure of your service, you will then devote yourself to sacred readings, until you understand that you are called by office to celebrate Mass. After Mass one must again devote oneself to prayers, and attend to sacred meditations and the most devout exercises. Then one must work with the hands; the household must be cared for; and whatever business has to be arranged out of necessity should be ordered with the fear of God.

The manual work of a priest is to write, to bind books copied by himself or by others, or printed books, and to attend to other honorable labors according to his condition or necessity. Then, when food has been taken, thanks must be given to God, who feeds us here on earth; and again one must pray that after this life he may feed us without end in heaven. When these things have duly been completed, one must not immediately go off to idle talk, but again devote oneself to sacred readings. Then one must work with the hands until evening, though manual work should not be extended beyond the fourth hour.

But when the day is now declining and one must sleep, recourse should first be had to most devout prayers. When these have been completed, you should set up an account of your actions throughout the day, and, crying out that you are guilty before God for your negligent way of life, you should ask for pardon and indulgence. For if you have judged yourself, you will be absolved by God. And unless you have constantly kept yourself in the fear of the Lord, the house of your conscience will quickly be overturned.

But if you have been overtaken in some fault, at once return to the lamentation of penance, and, if it can be done, choose such a confessor as both knowledge of the Scriptures proves suitable and conduct commends. For he who lives in reprobate conduct rarely opens the way of salvation in truth to those confessing. But if, at the enemy’s suggestion, you begin to feel temptations of the flesh in your mind, do not strengthen them by delay, but drive them out as quickly as possible through prayers and holy exercises. Slippery is the serpent of lust, and unless it is crushed at the head, it is not easily destroyed. While the adversary is still weak, he is easily overcome.

And if you have conquered yourself at some time, do not suppose that you are secure, for victory is not complete where daily battle is waged. Therefore, as long as you can be subjected, do not believe that you have conquered. Do not trust in your own strength; do not claim the victory for yourself, but know that your hope rests in the help of God alone. For no one is chaste by his own powers. For the grace of God, when it has helped him, conquers the flesh. good will. One must pray to the Lord without interruption against the temptations of the flesh and say: “Pierce my flesh with your fear, for I have feared your judgments.” Do not love the delights of this world, which will quickly make you vanish away and will easily set you on fire with the heat of lust. In your diet let excess be avoided, and let not variety of foods stir appetite, but hunger. Let no incitements to lust be set before you, but things that nourish the body and do not inflame it. Wine, in which there is wantonness, should always be suspect to you, lest you be set ablaze with a double heat, namely that of drink and of youth. He who constantly uses wine nourishes the fire of lust in his lap. The uncovering of Noah’s shameful parts and the incest of Lot should admonish you always to fear wine. For drunkenness is the burial of a living man: it destroys the senses, extinguishes reason, binds the mind, wounds the conscience, lessens the health of the body, and kills the soul. Drunkenness, the spring of evils, rouses the flesh to lust, defiles the heart with the worst thoughts, and lets the tongue loose into the foulest words. This is the saying of most holy Jerome: “A filled belly easily foams over into lust.” Therefore let a chaste man’s meal be moderate; let his drink be sparing and light; let his speech be modest. Let him beware intimacy with women; let him direct his senses with every guard, lest he fall into the pit of lust. Whenever a foul thought begins to beat upon his mind, let him take up the memory of the Lord’s passion; let him set his thought upon the wounds of Jesus Christ. For it is written: “Blessed is he who shall take and dash his little ones against the rock.” And the rock, says the Apostle, was Christ. For the recollection of the Lord’s passion is the most effective remedy against all temptations. Indeed, one whom the passion of Christ does not soften, no exercise will cure. Therefore, when the lust of the flesh begins to attack the spirit, let the worshipper of chastity lift his hands to heaven and say: “Lord Jesus Christ, lover of chaste counsel, you know that my strength to resist is slight; help my weakness through your bitter passion.” I believe in the Lord that if he persists in praying with devotion, he will easily obtain victory against the flesh. But I want you, most beloved brother, to avoid not only shameful deeds but also shameful words. For evil conversations corrupt good morals. B iij And do not wish to imitate those who, while giving themselves to filthy talk, think themselves chaste in heart. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Vain speech is the sign of a vain heart. What sort of man each person is hiding within himself is proved by the speech he utters. There are some, and indeed many, priests who by their wanton habits violate the sincerity of their consciences, although they do not bodily proceed to the act of lust. They sit with women speaking shameful things; they exchange itching touches and kisses; and amid these things they boast that they are chaste. And where does the Lord’s saying remain: “Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart”? If it is not permitted to a chaste man to look at a woman in order to lust after her, how much less to touch her immodestly, kiss her, and handle her with his hands? For the Apostle says: “Abstain from every appearance of evil,” as befits the saints. Does it not seem to you an appearance of evil to sit among chaste men and go mad over the kisses and touches of young women? I would lie if I said that I had not seen priests, and prelates of higher rank, spend the whole day on shipboard in obscene touches and kisses of women, and show no reverence for their dignity. It is a sign of inward lust when someone has grown accustomed to speak shameful words and to add touches to them. Therefore, dearest one, if you desire to show yourself a worthy minister of God, if you wish to escape the very hard yoke of lust, abstain not only from deeds but also from shameful words and from the touch of women. It is impossible for the mind not to be wounded when, behaving wantonly, you touch a woman with kiss and hand. “Remember your last things,” the wise man warns, “and you will not sin forever.” For nothing restrains a man from sin so much as the attentive memory of death.

On Reading and the Study of the Scriptures. Chapter 4

I know, and I have learned by experience, that the most effective remedy against all temptations is the study and reading of the Scriptures, and frequent prayer. For such a remedy extinguishes the assault of vices. such a remedy extinguishes the assault of vices. For blessed Jerome says: “Love knowledge of the Scriptures, and you will not love the vices of the flesh.” Scripture alone is what promises us a heavenly remedy in tribulation. What could we know or believe about the heavenly homeland, if we did not have the Scriptures? For the Apostle says: “All Scripture is divinely inspired,” so that through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope. Therefore I admonish you to take up the study of the holy Scriptures as a consolation in this pilgrimage, since if you are constant in reading them, you will easily despise the world with all its vanities. For nothing so lifts the mind from vain anxiety to heavenly things; nothing so calms the fires of the flesh, as diligence in sacred reading. Finally, study is especially fitting for your office, as Malachi says: “The lips of the priest keep knowledge, and they will seek the law from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” For, as we said a little above, the priest of Christ must be learned in the divine law, so that he may know and have matter from which to bring forth a sermon. For he who has undertaken to rule souls, for whom he will render an account to God the supreme judge, must read and understand much. Indeed, as that great Gregory Nazianzen said, and after him the Roman pope: the governance of souls is the art of arts. But if someone has learned nothing in the holy Scriptures, what will he teach others? Or what benefit will a priest be able to bring his hearers in preaching, if he does not know the Scriptures?

Woe now to our times, in which the priest is like the people. Our priests cast aside the study of the Scriptures; they neglect learning; instead of books of Scripture they keep birds and dogs. Let the bishops see to it, who promote such ignorant and unknowing men to the dignity of the priesthood, who entrust the care of Christ’s sheep to unskilled shepherds. Withdraw from the company of those who cast aside knowledge, who neglect the reading of the Scriptures, who despise study. They savor nothing except what is worldly; they love nothing except what is vain; they understand nothing except what is carnal. They will quickly overturn you, if you often pass into their assembly. They sit in ambush with drinkers in taverns, devoting themselves to games and feasts.

The fear of God is not before their eyes. They are angry if anyone begins to speak of the Scriptures before them; they disdain to hear reading, but turn instead to fables. What have you to do with them? They are priests in name, asses in conduct. They understand absolutely nothing of the Scriptures; they despise learning. They do not know how to write or speak the Roman tongue; scarcely have they learned to explain the Gospels in the vernacular. How many errors, fables, and heresies they announce to the people by preaching in church: who could believe it unless he had experienced it? Instead of books they acquire children for themselves; instead of study they love concubines. These are blind guides of the blind, who do not instruct the people of God toward justice, but rather lead them astray. O how many poor Christians live in the countryside who, because of the ignorance of their priests, do not know what befits a Christian. Amid these things there is no one who pays attention, no one who grieves over the danger of souls, no one who applies a remedy. All savor the things that are earthly; all seek their own interests; all run after profits. But what are these things to us? Each one stands or falls before his own lord. And although it does not belong to me to correct these things, nevertheless I cannot help grieving when I see every evil in the Church proceeding from the ignorance of priests.

For who would not grieve that those men do not know the commandments who have been appointed to instruct others? Behold, no knowledge is sought in ordaining priests; those not called are permitted to approach; the life of those to be ordained is never examined, as above all it ought to have been. Therefore the Christian people is led away captive by the cords of sins; the ardor of charity is extinguished; the concord of fraternal love is violated. Our priests overflow with worldly desires; they do not presume to correct the vicious, because they recognize that they themselves have offended in greater matters. For indeed there are few who now shine in the Church with holy morals; few love knowledge of the Scriptures; few instruct the flock entrusted to them by word and examples. For the most part they are chosen not because they are more learned, but because they are more eager to gather perishable riches. They have either no codices of Scripture or few, since they pursue knowledge with hatred.

Nothing so diminishes ecclesiastical dignity and renders it contemptible as the ignorance of prelates. When formerly bishops, abbots, and the other prelates and priests had directed their minds to the Scriptures, so easy an entrance did not lie open to crimes and sins. For love and knowledge of the Scriptures teach one to despise the world, flee vices, and love the most sacred virtues. As long as the Israelite people remained in the law of the Lord, no power of the enemy prevailed against them. But after it cast away knowledge of the law, it was subjected to many adversities. For Scripture says: “Because they did not have wisdom, they perished because of their foolishness.”

Today also there are priests and rectors of churches in great number, but few of them attend to knowledge of the law and the Scriptures. And because, as the Lord speaks through the prophet, the priests have cast away knowledge of the law, for that reason they have been made contemptible among the people. One does indeed cry to the Lord in tribulation, but he does not hear them, because “he who turns his ears away so that he does not hear the law, his prayer will be execrable.” Therefore priests should not be surprised that laypeople despise them, since they themselves scorn the commandments of Christ. I greatly fear that graver things will soon come against the clergy. But enough about these matters.

You, however, should consider not what others do, but what you yourself must do. For many are called to the priesthood in the Church of God, but few are chosen. Therefore we must take the greatest care that we who are taken into the lot of the Lord may also be chosen. What does it profit to exercise the priesthood here for a very brief time, if one happens to be separated from the sight of God? Therefore nothing is better than to fix one’s desire on heavenly things, to persist in the study of sacred reading, to despise present things for the love of God, and to think on future things.

Hence Peter says in the Aurora: “Nothing is better for a man than if, by reading divine things, he fixes his mind there whence life comes to him.” Therefore continuous study must be devoted to reading the Scriptures, because reading nourishes the mind and supplies fuel to the virtues. Therefore, so that you do not lose the value of time, read the sacred Scriptures; write books; persist in devout prayers; and at the proper times also work with your hands. Do not be ashamed to learn what you do not know, because then you will be able usefully to instruct others, if you always seek to be informed by those more learned than yourself.

Do not be ashamed to take on the name of pupil, if you desire to attain the honor of mastery. For the Holy Spirit, who teaches man knowledge, is a lover of humility. When you sit at table to take food, remember that the sacred letters must first be sounded forth, so that while the flesh is fed, the mind may by no means be defrauded of its own nourishment. In the Council of Toledo it is read thus: “Out of reverence for God and for priests, the whole synod established this: because idle tales are often accustomed to be introduced at meals, reading from the divine Scriptures should be mixed with every priestly banquet. For by this both souls are built up toward the good, and tales are not prohibited by necessity.” For the word of God is the food of the spirit, because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

The ancient fathers and priests devoted the greatest diligence to the holy Scriptures, so that they might both nourish the mind in a wholesome way and provide useful things for the instruction of posterity. Let us adhere to their footsteps, so that we may deserve to be found worthy ministers before God.

On Fleeing Avarice and Greed

Chapter 5

Although at the beginning of our discourse we argued against avarice and greed, nevertheless we are led by a sure reason to speak again in this place about this very matter. For enough is never done against this vice unless it is rooted out entirely. Since our Savior knew how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, he said to those following him: “Unless someone renounces all that he possesses, he cannot be my disciple.” Hence the psalmist admonishes us: “If riches abound, do not set your heart upon them.” The Apostle also says: “Having food and clothing, let us be content with these. What more do we seek, we who are ministers of God?

Greed is shameful in a priest of God; avarice is shameful, and the continual hunger for gold is damnable. Therefore, most beloved brother, if you desire to live in freedom of spirit, do not seek perishable money.

Do not seek perishing things; do not love riches. Cast your thought upon the Lord, and he himself will nourish you; he himself will feed you when you hunger; he himself will guard you. Nor do I wish you to cast aside domestic prudence altogether, but neither should you go beyond measure in greed. Cupidity is the root of all evils; it does not allow a man to live for God in freedom of spirit, but always torments the mind with bitter cares and permits him to think of nothing other than riches.

Moderation, however, is the safest thing, for it is neither weighed down by poverty nor lifted up into pride by abundance. We see among the priests of God worshippers of idols, who are always watchful in gathering money, who devote themselves to greed, who think nothing or little about eternal life. They live as though they had been born for gain; they cast far away piety toward the poor; they long for nothing but to seek and find gold. Among them you will see certain greedy men and wretched rich men, who have a great supply and abundance of temporal things, but lack the ability to use what they have acquired. All the days in which they dwell on earth they live wretchedly; they do not presume to eat and drink according to the need of the body; they are always desiring to add something to the heap of money. They keep watch over profits; they care nothing at all for the salvation of souls. They grieve more over a lost penny than if ten souls entrusted to them were to perish. But it is no wonder if he neglects another’s soul who damns his own.

For whoever has once subjected his heart to greed and cupidity will never, or only rarely, be free. He is always fevered for greater profits of money; he is always panting for an increase of gold; and the more his money happens to have grown, the more his desire to possess grows. From then on one benefice, however fat, is not enough; the greedy priest runs about to obtain others as well; by right and wrong alike he labors to get what he wickedly desires. Meanwhile he runs to the apostolic see and recounts the grounds of his petition; if these are examined by the truth, they are immediately found false. Then one man obtains many prebends; he hires out the care of the sheep to mercenaries; he receives wool and milk from the sheep, but scorns feeding the flock. “Woe,” says the prophet, “to the shepherds who feed themselves.” They think themselves free from guilt because they obtain many benefices by dispensation of the supreme pontiff, but they do not consider what is required for a just obtaining of them. But you, stand firm and do not transgress the ancient boundaries which your fathers set; rather, set a limit to desire, lest you fall into sin. I wish you to be content with one benefice, which is sufficient for you according to the moderation of your state, lest, if you take on several without just necessity, you be judged more severely for it before God. Do not take as your example the multitude of those who act otherwise; do not walk along the broad road of sinners, if you wish to arrive at life. He who serves the altar should live from the altar; but he who neglects to feed the sheep, with what rashness does he demand wool and milk from them?

Ecclesiastical benefices have been instituted for the sustenance of those who serve them, not for the greed of those who seek their own things. He who bears the burden and the care is worthy to receive sustenance. But he who flees the Lord’s solicitude does not receive the profit of the milk without fault. Therefore, if you refuse to feed Christ’s sheep, you should by no means seek wool and milk from them. For the sheep were not made for the sake of the shepherd, but the shepherd was appointed for the sake of the sheep. Nor is the care of souls to be sought so that food may be had; rather, food is to be sought so that due care may be applied to the sheep.

But now the order is overturned by many, who seek prelacies and benefices for this reason, that they may have money in a chest, not that they may feed souls for the love of God. O shepherd and idol, how wretchedly you deceive yourself! You take care only that you may eat, though you ought to have eaten so that you might be able to take care of souls.

Cupidity is the root of all evils, the mother of transgression, the teacher of doing harm, the charioteer of malice, the inventor of deceit, the origin of sedition, the pit of scandal, the promoter of falsehood. It commits sacrileges and thefts; it carries out plunderings and arsons; it wages wars and murders. Finally, cupidity alone is what taught men to buy and sell simoniacally; it seeks and receives unjustly; it trades unjustly; it relies on deceits; it is nourished by lying and perjury. It is what breaks faith, dissolves agreement, corrupts testimony, and violates an oath. Cupidity also extinguishes charity between God and man; it breaks off brotherly love; it disturbs concord; it makes counsel foolish; it perverts the judgment of equity; it destroys unity. Therefore, if you desire to show yourself a minister worthy of God, tear this root of all evils from your heart as much as you can. Brief is every possession of earthly riches.

The possession of earthly riches is brief; the action of mortal life is brief; the daily advance of the human race toward death is pressing. Why, then, do you delay, for the love of God, to despise the things which, when death cuts you off, you will soon be compelled to leave, even against your will? For we do not have here a lasting city, but we seek the one to come. Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. Do not seek the perishable riches of the world; do not bind your heart with the chains of avarice. For it befits a priest of Christ to be a disciple, meek and merciful, one who does not covet what belongs to another, but distributes his own goods generously among the poor.

On the honorable outward conduct of priests. Chapter 6

Consider now what manner of conduct you ought to establish for yourself, and how you ought to live, so that you may be able to please almighty God, whose minister you are, with your whole heart. As far as inward conduct is concerned, you must shine clean and pure in conscience, since you minister before the Lord. For the prophet of the Lord says to priests: “Be sanctified, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.” And the Lord says: “Wash yourselves; be clean; remove the evil of your thoughts from before my eyes; cease to do perversely; learn to do good,” says the almighty Lord. As far as the outward person is concerned, the Apostle, instructing the bishop, says: “A bishop must be irreproachable, sober, kindly, well-ordered in conduct, hospitable, teachable.” But whatever is prescribed here for a bishop is also commanded for other prelates and priests.

And first, when he says that he must be irreproachable, he declares him free from all vices and from the slanders of the people. For the life of a priest is set before the people as an example, and is compared to a lamp, so that just as the light of a lamp shines in darkness, so the conduct of a priest may shine among the crowds. For the Lord says in the Gospel: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Then, however, a priest walks worthily before God when he adorns his life daily with good and holy works, and for the love of Christ mortifies his members that are upon the earth. For he is the servant of the Lord, and this above all is required of him: that he carry out the will of God in words and deeds. But no one fulfills the will of God unless, after expelling the vices, he makes his heart a dwelling-place of the virtues. Beware lest you stain the Church, the bride of Christ, through the shamefulness of your life; beware lest through a bad example you scandalize anyone, because for as many as you lead into sin by your fault, for so many will you be tormented in punishment.

Let yourself be seen rarely in public; accustom yourself to remain at home and to devote yourself to readings. Be quiet in mind and body. Do not run about through the streets and the houses of neighbors; do not take part in the tales of rustics. For presence lessens reputation, and excessive familiarity with a priest breeds contempt among the people. A rare going-out into public, however, will display for you among the people great reverence for your maturity. Live in such a way that many may be edified by your example.

In the midst of elders, speak little, because talkativeness is often reproved where silence is praised. Indeed, among elders it befits a young man to listen, not to speak. Do not desire to seem wise in the company of priests, lest before them you be confounded as foolish. Do not be wordy and arrogant. When questioned, answer with humility and goodwill, and do not, in the manner of ranters, be clamorous in voice while you speak. Do not love forced laughter, and always and everywhere keep yourself from every dishonorable levity. Avoid useless conversations and vain words, knowing that for every idle word you have spoken you will have to render account to God. Let your speech be moderate, and do not let an oath be made in vain.

Do not enter taverns with rustics, because that is not permitted to your honor. For it is very unfitting that one who ought to rebuke sinners should, by his presence, wish to show himself a patron of sins. For entry into taverns is forbidden to priests by the holy fathers, unless they are on a journey. It is shameful for a priest of God to enter a tavern with rustics, and for the mouth that has been consecrated to God to be defiled by impure speech. The discourse of a preacher is easily despised if among rustics if it is poured out familiarly among rustics. From the habit of familiarity they will begin to despise you and to regard you as one of their own. For no reverence is paid to superiors if their life is confined among their subjects. It is fitting that one who presides should excel all others in a certain reverence and maturity, and wisely avoid too great a familiarity with his subjects. Indeed, the preeminence of authority is broken when it is indiscreetly mixed up with the actions of subjects. Slander no one, and do not take scandal against anyone. It is shameful for a priest to pollute his tongue with slander, since it has been set at the altar to pray for all. Nor should you lend an ear to slanderers, because the slanderer and the willing hearer are worthy of equal condemnation. The one carries the devil on his tongue, the other in his ear. Let such a person learn that he cannot readily slander when he sees that you are unwilling to listen. Do not be hasty in speech, and do not stand in the company of slanderers, because they are hateful to almighty God. Hedge your ears about with thorns, lest you hear the words of slanderers. Let no lie come forth from your mouth; let no foul speech proceed from you, but be a guardian of your tongue, lest you offend in speech. Do not be slothful or lazy, nor given to sleep and idleness, but constantly run forward in the fervor of the Holy Spirit, knowing that this is proper to a priest: to have care for the needy. Have gold not so that you may keep it, but so that you may distribute it in alms for the poor. Let the bellies of the hungry poor praise you, not the belching banquets of the rich. Let your table be with the poor and needy, for in such persons Christ is received, and the heavenly court is honored. Avoid the banquets of the proud rich, especially of the powerful, at which nothing is done concerning the salvation of souls and nothing at all is discussed concerning spiritual conduct. Let your clothing be honorable, not costly. In giving alms, do not seek glory from human beings, but expect praise and reward from God alone. Be a father of the poor and a guardian of orphans.

Let no poor person depart from you unconsoled. Do not be a striker, nor quarrelsome among the people; injure no one unjustly, but do good to everyone as much as you can, even to enemies. Never flatter sinners, but rebuke them as one who has received authority from God. Do not be a striker of the consciences of the people entrusted to you, nor pronounce the word of God indiscreetly, but with the moderation of piety. Be merciful to penitents, and do not crush the bruised reed, knowing that you have undertaken the care of the weak, not of the strong. For it is better to send a penitent with mercy to purgatory than, by the confessor’s severity, to consign one in despair to hell. Do not neglect to pray your canonical hours with reverence and devotion at the times established by the Church. Likewise, do not omit to read the Hours of the Blessed Mary ever Virgin, the vigils of the dead, and the other things owed in due order by the priestly office. Have care for your household in the fear of God; if you have a household, persuade it by word and example to preserve modesty and honorable conduct. Indeed, the reputation of a priest is harmed among the people when the people speak ill of his household.

Let your speech be strengthened by the testimony of the Scriptures, because whatever is prescribed apart from the Holy Scriptures is despised with the same ease with which it is proved. I do not want you to imitate those who, without learning, frequently cite tales and phantoms of dreams in church, and are ignorant of the mysteries of the divine Scriptures. Babbling and talkative priests, speaking without reason, do not build up the people; they labor to draw people into admiration of themselves by empty speeches and Aesop’s fables. For it is a foolish and damnable abuse, once the Scriptures and the Gospel have been set aside, to teach the Christian people the fables of Aesop and the fabricated deeds of the Romans. Nor should you wonder if the unlearned people hear these things more willingly than the Scriptures, since you read that the Apostle foretold this. “There will be a time,” he says, “when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap up teachers for themselves, itching in their ears; and indeed they will turn their hearing away from the truth, but will be turned to fables.” Hence Jerome says: “To roll out words and, by speed of speaking, to create admiration for oneself among the unlearned crowd belongs to uneducated men.” A worn-out brow often explains what it does not know.

Often he explains what he does not know; and when he has persuaded others, he also claims for himself a knowledge that he does not possess. Nothing is so easy as to deceive a base little crowd and an unlearned assembly by fluency of tongue; whatever it does not understand, it admires all the more. But you should speak the things that befit sound doctrine, and do not seek the applause of the ignorant if you desire to find a place among the learned. Do not imprudently desire the care of souls, unless you have first learned to govern both yourself and others justly according to ecclesiastical ordinance.

For the office of teaching the people is subject to many dangers and is troubled by daily anxieties. The ruler of souls must be without reproach, as God’s steward: not proud, not wrathful, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for shameful gain, but hospitable, kind, sober, just, holy, continent, embracing the faithful word that accords with doctrine, so that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it. The one appointed as ruler of souls must teach no less by example than by speech. Even a robber can accuse avarice; but only the man who does what he teaches can correct it. He is a dainty master who disputes about fasting with a full belly. Therefore life must be sought before doctrine, because one teaches more fully by deed than by speech. For the most excellent kind of teaching is the demonstration of example. And indeed the Lord Jesus first acted, and afterward taught. He uses the greatest authority in teaching whose speech is confirmed by the witness of his work. The ruler’s speech is readily received by his subjects if it is supported by uprightness of conduct. But the man who teaches well and lives badly condemns himself by the sentence of his own mouth, and he does not turn his subjects away from bad training.

Consider at the same time how dangerous the care of souls is, especially in these times, when iniquity abounds everywhere and the charity of many has grown cold. For the days are evil, and men are slow to justice; the whole world lies in wickedness, and faith on earth is rare. Amid these things the word of God is despised by the people; the instruction of the Christian religion is neglected; priestly authority is scorned. Lay life, exposed to a thousand sins and crimes, neglects the remedies of repentance, applies itself to tricks and frauds, and despises the admonitions of priests.

C ij And unless the ruler of souls diligently proclaims to the people committed to him their crimes and the punishments due to sinners, before God he will also be guilty of their blood. And after these things God will bring all things into judgment, where the pastor of souls is compelled to render an account for each person; and if he has been negligent in this world, he is condemned more severely. Therefore it is safer to flee humbly from the care and rule of souls than to usurp it arrogantly. For if each person can scarcely suffice to render an account of his own life in that dreadful judgment, how will he answer for so many thousands committed to him? O how well he lives who lives for himself.

It seems good and pleasant among men to live in this world as a bishop, abbot, pastor, or any prelate whatever; but who will be able to think adequately how terrible the end of the negligent man is? For a most severe judgment will be made against those who are in authority, and the powerful will suffer powerful torments. He passes through well who lives simply, to whom no earthly honor is entrusted, and to whom no care of souls is committed. For pastoral care is never without danger as long as one lives in this world. The greatest of all dangers is this: when the soul, separated from the body by death, must be presented before God, the highest shepherd, for the earthly shepherd to give an account.

Here now the crisis of final damnation threatens, when an account is demanded of stewardship badly administered, and the blood of many sheep is required from the hand of one shepherd. What then will the unskilled shepherd be able to answer to the charges, he who was negligent in the care of the sheep? He must fall silent, because he has no answer to give. Therefore, brother, if you consider yourself fit for the care of souls, if you are preparing to govern the church of Mernicen, know that you are to be brought into judgment for these things, and that according to the merit of your life you will receive either glory or torment.

But believe me: the man dies secure who, setting aside the cares of others, lives for himself alone in the fear of God. For to the one to whom much is entrusted, much will also be required from him. A priest, especially one who has the care of souls, is God’s herald, so that he may announce the will of the Almighty to the people and correct those who sin against the law of the Lord by words of rebuke. Therefore he must be learned and most constant, lest he either lapse through ignorance or, through inconstancy, fear the hatred of the perverse. It is shameful For it is shameful for a priest, out of fear of the people, to keep silent the words of God. A priest should use a little wine, lest, if he devotes himself to drinking bouts, he become a disgrace among the people. For the old law condemns drunken priests and keeps them from access to the altar. Likewise in the Council of Agde it is read as follows: “Before all things drunkenness is to be avoided by clerics, for it is the tinder and nurse of all vices. And so, whoever is found to have been drunken, as his rank permits, shall either be removed from communion for the space of thirty days or be subjected to bodily punishment.”

For wine is a luxurious thing, and drunkenness is disgraceful; everyone who is entangled in these things will not be wise. He who burns without wine, with the fire of youth, and is inflamed by the heat of the blood, and is strong in body, should flee wine as poison, lest, suffocated by a manifold fire, he fall into the mire of lust.

A stomach heated with wine stirs up desire, dulls the sense, and weakens the head and the whole body. A fat belly produces a thin understanding. Therefore, when you are called and come to the banquets of priests, do not forget clerical honor, but show yourself modest and restrained in all things. Take care that you have neither an itching tongue nor itching ears, that is, that you neither detract from others yourself nor lend your hearing to those who do. Know that all the things you say about others are to be turned back upon yourself, and perhaps you will be found blameworthy in the very things you used to reproach in others.

But perhaps you will say: “I cannot do injury to those who report such things, because anyone who thinks about stopping everyone’s lips is attempting the impossible. What, then, is others’ detraction to me? Surely I cannot keep people from speaking?” But, as we said above, conduct yourself before a detractor in such a way that he learns not to detract from anyone, when he sees that you do not gladly listen to what he says. “Do not mingle with detractors,” says Solomon, “for their destruction will come suddenly.” And who knows the ruin of both: both, that is, of the one who detracts and of the one who lends an ear to the detractor?

Be mature in morals and conduct, sparing and prudent in words, discerning in silence and restraint. Be diligent in searching out the mysteries of the Scriptures; and if any matter of doubt occurs to you as you read, know that it should be referred to the interpretations of the elders. You have nearby the school of the most ancient city of Trier, in which there is an abundance of learned men; to them you will be able to have recourse in the ambiguity of questions.

Let nothing be dearer to you than knowledge, because the fruit of wisdom is eternal, but the use of riches is brief and momentary. Let there be no one who keeps you from salutary study: not mother, not brother, not sister. Do the work of an evangelist; learn what you are to teach, lest you prove to be a shepherd and an idol. You are one man and have no second self; for whom, then, will you store up riches? Live temperately. Do not frequent weddings and immoderate banquets, for they strip the mind of virtues and leave the purse empty of coins.

Procure for yourself, from the alms offered to you, books of divine Scripture, so that, made learned by constant reading of them, you may be able worthily to instruct the people entrusted to you, and to lift yourself up through contemplation to heavenly things. Love the knowledge of the Scriptures, and it will exalt you before God and human beings. Do not consent to the pleasures of the flesh; restrain the impulse of fury; and never forget death.

What a Priest Ought to Be Like in His Inner Conduct. Chapter 7

But since it is not enough for a minister of Christ to lead an honorable life before human beings, unless he also strives to appear before God clean from every crime, I exhort you to direct your heart in the fear of the Almighty and never admit any thoughts against God. For a priest of God ought to be holy in mind and body, and clean in thought. Hence the Lord says: “Be holy, because I am holy, the Lord your God, who sanctify you.” And Peter, the chief apostle, says: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of acquisition, that you may proclaim the virtues of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Let charity hold the first place in your heart, for it is the fullness of the law and the completion of the prophets. For the greatest of all virtues is charity, which consists in love of God and neighbor.

But God is to be loved with the whole heart, for his own sake, and one’s neighbor for God’s sake. No one truly loves God if he hates his neighbor. For Christ is both God and man. Therefore he does not love the whole Christ who hates a human being. God accepts no good work unless the flame of charity kindles it on the altar of the heart. For charity holds the chief place among all the virtues.

Humility follows it, which is remembered as the guardian of the virtues. So great is the excellence of this virtue that every other virtue quickly perishes unless it is strengthened by the foundation of humility. For holy Pope Gregory says: He who gathers virtues without humility carries dust into the wind. From the very place where he seems to carry something, there he is more grievously blinded. Therefore charity is the greatest ornament of a priest, and humility the most precious pearl in his garment. You also, brother, display these twin virtues in yourself, and you will be a fruitful preacher in the Church of God. Whatever you say, you will readily persuade your hearers, if you have charity and humility in your heart and diligently show them in your work.

Let accursed ambition have no place in your heart; once it has invaded the mind, it so blinds it that it brings forgetfulness of God’s salvation and of its own. Be a Christian lover of human beings and an enemy of vices. Keep the commandments of God, and do not neglect ecclesiastical sanctions. Honor all people for God’s sake, and never say that anyone should be despised. What you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to another. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Flee the flattery of the rich, and never stroke sinners. Deny yourself your desires, so that you may become a disciple of Christ. Chastise your body, according to the apostle, bringing it into servitude. Scorn pleasures; love chaste fasting. Be devoted to the poor; feed the hungry; clothe the naked; visit the sick; free the captive; console the sorrowful; bury the dead. Do not love the world; do not seek riches; do not run after vanity. For no one serving as God’s soldier entangles himself in secular affairs. Do injury to no one, but learn patiently to bear injuries inflicted on you, following the example of your Lord, who, hanging on the cross, prayed for his persecutors, that they might not perish. Have peace with all people, but concord and unanimity only with the devout. Do not be proud and arrogant, not sleepy and lazy, not drunken and gluttonous, not a slanderer, and not one who rashly judges anyone. Guard your actions at every hour, and let the memory of the things to come always turn in your thought. For Scripture says: Son, remember your last things, and you will not sin forever. Therefore always think that you are going to die; fear the day of judgment; dread the torments of hell. If you do these things, you will easily overcome all temptations of the flesh. Scorn the pleasures of the world, so that you may be able to enter rejoicing into the joys of heavenly happiness.

Do not deceive your soul: no one can rejoice here with the world and afterward reign with Christ. For through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. Therefore, despising present things, let us hasten with every desire toward eternal joys. Keep your heart with all vigilance, because life proceeds from it. If you have been overtaken by some fault, do not delay to seek the remedies of penitence and to cleanse yourself in confession through true contrition.

Strive to enter by the narrow way into life, that is, not to fulfill the desires of the flesh, to hate the world, and to live by the spirit. You have been called to serve God as a soldier against the vices of the flesh. Do not rest before victory; do not cease from the battle, because no one will be crowned unless he is victorious. In this life, however, there is no secure victory, but continual battle. Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved. At his end a man will be tested. The life of a human being upon earth is military service. As a soldier of the highest king, it is not permitted to you to desert his contest. A good soldier follows his king wherever he goes. Where, then, is your king? In heaven. Why do you not follow him? What are you doing on earth, if you are a soldier of the heavenly, supreme king? Why do you not follow your Lord? He himself says: Whoever ministers to me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also my minister will be. “Let him follow,” he says, not with the steps of the feet, but with the movements of the affections. The apostle also says: No one serving as God’s soldier entangles himself in secular affairs, so that he may please the one to whom he has proved himself. Therefore, just as those who serve an earthly king obey all his commands, and wherever they are sent are ready and prompt, no one ...

You, therefore, who await the unfading crown of victory, labor like a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Let no care of earthly anxiety weigh you down; let no enticement of fleshly pleasure touch your mind. For nothing is happier than the soldier of Christ, to whom the kingdoms of heaven are promised; nothing more laborious than one who daily faces peril to his life; nothing stronger than one who conquers the devil; nothing weaker than one who is overcome by the flesh. Let no household call you away, no kinship hinder you, no flesh constrain you. I want you to be without anxiety, so that you may freely think upon the things that are God’s. Naked and unencumbered, fly to heaven, because your mother bore you naked and the earth will receive you naked. Love what you cannot lose; despise what you cannot hold; seek that in which you may rejoice happily forever. Live in such a way that you do not fear to die. A good conscience does not fear death, because it knows that through death it will come to the eternal joys of the heavenly homeland. Now, most beloved brother, you have what you asked of me. You have some small pattern of good conduct upon which you may impress yourself; you have a standard of holy exhortation to which you may diligently have recourse. I have done what I could, not as much as I wished. For the rest, live according to the Gospel and the constitutions of the holy fathers, in which the whole form of Christian perfection is seen.

Farewell, mindful of us. From Sponheim, on the Kalends of April, in the year of the Lord 1486.

Here ends the little book of lord Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, On the Life of the Priest