Warnings Against Fallen Clergy

Nec mirum si consilia nostra aut Domini praecepta nunc abnuunt qui Dominum negaverunt: stipes et oblationes et lucra desiderant, quibus prius insatiables incubabant; et coenis atque epulis etiam nunc inhiant, quarum crapulam superstite nuper in dies cruditate ructabant, nunc manifestissme comprobantes nec nate se religioni, sed ventri potius et quaestui profana cupiditate servisse. Unde et ipsam venisse perspicimus et credimus de Dei exploratione censuram, ne apud altare consistere et contrectare ulterius perseverarent pudorem incesti, fidem perfidi, religionem profani, divina terreni, sancta sacrilegi. Quod ne tales ad altaris impiamenta et contagia fratrum denuo redeant, omnibus viribus excubandum est, et omni vigore nitendum ut quantum possumus ab hac eos sui sceleris audacia retundamus, ne adhuc agere pro sacerdote conentur qui ad mortis extrema dejecti, ultra lapsos laicos ruinae majoris pondere prorurunt. Si vero apud insanos furor insanabilis perseveraverit, et recedente Spiritu sancto, quae coepit caecitas in sua nocte permanserit, consilium nobis erit singulos fratres ab eorum fallacia separare, et ne quis in laqueos erroris incurrat, ab eorum contagione secernere, quando nec oblatio sanctificari illic possit ubi Spiritus Sanctus non sit, nec cuiquam Dominus per ejus orationes et preces prosit qui Dominum ipse violavit. Sanctus Cyprianus, Ex Epistola LXIV, Ad Epictetum et Plebem Assuritanorum, De Fortunatiano Quondam Eorum Episcopo

Nor is it a wonder if they who have denied the Lord now reject our counsels, or the Lord's precepts; they who desire payments, and offerings, and gain, for which things they formerly watched insatiably; and they still long for suppers and banquets, whose surfeit they belched forth fresh on the next day, now most manifestly proving that they did not before serve religion, but rather their belly and material profit with profane cupidity. Whence also we perceive and believe that this censure has come from the investigation of God, that they might not persist to stand at the altar, and as unchaste men claim modesty, as perfidious men faith, as profane men religion, as earthly men things Divine, as sacrilegious men things sacred. And that such men may not return again to the profanation of the altar and to the contagion of the people, we must keep watch with all our powers, and strive with all strength, that, as far as we are able, we may beat them back from this audacity of their wickedness, that no longer they try to act the priest, they who, thrown down to the deeps of death, have far beyond the lapses of the lay tumbled headlong under the weight of a greater ruin. But if among these deranged persons their incurable fury shall persist, and with the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit, the blindness which has begun shall endure in its night, our counsel shall be to separate individual brethren from their deceits, and, lest any one should run into the snares of their error, to cut them off from their contagion, since neither can the oblation be consecrated where the Holy Spirit is not, nor can the Lord benefit any one by the prayers and supplications of one who himself has outraged the Lord. Saint Cyprian, from Letter 64, To Epictetus and to the Congregation of Assurae, Concerning Fortunatianus, Formerly Their Bishop.