Peter And The Priests

Audistis etiam illo die, quo multo dignius multoque rectius erat, ut ad carcerem vel catastam poenalem1 quam ad sacerdotium traheremini, Domino sciscitanti, quem se esse putarent discipuli, Petrum respondisse: Tu es Christus filius Dei vivi eique Dominum pro tali confessione dixisse : Beatus es, Simon Bar Iona, quia caro et sanguis non revelavit tibi, sed Pater meus qui in caelis est. Ergo Petrus a Deo Patre doctus recte Christum confitetur: vos autem moniti a patre vestro diabolo inique salvatorem malis actibus denegatis. Vero sacerdoti dicitur:Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam: vos quidem assimilamini viro stulto, qui aedificavit domum suam super arenam. Notandum vero est, quod insipientibus in aedificanda domo arenarum pendulae mobilitati Dominus non cooperetur, secundum illud : Fecerunt sibi reges et non per me. Itidemque quod sequitur eadem sonat dicendo: Et portae inferni non praevalebunt, eisque peccata intelleguntur. De vestra quid exitiabili structura pronuntiatur? Venerunt flumina et flaverunt venti et impegerunt in domum illam et cecidit et fuit ruina eius magna. Petro eiusque successoribus dicit Dominus : Et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum: vobis vero: Non novi vos, discedite a me, operarii iniquitatis, ut separati sinistrae partis cum haedis eatis in ignem aeternum. Itemque omni sancto sacerdoti promittitur : Et quaecumque solveris super terram, erunt soluta et in caelis : et quaecumque ligaveris super terram, erunt ligata et in caelis. Sed quomodo vos aliquid solvetis, ut sit solutum et in caelis, a caelo ob scelera adempti et immanium peccatorum funibus compediti, ut Salomon quoque ait: Criniculis peccatorum suorum unusquisque constringitur? Quaque ratione aliquid in terra ligabitis, quod supra modum etiam ligetur praeter vosmetipsos, qui ita ligati iniquitatibus in hoc mundo tenemini, ut in caelis nequaquam ascendatis, sed infaustis tartari ergastulis, non conversi in hac vita ad Dominum, decidatis ? Nec sibi quisquam sacerdotum de corporis mundi solum conscientia supplaudat, cum eorum quis praeest, si qui propter eius imperitiam vel desidiam seu adulationem perierint, in die iudicii de eiusdem manibus, veluti interfectoris, animae exquirantur. Quia nec dulcior mors quae infertur a bono quoque homine quam a malo: alioquin non dixisset apostolus velut paternum legatum suis successoribus derelinquens : Mundus ego sum ab omnium sanguine. Non enim subterfugi, quo minus annuntiarem vobis omne mysterium Dei. Multumque nam usa ac frequentia peccatorum inebriati et incessanter irruentibus vobis scelerum cumulatorum ac si undis quassati unum veluti post naufragium, in qua ad vivorum terram evadatis, paenitentiae tabulam toto animi nisu exquirite, ut avertatur furor Domini a vobis misericorditer dicentis : Nolo mortem peccatoris, sed ut convertatur et vivat. Ipse omnipotens Deus totius consolationis et misericordiae paucissimos bonos pastores conservet ab omni malo et municipes faciat subacto communi hoste civitatis Hierusalem caelestis, hoc est, sanctorum omnium congregationis. Sanctus Gildas Sapiens, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae Source: Migne PL 69.390c-392b

You heard also on that day when it was much more worthier and more right for you to be led to prison or the gibbet for punishment than to the priesthood, that when the Lord asked the disciples who they thought Him to be, Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, Son of the living God,'  and that to him for such a confession the Lord said: 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.' 1 Thus Peter, taught by God the Father, rightly confesses Christ, but you, instructed by your father the devil, iniquitously deny the Saviour by evil deeds. To the true priest it is said: 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I build my church.' 2 You, however, are like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. 3 But we must observe that the Lord does not join in the work of the foolish who build a house on the shifting inconstancy of sand, according to that saying: 'They have made kings by themselves and not by me.' 4 Similarly, what follows gives the same note when it says: 'And the gates of hell shall not prevail,' 5 whereby sins are understood. Now concerning your ruinous building, what is proclaimed? 'The floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell, and great was the fall of it.' 6  To Peter and his successors the Lord says: 'And to you I will  give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' 7 but to you: 'I know you not, depart front me, you workers of iniquity,' 8 so that, separated with the goats on the left hand, you go to everlasting fire. To every holy priest it is also promised: 'And whatever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven.' 9 But how do you loose anything so that it shall be loosed in heaven also, when, because of your crimes, you are severed from heaven and fettered by bands of monstrous sins, as Solomon also says: 'Each one is bound with the cords of his own sins?' 10 With what reason shall you bind on earth anything that may be, in any extraordinary degree, bound, besides your own selves, who, bound to iniquities, are so held in this world, that in no way do you ascend to heaven, but, unless turned to the Lord in this life, are descending to the woeful prison of hell? And let not one of the priests celebrate himself solely on his consciousness of a pure body, because if any of those over whom he is set perish through his ignorance, or his neglect, or his flattery, on the day of judgement their souls shall be asked from his hands, as their murderer. Because the death which is inflicted by a good man is not sweeter than that caused by a wicked man. Otherwise the Apostle would not have said, in leaving a kind of paternal legacy to his successors: 'I am clean from the blood of all men. For I shrank not from declaring to you the whole mystery of God.' 11 Seeing that you are intoxicated by the habit and dense mass of your sins, and incessantly overwhelmed as if by waves of crimes heaped on crimes rushing upon you, seek with all effort of soul the one plank of penance, as if after shipwreck, on which you may escape to the land of the living. In this way the anger of the Lord may be turned from you, inasmuch as He mercifully says : 'I do not wish the death of any sinner, but that he may be converted and live.' 12 May the almighty God of all consolation and mercy Himself 13 preserve His very few good priests from all evil, and make them citizens of His city, the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the assembly of all the saints, the common enemy being subdued. Saint Gildas The Wise, On The Destruction and Ruin of Britain 1 Mt 16.16 2 Mt 16.18 3 Mt 7.26 4 Hosea 8.4 5 Mt 16.8 6 Mt 7.27 7 Mt 16.19 8 Mt 25.32 9 Mt 16.19 10 Prov 5.22 11 Acts 20.26-27 12 Ezek 33.11 13 2 Cor 1.3