Birth And Merits

Ad magisterii testimonium nascendi causa non pertinet, neque ille coelorum janitor Petrus, quem piscatorem hominum retia contempta fecerunt, origine placuit natalium, sed fine meritorum, sicut Matthaeus cum de teloneo assumptus est, illic inchoavit lucrum, ubi jussus est terminare negotium. Quid de singuis loquor? Talis omnium assumptio fuit, in quorum personis ignobilia et contemptibilia mundi eligens Deus, praeposuit pauperes spiritu divitibus censu, illum jure locupletissimum probans, qui ad veram et integram nobilitatem, non susceptis bonorum, sed depositis criminum fascibus pervenisset. Sancti Aviti Viennensis, ex sermone in ordinatione Episcopi Source: Migne PL 59.304b-c

As birth is no witness for the office of teaching, so that door keeper of the heavens, Peter, that fisher of men, was not made contemptible by nets; the beginning given by birthdays does not please, but the end won by merits, as Matthew who was taken up from his booth, from whence he began to profit, when he was commanded to terminate his business. Why should I speak of each one? Such was the taking up of all, that God in choosing the contemptible and common ones of the earth in such folk, 1 prefered the poor in spirit to the rich, rightly approving him most wealthy who had come to a true and incorruptabile nobility, not by the taking up of goods, but by the casting down of the burdens of evil. Saint Avitus of Vienne, from a Sermon on the Ordination of a Bishop. 1 1 Cor 1.28