De arte praedicatoria

To priests the Lord says: You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted?¹ Salt does four things; it renders the earth barren, it seasons food, it preserves flesh from decay, it excludes worms from the flesh itself. These four things are fitting for the spiritual salt, that is, for the priest, who ought to plow up the earth of his subjects, that is, their earthly thoughts, with the plowshare of preaching, lest they sprout into the thorns and briars of vices, and so he ought to render it sterile of wicked works; from his own earth also, that is, from his own flesh, he is bound to exclude the fertility of vices, and to keep that same flesh free from decay, that is, from lust and gluttony. Fittingly, lust is compared to decay, because just as decay corrupts flesh and makes it stink, so lust makes a man stink through infamy, the flesh through uncleanness, the man through an evil conscience. Gluttony too is compared to decay, because through gluttony a man is corrupted in body, is infected with stench, and tends more quickly to non-being.

He ought to guard his flesh from worms, lest the flesh beget wicked thoughts, lest it fall into disordered appetites. He also ought to season the food of sacred Scripture with diligent inquiry, because sacred Scripture in certain places seems insipid, unless it is searched out with diligent inquiry. He ought to season the food of the Eucharist with good works, because unless the food which is in itself sweet is received worthily, it is embittered, and what is a healing remedy to the just is wormwood to the unjust. He ought to season the food of doctrine with the example of a good life, lest, if his life is despised, his preaching also be rightly held in contempt. But if that salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? This salt loses its savor in three ways: through ignorance, through negligence, through avarice, because the priests of our time are old men still learning their letters, children of a hundred years, of whom the Lord says through the prophet: They who hold the law have not known me.² How will such men be able to season others, who know not how to instruct either themselves or others? For it often happens, when priests, through their own fault, do not have the light of knowledge, that through their ignorance even those who follow them stumble.

Whence the Lord says: If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit.³ If such men are made foolish by the error of ignorance, who will season them with the savor of wisdom, since they ought to teach, not be taught? to instruct, not be instructed? since they have no greater men above them to correct them, nor should they have wiser men to instruct them? They are made foolish also through negligence, because in all their works, negligence brings on sluggishness, and destroys the fruit of works.

In the Psalms there is no devotion, in reading there is no diligence, in enjoining penance, no care, in the celebration of Mass, no caution, in the governance of subjects, no discernment, in good works, no exercise.

But if they are made foolish, by what shall they themselves be salted? for who will be able to free them from so great a precipice of negligences? who will be able to season them with the savor of diligence? They are also made foolish through avarice, because they sell Christ himself for money, and thus obtain the place of Judas the betrayer: they expose baptism for purchase, they prostitute burials for sale; they flatter the vices of their subjects, in order to extract money; they flatter vices, in order to fill their purse. Such salt is not offered in the sacrifice of the Lord, but is cast outside, trodden underfoot, and reduced to a dunghill; because such priests do not worthily offer themselves to God in sacrifice, nor do they season their sacrifices with the salt of wisdom, they handle the sacraments unworthily, they consecrate unworthily, and thus the salt is withdrawn from the victim, although the victim is forbidden by the Lord to be offered without salt; and thus the salt is cast outside; because such priests, even if they belong to the church in name and number, are nevertheless not so in divine favor and merit, but are worthy to be trodden underfoot. The feet are the subjects, whom the priests of the Church are bound to look after, lest they be tripped on the path of this life into the scandal of sin. By these feet wicked priests are trodden underfoot, because when subjects see them darkened by ignorance, cast down by cowardice, whom they ought to have as a model of good, they have instead as an example of evil, and those who ought to be the model of the flock, are the talk of the people, and thus the salt is turned into a dunghill, for such priests stink with the odor of infamy, they rot with the corruption of guilt, they decay in the dung of wicked habit. Let there be salt, then, in priests, and let them have peace among themselves.