What Kind of Man Should Not Come to Rule

So let each person measure himself wisely, so that he does not venture to take up a place of rule while vice still reigns in him to his condemnation, and so that one whom his own guilt corrupts does not want to become an intercessor for the faults of others. This is why the voice from on high says to Moses: “Speak to Aaron: None of your descendants throughout their generations who has a blemish is to offer loaves of bread to the Lord his God.” And it goes straight on: “If he is blind, if he is lame, if he has either a small nose or a large and crooked one, if he has a broken foot or a broken hand, if he is hunchbacked, if he is bleary-eyed, if he has a white speck in his eye, if he has chronic scabies, if he has impetigo on his body, or if he is ruptured.” [a]

That man is indeed blind who does not know the light of heavenly contemplation. Buried in the darkness of the present life, he never looks on the light to come at all by loving it, and so he does not know where he is directing the steps of his conduct. That is why Hannah, prophesying, says: “He will guard the feet of his saints, and the wicked will be silent in darkness.” But that man is lame who does see which way he ought to go but, through weakness of purpose, cannot keep perfectly to the way of life he sees. His unsteady habit never rises to a settled state of virtue, and so the steps of his conduct do not carry out what his desire aims at. That is why Paul says: “Lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be turned out of the way but may rather be healed.”

But the one with a small nose is the man who is not fit to keep the measure of discernment. For with the nose we tell sweet smells from stenches, and so the nose properly stands for discernment, by which we choose virtues and shun sins. That is why it is said in praise of the bride: “Your nose is like the tower that is in Lebanon.” For holy church, by discernment, spots attacks coming from this quarter or that, and from a height detects the wars of the vices before they arrive. But there are some who do not want to be thought dull, and so they often busy themselves more than they need in various inquiries and are deceived by too much subtlety. That is why this too is added: “or has a large and crooked nose.” For a large and crooked nose is an excessive subtlety of discernment, which has grown beyond its proper size and so confuses the correctness of its own work.

But the one with a broken foot or a broken hand is the man who cannot walk in the way of God at all and has no part or share whatever in good deeds. He does not keep them up even weakly, as the lame man does, but stays entirely apart from them. But the hunchbacked man is the one whom the weight of earthly care bows down, so that he never looks up to the things above but is intent only on what is trodden underfoot down below. If he ever hears anything of the good things of the heavenly homeland, he is so pressed down by the weight of perverse habit that he does not lift the face of his heart toward it. He cannot straighten the posture of his thought, which the habit of earthly care keeps bent downward. Of this kind of men the psalmist says: “I am bent down and brought low continually.” The Truth himself condemns the fault of such men when he says: “But the seed that fell among thorns are those who hear the word and go out and are choked by cares and riches and the pleasures of life, and bear no fruit.”

But the bleary-eyed man is the one whose native wit flashes out toward knowing the truth, and yet the works of the flesh darken it. For in the bleary-eyed the pupils are sound, but the eyelids, weakened by a discharge of fluids, grow thick; and even the brightness of the pupils is dimmed, because the flow upon them wears at them continually. The bleary-eyed man, then, is one whose perception nature has made keen, but whom a corrupt way of life confuses. To him the angel rightly says: “Anoint your eyes with eye salve, so that you may see.” For we may be said to anoint our eyes with eye salve so that we may see when we help the eye of our understanding to perceive the brightness of the true light with the medicine of good conduct. But that man has a white speck in his eye who is not allowed to see the light of truth, because he is blinded by an arrogant claim to wisdom or to righteousness. For the pupil of the eye sees when it is black, but when it bears a white speck it sees nothing. By this we may understand that the perceiving sense of human thought comes to know the brightness of the inmost light if a man understands himself to be a fool and a sinner. But if it credits itself with the whiteness of righteousness or wisdom, it shuts itself out from the light of knowledge from above. And the more it exalts itself within itself through arrogance, the more completely it fails to reach the brightness of the true light, as it is said of some: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

But that man has chronic scabies whom the wantonness of the flesh masters without ceasing. For in scabies the violent heat of the bowels is drawn out to the skin, and this rightly stands for lust. If the heart’s temptation shoots out into action, it may truly be said that violent inner heat breaks out into scabies of the skin. It now wounds the body outwardly, because sensuality that is not held back in thought gains the mastery in action too. Paul was concerned to cleanse away this itch of the skin when he said: “Let no temptation take hold of you except what is human.” It is as if he said plainly: It is human to suffer temptation in the heart, but it is devilish, in the struggle of temptation, to be overcome in action as well. He also has impetigo on his body who is ravaged in mind by greed, which, if it is not checked in small things, spreads beyond all measure.

For just as impetigo invades the body without pain, and spreads without troubling the one it invades, yet spoils the beauty of the limbs, so greed too ulcerates the mind of its captive even while it pleases him. As it sets one gain after another before his thoughts, it kindles the fire of hatreds, and it gives no pain with the wounds it makes, because it promises the fevered mind plenty out of sin. But the beauty of the limbs is destroyed, because the beauty of the other virtues is spoiled by it as well. It ulcerates the whole body, as it were, because it corrupts the mind with vices of every kind, as Paul testifies when he says: “The love of money is the root of all evils.” But the ruptured man is the one who does not carry shameful things into action, yet is weighed down by them in mind beyond measure through constant brooding. He is by no means carried away as far as wicked conduct, but his mind still takes pleasure in the delight of lust without any sting of resistance. For the disease of rupture is when fluid from the bowels slips down into the genitals, which then swell, to the man’s distress and shame. He, then, may be said to be ruptured who lets all his thoughts flow down into lewdness and carries a weight of shame in his heart. Though he does not actually do shameful deeds, his mind is not drawn back from them. Nor has he the power to rise to the practice of good living before the eyes of others, because the shameful weight hidden within him presses him down. So whoever is subject to any one of these diseases is forbidden to offer loaves of bread to the Lord, for fear that one who is still ravaged by his own sins should be of no use for atoning for the sins of others. [f]

And now that we have briefly shown how one who is worthy should come to pastoral authority, and how one who is unworthy should be greatly afraid of it, let us go on to show how one who has worthily reached it should live in it.