to the pleasure of men ; but nothing in the eye of God more wretched, mourn- ful, and damnable. So also there is in this life, and especially in this day, nothing more difficult, more laborious, more haz- ardous than the office of bishop, or presbyter, or deacon ; but nothing in the eye of God more blessed, if the battle be fought m the manner enjoined by our Captain." ' We cannot wonder, on the one hand that, in the better condition of the church and the enlarged field of her labor, a multitude of light-minded and unworthy men crowded into the sacred office, and on the other, that just the most earnest and worthy bishops of the day, an Ambrose, an Augustine, a Gregory Nazianzen, and a Chrysostom, trembled before the responsibility of the office, and had to be forced into it in a measure against their will, by the call of the church. Gregory Nazianzen fled into the wilderness when his father, without his knowledge, suddenly consecrated him pi"iest in the presence of the congregation (361). He afterward vindicated this flight in his beautiful apology, in which he depicts the ideal of a Christian priest and theologian. The priest must, above all, he says, be a model of a Christian, oflPer himself a holy sacrifice to God, and be a living temple of the living God. Then he must possess a deep knowledge of souls, and, as a spiritual physician, heal all classes of men of various diseases of sin, restore., preserve, and protect the divine image in them, bring Christ into their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and make them partakers of the divine nature and of eternal salvation. He must, moreover, have at command the sacred philosophy or divine science of the world and of the worlds, of matter and * Epist. 21 ad Valerium : "Nihil esse in hac vita et maxime hoc tempore facilius et leEtitius et hominibus acceptabilius episcopi aut presbyteri aut diaconi officio, si perfunctorie atque adulatorie res agatur : sed nihil apud Deum miserius et tiistiiis er damnabilius. Item nihil esse in hac vita et maxime hoc tempore difficilius, labori- osius, periculosius episcopi aut presbyteri aut diaconi officio, sed apud Deum nihil beatius, si eo modo militetur, quo noster imperator jubet." This epistle was written Boon after his ordination to the priesthood, a. d. 391. See Opera, ed. Bened. torn. iL p. 25. f 252 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590. spirit, of good and evil angels, of the all-ruling Providence, of our creation and regeneration, of the divine covenants, of the first and second appearing of Christ, of his incarnation, pas- sion, and resurrection, of the end of all things and the universal judgment, and above all, of tlie mystery of the blessed Trinity ; and he must be able to teach and elucidate these doctrines of faith in popular discourse. Gregory sets forth Jesus as the perfect type of the priest, and next to him he presents in an eloquent