spiritual matters, was called by Christ Satan, Peter out of affectionate love having tried to dissuade him from submitting to the sentence of death, why should not another one, more opposed to Christ in his life, not be called Satan and consequently antichrist or antichrist's vicar or antichrist's chief minister? Hence, St. Bernard, Com. on Caniticles, says: "Evil has gone out from thy elder judges, who seem to be ruling the poeple. Alas! alas! O Lord God, for they were the first to persecute thee who seemed to hold primacy in thy church and to rule the spiritual princedom. Likewise all friends are all foes, all clients are all adversaries, all servants are no peaceful men, all who seek the things which are their own, they are ministers of Christ and yet the servants of antichrist." See how plainly that holy man brings out that bad prelates are in pretence friends, servants, and ministers of Christ. But in fact they are the foes of Christ and the servants of antichrist.
Likewise, Augustine, Com. on John, also Decretum, 8: 1 [Nic. Fathers, 7: 446; Friedberg, 1: 596], pointing out who are not true shepherds, but mercenaries, says: "There are some superiors in the church about whom the apostle Paul says: 'they seek their own things and not the things of Christ.' What is it, therefore, 'to seek one's own things'? Not to love Christ freely, not to seek God for His own sake,[1] to follow after temporal comforts, to heap up riches, to hanker after honors from men. When these are loved by the superior, and when God is served for such things, whoever he may be that serves, he is a mercenary and he does not count himself among the children." For about such the Lord also says: 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, they received their reward.' Hence the same Augustine says: "That just as Peter, the apostle, was the type of all good men and especially good bishops, so Judas represented all bad men, especially bad priests."
- ↑ Propter se ipsum; the original, propter Deum.
