that moment, and in future when about to celebrate, he was the father of God and the creator of the Divine Body. Fourthly, that this same priest had said in his sermon that the worst priest was better than the best layman. If this is so, and these errors meet with no opposition from any one, it is a clear sign that you have wandered very far from the truth, especially those of you who have been instructed and are in possession of your reason. For, as St. John Chrysostom[1] saith in a gloss on these words of Christ, “Fear ye not them that kill the body”:[2] Christ hath shown by these words that not only is that man a traitor to the truth who speaks the truth fearfully; but he also is a traitor to the truth who doth not sincerely defend it as it ought to be defended. For as a priest ought boldly to preach the truth which he hath heard from God, so a layman also, that is, a person who is not a priest, ought confidently to defend the truth, which he hath heard expounded from Holy Writ by a priest. If he doth not so defend, then he betrays the truth. This then is the great saint’s argument from Christ’s words, Fear ye not, etc.—namely, that every man, be he priest or no, who knows the truth ought to defend it to the death; otherwise he is a traitor to the truth and to Christ as well.
Now, many of you know the truth and are aware that any man can recite, declare and, if a scholar, read the holy gospel either in Latin, as St. Mark wrote it; or in Hebrew, as St. Matthew composed his
