ouncilors; for it appears
to me that there is no one who can say that these said offices are
greater and of higher rank and dignity than the priesthood, at least
where the Inquisition exists. Then, if they conduct themselves well
in the said employments, they can be given the management of the body
and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord; and then one can say with reason:
Quia in pauca fuisti fidelis supra multa te constituam. [313] For,
as the Church teaches us through the mouths of the holy fathers,
the dignity of the priesthood is so great that that of the kings or
emperors of the world cannot compare with it. Thus says St. Ignatius
the Martyr in his epistle to Smyrna, chapter x, Sacerdotium est
apex bonorum omnium, quae sunt in hominibus. [314] St. Ambrose, in
chapter 2 of his book De dignitate sacerdotum [315] says so still
more clearly. [316] Father Molina [317] has considerable to say on
this in the first treatise of his Libro de sacerdotes [i.e., "Book
of priests"] as has Father Seneri [318] in his Cura instruido [i.e.,
"the cura instructed"].

99. Then is it possible that, even though they are Catholics and
faithful sons of the Church, we must exalt to so lofty an estate
men against whom there would be so many complaints if they became
alferezes of a company in the regiment of Manila? Can the sacred habit
of St. Peter, which we religious venerate as that of the greatest
dignity, and to which we yield the most honorable place--which, as
said the patriarch of Antiochia [319] to the emperor of China, is
the first rank and order of the Church--be obliged not to experience
disgust at such low creatures? I do not know in what it [i.e., the
proposal to ordain Indians] can consist, unless it be that in it
is realized the vision that the said St. Peter had in Cesarea when
the sheet was let down from heaven filled with toads and serpents,
and a voice commanded him to eat without disgust--as is read in
chapter x of the Acts of the Apostles. For although it signified
the calling of heathendom, it must not be understood in moral things
of the barbarous and mean nature of some peoples that compose that
heathendom, in order to constitute the ecclesiastic hierarchy. [320]
When I come to discuss this matter, I find no end, and I find that
we can only say: Domine adauge [nobis] fidem (Luke [x]vii, [5]). [321]

100. It is also a fact that the sacred canons do not demand from
those who are ordained more than an honorable life and exa