"Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you." [Matt 7:6] Our Lord had given the command above to all people, but especially to teachers - namely, the commands to love our enemies to do good to them, and again (as just stated) to not judge those who sin against us - since he reckoned that those who persecute the priests of God or injure or harm them are for the most part unbelievers such as the Gentiles or heretics, or even if they are Christians, they are filthy and insensate because they do not reckon or understand that the priests of Christ are Christ's vicars and Christ himself and that whoever honors a priest of Christ honors Christ and whoever insults Christ's insults Christ. However, lest by chance the priest should say to themselves, thinking along these lines, "If we are ordered to love our enemies and do good to them, and if we are commanded not to judge those sinners who sin against us, then just as we ought to love them and do good to them so doubtlessly we ought not to judge those sinners who sin against us so that we share not only our goods but also those that belong to God so that our mercy might be full, just as God is," he restrains their thoughts by the prudent admonition, "Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before swine." And it is as if he were to say, "I commanded you to love your enemies and not to judge them so that I may show you as merciful to them that you may benefit them with your bodily goods, not out of my spiritual goods, because they share a common nature with you, not a common faith. I commanded you to not judge those who sin against you. But I did not order you to exhibit the secrets of my mysteries to those who blaspheme and despise them because they do not want to know me. Look at God, your Father, whose example I want to follow in being merciful: he offers bodily blessings indiscriminately to those who are worthy and those who are not, but he does not offer them spiritual graces in the same way, does he? Nor did I say to you about him who orders the Holy Spirit to descend on the grateful and ungrateful and gives his blessings on the just and the unjust. For this reason be honest and kind in dispensing your goods, but be prudent and cautious in dispensing mine." But if you demand that your tailor be diligent and the keeper of your cellar be faithful, how much more God demands that a dispenser of his graces be so, since by managing his graces well he makes people more pleasing, but by not handling them well or by dispensing them badly he renders them unprofitable. Just as if you give a holy thing to dogs or pearls to swine, that which is holy does not sanctify the dogs, nor do pearls feed the swine, but one the contrary the dogs defile the holy item and the swine befoul the pearls or crush them, so if you give something holy to people who have a dog-like or swine-like character, or you entrust them with secret mysteries, that which is holy does not sanctify them, nor do the mysteries of the truth illuminate them, but on the contrary they defile that which is holy and blaspheme the mysteries of the truth.

 

 

And I think that it is not without a reason­ able difference that the Lord forbade us to give that which is holy to the dogs and pearls to swine. Can we say of the pearls that if they are forbidden to be given to the swine, how much more they should not be given to the dogs? But about giving that which is holy we cannot come to the same conclusion. If it is not appropri­ate to give to those who are more unclean, is it proper to give to those less unclean? Therefore we understand that it is neither forbidden nor commanded because we often lay hands on and bless those Christians living as pigs, not because they deserve to receive the blessing but because we venture to give it contrary to justice, lest they be offended and despair. So it is not ordered be­cause it is unjust, but it is not forbidden either because the weakness had to be forgiven. But because we have begun to speak about holy people, one cannot overlook that sanctifi­cation is one thing and the state of sanctity is another. Sanctification is whatever makes an­

other holy, but a state of sanctity cannot sanc­tify another person, although it itself is holy. For example, you point to your bread  that you eat and say, as Paul says, "it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer." [1 Tim 4:5] You sanctified it, but you did not make it a means of sancti­fication. But whatever a priest gives out of his hand is not only sanctified but also a means of

sanctification because not only is sanctifica­tion (which is seen) given, but also that which is sanctified (which is understood). Therefore one may boast about the blessed bread to ani­mals and give it to unbelievers because it does not hallow the recipient. But if that which is eaten at the table is of the same sort as that re­ceived at the hand of the priest, all have eaten from the table, and nobody has received it from the hand of a priest. Therefore, also the Lord not only blessed bread on the road but from

his own hand gave it to Cleopas and his fellow traveler. And as Paul was sailing, he not only blessed bread but offered it with his own hand to Luke and the other disciples. But whatever has been offered by the hand of a priest should not be given to animals or offered to the un­believing, because it is not only sanctified but also a means of sanctification, and it sanctifies the one who receives it.

 

(trans. Kellerman 2010: 142-44)