How can the priest examine himself in order not to lose his authority?

St. John Chrysostom warns priests against abusing the honor of their priesthood: “What if you have received a great dignity, and have at any time obtained some office of Church government? Be not high-minded … but esteem yourself to be poor and inglorious.”¹⁶³² He also says, “What purity fits him who invokes the Holy Spirit to come upon the holy sacrifice, while the angels surround the altar.”¹⁶³³

Origen says, “What good is it to me that I sit back in a teacher’s chair in front [of the congregation], and receive the honor due to a more important person, but am not able to carry out deeds worthy of my rank?”¹⁶³⁴

1625 Origen, Homilies on Isaiah 6.4 (ACW 68:913–14).

1626 Origen, Commentary on John 32.17; Joseph W. Trigg, Origen (London: Routledge, 2002): p. 142.

1627 Ernest Latko, Origen’s Concept of penance , Laval 1949, p. 72f.

1628 Cf. Origen, “On Prayer” in Origen, An Exhortation to Martyrdom etc ., trans., Rowan A. Greer (NY: Paulist Press, 1979) 28.8–9: p. 150–151 (PG 11:527–530).

1629 Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1–16 5.3 (FOTC 83:93–96; PG 12:451).

1630 St. John Chrysostom, Six Books on the Priesthood 3.5 (PP 1:72) amended.

1631 Ernest Latko, Origen’s Concept of penance (Laval, 1949): p. 72f.

1632 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 10.5 (NPNF I/12:56; PG 61:85) amended.

1633 Ibid 5.6.

1634 Origen, Origen of Alexandria: Exegetical Works on Ezekiel , trans., Mischa Hooker, ed., Roger Pearse (Ipswich: Chieftain Publishing, 2014) 5.4.1: p. 167 (see also PG 13:707).

Origen affirms on several occasions that the validity of ecclesiastical powers depends upon the state of the priest’s soul: “If he is tightly bound with the cords of his own sins, to no purpose does he bind and loose.” The right of forgiving sins committed against God is reserved to him who “is inspired by Jesus, as the apostles were, and whom we can know by his fruits as having received the Holy Spirit.”¹⁶³⁵

Origen stresses the importance of spiritual qualities in the bishop. He believes that a sinful bishop loses his power to remit sins, saying: “After this let us see in what sense it was said to Peter, and to every believer who is Peter, ‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 16:19) … When one judges unrighteously, and does not bind upon earth according to His will, the gates of hell prevail against him: but in the case of him against whom the gates of hell do not prevail, this man judges righteously; inasmuch as he has the keys of the kingdom of heaven, opening to those who have been loosed on earth that they may also be loosed in heaven, and free; and closing to those who by his just judgment have been bound on earth that they also be bound in heaven, and condemned. When those who claim the function of the episcopate, use this text even as Peter, and having asserted that they have received the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven from Christ, teach that things bound by them, that is to say, condemned, are also bound in heaven, and that those which have obtained remission by them are also loosed in heaven, we must say that they speak well if they have the way of life … and if they are such that upon them the Church is built by Christ, and to them with good reason this could be referred; and the gates of hell ought not to prevail against him when he wishes to bind and loose. But if he is tightly bound with the cords of his sins, to no purpose does he bind and loose.”¹⁶³⁶

He warns against excommunicating those who are suspected of having sinned, even if their sin is hidden.¹⁶³⁷ But if their sin was scandalous and obvious, they would be inevitably expelled from the church. However, great caution must be used lest we uproot the wheat with the tares.¹⁶³⁸