For in one place they withdraw noxious things, in another they permit profitable ones: lest, while by cautious provision they fast from poisonous fodder, they should also, empty of the salutary, fail by incautious severity. Since therefore our shepherd, by forbidding us the deadly pastures of carnal desires, restrains us, he now relaxes our mouths to the salutary green shoots of our hope. For he says: 'Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, whereby He has called us into a living hope, unto an inheritance undefiled and unfading, reserved in heaven' (1 Peter 1:3). Let us therefore, dearest brethren, attend with the erected ears of our heart to the voices of our keeper, the blessed apostle Peter, and, holding the straight line of his footsteps, let us nowhere stray from the pastures to which he calls.
For if we willingly admit his counsel, we shall not fear the snares of the raging beasts. For does not our keeper diligently watch over his flock, and does he not with anxious voices cry out that the assaults of wild beasts must be guarded against? 'For the devil,' he says, 'as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour; whom resist, strong in faith' (1 Peter 5:8). It is expedient therefore, dearest brethren, that we hear with intent hearts him who counsels us, the consul of the heavenly court, and that we dread to make light of the most sure counsel of our salvation. For this is he who heard from the mouth of truth: 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.'
This is he who heard: 'Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven' (Matthew 16:18, 19). IV.— He ought not therefore to be despised by man in his preaching, who from the Creator and Redeemer of men merited to be honored with the privilege of so great a dignity. It is a fearful thing that his counsel should be negligently despised, to whose power both heaven and earth are subject. He who shuts and opens heaven, binds and looses earthly things according to his own judgment. For if the chair of ecclesiastical primacy has been divinely handed over to him, that it may be founded in perpetual solidity.
From the very beginning of the world we know that there were many chairs among the people of God, not only good but also evil (but in the chair of Peter Christ both utterly overthrew the evil and confirmed the good with eternal stability). For of the good it is said: 'Let them exalt him in the church of the people, and in the chair of the elders let them praise the Lord' (Psalm 106:32)—those who keep the precepts of the teachers of the holy Church by their works. Moses held a chair for the Israelite people, of which Truth Himself said: 'Upon the chair of Moses have sat the Scribes and Pharisees' (Matthew 23:1). But on the contrary, concerning the chair of the reprobate it is said by the Psalmist: 'Blessed is the man who has not gone away, and has not sat in the chair of pestilence' (Psalm 1:1).
For he sits in the chair of pestilence who teaches the people the plagues of errors. V.— The Lord mystically overthrew chairs of this kind when He cast out from the temple both the sellers and the buyers alike. For it is written: 'He poured out the money of the money-changers, and overturned the chairs of those who sold doves' (John 2:15). This chair of pestilence that Simon the magician wished to acquire, when he coveted to buy the grace of the Holy Spirit. But the hand of the apostolic tongue overthrew it before it could be built, and cut down at its very root the nascent, plague-bearing heresy, saying: 'For I see you to be in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. You have no part nor lot in this matter' (Acts 8:21-23).
By this sword of the apostolic sentence have all been dug out who either pant to buy ecclesiastical honors, or do not fear to sell them. Whose wretched multitude is seen even today in the holy Church—those who do not fear to possess the gift of God against the Lord for their own lust; who, even if outwardly they seem alive, already stink, buried in the death of perpetual damnation. Those who reckon it as nothing to seek the gain of souls, and nourish their most wretched flesh in delights and in the stench of luxury. Against whom I think it better to be silent than to say little. For few words do not suffice to tear apart and rebuke their mortal peril, against whom heaven and earth and all the elements bring forth the testimony of damnation.
Now therefore let us cease to speak against the dry bones, that we may return, my brethren, who live in Christ, by the steps of our tongue to you. VI.— Let us therefore found, dearly beloved, upon the faith of the blessed apostle Peter the dwelling-place of our mind, that it may be able to remain unharmed from every onset of adversity. By the example, namely, of the prudent man, of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Who built his house upon the rock: the floods came, the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded upon the rock' (Matthew 7:24 and 25). Let us recall to mind what is said through Paul: 'We cannot here rejoice with the world, and there reign with the Lord'; and again:
'Through many tribulations it behooves us to enter into the kingdom of God' (Acts 14:21). Behold, this blessed apostle Peter, whose festival we today celebrate, who was so dear and familiar to our Lord Jesus Christ, who received so great a power not only on earth but also in heaven, by His bestowal, nevertheless penetrated the starry realms through the martyrdom of the cross. VII.— Therefore, dearly beloved, assiduously mortifying our flesh with its vices and concupiscences, let us most zealously observe the apostolic precepts: because we are to render an account of our deeds to those same judges. For to them it was said:
'Amen I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel' (Matthew 19:28). These are the senators of the world, of whom it is written: 'Her husband is noble in the gates, when he shall sit with the senators of the land' (Proverbs 31:23). Founded therefore in their faith, instructed by their teachings, let us so strive, with divine aid, to lead this mortal life for a time, that with them we may deserve to rejoice without end in the heavenly court: our Lord Christ granting it [perhaps 'affording it'], to whom is honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.