To the testimony of magisterial office the cause of birth does not pertain; nor did Peter, that doorkeeper of the heavens, whom the despised nets made a fisher of men (Matt. IV, 19), please by the origin of his birth, but by the end of his merits; just as Matthew (IX, 9), when he was taken from the toll-booth, there began his gain where he was bidden to end his business. Why speak of individuals? Such was the assumption of them all, in whose persons God, choosing the base and contemptible things of the world (I Cor. I, 28), set the poor in spirit before the rich in property, proving him most truly wealthy who had arrived at true and complete nobility, not by burdens of goods taken up, but of crimes laid down.