[A. GRAYAN, who refers us to Dibdin's _Ames_, vol. ii. p. 1090.,
for the foregoing information, adds, that the last line in the MS.
reads--
"That knowledge makes _the_ Kinge most like his
Maker."]
_Hell paved with the Skulls of Priests_ (Vol. iv., p. 484.).--The French
priest referred to in this Query had most probably quoted, at second or
third hand, and with rhetorical embellishment--certainly not from the
original direct--an expression of St. Chrysostom, in his third homily on
the Acts of the Apostles:
"οὐκ οἶμαι εἶναι πολλοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἱερεῦσι τοὺς σωζομένους, ἀλλὰ πολλῷ
πλείους τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους."
"I know not if there be many in the priesthood who are saved, but
I know that many more perish."
Gibbon has also quoted this passage at second hand (v. 399. note z.),
for he says:
"Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom. iii. in Act.
Apostol. p. 29.) that the number of _bishops_ who might be saved,
bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned."
It may be safely asserted that the above expression of Chrysostom is the
strongest against the priesthood to be found in any of the Christian
Fathers of authority in the Church.