[476] How utterly this was opposed to the received dogmas and practice of the church can be seen from the decision of Nicholas I. on the same question—“Sciscitantibus vobis, si a sacerdote, qui sive comprehensus est in adulterio, sive de hoc fama sola respersus est, debeatis communionem suscipere, necne, respondemus: Non potest aliquis quantumcumque pollutus sit, sacramenta divina polluere, quæ purgatoria cunctarum remedia contagionum existunt.... Sumite, igitur, intrepide ab omni sacerdote Christi mysteria, quoniam omnia in fide purgantur” (Nicolai I. Epist. XCVII. c. 71). See also a similar decision in 727 by Gregory II. (Bonifacii Epist. CXXVI.).
The only adverse authority of this period that I have met with is the Penitential of Theodore of Canterbury, already referred to, prescribing rebaptism for those baptized by priests of known unchastity (Lib. II. cap. ii. § 12.—Haddan & Stubbs’s Councils, III. 192).
Damiani saw the danger to which a practice such as this exposed the church, and lifted up his voice to prevent the evil results—
Audite etiam, laici,
Qui Christo famulamini;
Pro ullo unquam crimine,
Pastores non despicite.
(Carmen ccxxii.)
and when, about the year 1060, the Florentines refused the ministrations of their bishop, whom they were determined from other causes to eject, he reproved them warmly, adducing the only reasonable view of the question, “quod Spiritus Sanctus per improbi ministerium dare potest sua charismata” (Opusc. XXX. c. 2).
Simoniacal priests as well as concubinary ones were included in the ban, and when, in 1049, Leo IX. commenced his vigorous persecution of simony, there arose a belief that ordination received at hands tainted with that sin was null and void. This was promptly stigmatized as a heresy, and Damiani’s untiring pen was employed in combating it. He argued the question very thoroughly and keenly when it was under debate by a synod, and succeeded in procuring its condemnation (Opusc. VI. c. 12).