Wherefore in every act, but especially in the search after a Bishop, by whose model the life of all is formed, malignity ought to be absent, that by a composed and peaceful exercise of judgment he may be preferred to all who is to be chosen from all and who may heal all. For a gentle-minded man is the physician of the heart, of that whereof our Lord also in the Gospel has professed Himself a Physician, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”

He is the good Physician, Who has taken upon Him our infirmities, Who has healed our sicknesses, and yet He, as it is written, “glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest,” but He that said unto Him, even the Father, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee,” as He saith also in another place, “Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck.” And as He was to be the type of all priests, He took upon Him our flesh, that in the days of His flesh, “He might offer up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto” God the Father, “and though He were the Son” of God, “might even learn obedience from the things He suffered,” in order to teach us, that He might become to us the Author of salvation. Finally, having accomplished His sufferings, and being Himself made perfect, He gave health to all, He bore the sin of all.

Thus He Himself chose Aaron the High Priest, that human ambition might not sway the choice, but the grace of God; no voluntary offering, nor taking upon himself, but a heavenly call, that he might offer gifts for sins, who could have compassion on sinners “for that he himself also,” it is written, “is compassed with infirmity.” A man should not take this honour to himself, but he that is called of God as was Aaron; so also Christ did not assume but received His priesthood. — To the church of Vercellae, paragraphs 46-48.