Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/14

2 in meam commemorationem. He thereby conferred on them the power of sacrifice. It is also of divine faith that when, three days later, He breathed on them, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," He gave them the power of absolution. In these two powers the priesthood was complete. The pastoral authority and the world-wide commission of the Apostles were not yet given. They had received the twofold jurisdiction over His natural body and over the mystical body, together with the power of bestowing the same by ordination upon others, for their priesthood was the "sacerdotium Christi ad Ecclesiam regendam a Spiritu Sancto positum."

In conferring the same afterwards, they bestowed this sacerdotal office upon some in all its fulness—that is, with the power of bestowing it upon others; and on some, with the limitation that the priest ordained could not confer upon others the sacerdotal jurisdiction which he had received. Excepting this alone, the priesthood in the Bishop and the priesthood in the priest are one and the same, and yet the Episcopate, by the divine power of ordination, is greater than the priesthood. But this difference is divine and incommunicable. S. Jerome says; Quid enim