Page 136 - UTOPIA

through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much
to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by
nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions. The
wives of their priests are the most extraordinary women of
the whole country; sometimes the women themselves are
made priests, though that falls out but seldom, nor are any
but ancient widows chosen into that order.
‘None of the magistrates have greater honour paid them
than is paid the priests; and if they should happen to com-
mit any crime, they would not be questioned for it; their
punishment is left to God, and to their own consciences;
for they do not think it lawful to lay hands on any man,
how wicked soever he is, that has been in a peculiar manner
dedicated to God; nor do they find any great inconvenience
in this, both because they have so few priests, and because
these are chosen with much caution, so that it must be a very
unusual thing to find one who, merely out of regard to his
virtue, and for his being esteemed a singularly good man,
was raised up to so great a dignity, degenerate into corrup-
tion and vice; and if such a thing should fall out, for man is
a changeable creature, yet, there being few priests, and these
having no authority but what rises out of the respect that is
paid them, nothing of great consequence to the public can
proceed from the indemnity that the priests enjoy.
‘They have, indeed, very few of them, lest greater num-
bers sharing in the same honour might make the dignity of
that order, which they esteem so highly, to sink in its repu-
tation; they also think it difficult to find out many of such
an exalted pitch of goodness as to be equal to that dignity,

136 Utopia