  Gassendi's career as a priest is a crucial facet of his intellectual constitution: his writings reflect an unbending allegiance to Holy Scripture and Church teachings, though not necessarily in orthodox doctrinal lights. He was ordained at the age of 24 or 25 and, while there is no question of the strength of his faith, one motivation for his career in the Church appears to be its provision of a sinecure. Thus Gassendi started at the rank of a low-level local official (Chanoine of the Cathedral) in Digne and rose to the rank of a slightly higher-level local official (Prévôt), still in Digne, some twenty years later. Though he clearly pursued a studied relationship with his higher authority, all the while he wrote letters of support to the Church-embattled Galileo, sought appointment to the secular College Royal, and cultivated deep personal and intellectual ties with his non-Church patrons—the affluent fonctionnaire, Francois Luillier; the Provençal savant, Nicole-Pierre Fabri de Peiresc; the local count of Alais, Louis Emmanuel de Valois; and the Parisian noble, Habert de Montmor.