1 Samuel 8

1 Samuel 8:1

Gregory the Dialogist: 1. The deeds of holy men who came before are often the consolations of the elect who follow. For by a wonderful dispensation of divine counsel, they were raised to the citadel of the highest way of life in such a way that they might do mighty things for themselves and provide right governance for their subjects; yet sometimes so left to themselves that those things which they arranged with right intention would not turn out rightly according to God’s providence — so that their weakness might become the strength of the elect who follow: because even though as men they can err in managing the affairs of the holy Church, those ecclesiastical arrangements themselves are not to be abandoned. For behold it is said: (1 Kings 8:1–3) And it came to pass when Samuel had grown old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. And the name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of the second was Abiah, judges in Beersheba. And his sons did not walk in his ways.

2. Behold, he who had been full of the spirit of prophecy did not know that those whom he was appointing as judges of Israel would afterward turn aside after greed, and accept bribes, and pervert judgment. What wonder, then, if those who do not receive the grace of prophecy can be deceived in arranging appointments—if those who have the spirit of prophecy do not have that same spirit for disposing all things? Who would doubt concerning so great a man that, if he had foreknown the future perversity of his sons, he certainly would not have advanced them to public honors? Those, therefore, who knowingly promote the reprobate can in no way flatter themselves with this example of the prophet, because it is done innocently only when no signs of subsequent iniquity were apparent in them at the time they were promoted. For this reason also, those who were appointed by Samuel as judges of Israel were fittingly called his sons when they were appointed, so that from this they might be believed not only to have been begotten from him according to the flesh, but also adorned with the splendors of his manner of life. For this reason also their names are carefully recorded, so that from the title of the name that form of virtue which was then in them might be recognized. The name of one, he says, was Joel, and of the other Abiah; they were judges in Beersheba. But also concerning those who are said to have turned aside to greed after receiving their office, it is clearly shown that before they attained the height of that same office, no signs of future depravity were seen in them. But behold, while we attend to the consolations of pastors, we perceive no small dangers for the Lord’s flock. For the prophet’s sons stood firm as subjects, but fell when placed at the height of authority—so that if, while we are placed under the care of superiors, an unceasing zeal for holy life or the confidence of a great manner of living smiles upon us, we should nevertheless hold the governing of others not in the appetite of desire but in the greatness of fear. But carnal people, while they attend only to visible things, do not deserve to know the spiritual manner of life of the saints. They look upon the eminence of the pastors of holy Church, but they do not know how to consider how unwillingly those pastors bear inwardly the distinction which they hold outwardly in the splendor of eminence, that they endure the loftiness of honor as the oppression of a great burden, that they flee with great desire what they pursue in outward ministry. For with the outstanding teacher as witness we have learned that the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14). Whence also, pursuing carnal things, he errs all the more madly to the degree that through the power of discernment he no longer penetrates any spiritual things. And some such people advance to so great an evil of madness that they do not fear to disturb even the very state of ecclesiastical eminence. Whence it also follows: (Verses 4, 5.) Therefore all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Ramah, and said to him: Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Appoint a king over us, to judge us as all the nations have. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1

Gregory the Dialogist: Therefore, repeating all things in summary, let us see what edification they contain in themselves according to another meaning. Because we said that in Samuel the new priesthood is signified, what does it mean that he grew old, except that while the holy Church is led through the passing spans of time, the beauty of conduct grows old in some priests? Now Samuel grew old because the vigor of authority withered. For Samuel was as if young when the order of priests, yearning only for heavenly desires, while seeking nothing earthly, the more effectively it could preach heavenly things, the more it nonetheless kindled the souls of those subject to them toward those things by words and examples. For he was strong in vigor and radiated with youthful beauty, while he displayed the power of the heavenly word in the splendor of holy conduct: because whatever he could powerfully preach by speaking, he strove also to show by living sublimely. For he both gave life to dead souls by the word; but shining forth with the wondrous flower of youth, he raised dead bodies by his command. Since he both gave sight to the blind, walking to the lame, and healing to all infirmities, and he so radiated with the beauty of most holy conduct, that it was of greater virtue to be able to live in this manner than to aid others in that way. Therefore Samuel flourished as if in youth, when in the order of priests there equally shone forth both the wonderful virtue of works and such immense beauty of holy conduct. But it has already been a long time since Samuel grew old. For many ages have elapsed, during which many of those by whose virtue the joys of the world should have been driven from the hearts of others follow the love of the world. Yet we do not say this as though the holy Church has no religious men: but that few are those who at the height of preaching have perfectly known how to despise the world and cling to the highest desires. Therefore it is aptly said that Samuel is both old and prophesies. He is indeed old, because he has lost the rigor of austere conduct in many: yet he does not cease to prophesy, because while he has some spiritual strength, he powerfully displays the virtue of the provident spirit. This can fittingly be understood of one and the same preacher. They are indeed old and prophesy, who are so dissolved through negligence that they teach well but live badly. They set their sons as judges when they establish in the dignity of the priesthood those who look upon the times of their more lax life. Yet the young are ordained by the old: because those who come to be promoted promise strong things. Indeed they pledge the strongest profession of the priestly life, whose virtue they do not possess in their future conduct. Therefore the young are promoted: because those who ordain them do not raise them to the height of so great an order before they receive from them a profession of virtue. For first they instruct them both how sublimely they should live and how carefully they should teach: that they ought to live sublimely for this reason, that they may be able to preach profitably, that they should always direct the purpose of their life toward heavenly things, that they should not seek temporal rewards from the labor of preaching, that they should not show partiality in judgment, but arrange all things with the just balance of equity: so that they may hear the difficulties of the ways of God, and say whether they are willing to undergo their labors. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:2

Bede: The name of his firstborn son was Joel, etc. Joel means ‘beginning’ or ‘was of God’, Abia stands for ‘father’, and Beersheba means ‘well of the oath’. It is indeed a place, as the name itself proves, where Abraham and Isaac made a covenant with Abimelech by swearing; this signifies that very fountain of salvation, which, united in the pact of one and the same faith, washes those circumcised and uncircumcised; in which the aforementioned brothers are appointed as judges so that they may both offer and drink the fountain of life. But they according to their name began but did not persevere to the end, to be saved, and though once belonging to God and worthy of the name of the patriarchs, now changed to the contrary, they preferred their own traditions and crimes over both the law and grace. And when any of us, cooling with the spiritual fervor he had begun, places base and earthly thoughts before his mind, it is as if the aging Samuel set the degenerate sons as judges in Beersheba; for the perverse senses are subject to the mystery of baptism. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:3

Gregory the Dialogist: Indeed, most people profess that they walk difficult paths while they seek after sacred orders; but when they arrive at what they sought, they neglect to maintain the steadfastness of their promise. Hence the sons of Samuel are fittingly reported not to have walked in his ways, but to have accepted bribes and perverted judgment. For the ways of Samuel are so called because they are set forth by the office of a preacher. His sons, therefore, do not walk in the ways of their father when those who ambitiously attain to sacred orders abandon the arduous paths of religious life shown to them by their elders, and by their perverse intention are plunged ever deeper into the desire for earthly things. Hence they are openly declared, after avarice, to have turned aside, accepted bribes, and perverted judgment. For those who neglect to labor for heavenly things must necessarily be bound more tightly in the desire for earthly ones. To turn aside after avarice is to be wholly carried away in intention by ambition for earthly things. For there are some who seek earthly gains through avarice, yet do not turn aside after avarice, because although they desire temporal things, they avoid incurring guilt in their pursuit of them. Those, therefore, turn aside after avarice who, for the sake of the earthly things they ardently seek, have no fear whatsoever of incurring guilt. They consider their own soul to be of less worth than anything they can covet. Hence comes violent plunder, hence secret thefts arise: because those over whom the avaricious have power they oppress by violence, and upon those whose goods they cannot assault by force, they contrive to inflict theft. Often, too, those whom they cannot overpower by theft of hands, they ensnare by the falsehood of words. Hence the sons of Samuel, in an orderly progression, are marked out in the disordered confusion of avarice, when it is said: “They turned aside after avarice, accepted bribes, and perverted judgment.”

For those who perverted judgment in order to receive gifts did not seek the darkness of night to commit the theft of a coveted thing, but the darkness of reason. And it should be noted that the burning of avarice is the cause of accepting gifts, and the acceptance of gifts is the cause of perverting judgment: so that by the prophet’s narration the depravity of this vice may be shown, not only how it advances in the hearts of the reprobate, but how it can be utterly uprooted from the minds of the saints. For if this perversity of judgment is born from the acceptance of gifts, he who does not accept gifts does not pervert judgment, and he easily rejects offered gifts who has thoroughly uprooted the root of avarice from his heart. But we gather this fault of the sons of Samuel more fully by seeing than by speaking. For if we look at the desolate places of the Churches, where the father grows old, the sons incur the mark of avarice, of accepted gifts, and of perverted judgment: because where the person of the ruler is dissolved through shameful gains, the hearts of the subject flock are easily scattered, so that they live wickedly in themselves and offer examples of depravity to others. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

Jerome: But possibly you flatter yourself that since the bishop who has made you a deacon is a holy man, his merits will atone for your transgressions. I have already told you that the father is not punished for the son or the son for the father. “The soul that sins shall itself die.” Samuel too had sons who forsook the fear of the Lord and “turned aside after lucre” and iniquity. — LETTER 147.10

1 Samuel 8:4

Bede: Therefore, all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel, etc. Therefore, after the ascension of the Lord, all the elders of carnal Israel gathered together against him, and sent out to follow him into Ramah, that is, into the heights of heaven, where whatever we do on earth is quickly revealed, saying: ‘We do not want this man to reign over us’ (Luke 19); and as if speaking to him who can hide nothing, they said: ‘Behold, they said, your faith and love in us have grown old, and the sons whom you have nurtured and lifted up, they have despised you’ (Isaiah 1). Therefore, we preferred, like the nations that did not know you, and the kingdoms that did not call on your name, to remain strangers to your leadership rather than be deprived of the kingdom, faith, and homeland of your grace. For if, leaving the skill of fighting, we follow the simplicity of your doctrine, the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation. This indeed the Jews, though not in voice, at least in their depraved mind and intention, spoke against the Lord and against His Christ. — Commentary on Samuel

Cyprian: And that we may know that this voice of God came forth with His true and highest majesty to honour and avenge His priests; when three of the ministers -Korah, Dathan, and Abiram-dared to deal proudly, and to exalt their neck against Aaron the priest, and to equal themselves with the priest set over them; they were swallowed up and devoured by the opening of the earth, and so immediately suffered the penalty of their sacrilegious audacity. Nor they alone, but also two hundred and fifty others, who were their companions in boldness, were consumed by a fire breaking forth from the Lord, that it might be proved that God’s priests are avenged by Him who makes priests. In the book of Kings also, when Samuel the priest was despised by the Jewish people on account of his age, as you are now, the Lord in wrath exclaimed, and said, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.” And that He might avenge this, He set over them Saul as a king, who afflicted them with grievous injuries, and trod on the people, and pressed down their pride with all insults and penalties, that the despised priest might he avenged by divine vengeance on a proud people. — Epistle LXIV

Gregory the Dialogist: 3. But for those who were living under spiritual governance, to ask for a king—what else is it than to eagerly desire to transform that same spiritual leadership into secular domination? Yet when holy men see that they are despised by their subjects, what displeases them is not so much that they are despised, but that those who despise them do not please God. For by the contempt shown to them, they see that increases are given to their own interior glory; but they groan that their merits are increased by the failings of their subjects, whom they would rather have advance in merits, so that in the eternal reward of merits they might have been able to have with them those over whom they preside. Therefore it is also added: (Verse 6) The word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, because they had said: Give us a king, to judge us. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1

Pseudo-Ignatius: It is becoming, therefore, that you also should be obedient to your bishop and contradict him in nothing; for it is a fearful thing to contradict any such person. For no one does [by such conduct] deceive him that is visible but does [in reality] seek to mock him that is invisible, who, however, cannot be mocked by anyone. And every such act has respect not to man but to God. For God says to Samuel, “They have not mocked you, but me.” — LETTER TO THE MAGNESIANS 3

1 Samuel 8:6

Bede: The speech was displeasing to the eyes of Samuel, etc. The infidelity of the Jews was displeasing before the wise in Christ, who are the eyes of the Church, because in choosing the lowest for the highest, although ignorant, they said to the Lord, “Give us an earthly kingdom that will perpetually damn us.” For of the heavenly kingdom, which you promise to the poor in spirit, we have no care, for whose salvation the Savior prayed either by himself while he was in the world, or through his members even after the ascension. This is specially narrated in the ecclesiastical history concerning James, the brother of the Lord (Matthew V), because he prayed for the people attending the temple with such insistence and diligence that his knees were believed to have taken on the hardness of camels’. — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 4. For what displeased him was that through which he judged those who were speaking to be displeasing to God. But because it is not simply said, “the matter displeased Samuel,” but “in the eyes of Samuel,” and immediately it is added: (Verse 6.) “And Samuel prayed to the Lord for the people,” we ought to consider these things somewhat more carefully. Holy men, who greatly fear displeasing Almighty God, are not hasty in their judgments, but first arrange all things rationally within themselves, so that they may dispose of them outwardly in action without reproach. For they accept no choice of judgment unless it is approved by the contemplation of reason. The Lord indeed wished to open these eyes of the prophet when He said: “See with your eyes, and hear with your ears” (Ezek. 40:4). Hence in the Gospel He said to the disciples: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see” (Luke 10:23). For the eyes of the saints are the understanding of reason, opened by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And therefore they are said to be Samuel’s, because all carnal people, even if they seem rational through human wisdom, are all the more blind to this light of reason, inasmuch as they see only with those eyes which the serpent opened. For if they could behold the splendor of spiritual virtues, they would surely desire to possess it as the adornment of their mind. So great indeed is the beauty of these virtues that their sight can never fail to be desired with longing by the one who sees them. Therefore the wise of this world, when they suppose themselves to possess the eyes of reason, can recognize from this how madly they rage: because not to be attracted by the beauty of holy virtues is surely not only not to perceive their glory, but not even to dream of it. Therefore holy men, who are already bound by the love of interior things through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, have the eyes of their mind all the clearer for seeing the glory of inward brightness, the more they have no desire for anything from the darkness of the world; and they can discern carnal things all the more rightly, the further they have been raised up from carnal things and have advanced more deeply into the grace of the Holy Spirit. Hence the Apostle Paul also, from the experience of so great a vision, pronounced the sentence, saying: “The spiritual man judges all things” (1 Cor. 2:15). Rightly therefore it is said: “The matter displeased in the eyes of Samuel.” Because by spiritual men nothing is despised before it is judged to be worthy of contempt through the spiritual insight of the mind. And because the more abundantly they are filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, the less they presume upon the loftiness of their own virtue, there follows: “And Samuel prayed to the Lord.” For what did he pray to the Lord, if not that He would deign to show him whether he ought to give assent to the petition of the tumultuous people? (Verses 7, 8.) “And the Lord said to Samuel: Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For they have not rejected you, but me, that I should not reign over them, according to all their works which they have done from the day when I brought them out of Egypt even to this day.” — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1

1 Samuel 8:7

Augustine of Hippo: To some, indeed, who lack patience, the Lord God, in his wrath, grants them what they ask, just as, on the other hand, he refused it to his apostle, in his mercy. We read what and how the Israelites asked and received, but, when their lust had been satisfied, their lack of patience was severely punished. And when they asked, he gave them a king, as it is written, according to their heart, but not according to his heart.… These things are written that no one may think well of himself if his prayer is heard, when he has asked impatiently for what it would be better for him not to receive, and that no one may be cast down and may despair of the divine mercy toward him if his prayer has not been heard, when he has, perhaps, asked for something which would bring him more bitter suffering if he received it or would cause his downfall if he were ruined by prosperity. In such circumstances, then, we know not what we should pray for as we ought. — LETTER 130

Bede: But the Lord said to Samuel: “Listen to the voice of the people,” etc. Do not take away their free will, but give the power to become children of God, to those who were unwilling to believe, and do not grieve the reproach of men resulting from the rejection of the people. For they have not rejected your teaching in the person speaking, but my divine teaching operating through you, so that I may not grant them an eternal kingdom in you. This is similar to what he himself said: “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me” (John VII). — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 5. Because it is said to the prophet as he prays, “Set a king over them,” it is clearly shown that he asked for it to be revealed to him whether this should be done. And because He adds, saying, “They have not rejected you, but me, that I should not reign over them,” it is fittingly shown how displeasing to Him was the request which is reported to have been displeasing in the eyes of Samuel. This harmony of judgment arises in the saints from the power of charity: because while they love the Creator with their whole mind and devoutly strive to obey His will, they receive as a reward of heavenly recompense that they do not diverge in their thinking from that same will of almighty God, which they always hold fast in good works. For it is written: “He who clings to God is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). For he clings to the Lord who always strives to carry out the commands of His will. But he becomes one spirit with Him: because through long devotion of pious work he is raised to such a degree of grace of divine knowledge that he can no longer dissent from the fairness of His inner judgment through the error of a worldly spirit. But it is very difficult to answer if it is asked why almighty God both complains that He was rejected in the request for a king, and yet decrees that what was requested should come to pass; and again, if royal dignity was to be established, why it was permitted as though by an offended divine majesty; and when a foreseen king is decreed to be chosen, why one who would be rejected is chosen. What else can we answer to these things except what the apostle Paul would answer to those daring to search the ineffable abyss of God’s judgments: “O man,” he says, “who are you to answer back to God?” (Rom. 9:20). But if we cannot resolve this effectively, we can touch upon it by inquiring. Perhaps He complains that He was rejected in the request for a king? On account of the reprobate will of the people asking wrongly, the requested king is granted as a punishment. If this is said reasonably, since He put forward both things, He showed both the fault and the retribution together. For he who is shown to have rejected the Creator by his asking is convicted of having made an unjust demand out of a reprobate will. Therefore the penalty of strict justice followed upon the fault of the wicked request. For great indeed is the punishment that proceeds from the severity of the inner examination, when a reprobate mind is so cast away that it is permitted to carry out what it wrongly decides. Those, therefore, who were convicted of having rejected the Lord in asking for a king—since they were permitted to do that by which they would cast the Lord away from themselves—there was no heavier punishment with which they ought to have been struck here.

6. In this place it should be noted that the Lord makes the rejection of the prophet His own. For He does not simply say, “They have rejected me, that I should not reign over them,” but rather, “They have not rejected you, but me, that I should not reign over them.” So as to clearly show that in the person of the chosen bishop, He Himself presides over His subjects; and when a carnal ruler is raised to the spiritual summit of the elect, He Himself is seen to be rejected whose precepts are cast aside. Therefore, how worthy of reverence the best pastors of the holy Church are is plain. For behold, while they faithfully serve God, they are joined to Him by so great a bond of love that whatever is inflicted upon them is ascribed as an injury to God. Whence also in the Gospel He says to the first pastors of the Church: “He who despises you despises me” (Luke 10:16). Where something even graver is perceived: because when He complains that the pastor has been rejected, all the sins of those who reject him are recalled, and even the evils of their forefathers are mentioned. “According to all their works,” He says, “which they have done from the day when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” For the supreme crime is recognized, for whose examination all past sins are brought back into the memory of God. And so the Lord complains that He has been rejected, and yet grants that one to be ordained in whom He is rejected: because when He executes the power of His strict justice, the desires of carnal men are by no means prevented from being fulfilled through His mercy. But also that dignity which could have been granted as a punishment ought not to have been granted with the tranquil majesty of divinity, but as if with indignation. However, we do not assert that the indignant majesty of God is indignant in itself, which is not subject to passion: but because when He examines faults, He speaks words of indignation through the Scriptures. Likewise, because a king is taken up as a type of carnal prelates, a king destined for rejection is chosen, not an elect one. Or perhaps a reprobate king is chosen for this reason, that his elect successor, King David, might learn from him what he ought to have guarded against. Thus indeed we also read concerning that court of angels, because of the first apostate angel it is written: “He is the beginning of the ways of God” (Job 40:14); but he who was created before all things fell through pride, and in his ruin the holy angels learned by what virtue they could have stood firm. Which indeed, whoever can behold with the open eyes of right faith equally observes: that Almighty God bestows the gifts of great mercy even when He inflicts punishment; because while He punishes the reprobate, He instructs the saints, so that from where those fall, these may be aided in their progress.

7. By strict judgment indeed He permits evils to be done, but mercifully He provides from those evils which He inflicts through judgment, things which He arranges to make into good. For what greater fault is there than that by which we all die? And what greater goodness than that by which we are freed from death? And indeed, if Adam had not sinned, it would not have been necessary for our Redeemer to take on our flesh. For He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17). If therefore He came for sinners, if sins were lacking, it would not have been necessary for Him to come. If the sins, which He is believed to have come to destroy, are understood to have been permitted by the justice of God: since God was to be born as man for sinners, almighty God had foreseen that from that evil by which they were to die, He would bring about a good that would overcome that evil. The greatness of this good—what faithful person does not see how wonderfully it excels? Great indeed are the evils we suffer through the desert of the first sin, but what elect person would not prefer to endure worse things rather than not have so great a Redeemer? Let a king therefore be chosen—but one to be rejected; let him be chosen as if by the indignation, not the will, of God. Let there then follow a king after God’s own heart, so that from the severity of His judgment the evil of vengeance may proceed against the reprobate, and the good which He was to bring about from evil may, through the bounty of divine grace, overflow upon the pious, while those others are permitted to fall into the evil they desire. But from what those men cast themselves down, it is brought about that others may not fall at all. But since by these words the judgment of divine severity is affirmed, let us now see how great a dispensation He employs, lest those deliberating wrongly do that for which they would be punished. For there follows: (Verse 9) Now therefore hear their voice; yet solemnly warn them, and declare to them the right of the king who shall reign over them. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1

Richard Challoner: Rejected: The government of Israel hitherto had been a theocracy, in which God himself immediately ruled, by laws which he had enacted, and by judges extraordinarily raised up by himself; and therefore he complains that his people rejected him, in desiring a change of government.

1 Samuel 8:8

Bede: “As they have forsaken me and served other gods,” etc. That is, just as they will also forsake the grace of the Gospel and serve rituals alien to God. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:9

Bede: Now therefore listen to their voice, etc. And these most fittingly apply to the person of the Father speaking to the Son: “Let them go according to the desires of their hearts, and they will go in their own wills” (Psalm LXXX). However, testify to them through the Gospel, and preach to them what temporal misery before men, what eternal torment in hell those will suffer who, neglecting service, or rather spiritual freedom, preferred to reign over themselves, saying: “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, and your house will be left desolate” (Luke X), and similar things, and he said: — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 8. As if by an open display of clemency He says: So hear their voices, yet let them first hear concerning the right of the king whom they seek, something that will make them tremble; and let them then abandon what was badly begun, when the thing they were seeking is recognized to be how burdensome it is. There follows: (Verses 10-17.) So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked him for a king, and said: This will be the right of the king who is to rule over you. He will take your sons and place them in his chariots, and will make them his horsemen and runners before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself tribunes and centurions, and plowmen of his fields, and reapers of his harvests, and makers of his weapons and chariots. Your daughters also he will make his perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will also take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his servants. Moreover, he will take a tenth of your grain crops and the produce of your vineyards, to give to his eunuchs and servants. He will also take your male servants and female servants, your best young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will also take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will be his slaves. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1

Richard Challoner: The right: That is, the manner (misphat) after which he shall proceed, having no one to control him, when he has the power in his hand.

1 Samuel 8:10

Gregory the Dialogist: 9. When subjection is sought by carnal men, assuredly whatever is commanded them is burdensome, even if it is not difficult: because since they have it from the swelling of pride that they follow the judgment of their own will, whatever opposes their deliberation they consider most grievous. But indeed when harsh and contrary things are commanded, what a weight of burden is that! What swelling of heart! When they could scarcely bear even pleasant and light things unwillingly—things which, if they had been willing, they would have borne most easily. Let us therefore see how the pious dispensation of the Creator worthily answers the foolish audacity of man. The laws of men are set before those who despise the laws of God; and upon those who had spurned the mild and salutary counsels of the Divinity, the harsh and unbearable burdens of human servitude are proclaimed: so that from these things they might reckon with themselves how intolerable the commands of man would be for those who had refused to obey the counsels of God—who was not so much commanding as advising them not to seek this. But the hearts of carnal men possess recklessness from the increase of audacity, and hardness from the nature of pretense. From recklessness indeed they deliberate upon things easy to do; but because they do not understand what they wrongly propose, they cannot be helped by the counsels of those who are wiser. Wherefore here too it is added: (Verse 19.) The people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel. And they said: By no means: for a king shall be over us, and we also shall be like all the nations, and our king shall judge us, and shall go out before us, and shall fight our battles for us. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1

1 Samuel 8:11

Apostolic Constitutions: Account bishops worthy to be esteemed [as] your rulers and your kings, and bring them tribute as to kings; for by you they and their families ought to be maintained. As Samuel made constitutions for the people concerning a king, in the first book of Kings [Samuel], and Moses did so concerning priests in Leviticus, so do we also make constitutions for you concerning bishops. For if there the multitude distributed the inferior services in proportion to so great a king, should not the bishop, therefore, all the more now receive from you those things which are determined by God for the sustenance of himself and of the rest of the clergy belonging to him? But if we may add somewhat further, let the bishop receive more than the other received of old: for he only managed military affairs, being entrusted with war and peace for the preservation of people’s bodies; but the other is entrusted with the exercise of the priestly office in relation to God, in order to preserve both body and soul from dangers. — CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES 2.4.34

Apostolic Constitutions: Account these worthy to be esteemed your rulers and your kings, and bring them tribute as to kings; for by you they and their families ought to be maintained. As Samuel made constitutions for the people concerning a king [1 Samuel 8:11-18], in the first book of Kings, and Moses did so concerning priests in Leviticus, so do we also make constitutions for you concerning bishops. For if there the multitude distributed the inferior services in proportion to so great a king, ought not therefore the bishop much more now to receive of you those things which are determined by God for the sustenance of himself and of the rest of the clergy belonging to him? But if we may add somewhat further, let the bishop receive more than the other received of old: for he only managed the affairs of the soldiery, being entrusted with war and peace for the preservation of men’s bodies; but the other is entrusted with the exercise of the priestly office in relation to God, in order to preserve both body and soul from dangers. By how much, therefore, the soul is more valuable than the body, so much the priestly office is beyond the kingly. For it binds and looses those that are worthy of punishment or of remission. Wherefore you ought to love the bishop as your father, and fear him as your king, and honour him as your lord, bringing to him your fruits and the works of your hands, for a blessing upon you, giving to him your first-fruits, and your tithes, and your oblations, and your gifts, as to the priest of God; the first-fruits of your wheat, and wine, and oil, and autumnal fruits, and wool, and all things which the Lord God gives you. And your offering shall be accepted as a savour of a sweet smell to the Lord your God; and the Lord will bless the works of your hands, and will multiply the good things of the land. “For a blessing is upon the head of him that gives.” [Proverbs 11:26] — Apostolic Constitutions (Book II), Section 4, XXXIV

Bede: This will be the law of the king who will rule over you. It does not explain what a moderate and just emperor should be like, whose perfection is taught in many places of the Holy Scriptures and especially in Deuteronomy; but rather it intimates a wicked ruler, by whose harshness the subjects will be oppressed, in order to persuade the people to withdraw from their stubborn request. Figuratively, the Scripture that speaks of a good king signifies Christ: about whom it is sung under the figure of Solomon, “O God, give your judgment to the king” (Psalms 71). But what is said of a bad king refers to the devil: according to Ecclesiasticus, “A foolish king destroys his people” (Eccl. 10). And rightly so, because he belongs to the devil, while the other is a member of Christ. — Commentary on Samuel

Bede: He will take your sons, etc. You, he says, were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use freedom as an opportunity for the flesh (Gal. 5). Therefore, whoever gives the freedom into which he was called as an opportunity for the flesh, will soon, under the power of an impious king, that is, the devil whom he has chosen as his lord, suffer all these servitudes in himself which Samuel spoke to the people about. For what was once said specifically of one people but has for a longer time and with historical and typical truth been practiced, should generally be applied to all mortals who cast off the sweet yoke of the Lord; whose sons the wicked king takes and places in his chariots, when the ancient enemy, taking their glorious deeds, such as modesty, patience, kindness, almsgiving, and other similar things, corrupts them with hypocrisy, vainglory, pride, or any other vicious plague, he binds them to the works of the faithless, in whose hearts, constrained by the bridle of iniquity, the very worst charioteer freely and proudly rides around in his chariots. And because now the impious enemy falsely associates those whom he considers faithful among the faithful by their works, the strict Judge will associate them in the end through punishments; of such it is rightly written: “The lord of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect, and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the unfaithful” (Matt. 24). — Commentary on Samuel

Bede: And he will make for himself horsemen, etc. So much, he says, has the devil also subjected your stronger endeavors to himself, that through these he may strive to correct others with the bridle of error, to tame them, and to lead them to the path of impiety, and to make the offspring of virtue a herald of vices. For just as in good the chariots of virtues minister, bringing prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance into the hearts of neighbors; so on the contrary, the chariot of the worst king is preceded by one who, to his followers, prefigures examples of vices contrary to these virtues. — Commentary on Samuel

Clement of Alexandria: I must now … express my disapproval of the possession of too many slaves. People resort to servants to escape work and waiting on themselves.… The Word has given a complete description of these offenders when he promised through the prophet Samuel that the people who were demanding a king would have not a kind master but one who would be an unfeeling tyrant, given over to immorality, “who will take,” he said, “your daughters to make him ointments and to be his cooks and bakers,” who will rule by law of war and not be zealous for the administration of peace. — The Instructor Book 3

Gregory the Dialogist: 1. For when Samuel was rejected, a king was sought: when the reprobate multitude of the people despises a spiritual pastor and seeks a carnal one to rule over them. With such people it is often dealt by the severity of divine justice, so that by the very fact that they despise the chosen preacher, they are permitted to be subject to a reprobate, from whose imitation they perish all the more grievously, the more boldly they despised with greater pride that by which they could have lived forever. When therefore the right of the king is foretold, clearly it is shown in the conduct of one carnal ruler what the other carnal ones will do through tyranny, not what the elect ought to imitate. For in the same history of Kings it is read that when King Ahab took away Naboth’s vineyard, he incurred the wrath of almighty God. But here, when the right of the king is foretold, fields, vineyards, and the best olive groves are mentioned as things to be seized (1 Kings 21:2 ff.). When therefore what was committed and punished there is foretold here, it shows that it is not commanded by divine judgment. Wherefore also the chosen King David, when he sought the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite for building an altar to the Lord, did not wish to use that royal right of tyrants (1 Chronicles 21:24), since he would by no means consent to receive it unless he had first given a worthy price for it.

2. Since, therefore, the things contained in the law of the king are declared to be avoided rather than imitated, they must be considered all the more carefully inasmuch as they cannot be avoided if they are not known. He says, then: ‘He will take your sons and place them in his chariots.’ The sons of the elect are those who imitate their virtues. The chariots of carnal prelates, moreover, are the pomp of worldly pride. For while they glory in being more exalted than others, they stride through the heights as if carried on chariots. The sons of the faithful are therefore placed in chariots when they follow reprobate pastors through the desire for worldly glory — when, abandoning spiritual pursuits, they seek the advantages of a carnal life, and, laying aside that lofty intention directed toward heavenly things, they strive to attain the heights of the world. Fittingly, then, the sons of the Israelites are said to be placed not in a chariot but in chariots, because from everything that excels at the summit of carnal prelates, they advance in pride, and they raise themselves on high by as many lofty chariots, so to speak, as the lofty things they behold by which they consider themselves superior to others. The king, therefore, places the sons of the good in his chariots when a carnal ruler drags the imitators of the elect by the example of his own depravity into the vices of pride — so that they set aside heavenly things, seek earthly things, and rejoice in this alone: that by reason of what is temporally exalted, they are preferred above others.

3. And because against the lesser they are not only raised up but also strong, there follows: “And he will make for himself horsemen.” For they rage as if on horses, who are both exalted in rank and fierce in power. They are horsemen also because, while they direct the fierce impulses of their heart against the powerless, they are swift toward everything that they desire to carry out through tyranny. They pant with violence, they foam with rage, and those whom they attack in the course of their tyranny, they crush. But while among wicked pastors some emulate the pride of worldly arrogance, and others by their example oppress those whom they can: there are even some who, to carry out the evils that they cannot inflict upon the good by themselves, bring in others more wicked than themselves. Whence there also follows: “And the forerunners of his chariots.”

4. For what are the chariots of the king, if not the perverse minds of wicked subjects, in whose counsels the reprobate prelate finds his rest? For chariots are what carry kings: since through the wicked counsels of the depraved, the deeds of rulers are aided. In them, as it were, the king is carried on high, since through those who favor them for the sake of temporal honors, whatever carnal superiors desire from the loftiness of the world they carry out. These are rightly designated by the name of chariots. For a chariot stands firm on the very thing by which it turns: because the reprobate mind has as the end of its intention the fickleness of the world. Indeed, it finds rest in the very thing from which, through innumerable cares of a revolving mind, it does not cease to fan the affairs of the world. Therefore they are chariots of kings, since through everything lofty they think of by turning it over, they carry upon themselves the commands of carnal superiors. But those who hold a place of familiarity alongside carnal prelates have subordinates whom they may command. They themselves, therefore, are like the chariots of the king, while the others are the forerunners of the chariots; because in the same way that they convey the carnal superior to oppress the humble, they themselves too are led through the service of others to harm whomever they can. For he is, as it were, a forerunner of the chariots, who by the wicked cunning of his mind devises a stratagem by which he may introduce that one to inflict evils upon the meek. But if, as many manuscripts have it, we read not “forerunners” but “pursuers” of the chariots, they are certainly those who imitate the reprobate as they rush toward evil. A chariot is also customarily used to carry kings as a mark of honor. Therefore the king is, as it were, stationed in a chariot, when a carnal ruler glories in the flatteries of the great men who appear to be near him. But whoever precedes or follows these men in their praises is a forerunner or pursuer of the chariots, because these men utter either after or before the same flatteries that those others have scattered in the ears of the people by going ahead or following behind. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: What does it mean that the sons of the Israelites are said to be placed in the king’s chariots? The chariots of the prelates of holy Church are their devout desires. For while they fervently seek heavenly joys, they are carried aloft as if in chariots. Hence Elijah is said to have been raised to heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2:1), because indeed one who does not seek heavenly joys through lofty and fervent desires cannot be raised to them. When, therefore, good hearers begin through the examples of preachers to despise earthly things and to love eternal things, the sons of the Israelites are indeed placed in the kings’ chariots. And it should be noted that they are said both to be taken up and to be placed in chariots, because they must first be drawn away from carnal desires so that they may be properly inflamed by the fires of heavenly love. Because these earthly desires are not easily abandoned, the sons are said to be taken up. For it must happen through great violence that the chosen hearer completely abandons earthly desires and raises himself on high to heavenly things. Concerning this violence the Lord says: “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it” (Matt. 11:12). Concerning this Paul says: “No one will be crowned unless he has competed lawfully” (2 Tim. 2:5). This is also shown covertly by these words, because the sons who are taken up are said to be placed not on seats but in chariots. The ancients were indeed accustomed to fight in chariots. And he who is carried in a chariot is borne lofty and terrible against the enemy. For chosen men are all the more lofty and terrible to hidden enemies the higher they have advanced in the sublimity of interior love. They are indeed lofty because the suggestion of evil spirits does not reach up to their intention. They are also terrible because they can reject the counsels of evil spirits all the more easily the more firmly they stand in the contemplation of heavenly joy through the vigor of their innermost affection. Indeed whenever this is said to those who are still carnal, the goodness of holy warnings is shown to them. This is as if he were saying: Because you seek the role of virtue, under its discipline you cannot be free for the leisure of life. Therefore they are also said to become the king’s horsemen and pursuers of the royal chariots, tribunes and centurions. All these indeed belong to earthly warfare. Therefore when they are declared to become horsemen, pursuers of chariots, tribunes, and centurions, they are summoned to every exercise of war. They are indeed horsemen when by the power of the spirit the flowing pleasures of their flesh are restrained and they rule with great power over all enticing impulses. For he rides aloft as if on a horse who, set above his flesh through the good of chastity, free and swift, is able both to flee the enemy when he disdains him and to attack when he deigns to. Indeed through the fact that he has learned to rule well, he has received such increases of virtue that the enemy cannot withstand the charge as of a rushing horseman. And because in the strength of their virtue they follow the examples of the chosen Fathers, they are pursuers of the royal chariots. For the chariots of the king are the good examples of the chosen preacher. In them indeed he is shown both fighting and triumphing, because when we behold the holy works of the preacher, we indeed see him exalted both in the struggle of contest and in the power of triumph. But those oppressed by carnal desires can see him in his chariots but cannot pursue his chariots. For like foot soldiers on level ground they are sluggish in running, weak in battle. Therefore, that they may be able to pursue the royal chariots, let them first become horsemen, trample earthly desires, rule over their flesh, and glow white with the armor of chastity. Then indeed we can run after the chosen Fathers in spiritual battle all the more fittingly the more powerfully we strike the ranks of hidden enemies through that by which we laudably govern ourselves. But if, as many manuscripts have it, we read not “pursuers” but “forerunners,” it is not without a good meaning. A forerunner of the royal chariots is one who praises with his word the examples of the just. He certainly ought to be a horseman, because he is a worthless praiser who proclaims the lofty life and teaching of the saints which he by no means takes care to imitate with a lofty purpose. But he who knows how to set forth the life and teaching of others for the imitation of others already begins to be a master of spiritual warfare. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

John Chrysostom: And observe the wisdom of the prophet, or rather the lovingkindness of God. For because he wished to turn them from their desire, bringing together a number of difficult things he asserted what would be true of their future king, as, for instance, that he would make their wives grind at the mill, require the men to serve as shepherds and drivers of mules; for he described all the service appertaining to the kingdom in minute detail. — HOMILIES ON 2 CORINTHIANS 24.3

1 Samuel 8:12

Bede: And he will appoint for himself tribunes and centurions, etc. And from your great deeds, as if from sons born from the womb of a good conscience, the ancient corrupter will appoint others for himself to this office, as if certain tribunes to lead a hostile army against the camps of truth; others to promise the great perfection of eternal life to those who follow them as centurions; those who, sowing in the flesh, will reap corruption from the flesh; according to what Hosea says, “You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of lies” (Hosea X). Others whom the fraudulent arranger distributes to strengthen fabricators of errors with dialectical snares and worshippers of perverse doctrines against the truth. We can also perceive the plowers of the devil’s fields to be those who cultivate the hearts of the wretched with the exercise of wicked doctrine. The reapers, indeed, who, as if perfect in the smaller fruits of their hearers, lead them to the contemplation of their more secret mysteries as cleaners to the barns; this is proper to heretics, and especially is usually the invention of the Manicheans. For the sons of the rebellious people, whom we have interpreted over the diverse acts of one person, can also be referred to diverse persons, defiled by different errors but from the same adversary. — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 5. There follows: ‘And he will appoint for himself tribunes and centurions.’ Tribunes and centurions are made when they come to such an advance in evil that, for carrying out the tyrant’s commands, they take command over impious attendants, when they arrange the battle lines of worldly forces, which they lead forth to wars against the innocent. Tribunes indeed are those who, through many supporters allied to them, lay ambushes against those living uprightly. Centurions, however, are those who omit no kind of harm. For they obtain the perfection of iniquity from this: that they always strive to inflict the many and enormous evils that they can. For the centurion is named from the number one hundred. And because the number one hundred signifies perfection, it is fulfilled in an evil sense when the summit of wickedness is reached by the impious. They are indeed smooth in cunning and violent in terror. They sweetly flatter some, so that with their help they may fiercely terrify others. And so there rightly follows: ‘And the plowmen of his fields, and the reapers of his harvests.’

6. The fields of the carnal ruler are the minds of his subjects; and the plowmen of these fields are those who, by the craft of worldly cunning, persuade them to acts of wickedness. For they open up, as it were, the firmness of the fields by speaking, those who through wicked counsels corrupt the hearts of the simple. And they reap the crops when, by the seed of evil counsel, the deceived hearts of the lesser ones yield the fruit of wicked works. Which works are indeed designated by the name of crops: because the perversity of the wicked subject, when it is joyfully received by carnal rulers, is, as it were, the choice food of their mind. In which perversity, because they advance little by little, there follows: “And makers of his weapons and of his chariots.” What are the weapons and chariots of tyrants, if not all those instruments of harm that are prepared for overthrowing the hearts of the lesser ones? But because by the chariot one arrives where one may strike with weapons, they become makers of the king’s weapons and chariots when, by the most wicked machination of their hearts, they devise both the evils they should commit and the manner in which to inflict those same devised evils. For to forge weapons is to gather up kinds of harm with a wicked mind. And to forge chariots is to find the craft by which they can approach to inflict those same evils. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: They are tribunes when they begin; centurions when they are perfected in spiritual teaching. For indeed, as we said above, a centurion is so called from the number one hundred. Tribunes can also be understood as spiritual men, simple in knowledge, but inflamed with love of God and neighbor. Although they do not know how to speak of lofty and spiritual things, nevertheless through the examples of the elect, which they know, they strive to kindle those whom they can to the love of the Creator. A tribe is indeed called a kinship, or an assembly. If therefore tribunes are so called from “tribe,” those who bring forth the examples of the saints for the advancement of their neighbors are named tribunes. They come as an assembly, as it were, to destroy our rusticity, when they set before us those things by which holy men pleased almighty God. And when they set forth the particular virtues of very many saints, they open to us, as it were, the nobility of spiritual kinships. Centurions, therefore, can be understood as more perfect men, who, while they advance well under the teaching of preachers, become their hearers and co-workers. Concerning whom the Lord indeed says in the Gospel: “Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder, who brings forth from his treasure things new and old” (Matt. 13:52). Such men indeed are not only outstanding in action, but also learned in the knowledge of God’s word. Hence they can exhort their neighbors to the struggle of spiritual warfare all the more usefully, inasmuch as they demonstrate in the work of virtue the lofty things which they know how to preach. They have words in their learning, and they have works as examples for the simple: so that the wise may understand the lofty things they speak, and those who do not perceive the secrets of words in their depths may imitate the works which they see outwardly. They are therefore appointed centurions when, by the perfection of virtue, they obtain the summit of dignity: so that they may live sublimely, and the more loftily they live, the more usefully they may teach.

But those who are centurions, when they have arranged the times of war, ought to advance: so that they may be recognized as bearing fruit in peacetime as well. After the tribunes, therefore, the centurions become plowers of fields and reapers of crops; so that they may open the hearts of the now-victorious with the plowshare of exhortation, from which they may reap more abundantly the wheat of good works. As if now indeed plowing in peace, they rouse to the practice of works of piety those hearts that had conquered spiritual assaults. And they reap the harvests when they rejoice that chosen works have sprung forth from the seed of the divine word which they had scattered in the hearts of their hearers. For just as they reap wheat from a field with sickles, so through the embrace of charity they receive from heavenly conversation that by which they may be satisfied with inner devotion.

But as long as we live in this life, we possess nothing in peace. For since the ancient enemy always opposes those who act well, it is necessary that we always defend the things we do well. Wherefore they are also rightly said to become, after being plowers of fields and reapers of crops, makers of arms and chariots of the king. They make arms and chariots so that they may defend those very fields which they cultivate and those crops which they reap. They make a chariot so that they may be swift to meet adversaries, and arms so that they may be powerful. They mount the chariot so that with great force they may crush the camps of demons, and they carry arms so that they may destroy those whom they attack. In this lofty height of the chariot stood he who said: “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). Whence also, now secure, he who appeared superior to all his enemies, affirming, said: “No creature shall be able to separate us from the love of Christ” (Rom. 8:39). But he who had mounted the chariot held arms; whence he also explains, saying: “But I so run, not as uncertainly; so I fight, not as one beating the air, but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection” (1 Cor. 9:26, 27). What then is more rightly expressed by this chariot than the loftiness of right intention? To make a chariot, therefore, is to raise up the height of right intention in the minds of hearers. For those who obtain the ministry of preaching through the examples of their betters make chariots after the labor of plowing and reaping, when they teach their well-doing subjects that from all the good works they do, they should await only the rewards of eternal recompense. Indeed, to despise earthly things, to desire nothing transitory, to love eternal things, and to hasten toward them with great desires, is already to preside over a lofty chariot. Of which chariots indeed it is said through the Psalmist: “The chariot of God is multiplied ten thousandfold, thousands of those rejoicing; the Lord ascends in them” (Ps. 67:18). But their arms are keen counsels, by which they strike their enemies the more powerfully as they more quickly detect their cunning. Whence also that powerful one spoke as if armed: “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11). He was also making arms when he said: “And the shield of faith, with which you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the most wicked one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:16, 17). The elect, placed in those chariots and arms, are indeed swift and powerful. Swift indeed, because while they desire spiritual things, they detect spiritual wickedness in a moment. And they are powerful, because while they more ardently desire the highest things, whatever is suggested to them from the lowest love of the world, they count as nothing; and like chariots carried by their weight, they have great force against enemies, who, filled with holy virtues and keen counsels, destroy in a moment all the temptations that are brought against them. Nor is it without meaning in this regard that a chariot, while it rolls along the ground, both lifts the lower part upward and brings the upper part downward. So indeed also the right intention of holy men, while from the earthly things it does it expects heavenly things, as it were directs upward the part that it drags along the ground. And because it humbles itself before the Creator both for its good work and for its expectation of eternal recompense, it as it were plunges toward the earth the part that it lifts upward. Our chariot indeed revolves unceasingly on its wheels, if from good work we always aim at eternal things, and from every height of our advancement we take care to be humble. These arms and chariots are indeed the king’s when they are seen to differ in no way from the pattern and teaching of the preachers of holy Church. The elect preachers therefore make chariots and arms when they teach their hearers to hasten toward the heavenly homeland, both by the rectitude of intention and by the fortification of virtue. But there is nothing to prevent us from understanding all these things, which we have shown in the advancement of one person, as distributed individually among many. We have shown indeed that the elect, advancing through the degrees of virtues, are first placed in chariots, then appointed as horsemen and runners before the royal chariots, established as tribunes, centurions, plowers, and reapers, and finally become makers of arms. But because holy Church makes use of the diverse ministries of the elect, whoever wishes may attribute individual gifts of graces to individual orders, so that each of these may be proper to those who are more closely joined to their respective dispositions. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:13

Bede: He will also make your daughters his ointment-makers, etc. He will make your synagogues, or the souls of the deceived, or certainly thoughts once free from pure chastity, to favor his depraved iniquities with wicked flattery; the prophet who abhors this worst kind of ointment prays: “But let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head” (Psalms 140). Contrary to this is the ointment-maker of the good king, Mary Magdalene, who says: “While the king was on his couch, my spikenard gave forth its fragrance” (Song of Songs 1). He will also make those who serve his furnace of vices: about which the prophet testifies, “All of them adulterers, like an oven their hearts” (Hosea 7). Contrary to this is the furnace of heavenly love, of which those who have received the word of truth say to one another: “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, and explaining the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24). He will also make bread-makers, who call those madmen to the abominable feasts of heresies, saying: “Eat bread in secret with pleasure: stolen waters are sweeter, and hidden bread more delightful” (Proverbs 9:17). Concerning which bread, it is also said elsewhere: “Sweet to a man is the bread of lies, but afterwards his mouth will be filled with gravel” (Proverbs 20:17). Contrary to this is the bread of truth, which strengthens the heart of man. Of which knowledge, because neither flesh nor blood shall reveal, but the Father who is in heaven: rightly it is sung under the figure of a strong woman of the Church, “She is like the ships of the merchant, bringing her bread from afar” (Proverbs 31). — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 7. There follows: He will also make your daughters perfumers, and cooks, and bakers. By the name of daughters, the weak minds placed within holy Church are designated. These become the king’s perfumers: because when they behold carnal rulers in the height of passing glory, they endeavor to soothe them with flatteries. The Psalmist, indeed rejecting the use of these ointments, says: Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head (Psalms 141:5). The daughters therefore become perfumers: because when the weak fear to displease carnal rulers, they soften with blandishment the ferocity to which they are subject through fear. And it should be noted that the sons are said first to be taken by the king, and then made horsemen and centurions or makers of arms: but the daughters are not said to be taken, but simply to be made perfumers and bakers. For to be taken implies violence. The sons therefore are taken, because the strong are overthrown with difficulty. When therefore the daughters are said not to be taken but to be made perfumers, what else does this mean except that those who are weak in goodness are easily scattered by the examples of the wicked? They also become the king’s cooks and bakers: because those who serve tyrants by flattering them, while they please them by showing favor, offer them food as it were. For the cooks are those who cook at the hearth what kings eat. They are therefore cooks who, through services of favor, kindle the swelling of pride in the carnal ruler’s heart: so that he receives flatteries all the more boldly, inasmuch as they prepare for him, as it were, more delicate foods by the fire of aroused devotion. They also become bakers: because when they praise a reprobate life, they strengthen the carnal mind of the tyrant to practice wickedness. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: What then is the meaning of what he adds: that the daughters of the Israelites would become perfumers, cooks, and bakers? But by the term “daughters” sometimes weakness is signified, sometimes fruitfulness. Who then are the daughters of the Israelites, if not chosen souls, prepared for the conception of the divine Word? They become the king’s perfumers: because as they advance through the instruction of their preacher, they receive within themselves the abundant grace of the Holy Spirit, through which they can wholesomely heal the brokenhearted. They also become cooks: because while they are filled with the fervor of the Holy Spirit, by their example they kindle the hearts of their neighbors to love of the Creator. They become bakers, when they restore chosen souls with the nourishment of the Word of God. The daughters therefore become perfumers when they heal the wounds of sinners. Cooks, when they set ablaze hearts purged from the filth of sins toward the pursuit of good works by the example of their virtue. And they are bakers when, to those advancing through their examples, they no longer set forth examples, but bring forth words of deep knowledge; so that, fed as it were with solid food, they may act all the more strongly, inasmuch as, now spiritually instructed, they more fervently desire eternal things. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:14

Bede: He will also take your fields and vineyards, etc. Also taking from you the most abundant stores of your spiritual virtues, and the fruits of fervent love, not to mention the sweetest gifts of shining mercy, he will subject them rather to the pleasures of unclean spirits. — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 8. There follows: “He will also take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants.” What are the fields of good men, if not the devoted minds of their subjects? For while they willingly hear their words, they yield an abundant fruit of good works. And what are their vineyards, if not the minds of those who so advance by imitating the proficient that they even offer the word of life to others, and those whom they set ablaze by speaking into love of the Creator, they make drunk, as it were, by giving them drink? And what are the olive groves, if not the hearts of listeners who, by the example and exhortation of good men, advance in the work of mercy? But when a king is established, the fields are taken away: because when carnal men reach the height of governance, some of the good listeners take up examples of wickedness. The fields are therefore taken away when recently devoted hearts are led astray, when from the seed of wickedness they yield fruit in evil conduct. The olive groves and vineyards are taken away when, by the example of a wicked superior, works of mercy and the words of holy preaching that ought to be displayed and spoken are abandoned. And rightly it is recorded that the taken fields, vineyards, and olive groves are given to the king’s servants. For servants are those who, always subject to the authority of their masters, cannot escape the yoke of domination. The servants of the king, therefore, are those who through abundant iniquity so bind themselves to the wills of tyrants that they no longer depart from them. The servants therefore receive the taken fields, vineyards, and olive groves: because the reprobate supporters of carnal prelates, when they transfer deceived hearts to the purpose of wicked work, impose the title of tyrannical power, as it were, upon the fields, vineyards, and olive groves of the elect. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: What are the fields, what are the vineyards, what are the olive groves that are taken from us by the right of rulers? But the holy preachers, when they speak for the correction of sinners, rebuke the pleasures of the flesh, the lusts of the mind, and the pretenses of good works. For if the pleasures of the flesh were not the fields of wicked possession, the Apostle would never say: “He who sows in the flesh, from the flesh shall reap corruption” (Gal. 6:8). To sow in the flesh, indeed, is to bury the purpose of the mind in the pleasures of the body. And they truly reap corruption from the flesh, because in the resurrection of the elect they shall in no way receive the renewal of eternal incorruption. By the name of vineyards, the lusts of the mind are also rightly represented, because they intoxicate the hearts of the reprobate and estrange them from the knowledge of truth. Criticizing the fruit of this vine, Moses says: “Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the suburbs of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, and their cluster most bitter” (Deut. 32:32). For he draws his vine from the vineyard of Sodom and his shoot from Gomorrah, who fills his mind with the most abominable lusts. For he makes, as it were, a vineyard, who thereby forgets eternal things, by which he is also intoxicated through lusts; and he who refreshes himself as if under the shade of a vineyard and the pleasantness of depraved delight, prepares for himself the retribution of eternal fire. Hence, most fittingly setting forth the fruit of that same vineyard, he called it a grape of gall and a cluster of bitterness. For the grape is pleasing to the sight but gall to the taste — delighting the eye, embittering the palate — because indeed what it lusts after greatly pleases the reprobate mind, but in eternal punishment what is now sweet to it turns bitter. The king, therefore, takes away our fields when the chosen preacher by his words removes the joyful impulses of our flesh in its delight. He takes away the vineyards when he utterly cuts off the intoxicating lusts from our heart. He also takes away the olive groves when he rebukes the works of false mercy, when by rightly exhorting he suggests that there is no merit in a work unless it proceeds from the purpose of a good intention.

But it must be earnestly inquired why these things are said to be given to the servants of the king. For if these things are justly taken from us, who will there be to whom they may not be unworthily assigned? Yet if we examine this more carefully, we find that our holy preachers are great in their dominions. Who then are these servants, if not those of whose head the Lord says to blessed Job: “Will you take him as a servant forever?” (Job 40:23) For evil spirits are the servants of holy men — in this life perpetual servants, and in the next life eternal servants. For daily they bring about that by which holy men are crowned. For since from the battle of this life the victory of eternal glory is granted to us, those who renew against us those wars by which we are led to eternal rest assuredly render us great services. They are also the servants of the victors, as the Truth testifies: “By whom a man is overcome, of the same he is made a servant” (2 Peter 2:19). For while they stir up battles against those who will be victorious, they serve those who are thereby crowned, inasmuch as these for a time valiantly withstand their attacks. But because what advances the glory of the saints increases for evil spirits as an addition to their damnation, the fields, vineyards, and olive groves that are taken away are assigned to the servants. Indeed, demons will be punished with eternal punishment for all their wickedness. In the encounter of the hidden contest, when the elect conquer, they assign the evils which they repel to their enemies: because the former are tested as gold in the furnace (Wisdom 3:6), while the latter are punished for their wicked suggestion. Therefore the servants receive the fields, vineyards, and olive groves: because when sinners return to life through the preaching of teachers, this also contributes to the heap of damnation for the demons — that the penitent were held so long in past sin by their deceit. These things are also given to the servants when sinners, converted to the Lord through the office of the preacher, recognize that they were held in love of their past crimes by the deceit of demons. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:15

Bede: But he will also tithe your fields and the incomes of your vineyards, etc. But the ancient corrupter will wholly deprive you of your works, almost brought to the perfection of nature, and the hope of all your life with heavenly reward, which is signified by the number ten, so that he may restore the insatiable desires of those wicked spirits serving him, whom, once stripped of angelic virtue, he made to hunger for human destruction, by the damage of these things. — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: There follows: “But he will also tithe your crops and the revenues of your vineyards, to give to his eunuchs and his servants.” When the wicked are in charge, it is very difficult that one who is subject to them should suffer no losses to his religion. For the minds of some perish entirely: but those whom they cannot completely pervert, while they unceasingly observe their wicked words and deeds, are stained with some sort of defilement. Rightly therefore it is said: “He will tithe your crops and the revenues of your vineyards.” As if to say: Under a reprobate pastor, even the goods of the elect are not whole. But what is taken from the good is given to the eunuchs and servants of the king. The eunuchs and servants of carnal prelates are their hypocritical listeners. They are eunuchs indeed because they show themselves to have cast off worldly pleasure: but they are the king’s servants because through everything they pretend to have of virtues, they bear upon themselves the yoke of their reprobate superiors. And rightly the tithe of the crops and vineyards is said to belong to the eunuchs: because the poison of hypocrites is not easily recognized. Inasmuch as even holy men can be deceived in this, what they lose is ascribed to those by whose fraud they are captured. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: But what does it mean that the crops and the returns of the vineyards are said to be tithed and given to the eunuchs and servants of the king? The crops of the elect are tithed when we gather their most excellent works so that we may bring them forth as an example for the faithful. For there was only one who had in himself the fullness of all virtues, into whom all the fullness of the Godhead poured itself bodily (Col. 1:19). But we, because we have all received from his fullness, possess the gifts of graces in divided portions. Hence Paul says: “To one indeed is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of speeches, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the working of powers, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits” (1 Cor. 12:8). By the number ten, because it is perfect, we tithe the virtues when we gather the gifts of individual elect persons for the lesser ones to imitate. For it is written of Moses: “He was the meekest of all men on earth” (Num. 12:3). Of Abraham also it is said: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). When therefore we wish to imitate gentleness together with faith, it is necessary that from the example of Moses and Abraham, as from choice crops, food be tithed for the refreshment of our mind. Just so, just so indeed, preachers bring forth the chastity of Joseph (Gen. 39:8), the patience of Job (Job 1:21), the zeal of Phinehas (Num. 25:7) as an example for us: because when they display the virtues of the perfect, they gather, as it were, the tithes of choice harvests, which they may set before those who are making good progress. Hence also it is rightly said that these same tithes of the fruits are given to the eunuchs and servants. Eunuchs, indeed, are those who by strength of soul have crushed in themselves all the fuel of lust. Of whom the Lord certainly says in the Gospel: “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12). Servants are those who still serve under another’s care in the pursuits of the active life and cannot yet go forth free to the heights of charity. These are also found in Moses to owe six years of service to their masters (Exod. 21:2), so that in the seventh they may go forth free: because indeed they must first be perfected in works so that they may be able to go forth in due order into the summit of contemplation. The teacher therefore assigns the tithes of the harvests to the eunuch-servants when those who obey him in the splendor of chastity follow the chosen works of the great ones. He also assigns the tithes of the vineyards when he shows them with what wondrous charity our Fathers loved God and neighbor, so that they too may strive to be filled with the same abundance of charity, and as though inebriated and forgetful of things past, may love only the things to come, and not fail to run fervently toward them. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:16

Gregory the Dialogist: There follows: “He will also take your male servants and female servants, and your best young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work.” The male and female servants of the saints are those who supply them with temporal necessities. They are male and female servants because, while they provide them with bodily necessities, in this same work of mercy some are stronger than others. And the best young men: because both those who can do much and those who can do little, when they expend all that they are able in the work of mercy, like chosen young men, they powerfully carry out divine services. The donkeys of the elect are also those upon whom the burdens of obedience to be borne are imposed, so that they may help their frailty by bearing with them what they could by no means bear without them. But what does it mean that they are foretold to be put to the king’s work? Those who are put to the king’s work fulfill on appointed days the debt of compulsory labor owed to the authority of the public power. What then does it mean that the male and female servants and the best young men are foretold to be put to the king’s work, except that when carnal men are in authority, both the ministers of the elect and the hearts of those who devoutly obey are frequently stained? For while they unceasingly behold their reprobate life, they gradually decline so far as to imitate something of their deeds. Through long custom indeed they serve the elect; but since they often see the eminence of their high position, they sometimes desire to be served by others through the impulse of pride. They also give their own possessions mercifully, but often by the example of tyrants they take what belongs to others. But because they are servants of the saints, they cannot depart from their authority. They can indeed be abandoned for a time, but from the error into which they fall, they are easily raised up through divine mercy. Because therefore those who quickly come to their senses fall through the examples of the wicked, they are put to the king’s work as if by compulsory labor: in which they do not long remain through continuous servitude. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: After all these things, the servants and maidservants of the Israelites, the best young men, are declared to be taken away and put to the king’s work. Who are the servants of the carnal, except those who, by the example of the wicked, have been so corrupted by long habit that they seem to have perpetually subjected the necks of their minds under the yoke of most wicked imitation? Their servants, therefore, are taken away when, by the zeal of chosen preachers, even those abandon their sins who seemed to be vehemently subjected to the reprobate imitation of the carnal. They are also called the best young men. They are young, indeed, because they are strong in evil; they are also called the best because they are more wicked than the rest of sinners. To whom, of course, it is said through the prophet: “Woe to you who are mighty at drinking wine, and men of strength at mixing drunkenness” (Isaiah 5:22). They drink wine, indeed, who by deliberation of mind recklessly take in the heat of concupiscence, and they mix drunkenness, because while they are inflamed by the fires of their lusts, they know not how to return to the ways of righteousness, their reason being lost. They are mighty and strong both at drinking and at mixing drunkenness, so that on account of their fervent devotion to evil they are shown to be, as it were, the best servants. These best young men the divine word likewise points out when it describes the greed of the devil, saying: “His food is choice” (Habakkuk 1:16). For the ancient enemy is greatly refreshed by the wickedness of those who are more wicked than the most wicked.

By the name of maidservants, that most wicked condition of sinners is designated—those who through iniquity are exceedingly depraved and furnish examples of wickedness to others. For like maidservants they bear slaves, since they are not only workers of great iniquity but also mothers of it. But because through the preaching of the saints even such people are converted, who afterward render great services to almighty God, the servants and maidservants are fittingly said to be taken away and placed in the work of the king. Did not the King of kings then take a maidservant when He said of that great sinful woman: “Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much” (Luke 7:47)? And He placed her in His work when He entered the village and she received Him in her house (Luke 10:38). He also placed her in His work because, rising from the dead, He entrusted to her the proclamation of His resurrection (Mark 16:7). He also took a servant when He called Matthew from the profit of the tax booth to follow Him. He placed him too in His work, because Matthew provided a banquet for Him in his house and He made him a preacher to Ethiopia, an Evangelist of the converted world (Matt. 9:9; Mark 1:14; Luke 5:27). Therefore, because through the ministry of preachers even those return to the Lord of whose salvation human thought could have despaired, the servants and maidservants and finest young men are fittingly described as being placed in the work of the king.

By the name of male and female servants, the movements of the heart and its affections can be understood. For when they suggest wicked things to us, they are male servants; when the affections of the mind desire to submit themselves to the suggestions of depraved impulses, they are female servants. Then indeed it is necessary that we master both through the rigor of our resolve. Preachers take away our male and female servants when they instruct the movements of our hearts and affections as to how they should be directed toward the service of God. They place them in the work of the king when we now exercise that very service of almighty God which we learned through their instruction. Moreover, what is more fittingly represented by donkeys than the lustful movements of the soul? They are placed in the work of the king when that mind which was accustomed to be moved to lasciviousness by depraved thoughts profits from the preaching of the teacher and directs its affections toward the desire of imitating chastity. By the name of male servants, female servants, and donkeys can be designated those who vigorously render bodily service to worldly men. But they are placed in the work of the king, because once converted to the service of almighty God, they endure spiritual labors all the more devoutly for eternal recompense, the more clearly they recognize that they had been enduring great things without fruit. The king is also said to tithe the flocks, because whoever desires to please almighty God must be clean through innocence and intent upon the pursuit of good works. By the former he is a good tree; by the latter he also bears fruit. Since indeed we employ many things in order to preserve innocence and to be able to perform good works, these very crowds of innocent thoughts are our flocks. What then does it mean that they are tithed, except that the subtlety of thoughts is not easily discerned? For often we think we are thinking good things which, when carefully examined, are not good. Therefore the flocks must be tithed, so that only what is contained in the number ten belongs to the king’s right. This is rightly accomplished in us when, through the instruction of our preachers, we learn to be perfect not only in the performance of works but also in the examination of thought. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:17

Bede: Your male and female servants also, etc. Even the improper motions of mind or flesh, for example, anger, jealousy, gluttony, lust, and other such things, which must be restrained and curbed by the discipline of wise men; but even the other duties of right intention, the cruel deceiver will instead claim for his own jurisdiction, and in the rich flocks of virtues, in which you have long served in vain, lacking the perfection of ten, the enemy himself will receive the palm of pasture in the end. Thus, you will finally bewail yourselves made servants under the adversary, whom it had previously wearied you to live as free under the Lord. — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 9. There follows: “He will also tithe your flocks, and you shall be his servants.” As if to say: When a carnal pastor is placed over you, plunder of virtues is inflicted not only upon your possessions, but also upon yourselves. For the flocks of the elect are the multitudes of spiritual virtues. But since these very spiritual virtues are scattered by the example of the wicked, the king takes tithes of the flock when he who rules carnally destroys certain virtues in the hearts of the saints. He takes tithes: because while he scatters the integrity of the mind, he leaves the number of virtues incomplete. For perfection is signified by the number ten. Hence also, when the Lord showed the losses of our fallen humanity by an open comparison, He brought forward the woman who had lost one of ten drachmas (Luke 15:4 ff.); so that by this, because the number ten is shown to have been diminished, that heavenly fellowship which remained in the angels at the number nine might be taught to be imperfect without the restoration of our condition. And because tithes are exacted each year, those who do not cease to offer tithes are fittingly said to be servants of the king. For they serve each year those by whose example they often become worse. It can also be shown through this—that after the tithes are given, this servitude is asserted—as an evil progression. For those who gradually fail act daily in such a way that they are led to the depths of iniquity. He says therefore: “He will tithe your flocks, and you shall be his servants.” As if to say: By the example of the wicked you will gradually fall away, but in falling you act so that you never withdraw from imitating them. For it is written: “By whom a person is overcome, of him he is made a servant” (2 Peter 2:19). Because indeed through imitating a reprobate pastor they fall into the servitude of sin, they cannot be freed from his yoke even when they wish. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: So that, namely, they may know themselves to be subject to his authority in such a way that they dare not transgress his commands. The Lord indeed wished to establish this royal dominion when He said: “Whatever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19). This power also He demanded from His subjects, who said: “If anyone shall preach to you a gospel other than what I have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8). Likewise the Lord, sending His disciples to preach, says: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who despises you, despises me” (Luke 10:16). Hence concerning the preachers of Judea the Lord says to those same disciples: “Whatever they shall tell you, do” (Matt. 23:3). We are therefore servants of our kings, when we are so subjected to the authority of our prelates that we presume to do nothing apart from their authority. Since, therefore, those who strengthen their virtues in the power of obedience are set over them, at the end of the royal law it is said: “And you shall be his servants” — so that faithful subjects may then also recognize that they ought to be subject to the command of their preachers, when through the advancement of virtues they are led to the heights of perfection. The Truth itself also taught this to the disciples in these very words, saying: “When you have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants” (Luke 17:10). — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:18

Bede: And you will cry out on that day from the face of your king, etc. This prophecy is clear, and until today, it continues to be fulfilled among the Jews; who, as it is written in the seventeenth Psalm: They will cry (and there is no one to save them) to the Lord, and He did not hear them. To whom the Lord says: I will not hear your prayers. For your hands are full of blood (Isa. I). Namely, the blood that they were calling down upon themselves in the choice of this wicked king by saying: His blood be upon us, and upon our children (Matt. XXVII). Let them wash this off with the water of baptism, and they will cry out to the Lord from their tribulation, and He will deliver them from their necessities (Psalm CVI). Otherwise, they hear from the apostle James: You ask, and do not receive, because you ask wrongly (Acts IV). But even in the moral understanding, vices are difficult and conquered late, which for a long time lying down willingly, and voluntarily casting themselves down, had oppressed. — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: Hence it is also added: (Verse 18.) “And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day: because you asked for yourselves a king.”

10. As if to say, you are gradually slipping into the knowledge of his wicked imitation; but the examples of his wickedness, to which you willingly submit yourselves, you are utterly unable to willingly abandon. For everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34). Those, therefore, over whom sins hold dominion cannot be freed from their yoke by themselves. For often they come to the Lord with prayers, they ask to be freed, but they cannot be heard. For by divine judgment it is dealt with them such that those who were unwilling to avoid evils when they could, are unable to avoid them when they will; and those who willingly rushed into evils foreknown cannot flee from them once experienced. Therefore, also indicating the reason why they are prevented from being heard, he says: “Because you asked for yourselves a king.” As if he were openly saying: Because you demanded that be given to you in which, by my foretelling, you knew all these things would come to pass. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: Nevertheless, because He was speaking these things to carnal men, He added, saying: “And you will cry out on that day before the face of the king, and the Lord will not hear you on that day, because you asked for yourselves a king.”

Those who had asked for a king cry out from the face of the king, when those who had vowed to lead a spiritual life under a good ruler attempt to abandon the labors of that same life. Indeed, all are recognized by their face. Therefore the face of the king is the known manner of life and teaching of a good preacher. Because they do hard and harsh things for the sake of eternal life and command hard things, their carnal subjects strive not to imitate but to flee from their life and doctrine. For those who had asked for a king, whose appearance they did not know, then see the face of the king; because they consider how laborious is the strictness of the heavenly journey in their superior, which they had desired as if it were an easy thing before they knew it. Then those who had asked for a king cry out from the face of the king; because while they are unwilling to abandon the habit of carnal life, they strive to escape the praiseworthy imitation of the excellent pastor whom they had wanted to be set over them. And because with a blind heart they cannot see the light, they cry out to the Lord, that is, they beseech the Lord that they might escape the spiritual yoke of God. But the Lord does not hear them on that day. What is that day on which the reprobate subjects beseech the Lord, if not the pursuit of vain prosperity? They are not heard; because indeed it never happens through divine grace that subjection once promised to good rulers can freely go out to the pleasures of the world. Therefore he also added the reason, saying: “Because you asked for yourselves a king.”

As if to say: The promised subjection to spiritual pastors is indissoluble. You ask for a king easily enough, but because royal authority is burdensome, you cannot easily escape their power. Because we say this with regard to the historical sense, we think it should be noted that almighty God, while foretelling the rights of a king, bestows upon religious superiors a pattern of governance. Why? So that those who command the most strict way of life should not easily grant entrance to newcomers. For this reason also the best teacher of that most strict life, a disciple well-trained by the highest Truth, commands, saying: “Test the spirits, whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). And likewise: “Let the hard and difficult things through which one goes to God be announced to him, so that he may know what he is entering into.” The Lord therefore proclaims the rights of a king — let him speak, let him know all things, what sort of carnal persons will exist under his rule — and so that the weak may not easily approach the life of virtue, strong superiors should by no means easily accept the weak. For swiftness of conversion most often arises from rashness of counsel, not from growth of devotion. For when the weak promise strong things, it is not a proven strength of soul but a confusion of discernment. The wise man admonishes all such persons under a single designation when he says: “Do not lift a burden above yourself.” Therefore those who preside over others in the strong resolution of the regular life ought to receive converts to that same life with all the more discernment, inasmuch as it is all the more useful to know beforehand whether the petition of those approaching comes from strength of soul or from rashness of will. For those who are fickle in their actions are accustomed to eagerly desire the harshness of the spiritual life, so that they may appear to desire what they seek with great strength of soul. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:19

Bede: But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, etc. This obstinacy of the disobedient people asking for a king instead of the Lord does not only pertain to the time of proclaimed grace, but also before the celebrated mysteries of the Lord’s incarnation. It occupied the Synagogue, indeed nearly the entire human race, from the first parent, when he put the words of the serpent before God. For always the obstinate ones endeavor to place their free will’s decision before the governance of divine grace. But the good children of the Father, supplicating in spirit, do not say ‘our kingdom’ or ‘our will’; rather, they say, ‘Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6). — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: 10. It was indeed a matter of great rashness to ask for a king against God’s will; of great hardness, to be unable to be overcome by the counsels of the prophet. It was of great rashness to put forth arguments to him whom they knew, by the Lord’s revelation, to know beforehand all that he was about to do. Of great hardness, not to yield to him whom they knew to command only those things which he had learned by the Lord’s revelation. For what is it that they say in response: “By no means, but a king shall be over us”? But those who say “By no means” surely deny what they hear. It is therefore openly shown by this word that the prophet set forth the heavy right of the king for this purpose: that he should by no means be requested. But they hear the right of the king, and they detest the very purpose for which it is set forth—so that the progress of reprobate hearts is expressed, in which there is the consummation of an evil purpose and the unconvertibility of the will. But we blame ancient times, we who do not care to see our own. Which times, indeed, the more aged they are as the world grows old, the more lax they become in many things through the fault of time and negligence. For so much the more boldly do we now propose evil things, inasmuch as already, with the vigorous youth of the age, the strength of the human condition has withered; so much the more difficultly do we recall what has been badly proposed, inasmuch as from the loosened vigor of the spirit, our mind becomes carnal. For such are human failings, that what is lacking in spiritual virtue is strengthened in carnal life. All these things indeed, according to the voice of the excellent teacher: “These things happened to them in figure, but they were written for our sake” (1 Cor. 10:11). Already indeed we openly recognize the audacity of these Israelites, which the judgments of divine indignation followed; and yet we do not fear to propose courses of action against the will of God, against the counsel of the prelates of Holy Church. When rebuked in an evil purpose, we also resist, and we attempt to overcome the salutary counsels of our superiors by the unconquerable evil of obstinacy. We see how great an increase of evil it is to behold those who perish, and not to fear to follow their footsteps to perdition; to see those running into the penal snares of death, and by no means to dread being entangled in the same snares. And they indeed asked for a king against the Lord’s will; but from the royal dignity it afterward came about that the people, who had cast God aside, worshipped idols and adored images. We therefore see how worthy of reverence the counsels of our elders are, if we carefully consider this: that those who dared to despise them did not foresee that they were doing that by which they could be plunged into so deep a sea of error. Rightly therefore does the Lord complain that He was rejected in the petition for a king; rightly does He grant the royal dignity in anger. So great indeed was the iniquity of those asking, that when they sought that through which they would depart from God, it could be permitted by God’s judgment but could not be prohibited. But since we have said these things according to the letter, let us also see what those things which are contained in the right of the king signify spiritually. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 1

Gregory the Dialogist: These things, as I said above, are foretold in the type of carnal prelates concerning the future conduct of the king: so that they might desist from petitioning for him in whom they had recognized such great evils. But it is the nature of the hearts of the reprobate that they quickly propose evil and do not more quickly come to their senses from an evil purpose. Therefore it is also added: (Verses 19, 20.) But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said: “By no means! For a king shall be over us, and we also shall be like all the nations, and our king shall judge us, and shall go out before us, and shall fight our battles for us.”

11. By these words indeed the morals of carnal subjects are openly described: because while they seek after outward things, they do not attend to inner losses even when these are set before them. But those who rule carnally, by the very display of temporal power, give their lesser subjects great hope of protection. Therefore when they say, “A king shall be over us, and he shall fight our battles for us,” what else do they suggest but the morals of reprobate subjects, who despise humble and spiritual preachers in order to be helped temporally by carnal men? This they would certainly never do, had they not first lost the light of the heart. For if they outwardly despise the humility of spiritual men, they do not deserve to discern by what sublimity of power these inwardly excel; in those others too they see the outward tyranny of power, but they do not see by what weakness he is inwardly oppressed. The former, because they cling to God, are powerful even in outward things when they wish; the latter, who depart from the Lord, cannot fulfill by strength of action the hope they promise from secular power. For, to take examples from nearby, Saul was chosen as king for those requesting one to fight their battles — strong and powerful, so that, as this sacred history testifies (1 Kings 9:2), he stood above all the people from the shoulder and upward. Chosen therefore by God to govern the kingdom, when he was good and no one among the sons of Israel was better than he, nevertheless, when so great and such a man was left to carnal strength, he lost the battles he had undertaken to fight, and lost his life as well (1 Kings 31:1). But Samuel, who was not exalted by the power of the world, who humbly ministered not only to God but also to men, powerfully displayed trophies from outward wars as well. For was it not said of him just above: “Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord, and Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord heard him. And it came to pass, while Samuel was offering the burnt offering to the Lord, the Philistines began battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a great crash on that day upon the Philistines and terrified them, and the Philistines were struck down by the sons of Israel” (1 Kings 7:9, 10). Let him therefore say: “The people refused to hear the voice of Samuel,” so that in their disobedience the hearts of the proud may be designated, so cast off by the judgment of divine equity that great evils threaten which they are about to incur — yet they cannot see them. There follows: (Verse 21.) “And Samuel heard all the words of the people.” — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

1 Samuel 8:21

Gregory the Dialogist: 12. Samuel indeed heard what the people had spoken, but the people themselves did not hear him. For the reprobate people to speak and not to hear was to utter words against the will of God, yet not at all to foresee the punishment for their wicked speech. But Samuel heard the words of the people, because spiritual men, when they hear the voices of proud speech, recognize the future desert of divine vengeance upon them. Let him say therefore: Samuel heard all the words of the people, because holy and spiritual men, whatever carnal people proudly sound forth outwardly, weigh inwardly what it amounts to in the divine judgment. But because, when they discover the damnable life of their carnal subjects, they intercede for the blotting out of their crimes, there follows: (Verse 21.) And he spoke them in the ears of the Lord. We speak in the ears of those with whom we have the grace of great intimacy. But holy men, because they are joined to almighty God in the bond of great love, speak in His ears, because they seek the hearing of His divine propitiation with all the more confidence, the more sublimely they have received a place of obtaining favor before His mercy. They speak the sins of the people indeed for the humility of confession, but they speak in the ears of the Lord, because with great affection they knock at the door of the Lord’s propitiation through prayer. But perhaps he is said to speak in the ears of the Lord because, when holy men beseech on behalf of sinners, they do not reveal to men the prayers they offer to God for them. Whence also in the Gospel the Lord forbids the disciples, saying: When you pray, do not be like the sad hypocrites, who love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, so that they may be seen by men (Matt. 6:5). They speak therefore the words or deeds of the people, when they set before the Lord the offenses of speech and action that must be blotted out by prayers. But they speak these things in the ears of the Lord, so that while they flee the testimony of men when praying, they may be heard more swiftly by Him who regards what is hidden. Therefore, when Samuel is reported to speak in the ears of the Lord, he surely suggests the manner by which one may deserve the hearing of divine favor. For a prayer can by no means reach God which is brought forth with the intention of being recognized by men. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: To hear the voice of the people is to recognize outwardly what those seeking the habit of holy life say. For we hear, as it were, only the voice of those approaching, when we know what they assert outwardly; but what kind of people they will be amid the assertions of their promise, we do not see. Therefore we ought to speak these things in the ears of the Lord, so that He Himself may receive the words of their promise: He who, while hearing the words, examines the hearts, and from the course of their progress, demands the returns of vigorous work. Let the minds of our novices hear this and tremble: because indeed what they say to us, we speak in the ears of the Lord. For what they promise before us, we offer to God, so that He Himself may now hold from our hands what He will demand an account of. This freedom of the superior is indeed the obligation of the subject: because he is subjected to a stricter judgment in proportion as he can more clearly know that he must render an account to almighty God for what he answers. Therefore, when we offer to God the things that novices promise, we give to Him, as it were, the written bond that they make to us. And because this is done in secret, Samuel is said to have spoken in the ears of the Lord the things that the people had said. For we speak in the ears of friends when we conceal from outsiders what we say. And the Lord said to Samuel: Hear their voice, and establish a king over them. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4

1 Samuel 8:22

Bede: And Samuel said . . . Let each one return to his city. Even today, the divine word teaches that all who are obstinate and rebellious against the Lord should return individually to the heart’s council from the public scene of obstinate contention; so that each, more freely within his own heart, may diligently examine what he has done against the will of your heavenly ordination, and what sentence he is to receive from the strict judge. — Commentary on Samuel

Gregory the Dialogist: Whence also he who is declared to have spoken in the ears of the Lord is reported to have received His answers as well. For there follows: (Verse 22.) And the Lord said to Samuel: Listen to the voice of the people, and establish a king over them.

13. In this matter it should be noted that Samuel spoke the words of the people, by which they had asked for a king, in the ears of the Lord; and the Lord declares Himself rejected in the fact that the people ask for a king. Therefore, when He responds to the one praying and commands the one praying to make a king, what else does He indicate except that the devout prayer of a chosen man is never fruitless? For if he did not obtain the correction of the people, he obtained the good of his own instruction, since he recognized the people as rejected for their evil request, and yet nonetheless knew what he himself ought to do for those who were cast off. The prophet, therefore, was able to be heard and not heard: because through praying he learned what he ought to be, but from the people demanding reprobate things, he did not remove the hardness of heart. But this he was able to obtain—he who spoke in the ears of the Lord—because holy men, by the very fact that they devoutly beseech the Lord on behalf of sinners, are fortified by the help of divine favor, so that they are in no way polluted by the crimes of those whose filth they cannot wash away by their prayers. But what does it mean that the Lord says, “Listen to their voices,” when it was said above, “Samuel heard all the words of the people”? He had heard the words of the people so as to know what was being said, not so as to grant what was being asked. Therefore, when the Lord says to him, “Listen to the voice of the people, and set a king over them,” He commanded the prophet to comply with the will of the people. And behold, as is plainly seen, the prophet praying is not heard, while the people rejecting God and asking for a king are heard. What shall we say this means, except that by the wondrous and fearful judgment of divine incomprehensibility, holy men praying on behalf of the reprobate cannot be heard, while in the fulfillment of their own depravities, the reprobate sinners themselves can be heard—so that for the latter, unbridled iniquity may increase the merit of eternal punishment, and for the former, the reward of perpetual recompense may grow from the affection of compassion? And immediately, beginning to show the order by which the appointment of that same king was reached, he says: (Verse 22.) And Samuel said to all the sons of Israel: Let each one go to his own city.

14. When we wish to examine spiritual matters, it is necessary that we remove carnal things from our attention: because the inner mind does not penetrate what the dust of outward actions blinds. Therefore, when the prophet of the Lord commands all the people to depart to their own places, he drives from himself the tumult of carnal concerns: so that he may see more clearly the spiritual matters that must be arranged, insofar as the intention of earthly actions does not obscure the keenness of his mind. But indicating what sort of person is foreseen by divine judgment, he says: — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 2

Gregory the Dialogist: Above, the prophet, foreseeing the future, said: “You will cry out to the Lord, and He will not hear you, because you asked for a king for yourselves.” But now the Lord says: “Listen to their voice, and appoint a king over them.” What is shown to us through this, except that it is often divinely inspired in the good rulers of holy Church to subject to the pursuits of the heavenly life those who are afterward not devout under the discipline of the same profession? These will indeed afterward cry out from before the face of their king, and yet by divine command they receive a king: because those are divinely inspired to approach the service of God devoutly whom the anxious care of pastors, involving great labor, must restrain under the bond of that same service for the increase of their eternal reward. They are said to cry out to the Lord from before the face of their king; but let the kings themselves hear what the prophet sent by the Lord responds, so that they may know what they ought to do amid those very outcries. “He will not hear you,” he says. Therefore neither should they themselves give ear. For those who are lukewarm in holy monasteries must be healed, as though sick; they are not to be cast out, as though dead. For if they have been sent by the Lord, they will come to their senses amid the applications of spiritual ointments. Let the Lord therefore say: “Appoint a king over them”: because indeed many come devoutly to the service of God who are then permitted to grow cold, but through the zeal of pastors—to whose authority they had submitted themselves by divine inspiration—they are rekindled to the love of the heavenly homeland. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4