Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
The Books of Kings follow, in right order of time, immediately after the Book of Judges, of which the Book of Ruth is an appendix. For after the Judges, Kings reigned in Israel, whose deeds are described here, and therefore these are called the Books of Kings. The Book of Judges therefore ends with Samson, who was the last Judge before Heli, and judged for 20 years (Judges 16, last verse). Samson was immediately succeeded by Heli the High Priest, who ruled Israel for 40 years as a kind of Judge; Heli was succeeded by Samuel and Saul for as many years. Samuel was therefore absolutely the last Judge: for under him the people asked for a king, whom Samuel, by God’s command, first gave them in Saul. He therefore changed the state of the Commonwealth, and converted the aristocracy of the Judges into the monarchy of Kings. Although the deeds of Heli, a Judge, are set forth not in the Book of Judges but in this Book of Kings, this is because under him flourished the prophet Samuel, who changed the principate into a kingdom, of which presently.
In these four Books of Kings, then, the Holy Spirit pursues the history of the Jewish nation, and of the Church or ancient Synagogue, immediately from the close of the Judges, the last of whom was Samuel, whose deeds are here set first, because by him the change was made from aristocratic to monarchical and royal government. Hence these books are entitled by the name of Kings. For in the first book the subject is the birth, upbringing and rule of Samuel, and the reign, acts and death of Saul; in the second it is the reign of David, who was put in the place of Saul, rejected by God for disobedience, by Samuel at God’s command: wherefore these first two are called the Books of Samuel, either because they begin with the deeds of Samuel, or because the deeds of Saul and David are counted as the deeds of Samuel, since Samuel appointed these kings.
Moreover, these first two books embrace the time during which Heli, Samuel, Saul and David ruled Israel, which was 120 years. For, as I said, Heli ruled 40 years, and as many Samuel, and as many, finally, David.
The two later books, namely the third and fourth of Kings, relate the acts of Solomon, who succeeded his father David, and of his sons and grandsons, who reigned in Juda from Solomon down to the last, Sedecias; likewise the deeds of Jeroboam and his descendants, who, making a schism from Roboam and Juda, reigned in Israel, that is, over the ten tribes, down to the last king, Osee, who was carried captive by Salmanasar into Assyria in the sixth year of Ezechias, king of Juda. These two books therefore weave through the whole history of the kings of both Juda and Israel, from the first to the last, over 430 years. In it, according to the letter, many examples of virtues are described throughout, many also of divine providence, and of God justly punishing the faithless and impious and rewarding the faithful and pious; many prophetic sayings, too, are interwoven, which contribute much to the instruction of the faithful and the direction of morals. Hear St. Gregory here in his Preface: “The history of Kings, since it was composed by the same Spirit by which the other volumes of Holy Scripture are known to have been made, ought not to be believed less in its mysteries, to which it is not inferior in the title of authority. For all its writers are reported to have been Prophets, who, when they narrate history, signify spiritual things; they speak of outward things and hint at inward; they set forth earthly things in order to pursue heavenly,” etc. And after some words: “Pleasant is the history of Kings on the surface of the letter, deeper in the types of allegory, useful for the instruction of morals, lucid in the examples it presents.” And St. Augustine, De Civitate, book 17, chapter 1: “The Scripture itself, which sets out the Kings and their deeds and events in order, seems, like a history, to be occupied with the diligent narration of things done; but if it is treated with the help of the Spirit of God, it will be found intent either more, or certainly not less, on foretelling the future than on relating the past.” Moreover, the first two books are called by the Hebrews the Books of Samuel, and indeed by them, as by the Syrians, the Prophecy of Samuel; but the two later ones alone are called by them the Books of Kings or of Reigns, because in them the reigns of many kings, of Juda as well as Israel, that is, their regnations and manners of reigning, are recounted. Here note how much sacred history differs from profane: for the former, being written by the divine Spirit, narrates human affairs as governed by divine providence; the latter, composed by the human spirit, relates them as they come about by the prudence and industry of men. Thus the former teaches divine prudence, by which the mind may cling to God in pious worship, and rely chiefly on His help and on religion; the latter, human prudence and certain petty precautions devised by human industry, which for the most part have little force and often bring danger. Wherefore nothing is more fitting for the instruction of princes than sacred history, especially the exposition of the Book of Kings. For from it they will clearly understand that the foundation of the kingdom and the state, and of all prosperity, must be laid in true religion and justice: apart from this nothing will be firm or tranquil for a Christian prince. This profited Charles V the Emperor very much, when Adrian (afterwards Pope, the sixth of that name), his tutor, persuaded him in his youth to read the Books of Kings. From them he drew those precepts and principles of government which not only made him a Catholic, but raised him to be a very great and most powerful prince, fortunate in his successes. In like manner Cicero, in his letter to his brother Quintus, relates that Scipio Africanus constantly read the Cyropaedia, and thence became so great a leader and prince in war as in peace. Lampridius, in his Alexander Severus, relates that he was wont to read Plato’s Republic; Plutarch, in his Alexander the Great, writes that he often had Homer at hand, from whose reading he felt courage added to him for heroic deeds, when he saw in him so great an Achilles. Further, that the orthodox religion is the foundation of empire is written and urged upon the Emperor Theodosius by St. Cyril, in his book On the Right Faith, near the beginning. Finally St. Clement, book 1 of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 6, teaches that the Books of Kings are to be read by a Christian, for from them true and pious histories are to be sought, not from the books of the Gentiles. Allegorically and tropologically St. Jerome, epistle 103 to Paulinus: “Samuel,” he says, “in the dead Heli and the slain Saul shows the old law abolished. Further, in Sadoc and David he testifies the mysteries of the new priesthood and the new empire. Melachim, that is, the third and fourth book of Kings, from Solomon to Jechonias, and from Jeroboam son of Nabat to Osee, who was led off into Assyria, describes the kingdom of Juda and the kingdom of Israel. If you look to the history, the words are simple. If you look into the hidden sense in the letters, the fewness of the Church, and the wars of heretics against the Church, are narrated.” For all the kings of Juda were types of Christ, who was to be born of them, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, as St. Gregory says here. Hence St. Augustine, book 22 Against Faustus, chapter 24: “I say,” he says, “that of those men not only the tongue but the life was prophetic, and that whole kingdom of the Hebrew nation was a great Prophet of some great one.”
The first Book of Kings was written by the prophet Samuel (whence the first two books are called by the Hebrews the Books of Samuel), down to his own death, which is recounted in book 1, chapter 25. So judge St. Gregory, Theodoret, Procopius, Eucherius, Hugh, Lyranus, Abulensis, Cajetan, Vatablus, Serarius and others commonly; but the death of Samuel and the deeds after it to the end of the second book were written by David, says St. Isidore, Origins, book 6, chapter 2, or rather by the prophets Nathan and Gad, who were David’s secretaries and keepers of the records, so that they wrote his acts day by day, like Diaries and Chronicles or Ephemerides, as is expressly said in 1 Paralipomenon 29, at the end. So judge Bellarmine and Sixtus of Siena, book 1, although Abulensis here, and in Question 4 on chapter 17 of the book of Judges, thinks they were written by Isaias or Jeremias, because in chapter 27, verse 6, concerning Siceleg, it is said that the acts of the kings of Juda were done “until this day”; for this does not seem to have been said by David, but by someone after him, such as Isaias or Jeremias. But this clause could have been added to the book, already composed, by Isaias or Jeremias, as similar things were added in the Pentateuch of Moses, in Josue, Judges and other books. The two later Books of Kings, down to the destruction of Jerusalem, were written by Jeremias from the ancient annals of the several kings, as Procopius, Isidore and R. Moses Kimchi think, whom Sixtus of Siena cites, book 1; likewise Abulensis, Dionysius and others; and this is confirmed by the fact that the last chapter of Jeremias is the same as the last chapter of the fourth book of Kings. For Isaias died long before the times of the later kings and the Babylonian captivity, which are narrated here; but these Jeremias saw. Here note: the several kings had their own recorders, who wrote their acts, or daily Diaries; thus the deeds of Solomon were written by Ahias the Silonite and the prophet Addo, as is said in 2 Paralipomenon 9, which in 3 Kings 11 are called “the book of the words,” that is, of the deeds, “of the days of Solomon,” says Theodoret and Abulensis. So the acts of Roboam son of Solomon, and of Abia the king, son of Roboam, were written by the same Addo and the prophet Semeias, as is said in 2 Paralipomenon 12, 15, and chapter 13, 22. So the deeds of king Ozias were written by Isaias, as is said in the same place, chapter 26, verse 22, and likewise of Ezechias, as is said there, chapter 32, verse 32; whence some think that Isaias wrote the deeds of the kings, or collected them from the Diaries, from Solomon to Manasses, by whom Isaias was put to death; and that Jeremias, after Isaias, wove through the rest down to the captivity of Babylon. So Sanchez. It favours this that four chapters of Isaias, namely 36, 37, 38, 39, are altogether the same as 4 Kings chapter 18, verses 19 and 20. Sanchez adds that the men of Ezechias, who collected the Proverbs of Solomon (Proverbs 25), perhaps also collected the Diaries. See Sixtus of Siena under the word Ezechias. So likewise Jehu son of Hanani wrote the words of the days, that is, the Diaries, or Commentaries and Annals, of king Josaphat, as is plain from 2 Paralipomenon chapter 20, verse 34. Hence also the book which in Hebrew is entitled dibre hayamim, that is, words, that is, deeds of the days, is called by the Septuagint Paralipomenon, as if to say: this book contains what was left and omitted in the Books of Kings from those things which had been written in the ancient Diaries of the kings. Therefore these Books of Kings were collected from their ancient Diaries, partly by Isaias and the other men deputed to this by Ezechias, partly by Jeremias, partly by Esdras, as are those things which happened after Jeremias under Cyrus.
To the Books of Kings are joined the two books of Paralipomenon, that is, of things left over, or remaining, and, as St. Jerome says in his epistle to Domnio, “of things passed over”; because these supply what was omitted in the Books of Kings concerning the kings of Juda (for the deeds of the kings of Israel are scarcely touched in Paralipomenon); so I shall interweave them here, where they narrate the same things; but what peculiar matter they add I shall explain in those very places. Jeremias was not the author of Paralipomenon, because in the last chapter the release from the Babylonian captivity is narrated, before which Jeremias died (unless one says this was afterwards added to them, as the death of Moses was added to Deuteronomy); whence the Hebrews, Lyranus, Abulensis and Joannes Driedo, book 1 On Ecclesiastical Scriptures, and Sixtus of Siena, book 1 of the Bibliotheca, probably hold that they were written by Esdras, because the end of Paralipomenon is the same as the beginning of Esdras, as is plain to one who looks; and because, when the same history is narrated in the Books of Kings, Paralipomenon and Esdras, the narrative of Paralipomenon agrees with Esdras, not with the Books of Kings. Again, at the end of Paralipomenon the deeds of Cyrus are narrated, which Jeremias, who lived before Cyrus, could not narrate, but Esdras, who lived after Cyrus.
You will say: in 2 Paralipomenon 5, 9, it is said: “The ark was there (in the temple) unto this present day.” But this cannot be said of the time of Esdras: for before the captivity Jeremias had carried out and hidden the ark, as is plain from 2 Machabees 2, 5. Abulensis answers that “unto this present day” is to be understood of the days of Nathan, Addo and Ahias, who first wrote the Chronicles and Diaries of Paralipomenon, from which Esdras copied these things and put them in order. For otherwise what is narrated at the end of Paralipomenon about Cyrus would be false. For it is certain that long before Cyrus the ark had been hidden by Jeremias.
Moreover, “the book of Paralipomenon,” says St. Jerome, epistle 103 to Paulinus, “that is, the epitome of the Old Testament, is of such weight and such a kind that if anyone wishes to claim for himself knowledge of Scripture without it, he mocks himself.” And Cassiodorus, book On Divine Reading, chapter 5:
“In the two books of Paralipomenon,” he says, “great usefulness is proclaimed by the Fathers, who are known to contain true knowledge of the deeds, briefly indeed, but most fully.”
St. Jerome wrote Questions on the Books of Kings and Paralipomenon according to the letter, but Bellarmine and others rightly doubt whether they are St. Jerome’s, because St. Jerome, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, testifies that he wrote Hebrew Traditions or Questions on Genesis, and Hebrew Places and Names, but says nothing of Hebrew Traditions or Questions on the Books of Kings and on the Books of Paralipomenon; besides, in the Hebrew Questions on Genesis the same St. Jerome throughout adds Hebrew words, but in the Questions on the Books of Kings and Paralipomenon he does so only once or twice. Finally, that writing on Genesis seems weightier than this on the Books of Kings and Paralipomenon; but whosesoever this work is, it matters little. Wherefore Serarius flatly denies that these Questions are St. Jerome’s; yet they are of an ancient author; for they are often cited by Angelomus.
St. Augustine wrote a book to Simplicianus, in which he resolves five questions from the Books of Kings. Likewise on the Canticle of Anna, book 17 On the City of God, chapter 4. Besides, sermons on various places of Kings 210, 214 On the Season, and the first among the Homilies of the 50.
St. Eucherius, from a monk bishop of Lyons, in the year of the Lord 441, in the time of Pope Leo I and the Emperor Theodosius the younger, wrote on the Books of Kings; whom Claudianus Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, his contemporary, adorns with these praises in his book On the State of Souls: “Eucherius, of green age, of ripe mind, spurning the earth, desiring heaven; humble in spirit, lofty in merit, most subtle in genius, full of knowledge; flowing in eloquence, by far the greatest of the great Pontiffs of his age,” etc.
But, as Bellarmine rightly notes in On Ecclesiastical Writers under Eucherius: “These commentaries cannot be Eucherius’s, because the author often cites St. Gregory, and at the end of the exposition of the first book of Kings invites the reader to read through the Morals of St. Gregory, whereas St. Gregory was more than a hundred years later than Eucherius. Perhaps those who ascribed these books to Eucherius were moved by the fact that Gennadius testifies that Eucherius wrote to Salonius and Uranius on the obscure chapters of the Holy Scriptures.”
Moreover, the author of these commentaries seems to have been an Englishman, and to have lived a little after the times of St. Gregory. For in book 3 of the Commentaries on the Books of Kings, chapter 22, he speaks thus: “In our times,” he says, “Pope St. Gregory, strengthened by the words of the Gospels, ruled the Roman Church, and the most reverend Fathers Augustine, Paul and their other companions, at his command, came into Britain,” etc. “And from this author Bede has copied many things in almost the same words in his Questions on the Books of Kings,” says Bellarmine in the place cited. Hence the Doctors of Louvain and Sixtus of Siena suspect that these commentaries are not Eucherius’s, but Bede’s.
The Venerable Bede, who flourished in the year of the Lord 730, wrote Questions on the Books of Kings, which begin: After the book of Judges.
Angelomus the Frenchman, a monk of the Order of St. Benedict, of the Congregation of Luxeuil, a man who had received a noble genius in the divine Scriptures, at the command of Drogo, bishop of Metz, son of the Emperor Charlemagne, collected from the Commentaries of the ancient Fathers a work on the 4 Books of Kings. He flourished in the year of the Lord 830. Angelomus follows first the literal sense, then the allegorical, and that almost entirely from the Questions of St. Jerome on the Books of Kings.
In later centuries Lyranus, Hugh, Dionysius and Abulensis wrote on these books, at length and exactly. Recently Cajetan and Vatablus. Most recently of our own, Francis Mendoza, Gaspar Sanchez and Nicholas Serarius.
The mystical sense of these books is given by the Commentary of Eucherius already cited. St. Augustine touched on some points in various places, which a certain German collected in a work of the lucubrations of St. Augustine on the Bible; Godfrey Tilman, a Carthusian of Paris, also collected mystical senses on these books, as on the other biblical books, from various authors, but for the most part unknown. St. Gregory wrote tropologically on chapter 16 of book 1 of Kings; Origen one homily on the first chapters. There exists the allegorical exposition of the Venerable Bede on the prophet Samuel, divided into four books, addressed to Acca. St. Prosper also explains some things from these books allegorically, in his book On Promises and Predictions. Finally, Procopius of Gaza wrote on the Books of Kings and Paralipomenon, but I have not yet seen his commentaries, and Bellarmine doubts whether they have been printed. Our Serarius testifies here that he used that manuscript from the library of Marcus Welser.