Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Whence, entering a church and praying before the image of the Crucified, he saw the Crucified incline his head to him, and as it were applaud and give thanks that he had spared his enemy for love of him. Moved by this sight, John renounced the world, and founded the Order of Vallombrosa about the year of the Lord 1090.
BUT THE LORD REWARD THEE FOR THIS GOOD TURN—I cannot repay thee in equal measure; let God therefore repay it to thee. St. Chrysostom gives the reason, in the homily already cited, saying: “For what could Saul have returned worthy of his deserts, even if he had given the kingdom with all its towns? For David had given him not only towns and kingdom, but life itself; and he had no other life to repay with; and so he sends him to God, and honours him with the rewards that will flow from him, at once praising David and teaching all, that greater rewards are laid up for us with God when, for countless benefits conferred upon an enemy, we receive different things.”
Therefore David here, though a subject, was greater than King Saul: for nothing makes a man so great and magnanimous as love of enemies and the forgiveness of injury. Hear Martin, Abbot of Dumio, afterwards Bishop of Braga in the year of the Lord 572, book On the Four Virtues, chapter 2: “Nothing else is great in human affairs but a mind despising great things; if thou art magnanimous, thou wilt never judge that an insult is done to thee. Of an enemy thou wilt say: He did not hurt me, but he had the mind to hurt; and when thou seest him in thy power, thou wilt think that thou hast been able to take vengeance; for know that to forgive is an honourable and great kind of vengeance.”
21. AND NOW BECAUSE I KNOW THAT THOU SHALT SURELY BE KING.—“I know,” from that singular care and providence of God for thee, by which he protects thee and eludes my snares, and prospers thee in all things and makes thee superior to all enemies, and lovable and admirable to all Israelites on account of thy patience and meekness, by which thou hast forgiven even me, thy bitterest enemy, my life. So Abulensis.
Hear St. Chrysostom, in the homily already cited: “Tell me, I beg, whence knowest thou this? With thee are money, arms, cities, horses, soldiers, in short the whole force of royal apparatus: he, on the contrary, is deserted and naked, having neither city, nor house, nor family. Whence then, I ask, dost thou say this? Doubtless from David’s very character. For naked, unarmed and deserted, he would not have overcome me, armed and surrounded by so great power, unless he had God as his helper. Now he who has God favouring him is more powerful than all. Seest thou to what philosophy Saul was brought after the plots? Seest how it can happen that an enemy spits out all his malice, and, changed, betakes himself to better things? Let us not, then, wish to devour our own salvation by anger.”
22. SWEAR TO ME BY THE LORD THAT THOU WILT NOT DESTROY MY SEED.—
23. AND DAVID SWORE TO SAUL,—and he not only swore, but performed more than he had sworn. So St. Chrysostom: “What then,” he says, “did David? Did he use dissimulation and irony in this lightly? By no means, but at once agreed and granted what was asked; and Saul being dead, he not only did not kill his posterity, but then performed more than he had promised; for he brought his son, who was lame and weak in the legs, into his own house, and made him partaker of his table, deeming him worthy of the highest honour, and was not ashamed, nor concealed it, nor thought the royal table dishonoured by the boy’s lameness, but rather adorned and made more splendid. For all who sat at table with him went away having obtained great teaching of philosophy.”
Morally, David here teaches subjects how meekly, humbly, reverently and lovingly they ought to behave toward their princes and prelates, both secular and ecclesiastical, even strict and troublesome, nay, unjust, cruel and tyrannical, so as to honour and revere them as the Lord’s anointed, and in them, as his vicars, God himself. For in them as in living images the divine power and majesty shines. So Moses venerated Pharaoh, Isaias Manasses, Daniel Cyrus, Jeremias Nabuchodonosor, Jaddus Alexander, St. Paul Nero, St. John Domitian, St. Ignatius Trajan, SS. Cornelius and Cyprian Valerian, SS. Sixtus and Laurence Decius, St. Sebastian Diocletian, and in short all the Roman Pontiffs down to St. Sylvester, for three hundred years, modestly and patiently bore perpetual persecutions and martyrdoms from the Gentile Emperors, and never resisted them nor did them any harm; but fled and hid themselves in caves and crypts, which we today see and venerate at Rome. This is what the Apostle says, Hebrews 11: “They wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted; of whom the world was not worthy; wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens and in caves of the earth.” This is what St. Peter teaches Christians, 1 Epistle, chapter 2, verse 17: “Fear God,” he says, “honour the king (Nero). Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thanksworthy, if for conscience toward God a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully, etc. For unto this you are called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps, etc., who, when he was reviled, did not revile; when he suffered, he threatened not, but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly.” And by this their patience Christians deserved of God that he should convert the Emperors to Christ, as through St. Sylvester he converted the Emperor Constantine, and made Rome and the whole world Christian.
Religious do the same toward their Superiors and Rectors. Climacus, step 4, On Obedience, relates that a certain Religious named Abba Cyrus was greatly tried by his Superiors, so that he was daily driven from table, and often compelled to sleep out of doors; all of which he bore very patiently, and when Climacus asked how he bore them, he answered: “Believe me, Father, my Fathers are testing me whether I desire to be a monk, but they do not truly do this, for I, not ignorant of the intention of the Father and the others, bear everything very lightly and without any trouble. And behold I am now in the fifteenth year, thinking this, as they themselves, when I entered the monastery, told me that they were wont to test renunciants until the thirtieth year. And rightly, Father John. For without testing, gold is not perfected.” This excellent Abba Cyrus, then, in the second year after I came, departed to the Lord in this monastery, saying to the Fathers as he failed: “I give thanks to the Lord and to you, Fathers, that you tempted me continually for my salvation. For on this account I have remained until now free from the temptations of demons.” Him also as a confessor, and with the saints who died there, the most worthy and most equitable pastor ordered to be buried.
In the same place he recounts the more wonderful patience and obedience of a certain Achatius, who was treated by his old director not only harshly but cruelly; for daily he was afflicted not only with insults but with blows: “I,” says Climacus, “meeting him very often, said: What is it, brother Achatius? how art thou today? He would at once show now a livid and swollen eye, now a broken face and neck, often a bruised head. I, knowing him to be a labourer in patience, said to him: Good brother, endure manfully, and it will profit thee. When he had spent nine years under the harsh and bitter old man, he departed to the Lord, and was buried in the cemetery of the Fathers. After five days the master of Achatius went to a certain great old man there, and said to him: Brother Achatius is dead. When the elder heard it he answered: Truly, old man, thou dost not persuade me of this.
He said: Come and see. At once the old man rose and came with the master of the blessed champion to the cemetery. He called, as if to one alive, to him who truly lived in blessed rest, saying: Brother Achatius, art thou dead? Then that grateful obedient man, showing obedience even after death, answered that great man thus from the tomb: And how can it be, Father, that a man who is given to obedience should be dead?”
In the Lives of the Fathers, book 7, chapter 43, Abbot Pimenius, asking Nesteron how he bore injuries so gently in the monastery, heard from him: “In the beginning, when I entered, I said to my thought: Behold, thou and this ass are equals; for as this ass is beaten and does not speak, is wronged and answers nothing, so be thou also; for so the psalm also says: I am become as a beast before thee, and I am always with thee.”
In the same, Abbot Agathon said: “If thou wishest to live among monks, be like a stone statue, which if insulted is not angry, if praised is not lifted up.” In the same, book 3, no. 84, from Rufinus is related this saying of a saint: “The gate of heaven is the bearing of injuries.” In the same, book 5, chapter 8, no. 2: “A certain brother,” it says, “was praised by the monks to Abbot Antony; and he, when he came to him, tried whether he bore injury, and when he knew that he could not bear it, said to them: He is like a house which is adorned in front, but behind plundered by thieves.”