Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Anna here celebrates the power of God by five antitheses, to show that God can raise anyone from the lowest to the highest, and conversely cast him down from the highest to the lowest, and therefore that neither the lofty and happy man should vainly glory in his lot, nor the humble and wretched despair in his unhappy fortune: for God can exchange the lots of both, and in fact often does exchange them, when He depresses the proud and exalts the humble, as here He exalted Anna and depressed Phenenna.
Tropologically St. Augustine, book 17 On the City of God, chapter 4: The Lord, when in us carnal affections He mortifies,
FOR THE POLES (Vatablus, pillars) OF THE EARTH ARE THE LORD’S, AND UPON THEM HE HATH SET THE WORLD,—that is, God has the poles of the world in His hand and power; how much more can He accomplish what I have already said. By the poles of the earth, Angelomus, Hugh, Abulensis, Dionysius and Jansenius understand the four extreme parts or climes of the earth, namely East, West, North and South.
Secondly, our quickens the spiritual and the spirit: for the mortification of the flesh is the vivification of the spirit, as St. Paul teaches. Whence Origen: “God,” he says, “slew Paul the persecutor and quickened him that he might be an Apostle of Christ.” Hear St. Ambrose, sermon On Fasting: “God first slays in us murders, adulteries, crimes, thefts by baptism; and so quickens us as new men with the immortality of eternity. We die therefore to sins through
Secondly, Sanchez takes the two poles of heaven; for upon these the heavens turn, and all the orbs of the planets and elements about the earth, as if he said: As God set the two poles of the world, Arctic and Antarctic, as two hinges of heaven and earth, that about them all the heavens and elements may be ceaselessly moved and revolve, whence it comes that now they are raised, now depressed; so likewise God turns all men and all creatures, to raise and bless them now, to depress and afflict them now. But these are properly the poles of heaven, not the poles of the earth, whence the heavens are set upon them, not the earth. Thirdly, others by poles understand the centre of the earth; for upon this, as a base, the earth and the whole orb rests. Fourthly, others understand the sea, saying with Thales that the earth floats on the waters like a raft, according to Psalm 23: “He hath founded it upon the seas.” But Aristotle and the Philosophers refute this, book 3 On the Heaven, chapter 1. Fifthly, and genuinely: for poles the Hebrew has metsuke, that is, foundations or bases and pillars of the earth; wherefore by catachresis you may take by them simply the very firmness and solidity of the earth, given it by God in the creation of the world, and always conserved and to be conserved; for in this, as on firm poles and bases, the earth, supported, stands stable, firm and unmoved, so that it props and sustains as a most solid base and pillar not only itself but all the celestial and elementary orbs. For the earth has no poles or bases, but the immutable will and power of God, which always props and strengthens it, is its only base, pillar and pole, says St. Basil, Hexaemeron homily 4, and Nazianzen, oration 34. For the earth hangs in the air, and there by the will of God as by a pole stands firm. Symbolically, the poles of the earth are princes and prelates; for these are as the bases and pillars of the commonwealth: so St. Jerome in the Questions. Whence Cardinals are so called, because by their prudence and holiness they ought to be the poles of the Church, and pillars and bases of the faithful. And in Hebrew Adon, that is, Lord, is derived from eden, that is, base, as also in Greek basileus, that is, king, from basis, because the king is the base and support of the kingdom. So St. Gregory, Bede, Angelomus, Jansenius and others.
Again, the poles of the Church, nay of the world, are just and holy men, says St. Jerome. For, as Rufinus says, Preface to the Lives of the Fathers: “Who doubts that the world stands by the prayers of the saints?” Whence for poles of the earth, St. Jerome in the Questions renders, afflicted (for the root signifies to straiten, to press, to afflict) of the earth, that is, the humble and poor in spirit, upon whom the Hebrews say God has set the world, because by their holiness and prayers it stands and is preserved, lest like Sodom it be consumed with heavenly fire for its crimes, or drowned with waters, as it was drowned in the deluge in the time of Noe. So from Jerome Rupert, book 1 On Wisdom, chapter 28, whom hear: “And who are the afflicted of the earth, if not the humble and contrite of heart? Upon those who are such the Lord has plainly set the world: because upon those who, mindfully keeping their past weakness, are of humble conscience before themselves, the Lord has placed His Church; who indeed can bear that same orb with the more clemency and compassion, the more they remember that they themselves needed the grace of the clement and compassionate.”
The same Rupert, book 3 on Matthew, chapter 4: “This affliction,” he says, “is humility, which makes them steadfast and strong to bear the world.” Whence R. Jonathan in Lyranus, for afflicted, renders strong of the earth; for a man, while he contracts himself and his limbs, becomes stronger, and so does the humble man. Such was Abraham, of whom St. Ambrose, book On Abraham, chapter 6: “Whence we learn,” says Ambrose, “how great a wall of his country the just man is, and how we ought not to envy the Saints nor rashly detract from them. For their faith preserves us: their justice defends us from destruction. Sodom also, if it had had ten just men, could not have perished.”
And Philo, On the Migration of Abraham: “Is not the just man truly,” he says, “the prop of the human race, communicating his gifts and bringing them into public use?” And a little after: “Let us pray,” he says, “that as a pillar in a house, in the human race the just man may remain for the remedy of calamities. For while he is safe, there is no need to despair of the public safety.”
So for the sake of St. Paul in the shipwreck God saved all who were with him in the ship, in number 276, Acts chapter 27, 24. So Pope Innocent III, when he had rejected St. Francis asking confirmation of his order, saw in a vision the Lateran church, which is the seat of the Pontiff and the mother and mistress of all the churches of the whole world, tottering and falling, propped and supported on the shoulders of the poor St. Francis: wherefore he at once ordered him to be sought and called, and confirmed his rule and order. So have the Chronicles of St. Francis. As therefore Atlas, king (and from him the mountain) of Mauritania, on account of his discovery of Astrology is said to bear heaven on his shoulders: so also Francis and the saints are the Atlases of the world.
Anagogically, the Chaldee for poles of the world takes the heaven which God prepared for the pious, and the gehenna which He prepared for the impious. For so he renders: Before the Lord the works of the sons of men are revealed; from the lower part He prepared gehenna for the wicked transgressors of their words, and for the just doing His will He founded the world.
Moreover the Septuagint, and from them St. Augustine, book 17 On the City of God, chapter 4, add here: “God gives a vow to him that voweth,” that is, what he asks by the vow, as here He gave Samuel to Anna.
9. HE WILL KEEP THE FEET OF HIS SAINTS.—This is the latter part of the canticle, in which Anna prophesies of the future, as in the former she has hitherto celebrated God for His past benefits. She prophesies and promises seven miracles. The first is this: “He will keep the feet of his saints,” lest they fall into fault, and thence into gehenna; so St. Gregory. Whence the Chaldee, God has guarded the body of His just servants from gehenna. By “feet” are signified the steps, motions, actions of the just, which God directs, lest anywhere they stumble, trip, fall. Whence with the Psalmist every faithful man must constantly pray, especially when he goes out of house or bedchamber: “Perfect thou my goings in thy paths: that my footsteps be not moved,” Psalm 16, 5. For as the same says, “… to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone”; because, as Abulensis says here: “There is no part in the whole human body which can be more hurt than the feet”; and because on them the whole mass of the body is sustained.
Mystically, the feet of the soul are its affections, which, that He may direct and prop them, lest they slip toward earthly things, God must constantly be invoked. For as St. Augustine says on Psalm 144: “We go to God by the mind, not by a vehicle, by affections, not by feet,” by the steps of the mind, not of the body. The same, Preface on Psalm 122: “He ascends to God by flying who ascends by loving.” Moreover the two feet of the soul, by which we go to God, are humility and fortitude, says St. Gregory. Finally St. Bonaventure, on Psalm 118, verse 103: “For the said feet,” he says, “we ought to provide, that they be not defiled, nor ensnared, nor overthrown, but be kept pure, free and firm. They are defiled by luxury; ensnared by avarice; overthrown by pride, but kept by sanctity. Of the first: I have washed my feet, namely by penance; how shall I defile them, namely by luxury? Behold the defilement of the feet. Of the second: They have hidden snares for my feet. Behold the ensnaring of the feet. Of the third: My calamities rose up at once, they overthrew my feet. Behold the overthrow of the feet. Of the fourth: He will keep the feet of his saints. Behold the keeping of the feet.”