Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Again and more fully will God do this on the day of judgment. For then by Christ the Judge He will judge all nations and men of all lands and times, and will adjudge the faithful, obedient to Him, to heaven, and the unbelieving, rebellious to Him, to hell. Wherefore then, as king absolute of heaven and earth, He will command all angels and men whatsoever, and then God will exalt the horn of His kingdom and glory even to the empyrean heaven, that there with His saints He may reign and triumph in all happiness for ever. Whence the Chaldee, referring this to the times of Antichrist, Gog and Magog, renders thus: He will favour the last against Gog and Magog, and the army of the plundering nations who have come from the ends of the earth, and will give strength to His king, and will multiply the kingdom of His Messias.
Tropologically St. Augustine, book 17 On the City of God, chapter 4, attributes these things to any faithful, holy and blessed man: for he is a Christ, that is, an anointed, namely with the chrism of Christ in Baptism and Confirmation; and therefore, as an athlete, victor, king and triumpher over the world, the flesh and the devil, he will reign with Christ in heaven through all ages.
Moreover R. Jonathan son of Uziel, in his Chaldaic translation, expounds these things otherwise, and the later Rabbis following him, who deny that Christ has come; whence they wrest these things from Christ to the succession of the Levites, their power, and victories which they were to have under Samuel, and then under the Machabees, as if Anna, God revealing it, had foreknown them and here foretold them. See Abulensis here, last Question, and Lyranus.
11. BUT THE BOY WAS A MINISTER IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD, BEFORE THE FACE OF HELI THE PRIEST,—namely he learned the rudiments of the law, and to sing (for this was the office of the Levites: whence the sons of Samuel were singers, nay their chiefs, 1 Paralipomenon chapters 6 and 25), to guard the tabernacle, light the lamps, and perform the other things belonging to the office of the Levites, says Abulensis; and, as St. Gregory says: “He was useful to the brethren, devoted to God.” Whence St. Chrysostom, homily On Samuel: “Although in the boy the age was immature, yet the virtue was mature; for to all who went up to the temple he became a teacher of much piety and religion.” Hear St. Augustine on Psalm 96: “Samuel, what did he do, an infant given to the temple? All his ages he passed among holy things, the Sacraments of God, from the beginning of his age a servant of God.” His hair was dedicated, and his drink was water, says Josephus, and indeed until his death, says Philo, On the Nazarite, chapter 1, verse 57. Hear St. Jerome, epistle to Laeta on the Education of a Daughter: “Anna never took back the son whom she had vowed to God, after she offered him in the tabernacle; thinking it unseemly that a future prophet should grow up in the house of one who still desired to have other sons. Finally, after she conceived and bore, she did not dare to approach the temple and appear empty before the Lord, unless she first rendered what she owed: and that sacrifice being offered, returning home, she bore five children to herself, because she had borne her firstborn for God. Dost thou marvel at the happiness of the holy woman? Imitate her faith. If thou wilt send Paula to me, I promise myself both as master and nurse: I will carry her on my shoulders, an old man will I form her stammering words, much more glorious than the philosopher of the world, who instructed not the king of the Macedonians, destined to perish by Babylonian poison, but a handmaid and spouse of Christ, to be offered to the heavenly kingdoms.”
Note: before the face of Heli. For it is a great spur to virtue, if one sees himself dwelling in the sight of a great man, such as a Pontiff or Prince, and seen and observed by him. Hear Seneca, book 1 to Lucilius, epistle 10: “So live with men as if God saw: so live with God as if men heard.” And in the same book, epistle 44: “Some good man must be chosen by us, and always kept before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were looking on, and do all things as if he saw. A great part of sins is removed if a witness stands by those about to sin. Let the mind have someone whom it reveres, by whose authority it may make even its secret holier. O happy he who can so revere anyone as to compose and order himself even by the memory of him! Choose therefore Cato.”
12. NOW THE SONS OF HELI WERE CHILDREN OF BELIAL,—that is, they were most wicked and impious, and therefore God by Samuel chastised Heli with his sons, and punished them with death, as follows:
13. NOT KNOWING THE LORD,—practically, that is, not serving the Lord, disobedient to His law, profaning sacred things, sacrilegiously violating the sacrifices, snatching the flesh of the victims from God and arrogating it to themselves: for, as St. Gregory says, “they practised wickedness of deed, but did not err in faith in the Creator.” Such priests God threatens through Osee, chapter 4, verse 6: “that thou mayest not do the office of priesthood to me.” Excellently Nazianzen defines God thus: “God is He whom all things, not knowing, by fearing know.” Moreover Philo, in the book On the Rewards of Priests, teaches that priests ought always to remember their God, whose priests they are: “For while,” he says, “they are accustomed always to cut off a part of the food for God, they never come to forget Him: than which nothing in life can befall man more happy.” The same of the Essenes he thus writes, in the book On the Contemplative Life: “They have a perpetual memory of God, so that not even in dreams does anything else present itself to them than images of divine beauties. And there are among them those who in dreaming utter splendid sayings of sacred philosophy.”
Nay, of every faithful man St. Gregory Nazianzen writes thus, oration 33, near the beginning: “For we ought not so often to draw breath as to remember God. Nay, if this can be said, nothing else is to be done but this.”
The reason is given by St. Bernard, book On the Inner House, chapter 9: “For as,” he says, “there is no moment in which we do not enjoy the mercy of God, so there ought to be no moment in which we do not have Him present in memory.”
NOR THE OFFICE OF THE PRIESTS TO THE PEOPLE.—This is the first sin of the sons of Heli, that, not knowing the Lord, they likewise did not know their own office, both practically and speculatively, for since they did not care to observe God and God’s law and their office, hence neither did they care to read and know it, lest this knowledge should beget in them a conscience and remorse of sin; and this is the cause why many given up to their lusts become atheists, that they may indulge them freely without fear of the divinity and of vengeance: for this fear would either curb their desires or bite them, and dilute and break the sense of their pleasure mixed with a great sense of fear and pain; they will not therefore have knowledge and conscience barking and crying out against their dainties.
Four crimes of the sons of Heli, flowing from gluttony, are here censured. The first, ignorance of their office, already mentioned; the second, rapine of the victims, namely that whereas from the victim only the breast and the right shoulder were due to the priest, Leviticus 7, 32, they appropriated to themselves any parts of the victims, especially the fatter and more delicate; the third, that they did it by force, seizing them from unwilling offerers; finally the fourth, that they did it before the victim had been immolated to God by burning by them, and the flesh cooked and boiled. For first the peace-offering had to be offered to God and cooked, and then the breast and right shoulder were given to the priest, the rest of the flesh to the offerer.
So also among the Gentiles it was not lawful to eat of the sacrifice until it was finished. Whence the proverb: “He often devours sacrifices not yet immolated,” which was hurled at the intemperate and those given to the belly, such as the sons of Heli were.
17. WHEREFORE THE SIN OF THE YOUNG MEN WAS EXCEEDING GREAT BEFORE THE LORD, BECAUSE THEY WITHDREW MEN FROM THE SACRIFICE OF THE LORD.—The Royal Bibles read, because they drew men away from the sacrifice of the Lord; the Hebrew has niatsu, that is, as the Chaldee and Septuagint, they spurned, held in contempt, abominated the sacrifice of the Lord, seeing that irreligious avarice and gluttony of the priests.
See here how grave is the sin of Priests, on account of the scandal given to the laity. Whence God, Osee chapter 5: “Hear ye this, ye priests, etc., for judgment is for you, because you have been a snare to watchfulness, and as a net spread upon Thabor.” Hear St. Gregory, homily 17 on the Gospels: “God, dearest brethren, endures no greater injury from any than from priests, when He sees those whom He set for the correction of others give of themselves examples of wickedness: when we sin who ought to have restrained sins. Very often, what is graver, priests who ought to give their own, snatch even what is another’s. Very often, if they see any living humbly, any living continently, they laugh at them. Consider therefore what is done with the flocks, when the shepherds become wolves.” And below: “Let us implore the tears of Jeremias; let him consider our death, and lamenting say: How is the gold become dim, the finest colour is changed, the stones of the sanctuary are scattered in the top of every street? The gold is indeed dimmed; because the life of priests, once bright with the glory of virtues, is now shown reprobate by the lowest actions. The finest colour is changed, because that habit of sanctity through earthly and abject works comes to ignominy.” Read what follows: