Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
“You shall be unto me a peculiar possession above all nations”; and presently: “You shall be to me a priestly kingdom”; whence Josephus, book 2 Against Apion, significantly says that God instituted among the Hebrews not so much a Monarchy as a Theocracy, that is, the rule of God. By this petition, therefore, the Hebrews seemed to cast off their king; whence God, indignant, says to Samuel, verse 7: “For they have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them.” So Theodoret, Procopius, Rupert, Lyranus, Abulensis, Dionysius, Cajetan and others.
Whence David: “Let Israel rejoice in him that made him, and let the children of Sion be joyful in their king,” Psalm 149, verse 2, where Theodoret: “God is indeed the God of all, the God of the universe; but he was called in a proper sense the king of the Israelites; when, therefore, they first labored with the disease of an ungrateful mind, they asked that there be another king for them.”
Third, because by this petition they rejected Samuel their judge, as though he were unworthy of rule, and could not or would not put in place of his wicked sons other upright Judges: which was a notable injury and ingratitude toward a prophet who had deserved so well of them, inasmuch as he had spent his whole life for their good.
Fourth, because they asked such a king as the Gentiles had, such as the Persians, Egyptians, Medes, Chaldeans, who, as Aristotle says, book 3 of the Politics, held a royal power next to tyranny, and therefore he calls their kingdom barbarian, and a despotic one. For the royal power, says Serarius, is twofold: “One bound by finite and fixed bonds of laws and agreements; the other absolute and in a manner infinite, where kings do whatever they please to their subjects and to the laws themselves; so I will, so I command, etc. There is then a great retinue of attendants, luxury in all things, continual succession, the imposition of tributes,” etc. And Aristotle teaches in the same place that this flourished chiefly among those Asiatic peoples, of which Christ speaks, Luke 22; Matt. 20; Mark 10: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them,” etc.
Finally, the kings, to the exclusion of the worship of God, introduced into Israel the worship of idols, as Solomon, Manasses, Jeroboam and the other kings of Israel did. Whence St. Gregory: “Those indeed,” he says, “asked a king against the will of the Lord; but it came about from the royal dignity afterwards that the people who had rejected God worshipped idols and adored images. How worthy of reverence, then, are the counsels of elders we see, if we consider this carefully! because those who dared to despise them did not foresee that they were doing this; whence they could be drowned in so deep a sea of error.”
Wherefore the Hebrews themselves, acknowledging this, afterwards said, chap. 12, 19: “We have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for us a king.”
7. THEY HAVE NOT REJECTED THEE, BUT ME, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM,—as I have reigned until now, ruling them thus particularly, carefully and exactly, and having care of them, as though I had been their proper and immediate king. Why, then, do they demand another king, as though better than I?
Morally, learn here that he who despises a Prelate despises God, and he who honors him honors God. Hear St. Ignatius, epist. 6 to the Magnesians: “It becomes you also,” he says, “to obey the Bishop, and in nothing to oppose him. For it is a terrible thing to contradict such a man. For he does not deceive this one who is seen, but strives to deceive the Invisible, who cannot be deceived by anyone. For if this is done, the insult returns not to a man but to God. For to Samuel the Lord says: They have not despised thee, but me.”
can escape the censure of God the avenger, who inflict such things not only on the brethren, but also on priests, to whom so great an honor is granted from the dignity of God that, in them being despised, God himself is reckoned despised,” according to this place: “They have not rejected thee, but me.” Furthermore St. Cyril of Alexandria, book 13 on John chap. 30: “The vexation of the Apostles,” he says, “goes up to him who raised them to the summit of the Apostolate. For so we have learned that it was said also to Samuel concerning the children of Israel: They have despised, he says, not thee, but me. It is therefore exceedingly dangerous not to give due honor to the saints, since contempt of them passes to him by whom they were sent.” Admirably Salvian, book 7 On Providence: “It is a kind of sacrilege,” he says, “to hate the worshippers of God. For as, if anyone beats our servants, the injury of the servants falls on us; and if another’s son is beaten by anyone, in the punishment of the son the father’s love is tormented: so also when a servant of God is hurt by anyone, the divine Majesty is violated: the Lord saying the same to his Apostles: He that despiseth you despiseth me.”
Allegorically Angelomus: As the Jews here rejected Samuel the Judge, so afterwards they rejected Christ, the antitype of Samuel, their king and Messiah, crying out before Pilate: “We have no king but Caesar.”
9. FORETELL TO THEM THE RIGHT OF THE KING.—God, to dissuade and deter the Hebrews from their petition for a king, enumerates the heavy burdens which they are to undergo under him. Hear St. Gregory: “The rights of men are set before those who despise the rights of God: and to those who have scorned the mild and wholesome counsels of the Divinity, the hard and unbearable burdens of human servitude are foretold: that from these they might reckon with themselves how intolerable would be the commands of a man to those who would not obey the counsels of God, not so much commanding as admonishing.”
11. THIS WILL BE THE RIGHT OF THE KING, etc. HE WILL TAKE YOUR SONS, etc.
You will ask whether this right is equitable and just, or rather unjustly and as if tyrannically usurped by kings. First, St. Gregory, book 4 chap. 3, and St. Thomas, book 3 On the Rule of Princes chap. 11, and book 2 chap. 9, think that this right is just, not absolutely, but with respect to men so prone to evil that it is just for them to be ruled not so much politically as despotically and tyrannically; so that this government is their yoke, their bridle, and the punishment and chastisement of cupidity.
Second, many others better hold that this right is not just, but unjustly usurped by kings. For it is unjust that a king should snatch away the sons of subjects, and sons from their parents at pleasure, and make them his slaves, that he should take away their vineyards, fields and best oliveyards, and give them to his servants: and that he should take away servants, handmaids, asses and the best young men from their masters, and put them to his work. Whence Achab and Jezabel are blamed and punished with death for having usurped the vineyard of Naboth, 3 Kings chap. 21, verse 19. Wherefore God neither sanctions nor approves this right, but only foretells it: and sets forth its bitterness and paints it graphically before their eyes, to pluck them away from the petition for a king. He describes, therefore, the royal right not as it is among the faithful, but as it is among the heathen, for instance the Chaldeans, Turks, Tartars, where kings use their subjects as slaves and chattels. For this right they usurp to themselves. Hear St. Augustine, book 4 On the City of God, chap. 4: “Justice being removed,” he says, “what are kingdoms but great robberies, since robberies themselves, what are they but small kingdoms?” That saying is well known: “It is the part of kings to take away half of the whole, but of tyrants to take away the whole,” because they are ignorant of that saying of Plato, book 3 On the Laws: “The half is more than the whole.” And that: “That you may save the whole, make it half, or divided.” For in Hebrew mishpat, that is, judgment or right, signifies not a proper right but a usurped one, namely a custom and usage, though unjust, as is clear from Num. 9:14, and chap. 29:6, and Exodus 21:9, and elsewhere. Finally, that some kings of Israel used, or rather abused, this royal power is clear from the magnificence of the chariots, horses and table of Solomon; whence, because of the tributes imposed by him, the people complained to Roboam his son, were treated worse by him, and therefore made a schism, 3 Kings 12.
Furthermore the true and equitable right of a king who is to rule the faithful God describes through Samuel below, chap. 10, 25, and through Moses, Deut. 17, where he lays down what the king ought to render to God, what to the people, and what to himself. See St. Thomas, Bellarmine, Lipsius, Scribanius and others who have written on the Christian prince.