Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
God foresaw this fall, but decreed to permit it, both because he willed to leave him to his own freedom; and to punish the Hebrews, who had asked a king against his will; and to give us an example of choosing superiors the most worthy for the time, and of bearing with their falls, if afterwards they depart from their primeval goodness.
St. Gregory gives another cause: “And perhaps,” he says, “a reprobate king is chosen for this reason, that his elect successor, king David, might recognize in him what he ought to beware of. So surely also we read of that court of Angels; because of the first angel, the apostate, it is written: He is the beginning of the ways of God,” Job chap. 40, verse 14. “But because he was created before all things, he fell through pride, and in his ruin the holy Angels learned by what virtue they could stand,” etc.
24. AND THE COOK LIFTED UP THE SHOULDER, AND SET IT BEFORE SAUL.—You will say: The right shoulder of a peace victim (such as this was) fell to the priest, namely Samuel; nor could it be eaten except by him and his servant, as is ordained in Levit. chap. 22, verse 11. How then does Samuel give it to Saul? Abulensis answers that this shoulder was not the right but the left, which could be eaten by laymen. If you prefer that it was the right, say that this shoulder was not of the victim, but of a common animal. For with the victims, if they did not suffice for the number of the guests, other common meats, which were not sacrificed to God, could be eaten.
Morally, learn here the frugality of the ancient age. See, Samuel sets before king Saul not partridges, not pheasants, not various dishes, but one shoulder. Hear what the banquets of the first Christians were, as Tertullian describes them in the Apology 39: “They do not sit down to table before prayer to God is first tasted; they eat as much as the hungry take: they drink as much as is useful to the modest: they are so satisfied as those who remember that even through the night they must worship God; they converse as those who know that the Lord hears. After the water for the hands, and the lights, as each one is able, from the holy Scriptures or from his own talent, he is called into the midst to sing to God. From this it is proved how he has drunk. Prayer likewise breaks up the banquet. Thence they depart to the same care of modesty and chastity: as those who have supped not so much a supper as a discipline.”
St. Antony, as St. Athanasius testifies, lived on bread, salt and water alone to the age of 105. St. Paul the first Hermit, as St. Jerome testifies, on bread and water to the age of 113. St. Hilarion on the juice of herbs and a few dried figs after three days, to the age of 80. The other Anchorites did the same, as Theodoret, Palladius and Cassian testify. Hear St. Bernard, epist. 4 to Robert: “For him who lives prudently and soberly,” he says, “salt with hunger is enough for every seasoning. Rise, gird thyself, put away idleness, put forth thy strength, move, spread thy clasped hands, rouse thyself to some work, and thou wilt immediately feel that thou desirest only what takes away hunger, not what caresses the palate. For exercise will restore to things the flavors which idleness took away: hunger in a wonderful way makes sweet what disgust makes tasteless. Herbs, beans, porridge and common bread with water are indeed loathsome to one at rest, but to one in exercise seem great delicacies.”
Finally the ancient Romans fed on porridge instead of bread, as Valerius Maximus testifies, book 2, chap. 5. Whence they were also called porridge-eaters, and were healthy and strong, so that they subjected almost the whole world to themselves in war. For physicians teach that it contributes much to health and strength if one feeds on only one food, and that a simple one, for the variety of foods is the cause of indigestion, and thence of fevers and diseases. Experience teaches the same.
BECAUSE IT WAS KEPT FOR THEE ON PURPOSE.—The Septuagint give the reason when they render: It was set for thee as a testimony by the people, that is, apart from the others, as the Roman reading has, from the people; as if to say: This shoulder was kept for thee, to distinguish thee as the future king from the rest of the people. “The shoulder,” say Theodoret and Procopius, “is kept for Saul, as for one about to reign and to undergo danger for the people, and therefore it is called a testimony.” Whence Josephus, book 6, chap. 4, calls this shoulder “royal.” For the shoulder is a symbol of warlike fortitude, which was required in a king, especially in Saul, who at this time was to fight for Israel oppressed by the Philistines. Hear St. Gregory: “What is signified in the shoulder of the breast but the strength of action?” This, however, was required in any king, but most of all in Saul for subduing enemies.
For this reason the right shoulder of the victim fell to the priest; separated, says St. Gregory, part 2 of the Pastoral chap. 3: “That his work may be not only useful but also singular. And that he may not do right things only among the wicked; but, as he surpasses well-working subjects in the honor of his order, so also he may transcend them in the virtue of his morals. To whom in eating also the breast with the shoulder is given, that what he is commanded to take from the sacrifice, this he may learn to immolate of himself to the Author; and not only in his breast may think what is right, but with the shoulder of work may invite his beholders to high things.” Hence this shoulder is called by Josephus “the royal portion”: for Samuel by that act wished to intimate that kings and leaders ought especially to excel in fortitude and magnanimity, which the shoulder signifies, which they ought to eat, that they may pass fortitude into the very soul, not making much of that which is of the body.
But to Saul fell the shoulder without the breast, because in him there was the shoulder of fortitude; but there was wanting in him the breast of wisdom, compassion and charity toward David and his other citizens.
The Author of the Convivial Antiquities, book 1 chap. 31, gives two other causes. The first: “Because the shoulder in sacrifices was the proper part of the priests, Samuel by this symbol wished to admonish that the king should live more closely joined with the priests: for so his kingdom would be blessed and flourishing.” The second, “that since the shoulder is most powerful for bearing burdens, Saul should think that he was called not to jest, to play, to pleasures, but to bear and sustain the greatest burdens.”
25. AND HE SPOKE WITH SAUL ON THE TOP OF THE HOUSE.—What? “of the custom,” they say, “of God and the guarding of the law”; the Carthusian: “Of things pertaining to salvation, admonishing him to better things”; Abulensis: “Of things pertaining to the instruction of the king, how he ought to bear himself toward his subjects, and how toward God.”
AND HE PREPARED (Samuel prepared a bed, namely a mattress, or a straw sack, as the Hungarians and Poles do) FOR SAUL (for Saul, or as Gregory has it, Saul prepared it for himself) ON THE TOP OF THE HOUSE,—namely on a roof exposed to the sun. For in Palestine the roofs are flat, so that they can walk, dine and sleep on them, as I said at Deut. 22:8. Hear St. Jerome to Sunia and Fretela on Psalm 101 [?]: “In Palestine and Egypt, where the divine books were either written or translated, they have not ridges on the roofs, but flat roofs, which at Rome they call either solaria or maeniana, that is, flat roofs, supported by transverse beams.”
These words are wanting in the Hebrew, and the Chaldee, and the Royal Latin editions, but the Septuagint have them: they prepared, it says, for Saul on the top of the house. See Francis Lucas in his Notes here.