Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Furthermore the lenticula was a little vessel or flask of lenticular shape, or in the likeness of a lentil, such as a horn has (whence it is also called a horn). Less aptly, therefore, Abulensis thinks the lenticula was so named from smearing. The same little vessel is called by Festus and Varro guttur or gutturnium, because on account of the narrowness of its neck the liquid flows out of it drop by drop. This was small, both because little oil is poured on the head of the king, and because this anointing was secret and private.
Symbolically St. Gregory: “The lenticula,” he says, “is a small vessel: what then is the meaning that Saul is anointed from a lenticula, but that in the end he is reprobated? For as the lenticula, he had little oil, who received spiritual grace to be cast away. On the contrary,” he says below, “when the elect king (David) is commanded to be anointed, the Lord says to the same prophet: Fill thy horn with oil,” 1 Kings 16:1. And Rupert, book 2 on John, chap. 1: “God,” he says, “when he sent Samuel to anoint his elect David as king, commanded him to take not a lenticula, as for the anointing of Saul, but a horn of oil; probably signifying the greatness of his gift, and at the same time its strength, that is, the firmness of his throne and the loftiness of prophetic grace.”
AND KISSED HIM,—This kiss signified the communication of grace, says Procopius, and the mutual concord and co-operation of the royal and priestly office, namely that kings ought to be in concord with priests and Pontiffs, and mutually to help, protect and defend one another, for a kiss is the symbol of friendship and peace. For then the government is best when the civil power serves and assists the Ecclesiastical, or when the kingdom serves the Church, and the king the Pontiff. Hear Theodoret, Quest. 16, assigning the literal and allegorical cause of this kiss: “He imparted to him,” he says, “the grace which was in himself. For God also, when he had breathed upon the Apostles, said: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. For of his fullness we all have received. So the Prophet kissed the king on whom hands had been laid.”
Abulensis adds that the kiss, as well as the anointing, was a ceremony by which Saul was constituted king. For as when anyone is made a Doctor, among other rites he is wont to receive a kiss from the Doctor who creates him, who as it were makes him equal to himself by the kiss, and admits him into the number of the other Doctors: so Samuel the judge and prince kisses Saul, as if making him equal to himself, and setting him among princes, nay making him king. So Isaac kissed Jacob, conferring on him the headship over his brethren, Genesis 27:27. The kiss, therefore, was a sign of primogeniture and of principality conferred.
BEHOLD THE LORD HATH ANOINTED THEE TO BE PRINCE OVER HIS INHERITANCE,—that is, over his people, as he adds by way of explanation, according to that: “Israel is my inheritance”; for Israel was as it were the synagogue, commonwealth and kingdom peculiar and proper to God, according to that of Exodus 19:5: “You shall be unto me a peculiar possession above all nations.”
Morally St. Gregory: “The Doctor,” he says, “is chosen that in his prelacy he may seek not his own gain but the Lord’s. The fruit of the anointing is the cultivation of the divine inheritance.”
AND THIS SHALL BE A SIGN UNTO THEE, THAT (because) GOD HATH ANOINTED THEE TO BE PRINCE.—Samuel gives a sign that he has anointed him by God’s command, and that God will deliver Israel through him from the hand of enemies, that he may raise, strengthen and confirm the spirit of Saul, humble and trembling to undertake so new and arduous a work and burden. So Theodoret, Procopius, Hugo, Dionysius and others. Hence St. Gregory: “When holy men,” he says, “are raised to the primacy of the holy Church, they are greatly afraid; lest the burden of so great an order be imposed on them by the judgment of men, not by the ordination of the Creator. Signs, therefore, are given for the strengthening of the humble, by which they may know that they were chosen by God, not by men.”
IN THE BORDERS OF BENJAMIN,—This sepulchre was in Bethlehem, and therefore in the tribe of Juda, Genesis 35:19; but the tribe of Benjamin bordered on the tribe of Juda. So Lyranus, Abulensis and Serarius. For it is improper to divide it thus with some, as if to say: “The two men” who now, while I speak these things, are “by the sepulchre of Rachel, thou shalt find in the borders of Benjamin,” when thou shalt have come there.
Tropologically Rachel, says St. Gregory, admonishes the king that he ought to give time to contemplation, especially of his sepulchre and death, and thence to proceed to his actions and royal functions.
IN THE SOUTH (at noon).—Refer this not to place but to time, as if to say: Thou shalt find them at noontime. For this the Hebrew tseltsach signifies, that is, a clear shade; for such is the shade at noon. The Septuagint render, leaping greatly, or in great leaps, from the root tsalach, that is, to leap. As if to say: Thou shalt find two men leaping, that is, cheerful and glad, and bounding for joy. St. Gregory, Dionysius, Hugo, Abulensis read, leaping great or clear pits: by whom St. Gregory tropologically understands preachers: “At noon,” he says, “they leap great pits, because by the fervor of perfect charity they look down on all that seems high in the world. For whatever is seen to be high in this world is not true height, but a pit, which draws all whom it receives in its ambition down to the lower regions.” “At noon,” he says, that is, in spiritual prosperity they leap great pits, who show outwardly the great joy which they have in the heart: “because the asses are found,” that is, souls redeemed by the blood of Christ.—on which Christ was transfigured. So Abulensis, although Hugo thinks Thabor to be the name of the man whose this oak was. Mystically, Thabor in Hebrew is the same as coming light; whence it is a type of the contemplative life. So St. Gregory: “The men of this conversation,” he says, “while they do not go out to the external works of the active life, are as it were in the shade: because they cannot feel the fires of temptations. For because they rest in heavenly desire, the farther they are removed from the love of the world, the quieter they remain in the shade of refreshment.”
THERE SHALL MEET THEE THREE MEN GOING UP TO GOD TO BETHEL, ONE CARRYING THREE KIDS,—to be sacrificed to God in Bethel. “In Bethel,” that is, where Jacob saw God leaning upon the ladder by which the angels ascended and descended, Genesis 28; whence the place was called Bethel, that is, House of God. Hence Bethel, by this vision of God, was consecrated as a place of prayer, as well as of sacrifice: both because the temple had not yet been built, outside which God had forbidden the Jews to sacrifice; and because the tabernacle, which was as it were a movable and portable temple, was already separated from the ark, which represented God, and the ark from the tabernacle, which was the proper place of the ark. For the tabernacle was in Silo, Judges 18:31 [?]; the ark in Cariathiarim, as we heard chap. 7, 2. Wherefore it was then lawful to sacrifice in another place, especially one frequented by the Patriarchs, such as Bethel was, God permitting it. Hence also Jeroboam placed in Bethel a golden calf, as an idol: and therefore from Bethel, that is, the house of God, he made Bethaven, that is, house of idol, as the Prophets call it.
5. AFTER THAT THOU SHALT COME TO THE HILL OF GOD,—that is, to Cariathiarim, where the ark of God was, says R. Solomon. Whence the Chaldee renders, to the hill on which was the ark of the Lord. So also Isidore Clarius, Vatablus and others; but they err: for Cariathiarim was in the tribe of Juda; but Saul had already gone out of the borders of Juda, and was in the tribe of Benjamin. Lyranus, the Gloss, Hugo, Dionysius understand by the hill of God the place in which the Prophets of God dwelt, of whom it follows. Better Abulensis, Sanchez and others understand Gabaa, which was the country of Saul, and was on a hill: whence also it was called Gabaa. For Gabaa in Hebrew is a hill. Add that in Gabaa was the garrison of the Philistines, of which it follows, and it is clear from chap. 23, 18 [?]. For the Philistines, to hold the Israelites under their yoke and to exact tribute from them, had their camps and garrisons in certain fortified places, such as hills were. So Abulensis, Lyranus, Hugo and Cajetan. Gabaa, moreover, is called the hill of God, because in it the Prophets dwelt, singing divine praises.
THOU SHALT MEET A COMPANY OF PROPHETS.—These prophets were not properly so called, as predicting the future; but were religious men, who, withdrawing from the crowd, gave themselves to God, and sang to him hymns and praises both with the voice and with musical instruments: whence they carried with them a psaltery, harp, timbrel and pipe, as follows. These Samuel seems to have instituted, who preceded Elias and Eliseus by many years. Whence chap. 19, verse 20, the Chaldee renders, and Samuel standing teaching over them. These, therefore, are as it were the first Religious whom we find in sacred Scripture. For them David afterwards composed Psalms. Whence the Chaldee calls these prophets scribes, who, namely, gave themselves to writing, reading, learning and meditating on sacred Scripture, as the Essenes did in the time of Christ. So Lyranus, Abulensis, Hugo, Cajetan, Sanchez, Serarius, Tornielli, the Master of the Scholastic History, Genebrard in his Chronicle, and others. These then are the Prophets who in what follows are called sons, that is, disciples of the Prophets, namely of Samuel, Elias, Eliseus, etc. There were, however, among them some true Prophets, who foretold the future, as is clear from the fact that they themselves foretold to Eliseus the rapture of Elias into heaven, book 4 of Kings, chap. 2, 3. Abulensis proves this at greater length, chap. 19, Quest. 31.