Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
10. AND WHEN HE HAD MADE AN END OF OFFERING THE HOLOCAUST, BEHOLD SAMUEL CAME.—See what precipitation and impatience will do. If Saul had waited even an hour, behold Samuel was at hand to sacrifice for him and consult God. But now by defect of patience and perseverance for an hour, he lost a temporal kingdom, and by degrees fell so far that at length he lost the eternal one too. For God willed that Saul be directed by Samuel, and the king by the priest and prophet, to teach that temporal power and rule ought to be directed by the spiritual and Ecclesiastical. Whence St. Ignatius, epist. 6 to the Magnesians: “Saul,” he says, “is deprived of the royal honor, not waiting for the high priest Samuel: we ought therefore also to revere our superiors; and it becomes us not only to be called Christians, but to be. For not to be called, but to be, makes blessed. Those who call a man Bishop and do all things without him; to such he himself will say, who is the true and first Bishop: Why call you me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? For such do not seem to me to be endowed with a good conscience, but to be pretenders and masks.”
AND SAUL WENT OUT TO MEET HIM.—Dionysius gives the causes: “He honored Samuel,” he says, “on account of his old age and holiness, and his prophetic fault of disobedience is born, the disobedient are accustomed to hear the greatness of their guilt, but not to satisfy by humble confession. For, when they desire to appear lofty, they disdain to show their falls, and therefore while they bring forth excuses, they pretend justice, because they blush to appear sinners.”
Furthermore how grave and hateful to God it is to excuse a fault, St. Bernard teaches, tract. On Precept and Dispensation: “That ancient so well-known and so harmful transgression,” he says, “would, as is believed, easily have obtained pardon, provided confession, and not defense, had followed. For the transgression of a simple act, though from deliberation, did not do so much harm as the added excuse, with premeditated obstinacy.”
12. FORCED BY NECESSITY.—“Saul,” says Dionysius, “falsely excused himself: because there was no true, absolute, sufficient necessity, and such a usurped offering was more offensive to God than placating.” Of this sacrifice may be said what St. Bernard, serm. 94 on the Canticle, said of the sacrifice of Cain: “A dead gift,” he says, “thou offerest to God, but thou sinnest.”
13. AND SAMUEL SAID TO SAUL: THOU HAST DONE FOOLISHLY (in Hebrew niskalta, that is, thou hast been made a fool), AND HAST NOT KEPT THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD THY GOD, WHICH HE COMMANDED THEE,—namely that thou shouldst wait for my coming through seven whole days, and shouldst sacrifice through me, and consult God, as God had commanded thee through me. So Angelomus, Abulensis, Cajetan and others. For it is most foolish not to obey the commandments of God; and so to provoke his offense, anger and vengeance against oneself. Each word has an amplification and emphasis aggravating the sin of Saul. For St. Gregory also skillfully weighs: “The boldness of the transgression would be great, if he whose commandments thou despisest were only thy Lord, and not also God. How great therefore is what is committed, when the commands of God, and of the Lord, are neglected!”
Second, St. Gregory presses “thy God,” as if to say:
“Thou hast despised the precept of him who, when he raised thee from the lowest, when he set thee over others, when he made thee king, by the imposition of such great offices was as it were specially thy own.”
Third, he presses “which he commanded thee,” not to all in general, but to thee specially, as if to say: “Those commandments of God, and of thy Lord, thou hast despised, which thou oughtest to have observed, not as common to all, but as proper, and entrusted singularly to thee alone.”
Tropologically, St. Chrysostom shows that the sinner is a fool, because from a rational man he makes himself as it were an irrational beast. Hear him, hom. 12 on Genesis: “Man, a gentle and rational animal, turns his manners into those of wild beasts. Therefore Scripture sometimes calls them dogs, for impudence, asses, for stupidity and rudeness, Psalm 48, lions for the greed of devouring, Osee 13:7 and 8; asps for fraudulence, Psalm 13:3; serpents and vipers for hidden venom and malice, Psalm 139:4, and Matt. 3:7, and imposes other names answering to the affections, that so, confounded, they may at length return to their own nobility, and be made conformable to their own kind.”
AND IF THOU HADST NOT DONE THUS, THE LORD WOULD NOW HAVE ESTABLISHED THY KINGDOM OVER ISRAEL FOR EVER.—Established: in Hebrew hechin, that is, would have made firm, would have stabilized. So often in Scripture to prepare is taken for to confirm, as Psalm 88: “I will prepare thy seed for ever,” that is, I will confirm the kingdom to thy descendants, that they may succeed thee in it in a continuous series of generations: “for ever,” not absolutely, but relatively: namely as long as the commonwealth and kingdom of Israel lasted. You will say: How does this sentence agree with that of Genesis 49:10: “The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda”? for there God promises a perpetual kingdom to Juda; here, however, to Saul, who was not of the tribe of Juda, but of Benjamin. I answer: God had first decreed to perpetuate the kingdom to Saul and his posterity, if they had been obedient to him in all things: but because he foresaw that Saul would not do this, he decreed to transfer the sceptre from him to Juda and David. That prophecy of Jacob about the kingdom of Juda, therefore, presupposes the foreknowledge of the fault and rejection of Saul, although future after some centuries. For this the assertion of Samuel concerning the continuing of the kingdom of Saul proves.
14. BUT THY KINGDOM SHALL NOT CONTINUE,—so as to pass after thee to thy sons: for it will pass to David. For otherwise Saul was not deprived of the kingdom: nay he remained king all his life, but at his death God transferred the kingdom from the sons of Saul to David. Whence from this place it cannot be proved that Saul here sinned mortally, because he was deprived of the kingdom: for God could, without any fault of his, transfer the kingdom from his posterity to David. Much more therefore could he do this for his venial fault; namely because he did not fully obey God and Samuel. So the Angel, that is the Bishop of Ephesus, supposed to be St. Timothy, heard from Christ, Apoc. chap. 2, verse 4: “Thou hast left thy first charity, etc. Do the first works. Or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place”; that is, I will remove thee from thy candlestick, that is, I will deprive thee of thy bishopric. See what was said there.
Fittingly, therefore, is Saul deprived of the kingdom, because he did not obey God his king, by whom he was made king. So a viceroy is stripped of his office if he does not obey his king. Man, therefore, “that he may be able to command, ought to be subject to God,” says St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, serm. 10. And St. Augustine on Psalm 143, on the words: Who teacheth my hands to fight, “It is expedient,” he says, “that he who wishes that what is lower be subject to him, subject himself to his superior. Acknowledge the order. Thou to God, the flesh to thee; what is more just? what more beautiful? Thou to the greater, the lesser to thee: serve thou him who made thee, that what was made for thee may serve thee. But if thou disdain to serve God, thou shalt never bring it about that the flesh serve thee. Thou who obeyest not the Lord art tormented by a servant.”
And St. Gregory, book 1 of the Dialogues, chap. 10: “It is indeed a custom of right conversation,” he says, “that he dare not preside who has not learned to be subject: nor command obedience from subjects which he has not known how to render to Prelates.”
THE LORD HATH SOUGHT HIM A MAN ACCORDING TO HIS OWN HEART,—A man, namely, according to his taste, and wish, according to his good pleasure and desire; who, namely, “heart,” that is, who plainly and fully conforms “his mind and will” to “the heart,” that is, “to his mind and will; who,” namely, “shall do all my wills,” as St. Paul explains, Acts 13:22. This is David: for what my heart wills, that the heart of David wills also, and therefore in him “the heart,” that is, “my mind,” plainly delights and rests; whereas in thee, O Saul, it has not rested, because thou hast not fulfilled my precepts fully, but only in part. So St. Gregory: “By the heart of God,” he says, “in the sacred word, his inmost will is designated. We are, however, near to it, when we both recognize it by understanding, and keep it by love.” And a little after: “A man,” he says, “can be understood for fortitude, according to the heart of God for inward charity. When therefore necessity requires, let a man be sought for the care of the holy Church, that he may be such in outward conversation: let him be sought according to the heart of God, that by the affection of great love he may be as it were united to the divine will.” And below: “Therefore he sought him, because thou wouldst not be according to his heart.” Whence St. Chrysostom rightly exclaims, hom. On David and Goliath: “O blessed merit of most holy David, which God praises, the Lord proclaims, the supreme Judge prefers: for while David, most holy, a man according to the heart of God, whatever God thinks, is done; whatever he conceives in mind, he accomplishes; while, I say, David joins his own heart to the heart of God, and attaches his mind to his mind; that is, so as to will what God wills, and likewise not to will what he wills not; thus the Lord loved him with undivided love and conjoined charity.”