Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
14. AND HE SAID TO HER: HOW LONG WILT THOU BE DRUNK?—This rebuke was severe, especially as it came from a Pontiff; to soften which the Septuagint render, The servant of Heli said to her. Whence St. Chrysostom, homily 2 On Anna, and Philo, in the book On Drunkenness, judge that Heli made this reproach to Anna not himself but by a servant, both that he might not shame her too much, and because he thought it unworthy of the Pontiff’s dignity to converse with a drunken woman.
15. ANNA ANSWERING, SAID: NOT SO, MY LORD,—I am drunk or intoxicated, as thou thinkest, and thou chargest me too boldly. St. Chrysostom notes the reverence, humility and modesty of Anna, in that she patiently bore the reproach of drunkenness, which in a woman is grave and shameful, thrown at her by Heli, and refuted it by a simple denial, and calls Heli Lord, and as to a priest lays open to him her affliction, and therefore deserved to be blessed by him and to obtain her vow and a son. Hear St. Gregory: “Calling the priest Lord, she denies that she is drunk, that she might submit herself in humility to the higher order, and with truth against the false charge…”
BUT I POUR OUT MY SOUL BEFORE THE LORD,—soul, that is, the straits, griefs and afflictions of my soul, likewise the desires, vows and hopes of conceiving offspring; for here Anna in praying represented to God all things, and consequently as it were her whole heart and her whole soul, and poured them out like clear and limpid water, reserving nothing for herself, holding nothing hidden or concealed, but laying open everything and pouring it into the bosom of God. Whence St. Chrysostom, homily On the Faith of Anna: “He would not err,” he says, “who should call this woman at once the mother and the father of the boy; for although her husband had added the seed, yet her supplication gave force and efficacy to the seed, and brought it about that Samuel was born under auspicious beginnings.”
Some in Abulensis expound it thus: I have poured out my soul, that is, the bile and anger of my soul, in the sight of the Lord, representing to Him the motions of anger which I had conceived against Phenenna mocking me, and asking of Him their remedy and solace, that, the whole anger of my heart being poured out before God, I might free this heart from gall, lest anything should remain in it which I might pour out upon Phenenna my rival through the mouth and angry words. And that this is the present remedy of anger and indignation, that one pour it all out before God by prayer, Abulensis and others teach.
16. COUNT NOT THY HANDMAID FOR ONE OF THE DAUGHTERS OF BELIAL,—that is, a drunken, wicked and impious woman. See what I said of Belial on 2 Corinthians 6. Note, says St. Jerome in the Questions, that all who follow him are called sons of Belial. So St. Jerome.
17. THEN HELI SAID TO HER: GO IN PEACE, AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL GRANT THEE THY PETITION.—Behold, the fruit of reverence and humility is the Pontiff’s blessing and auspicious prayer, which made Anna possessed of her vow and fruitful: “The woman,” says St. Chrysostom, “made of an accuser a patron; she found as intercessor him whom she had had as rebuker.” Theodoret notes that married people should seek the priest’s blessing, that they may receive offspring good and holy, as happened here to Anna; for Samuel ought to be reckoned not so much the son of Anna as of God, given to Anna by Him through the blessing of Heli.
18. AND SHE SAID: WOULD TO GOD THY HANDMAID MAY FIND GRACE IN THY EYES!—First, St. Chrysostom expounds it thus: Would that thou mayest learn from the outcome that I prayed not from drunkenness but from affliction and devotion! Second, and better, as if she said: May I find with thee this grace, that thou wouldst pray for me, that God may free me from this affliction, console me, and make me a mother. So the Hebrews, Vatablus, Cajetan and others; for to find grace is the same to the Hebrews as to please, to be acceptable.
AND HER COUNTENANCE WAS NO MORE CHANGED INTO DIVERS THINGS.—In Hebrew, and her faces were no more to her, namely various and diverse, so that she appeared now sad, now glad, but she appeared always with the same face, grave, modest, serene and joyful. Some render, and there was no more to her a face, namely sad, that is, sadness of countenance; because by prayer resigning herself wholly to God, she was endowed by Him with serenity of mind and confidence, so that she rested in God and in the providence and will of God. For God then put into her a sure confidence that her prayer had been heard by Him, and that she would conceive a son.
Whence, full of hope, says R. Joseph and from him Serarius, she went first to her lodging in Silo; then on the next day to Ramatha, and took food now joyfully, and was no more of sad and dejected countenance, but of a level and constant one. “Do you see,” says Chrysostom, “the woman’s faith? Before she received what she had asked, she was as confident as if she had already received it; the cause was that the woman prayed with fervour,” etc.
Moreover a serene and constant countenance is the index of a serene and constant mind, for it flows from it; for as Ambrose says, book 1 On Duties, chapter 17: “The habit of the mind is discerned in the state of the body; the motion of the body is a kind of voice of the soul.” And in the book On Elias, chapter 10: “The countenance,” he says, “is a kind of arbiter of thought and silent interpreter of the heart. The face is for the most part the index of conscience and the silent speech of the mind.”
Both are the fruit of prayer. Hear St. Chrysostom on Psalm 129, speaking of prayer: “He who so prays,” he says, “even before he obtains what he asks, receives great goods from the prayer, repressing all disturbances of the mind, calming anger, expelling envy, quenching desire, lessening and drying up the love of things pertaining to this life, bringing the mind into great tranquillity, and then ascending into heaven itself.”
Symbolically Rupert and St. Gregory, book 33 of the Morals, chapter 21: Anna did not change her countenance, because having once by prayer fixed the eyes of her mind on God, she thenceforward did not turn them from Him, but held them constantly on Him, and persevered in prayer, so as always to have God in mind.
BEFORE GOD,—that is, before the ark, they adored God sitting upon the ark in the propitiatory. Tropologically, learn here to invoke God in the morning, before you gird yourself for a journey or work, that God may favour and prosper it: “Let prayer arm those going out of the lodging,” says St. Jerome, epistle 92, “and let prayer meet those returning from the street before they sit.” Anna was therefore heard, and by a great miracle a son was born to her. Tertullian, book On Fasting, chapter 6: “Anna easily obtains from God to fill her belly, empty of food, and that with a prophet.” See what I said on morning prayer, Deuteronomy 6, 7.
20. AND SHE CALLED HIS NAME SAMUEL, BECAUSE SHE HAD ASKED HIM OF THE LORD.—Hence it is plain that Samuel in Hebrew is the same as Saul meel, that is, asked of God.
So Josephus, Eusebius, Serarius and others: asked for, I say, and obtained by his mother’s asking: for the Hebrews in the composition of names do not keep the order of grammar, but transpose or drop some letters; he was called Samuel to this end, that as often as the boy heard this his name, he might remember that he had been given by God, by a miracle, to his vowing mother, and that therefore he owed to God all that he was and lived, as a peculiar Son of God, and so should give himself wholly to Him, nay, render himself back, and willingly take up the burdens of the Nazariteship which his mother had vowed; for he was reminded of this vow whenever he was called by his mother, Samuel, Samuel.
Secondly, some in Abulensis judge that Samuel is the same as Ismael, so that Samuel is said as if Scama el, that is, God hath heard the prayer of his mother Anna.
Thirdly, St. Gregory and Angelomus: “Samuel,” they say, is the same as schemo el, that is, His name God, so that “Samuel” is nearly the same as “Emmanuel,” that is, “God with us.” To this the name “Samuel” alludes, though this is not the reason and etymology of the name. As Moses was appointed by God a god to Pharao, Exodus 7, 1, so also Samuel to Saul and Israel.
Fourthly, Francis Georgius, volume 1, Problem 442: Samuel, he says, is the same as scarmo el, that is, God set him. To this agrees Philo, who in the book That God, etc., and in the book On Drunkenness: Samuel, he says, is the same as tetagmenos theo, that is, set or ordained for God, because God created him to be dedicated and consecrated to Himself. Another etymology of Samuel his mother afterwards added, of which in the last verse.
The first reason is the most proper and genuine, and so Josephus, Theodoret, Procopius and others commonly follow it. So Theodorus, and conversely Dorotheus, in Greek is the same as theou doron, that is, gift of God: whence Theodoret writes in the Philotheus, chapter 12, that this name was given to himself because his mother had obtained him from God by the prayers of Macedonius the Anchorite. Theodorus in Greek is therefore the same as in Latin: Given by God, by which name St. Augustine called his son, or Given to God, by which name Philip II, king of France, was called, because his father Louis, already old and almost despairing of offspring, had obtained him from God by prayers. So Demaratus was the name of the son of Ariston, king of Sparta, because all the people had prayed that a son like himself might be born to the excellent king Ariston, as Herodotus testifies, book 6. For Demaratus is said as if demou ara, that is, the people’s imprecation, devotion, vow.