Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
12. AND WHEN SAMUEL ROSE IN THE MORNING TO GO TO SAUL.—See here and imitate the ready obedience, vigilance and diligence of Samuel, rising in the night to do the thing in the morning. For these two times, namely night or evening, and morning, are especially to be observed and ordered. Hear F. Bartholomew of the Martyrs, Archbishop of Braga, in his notable Compendium of Spiritual Doctrine, chap. 27: “Teach seculars, when they go to bed, to meditate on these things: that life is ended in death, as the day declined into night; and that the body, the soul being shut out, is to be laid in the sepulchre, as, your garment put off, you lay yourself in bed; and when you wake in the morning, reflect how keenly one must watch on the day of judgment, where the night of this world shall be ended; you shall be summoned from the sepulchre, and shall put on the soul again, to stand before God in judgment, to render account of all your works. Let this consideration be constantly before your eyes, namely in what way the Lord from eternity chose you, as the instrument of very many good actions, that with your powers, senses and members you might fulfil His good pleasure in many good works; after creation He insinuated Himself to you more deeply, and expects to exercise in you and through you works by which His glory may be made known; but you, as a refractory instrument, yield not to so great a weight of benefits, nay resist, and seem to take care that the will of the Lord …
IT WAS TOLD SAMUEL THAT SAUL WAS COME TO CARMEL, etc.—Clearly the Hebrew: It was told Samuel, saying: Saul is come to Carmel; and he set up for himself a hand, and turning about he passed on and went down to Galgal. So the Septuagint, Chaldee, Vatablus and others. Moreover “hand” is by metonymy used for a conspicuous work of the hand, or a thing made by hand, namely a triumphal arch. Vatablus, a trophy, for the victory won over the Amalecites.
13. BLESSED BE THOU OF THE LORD,—that is, by the Lord or before the Lord; the Chaldee, before the Lord, as if to say: God loves thee exceedingly, and follows thee with great favour, and heaps upon thee His blessings, that is, gifts and benefits. Saul flatters Samuel, by praising him, to hide his disobedience, or at least to stop Samuel’s mouth, that he may not reprove him.
15. FOR THE PEOPLE SPARED THE BEST OF THE SHEEP AND OF THE HERDS, TO SACRIFICE TO THE LORD.—Saul veils his disobedience under the appearance of religion and sacrifice, when in truth the cause of it was avarice. For, as was said, verse 9, he kept the better for himself and slew the worse; yet some part, and the firstfruits of the prey, he offered and immolated to God: but even had he immolated all to God, he would not have escaped the crime of disobedience and the offence of God, as Samuel reproaches him in what follows.
17. WHEREAS THOU WAST A LITTLE ONE IN THINE OWN EYES, WAST THOU NOT MADE THE HEAD (king) OF THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL?—Note here the fruit of humility. For God on account of it raised Saul to the kingdom. For He “exalteth the humble, and humbleth the proud,” as Holy Scripture often cries. St. Gregory presses the words “in thine own eyes”: He who knows himself clearly grows vile to himself; for pride arises from blindness and ignorance of oneself. The same Gregory, in a homily on the Gospel, explains it clearly and forcibly: “I made thee great above others; but because thou beholdest thyself great, by me thou art esteemed small.” Whence he concludes: “He who gathers virtues without humility is as one carrying dust in the wind.”
19. WHY THEN DIDST THOU NOT HEARKEN TO THE VOICE OF THE LORD?—as if to say: Why didst thou not persevere in thy first humility? for so thou wouldst likewise have persevered in thy first obedience: but because, raised to the kingdom, thou hast fallen from humility, thou hast likewise fallen from obedience, that is, thou hast become proud, and thence disobedient. Excellently St. Bernard, epistle 253: “True virtue,” he says, “knows no end, is not closed in time, charity never falleth away. The just man never thinks that he has comprehended, never says: It is enough; but ever hungers and thirsts after justice; so that if he lived always, he would always, as far as in him lay, strive to be more just, would always with all his strength endeavour to advance from good to better; for not for a year, or for a time, like a hireling, but for ever he devotes himself to the divine service, according to that: I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications for …
The root, then, of Saul’s fall was that he was too tenacious of his own judgment, and did not submit it to the judgment and will of God. For he judged it better to keep the prey of Amalec for his own use and that of his people, than to destroy it fruitlessly. But God judged and willed the contrary. There came in, nay went before, the avarice and cupidity of such rich spoils from Amalec. Wherefore St. Chrysostom says that Saul fell because he had not given his whole heart to God; but partly to God, partly to his own affections and cupidities; whereas David, on the contrary, had given his whole heart to God, and therefore was a man according to God’s own heart: wherefore God, Saul being removed, made him king.
20. AND SAUL SAID TO SAMUEL: YEA, I HAVE HEARKENED TO THE VOICE OF THE LORD.—Saul here excuses and defends the crime of disobedience; by which excuse he greatly increases it, and confirms and kindles more the anger of God against himself: whereas if he had acknowledged the crime and repented, he would have obtained pardon, though not the kingdom, as I said.
AND HAVE DESTROYED AMALEC (the Amalecites).—Moreover, not all the Amalecites were slain, but some were absent or escaped by flight; that they grew again is plain from the fact that afterwards David attacked them, as is said in chapters 27 and 30.
22. OBEDIENCE IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICES,—as if to say: It is better to do what God commanded, omitting the victims which He did not command, than, omitting what He commanded, to offer voluntary victims, or even forbidden ones, as he did, offering the sheep and oxen of the Amalecites, all of whom God had commanded to be slain in war, not immolated in the temple. For He abhorred them as anathemas.
You will say: Religion, whose office is to offer victims to God, is more excellent than all the moral virtues; therefore it excels obedience also. For religion is concerned immediately with God, and renders Him due worship, adoration and sacrifice: but obedience is concerned with the precepts of God and of Superiors, and fulfils them. I answer, religion is in itself a better and greater virtue than obedience. Obedience, however, is said to be better, because more necessary, and in practice to be preferred to religion. For what God has commanded is absolutely to be done, and He is to be obeyed; but acts of religion, such as victims and sacrifices, are free; wherefore must yield to obedience. For the free ought of necessity to give place, and counsel to precept. “Better, therefore, is obedience than victims,” that is, as the Hebrew has, it is better to obey than victims … for this lives and works in it. Hear St. Augustine, book 10 On the City of God, chap. 6: “Man himself, consecrated and devoted to the name of God, so far as he dies to the world that he may live to God, is a sacrifice, etc. Our body also, when we chastise it with temperance, if we do this as we ought, for God’s sake, so as not to yield our members as instruments of iniquity unto sin, but as instruments of justice unto God, is a sacrifice. If then the body, which the soul as an inferior servant or instrument uses, is a sacrifice when its good and right use is referred to the Lord, how much more the soul itself, when it refers itself to God, that, kindled by the fire of His love, it may lose the form of worldly desire, and, subject to Him as to an unchangeable form, be reformed; being thence pleasing to Him by what it has received of His beauty, it becomes a sacrifice.”
More concisely St. Gregory, homily 20 on Ezechiel: “Those,” he says, “who so do the things that are of God as yet not to leave certain things that are of the world, offer indeed a sacrifice and not a holocaust. But those who forsake all that are of the world, and kindle the whole mind with the fire of divine love, these become to the Almighty Lord a sacrifice and a holocaust.”
…to offer…; but to offer victims is free and spontaneous. So St. Gregory, Theodoret, Angelomus, Bede and others. Wherefore St. Thomas, 2–2, question 186, article 7, teaches that the religious state is nothing other than a holocaust, because it hands over all to its God; and he who has devoted himself to this state has offered to his Creator both inward and …
Add: Although, by reason of its object, religion is a virtue more excellent than obedience; yet obedience, even freely assumed, especially continual and perpetual, as is done in monasteries, in many respects surpasses religion.
First, because, as St. Gregory says, book 35 of the Morals, chap. 10: “By victims another’s flesh, by obedience one’s own will, is slain.” Wherefore as far as the will of man excels sheep and oxen, so far does obedience excel victims. Whence St. Bernard, book On the Order of Life: “So much the more quickly does each appease God, as, the pride of his own judgment being put down before His eyes, he immolates himself with the sword of precept.”
Secondly, because by obedience our will is conformed to the divine will, which is most holy, and the norm and rule of all virtue and holiness. Wherefore to it properly belongs what God says by Isaias, chap. 62, verse 4: “Thou shalt be called my pleasure in her.”
Thirdly, because obedience makes the will a living and perennial sacrifice of God; whereas in victims the dead flesh of animals is offered to God. Wherefore obedience is a mystical but most noble holocaust, which devotes the whole man to God. Whence St. Jerome on Isaias chap. 43: “I have not required of thee offerings,” he says, “nor sought incense, etc. But obedience, which is a sacrifice, of which David in Psalm 50: A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit.” Wherefore in this sacrifice the will is immolated as a victim and dies; but yet it lives, and is therefore dead and living at once; dead, namely, to itself, and living to God and the divine will.