Commentaria in III Regum
But that Abisag was David’s wife, other interpreters commonly teach, as St. Jerome, Procopius, Theodoret, Angelomus, Lyranus, Dionysius, Serarius, Cajetan, Salianus and Pineda, book 5 On Solomon, chapter 1, number 4. For Scripture insinuates this when it says: “And she slept with the king, etc., and he knew her not”; as if to say: He could have known her as a husband, but in fact did not know her, being cold and unfit for generation. Add that honesty demanded that he should not sleep with a woman unless she were his wife; so that he might avoid the danger of temptation and adultery, if the temptation to union had assailed him in the presence of so beautiful a virgin.
To the first argument of Abulensis, Cajetan replies that the law of Leviticus, that a son shall not take his father’s wife, is to be understood of her who was perfectly a wife, namely who had consummated marriage with him by union; or at least that Adonias was ignorant of this law, because he was a layman, a young courtier, and the king’s son, who looked not so much to the law as to the kingdom; and therefore he asked Abisag as wife that through her, as his father’s wife and queen, he might come to the kingdom and succeed his father; which he could not have hoped if Abisag had been David’s handmaid only, not his wife. But I shall say more on this matter at chapter 2, verse 17.
To the second he replies that David was not by nature cold or impotent for union, nor was he unable to use the conjugal act; for Scripture insinuates this when it says: “And he knew her not”; as if to say: He could have known her, but in fact did not know her, so as not to take away her virginity but to preserve it. For many of cold complexion are capable of the conjugal act. Whence in the old and the barren there is no impotence that hinders and annuls marriage.
On this note: In old men who are so cold and exhausted that they cannot be helped, by nature or by art, to emit seed, there is no marriage in what they enter upon; but in old men who can emit seed, although they cannot generate, because their seed is unfit for generation, marriage is valid, as Sylvester teaches under the word Marriage, Scotus, and Dominic de Soto in book 4, treatise On Matrimony, Sanchez and others: but this defect and impotence of emitting seed is rare. Hence the Church ordinarily grants even to decrepit old men the faculty of contracting marriage. See our Thomas Sanchez, treatise On Matrimony, book 7, disputation 92, number 19 and following; nay, Navarrus, Vega and others hold that the contract of marriage is always valid in old men, because they retain the intrinsic power of emitting seed, and it is accidental that this is hindered by old age from coming into act. But it is truer, as Sanchez and others say, that true and proper power for conjugal union, which takes place by the emission of seed, is required for marriage.
Verse 5. AND ADONIAS THE SON OF HAGGITH LIFTED HIMSELF UP, SAYING: I WILL BE KING.—Because although he was David’s fourth son, yet the first three sons of David being already dead, he was his eldest; hence by the right of primogeniture the kingdom seemed to belong to him; but because he sought it proudly and seized it too hastily, he therefore lost it, and Solomon by the modesty of his mind deserved to obtain it, the dignity and honor of the firstborn being transferred to him. Whence St. Ambrose, Apology 1 for David, chapter 5: “David was so cautious,” he says, “that when he found that his son Adonias was usurping the kingdom for himself, being asked, he chose not him who was eager to seize it hastily, but him who would wait.” For he knew that the kingdom was due to Solomon by God’s ordination and decree; for God had revealed this to him, 2 Kings 7:12, and therefore David had sworn to Bethsabee that he would raise her son Solomon to the kingdom.
10. AND SOLOMON HIS BROTHER HE CALLED NOT,—as being his rival in the kingdom. For he knew that the kingdom had been promised to him by David and by God, and therefore was striving to snatch it from him.
We shall be punished by Adonias as sinners and rebels, because we did not consent to him when he seized the kingdom. Again, “sinners” on account of the adultery which I once committed with thee; for the infamy of this sin was renewed and magnified by Adonias, in order to deprive Solomon of the kingdom, by saying to the people: Beware lest you make Solomon king over you, as the son of an adulteress, and therefore infamous. So Cajetan. Whence St. Jerome in the Traditions reads: “We shall be bastards,” that is, we shall be held to be spurious and infamous.
36. SO MAY THE LORD GOD SPEAK,—as if to say: May God approve and confirm what thou sayest, namely that Solomon succeed thee in the kingdom.
39. AND SADOC THE PRIEST TOOK A HORN OF OIL OUT OF THE TABERNACLE (this oil, then, was sacred, with which king Solomon was to be anointed and consecrated), and it was mixed with olive oil, as is plain from Exodus 30:23, 31 and 32, where this oil is called holy, and it is forbidden under penalty of death that any layman be anointed with it. Wherefore the king could not be anointed with it, but with lay and common oil, which nevertheless was called holy, because it was taken from the holy tabernacle, and, sanctified by some certain rite for anointing a faithful king who was to rule the people of God, was applied by a consecrated Pontiff. Far holier, therefore, was the consecration of priests than that of kings, as is plain from its rite, which is described in the whole of chapter 29 of Exodus and in Leviticus 8. So think Oleaster, Cajetan, Ystella and Lipomanus on Exodus 30, and St. Augustine favors it, question 135 on Exodus, and Lorinus on Psalm 88:21. The Rabbis hold the contrary, whom Genebrard on Psalm 88:21, Lyranus, Dionysius here and Isidore, book 3 On the Offices, chapter 25, cite and follow, who think that David and Solomon and their descendants were anointed with the same oil with which the Pontiffs were anointed. For they say that, by the counsel of Samuel and the prophets of that age, a dispensation was made in the law forbidding this, Exodus chapters 30, 31 and 32, in favor of the kings of David’s family, since Christ the Lord was to arise from it.
AND ANOINTED SOLOMON.—Note: The anointing of the kings of Juda seems ordinarily to have been done by the Pontiff with holy oil. This is proved because of David it is said: “With my holy oil I have anointed him,” Psalm 88:21. The same is plain of Solomon, whom here Sadoc anointed with the oil of the tabernacle, which was holy. For the kings were as it were christs of the Lord, being in God’s place leaders and rulers of the faithful and holy people of God. Extraordinarily, however, some were anointed by a Prophet, and then they seem sometimes to have used not the oil of the tabernacle but other common oil, which nevertheless seems to have been blessed by the Prophet; for example if he was farther away from the temple, where this oil was, as Elias was dwelling in Samaria and on Mount Carmel when he sent Eliseus to anoint Hazael at Damascus and Jehu at Ramoth Galaad; indeed the kings of Israel commonly, as schismatics and enemies of Juda, seem to have been anointed not with the oil of the tabernacle, which was in Jerusalem, but with other. So Absalom, 2 Kings 19:10, was anointed, but not with holy oil, since in the rebellion the Pontiff was absent and fleeing with David. Josue also was not consecrated leader of the people by anointing but by the laying on of hands by Moses, Numbers 27.
Furthermore David, says Abulensis, was not anointed by Samuel with holy oil at the first anointing, because that anointing was private; and had Saul learned of it, he would have punished all concerned severely: nor at the second, when he was anointed by the tribe of Juda in Hebron; because then the tabernacle, in which the holy oil was, was in Gabaon, where Isboseth, David’s enemy, reigned: but at the third, when he was anointed by all Israel and received as king.
Finally, the kings were anointed with one oil, the Pontiffs and priests with another; for the kings with simple oil, but the priests with oil compounded of spices, namely of myrrh, cinnamon, cassia and calamus, by which also all kings might know that they are vicars and ministers. Isidore adds that they were therefore called Christs because they were anointed with the same chrism as the Priests, so that it was a crime to touch them, Psalm 104:15. Pineda holds the same, book 2 On Solomon, chapter 6, and Barradius, volume 2, book 3, chapter 41. But all these rely on Hebrew tradition, which is often false and deceptive, especially in this place, where it feigns a dispensation directly contrary to the law of God. Wherefore the former opinion, as more conformable to Holy Scripture, is also the truer.