In Librum Primum Regum Variarum Expositionum Libri Sex

31. Indeed they themselves reject him, who do not at all believe that he is the Redeemer of the world: concerning whom Truth itself complains in the Gospel, saying: But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying: We do not want this man to reign over us (Luke 19:14). We now see the ignobility of the Jews, because they are proscribed both by race and by condition. By race indeed they are ignoble, because they have heard from Truth itself: You are from your father the devil (John 8:44). By condition also they are ignoble, because, having lost their liberty and their kingdom, they are pressed down by the perpetual servitude of the nations. But he shows the order of the punishments more clearly, saying: (Verse 31.) Behold, the days are coming, and I will cut off your arm, and the arm of your father's house, so that there may not be an old man in your house.

Already indeed it is without an arm, because the one who has lost the temple and the tabernacle does not stretch out his hand to the offering of the old sacrifice. And because he was speaking to Eli, that is, to the greater priests of the Synagogue, he threatens to cut off not only his arm, but also his house, so that he may indeed imply the universal destruction of the old rite, and that we may perceive that what we now see accomplished in the new time was arranged long ago. And therefore the Lord cut off both his arm and his house, because he removed both the highest pontiffs of Judea and the lesser priests entirely from the old immolation. Hence it is fittingly added: So that there may not be an old man in your house.

The elders are to be understood as the priests, whose office, because it is discharged with great dignity, is in no way emptied of the weight of religion by any childish levity. His arm, therefore, and his father's house have been so cut off that there is no elder in his house, because the rite of the old priesthood has so vanished away that absolutely no one has remained who can now sacrifice in the old manner. For after the Redeemer of the human race offered himself for our sins in the new manner of sacrifice, to be a priest according to the ancient custom ceased. But he who endures the losses of a priesthood that has been lost has the torment of a greater punishment from the pain of envy. Therefore it is also added: (Verse 32.) And you shall see your rival in the temple, in all the prosperities of Israel.

For he sees his rival within the temple, because he himself has now been cast outside. For who else is the rival of the old priesthood than the order of the new preachers? Indeed, while by living and teaching they strive to equal the zeal of the ancient and chosen fathers, they surely emulate the good things of Eli in a good way. Hence Paul admonishes, saying: Be zealous for good things in good, all of you (Gal. 4:18). But what are the prosperities of Israel, unless they are understood as the felicities of this passing time, in which Israel according to the flesh greatly rejoiced? In all the prosperities of Israel, therefore, he sees his rival, who in the holy Church beholds the preachers of truth as happy, both in the abundance of things and in the height of dignity.

This too, which is asserted of him being seen in the temple, is declared with a more perfect understanding. For in all prosperous things he is a rival in the temple, because the order of preachers disposes everything that serves it from the felicity of time in the contemplation of eternity. It follows: (Verse 33.) Nevertheless I will not utterly take away a man from you from my altar.

For he would utterly take away a man from his altar if he admitted no one to the unity of our faith. Therefore he did not utterly take him away, because even if he repelled the reprobate priests of the Synagogue, he mercifully brought many of them to the knowledge of himself. Luke indeed mentions these in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: A very great multitude of priests obeyed the faith (Acts 6:7). For they were found worthy of so great and new a ministry, who were unwilling to remain with the lost in their oldness. But because he had the Jewish priesthood not only for the elect preachers from the nations, but also for those who believed from Judea, to the torment of envy, it follows: (Verse 33.) But that your eyes may fail, and your soul may waste away.

Or for this reason he did not entirely remove the man from his altar, so that Heli's eyes might fail and his soul waste away, because namely he did not wish to take the elect from Judaea for the ministry of the new preaching, so that, with them removed, guilt might hold the reprobate for punishment. For Heli's eyes failed when the high priesthood did not hear the truth of the faith through the mouths of preachers, and did not know it. His soul also wastes away, because namely through the punishment of its rejection it withered, when it lost the grace of the Holy Spirit. It follows: (Ver. 33.) And a great part of your house shall die, when it has reached man's estate.

Man's estate is the time of the Lord's Incarnation, which indeed the Apostle suggests, saying: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal. 4:4-5). What then were the precepts of Judaea but certain instructions of infancy? The same Apostle also suggests the time of this childhood, saying: When we were children, we were enslaved under the elements of this world (Ibid., 3). In man's estate, therefore, it died, because in the fullness of time it raged against the Redeemer of the world, and transfixed itself with the sword of unbelief. Well indeed is it foretold that not the whole house, but a great part of his house would die, because some of them believed in the Redeemer. And adding the cause of greater grief, he says: (Vers.

34.) But this will be a sign to you, which will come upon your two sons, Ophni and Phinee: in one day they will both die.

In Heli's two sons we have shown above that the twofold order of the old priesthood is signified. And they certainly died on one day, because they came together in the death of the Redeemer. And well is the death of the priests recorded as having been set as a sign of the house that was to die, because when the shepherds perish, the flock must necessarily follow to the same destruction. And because they were deceived by false reasoning, they are said to die on the day. Of whose falseness blessed Job speaks, saying: Thus in darkness, as in light, they walk (Job 24:17). But he who expelled the old prepared a new priesthood. Whence it is also added: (Verse 35.) And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest.

For when Heli's sons died, the Lord raised up for himself a faithful priest, because when the prelates of the old people were extinguished in perfidy, he took to himself the elect to carry out the ministry of our redemption. And he is indeed said to be assumed as faithful, because the old one, whom he succeeded, was reprobated through infidelity. And because the faith of that priest is ascribed to his praises, which works through love, the very works of love are designated through the following words. For it follows: (Verse 35.) Who shall do according to my heart and my soul.

For the ineffable divine substance willed to be signified by parts of a man, what ought not to be understood of it according to the letter. And so he said: Who shall do according to my heart and my soul. Not that the incorporeal and uncircumscribed substance of God has a heart and a soul, but he speaks to man as man is accustomed to speak to man, so that through this, which man hearing from his word comes to know, he may clearly know what God also wills. This could indeed have been said more simply: Who shall do my will. And he sets forth the rewards of the work, saying: (Verse 35.) And I will build him a faithful house.

For what is this house other than the eternal fatherland? Commending this house, the Lord indeed said: In my Father's house there are many mansions (John 14:2). But this house is now said to be built, because it is prepared from the actions of a pious life. Yet for meriting it, the work of man is unworthy, unless the grace of a merciful God accomplishes this. Well, therefore, when a house is set before him as a building, the Lord promises that he will build it for him, because surely human strength fails for so great a work unless it is aided from on high. Hence Paul says: It is God who works in me to will and to perfect (Philippians 2:13). Hence again he says: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Romans 9:16). He was promising that he would build this house when he said: I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, you also may be (John 14:3).

But because he was going to follow the grace that called him by the free choice of his will devotedly, there is added: (Verse 35.) And he shall walk before my Christ all his days.

For for each of the elect, to walk before Christ is always to look upon himself in the sight of the Redeemer, and to do those things which he knows to be acceptable to him. Or certainly he walks before Christ who in everything he does always looks to him, and directs the uprightness of his life in him whom he recognizes to have come, through assumed humanity, to fashion the beauty of the elect. But Judea is not always to be abandoned in the darkness of its blindness, because it is said through the prophet: If the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, yet the remnant shall be saved (Isa. 10:22). Hence Paul says: Blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved (Rom. 11:25-26). Therefore he subsequently shows this visitation of Judea, because he says: (Verse 33.) But it shall come to pass that whoever remains in your house shall come, that prayer may be made for him.

Then surely Judaea asks the Lord to be prayed for on its own behalf, when, with the elect now gathered from the nations, it does not ignore the darkness of its blindness, when through the priests of almighty God it desires that there be offered to Him on its behalf through the confession of the holy Trinity, because in its former oldness it does not presume to merit the joys on high, but also bestows by preaching the faith of the Redeemer, which, once converted, it received, even upon others who are to be converted. Well also is it added: (Verse 33.) That he should offer a silver coin.

For by silver the divine utterances are signified, because it is said through the Prophet: The words of the Lord are examined by fire, silver tried by fire (Ps. 11:7). And that silver Judaea then spends in the praises of God, when it openly proclaims our faith, to which, placed in unbelief, it formerly contradicted. And because the same Redeemer whom it proclaims by loving, it also imitates by suffering with Him, there is added: (Verse 33.) And a cake of bread.

81, 43. For by the name of bread is expressed that one who said of himself: I am the living bread which came down from heaven (John 6:51). The twisted loaf, then, is the flesh of the Redeemer afflicted with torments. For the prophet, beholding this twisted bread, said: Truly he bore our sicknesses, and he carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). And because it is said through a certain wise man: If you sit at the table of a powerful man, attend wisely to what is set before you, because you ought to prepare similar things (Proverbs 23:1, according to the Septuagint), Judaea then offers the twisted loaf and the silver coin, when she proclaims our Redeemer with open confession, and for love of him whom she proclaims, does not refuse to endure torments from the faithless. And in this imitation of his passion and refreshment of sweetness, because she is greatly delighted, it follows: (Verse 33.) And let her say, I beseech you, let me go, that I may take one part of the priestly portion.

Let me go, she says, as if she were saying: Do not drive me away as infamous and stained with the death of the Redeemer. And she beseeches that one priestly portion be granted to her, because she desires to be joined to the true priests, so that she may be able to be mingled with the joys of those whose offerings she longs to imitate, offering herself. Hence also, declaring the desire of her refreshment, she says: (Verse 33.) That I may eat a morsel of bread.

In this matter it must be noted that the twisted loaf of bread is foretold as destined for the devotion of the offering, and the morsel for the appetite of eating. Why, then, is it not the twisted loaf of bread but the morsel that is desired for eating? And why is it not the morsel but the twisted loaf that is declared to be offered? But because the morsel is made in roundness, and that roundness itself is in a certain manner recognized as having neither beginning nor end, rightly by the morsel of bread is signified the eternity of the Redeemer. The twisted loaf of bread, therefore, and not the morsel, can be offered by us, because we can imitate the Lord's passion by dying or by afflicting the flesh, but we do not have in ourselves the eternity which we may present before his sight. And the morsel, not the twisted loaf of bread, ought to be for us in the perfection of desire, because we who follow the Redeemer of the human race temporally by suffering with him, desire to possess him in the heavenly fatherland no longer as mortal nor as suffering, but as eternal and reigning. That twisted loaf of bread, then, which he desires to offer, he mentions, saying: That I may eat a morsel of bread, because those converted from Judea desire to possess our Redeemer in the eternity of refreshment, whose passion they have imitated here for the vigor of warfare, not for the reward of recompense.

CHAPTER III.

i. We have run through these things from sacred history by way of typical explanation, so that in the very words of sacred history we may seek out something of moral understanding. And so the boy Samuel is declared a minister in the sight of the Lord; yet that ministry is recorded as being shown to the Lord not absolutely, but before the face of Eli. By these words, therefore, it is not the perfection of ministry that is shown, but of humility. For the face of Eli is the reasoning of each one's own will. For that man ministers to the Lord before the face of his teacher who, in the performance of his ministry, does not follow the reasoning of his own will, who advances by that path of work which is foreseen by the knowledge of his master. For all perfect men, and those teachable by God, are indeed ministers in the sight of the Lord, but they are not His ministers before the face of man, because the Godhead itself teaches them within how they are to be ordered outwardly also in life and conduct and doctrine; whence also to the forerunner of the Redeemer it is promised by the praise of the Father's oracle: You indeed, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways. He is described as going before the face of the Lord who in his ministry was not to follow the will of a superior man, but the inspiration of the Godhead.

Before the face of Eli, therefore, Samuel is said to minister to the Lord, so that each of those subject to him may be taught by his example, striving so to please their Creator in their ministry that they presume to do nothing apart from the judgment of their superiors. For he who is declared a minister of the Lord before the face of his instructor, if he despises to look upon that face beforehand through swelling pride, is no minister in the sight of the Lord, because he is convicted of not knowing the Almighty, whom he despises to please by his judgment, and to whose command he subjected himself in order to please him. Hence both Eli and the sons of Belial are said to be, and not to know, the Lord, and the priests' office toward the people. For sons are those who are subjected to spiritual fathers for instruction. But when these, through pride, despise to follow the counsels of those same fathers, they are rightly called sons of Belial, because they become imitators of that apostate spirit who fell from heaven through pride. And indeed they know the Lord the worse the more arrogantly they ascribe knowledge of him to themselves. For it comes about that they know more perilously what they ought to know, in that what they think they know, not knowing it, they take no care to learn. And because they cannot love the invisible Creator, whom they do not know, in their appetite for visible things they squander the very ministries of God that they usurp for themselves. Hence those who are reported to have not known the Lord are also said to be priests, and the office of priests toward the people is likewise said to be unknown to them.

And to reveal the causes of his reproach, it is recalled that the boy of the ignorant priest came to every person offering sacrifice with a three-pronged fork and violently demanded raw flesh. In these words, certainly, three kinds of gluttony are noted in the greed of his rapacity. For he whose boy came, before the flesh was cooked, to bring violence upon them for it, could not endure to wait for the lawful hour of refreshment; and he for whom flesh was sought did not know how to use simple foods; and because, refusing the cooked, he demanded raw flesh, he was disgusted to eat that same flesh with the common preparation. But since the perversity of servants served the pleasure of the priests, why is it that the sin, not of the priests themselves but of the boys, is recorded as having been exceedingly great even before the Lord? By the same words the guilt of the priests is shown to be greater; for he who asserts that the sin of the lesser ones was exceedingly great before the Lord has recognized into what a heap of damnation the iniquity of the greater ones had grown. Yet that magnitude of guilt is asserted not only for the appetite of illicit eating, but also for the violence of rapacity.

But the divine word returns to the account of the chosen boy, so that in him we may consider attentively not what is to be rejected but what is to be imitated. And so, girded with a linen ephod, he is also said to be in the sight of the Lord. What, then, is shown in the linen ephod but the whiteness of continence? By this ephod, surely, we are girded when we are held back on every side for the brightness of chastity, when no part of soul or flesh is released from the law of strictness, through which we might flow away into the darkness of luxury. Such a minister, therefore, is in the sight of the Lord, because he is not deceived concerning the hoped-for vision of almighty God, to whom he serves with so great a brightness of his girding. To this boy, indeed, his mother, going up with her husband to sacrifice the solemn victim, is said to have brought a small tunic. The mother goes up with her husband when the mind of the preacher, through foreknowledge of the inner bridegroom, raises itself to contemplate those sublime joys of eternity. For then indeed she sacrifices the solemn victim, because while through the ineffable sweetness of that love she is joined to the Creator, a festive devotion is presented at the altars on high. And then indeed she brings a small tunic, because, although through the great grace of inner visitation the soul is lifted up to heavenly things for the shepherd, nevertheless it ought to impose the precepts of conduct not according to the measure of its own subtlety, but according to the strength of those [who are to receive them]. Hence also Moses, coming down from the mountain with the immense splendor of his countenance, veiled his face, so that the people might be able to look upon him (Exod.

Therefore let the spiritual mother bring a small tunic to her son, so that she may instruct the little ones, still at the beginning, in certain plain and simple precepts, and not lay upon them the burden of her own strength. For often those who could conquer the enemy through lesser things fall amid great works. Hence also David, going out to battle against the strongest of the Philistines, laid aside the breastplate, the shield, and all the military equipment; and he who could not exercise himself against the enemy under their weight, laid him low with a single stone from his sling (1 Kings 17:39, 40, seq.). That mother had ascended to offer the solemn sacrifice, who said: I know a man of this kind, who was caught up into paradise (2 Corinthians 12:4). But out of such great magnitude she did not bring a great garment to the little ones, because she says: He heard secret words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak (ibid.). Likewise: I gave you milk to drink, not meat (1 Corinthians 3:2). Therefore let the mother bring a small tunic to her small son, and let the measure of the garment be stretched according to the measure of the body, so that while he fights by the virtue of a well-tempered way of life, the enemy may not lay him low under an unequal burden of arms.

And because, by the discerning care of pastoral zeal, God multiplies for the preacher the gains of those who are converted, Anna is said to have been visited by the Lord, and through the grace of the divine gift to have merited in sons and daughters the grace of fruitfulness. She indeed bears sons when she wins by her words those through whom she bestows the seeds of preaching upon others. But she bears daughters when she recalls minds to the service of almighty God which, though they are not suited for preaching, nevertheless carefully nourish the seed of the word of God received from preachers, which, as it were in travail, the daughters afterward bring forth through good works as an example to their neighbors. But because Samuel is first declared to have been girded with a linen ephod, and afterward the fruitfulness of the mother in the multitude of children, that which we see happen daily can reasonably be understood: namely, that from the good reputation of a chosen disciple, gains of converts accrue to the master. Hence also, after the birth of brothers and sisters, Samuel is said to have been magnified before the Lord, because indeed those are already great before the Lord who, through the examples of a pious conduct, turn the hearts of their neighbors to the service of almighty God.

But great fear is struck into us, because Heli is condemned for the fault of his sons, whose own sins are reported to be none. For to good subjects, to live well is sufficient for salvation; but to prelates, their own life is not sufficient. For he is truly old who always strives to live irreproachably. Whence also it is written: For venerable old age is not long-lived, nor computed by the number of years; for the senses of a man are gray hairs, and an immaculate life is the age of old age (Wis. 4:8). But some excel by living well who have no authority such as prelacy demands. For even if they strive to stir their subjects to good deeds, yet they blush, through zeal for righteousness, to oppose those who sin. And indeed, even if they sometimes go out to rebuke them, they harm rather than profit by speaking, because they do not confound their obstinacy with worthy severity. For the same Heli heard of the crimes of his sons, and how they slept with women at the door of the tabernacle; and he, as if beginning with a harsh invective of authority, declared that he had heard the worst things from all the people. But he who ought to have pursued the sins he set forth, softened them by the words that follow, saying: Do not, my sons. In that appellation of kinship, indeed, it is clear how much he dissents from the will of the Lord, because he called those sons whom the divine word above declared to be sons of Belial, that is, of the wicked spirit, saying: Moreover the sons of Heli were sons of Belial.

To sleep with women is to sin securely and without fear of future vengeance. For "women" are the secular lusts. They are rightly said to watch at the entrance of the tabernacle, because they lie in wait for those pressing toward the entrance of the heavenly kingdom. But whoever follows the lusts of the world in such a way that he is often terrified by the consideration of divine fear is indeed defiled with women, but he does not sleep, because even if he slips by transgressing, yet in the crimes he has committed he by no means rests in security. And so one who sleeps with women is not to be honored by the name of kinship, because those who, with the fear of God now cast off, have been smeared over in their crimes are not to be reproved with a lighter rebuke, lest they think that to be a light weight of sin in which they fall, while what is preached by authority does not sound grave to them. But lax pastors are accustomed to bring forward, among the enticements of words, certain arguments of reason. Hence it is also said to Heli: If a man has sinned against a man, God can be appeased for him; but if a man has sinned against God, who will pray for him?

For a man to sin against a man is for men to teach one another from passing things. But to sin against God is to take away from him the things he created for eternity. Whoever, therefore, draws either his own soul or the soul of another faithful man into sin is convicted of sinning against God, because he strives to take away from him what is his own. And this sin is shown to be plainly the more grievous in proportion as one who is worthy to intercede for its absolution is found more rarely. For in the question "Who will pray for him?" it is not said that the remedies of penitence are denied even to such persons, but because the deeper wounds of sins are healed with greater difficulty.

Yet this can be understood as said for the reason that priests are being reproved. For a man sins against a man when he who does wrong is one whose fault must be corrected by the judgment of a superior. Since, therefore, the sins of the subject people, which pertain to the priests, are blotted out by the prayers of the priests themselves, when a priest falls into guilt, there is no higher person by whose prayers he may be cleansed. This too the Truth himself intimates, saying: If the salt has lost its savor, with what shall it be salted? Let him say, then: Who will pray for him? As if to say, who remains as an intercessor for him, when he who was ordained to intercede for others plunges himself headlong by transgressing? In this, surely, the greatness of the guilt is shown, because many of them are cast by the Lord into the darkness of an impenitent heart, and are not brought to their senses by any exhortation of man.

Therefore it is aptly added: (Verse 25.) They did not listen to the voice of their father, because the Lord willed to kill them.

But the boy Samuel is recorded both to advance and to grow, and to please both God and men, so that the zeal of the chosen hearer may be designated—one who directs his efforts along the path of a right life toward the heavenly homeland, while he grows strong toward greater things. Hence it is also said through the Psalmist: They will walk from virtue to virtue; the God of gods will be seen in Zion (Psalm 73:8). And so the progress of one's conduct is to grow in merits; to please God and men is [the mark] of consummate perfection. And because conduct pertains to works, and merit arises from charity, those hearers advance and do not grow who perform good works out of a zeal for vanity and do not have charity. We advance, therefore, and we grow if, while we are raised up through better works along with a more sublime manner of life, out of that same sublimity of work we direct our intent toward the joys of eternity alone. But to please both God and men is a matter of great virtue, because very often we offend our neighbors by our good work, if we do not perform those same good works with great caution. He therefore pleases both God and men who in the good work that he devotes to the service of almighty God is cautious—who so takes care to please God that by his ministry of God he offends no one.

And because this is said of Samuel while still a boy and placed under another's instruction, by this the life of those living in common is instructed. For certain ones living in common in sacred places, with a new fervor, under the color of great activity, desire to be free for themselves; and the less useful they are to the brothers of their household, the less they please. Therefore the chosen one is set forth through Samuel as a model for those living in common, to which they are imprinted. And so each of them pleases God and men when he is useful to his brothers and devoted to God. Let them therefore so take care for themselves that they do not neglect the things that are their neighbor's, inasmuch as by their kindness they may please those who are with them in the depths, while with the eyes on high, out of the devotion of their strength, they may cautiously display the vigor of their strength, so as not to cast down the hearts of the weak while hastening to the heights by the impulse of their strength.

But the man of God is described as having come to Eli, who indeed, about to bring forth the severity of the divine sentence, carefully enumerated how great the gifts were that He had conferred on him. And because he at last announces the punishment of the vengeance that he deserved, what does he give to be understood, except that the faults of shepherds are judged more subtly? And not only do their sins aggravate the punishment of vengeance for them, but also the gifts granted. Likewise, because he repeats those same gifts one by one, he designates something more grievous, because each single thing comes to torment, which are proved to have been badly kept. For he badly guards the gifts of almighty God in himself, who pollutes the brightness of the pastoral office through the stains of depraved action.

Hence Heli is also rightly reproved for having cast away with the heel the offerings and victims of the Lord. The heel is that part of the body by which we touch the earth. In this lower part of the body, then, is shown the affection of the soul by which earthly things are coveted.

ii. And because, as it has seemed to some, victims were customarily offered for a victory obtained or to be obtained, and gifts were given to friends, what is designated in victims and gifts but the vows of those still advancing and the devotions of the perfect in the praises of almighty God? For those of us who advance through the temptations of hidden enemies, when we prepare our strength for conflict with them, we surely hold victims in the praises of almighty God. But when the battles that are brought upon us have already been conquered, when we give thanks to almighty God for the victory obtained, we doubtless immolate victims to the same Lord. Those, however, who offer him the affection of familiar love, as it were bestow gifts upon a friend. Gifts, then, are the affections of charity, by which the hearts of the elect burn with desire for their Creator. And because when a ruler pursues earthly things he harms many who are placed in spiritual conflict, and many, too, who are already beginning to pant for them, he surely casts away God's victims and gifts with the heel, because by the example of his own wickedness he drives out the zeal of both.

Thus the victims are cast away, because often by the unskilled soldiers of Christ the labor of spiritual battle is abandoned, while those who are leaders of the Christian campaign are seen to pursue bodily ease in the rest of earthly enticements. The gifts are cast away with the heel, because the affections of charity grow cold in the mind of many who now seek things above, when they see their prelates seeking the heavenly fatherland through no desires of love, but lying bound by the cold of the body in the lowest pleasures. And indeed some of these are those who exhibit spiritual honors themselves in a carnal way, and attribute to kinship what is owed to merits. Surely they would dread the guilt of their presumption, if they attentively weighed this which the Lord complains of concerning Heli the priest.

(Vers. 19.) You have honored, he says, your sons more than me, so that you might eat the firstfruits of every sacrifice of my people Israel.

For he honors sons and kinsmen more than the Lord, who chooses persons for the sacred orders not from the honesty of their conduct, but from love of kinship. Therefore the sons are said to be honored, so that they might eat the firstfruits of the sacrifice, because carnal prelates grant the heights of spiritual honor to carnal kinsmen for this reason, that they may be enriched with ecclesiastical resources, and in the height of their order be heaped up with an abundance of plenty. Nor do they care what sort of men they are who come to the spiritual ministry, but only that they may prefer in temporal dignity those whom they embrace with carnal affection.

The question is therefore raised that he honored his sons, but wicked ones, who are not to be regarded as neighbors by carnal kinship if they by no means shine with the conduct of ecclesiastical teaching. But those who promote the reprobate are shown to confound the very order of promotion, since for this reason he reports that his honored sons ate the firstfruits of the sacrifice. For the priest does not preach in order to eat, but in order to preach he ought to eat. Paul also intimates this, saying: He who proclaims the Gospel should live by the Gospel (1 Cor 9:14). Hence he says again: The mouth of the ox that treads out grain is not to be muzzled (1 Cor 9:9; 1 Tim 5:18; Deut 25:4), namely that the preaching of the holy Church supplies food to the body for this reason, that they may be able to bear the labor of preaching. And so they are proven to pervert the right order of promotion who advance relatives, not with the intention of ministry, but with the purpose of dignity. This indeed they would not do if they did not love themselves and them carnally on the spiritual height. But if they understand the rejection of Eli, let them also fear the judgments of their own guilt. For it is said by the divine voice: You have honored your sons more than me, so that you all might eat the firstfruits of my people Israel.

(Verse 30.) Therefore the Lord God of Israel says: I have spoken plainly, saying that your house and your father's house should minister in my sight forever. But now this be far from me.

Behold, Eli is deposed from the height of his dignity by divine sentence, since he is convicted of having honored his wicked sons for the sake of eating the firstfruits, so that in truth the preachers of holy Church may understand that if they knowingly entrust spiritual ministries to the reprobate out of carnal love, they have fallen by the equity of the inner judge from that height on which they appear outwardly to stand. And because he subsequently added: (Verse 30.) But whoever glorifies me, I will glorify him.

He also subtly indicates that he was dishonored by their audacity. To these indeed Paul also says, reproaching them for the very same thing: The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you (Rom. 2:24). For because they stain the beauty of the dignity they have received with the filth of a wretched reputation, they truly dishonor the Lord. For he is justly driven from the citadel of honor who does injury to the one by whom he is proven to have been honored. In contrast to this, he affirms by a general promise, saying: But the one who glorifies me, I will glorify him.

For the pastor glorifies God who shines forth by the example of good works for the imitation of the faithful, who radiates from the height of his governance with the great light of a mighty manner of life, who in the mirror of the sacred orders does not accept the persons of reprobate ministers, but chooses those for the pattern of the flock subject to him whom everyone who looks to their imitation does not offend, because he follows the true light in them. To such, indeed, the Truth speaks through himself, saying: So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16). The Lord indeed glorifies those who glorify him, because what the chosen pastors of holy Church bear outwardly from the glory of their high station, this they receive inwardly from the grace of divine goodness, and the honor by which they are exalted in the eyes of men they earn by worthy zeal within, from the generosity of the inward majesty. By contrast, against those who dishonor him, he complains that the glory was not bestowed on them by him, saying: They themselves have reigned, and not from me; they have become princes, and I knew it not (Hos. 8:4). For they reign of themselves, and not by the election of the highest ordination, because they are not called to the glory of ecclesiastical high station by God, but are led to it by covetousness. These, surely, the Lord does not know, because he rejects them by the judgment of inward equity. The whole meaning is therefore as if he were saying: Even if the honor they hold seems to be mine, they did not merit it by obedience, but seized it through covetousness.

Hence he adds next.

(Verse 30.) But those who despise me shall be inglorious.

As if he were speaking openly, saying: Even if they display the nobility of rank under the pretext of religion, they are nevertheless inglorious, because they do not agree with the excellence of the glory that they have through the sublimity of their life. But because all this is promised by the expression of a future time, it can fittingly be referred to the merit of future recompense. Of this, surely, John says: When he shall appear, we shall be like him (1 John 3:2). Hence the evangelist Mark, asserting it, says: Then they shall see the Son of man with great power and glory (Mark 13:26). But when he declares that he will glorify those who glorify him, he surely promises them the glory of his own likeness. For the Lord glorifies those who glorify him, because he rewards with eternal sublimity those who now within the holy Church shine in the eyes of the elect through the examples of good works. But the despisers shall be inglorious, because they do not deserve to be received into the glory of the elect. For because now through a reprobate manner of life, having fallen, they put on the image of the angels, they will be inglorious with him then, when they are joined to him in inner punishment. For the Prophet, beholding the glorification of these and the ignobility of those, says: The saints shall exult in glory, they shall rejoice in their beds. The exultations of God are in their throats, and two-edged swords in their hands. To execute vengeance upon the nations, rebukes upon the peoples.

To bind their kings in fetters, and their nobles in iron chains. For the Lord glorifies the one who glorifies himself, because the humble elect exult with him in eternal glory. Indeed, since they receive the brightness of glorification from the measure of their own manner of life, they are said to rejoice in their beds over the glory they have obtained. But his despisers are struck with perpetual ignobility, because the kings and nobles of the nations are bound for punishment with iron, that is, eternal, chains. Now the kings of the nations and their princes are the proud and glorious prelates of carnal men. They will then be ignoble when they are bound with iron chains, because those who now bestir themselves against the little ones for a time are restrained from the splendor of honor and from the boldness of their tyranny by eternal punishment. Hence it is also added here: (Verse 31.) Behold, the days come, and I will cut off thy arm, and the arm of thy father's house.

For the arm of the despiser is temporal strength. And because by transgressing he went out from the household of the highest Father, the fallen angel has already begun to have as his father the one from heavenly glory. And so the house of his father is that society of subjects which favors itself in evil. Concerning these, indeed, it says above: You have honored your sons more than me. Therefore the arm of the despiser, and the house of his father, is cut off, when, with the death of the flesh intervening, the prelate and the subjects alike lose the violence of their tyranny. For then he is without an arm, when in the oppression of the little ones he is by no means able to exercise violence. Whence also it is decreed by the equity of the eternal judge: Bind, he says, his hands and feet, and cast him into the outer darkness (Matt. 22:13). In his house, also, the old man will not be. For the house of a damned man is hell. But true old age is the maturity of wisdom. And so in his house the old man will not be, because in hell no counsels of salvation can be found. Whence also sacred Scripture stirs us to the works of true wisdom, saying: Whatever your hand is able to do, do it earnestly, because neither reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge is among the dead, where you are hastening (Eccl. 9:10). Hence Paul says: Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). And so in the house of the despiser the old man will not be, because whoever is rightly wise has prepared for himself a dwelling not in hell but in heaven.

This despiser also, to the increase of his punishment, sees his rival in the temple amid all the prosperities of Israel. For the temple of God is the heavenly homeland, of which it is also said through the Prophet: The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord has his seat in heaven (Ps. 10:4). But Israel, which is interpreted as "seeing God," signifies that happy multitude of angels, of which the Lord says in the Gospel: Their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven (Matt. 18:10). And the prosperities of Israel are the eternal joys of those blessed spirits. Therefore the despiser will look upon his rival in the temple, because the preacher, now condemned, recognizes that the order of the humble already rejoices in heavenly places. And to this rival, indeed, all the prosperities of Israel are ascribed; for it is written: God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). Therefore all the prosperities of Israel, all that God is, are designated for those most blessed citizens. For although that eternal essence, namely the highest and simple good, is in itself, yet because by the revelation of his Majesty it satisfies all the desires of those blessed spirits, the distinguished Teacher shows this to be so. Hence he also cautiously proclaims that God is all things not in himself but in all things, because he who in his own nature exists ineffably as one and simple good is so many goods to all the good, as all are filled with joys from the contemplation of his glory.

All the prosperity of Israel, therefore, is ascribed to the rival, because the order of the humble elect is received among the choirs of angels, so that it may be satisfied with the joys of divine contemplation in eternal fruition. He is rightly said to be the rival of the despiser, because the elect of God receive even the encouragements of good admonition from proud and negligent preachers. Whence also the Lord commands, saying: Whatever they say to you, do; do not be silent according to their works (Matt. 23:3). Hence Paul says: Be zealous for good in good, all of you (Gal. 4:18). But since Scripture says: Let the wicked be taken away, lest he see the glory of the Lord (Isa. 26:10), it seems contrary that those who are damned in hell are understood to see those who rejoice in heaven. But because to see also pertains to knowledge, he sees his rival in the temple, because even if the wicked is held bound by the punishments of hell, he does not doubt that the humble elect, whom he does not see with his eyes, share in the joys of the angels in heaven. And it is to be noted that it is said twice: There will not be an old man in your house, because neither from the experience of punishments, which the damned man has, nor from the knowledge of another's felicity, nor from the experience of punishments, which he does not have, is he instructed unto salvation. Sometimes, however, the elect are born as sons through the teaching of reprobate pastors. These, surely, the fault of the pastors does not hold bound, because they follow the encouragements of his good preaching which they hear, and not the perverse works which they see. Whence also it is added: (Vers.

33.) Nevertheless I will not utterly take away a man from you from my altar.

For they are men who shine forth on the lofty citadel of strict conduct. As if he were to say: For this reason I do not take them away from my altar, because they are men. For in proportion to the merit of their conduct, strength and loftiness of power are preserved for them. Hence also through the prophet the Lord promulgates the decrees of equity, saying: The soul that has sinned, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father that of the son (Ezek. 18:20). And so the Lord would justly take away a man from his altar on this account, if the son bore the iniquity of the father. But from the very fact that the chosen hearer is seen in glory, punishment is heaped up for the reprobate teacher. Therefore it is also added: (v. 33) But that your eyes may fail, and your soul may waste away.

For his eyes fail, because they are confounded by the life of him who has completed his exhortation. His soul also wastes away, because he is compelled by grief more abundantly, when he knows that the good which he taught flourishes through the glory of retribution in his subjects, and he himself did not take care to do it. In these words also it must be noted that, since he promises that he will not utterly take away a man from his altar, he whom he receives is found to be rare, because indeed of a reprobate teacher there are more hearers who follow the wicked things he does than the right things he teaches. Hence here too a great part of his house is said to be about to die in the age of manhood.

For the age of manhood is the time for administering the priesthood. Therefore the imitator of the reprobate teacher is brought to the age of manhood when he is promoted to the height of the sacred order. And when he has indeed reached that age, he dies, because whoever approaches so great a ministry unworthily, or lives unworthily in it, is condemned. Whence also Paul, making mention of the Lord's body and blood, says: He who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself (1 Cor. 11:29). In the age of manhood, therefore, they die, because they perish from the presumption and boldness of a more exalted ministry. Hence, then, hence let those who are already headlong gather themselves together, and let them not strive to take up the burdens of so great a ministry but tremble at them. For he who is foretold to die when he has reached the age of manhood lives until he reaches it, because, to be sure, all the weak and those unequal to so great a ministry, if they consider the measure of their own smallness, have a place in the holy Church in which they may live as those who keep themselves safe. Whence also through Moses the Lord declares, saying: If a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned (Exod. 19:12; Heb. 12:20). Hence it is also that when Lot was going out from Sodom, he refrained from ascending the mountain and turned aside to Segor, a little city (Gen. 19:20 ff.), lest, while as yet a little one he strives for higher things, he complete the age of manhood and die. For we go out from Sodom when we turn aside from the fires of burning concupiscence.

We do not ascend at once to lofty things, because we do not reach the summit of higher ministry while, measuring our own weakness, we consider it, lest—if we despise keeping the limit of our feeble age—we who lived as little ones die in the age of manhood. But as a sign of the house about to die, both sons of Eli are foretold to die on one day. These sons, to be sure, we have said signify those who are promoted to sacred orders by carnal relatives, not with the intention of administering the order but for the glory of worldly rank. On one day, therefore, both die, because they perish in the appetite for worldly happiness. Secular glory, the reverence of honor, the power of high station, the brightness of dignity, the crowd of those obeying, the abundance of things loved in a worldly way—this is a day, but one that kills.

10. Let the sons of Eli therefore hear that on one day both die. For those who, from the pastoral height they have received, love the happiness of a slipping life have indeed the intention of joy, but the fruit of lamentation; a purpose in the exultation of life, and an end in the grief of death. They hasten to death, then, as often as they vainly rejoice over temporal happiness. The Apostle also proves this, when he mentions the widow who apostatizes, saying: But she who is given to pleasures is dead while she lives (1 Tim. 5:6). For on this day he declared her to die, who shows that pleasures are the cause of the widow's death. But the death of the sons would be less evil if it did not itself become the cause of another's death.

Hence they are said not simply to die, but to die as a sign of the house that is about to die, because when those who imitate a reprobate teacher from nearby fall into the same precipice, the followers of those who follow are heaped up together in the ruin. Let those who love temporal happiness hear this concerning the office of the height they have undertaken, and let them dread the greatness of their guilt. For they are worthy of a punishment so much more severe as they clearly see that they do not die alone from the vanity they love, because while under the pretext of worldly joy they drink down death, they transmit the pestilence of their draught to the multitude of those who follow them. Yet by these words the brevity of the present life can be made known to reprobate teachers. For they die in a single day, because when they reach the end of this life, what they have lived is seen to have been altogether brief. Hence it is said through a certain wise man: The joy of the hypocrite is like a point (Job 20:5). Hence again blessed Job speaks of the lovers of this world, saying: They lead their days in good things, and in a moment they descend into hell (Ibid. 21:13). But when the reprobate have been snatched away to punishment, wise and elect pastors are stirred up to the care of the Lord's flock. Therefore he also adds subsequently: (Verse 35.) And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest.

For the Lord raises up for himself a faithful priest, because the highest place demands for its care one who not only understands rightly but also ministers faithfully. He will then be able to minister rightly when he recognizes the measure of his ministry from the sacred word. Hence, when a faithful priest is promised, he is declared to be one who will act according to the heart and soul of almighty God. For what do we understand by the heart and soul of God but his sacred Scripture? For with the heart we think for deliberation, but with the soul we are moved toward love. Since, therefore, in the sacred word we recognize the counsels of almighty God, and there we find the love with which he loved the human race, that same word reasonably designates his heart and soul. Thus almighty God chooses for his ministry the priest who acts according to his heart and soul, because assuredly no one else is worthy of so great an order except the one who has learned his will from the sacred word and bestows what he has learned upon the benefits of his neighbors through the zeal of charity. But what is said must still be considered vigilantly: (Verse 35.) According to my heart and soul.

For there are certain precepts found in sacred Scripture that were commanded by God's dispensation indeed, but not by love of God. And if the priest who is promised to be raised up were to fulfill these, he would act according to the heart of God, but not according to the soul, since he would have rendered in his works the counsel of divine dispensation, and not the precept of love. Were not those commandments of God's dispensation which he mentions, saying: I gave them commandments that were not good (Ezekiel 20:25)? And when the Pharisees were disputing with the Truth himself about giving a bill of divorce, they heard: Moses gave you a law because of the hardness of your heart (Matthew 19:8). Since, therefore, those things were of the dispensation of his counsel, whoever made use of those same precepts acted according to the heart of the Lord indeed, but not according to the soul. For that is the precept of the heart and of the soul of which it is said: This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you (John 15:12). For what he commands through counsel, he embraces through the embrace of charity. Hence he also says: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27). Hence he also commands, saying: Whatever you wish that men should do to you, do these things to them. These things, therefore, and things of this kind, are the precepts of the heart and of the soul of God, because it is shown by the revelation of his secret counsel that what is undertaken is received in his sight by the test of charity. The faithful priest, therefore, is known by this indication.

If, that is, he works according to His heart and soul, because he is then truly faithful if he follows not the license of His dispensation but the precepts of love. But because he is chosen not in vain but for the gain of the people subject to him, he adds and says: (Verse 35.) And I will build him a faithful house.

For the house of the priest is the multitude in which the subject peoples dwell. And this house is truly built as faithful to him by the Lord, because it is raised up to the zeal of obedience by divine inspiration. For that house of subjects is unfaithful which daily receives the preaching of a good ruler, yet does not intend to obey him through the zeal of good work. For it is recognized as an unfaithful house, because the money of the word of God, which is entrusted to it by the ministry of its preacher, is squandered through negligence of a prodigal life, and what is committed to it for the profit of business is by no means found at the time of rendering account. Therefore, for the good preacher a faithful house is built by the Lord when the hearts of the subject people are divinely prepared to obey his voice, so that it may not only guard what is stored within it from the talent of the word, but may bring it, multiplied by abundant gain, to the table of eternal reception. And it is to be noted that the faithful house is said to be built by the Lord, so that the preacher may by no means glory in vain over the good conduct of the subject people.

It must also be noted that the Lord raises up for Himself a faithful priest, so that the hearts of his subjects may not presume to attribute to their own merits the very fact that they are governed by the best of rulers. It must also be noted that the priest whom the Lord raises up He calls faithful to Himself, but the house that He builds for him He says will be faithful to that priest himself; because, surely, the preacher owes obedience to God, and the subject to his prelate. But then the prelate rightly goes before the subject if the Truth itself is seen to direct all the paths of his life. There follows therefore: (Verse 35.) And he shall walk before my Christ all his days.

Now the Christ of the Lord is the Redeemer of the human race. And indeed, since He is believed already to have ascended to the heavens, He is now seen by His faithful not with bodily eyes but with the mind. Therefore he walks before Him all his days who does nothing by sudden impulse. For in order to set his steps straight outwardly in action, he looks inwardly to Christ, whom he carries in his heart through contemplation. But because He is still speaking to the reprobate shepherd, He adds, saying: (Verse 36.) But it shall come to pass that whoever remains of your house shall come to pray for him.

For someone from his house is said to be going to remain, because a great part of it is reported as going to die. For someone from the house of the reprobate pastor remains, whom the consciousness of sin does not extinguish from the hope of obtaining pardon. He remains, then, because the weight of conscience is lightened through the resolve of penitence for the sake of obtaining life. Indeed, he comes so that prayer may be offered for him, and he hastens to God by repenting, from whom he had withdrawn by sinning. So he comes that prayer may be offered for him, because he who has made himself unworthy of God demands one worthy to intercede, so that he may be cleansed by the prayers of others, who is recognized as unable to be cleansed by his own. Whence also James piously admonishes, saying: Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be saved (James 5:16). Hence again: The assiduous prayer of the righteous man avails much. But prayer avails for him who, while he restrains himself from the uncleanness of sin, restores himself to the likeness of God, which he had despoiled himself of by sinning. Whence also here it is added: (Verse 36.) That he may offer a silver coin.

In the coin, then, the image of the Lord is engraved, so that it may be recognized as belonging to him by whom it is commanded to be formed. And so the coin is understood as his likeness. Hence in Genesis he says: Let us make man in our image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). And because from the sacred word we recognize the image and likeness of God to which we are to be restored, it is called a silver coin. Therefore, whoever comes from the way of sin so that prayer may be made for him ought to offer a silver coin, because nothing profits him that he is pricked by repenting, nor that he confesses by weeping, if, uncorrected and unreformed, he is found in no way to shine inwardly with the beauty of good will, with the light of God's image. For the image and likeness of God is to hate evil with steadfast hatred and to love God with perfect love. Hence the Prophet also, perceiving that the brightness of the divine likeness had perished from the human race, looks to him who came from heaven with the glorious light of our restoration, saying: You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity (Ps. 45:8). From this, now considering himself renewed from the contemplation of him into the form of perfection, he says: I have hated the wicked, and I have loved your law (Ps. 119:113). Therefore, whoever comes from the house of the reprobate through confession, who through humility asks that the Lord be prayed for on his behalf, must take care in every way to offer a silver coin, so that, having taken up the splendor of good will, he may perfectly hate the evil he has done and love with wholehearted love the good he has neglected.

Hence also by the just examination of judgment the decrees of propitiation are promulgated. "In whatever day or hour," he says, "the sinner is converted, he shall live and not die" (Ezek. 18:27). But the conversion of a sinner is not in the humility of confession, but in the renewal of the inner man, when, the sinner having already been corrected by divine inspiration, both the evil that he loved displeases him and the good that he hated pleases him. For there are some who accuse themselves of wickedness with all their might and yet do not correct the depravity of their will. These assuredly are not believed to be converted to the Lord, because true conversion is not received in the mouth but in the heart. For "to be converted" means at the same time "to be turned." The conversion of a sinner, then, is truly conversion when both our men are brought back to the good pleasure of our Creator: when both our flesh is restrained from the perpetration of a crime through hatred of iniquity, and the mind extends itself to the intention of good works through love of righteousness. But because there are some within the Church who come to the satisfaction of penance only at the end of their life, and the Truth is said in judgment: "In whatever hour the sinner is converted, he lives," it is often greatly asked by some whether those who perpetrate sins during the time of a great life, and only at the departure of life accuse themselves of having acted wickedly, find life immediately after the death of the flesh. To this it must be said that by the power of conversion the magnitude of the crime is blotted out. But the power of conversion is the affection of charity infused into the heart by the visitation of the Holy Spirit.

And it is written concerning the same Spirit: that he himself is the remission of sins. For when he worthily visits the hearts of the elect, he powerfully cleanses them from every uncleanness of sins, because as soon as he pours himself into the mind, he ineffably stirs it to hatred of sins and vices and to love of virtues. He causes it at once to hate what it loved and ardently to love what it had held in hatred, and to groan deeply over both, because it recalls that it damnably loved the evils it now hates, and that it hated the goods it now loves. For who would dare to say, even though one be weighed down by the whole burden of sins, that anyone visited by the grace of the Holy Spirit can perish? Since, therefore, a sinner is converted at no hour except that in which he is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, what remains but that, just as by loathing the death of sin he forsakes it, so he may live the life of righteousness to which he desirously turns himself? For he is at once received into life after death, if in his conversion he receives so great a fire of love as can consume in the soul every accumulated rust of sin. Hence also it is said of the sinful woman: Her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much (Luke 7:47). Hence by the same Truth hanging on the cross it is said: Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise (Ibid. 23:43). At the departure of life, therefore, only those recover soundly who both through the inner visitation perfectly love the good and hate the evils they had loved.

Yet if they cannot grieve sufficiently for the sins they have committed, even so these too live in the hour when they are converted. For those who had the perfection of good will in the confession of sin, after death pass to life through the purgatorial punishment of sin, if they did not at all have the power of love sufficient to blot out their sins. Whence also Paul says: Thus shall they be saved, yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:15). But the sinner who there deserved to be saved through fire, let him here fulfill through affliction of the flesh what he knows was lacking to him from the power of love.

(Verse 36.) And a cake of bread.

For by the name of bread the refreshment of earthly delight is sometimes designated. Wherefore also the prophet Jeremiah, recalling in the secular appetite of corrupted Judea the people, says: All her people groaning (Lam. 1:11), and seeking bread. So the converted sinner tortures bread when he torments past delight through the affliction of penitence. For to torture bread is to afflict the flesh for the delight that was perpetrated. Therefore, let him who desires to pass to salvation without the torment of fire offer a cake of bread with a silver coin, so that he who by good will forsakes his sins may utterly extinguish them by the strong affliction of the flesh. For he was offering a silver coin who, having now received the likeness of God, by confessing execrated what he had done, saying: My wounds have rotted away because of my foolishness (Ps. 37:6).

And again: I was bowed down and humbled on every side. But he who feared that a silver coin was not enough for him to offer, took care to add a cake of bread. For he confesses, and says: I roared with the groaning of my heart (Ibid., 9). For a roar suggests the weeping of great grief in the affliction of the penitent. Joining this cake of bread to the silver coin, the same man speaks, saying: For I will declare my iniquity, and I will be sorry for my sin (Ibid., 19). For to think upon one's sin is to set before a past delight a worthy action of the flesh. Therefore he twisted the bread to be offered, who, both declaring the sins he had committed, was thinking how he might blot them out. And because, in the austerity of one's manner of life, the desire of praise is sometimes wont to creep in upon penitents, the intention of the truly converted sinner is suggested by what is added: (Verse 36.) And let him say: Let me go, I beseech you, to one part of the priestly portion.

For the priestly portion of each one of the elect is his recompense in eternal life. For all the elect are the priests of God, because they serve him continually through the offering of their ministry and never cease to offer sacred gifts. Hence even those rejoicing in the kingdom say: You have redeemed us to God by your blood, and have made us to our God a kingdom and priests. To say, then, to the converted sinner, Let me go, I beg you, to one priestly portion, is to expect from the austerity of life and of penance only a portion of eternal blessedness—namely, that he may find the security of delight which he may both possess in everlasting enjoyment and never drag after himself the torments of penance. Therefore it is added: That he may eat a morsel of bread.

For if bread in sacred Scripture is taken for delight, a morsel of bread is the unfailing delight of eternal life. Of this delight certainly it is said through the prophet: Joy and gladness shall be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of praise. Hence again, seeing guests invited to the table not of loaves of bread but of morsels, he says: Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads, they shall obtain joy and exultation. Hence the Psalmist, pronouncing in the voice of the corrected penitent, says: You have made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with joy with your countenance, delights at your right hand even to the end.

For the ways of life are the afflictions of penitence, by which, surely, the sinner is led from the pit of his own damnation to the heavenly homeland, while he willingly torments himself for the iniquities he has committed. Hence also, when he intimates that he has been corrected as a sinner, he presumes, saying: You are, Lord, who have restored my inheritance to me (Ps. 15:5). And likewise, trusting, he says: For you will not abandon my soul in hell (Ibid., 10). For the ways of life become known to the sinner when the afflictions of penitence are divinely revealed to him, namely when, with his mind enlightened, he considers what bitterness of life he adds to each of the past pleasures of his guilt. He, surely, glories that he is filled with pleasant joy by the countenance of almighty God, because he is refreshed by the manifest satiety of divine contemplation, and he who in the left of the present life is for a time pricked by repenting, in the right of eternal life is salted with delights even to the end. He therefore who offered a round loaf brings it to the eating of a morsel, because he who by love of the supernal life torments harmful pleasures prepares for himself perpetual refreshment at the banquet of eternal joy. It follows:

CHAPTER IV.

(1 Kings 3:1.) But the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli.

Now it is shown that he has repeated in this place what was mentioned above concerning the chosen boy, where it says: But the boy Samuel was a servant in the sight of the Lord before the face of Eli. For to minister to the Lord before Eli is the same as to be the Lord's servant before the face of Eli. And because we have expounded that matter more fully there, with the Lord's help, we do not linger at all over the repetition of its exposition. But since it is the divine word that speaks this in this place and in that one, it is shown that he did this not without profit of reason. Therefore, to spare the reader's weariness, we pass over the explanation, but we state the cause of the repetition for his profit. For certain ones of the prelates of holy Church, subject to her teaching, obey as unlearned men; but when they advance somewhat higher through their manner of life, they by no means persist in the same humility of obedience. These are well signified spiritually by Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah, who, when she saw that she had conceived by Abraham her husband, despised her mistress (Gen. 16:5). For Hagar conceives when the reprobate mind of a subject believes that it is advancing either through learning of knowledge or through the manner of its life.

For she is said to have despised her mistress while pregnant, because she now disdains to be subject in obedience to the will of the one set over her, who already presides over her. But she who despises her mistress is shown to be a handmaid, because the proud are both weak and subject through their pride, and they do not attain to the number of the children of God. But the progress of Samuel is set forth, because it was said above: But the boy Samuel advanced and grew and pleased both God and men (1 Kings 2:26). With what sublimity of conduct he passed through these three things indeed has been explained above. Since, therefore, even now he is remembered to have ministered before his master, what is this but that he provides a model for chosen hearers, so that the more they advance in a higher life, the more they should never forget to preserve the good of obedience? For then they truly advance, if they strive after the height of merits both by the strength of action and by the virtue of humility.

In this place there is another thing that ought to be noted: that Samuel is shown to minister to the Lord before Eli at the time when Eli himself is rebuked by the Lord for the negligence of his sons. For some subjects, while they consider the measure of their own strength, prefer to be severe judges of their prelates rather than dutiful hearers. These, surely, because they are accustomed to magnify and scrutinize their lives, if they perceive in their conduct the stains of even a lighter fault, refusing to be subject by obedience, they withdraw themselves. But they would truly be strong, if they humbly endured the things of their superiors which they judge to be weak.

For that man is known before God to be great by merit who submits himself in good obedience to one who does not seem venerable in some respect. For behold, Heli is reproved by the open sentence of God for the committed fault of his negligence, yet Samuel, the Lord's boy, is recorded to have ministered to the Lord in his presence, so that he may surely gather within himself what kind of man he is who despises one set over him in a lighter fault, if Samuel submitted himself in obedience to him whom almighty God reprobated with such strictness of his examination. But because Heli is reproved for not having honored his sinning subjects greatly enough, the dignities themselves of the sacred orders must be weighed. For a ruler ought not to honor a sinning subject unless he has been corrected, but a subject ought not even then to despise his prelate when he has known himself to be just and him a sinner, because the eternal judge has given the judgment of subjects to the rulers of holy Church, but has reserved those same rulers to be examined by his own judgment. Yet this very thing must be greatly feared by rulers, that they are reserved for God's examination, because they ought to prepare more subtle accounts of their life and doctrine the wiser the judge is whom they await. Nor should they fear only his future judgment in the future life, as though placed far off, lest he who is present everywhere strike the unwary from nearby.

For negligent shepherds, in order to escape the punishment of future vengeance, think that long spans of the present life are for punishment; but the Judge, who is everywhere, inflicts repentance from nearby, because first he withdraws from them the light of contemplation, and then snatches them away to torments through death. Hence also concerning the same Heli, who a little below dies with his neck broken, it is added: (Verse 1.) In those days the vision was not manifest.

For when a ruler despises the things he knows ought to be done, it is brought about with him by strict judgment that he does not see the things he ought to do, because he was unwilling to fulfill what he saw. For the manifest vision is not of the negligent shepherd, but of the one who loves. Hence also Truth says through itself: He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him (John 14:21). For the brightness of manifest vision is the revelation of beloved truth. And this truth, if it is shown by the merit of love, is most deservedly hidden from those who are sluggish from good work, because the sign of love is not in the affection of the mind, but in the zeal of good operation. Hence also in the Gospel the Lord said beforehand: He who has my commandments and does them, this is the one who loves me (ibid.). Therefore, because from negligence of work the darkness of inner vision is incurred, quite aptly, while the priest is reproved for contempt of the commandments, the hidden vision is recalled. It follows: (Verse 1.) And the word of the Lord was precious.

As far as the truth of sacred history is concerned, he set down "precious" in place of "rare." So the word was precious because, while it was rare for one who could discern the highest things by contemplation, it could not be frequent for one who would preach good things by speaking. We see this happen even now in the holy Church: while many aspire to the glory of honor out of reverence for the highest rank, while they neglect the ministries of the sacred order, they cannot preach to the subject peoples the highest things which they are unable to see, and in their household the word is recognized as precious, because they rarely hear the encouragements of good preaching—these prelates who do not seek from desire the heavenly things they may say, but the earthly things they may do. Sacred Scripture certainly marks these men, saying: Dumb dogs, not able to bark (Isa. 56:10). It did not say "not willing," but "not able," because, surely, while they love the glory of the world with their whole heart and whole soul and whole mind and strength, they would wish to say sublime things to the people, so that they might also have glory from the sublimity of the word. Dumb dogs, therefore, wishing to bark, are not able, because while with a depraved heart they meditate on earthly things, they grasp by no revelation the hidden things of the truth which they might bring forth. But because what is precious is customarily guarded with great diligence, this statement, "the vision was not manifest," can be referred to the negligence of carnal prelates.

But what is added: And the word of the Lord was precious, refers to the ardent zeal of the subjects for good things, since when faithful subjects do not have someone who frequently proclaims to them the heavenly things from the treasury of sacred eloquence, they embrace with wondrous devotion even that alone which they were once able to know, and they guard it as something ineffably precious, while through good works they lay it up in heaven, where thieves who could take it away by no means draw near. Hence also in the Gospel it is said of the buyer of the good pearl: Having found one precious pearl, he gave all that he had and bought it (Matt. 13:46). So then, when in the time of the hidden vision the word is described as precious to the elect, the praises of the subjects are announced, because they are to be proclaimed with glory all the more sublime as that good, which perished from a more eminent place, remained among the lower ones through the perfection of great charity. And indeed by their good conduct it is often brought about that the vision which had been hidden is made manifest, so that those who devoutly guard the least things ought to know what they should do, and the greater things as well. Hence it is also added: (Vers. 2-4.) It came to pass therefore on a certain day, that Eli was lying in his place, and his eyes had grown dim, and he could not see the lamp of God before it was extinguished. But Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. And the Lord called Samuel.

For Samuel as a boy is called by the Lord whenever the hidden counsels of the divine plan are revealed to humble subjects, and by the merit of their humility they acquire the light of contemplation, which proud preachers lose through the recompense of their pride. But it must be noted that this is shown to have happened on a certain day, namely the day on which Eli is said both to have been lying in his place and to have been unable to see. For he is called on the day who is raised up for his own salvation and that of others to know the secrets of heavenly wisdom. By contrast, Solomon also received wisdom in the night, so that the darkness of the time might indicate that he did not receive that same wisdom by persevering (3 Kings 3:5, 12). This can also be understood in another way, namely that Eli is spoken of as darkness. Thus by the position of the day the greatness of his blindness is shown, because he surely had great darkness who did not see in the day. Now too, if we look at the state of the Church, the grace of light is general. For he came who, scattering the rays of true brightness, would say: I am the light of the world; whoever follows me does not walk in darkness (John 8:12). And because the glory of his inner splendor is ineffable, it is not said of this day or that day, but on a certain day: the brightness of which day is not [known]; but of the brightness the greatness is unknown. Therefore the Pastor endures great darkness, if he who is known by his office to be the eye of the Church does not have, in the grace of such great light, the vision.

Therefore the Truth itself shows how great are the darknesses of that same eye, saying: If then the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness (Matt. 6:23)? But now he discloses whence such great blindness arises in him, because he says: He was lying in his place. For the place of a preacher has the office of standing, not of lying. And indeed the Lord himself provides the model for such preachers, saying: But I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth (Luke 22:27). For to stand in the midst of the brethren is to offer oneself as an example to the lesser by a laborious manner of life. To stand, therefore, pertains to the labor of work and to the necessity of battle. Whence also the judge of the spiritual contest commands, saying: Stand therefore, having your loins girt in truth (Eph. 6:14). And because to lie is the part of one at rest, he is reproved for following the lukewarmness of rest in the place of battle and labor, who is recorded to have been lying in his place. To stand is also the part of the just man. Whence also Paul says: For by faith you stand (2 Cor. 1:24). To lie, therefore, pertains also to the negligence of a more slack life. Then, therefore, Eli lies in his place, when through the fall of wickedness a reprobate preacher rests in the seat of the just man. Therefore the eyes of him who lies in his place grow dark, because those who are in the citadel of the pastoral height cannot see the highest things, who do not carry out the works of virtue but are immersed in the allurements of a more slack life. And he, who was formerly the lamp of God, is now called not by the truth of praise but, by way of reproach, by the name of mockery.

For he who functions under the name of God's lamp, and is said to be unable to see, is rather mocked by the very title by which he is esteemed. For in the true praise of the just man it is said: He was a burning and shining lamp (John 5:35). For the radiance of the true light, which he had drawn in by loving, he poured out by speaking. But even a carnal preacher is called a lamp by reason of his office, blind by reason of his intention, because he functions with the dignity of furnishing light, but his mind is touched in the darkness of vanity.

Indeed, the consummate perversity of such a man is designated, because it is not said that he did not see, but that he could not be seen. Wherefore also the Lord, making mention of the bad tree, says: A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruits (Matt. 7:18). And so God's lamp cannot be seen when he who stands out with pastoral dignity is pressed by such great thickness of worldly love that he is not raised up by any grace of inspiration to the contemplation of inner brightness; namely, when already, cast out by the just indignation of God, he is left in the blindness of his own darkness, so that he is never again visited by the infusion of supernal light. But it is well said: Before it was extinguished. For not to see is the punishment of a sinner still living in this world, but to be unable to see is [the punishment] of the dead wicked man already condemned to eternal punishment in the other world. Whence also by the judgment of the Creator he is commanded to be shut up in outer darkness, so that, namely, he may never be brought back to the contemplation of light.

When, therefore, before it is extinguished, he is said to be unable to see, the reprobate preacher, still living in this world, is likened to the wicked man already condemned to eternal blindness. But the lamp is extinguished when the shepherd dies. Or certainly the lamp is extinguished because, when the reprobate preacher perishes through the death of the flesh, whatever seemed to shine in him he loses from the glory of his high office, and he remains like the mere shell of a lamp without light, when the person is kept for eternal judgment, stripped utterly of all the splendor of the world. Before the lamp of God is extinguished, therefore, he cannot see, because he both possesses the recompense of future damnation through the eternity of his blindness, and yet still shines before men through the splendor of the dignity he has received.

(Vers. 3: But Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.)

Rightly, then, the reprobate prelate is said not to sleep but to lie, while the subordinate and chosen boy is said not to lie but to sleep, because to sleep is sometimes taken in a good sense, but to lie almost always in a bad sense. Hence also the Bride says in the Song of Songs: I sleep, and my heart keeps watch (Cant. 5:2). In the sleep, then, of the boy is designated the rest of each perfect elect subordinate from wicked works. For he sleeps in the temple, where the ark is, who, occupied in heavenly desire and in meditation on sacred Scripture, does not direct his attention to the things that pertain to perversity.

For certain people sleep in the temple, but they do not sleep in the place where God's ark is, because some simple souls rest in heavenly contemplation through love, but do not know how to meditate on the hidden things of sacred speech. Samuel, however, who is said to have slept not only in the temple but before the ark of God, designates learned and elect subjects alike, because while by meditating more frequently they draw the flames of their love from sacred speech, they are lifted higher to the desire for the heavenly fatherland, and as it were they choose the inmost parts of the temple for sleep, in that they are separated the farther from the public business of earthly work, the more secretly they are hidden through meditation in the sanctuary of inner vision.

(Verse 4) And the Lord called Samuel.

For God's calling is an arousing by the power of greater grace. For the Lord calls the sleeper, because those resting from earthly intention he arouses to the increase of heavenly knowledge. For while through solicitude we keep watch over the things that are outside, we do not perceive the inner and spiritual things. Therefore the repulsion of earthly care is our preparation for the reception of heavenly grace, because in the elect the infusion of the divine gift becomes richer in proportion as the mind has been purer through the guarding of inner meditation. It follows: (Verse 4.) And the Lord called, it says, Samuel. And he answering said: Behold, here I am, and he ran to Eli and said: For you called me. And he said: I did not call you, my son; return and sleep. And he went and slept. And the Lord added to call Samuel again.

And rising up he went to Eli, and said: Behold, here I am, for you called me. He answered: I did not call you, my son; go back and sleep. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord been revealed to him. And the Lord added and called Samuel a third time. And rising up he went to Eli, and said: Behold, here I am, for you called me. Eli therefore understood that the Lord was calling the boy, and he said to Samuel: Go and sleep, and if he calls you hereafter, you shall say: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

What is it, then, that almighty God insinuates his call with such great skill that the mind of the one called is held back from recognizing the one who calls; that hearing God, it thinks this one is a man, its master; that he sends out the call and keeps silent about its cause; that he allows him to go to the master, to return so many times to the rest of sleep, and yet does not permit the sleeper to rest? For surely he who called whom he willed to the knowledge of his secrets—was he able only with a voice like Eli's, and not with the voice he willed? And he who called when he willed—could he not at once indicate the cause of the call? And he who willed to rouse him so that he might hear—could he not teach him through the master how he ought to hear? But in this matter almighty God uses a great dispensation, so that the hearts of the elect are truly taught by a twofold instruction: both so that those who are subject may see in the surface of the history the good of obedience which they should follow, and so that prelates may contemplate the hidden mysteries, which they may bring to the light of understanding by examining them.

But what I think must be said in the first place is that the boy, who thought that his teacher was the one speaking, heard a bodily voice. For God did not speak to the boy through himself, but through the evangelical spirit, because he who is not constrained by bodily form is not narrowed to the sound of a voice by the instrument of a body. And this certainly suits a boy's hearing. For although the merits of a beginning subordinate are great, yet because he is recognized as not yet being in perfection but in the progress of his manner of life, he does not reach that speech by which almighty God speaks through himself. Indeed, almighty God, that is, the highest and uncircumscribed spirit, speaks spiritually to great and spiritual men, when by spiritual speech he indicates to their minds both what they should do and what they should know. Therefore he moved an outward voice through the evangelical spirit, but the Creator spirit indicated by the presence of his grace what he willed. So when he called by a voice, while he was thought to be Eli, he lay hidden from their knowledge, so that the boy might run to his teacher, and when he heard that he had not been called, being deceived he might show at how great a height of virtue he stood. Therefore the boy, humbly subject to a man and exalted by obedience to a lofty citadel, when called he approached, when ordered he returned—what else does he offer us by his example but the form of the highest obedience?

ii. For true obedience does not scrutinize the intention of superiors, nor does it discern the commands, because one who has submitted every judgment of his life to a greater authority rejoices in this alone, if he carries out what is commanded him. For whoever has perfectly learned to obey does not know how to judge, because he considers this alone good, if he obeys the commands. But in the glory of such great perfection of his, our life is confounded. For behold, we have decided to set out for the heavenly homeland under the leaders of the Christian army, yet even though we are commanded to perform different works at different times, we murmur. For who would restrain himself from murmuring, who would temper himself from anger, if he heard himself called twice and three times, and yet perceived from the response of the one calling that he had not been called at all? We indeed suffer the darkness of our own sloth, who do not see with what clarity of reward the good of such great virtue responds. For it is the one good for the recovery of life, if the guilt of disobedience was a sufficient evil to bring about death. If therefore in the evil of disobedience death prevailed, we are restored to life as many times as we obey. And so the boy Samuel is offended neither when called nor when rejected, because he was unwilling to see the mind of the one calling or rejecting him, who knew how to rejoice in this alone, that he obeyed.

And because to rise for labor belongs to work, but to return to sleep belongs to rest, what does this suggest, except that each prepares life for us, if you obey? The mind in what it does weighs nothing but the good of obedience. For the command should be weighed in this alone, that it is the command of a superior; and one who carries out the good of obedience ought not to consider the work enjoined, but the fruit, because for earning the joys of eternal life what is sought is not the quality of the work, but the mortification of one's own will and the execution of another's. Hence Paul also says: Circumcision profits nothing, and the foreskin is nothing, but the observance of the commandments of God. So then, before almighty God, neither the things that belong to labor nor those that belong to rest are small, if they can prepare eternal life for the obedient. Therefore, whoever is subject to another's command should consider this alone, that what is enjoined on him according to God is very great and exalted as gain for the mind, because it prepares life in the reward of recompense. By contrast, let the disobedient look to it, that the first parent of the human race fell from the joys of paradise not by theft, nor by robbery, nor by adultery, nor by homicide, but by disobedience regarding the forbidden fruit. Hence it is aptly gathered that if the commands of superiors, when despised, separate from inner joys even in small things that seem so, then even the least things that are performed prepare life.

Therefore the vigorous worker of the social life, and the devout emulator of those serving God together with him, if he desires to obtain a fuller recompense of eternal merit through the good of obedience, should recognize that he excels in this alone: that before all others he has subjected his own will to the judgment of a superior. For neither the great gains of fasting nor the pursuits of a harsh life are to be greatly esteemed by the devoted soldiers of Christ under the command of superiors. For it is of greater merit to eat what is enjoined out of charity than to undertake fasting by one's own deliberation. For he who at command refreshes the flesh has, though unwilling, earned the reward of fasting by devotion, and by eating has gained the fuller wage of obedience. God therefore called the boy, but with a voice like the teacher's, so as surely to indicate the manner of his speaking. He kept silent the reason for the calling, so that the chosen boy might show with what humility of obedience he was exalted. To go to the teacher was permitted him, that he might offer the hands of his devotion. To return to the quiet of sleep he is allowed, so that surely we should not despise even the smallest things. He rouses him again, to show that he whom he wished to place in the form of the elect was not wearied even by the urgency of commands.

Through him who was to be rejected he learned how he ought to have listened, so that we may truly know that the commands of superiors are to be revered even when those superiors themselves do not have a praiseworthy life, because their teaching, which through depraved action can grow worthless in the eyes of the proud, makes humble hearers reach the height of divine intimacy.

But because it follows: Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and above he is said to minister to the Lord, what is said seems to be greatly contradictory, since he could not be ignorant of the one whom he was serving. For who would serve one whom he does not know? But indeed through what has been added it is clear that what sounds contradictory is to be understood by a fittingness of reason. Nor had the word of the Lord been revealed to him. Through this, surely, it is given to be understood that the one whom he knew by love and ministry, he did not know by the revelation of his word. For he had not yet heard him calling in such a way, whom he testified that he had known both by the devotion of ministry and by the power of love. But this is fittingly understood in the conversation of the faithful; for many make good progress under another's instruction who in the time of their newness perform ministries to almighty God, and yet by purity of contemplation do not reach the beauty of his inward loveliness. When by the merit of their subjection they also receive the gift of divine contemplation, and by the experience of inward vision they understand that they did not yet know him to whom they were ministering.

This is well signified by Jacob, setting out to take a wife, who after the toil of the journey saw the Lord through the sleep of rest, but waking from sleep said: Truly the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it (Gen. 28:16). For neither could he doubt that the Lord was there before he slept, since he perceived that he is everywhere; but because he then learned of him more perfectly, he declared that he had not known him, in that he had not recognized him more intimately. For the way by which one goes to a wife is the intention of devoted obedience, by which the fruitfulness of inner charity is desired to be attained. So Jacob sleeps on the way when a faithful subject, the supplanter of the malignant spirit, is received through the labor of obedience into the rest of inner vision. And he will surely then confess that he has known the Lord, because while he marvels at the beauty of inner light to which he has been led, he recognizes by the experience of revealed beauty how much he did not know before. For by faith, as by report, we know God, but by the love of contemplation he who became known to us by report is revealed to us as it were by the showing of his presence. Well, then, does the subject advancing through obedience, while he is led to the height of contemplation, declare that he formerly did not know the Lord, because he is found as it were by the truth of his presence, who before seemed as though unknown by report, and as though not known by presence.

But because it is said separately: He did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord been revealed to him, this can be understood more subtly. For in one and the same inward contemplation of God, both wondrous charity is poured into the one contemplating from the fruit of such great glory, and great astonishment in the revelation of the secret word. Some, therefore, know the Lord and perceive the revelation of his word, because they are both filled with wondrous sweetness from that infusion of such great charity which they draw from habit, and are instructed with great wisdom by the revelation of the word. But by some the Lord is known to whom the word of the Lord is by no means revealed, because all the simple, but men perfect in great conduct, do indeed perceive in contemplating the ineffable sweetness of love from the glory of divine contemplation, yet they do not reach the height of his revealed word, because they have been taken up into the order of those who love, not into the eminence of preaching. The word is indeed revealed to him so that it may be loved, and it is hidden so that it may not be preached. Well, however, is it said of him who is raised to the ministry of preaching: He did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord been revealed to him, so that while the untrained man sets forth what he does not yet possess, he may patiently show the preacher by what goods he ought to be enriched. For he who has not yet perceived that power of intimate love, surely does not know the almighty Lord, whom he has known by faith as by report, by the presence of that great charity.

And if he loves ardently and does not yet know how to examine the secrets of the mysteries through the spirit, he already indeed knows the Lord, but has not attained to the revelation of his word. But concerning the obedient boy it is immediately added: (Verse 9.) Therefore Samuel went and slept.

Already, surely, the boy instructed is sent to the knowledge of the divine utterance, when the chosen subordinate is prepared by the counsel of his superior for knowing spiritual things. And to sleep is for him to rest in the desire of eternal life—that is, when for the soul now thirsting only for heavenly things all present things are held in contempt, so that by how much more earnestly everything bodily is driven back from its attention, by so much more abundantly it may be filled with the love of invisible things. And it must be noted that he is now commanded a fourth time to return to the quiet of sleep, because while we negligently use this world, we are awake in deed, speech, and thought regarding visible things. Three times, therefore, we are commanded to sleep, so that we may be prepared for the knowledge of heavenly things through the quiet of work, the silence of the mouth, and the casting away of superfluous thoughts. But in the fourth place we are sent to sleep when, by the permission of our superiors, we are commanded to cease even from useful ministry, so that while we are hindered by no care of solicitude, the mind may gather itself wholly for the gaze of the supreme vision.

And it must be noted that the Lord rouses the sleeping boy while Heli does not know, yet he does not at all make manifest the cause of his calling to the roused boy except by the command of the same Heli, because he raises up his chosen subjects by hidden inspiration to the desire of the heavenly fatherland, but he does not permit them, through rest, to be called to that fatherland which they love without the permission of their elders. Since, therefore, as often as the boy is called, so often is he allowed to go to the master, what is this other than that the divinely inspired desires of subjects are submitted to the judgment of their elders? For the divinely inspired work of a subject is then known to be pleasing to God if it is carried out by the command or permission of a superior. Four times, therefore, is the boy called by the Lord, four times is rest in sleep commanded by the master, because for the tempering of work, the silence of the mouth, the casting off of inward anxiety, the ceasing of ministry, we are kindled through divine inspiration for the love of a more hidden life, and yet we are forbidden to fulfill the desires of our love without the permission of our elders. The Lord therefore calls, and is silent about the cause of the calling, so that, with the master permitting, he may insinuate himself to the called subject. For he who was silent after he called, so that he was not heard as one commanded, when man the teacher gave command, God who calls made known the cause of the calling. For it follows: (Verses 9–11.) Samuel therefore went and slept in his place. And the Lord came and stood, and called, as he had called the second time, Samuel. And Samuel said: Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.

And the Lord said to him.

In these words, since that is said of the incorporeal and invisible divine substance which is known to pertain to a body, it must necessarily be understood in a reasonable manner. For where does he come who is everywhere? How is he said to stand and to speak, who is not formed of corporeal substance? But in that substance which dictates all things, the words of our poverty are set down, through which we may be able to rise to the knowledge of the mysteries of his working. For the Lord's coming is to touch the hearts of the elect with the presence of his grace; his standing is, by the gift of his grace abiding, to retain in the gift of his unwithdrawn grace those minds which he touches. But his calling is to arouse the mind of the elect to the increase of greater grace. For the Lord comes and does not stand, when the hearts of the negligent are touched through grace, and yet they by no means persevere in the affection and love of the grace that touches them. For he is, as it were, present in coming, and not standing in departing, when from the present touch of divine grace they suddenly resolve to do good, and at once, being forsaken, they abandon the intention of that same good resolve. But if this is referred to the power of contemplation, the Lord comes and stands when he suddenly touches the hearts of the elect through grace, and does not suddenly desert those he has touched, so that by coming he may visit, by standing he may confirm, and he who is shown to the mind he loves for its joy may not himself depart before that mind is satisfied in living.

But because he is said to stand, he is shown to be about to depart at some time, since even if he sometimes leaps into chosen souls in his revelation for a little delay, he withdraws the sweetness of his presence, so that they may desire it more ardently once withdrawn. The Lord therefore comes visiting, stands showing himself sweetly, calls to love, arousing by a most ardent desire to the love of his revealed glory. Hence also the boy, stirred up so many times, is called by a repeated name. He is called, because a calling by name designates the affection of great charity and familiarity. Hence also he speaks to Moses, saying: I have known you by name. Therefore the name of the one called is repeated, when the mind of the one seeing is received into the great familiarity of the internal Majesty, and is lifted up by fervent desires to the love of the one calling him, so that beyond what he hears nothing may please him, and in the joy of his hearing he may desire to remain forever. Hence also here it is plainly added: Samuel therefore said: Speak, Lord, because your servant hears. He who therefore put "speak" concluded it by necessity. For as if he were saying in clearer words: I, who could not answer otherwise, have answered "Speak." For what else can the mind, taken up into that joy of the speaking Majesty, desire? For to say to the mind of God "Speak" is to desire always to hear that ineffably sweet speech. He therefore says "Speak," who would wish that he never be silent. Hence also it is added that your servant hears.

As if he says: because what I receive by the experience of inner affection, I long to enjoy with eternal perception. He asks, therefore, that he speak, who never desires him to be silent in his inner affections, lest he who is lifted up by such sublime exultation when the Lord speaks be cast down, when he is silent, to bring forth the miseries of condemned humanity. For if, when he himself speaks, we are taken up from the darkness of our corruption, when he is silent to us through the withdrawal of grace, we are subjected to the same darkness. Deservedly, therefore, lifted up to so great a height, he says to the Lord: Speak, because he is pleased with the joy of inner hearing to the extent that nothing in his outward affairs pleases him; and he would desire to remain with the one speaking with him all the more ardently, the more willingly he would never have wished to be cast down to his own weaknesses.

Yes, with God as author, when we say to the Lord "speak," we say it by his gift, but yet with what affection the more perfect elect say this to him, we cannot express by saying it, because what belongs to ineffable desire is not expressed by the utterance of reason. Peter indeed well suggests this affection, who when he stood with the Lord transfigured on the mountain, and beheld his face shining like the sun, and saw his garments white as snow, said: It is good for us to be here; if you wish, let us make here three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah (Matt. 17:4; Luke 9:33). For he who says, It is good for us to be here, if he could, would never have wished to be brought down from that vision of such great glory.

For when Peter says, Lord, it is good for us to be here, and Samuel says, Speak, Lord, for your servant hears, the words are indeed different, but the affections are equal. For what Peter signifies on the mountain, when the Lord was transfigured, Samuel signifies when he is called by the coming, standing, and again standing Lord. But even if Peter, as if not knowing what he was saying, is reproved by the evangelist, this does not seem contrary to that meaning. For the evangelist reproves not Peter’s affection but his reasoning, because, having been taken up with the Lord into glory apart, he desired to be so always, and for the common redemption he was unwilling for him to descend to the ignominy of the cross. He did not know, therefore, what he was saying, but he ardently loved what he saw, because he truly saw so great a good that it could by no means be loved otherwise. Hence, although Peter is justly reproved, he is nevertheless reasonably pardoned, because he was overcome by love of such great Majesty through enjoyment. Yet when Peter is reproved for ignorance of speaking, the cause of that same ignorance is mentioned. For the evangelist, adding, says: For they were terrified by fear. For that ineffable beauty of inner Majesty sometimes shakes the chosen mind, to which it delightfully shows itself, with wondrous dread, lest it leap forth to elation from the greatness of the vision, if the mind, which bland contemplation raises to such heights, is not restrained by its advancing spirit with the moderation of fear.

In one and the same vision of revealed glory, both the goodness of the Redeemer is seen to allure ineffably and His equity to terrify ineffably, so that the mind of the one who sees, the more sweetly it is fed by the goodness of God through His regard, the more, terrified by the consideration of His equity, it takes care not to be filled to no purpose. Hence also Samuel, when he is raised up to familiarity with the divine speech, is told not glad things concerning the progress of the elect, but terrible things concerning the failure of the great. For it is added: (Verse 11.) And the Lord said to Samuel: Behold, I do a thing in Israel, which whosoever shall hear, both his ears shall tingle.

For in the midst of lofty gifts, the chosen mind is restrained from elation the more cautiously, the more it sees that even those who appeared to be supported by more sublime gifts have been rejected through the justice of almighty God. Wherefore also concerning the word which the Lord threatens that He will do, the ears of those who hear are foretold to tingle. For the ears of the body tingle when they are struck by an intolerable sound. For when a cry is poured into them beyond the capacity of hearing, it turns into a tingling that sound which the narrowness of the organ rejects, because while the voice hisses through the passages of the ears, being poured in all at once, it does not enter into the inner parts. But to the ears of the mind, the intolerable cry is the rejection of some great preacher.

The magnitude of the poured-out cry is therefore not comprehended, because when the sublime gifts granted to a reprobate preacher are recalled, by what examination of divine equity he is cast off is unknown. The magnitude of the poured-out voice is therefore turned into a ringing of the ears, because even if it happens by what judgment of God, it is not comprehended by the intent of the mind; while it is long weighed through consideration, hearts are struck down by fear through consideration. For as if from the sound of a great voice shut in, the ears ring, when from the long-considered reprobation of great men the hearts of the righteous tremble. But both ears are said to ring, namely the right and the left. And because by the right ear eternal life is designated, but by the left the present life, and by the ear we hear the things that are said, what do we understand by the left ear but the intention of pious work, and what by the right ear but the intention of supernal vision? Both ears of the hearer therefore will ring, because when the ruin of the greatest men is shown, both intentions of the elect are disturbed, because both with a trembling heart they raise themselves up to contemplate eternal things, and they do not arrange temporal things without great dread. For he had suffered this ringing of the ears who spoke to the Lord, saying: Your justice is like the mountains of God; your judgments are a great abyss. For the mountains of God are understood as the highest and elect men.

By these mountains of God justice is indeed matched, when they fulfill his arduous commandments in deed, but yet the judgments of God are a great deep, because even if in the eyes of holy men those things which they do are right, before the eyes of almighty God they cannot know what manner of things they are. Hence they also ceaselessly do the good things that prevail, and they fear that sounding deep of judgments above themselves, because at the word of the Lord which they hear the hearts of these are shaken by the ringing of great terror. Fittingly, however, it is not except the ears of those hearing that are said to ring. For in the Gospel also he admonishes this, saying: He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 8:8). For those who with their whole attention keep watch over the things that are outside do not know this ringing of fear, because they by no means weigh above themselves the height of the divine judgments. But behold, against him who was unwilling to weigh above himself the subtle judgments of God, how sharply are the sentences of the judgments turned back. For adding, he says: (Verse 13 and 14.) For I have foretold that I would judge his house even unto eternity for his iniquity, because he knew that his sons were acting wickedly, and he did not rebuke them. Therefore I have sworn to the house of Beli that the iniquity of his house shall not be expiated with victims and gifts even unto eternity.

For because the sentence of just severity is often tempered by clemency, this is a judgment of great strictness, where the sentence of punishment is asserted by repetition. For he had foretold it above concerning Heli, when through the man of God, with the name suppressed, he announced the sentence of his casting down. But because he now also swears that he himself will do the same, he surely repeats the judgment of condemnation. In this matter it is also to be noted that he who did not rebuke his sons when they acted wickedly is reproached for having committed iniquity, which will by no means be expiated for eternity by victims and offerings. What strictness, then, will there be for one's own iniquity, if negligence of care for another is an irremediable fault? For if the uncorrected sins of subjects bind us by perpetual guilt, by what punishments does the boldness of our own iniquity bind us? Rightly, therefore, the ears of the hearer ring, because undoubtedly the minds of the elect, who consider this attentively, tremble at such great strictness. Rightly do the ears of the hearer ring at this, because it surely has the immensity of a clamor which elect hearts can scarcely endure. And indeed the right ear of the hearer rings, because even if by the merit of his perfection someone raises himself to contemplate things above, yet he does not trust in the height of his own life. The left ear also rings, because even if by the gift of knowledge someone has the ability to order temporal things perfectly, yet he has no confidence in the perfection of his own ministry.

Among sublime gifts, indeed, they hear the word, from whose clamor both ears suffer a ringing, under which, until this life of uncertainty is lived out, one does not cease to fear. Hence it is also fittingly added: (Verse 15.) Samuel slept until morning.

For he sleeps until morning who rests in the conduct of a good work begun until the splendor of the coming Redeemer appears. He sleeps until morning who, through the whole night of the present life, by the purpose of the righteousness he has begun, waits for the brightness of the promised Redeemer to shine forth upon him unto the joy of the reward he has earned. For he heard the word promised in Israel, concerning which his ears do not cease to ring, because from the sight of the strictness of divine justice he drew in the spirit of fear, under whose weight he will not be able to keep awake for the love of the world. But perhaps he is said to sleep until morning because of the ringing of the right ear. For the right ear rings, because while the perfect lover of the inner life doubts concerning the perfection of contemplation, he desires more and more to advance in that sublimity of life which he has begun. But as long as we are in this mortal flesh, malignant spirits lie in wait for those striving toward the heights; and in order to draw them back from the vision of inner glory, they gather the figments of foolish thoughts, which they set before their inner eyes. Well, then, is it said: Samuel slept until morning. The temptation of unclean spirits is the night; but he who sleeps until morning does not open his eyes through the whole night.

He therefore sleeps in the night who in temptation is brought to look upon the figments of demons. He sleeps even the whole night, because he is not overcome by the darkness of temptation, but manfully endures until, through the coming of grace, he is visited by the light of supernal brightness. And then indeed he awakens as it were at morning, because with the delight of the light poured back upon him he rejoices at the darkness having been dispelled. As one awakening, then, he opens his eyes, because he joyfully beholds the light by which he is sprinkled, who did not care to behold the darkness brought upon him. From the ringing of the right ear indeed he obtains that he who leans upon heavenly things may disdain to look upon wicked things, and he intimates the certainty of his progress, in that what he advances in peace he does not lose through open and violent wars. It follows: (Verse 15.) And he feared to declare the vision to Eli.

ii. For he feared to declare to him what the Lord showed to him, so that he might restrain the rashness of human audacity by the vigor of discipline. For certain men are so precipitate that they easily rush forth to the reproof of their prelates, and are not afraid to threaten future punishments for their errors. And these, surely, because they do not know the custom of holy Scripture, have by no means heard the Lord speaking to them. For those to whom almighty God, speaking, discloses the punishments of their prelates, fear to say to them the things which they have heard. Hence, therefore, let the reprovers of their superiors gather with how great inconsideration they cast themselves down, and let them dread the depths of their own fall.

For if those to whom almighty God speaks fear to speak to their prelates, with how great terror ought those to whom God has by no means spoken to hide themselves beneath the silence of their tongue? Therefore the fear of Samuel suggests not servile dread, but the reverence due to the pastoral height. For even if a negligent preacher deserves reproach and threats from his own fault, the loftiness of his order demands the fear of reverence. It follows: (Verse 15.) And he opened the doors of the house of the Lord.

What is it that he who feared to speak opened the doors of the house of the Lord, unless that he was not ashamed to obey, who trembled to declare sorrowful things? For it was said above: Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. For the boy, who is said to have slept in the temple of the Lord and now to open its doors, is shown to have had an enjoined ministry, that at fitting hours he might open the doors and shut them. He therefore who feared to declare the vision, and opened the doors of the house of the Lord, rendered reverence to his master in two ways, namely by the care of his ministry and by the guard of his speech. And how strictly he would have kept that guard of speaking is shown, if those things which follow are attended to subtly. For suddenly it is added: (Verses 16-18.) Eli therefore came to Samuel, and said: Samuel, my son. Who answered: I am here. And he asked him: What is the word that the Lord has spoken to you? I pray, do not hide it from me.

May God do these things to you, and may he add these things, if you hide from me the word from all the things that have been said to you. Therefore Samuel declared to him all the words, and did not hide them from him.

For he who is asserted to have been compelled to speak by such insistence of imprecation is declared to have been bound by great strictness of silence. And because certain subjects are accustomed to keep silent not so much for the guarding of purity as from the obstinacy of perverseness, Samuel shows the form of the chosen subject, who reverently kept silent, but, when ordered to speak, feared to be silent. And so he shone with the twin light of conversation, when he who was silent by the virtue of filial fear acquired the usefulness of speaking by speaking. It follows: (Verse 18.) And he answered: It is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.

He who considers this response of Heli more simply than he ought thinks that he responded as rightly as humbly. For as it is heard outwardly, what could he have responded more humbly, who heard his own reprobation, and to God threatening, nay rather promulgating the sentence of his reprobation, offered whatever he wished to do concerning him? But indeed this humility of response, if it is inspected subtly, is not true humility. For that is known to be true which is accompanied by the good of obedience in carrying out the commands of a greater. Therefore he would truly be humble, if he had offered himself for the amendment of the fault for which he was being reproved.

But perhaps he would have been more truly humble if, when reproved, he had by no means answered, but had applied the neglected correction to his wicked sons, if even then he had pressed on with pastoral zeal and avenged the crimes of the shameful priests with deserved punishment. Therefore, when he says, "It is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes," he is recognized to have brought forth the word of his election more openly than a response of humility, because he surely chose rather to incur the causes of God's threats than to condemn his sons for the iniquities they had committed. How many imitators of Eli are there still, who, though they daily perceive from the sacred word the Almighty God threatening them, nevertheless tremble at displeasing men, and do not fear to incur the threats of divine indignation; and while they dread the enmities of men as if implacable, they trust in God's mercy even while sinning.

But disordered confidence can have a place of vengeance with the Almighty God, yet it cannot obtain indulgence. For to the sinner uncorrected and persisting in the purpose of his guilt, what is it for God, who is diminishing him, to say, "It is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes," except to trust inordinately in the most ordered mercy of God? For he trusts in an ordered way in the mercy of the Almighty God who corrects by repenting what he has done wrong by sinning, and wipes it away by weeping. Therefore to sin and to presume upon the clemency of God the Creator is to be exposed to the sea of his justice.

Thus, without doubt, not to wipe away sins that have been committed by repenting, and to presume on God's mercy, is to offend against the judgment of His severity. Therefore, while Eli's life is described as the pattern of reprobate preachers, not only is the guilt of his fall shown, but also the security of guilt in its headlong ruin. For he who could have appeased the greatness of the divine severity by the fear of repentance, since he neglected what he heard, incurred what he deserved.

For almighty God, though He is just in equity, is believed to be more abundantly merciful in pity. Hence it is also said through the Prophet: His mercies are over all His works (Ps. 144:9). Hence it is that through the prophet Jonah He pronounced against the Ninevites the threats of overthrow, and yet to those repenting He granted pardon from the punishment of the city that was to be destroyed (Jonah 3:1 ff.). Hence it is that to Hezekiah the son of Ahaz (4 Kings 20:1 ff.) the penalty of death is announced through the prophet's oracle (Isa. 38:1 ff.), but because the king, fearing to die, afflicted himself before the Lord with the tears of repentance, he did not find in Him whom he feared the death by which he would die. And indeed the Lord had declared above that He would have spoken that the house of Eli and of his father should minister in His sight forever, but He who had spoken good things concerning a good agent changed His sentence concerning the house now made reprobate, saying: But now far be this from me (1 Kings 2:30).

If, then, almighty God revokes good promises because those to whom He promised them are evilly changed, how much more does He withhold the effect of His threats when He sees a man well converted, one to whom He had made known the punishment of His visitation for the iniquities he had committed? What, then, do we say to these things, who sin daily and are secure in the bond of our guilt? Therefore this very thing—that we do not hold fast to the strictness of divine justice—is greatly to be feared by us, because behold, the one who is cast off by divine indignation for the guilt of negligence he has perpetrated is reported to have been troubled by no fear. But since we know the rejection of the reprobate preacher leads to fear, let us hear the progress of the elect. For it follows: (1 Kings 2:21) "But Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him."

If this is read according to the history, the boy Samuel is shown to have grown in bodily age; but if we examine these things, as the rest, by spiritual investigation, the Lord is described as being with him who is said to have grown. For he grows who advances to a perfect man in the age of the mind. Whence also is it said through the Prophet concerning the elect who advance? "They shall walk from virtue to virtue; the God of gods shall be seen in Zion" (Ps. 84:7). Hence Paul says: "Until we all meet him in a perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). But there are some who, while they grow in virtues, fall through elation.

These, surely, seem to grow, yet the Lord is not with them, because by thinking lofty things of themselves they cast Him out, whom they could have had with them through humility when established in the progress of virtues. Or if he is understood to have grown through outward dignity, the Lord is said to be with him, because indeed many are religious in lowly station; but when they have suddenly reached the summit of dignity, they abandon their first works together with humility. Samuel, therefore, both advances and, advancing, had the Lord with him, so as truly to set forth the manner of the elect preachers, who, when they obtain gifts and dignities by which they may benefit others, do not neglect to please God concerning themselves, and from that source multiply those gifts which they received for others, whence they show forth in themselves the good which by speaking they desire to propagate in them. Wherefore it is also added: (Verse 19.) And none of all his words fell to the ground.

For the word of the preacher falls to the earth when it is cheapened by the reprobate conduct of the preacher. Hence also it is said by the voice of Truth: It is good for nothing any more, but to be cast out and trodden under foot by men (Matthew 5:13). And it must be noted that of all his words it is said that not one fell to the earth, so that truly the preacher may do nothing that it is lawful to condemn. For whatever he forbids to be done, if he himself does it, the word falls to the earth, because while it is despised by the speaker, those who hear by no means reverence it. For the Lord forbade any word to fall to the earth when He set before negligent preachers the word of their own negligence, saying: Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19). For the preacher does not break even the least commandment, whose word of all his words does not fall to the earth. But when it is said that of all the words of Samuel not a word fell to the earth, whose character does he set forth, Samuel, except that of those who by the merit of both preaching and work are great in the kingdom of heaven?

And so not one of all his words falls to the earth, because everything that the perfect preacher of the holy Church speaks on high, he also proclaims by his own lofty conduct, since, as if placed on a high watchtower, he instructs the wise by his word and shows to the simple by his works the path by which they ought to enter into the eternal fatherland. Whence it is also added: (Verse 20). And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that faithful Samuel was the prophet of the Lord.

For what is designated by Dan but the simple, and what by Beersheba but the wise? From Dan even to Beersheba faithful Samuel is recognized as the prophet of the Lord, when the life of the chosen preacher is set before the simple as an example of salvation, and to the wise the hidden things of holy Scripture are revealed through his teaching. But since Beersheba is interpreted as the seventh well, by Beersheba can be designated not only the wise but also the just. For what is the seventh well but the grace of the sevenfold Spirit? By Dan the life of sinners is shown, because through the ancient prophet it is said: Let Dan be a serpent in the way, a horned snake in the path, biting the horse's heel, so that his rider falls backward (Gen. 49:17). From Dan therefore even to Beersheba Samuel is recognized as the prophet of the Lord, when the life of the chosen preacher, and.

which doctrine is venerable to sinners and to the just, so that in it the fallen may see the good by which they may correct themselves through repentance, and the good may marvel at the height of life to which they may grow strong daily by advancing. It follows: (Verse 21.) And the Lord added that he might appear in Shiloh.

Above, concerning the time of the reprobate pastor, it is said: In those days there was no manifest vision. And so, when the best preacher is shown from the sacred utterance, the Lord is again said to appear, because undoubtedly, once the counsel of the divine plan is known—which is hidden from the reprobate—it is revealed to the elect by the merit of purity. For if even the counsels of men are not entrusted except to intimates, is almighty God to be thought to lay open the secrets of his disposition to his enemies? First, therefore, the life of the just teacher is proclaimed, then the Lord is said to have added that he might appear, because truly the showing forth of the divine light flees the reprobate and the feigned, but opens itself to the elect and to pure hearts. Whence also the true light, by speaking through himself, enlightens us, saying: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8). Therefore, that the Lord might appear, he added it because he saw the eye of his preacher to be clean. But when he added That he might appear in Shiloh, by another expression it is signified that he appeared in that same place. And because he said where he appeared, lest it be believed that he appeared to Eli, he subsequently also shows the person to whom he appeared, saying: (Verse

21.) For the Lord had been revealed to Samuel in Shiloh, according to the word of the Lord.

For then he revealed himself to him, when he opened to him the secret of his counsel concerning the rejection of the reprobate preacher. And this is asserted to have been done according to the word of the Lord, so that what had been said not very long before by the man of God to Eli may be understood to have been fulfilled even according to the history: And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to my heart and my soul, and he shall walk before my Christ all days (1 Kings 2:35). And again: You shall see your rival in the temple, in all the prosperity of Israel (Ibid., 32). But if we examine this according to the spiritual understanding, how does the Lord add that he appears to the elect, unless because he who wondrously terrifies his elect by the contemplation of his justice also ineffably soothes them by the showing of his glory? For he who by appearing as just shakes the hearts of the saints with terror, he adds that he appears when the sweetness of his loving-kindness is poured back into the terrified heart. Hence it is that he did not always appear to Moses in fire, but sometimes in fire, sometimes in a cloud. For in fire there is the terror of judgment. Whence also concerning the second coming of our Redeemer it is said through the Psalmist: Fire shall go before him, and round about him a mighty tempest (Psalm 49:3). But in the cloud the protection of mercy is expressed, because the Lord, promising to his elect the gentleness of his own protection, says: Then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud (Mark

13; Luke 21:27). In fire, therefore, and in a cloud the Lord appears to those walking through the desert, because the minds of those who contemplate him in this pilgrimage of exile, even if at times he terrifies them concerning justice, he raises up those cast down by fear with the soothing of his protection. The Lord therefore appeared to Samuel, and, in order that he might appear, he added, because he who is beheld by the minds of the elect in the fire of terror is also shown in the cloud of sweetness. For he had seen the vision of fire within, who was announcing it without, saying: Holy and terrible is his name (Ps. 110:10). Likewise, desiring to show that he was seen in fire, he says: Come and see the works of the Lord, terrible in his counsels over the sons of men (Ps. 65:6). But he who appeared to him in fire, in order that he might appear, added, because he also offered to him the sweetness of his glory and of his sweetness from the cloud. Wherefore also he, rejoicing, who had been terrified, said: How great is the multitude of your sweetness, O Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you (Ps. 30:20). Hence also, marveling at the added appearance, he says: How good is God to Israel, to those who are right of heart (Ps. 72:1).

But it must be carefully considered what is added: According to the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord, therefore, must be known before we deserve to attain to the appearing of the Lord, lest an unjust and undiscerning vision of fire and cloud not only fail to show us the perfection of the heavenly journey, but even drive us headlong into the drowning of error. For Origen, when he wished to see the Lord appearing without the word of the Lord, looked upon the vision of the cloud inordinately, because he shuddered at the appearing of the fire. For while, having denied or diminished the justice of God, he preached his superfluous mercy, he asserted that he would spare not only all condemned men, but would even at some time free the reprobate angels from eternal punishment. Novatus, however, loved more to behold the vision of the fire, who, while he declared the severe justice of almighty God to be implacable, took away from sinners the remedy of obtaining pardon and of repentance. Therefore the Lord appeared neither to Novatus nor to that other man, because neither of them, according to what is discerned through the truth of sacred eloquence, beheld the almighty Lord. Then, therefore, does the Lord appear according to his word, when he reveals himself to the mind by that showing which the faith of Sacred Scripture does not reject. Hence it is also fittingly added: (Verse 21.) And the word of Samuel came to all Israel.

The speech of heretics, surely, has not come. For it was the speech of Novatus, that God is just and by no means spares the faithful who have fallen once. It was the speech of Origen, that the merciful Lord allows no rational creature to perish through eternal damnation. But because sinners who have turned to the Lord by no means perish, and angels who have fallen once and sinners who have died in their sin are never saved, the speech of heretics has assuredly not come. The speech of Samuel, therefore, came to all Israel, because the preaching of catholic men is fulfilled, which is rightly recognized in the truth of the sacred utterance. And it must be noted that his speech is said to have come, to whom the Lord is reported to have added his vision, because undoubtedly his preaching is true, to whom the terror of divine justice is so shown that the abundant grace of his kindness is not concealed; namely, that the truth seen may so terrify the mind of the one who sees it, that the kindness also shown may not permit the terrified mind to fall into despair; so that he may presume of kindness only to the extent that he does not rush forth into the boldness of transgression.

But let these matters, discussed in the second book of the present work, suffice, so that, while we arrange to begin what follows with a new beginning, the zeal for speaking may also be renewed through devotion.

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER ONE

1. When we were diligently inquiring how the sense of sacred history fit the conduct of the elect, we postponed, by explaining, to take up again the order of the allegory. Therefore, so that we may supply what we are seen to have omitted, it is asked: What is it that, when Samuel is remembered as ministering to the Lord before Heli, the precious word of the Lord is described as being? But, as was said above, by Samuel the preachers of the holy Church, and by Heli also the elect fathers of the old testament, are designated. The boy Samuel, therefore, was ministering to the Lord before Heli, when the new order of teachers was preaching the faith of the Redeemer. Of this ministry, surely, Paul speaks, saying: As long as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will honor my ministry (Rom. 11:13). Hence again he says: They are Hebrews, and so am I; they are Israelites, and so am I; they are ministers of Christ, and so am I (2 Cor. 11:22). To minister, therefore, to the Lord is to proceed into the labor of preaching. And that ministry Samuel is said to perform before Heli, because whatever the new order of preachers asserted concerning the religion of the new faith, this he confirmed by the authority of the ancient fathers.

Samuel was ministering to his Lord when the new preacher declared, saying: For I say that Christ Jesus was a minister of circumcision for the truth of God, but that the Gentiles honor God for his mercy (Rom. 15:8). And indeed, so that he might discharge before Heli as well the ministry that he was rendering to the Lord, he added, saying: As it is written: Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and praise him, all you peoples (Ps. 116:1). And so that he might restrain himself more closely before Heli in the ministry of the Lord, he added: For Isaiah says: There shall be the root of Jesse, who shall rise to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope (Rom. 15:12; from Isa. 11:10). The boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord when Peter declared the glory of the Lord's Resurrection, saying: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God among you by signs and wonders, you killed, delivered up by the hands of the wicked; God raised him from the dead on the third day by a predetermined counsel, since it was impossible for him to be held by the sorrows of hell (Acts 2:22 ff.). 2. But this ministry, which he rendered to the Lord, he also rendered before Heli, because he added, saying: For David says: Because you will not abandon my soul in hell, nor will you let your holy one see corruption (Acts 2; Ps. 15:10).

Therefore Samuel is rightly said to minister to the Lord in the presence of Heli, because the chosen holy preachers of the Church, while by preaching they raised up the standing of the new faith, confirmed by the authority of the ancient Fathers what they attempted to assert by reason.

And then indeed the word of the Lord is reported to have been precious. For a precious thing cannot be bought at a small price. But the price at which the word of God is bought is the labor of holy action. For just as we buy with a price a thing that we wish to have, so by the word of preaching that we receive we display the labor of work. But then the word was precious, when it was not given for any kind of labor of work, when everyone who killed the buyer of the word thought that he was offering service to God. At that time, therefore, the buyer of the word needed a great price, because he could not keep the word of faith without great labor, who for that which he believed came to torments. For then was the time when the word was proclaimed, not by the figure of a typological morality, but by the precept of open speech it exhorted, saying: If anyone wishes to come after me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me (Matt. 16:24). Hence it also says: But he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me (Ibid., 10:37). And: He who has not renounced all that he possesses cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:33).

Therefore when Samuel's ministry is asserted, the word of the Lord is declared to be more precious, because indeed in the beginnings of the faith, those who believed the preachers who were teachers of eternal life are to be believed to have spent works of great labor for the word of faith they received. And because the Jewish people had already lost the light of divine knowledge, it follows: (1 Kings 3:1) In those days the vision was not manifest.

For the vision would have been manifest to him if he had believed in the Redeemer, whom he had heard had come for his visitation. Concerning this blindness of his, it is further added: (Verse 2) And it came to pass, Heli was lying in his place, and he could not see the lamp of God before it was extinguished.

For the vision of Heli is not manifest, because the priesthood of the Jews has been buried in the blindness of its unbelief. Heli therefore lies in his place, because he both has the letter of the law and in the law and the prophets he has not a standing of light but a fall of blindness. For the place of Heli, that is, of the Jewish preacher, is the sacred law. Because, then, the Jewish priesthood still has the sacred Scripture, it is in its place. And because, not knowing the power of the sacred Scripture, it is not raised up to the standing of faith, it is said, of course, not to stand in its place but to lie. Because likewise it has been cast down even to the end of the world, it is recorded that it cannot see the lamp of God.

Hence also, since daily they receive so many encouragements of preaching from the holy Church, since the Jews, though conquered by so many assertions of the sacred faith, do not believe, what else is this but what we read concerning them in holy Scripture, and also hold by experience—namely, that they have been cast off, not only that they may not see, but also that they may not be able to see? Hence also the apostles, reckoning the labor of those who could not see to be superfluous, say in their Acts: Because you have judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). But that which is said to be unable to see is called the lamp of God. For the ministry of the synagogue was the lamp of God, when in the chosen Fathers it shone both through the light of true preaching and through the promise of the coming Redeemer. And that lamp, indeed, with Samuel ministering, could not be seen, because in the time of the new preaching the teaching office of the synagogue incurred the penalty of perpetual rejection.

And it must be noted that it is not said that it could not shine, because in truth it still carries the light of holy Scripture for us, but it does not know what it carries. Hence also, before it was extinguished, it is said to be unable to see. For it is not yet extinguished, and it cannot see, because certainly, as I have already said, it bears a light to which it does not attend; for it exists before it is extinguished, as long as it shines. And because sacred Scripture is not taken away from it even to the end of the world, if it does not see before it is extinguished, it is extended in blindness to the end of the world. But if its kindling is referred to the zeal of unbelief, for this reason it cannot see, because it is not extinguished. For if it were to extinguish the fire of unbelief from the mind, with the zeal of impiety removed, it would open the eyes of the mind to the light of true faith, as it pleases. But while it is said to be unable to see, it is declared an unworthy lamp, and it is asked to see those things of which it is worthy. For it adds, saying: (Verse 3.) But Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of the Lord was, and the Lord called Samuel.

Once Eli's blindness was confirmed, the Lord called Samuel, because, with the Jewish priesthood condemned, He took up a new order of preachers for greater grace. But He who explained whom He called also showed from where He called, since He reports that Samuel slept in the temple of the Lord where the ark was. For the temple of God is the place where God dwells. Hence it is also said through the Psalmist: The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's seat is in heaven (Ps. 10:5). Paul certainly indicates this place, saying: The temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor. 3:17). And so the temple of God is the soul of each of the elect. The temple where God is hidden by it is the mind, in which the sacraments of the divine word are preserved through understanding. What else, then, does it mean for him to sleep in the temple but to persist in watchful circumspection of himself through the guard of intention? And so Samuel slept in the temple of God, because each preacher of the new grace, when he has perfectly despised all things that are of the world, rested in the inner watchful circumspection of his elect mind. And because he was instructed in the sacraments of divine Scripture, he slept in the temple where the ark was.

And it must be noted that it is not said "he slept" but "he was sleeping," because surely he did not endeavor to preserve that same circumspection of his mind in passing, but in the long duration of perseverance. And so Samuel's sleep designates a perfect contempt of the world in the mind of the teacher. The preacher, therefore, sleeps in the temple when, having thoroughly driven worldly solicitude away from himself, he hides himself in his mind through the contemplation of spiritual things. For Peter had chosen the quiet of this sleep when he said: It is not good to leave the word of God and serve tables (Acts 6:2). Hence Jethro the Midianite rightly reproved Moses his kinsman, saying: You will be consumed by foolish labor; but hear my words, and the Lord will be with you. Be for the people in those things which pertain to God, that you may report the things that are said to him (Exodus 18:18-19). Hence Paul recalls the Corinthians to the sleep of the temple, saying: Indeed there is already a fault among you, that you have judgments among yourselves. Why do you not rather suffer fraud (1 Corinthians 6:7)? For he had seen that those who were drawn away from spiritual meditation by the occupation of judgments could not sleep in the temple of God. Therefore he who sleeps in the temple is said to be called by the Lord, because that teacher was then taken up to know divine secrets who, through the intention of his heart, was dwelling not in outward things but in inward things. It follows: (Verse 1:5.) He answering said: Behold, here I am. And he ran to Eli and said: For you called me. He said: I did not call you, my son, return and sleep.

Why did he who heard the Lord calling him run to Eli, except that he thought himself called by Eli? And since we hold to the order of typical explanation, how is Eli thought to be speaking when God speaks to the boy who was called? But whatever our ancient Fathers spoke in the Holy Scriptures is referred to the speech of Eli. For surely, because they did not speak of themselves, since God through them spoke what he willed, what is heard in the Holy Scriptures is recognized to be the voice of God, which is brought forth through Eli. But the boy, because he ran to Eli when God was speaking, God certainly uttered a voice similar to Eli's. What then is it that the voice of the divine utterance does not differ from the voice of Eli, except that through the ancient Fathers he himself brings forth speech? For the voice of Eli is recognized to be God's, since the chosen Fathers, whatever they speak through the sacred utterances, received not from themselves but from the Lord. Hence also in the prophets, through almost every utterance, it is repeated: Thus says the Lord, so that we may understand that the voice which resounds from the prophet's oracle is not that of a man speaking, but of God commanding.