Bede : Moreover, at the time when Abiathar fled, etc. The ephod, as we mentioned above, is a priestly garment, with four most distinguished colors interwoven with gold, and two precious stones on each shoulder, and the sacred names of the twelve patriarchs, which most fittingly corresponds to signify the senses of sublime men. For those fleeing to more and more proclaim the glory of Christ, who escaped the hands of many torturers and persecutors for Him, bear within themselves senses and hearts elevated with the four excellent virtues shining with charity, tempered with precious discretion in adversities and prosperities, and taught and armed by the word and example of the preceding Fathers. And it is well said that the priest, fleeing to David with the ephod, is remembered not to have ascended but descended, according to that which is written: "The greater you are, humble yourself in all things" (Ecclesiasticus 3). But truly, because with the growing devotion of faith, the hatred of the perfidious increases, evidently by the judgment of heaven, so that both the trial examining the whole in faith makes them clearer, and the same also accuses the dissemblers of their levity, it is rightly added: — Commentary on Samuel