Bede : Saul was greatly angered, etc. But the people who gloried in the law, angered against the preachers of grace, and the word displeased them, which, with the Gospel shining forth, set an end to the shadows of the law; and he said, raging against the Lord and against His Christ: Behold, the followers of this doctrine assert that while I indeed, doing the commands of the Mosaic law, serve shadows and figures, their Jesus brought the light of truth and life to the world; that through the law, good things of the earth, which cannot be everlasting, were promised to me; He through the grace of His Gospel grants the eternal joys of the heavenly kingdom to His faithful. Therefore, with everyone competing, neglecting the rite of the altar and sacrifices, to attend the hearing of this doctrine, what remains for me except only that he has not also taken away the summit of the kingdom from me? This because, although Christians, surpassing us in number, are all humbled and cast down in new and unknown poverty. — Commentary on Samuel Tertullian : It is usual, indeed, with persons of a weaker character, to be so built up in confidence by certain individuals who are caught by heresy, as to topple over into ruin themselves. How does it come to pass, they ask, that this woman or that man, who were the most faithful, the most prudent and the most approved in the church, have gone over to the other side? Who that asks such a question does not in fact reply to it himself, to the effect that men whom heresies have been able to pervert ought never to have been esteemed prudent or faithful or approved? This again, I suppose, is an extraordinary thing, that one who has been approved should afterwards fall back? Saul, who was good beyond all others, is afterwards subverted by envy. David, a good man "after the Lord's own heart." is guilty afterwards of murder and adultery. Solomon, endowed by the Lord with all grace and wisdom, is led into idolatry by women. For to the Son of God alone was it reserved to persevere to the last without sin. — PRESCRIPTIONS AGAINST HERETICS 3