Gregory the Dialogist : To this end, therefore, Saul is led by the boy, that he may be instructed: because those who are to be placed on the height of prelacy are admonished to submit themselves to the spiritual understanding of perfect preachers through their teaching. He who says this admonishes us to be led by this boy: "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (Gal. 5:18). But it must be asked why it is said with hesitation: "If perhaps he may show us our way, on account of which we have come." But because he desires to learn spiritual things, because he longs to receive great gifts, he cannot know whether he is worthy of those same gifts. Therefore he begins to doubt, who does not presume that he merits such great things by his own merits. Which doubt indeed arises in the elect from the virtue of humility. Wherefore also in the voice of the accompanying boy it is said to Saul: "If perhaps he may show us our way." Because indeed the spiritual sense suggests that we should not think lofty things of ourselves, not presume boldly concerning almighty God, but seek His gifts with the utmost reverence of holy fear. Rightly therefore he is called a boy, who is proclaimed as always teaching humble things. Therefore when he says, "Let us go there," and suddenly adds, "If perhaps he may show us our way," he openly indicates that the Spirit of God works in the understanding of the elect, while He both makes them approach devoutly to seek spiritual gifts, and makes them fear with great reverence the omnipotence of the Giver. Whence also he who is led by the spirit is said to look upon the poverty of his own merits, when it is added: "And Saul said to his boy: Behold, we shall go, but what shall we bring to the man? The bread has failed in our bags, and we have no small basket to give to the man of God, nor anything else." The minds of the humble have this characteristic: that they possess spiritual gifts, but do not regard themselves in those things which they possess. For because they receive the gifts of virtues from the Holy Spirit, therefore the Holy Spirit, who bestows the gifts, removes them from their own estimation, so that they may have these things in the virtue of their conduct, but not have them in the swelling of pride. Rightly therefore it is said of Saul: "From the shoulder and upward he was taller than all the people." And he said to his servant: "The bread has failed in our bags, and we have no basket"—because chosen men, fit for governing the summit of holy Church, even regard themselves as small through humility in that very thing in which they are great through virtue. And indeed they have bread for the refreshment of the souls of the faithful in the wisdom of the word, and the basket in the memory of inner meditation. For when they preserve in memory for the instruction of the faithful those things which they gather in secret meditation, they store bread, as it were, in a basket. For concerning these baskets it is said in the Gospel: "They filled seven baskets with the fragments" (Matt. 15:37; Mark 8:8). When loaves abound on the Lord's table, the baskets are commanded to be filled—because when the soul of the elect is refreshed in the heavenly contemplation of the Redeemer, it is instructed in that same contemplation of the truth, so that the nourishment of the word, which is seen to grow abundantly in itself, may be stored in the memory for the instruction of the faithful. They also abundantly have something else besides bread and a basket—those who, along with the virtue of contemplation and the teaching of the word, abound in a wealth of holy works. Therefore, so that the humility of the saints may resound in the speech of the king about to be appointed, he says: "The bread has failed in our bags, and we have no basket to give to the man of God, nor anything else"—because the Holy Spirit makes those who are being prepared for the governance of the ecclesiastical summit great in the virtue of their inner gift, but altogether small in the regard of their own estimation. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4