{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1175","native_reference":{"book_number":90,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":11,"verse_to":11},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Bede</b>: Thus Elkanah went to Ramah, to his house, etc. The Church of the Gentiles, recently called to faith, which we said signified the birth of the blessed Samuel, God's possession, which is His co-eternal wisdom, Christ, went to enlighten, as always, the lofty hearts of His saints, faithful and angels and humans, which are His house, strongly built upon the rock of faith against the gates of hell. But the people called to faith, even seen by and wondered at by the Jewish priesthood, humbly served Christ's commands as if they were always observing themselves.<br/><i>— Commentary on Samuel</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: 1. We have shown that this man indeed designates the Redeemer of the human race; Anna his wife, His Church; the boy Samuel, the people of believers from the nations; and Ramatha the city, the heavenly homeland. What then does it mean that after his wife's canticle Elkanah is said to have gone away to Ramatha his city, since Anna sang her canticle to God after the boy was born, and the Redeemer ascended to heaven before the holy Church had begotten the gentile people in faith? This question is raised only by those who are known to understand only the bodily presence of our Lord. For did not Paul, who had ascended to the Father, have Him with him when he said: \"Do you seek proof of Christ who dwells in me\" (2 Cor. 13:3)? He likewise declares, saying: \"As from God, before God and Christ we speak\" (2 Cor. 2:17). What does it mean, then, that He was sometimes present to the holy Church through the grace of His gift, and sometimes withdrew Himself from her through the dispensation of trial? For He was present so that in the acquisition of the Gentiles He might abundantly pour forth the words of life; but sometimes, as though absent, He hid Himself, so that, with the gift of the word taken away, she might recognize what she was without His presence. Therefore, after the end of the canticle it is said: \"Elkanah went to his house,\" because the holy Church preaches lofty things from His presence, and He who withdraws Himself from mortals through dispensation continually presents Himself to the eternal citizens. For His house is that eternal fellowship of the heavenly citizens, which the Lord inhabits by loving, filling, and uniting Himself to them. He goes to it, therefore, when He leaves Anna, because He who beneficially withdraws Himself from us who are still making progress, unceasingly joins and shows Himself to the perfected and consummated citizens of the eternal homeland, for whom it is no longer necessary to be tested by His absence, since they have already been proven. Fittingly, therefore, after Anna's canticle it is said: \"Elkanah went to his house,\" because the holy Church, which teaches the elect such sublime things, just as she is always left by the Lord's loving dispensation, so also she does not always have those lofty things to teach. But many hear the words, detest their past wickedness, and resolve upon works of amendment of life; yet when they cease to hear, they return to iniquity as if they had never heard those same words of life. The gentile people, as hearers of the holy Church, were devout in listening and ready in acting. Fittingly, therefore, it is added: The boy Samuel was ministering in the presence of the Lord, before the face of Eli the priest.</p><p>2. As if it were openly said: From what he heard, he strove to please Almighty God. He is fittingly called a boy, because even though he had undertaken great things to be done in defense of our faith, nevertheless in that same generation of faith he was still new. And because he rendered a pleasing ministry to Almighty God, he was a minister in the sight of the Creator. For he is in the sight of the Lord whom divine favor gladly looks upon in the offering of his services. Fearing greatly to be cast out from this sight of the Lord, someone prays, saying: \"Cast me not away from your face\" (Psalms 50:13). Likewise, ardently desiring to be received into it, he considers with himself the delay of his waiting, saying: \"When shall I come and appear before the face of God?\" (Psalms 41:3). Hence Elijah boasts and says: \"As the Lord lives, in whose sight I stand\" (3 Kings 17:1). Samuel therefore was a minister in the sight of the Lord, because in the services of the new religion the Gentile people was greatly accepted by Almighty God. By this word indeed the rejection of Judea is also secretly intimated, since Samuel alone, in whom the faithful people of the nations is represented, is said to minister before the Lord. He alone therefore was in His sight, because indeed the Jewish people had ceased to please Him. The Lord speaks both of these things through Malachi. For intimating the rejection of Judea, He says: \"I have no pleasure in you, and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hand\" (Malachi 1:10). But He who cast Jewish faithlessness from His face, adding whom He gladly beholds, says: \"From the rising of the sun to its setting, my name is great among the nations, and in every place a pure offering is offered to my name\" (ibid., 11). But it must be carefully observed that it is said: \"Before the face of Eli, Samuel ministered to the Lord,\" because the order of the ancient teachers long before recognized by foreseeing, and proclaimed by prophesying, that the ministry of the holy Church's preachers would bring about the conversion, love, and reverence of the Gentile people concerning service to the Redeemer. For he who said the following knew this people would be devoted in the Lord's service: \"All kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him\" (Psalms 71:11). Hence Haggai speaks, saying: \"The desired of all nations shall come, and the house of the Lord shall be filled with glory\" (Haggai 2:8). Hence Isaiah says: \"There shall be a root of Jesse, who shall rise to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope\" (Isaiah 11:10; Romans 15:12). Hence the Psalmist says: \"Praise the Lord, all nations, and praise him together, all peoples\" (Psalms 116:1). Hence the patriarch Jacob says: \"He shall be the expectation of the nations\" (Genesis 49:10). Before the face of Eli, therefore, the boy Samuel was a minister of the Lord, because what the Gentile people afterwards worthily offered to God, the order of the ancient teachers foresaw through the spirit of prophecy. And immediately concerning the rejected ones it is added: (Verses 12, 13.) Now the sons of Eli, not knowing the Lord, and the office of the priest to the people.<br/><i>— Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 2, Chapter 2</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: We have run through these matters from sacred history by way of typological explanation, so that we might seek out something of moral understanding in the same words of sacred history. And so the boy Samuel is declared a minister in the sight of the Lord; yet this ministry is recorded as being rendered to the Lord not absolutely, but before the face of Eli. By these words, therefore, what is shown is not the perfection of ministry, but of humility. For the face of Eli represents the judgment of each one's instructor. For he ministers to the Lord before the face of his teacher who does not follow the reasoning of his own judgment in the performance of his ministry, who walks along that path of work which is foreseen for him by the knowledge of his master. For all perfect men, and those taught by God (John 6:45; Isaiah 54:13), are indeed ministers in the sight of the Lord, but are not His ministers before the face of man, because the divinity itself teaches them inwardly how they should be ordered outwardly also in life, conduct, and teaching; whence also it is promised to the forerunner of the Redeemer with the praise of a paternal oracle: \"And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways\" (Luke 1:76). He is described as going before the face of the Lord who in his ministry was not going to follow the judgment of a superior man, but the inspiration of the divinity. Therefore Samuel is said to minister to the Lord before the face of Eli, so that all who are subject may be taught by his example, that they should strive to please their Creator in their ministry in such a way that they do not presume to do anything contrary to the judgment of their superiors. For he who is declared a minister of the Lord before the face of his instructor, if through pride he disdains to go before his face, does not exist as a minister in the sight of the Lord, because he is proved to be ignorant of the Almighty, whom he disdains to please through his instructor's judgment—the Almighty who subjected him to that authority so that he might please Him. Whence the sons of Eli are said both to be sons of Belial and not to know the Lord, and not to know the office of the priests toward the people. For sons are those who are subjected to spiritual fathers for instruction. Who indeed, when through pride they disdain to follow the counsels of those same fathers, are rightly called sons of Belial, because they become imitators of that apostate spirit who fell from heaven through pride. Who certainly are ignorant of the Lord all the more grievously, the more arrogantly they ascribe knowledge of Him to themselves. For it comes about that they are ignorant of what they ought to know all the more dangerously, because, not knowing what they think they know, they do not 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 which they have usurped for themselves. Whence those who are reported as priests who do not know the Lord are also said not to know the office of the priests toward the people.<br/><i>— Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 2, Chapter 3</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"82562ad97b7698839cfef14b09e10677efc20e2e02f6449d934c40c9ffc0f710","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1175,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"aa59c72dc88a47d61e46153a0813f7ca4d37542a529da57624cb968c0f6a4438","translator":null,"work":null}