{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1366","native_reference":{"book_number":90,"chapter_from":3,"chapter_to":3,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":3,"verse_to":3},"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>: But Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord, etc. The Lord, while instructing and ministering spiritual matters to mortals, would suspend the external vision of the mind to fix it in the contemplation of the supreme and innermost light. For they say that the temple, where the divine and heavenly sacraments are, is called a place of contemplation; where the ark of God is, that is, the glory of the supreme Trinity, solely conscious of the divine entire secret. Whence it is said in the Psalm: I kept the Lord always in my sight; because he is at my right hand, that I be not moved (Psalm XIII).<br/><i>— Commentary on Samuel</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: 8. Now rightly the reprobate prelate is said not to sleep but to lie down, while the boy, a subject and one of the elect, is said not to lie down but to sleep, because \"to sleep\" is sometimes taken in a good sense, while \"to lie down\" is almost always taken in a bad sense. Hence also the Bride in the Song of Songs says: 'I sleep, and my heart watches' (Song of Solomon 5:2). In the sleep of the perfect boy, therefore, the rest of every elect subject from wicked work is signified. For he sleeps in the temple and where the ark is who, occupied with heavenly desire and with meditation on Sacred Scripture, does not attend to those things that pertain to perversity. For some sleep in the temple but do not sleep in the place where the ark of God is, because certain simple people rest in heavenly contemplation through love, but do not know how to meditate on the hidden things of sacred speech. But Samuel, who is said to sleep not only in the temple but before the ark of God, signifies the learned and elect subjects alike, because while they draw the flames of their love from sacred Scripture by meditating more frequently, they are raised up more highly to the desire of the heavenly homeland, and they choose, as it were, the innermost parts of the temple for sleep, since they are separated the further from the public activity of earthly work the more secretly they are hidden away through meditation in the sanctuary of inner vision. (Verse 4.) 'And the Lord called Samuel.'<br/><i>— Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 2, Chapter 4</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: (Verse 3.) Now Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of the Lord was, and the Lord called Samuel.</p><p>6. With the blindness of Eli confirmed, the Lord called Samuel, because, with the Jewish priesthood condemned, He took up a new order of preachers unto a greater grace. But He who explained whom He called also showed from where He called; because He declared that Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord, where the ark was. For the temple of God is the place where God dwells. Whence 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 indeed points to this place, saying: \"The temple of God is holy, which temple you are\" (1 Cor. 3:17). Therefore the temple of God is the soul of each elect person. The temple where the ark of God is kept is the mind, in which the mysteries of the divine word are preserved through understanding. What else, then, is it for him to sleep in the temple, but to persist through the guard of intention in self-examination? Samuel therefore was sleeping 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 inward self-examination of his elect mind. And because he was instructed in the mysteries of divine Scripture, he was sleeping in the temple, where the ark was.</p><p>7. And it should be noted that it does not say \"he slept\" [dormivit], but \"he was sleeping\" [dormiebat], because indeed he strove to maintain that same watchfulness of his mind not in passing, but in the endurance of perseverance. The sleep of Samuel therefore signifies a perfect contempt of the world in the mind of the teacher. The preacher therefore sleeps in the temple when, having thoroughly driven worldly anxiety from himself, he conceals himself in his mind through the contemplation of spiritual things. For Peter had chosen the rest of this sleep when he said: \"It is not right that we should leave the word of God and serve tables\" (Acts 6:2). Hence Jethro the Midianite rightly reproved his kinsman Moses, saying: \"You will be consumed with foolish labor; but hear my words, and the Lord will be with you. Be you for the people in those things that pertain to God, that you may bring what is said to Him\" (Exodus 18:18, 19). Hence Paul calls the Corinthians back to the sleep of the temple, saying: \"Already indeed it is a fault in you that you have lawsuits among yourselves. Why do you not rather suffer fraud?\" (1 Corinthians 6:7). For he had perceived that those whom the preoccupation of lawsuits was drawing back from spiritual meditation were unable to sleep in the temple of God. He who was sleeping in the temple is therefore said to have been called by the Lord, because that teacher was taken up to know divine secrets who, through the attention of his heart, was dwelling not in outward things but in inward things.<br/><i>— Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 3, Chapter 1</i></p><p><b>Theodore of Mopsuestia</b>: It says \"The Lord is in his holy temple,\" as if it had been appropriate to say \"The Lord is his help.\" For the Lord's name alone is commonly inserted as an indication of assistance. But here the psalmist intends to indicate that there is one who lives in the temple and is used for defense and protection, in whom it is able to stand firm securely in hope against all treachery. But what it calls the temple is the tabernacle in which the ark of God was placed, for the temple had not yet been built. That the tabernacle may be called the temple, the testimony of Kings [Samuel] clearly instructs, since the construction of the temple had not begun at the time: \"And Samuel was lying down in the temple of God, in which the ark of God was located.\"<br/><i>— EXPOSITIONS ON PSALMS, Psalms 10</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"1894b9b85a0b189d94f3be7dde09307b188ed89777fe9a556a798cc9fa3f6889","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1366,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"f7bf77e97b00b845f6819ac8636a472bef73dab24cb6bea01a265f5192ec41cc","translator":null,"work":null}