{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1265","native_reference":{"book_number":90,"chapter_from":23,"chapter_to":23,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":25,"verse_to":25},"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>: When Saul heard this, he pursued David, etc. These things specifically regard the Jewish persecutor, who, upon hearing of the faith and devotion of believers, persecutes them on earth, while they with the whole intention of their minds look towards the heavens, himself believing that Christ will come in the flesh, which they have already learned has come. For this is Saul proceeding on one side of the mountain, and David and his men staying on the other side; these ones empty of Christ, hastening with perverted hope towards Christ yet to be incarnate; those ones having already received, by the grace of Christ the author, the sacraments of the Christian faith in which they would be saved. For he is the mountain of the house of the Lord prepared on the summit of the mountains, upon which a city set cannot be hidden (Isa. II). Nor is it surprising if they despair of being able to escape carnally from their enemies, to whom it was not said, \"Do not fear, for you will not be killed by your enemies\" (Matt. X); but, he says, \"Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul\" (Matt. X). Yet sometimes those in despair are delivered from enemies even at present, like the three boys from the furnace, Daniel from the lions' den, like Paul and Silas, and the very prince of the apostles himself (Acts V): but also elsewhere, all the apostles from prison together; as indeed many later martyrs of great praise and glory in Christ and the Church. Hence it is rightly added:<br/><i>— Commentary on Samuel</i></p><p><b>Ephrem the Syrian</b>: This is what happened to Paul. For the potency of the light suddenly surprised his feeble eyes and injured them. But the greatness of the voice brought low his strength and entered his ears and opened them. For they had been closed up by Jewish contentiousness as by wax. For the voice did not plough up the ears, as the light injured the eyeballs. Why? but because it was meet that he should hear, but not that he should see. Therefore the doors of hearing were opened by the voice as by a key: but the doors of sight were shut by the light that should open them. Why then was it meet that he should hear? Clearly because by that voice our Lord was able to reveal Himself as being persecuted by Saul. For He was not able to show Himself by sight as being persecuted; for there was no way whereby this should be, that the son of David should be seen fleeing and Saul pursuing after Him. For this happened in very deed with that first Saul and with the first David. The one was pursuing; the other was being persecuted; they both of them saw and were seen, each by the other. But here the ear alone could hear of the persecution of the Son of David; the eye could not see that He was being persecuted.<br/><i>— Homily - On Our Lord, 32</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"f0c010555e633a39e8c70fa56f9fdde70010f34f4d3ae45ad4fca8f1575cbf4d","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1265,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"4e6bb9074e2c34e1fc405e741f23a8e9239b6f366298d5df73e8238a4322cf20","translator":null,"work":null}