Eclogae on 1 Kingdoms (complete)

[1 Sam 15:11] “I repent that I made Saul king.” Just as with human beings a hand and a foot and an eye and the rest are named, but with God the hand means his creative power, the foot his presence, and the eye his oversight, so too God's wrath is the name for the discipline of those who stumble, and repentance for a change from one course to another. Because of what is in our power, the prophets had to speak more condescendingly to those very slow of mind, so that it might be grasped. And again, if God foresaw all things, he is not angered or repentant at what he foresaw. Wrath or repentance is not a passion of God: punishment is the work of wrath, and the work of repentance is departure from the former course and change to another. Or thus: Saul made himself unworthy of the kingdom, so that if God had a nature that repents, he would have repented of him. Saul ought to have perceived that one drop of the divine kindness surpasses all the goodness of human beings. But when God commanded him to punish, he showed pity. Yet his lawless mercy toward Agag condemned him less than

the passion of greed and love of money; for he kept the fat of the flocks for himself. [1 Sam 16:12] “And he was ruddy.” Esau was “ruddy, hairy like a hide,” having the deadness that comes from sin, and murder against Jacob. But David was “ruddy, with beauty of eyes, and good in the sight of the Lord,” to show David's discernment. [1 Sam 21:3] “And now, if there are five loaves under your hand.” He foreshowed also that the royal tribe and the priestly were to be united in Christ, priest and king together. [1 Sam 21:4] “There are no profane loaves.” He calls profane not the unclean, but those that are not holy, or, as Aquila rendered it, “lay”: not that what is not holy is profane, but by comparison with the holy. The table had six loaves, always changed, for the twelve tribes, which they called “loaves of the presence,” so that each was offered for two tribes. For calling them so meant that the tribes of Israel were joined in concord. It foreshadowed also that the disciples would be sent two by two by Christ to preach among the tribes of Israel, and that they would be twelve in number. [1 Sam 21:7] “And there was there one of the servants.” It shows that Doeg the Idumean remained before the Lord because of sickness or sin, to be healed and to make confession; or because of demons, like Saul, whose mules he tended. [1 Sam 22:6] “And Saul was sitting on the hill.” Saul bears the type of the evil spirit, who ruled Israel when they said, “We have no king.” For the people of old, despising David who reigned over them, asked that Saul be given them as ruler. [From the works of Origen on the second book of Kingdoms.] [2 Sam 5:6] “That the blind and the lame resisted.” The Jebusites, knowing David to be a lover of the poor, set the lame and the blind on the wall to insult him. But when he had taken Jerusalem, not only did he not harm them, but he made a law for his soldiers: “If anyone kills a blind or lame Jebusite, let him be slain with the dagger,” that is, “let him be put to death.” For even if they hated David's soul, they obtained mercy. [From the works of Origen on the third book of Kingdoms.] [1 Kgs 6:7] “And hammer and axe and every iron tool” was not heard in the house. The house is the church of God, in which no hammer must be heard. The hammer of the whole earth is the devil; and the one who pays no heed to it is like some material that is struck by it and does not suffer. “For behold,” says Amos, “a man standing on a wall of adamant, and in his hand adamant”; and this adamant will be broken by no hammer. Even if the devil stands over it as a hammer, and the dragon lies beneath like an anvil not beaten out, the adamant which is in the hand of the Lord and under

his oversight will not fall. For the saint is a wall of adamant, and in the hand of the Lord remains unaffected, even if he is caught between the hammer and the dragon. The more he is struck, the more brilliant he shows his virtue. For the devil, like one ignorant of the nature of stones, tests by many blows the one who is like adamant, since God alone knows its nature. [From the works of Origen on the fourth book of Kingdoms.] [2 Kgs 2:16] “Behold, with your servants are fifty men, sons of power.” Christ, being power, makes us sons; and if anyone is a man of power, he is a son of Christ. Sometimes the powers under Christ cannot make sons; and if they do, they make only infants.