Concerning these clouds He threatened, in the prophet Isaiah, against the handmaid Jerusalem, that is, the ungrateful vineyard, that they should not rain upon her. But it was so said, 'He Himself shall judge the ends of the earth,' as if it were said, 'even the ends of the earth.' For He will not fail to judge the other parts, who without doubt will judge all men. But the ends of the earth are better understood as the ends of man; since those things will not be judged which in the intervening time are changed for better or for worse, but the extremities in which each one, who is to be judged, shall be found. On this account it is said: 'He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.' He therefore who perseveringly does judgment and justice in the midst of the earth shall not be condemned when the ends of the earth are judged.
'And He gives,' she says, 'strength to our kings,' that in judging He may not condemn them. He gives them strength whereby they may rule the flesh as kings, and may conquer in Him the world, which shed its blood on their account. 'And He shall exalt the horn of His Christ.' In what manner shall Christ exalt the horn of His Christ? For He of whom it was said above, 'The Lord has ascended into the heavens,' and was understood to be the Lord Christ — He Himself, as is here said, shall exalt the horn of His Christ. Who then is the Christ of Christ? Or shall He exalt the horn of each one of His faithful ones, just as she herself at the beginning of this hymn says, 'My horn is exalted in my God'? For indeed we can rightly call all who are anointed with His chrism 'christs';
yet this whole body, together with its Head, is one Christ. These things Hannah prophesied, the mother of Samuel, a holy man and much praised; in whom indeed was then prefigured the change of the old priesthood, and now it has been fulfilled, when she who was rich in children was made weak, so that the barren, who bore seven, might have a new priesthood in Christ. [V] But this a man of God, sent to the priest Eli himself, speaks more plainly, whose name indeed is passed over in silence, but who is understood, by his office and ministry, without doubt to be a prophet. For thus it is written: 'And there came a man of God to Eli and said: Thus says the Lord: I was revealed, yea revealed, to the house of thy father, when they were servants in the land of Egypt in the house of Pharaoh;
and I chose the house of thy father out of all the tribes of Israel to perform the priestly office for Me, that they should go up to My altar and burn incense and bear the ephod; and I gave to the house of thy father all things that are of the fire of the children of Israel for food. And why hast thou looked upon My incense and upon My sacrifice with a shameless eye, and hast glorified thy sons above Me, to bless the first-fruits of every sacrifice in Israel in My sight? On this account thus says the Lord God of Israel: I said: Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever. And now the Lord says: By no means; but those who glorify Me I will glorify, and he who despises Me shall be despised.
Behold, the days come, and I will destroy thy seed and the seed of thy father's house, and thou shalt not have an elder in My house all thy days, and I will destroy for thee a man from My altar, that his eyes may fail and his soul melt away; and everyone that shall be left of thy house shall fall by the sword of men. And this shall be a sign to thee, which shall come upon thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die. And I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest, who shall do all things that are in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him a faithful house, and he shall pass before My Christ all his days. And it shall come to pass that whoever shall be left in thy house shall come to worship him for an obol of silver, saying: Cast me into some part of thy priesthood, that I may eat bread.'
It cannot be said that this prophecy, in which with such great clearness the change of the old priesthood was foretold, was fulfilled in Samuel. (For although Samuel was not of another tribe than that which had been appointed by the Lord to serve at the altar, yet he was not of the sons of Aaron, whose progeny had been assigned as the source from which the priests should come;
and thus in that deed too the same change which was to come through Christ Jesus was foreshadowed, and the prophecy pertained properly to the Old Testament, but figuratively to the New — the prophecy being itself of a deed and not merely of a word, that is, signifying by a deed that very thing which was said in word to the priest Eli through the prophet.) For there were afterward priests of the line of Aaron, such as Zadok and Abiathar in the reign of David, and others thereafter, before the time came when those things which were foretold so long before concerning the changing of the priesthood had to be brought about through Christ. But who now, beholding these things with a faithful eye, does not see that they have been fulfilled?
Since indeed no tabernacle, no temple, no altar, no sacrifice, and therefore not even any priest, has remained to the Jews, to whom it had been commanded in the law of God that a priest should be ordained from the seed of Aaron. This too was here mentioned when the prophet said: 'Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I said, Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever. And now the Lord says: By no means; but those who glorify Me I will glorify, and he who despises Me shall be despised.' For that he names 'the house of his father,' meaning not his immediate father, but that Aaron who was the first appointed priest, from whose progeny the rest should follow — the preceding words demonstrate, where he says:
'I was revealed to the house of thy father, when they were servants in the land of Egypt in the house of Pharaoh, and I chose the house of thy father out of all the tribes of Israel to perform the priestly office for Me.' Which of this man's fathers was there in that Egyptian servitude, from which, when they had been set free, one was chosen for the priesthood, save Aaron? Of his stock, therefore, He said in this passage that it would come to pass that there should be no more priests; which we now see fulfilled. Let faith be watchful — the facts are at hand, they are discerned, they are grasped, and they are thrust upon the eyes even of those unwilling to see.
'Behold,' he says, 'the days come, and I will destroy thy seed and the seed of thy father's house, and thou shalt not have an elder in My house all thy days, and I will destroy for thee a man from My altar, that his eyes may fail and his soul melt away.' Behold, the days which were foretold have now come. There is no priest according to the order of Aaron; and whoever is a man of his line, when he sees the sacrifice of the Christians flourishing throughout the whole world, but that great honour taken away from himself, his eyes fail and his soul melts away with the wasting of grief. But properly to the house of this Eli, to whom these things were said, pertains what follows: 'And everyone that shall be left of thy house shall fall by the sword of men.'
'And this shall be a sign to thee, which shall come upon thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die.' This, then, was made a sign of the priesthood being changed from the house of this man, by which sign was signified the priesthood of the house of Aaron that was to be changed. For the death of this man's sons signified the death not of men, but of the priesthood itself of the sons of Aaron. But what follows now pertains to that Priest whose figure Samuel bore by succeeding this one. Accordingly, what follows is said of Christ Jesus, the true Priest of the New Testament: 'And I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest, who shall do all things that are in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him a faithful house.' This is the eternal and heavenly Jerusalem.
'And he shall pass,' he says, 'before My Christ all his days.' By 'shall pass' he meant 'shall converse [dwell]'; just as above he had said of the house of Aaron: 'I said, Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever.' But when he says, 'He shall pass before My Christ,' this is surely to be understood of that house itself, not of that Priest who is Christ Himself, the Mediator and Saviour. His house, therefore, shall pass before Him. 'Shall pass' can also be understood of passing from death to life, all the days during which this mortality is enacted unto the end of this world. But when God says, 'Who shall do all things that are in My heart and in My soul,' let us not suppose that God has a soul, since He is the Creator of the soul;
but this is said of God tropically, not properly, just as 'hand' and 'foot' and other members of the body. And lest on this account it be believed that man was made to the image of God in the shape of this flesh, wings also are added, which surely man does not have, and it is said to God: 'Under the shadow of Thy wings Thou wilt protect me' — so that men may understand that of that ineffable nature these things are said not by proper but by transferred names of things. But what is added, 'And it shall come to pass that whoever shall be left in thy house shall come to worship him,' is said not properly of the house of this Eli, but of that of Aaron, from which men remained until the coming of Jesus Christ, and of which line even now to this day there are not lacking. For of that house of this Eli it had already been said above:
'And everyone that shall be left of thy house shall fall by the sword of men.' In what manner then could it here be truly said, 'And it shall come to pass that whoever shall be left in thy house shall come to worship him,' if that is true, that by the avenging sword no one from thence was to be left? Unless because he wished those to be understood who belong to the stock, but of that whole priesthood according to the order of Aaron. Therefore, if it is of those predestined remnants of whom another prophet said, 'The remnant shall be saved' (whence also the Apostle says, 'So then at this present time also there is a remnant made according to the election of grace'), because he is well understood to be of such remnants of whom it was said, 'Whoever shall be left in thy house' — he assuredly believes in Christ;
just as in the times of the apostles very many from that nation itself believed, and now too there are not lacking those who, though very rarely, yet believe; and there is fulfilled what this man of God immediately added in continuation: 'He shall come to worship him for an obol of silver.' To worship whom, save that highest Priest who is also God? For in that priesthood according to the order of Aaron men did not come to this end at the temple or altar of God, that they might worship the priest. But what is meant by 'an obol of silver,' save the brevity of the word of faith, of which the Apostle recalls it was said: 'The Lord shall make a consummating and abridging word upon the earth'? And that silver stands for utterance, the Psalm bears witness, where it is sung: 'The words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried by fire.'
What then does he say, who comes to worship the priest of God — nay, the Priest who is God? 'Cast me into a part of thy priesthood, that I may eat bread.' I will not be placed in the honour of my fathers, which is now nothing; cast me into a part of thy priesthood. For I have chosen to be an abject one in the house of God; I desire to be some member, however small, of thy priesthood. For by 'priesthood' he here means the very people, of which people that One is the priest, the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. To which people the Apostle Peter says: 'A holy people, a royal priesthood.' Although some have interpreted it 'of thy sacrifice,' not 'of thy priesthood'; which nonetheless signifies the same Christian people. Whence the Apostle Paul says:
'We being many are one bread, one body.' What therefore he added, 'that I may eat bread,' he has elegantly expressed the very kind of sacrifice also, of which the Priest Himself says: 'The bread which I shall give is My flesh for the life of the world.' This is the sacrifice; not according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchizedek — let him who reads understand. This brief confession, then, and wholesomely humble, by which it is said, 'Cast me into a part of thy priesthood, that I may eat bread' — this is the obol of silver, because it is both brief and is the utterance of the Lord dwelling in the heart of the believer. For because he had said above that he had given foods to the house of Aaron from the victims of the Old Testament, where he says:
'I gave to the house of thy father all things that are of the fire of the children of Israel for food' (for these had been the sacrifices of the Jews): therefore he here said 'that I may eat bread,' which is in the New Testament the sacrifice of the Christians. [VI] Since, then, these things were foretold at that time with such great sublimity, and now shine forth with such great clearness, yet not without reason can anyone be moved and say: How do we trust that all things will come to pass which in those books have been foretold as to come, if this very thing which was there divinely said, 'Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever,' could not have its fulfilment?
since we see that that priesthood was changed, and that what was promised to that house cannot be hoped ever to be fulfilled, because that which succeeds it, once it was reproved and changed, is rather proclaimed to be eternal. He who says this does not yet understand, or does not recollect, that even that priesthood itself according to the order of Aaron was established as a shadow of the future eternal priesthood; and on this account, when eternity was promised to it, it was promised not to the shadow and figure itself, but to that which was shadowed and figured through it. But lest the shadow itself should be thought to be about to remain, therefore its change too had to be prophesied.
The kingdom too, in this manner, even of Saul himself, who was certainly reproved and rejected, was a shadow of the future kingdom that was to remain in eternity. For that oil, with which he was anointed and from which chrism he was called 'christ' (anointed), is to be received mystically and understood as a great sacrament; which David so venerated in him alone that his heart smote him with trembling when, hidden in a dark cave which Saul also had entered under the pressing necessity of nature, he secretly cut off from behind a tiny piece of his garment, that he might have something whereby to show how he had spared him when he could have killed him, and thus might remove the suspicion from his mind, by which, thinking holy David to be his enemy, he was vehemently persecuting him.
Lest therefore he should be guilty of so great a sacrament violated in Saul, because he had even so handled his garment, he was afraid. For thus it is written: 'And David's heart smote him, because he had taken away the border of his cloak.' But to the men who were with him and were urging him to slay Saul, given into his hands, he said: 'Let it not befall me from the Lord, if I do this word to my lord, the Christ of the Lord, to put forth my hand against him; for he is the Christ of the Lord.' To this shadow of the future, therefore, so great veneration was shown, not for its own sake, but for the sake of that which it prefigured. Whence also that which Samuel said to Saul:
'Because thou hast not kept my commandment, which the Lord commanded thee, whereas now the Lord had prepared thy kingdom over Israel for ever: and now thy kingdom shall not stand for thee, and the Lord shall seek for Himself a man according to His own heart, and the Lord shall command him to be prince over His people, because thou hast not kept the things which the Lord commanded thee' — this is not to be so taken as if God had prepared Saul himself to reign for ever, and afterward was unwilling to keep this for the sinner (for He was not ignorant that he would sin); but He had prepared his kingdom, in which there should be a figure of the eternal kingdom. Therefore he added: 'And now thy kingdom shall not stand for thee.' It has stood, therefore, and shall stand, that which was signified in him;
But it shall not stand for him, because he himself was not to reign forever, nor his offspring, so that at least through descendants succeeding one another it might seem to be fulfilled what was said: 'Forever.' 'And the Lord,' he says, 'shall seek out for himself a man' — signifying either David or the Mediator of the new testament himself, who was prefigured also in the anointing whereby David himself and his offspring were anointed. Yet God does not seek a man for himself as though not knowing where he is; rather he speaks through a man after the manner of men, because even by so speaking he seeks us. For not only to God the Father, but to his Only-begotten as well, who came to seek what was lost, were we already so well known that in him we were chosen before the foundation of the world.
He said therefore 'He shall seek for himself,' that is, 'He shall have as his own.' Hence in the Latin tongue this word takes a preposition and is rendered 'acquires' (adquirit), which makes plain enough what it signifies. And yet even without the addition of the preposition, 'to seek' is understood as 'to acquire'; from which come the words 'gains' and 'profits.' Again Saul sinned through disobedience, and again Samuel said to him in the word of the Lord: 'Because you have spurned the word of the Lord, the Lord has spurned you, that you should not be king over Israel.' And again for the same sin, when Saul confessed it and begged pardon and asked Samuel to return with him to appease God: 'I will not return with you,' he said, 'for you have spurned the word of the Lord, and the Lord will spurn you, that you be not king over Israel.'
And Samuel turned his face to depart, and Saul laid hold of the skirt of his mantle and tore it. And Samuel said to him: 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from your hand this day and will give it to your neighbour who is good above you, and Israel shall be divided in two; and he will not turn nor repent, for he is not as a man that he should repent; he threatens, and does not persist.' This man, to whom it is said, 'The Lord will spurn you, that you be not king over Israel,' and, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from your hand this day,' reigned forty years over Israel — for exactly so long a span of time as David himself did — and he heard this in the first period of his reign;
so that we may understand it was said for this reason, because no one of his stock was to reign, and that we should look to the stock of David, from which arose according to the flesh the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now Scripture does not have what is read in most Latin manuscripts, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from your hand,' but as it has been set down by us, found in the Greek, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom from Israel out of your hand'; so that this — 'out of your hand' — is understood to mean 'from Israel.' Therefore this man figuratively bore the person of the people of Israel, which people was to lose the kingdom to our Lord Christ Jesus, who was to reign through the new testament not carnally but spiritually. Concerning whom, when it is said:
'And he will give it to your neighbour' — this refers to kinship according to the flesh; for from Israel is Christ according to the flesh, whence also came Saul. But that which was added, 'good above you,' can indeed be understood as 'better than you,' for some have so interpreted it; yet it is better taken thus, 'good above you,' meaning that, because he is good, therefore he is above you, according to that other prophetic saying: 'Until I make all your enemies the footstool under your feet' — among whom is also Israel, from whom, its own persecutor, Christ took away the kingdom; although there was there also an Israel in whom was no guile, a certain kind of wheat, as it were, among those chaff-husks; for from thence assuredly were the apostles, from thence so many martyrs, of whom Stephen was the first;
from thence so many churches, which the apostle Paul mentions as magnifying God at his conversion. Concerning which matter I do not doubt that what follows must be understood: 'And Israel shall be divided in two' — namely into the Israel hostile to Christ and the Israel cleaving to Christ; into the Israel belonging to the bondwoman and the Israel belonging to the freewoman. For these two kinds were at first together, just as Abraham still cleaved to the bondwoman until the barren woman, made fruitful by the grace of Christ, cried out: 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son.'
Indeed, because of the sin of Solomon, in the reign of his son Rehoboam, we know that Israel was divided in two and so continued, each part having its own kings, until that whole nation was overthrown by the Chaldeans in a mighty devastation and carried away. But what has this to do with Saul, since, if any such thing had to be threatened, it should rather have been threatened to David himself, whose son was Solomon? Finally, at the present the Hebrew nation is not divided among itself, but indiscriminately scattered throughout the lands in the fellowship of the same error. But that division which God, under the person of Saul who bore the figure of that kingdom and people, threatened to that same kingdom and people, was signified to be eternal and unchangeable by this which was added:
'And he will not turn nor repent, for he is not as a man that he should repent; he threatens, and does not persist' — that is, a man threatens and does not persist; but not so God, who does not repent as a man does. For where it is read that he repents, a change of things is signified, while the divine foreknowledge remains unchangeable. Where therefore he is said not to repent, he is understood not to change. Through these words we see that a sentence was pronounced from on high, altogether insoluble and wholly perpetual, concerning this division of the people of Israel. For whoever have passed, are passing, or shall pass over from thence to Christ, were not of thence according to God's foreknowledge, not according to the one and same nature of the human race.
Assuredly whoever of the Israelites, cleaving to Christ, persevere in him, will never be with those Israelites who persist in being his enemies to the end of this life; but they shall abide forever in the division which was here foretold. For the old testament from Mount Sinai, gendering unto bondage, profits nothing, except that it bears witness to the new testament. Otherwise, as long as Moses is read, a veil is placed over their hearts; but when anyone passes over from thence to Christ, the veil shall be taken away. For the very intention of those who pass over is changed from the old to the new, so that now each one aims not to receive carnal but spiritual happiness.
On account of which that great prophet Samuel himself, before he had anointed Saul king, when he cried out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord heard him, and when, as he was offering the burnt-offering and foreigners were drawing near to battle against the people of God, the Lord thundered over them, and they were confounded and were smitten before Israel and overcome — took a single stone and set it up between the new Mizpah and the old, and called its name Ebenezer, which in Latin is 'the stone of the helper,' and said: 'Thus far the Lord has helped us.' Mizpah is interpreted 'intention.'
That stone of the helper is the mediation of the Saviour, through whom one must pass over from the old Mizpah to the new — that is, from the intention by which false carnal blessedness was awaited in a carnal kingdom, to the intention by which, through the new testament, the most true spiritual blessedness is awaited in the kingdom of heaven; and since nothing is better than this, thus far God helps. Now I see that it must be shown what God promised to David himself, who succeeded Saul in the kingdom, and by whose change that final change was figured, on account of which all things were divinely spoken and all things written — insofar as it pertains to the matter we are treating.
When many prosperous things had befallen King David, he thought to build a house for God — namely that most highly renowned temple which was afterward built by his son King Solomon. As he was thinking on this, the word of the Lord came to Nathan the prophet, which he was to convey to the king. When God had said that a house was not to be built for him by David himself, nor had he for so long a time commanded anyone among his people that a house of cedar should be made for him: 'And now,' he says, 'thus shall you say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord almighty:'
'I took you from the sheepfold, that you should be leader over my people, over Israel, and I was with you in all things wherein you walked, and I cut off all your enemies from before your face, and I made you renowned according to the name of the great ones who are upon the earth; and I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, and they shall dwell apart, and shall be troubled no more; and the son of iniquity shall not proceed to humble them, as from the beginning, from the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies, and the Lord will declare to you that you shall build a house for him.'
'And it shall come to pass, when your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come from your womb, and I will prepare his kingdom. He shall build me a house for my name, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And if his iniquity come, I will reprove him with the rod of men and with the strokes of the sons of men; but my mercy I will not remove from him, as I removed it from those from whom I removed it from before my face; and his house shall be faithful, and his kingdom forever before me, and his throne shall be set up forever.' Whoever thinks this so great a promise was fulfilled in Solomon errs greatly.
For he attends to what was said, 'He shall build me a house,' since Solomon built that most noble temple, and does not attend to: 'His house shall be faithful, and his kingdom forever before me.' Let him therefore attend and behold Solomon's house full of foreign women worshipping false gods, and the king himself, once wise, seduced by them into that same idolatry and cast down; and let him not dare to suppose that God either promised this falsely, or could not foreknow that such would be Solomon and his house.
But we ought not to doubt on this account, even if we did not already see these things being fulfilled in Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh — lest here we vainly and emptily seek some other person, as the carnal Jews do. For they themselves so far understand that the son who, in this passage, they read was promised to King David was not Solomon, that, though he who was promised has now been declared with so great a manifestation, they yet say with a marvellous blindness that they hope for another. Indeed some image of the future thing was made even in Solomon, in that he built the temple and had peace according to his name (for Solomon is 'peaceable' in Latin), and in the beginning of his reign he was marvellously praiseworthy;