Gregory the Dialogist

But when the easily angered so attack others that it is impossible to shun them, they should not be smitten with open rebuke but sparingly with a certain respectful forbearance. We shall prove this better by citing the example of Abner. Scripture has it that when Asahel attacked him with vehement and inconsiderate haste, Abner said to Asahel, “Go off and do not follow me, lest I be obliged to strike you to the ground.… But he refused to listen to him, and would not turn aside. Therefore, Abner struck him with his spear, with a back stroke in the groin, and thrust him through, and he died.” Of whom, then, did Asahel serve as a type, but of those who are driven headlong in a violent access of frenzy? Such people, when under the impulse of a like frenzy, are the more cautiously to be shunned, the more carried away they are in their madness. Therefore, too, Abner, who in our language is termed “lamp of the father,” fled: that is to say, if the teacher, whose tongue symbolizes the heavenly light of God, perceives the mind of a person to be carried away along the rugged path of frenzy and refrains from bandying words with such an angered one, he is like one unwilling to strike a pursuer. But when easily angered people will not restrain themselves under any consideration, and, as it were, like Asahel, do not refrain from their mad pursuit, then it is necessary for those who try to check them in their frenzy, not on any account to allow their anger to be aroused but to show all possible calmness; and let them suggest discreetly that which will, as it were, by a side stroke pierce their frenzied mind.Thus, when Abner made a stand against his pursuer, he pierced him, not with a direct thrust but with the reverse end of his spear. Of course, to strike with the sharp point is to oppose another with an attack of open rebuke, but to strike a pursuer with the reverse end of the spear is to touch the frenzied quietly and partially, and to overcome him, as it were, by sparing him. But Asahel falls down dead on the spot: that is, turbulent minds, on perceiving that they are shown consideration and, on the other hand, because they are touched in their hearts in consequence of being reasoned with calmly, fall down at once from the lofty place to which they had raised themselves. Those, therefore, who withdraw from their frenzied impulse under the stroke of gentleness, die, as it were, without being struck by the head of a spear.

But because secret pride of heart is reproved by this which Elihu says, “All who seem to themselves to be wise will not dare to contemplate him,” it seems good to observe what great gifts of virtues David had obtained, and in all these with how firm a humility he maintained himself. For whom would it not puff up to break the mouths of lions, to rend asunder the arms of bears, to be chosen, when his elder brothers had been despised, to be anointed to the government of the kingdom when the kings had been rejected, to slay with a single stone Goliath who was dreaded by all, to bring back, after the destruction of the aliens, the numerous foreskins proposed by the king, to receive at last the promised kingdom, and to possess the whole people of Israel without any contradiction? And yet, when he brings back the ark of God to Jerusalem, he dances before the ark, mingled with the people, as though forgetful that he had been preferred to them all. And because, as is believed, it had been the custom of the common people to dance before the ark, the king wheels round in the dance, in service to God. Behold how he whom the Lord preferred specially above all despises himself beneath the Lord, both by equaling himself to the least and by displaying abject behavior. The power of his kingdom is not recalled to his memory. He does not fear to be of low stature in the eyes of his people by dancing. He does not remember, before the ark of him who had given him honor, that he had been preferred in honor above the rest. Before God he acted with the most extreme lowliness, in order to strengthen by his humility the bold deeds he had performed in the sight of people. What others think of his doings, I do not know; I am more surprised at David dancing than fighting. For by fighting he subdued his enemies; but by dancing before the Lord he overcame himself. And when Michal, the daughter of Saul, still mad with pride at her royal descent, despised him when humbled, saying, “How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself before the handmaids of his servants, and made himself naked, as though one of the buffoons were naked,” she immediately heard, “As the Lord lives, I will play before the Lord, who has chosen me rather than your father.” And a little later he says, “And I will play and I will become more lowly than I have been, and I will be humble in my own eyes,” as if he had said, I seek to become lowly before people because I seek to keep myself noble before the Lord through my humility.

But who that hears of it, not only among believers but among unbelievers themselves also, does not utterly loathe this, that David walking upon his roof lusted after Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah? Yet when he [Uriah] returns back from the battle, he bids him go home to wash his feet. Whereupon he answered at once, “The ark of the Lord dwells in tents; shall I then take rest in my house?” David receives him to his own table and delivers to him letters, through which he would die. But who does David walking upon his roof typify if not him concerning whom it is written, “He has set his tent in the sun.” And what else is it to draw Bathsheba to himself, but to join to himself by a spiritual meaning the law of the letter, which was united to a carnal people? For “Bathsheba” means “the seventh well,” surely, in that through the knowledge of the law, with spiritual grace infused, perfect wisdom is ministered to us. And whom does Uriah denote but the Jewish people, whose name is interpreted “My light from God”? Now because the Jewish people are raised high by receiving the knowledge of the law, they glory as though “in the light of God.” But David took from this Uriah his wife and united her to himself, surely in that the strong-handed One, which is the meaning of “David,” our Redeemer, showed himself in the flesh, while he made known that the law spoke in a spiritual sense concerning himself. In this way, because it was held according to the letter, he demonstrated that he took it from the Jewish people and joined it to himself, in that he declared himself to be proclaimed by it. Yet David asks Uriah to “go home to wash his feet,” in that when the Lord came in the flesh, he asked the Jewish people to turn back to the home of the conscience and to wipe off with their tears the defilements of their deeds, that they would understand the precepts of the law in a spiritual sense and, finding the font of baptism after the grievous hardness of the commandments, have recourse to water after toil.

But at times, in taking to task the powerful of this world, they are first to be dealt with by drawing diverse comparisons in a case ostensibly concerning someone else. Then, when they give a right judgment on what apparently is another’s case, they are to be taken to task regarding their own guilt by a suitable procedure. Thus a mind puffed up with temporal power cannot possibly lift itself up against the reprover, for by its own judgment it has trodden on the neck of pride; and it cannot argue to defend itself, as it stands convicted by the sentence out of its own mouth.Thus it was that Nathan the prophet, coming to chide the king, to all appearance asked his judgment in the case of a poor man against a rich man. The king first was to deliver judgment and then to hear that he was the culprit. Thus he was completely unable to deny the just sentence which he had personally delivered against himself. Therefore, the holy man, considering both the sinner and the king, aimed in that wonderful manner at convicting a bold culprit first by his own admission and then cut him by his rebuke. For a short while he concealed the person whom he was aiming at and then at once struck him when he had convicted him. His stroke would, perhaps, have had less force if he had chosen to castigate the sin directly the moment he began to speak. But by beginning with a similitude, he sharpened the rebuke which he was concealing. He came like a physician to a sick man, saw that his wound had to be incised, but was in doubt about the endurance of the patient. He, therefore, concealed the surgeon’s knife under his coat, but drawing it out suddenly, pierced the wound, that the sick man might feel the knife before he saw it, for if he had first seen it, he might have refused to feel it.

What I say is excessive, unless I confirm these things from testimonies of sacred Scripture. The Law of the Old Testament certainly forbids coveting another's wife, but it does not punish a king for commanding brave deeds of soldiers, or for desiring water. And we all know that David, pierced by the sword of concupiscence, both coveted and took away another man's wife. Fitting scourges followed his fault, and he corrected the evil he had perpetrated through the lamentations of penance. When long afterward he sat against the battle lines of enemies, he wished from desire to drink water from the cistern of Bethlehem. His chosen soldiers, breaking through the midst of the opposing forces, brought back unharmed the water the king had desired. But the man instructed by scourges immediately reproached himself for having desired water at the peril of his soldiers, and pouring it out, he offered it to the Lord, as it is written there: He poured it out to the Lord. For the water poured out was turned into a sacrifice to the Lord, because he slew the fault of concupiscence through the penance of his self-reproach. He therefore who once did not at all fear to covet another's wife, afterward was even afraid because he had coveted water. For since he remembered having perpetrated unlawful things, now stern against himself, he abstained even from lawful things. Thus, thus do we do penance, if we perfectly bewail what we have committed.

The characters, then, of rulers are so assigned according to the merits of their subjects, that frequently they who seem to be good are soon changed by the acceptance of power. As holy Scripture observed of the same Saul that he changed his heart with his dignity. Whence it is written, “When you were little in your own eyes, I made you the head of the tribes of Israel.” The conduct of rulers is so ordered with reference to the characters of their subjects that frequently the conduct of even a truly good shepherd becomes sinful as a result of the wickedness of his flock. For that prophet David, who had been praised by the witness of God himself, who had been made acquainted with heavenly mysteries, being puffed up by the swelling of sudden pride, sinned in numbering the people. And yet, though David sinned, the people endured the punishment. Why was this? Because in truth the hearts of rulers are disposed according to the merits of their people. But the righteous judge reproved the fault of the sinner by the punishment of those very persons on whose account he sinned. But because he was not exempt from guilt, as displaying pride of his own free will, he himself endured also the punishment of his sin. For that furious wrath which struck the people in their bodies prostrated the ruler of the people by the pain of his inmost heart. But it is certain that the merits of rulers and people are so mutually connected that frequently the conduct of the people is made worse from the fault of their pastors and the conduct of pastors is changed according to the merits of their people.