Gregory the Dialogist

Hence the Truth says: "When you stand to pray, forgive if you have anything in your hearts." We show the virtue of forgiveness more clearly if we bring forward one testimony from the Old Testament. Certainly when Judea had offended the justice of its Creator through its demanding sins, the Lord, forbidding His prophet from prayer, says: "Do not take up praise and prayer for them. If Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not be toward this people." What is it that, with so many fathers passed over and left aside, Moses and Samuel alone are brought forward, whose wondrous power of obtaining is shown, while even they are said to be unable to intercede? As if the Lord were saying openly: I do not even hear those whom I by no means despise on account of the great merit of their petition. What then is it that Moses and Samuel are preferred to the other fathers in petition, except that these two alone in the entire sequence of the Old Testament are read to have prayed even for their enemies? One is assailed with stones by the people, and yet he entreats the Lord for the one who stoned him; the other is cast down from leadership, and yet when asked to pray, he confesses saying: "Far be this sin from me against the Lord, that I should cease to pray for you." "If Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not be toward this people." As if He were saying openly: I do not even now hear those on behalf of friends, whom I know by the merit of their great virtue to pray even for enemies. Therefore the power of true prayer is the loftiness of charity. And then each person obtains what he rightly asks, when his mind in petition is not darkened by hatred of an enemy.

It is also the custom of the arrogant to not let their self-esteem keep quiet whenever the tongues of others grow silent in praising them. Indeed, while all the others keep quiet, the arrogant shouts aloud, for in his heart he carries around one who broadcasts his great worth. Therefore, the following words are readily applied to such people: “And the people turned to the spoils and brought sheep, cows and calves. They slaughtered them on the ground, and the people ate them with their blood.” If anyone cultivates many reasons for his innocence and boasts about them, he takes sheep. When someone thinks about his labors of preaching and collects in his memory whatever has been useful as he spoke to others or cultivated the earth, he takes cattle as booty. When he is elated from the fact that the impulses of wantonness upon the mind have been restrained and reduced, he takes calves. For there are two commandments that bring great praise to the just: the splendor of chastity and the light of good works. When an arrogant individual is exalted in his own estimation, he is said to have stolen sheep and calves. Sheep refer to the innocence of good works, calves to the mortification of bodily passion. Clearly, he added cattle to these, for he is not perfectly exalted if he thinks that he is in any way weak or powerless. He had already been great in his own opinion as far as he estimated his chastity and good works, but he raised himself in the arrogance of even fuller exaltation when he thought himself perfect in the labor of preaching.But afterwards he wrote about the end to which all these things lead: “And they slaughtered them on the ground.” To slaughter sheep, cows and calves on the ground is to exult with carnal joy and a conscience bereft of virtues. Thus God spoke about the proud and arrogant in the book of Hosea: “He turned away their sacrificial offerings into the deep.” Indeed, they plunge their victims into the deep when they do not raise up the heavenly offerings of virtues to the heavens in gratitude, but they yield their sacrifices to the earth through their quest for vain praise. Therefore, these words are well applied to them: “The people ate the sacrifices with their blood.” The food of the mind is its own internal joy. What, then, does eating with blood signify except to refuse to remove by any means striving for vain praise from the internal appetite of the mind? The blood is removed when the mind removes the striving for vanity from the joy of a good work. For the mind of a godly sort knows to rejoice in a good work, since he rejoices to draw near to the heavenly beings through his good works, but he avoids letting those works be seen at the time as he carries out those works. Then to eat with blood is to take the joy of a good work and mix it with a longing for vanity. Clearly, when praise is offered by others, then it is sincere food even for the arrogant. But when no one else praises them, the conscience of the haughty swells up, it violently snatches as loot the praise nobody else voluntarily offers.

We have touched on these things as they pertain to the literal meaning; now let us see the election of our nobles as we look at the meaning beneath the literal one. When Samuel was told to fill the horn with oil, what else could it mean than this: he who is to be selected as a pastor in the holy church must not be someone clearly known as a transgressor but must be commended by wondrous praise as an example to others. The horn, you see, is the spear of an animal. But the authority and rebuke of even the highest bishop is nothing but his weapon. Indeed, they strike with their horn, whenever they lock horns with sinners as they issue their rebukes. They strike with their horn whenever they sharply confute sinners. The horn is filled with oil, then, whenever the loftiness of preachers does not have the harshness of threats but the allurements of grace. Or the horn is filled with oil when both the sublimity of the heights and the virtue of unction are given to a chosen pastor at the same time, that is, when he both ascends to a high degree, but the one who is taken into the heights is filled with the riches of merits. The priests were anointed with a full horn of oil, inasmuch as they arrived at the highest degree with a full possession of graces. When a fire is lit in a lamp of oil, the oil of the teacher is the love of the heart. A fire is lit in it, for the virtue and grace of the Holy Spirit burns in the richness of the mouth. Since a teacher ought to have the richness of great love, the king is said to have been anointed with a full horn of oil when he was ordered to be anointed. The fullness of the horn refers to the perseverance of the graces. For those who fail before they reach the end are not worthy to be anointed with a full horn of oil.

The poor and the feeble, the blind and the lame, are called and come because the weak and the despised in this world are often quicker to hear the voice of God, as in this world they have nothing to delight them.The Egyptian servant of the Amalekites is a good example of this. When the Amalekites were plundering and moving about, he was left behind on the road sick and fainting from hunger and thirst. When David found him, he provided him with food and drink, and as soon as he revived he became David’s guide, found the celebrating Amalekites, and with great bravery overthrew the people who had left him behind sick.
Amalekite means “a people that laps.” What does “a people that laps” signify but the hearts of the worldly? Going about after the things of earth, it is as if they are lapping them up when they take delight in temporal things alone. A lapping people takes plunder, so to speak, when out of its love for earthly things it heaps up profit from others’ losses. The Egyptian servant is left behind on the road sick, because all sinners, once they begin to grow weak from the situation of this world, soon come to be despised by worldly minds. David found him and provided him with food and drink, because the Lord, who is “brave in hand” (if we attribute to him the meaning of David’s name), does not despise what the world has cast aside. Often he directs to the grace of his love those who are not strong enough to follow the world, and who are, so to speak, left behind on the road, holding out to them the food and drink of his word. It is as if he chooses them as guides for himself on the road when he makes them his preachers. When they bring Christ to the hearts of sinners, it is as if they are leading David upon the enemy, and, like David, they strike the celebrating Amalekites with the sword, because by the Lord’s power they overthrow all the proud who had despised them in the world.