Gregory the Great, on 1Sam 2:6

“The Lord killeth and maketh alive, he bringeth down to hell and bringeth back again.”

“As if responding to someone astounded at the rejection of so chosen a people, he says: Why do you seek reason in these things which the supreme Reason does incomprehensibly? Reproving this very manner of inquiry, the outstanding teacher also says: "O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to its maker: Why have you made me thus? Does not the potter have power over the same lump of clay to make one vessel indeed for honor, and another for dishonor" (Rom. 9:20-21)? It is therefore as if he were saying: Since the Lord of all is rightly acknowledged, let us recognize that His work, both in the rejection of Judea and in the election of the Gentiles, is to be revered and not scrutinized. The Lord indeed kills, because by incomprehensible judgment He separates the once-chosen Jewish people from the knowledge of truth and condemns them forever. He gives life, because He receives the Gentile people in time through faith unto the knowledge of His Only-Begotten, and leads them eternally to the contemplation of His glory. He leads down to the underworld, because by His strict judgment avenging Gehenna receives for everlasting punishment those who through the fault of unbelief separate themselves from the worship of the Redeemer. He brings back from the underworld, because He takes up the Gentile people devoutly approaching faith in His Son, for whom the immense darkness of error had been like a deep prison of the abyss. He makes poor and enriches, because He strips rejected Judea of spiritual virtues, and adorns the chosen Gentile people with both the treasure of faith and the splendors of good works. He is also said to humble and to exalt. For the Synagogue, by withdrawing from the Redeemer, cast down the heights of its own sublimity, and holy Church, by worshiping the Redeemer, rose from the depths of unbelief where it had lain cast down, to the height of right faith and the eminence of Christian authority. Therefore, because Judea despised the Son of God and the Gentile people merited Him, rightly the former is believed to have been humbled and the latter exalted.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.

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