Gregory the Great, on 1Sam 2:18

“But Samuel ministered before the face of the Lord: being a child girded with a linen ephod.”

“But the divine discourse returns to the narrative of the chosen boy, so that in him we may more attentively consider not what is to be condemned, but what is to be imitated. And so he is said to have been girded with a linen ephod and to have been in the sight of the Lord. What then is shown in the linen ephod except the brightness of continence? With which ephod we are indeed girded when we are restrained on every side toward the splendor of chastity, when no part of soul or flesh is released from the law of strictness through which we might dissolve into the darkness of luxury. Such a minister, therefore, is in the sight of the Lord, because he is not deceived concerning the hoped-for vision of almighty God, whom he serves with such great splendor of his girding.”

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