Bede, on 1Sam 15:17

“And Samuel said: When thou wast a little one in thy own eyes, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee to be king over Israel.”

“And Samuel said: Were you not small in your own eyes? etc. And this rebuke of blessed Samuel is fitting for any Christian transgressing the faith with which he was imbued; someone saying to him, one of the spiritual teachers, whose likeness Samuel presents: Were you not humbled in your mind for the past life, which was without God, when you came to the Church, having already received the grace of faith and baptism, made a principal in exercising the fruits of the Spirit? Through which you should reach the vision of divine clarity. For Israel means a man seeing God. And the Lord anointed you with the chrism of His Spirit, so that being a ruler and moderator of good deeds you might belong to the dominion of the eternal King. And sending you on the way of a new conversation, having defeated the old man with his deeds, He commanded you to mortify all things which are earthly part by part. Why then, disregarding the evangelical and apostolic voice, did you prefer to establish another rule of living for yourself, and to gather the spoils of vices? in which sometimes even if you seemed to deceive the eyes of mortals, before the judgment of the internal arbiter you did a great evil.”

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