1Sam 2:27

“For with respect to the future, they [rulers] will not be benefited by the honor done them but receive the greater condemnation; neither will they be injured as to the future by ill treatment but will have the more excuse. But all this I desire to be done for your own sakes. For when rulers are honored by their people, this too is reckoned against them; as in the case of Eli it is said, "Did I not choose him out of his father's house?" But when they are insulted, as in the instance of Samuel, God said, "They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me." Therefore insult is their gain, honor their burden. What I say, therefore, is for your sakes, not for theirs. He that honors the priest will honor God also; and he who has learned to despise the priest will sooner or later insult God.”

“23. What is represented by this man of God, if not that venerable company of the holy apostles? He is indeed called a man of God on account of the excellence of his holiness, because he governed the summit of authority, which he had ascended in the governance of the whole world, with an equal loftiness of virtue. He came to Eli at that time when he approached the chief priests to announce the rejection of the Synagogue. There follows: (Verses 27, 28.) And he said to him: Was I not plainly revealed to the house of your father, when he was in Egypt in the house of Pharaoh, and I chose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to ascend to my altar, and to burn incense before me, and to wear the ephod in my presence, and I gave to the house of your father all the sacrifices of the children of Israel?”

“Now a man of God is described as having come to Eli, who, being about to bring forth the severity of the divine sentence, carefully enumerated how many gifts He had bestowed upon him. And because he finally announces the punishment of the vengeance that he deserved, what does this give us to understand, except that the faults of pastors are judged more strictly? And not only do their sins increase the punishment of retribution, but also the gifts that were granted. Likewise, because he recounts those same gifts one by one, he indicates something more serious: that each individual gift comes to be a torment, when it is proved to have been poorly preserved. For he poorly guards in himself the gifts of almighty God who defiles the splendor of the pastoral summit through the stains of wicked conduct.”

“24. Because Judea is rejected by divine judgment, it is shown with what wonderful disposition of equity the severity of that judgment itself was brought about. For first the gifts bestowed upon Eli are enumerated, so that while almighty God is shown to be so generous a giver, it may be known how justly He strikes the one who despises Him. He declared that He had revealed Himself to the house of his father, so that he could have no excuse of ignorance. And He teaches that He had shown him this same knowledge of His revelation in Egypt, so that Eli might by no means think that he had obtained it by his own merits. As if He were openly saying: There I offered Myself to be known by him, where he could forget Me, where he did not know how to remember Me. And lest perhaps the very gifts of divine knowledge might seem small to the reprobate, he is declared to have been raised from the other tribes of Israel to the summit of the priesthood. As if He were saying: I preferred him to those to whom he was not superior, but equal. 25. It should be noted that three things are indicated in the office of the priesthood itself. "That he should go up," it says, "to my altar, and burn incense to me, and wear the ephod before me." What is shown by this altar, if not that stone which the patriarch Jacob set up as a pillar (Gen. 28:18)? And what other stone is expressed by this, if not the one Paul proclaims in praise of the faithful, saying: "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone" (Eph. 2:20)? The father Eli was therefore chosen by the Lord for the priesthood so that he might go up to the altar, because the order of the ancient teachers presided over the people subject to them for this purpose: to proclaim the restoration of the human race that was to come in the advent of the Redeemer. And he burned incense, because he joined the hearts of his hearers through desire to the one whom he proclaimed as the future Redeemer. He also wore the ephod, because through the longing of so great an expectation he displayed the adornment of a worthy manner of life. He would indeed burn incense and yet not wear the ephod if he set the hearts of his hearers ablaze with desire for the coming Redeemer, from whom he himself would differ by the inconsistency of a shameful way of life. And because almighty God sought the truth of religion and not its pretense, "before himself" and not before the people, he declared that he had commanded him to wear the ephod. To wear the ephod before the Lord is to seek from the innocence of one's life the reward of divine goodness alone. Now these things are openly spoken against Eli by way of reproach. For he did not go up to the altar, because that priesthood which presided over the Synagogue in the time of the revealed truth in no way proclaimed to the peoples subject to it the one who shone forth as the Redeemer of the human race with such greatness of signs. And he did not burn incense to God, because he stirred the people to persecution of him, not to love. He also disdained to wear the ephod before the Lord, because he shone with no truth of religion. For even if that outward adornment of life displayed certain marks of respectability, it was from the pretense of deceit, not from the intention of charity. Hence the Lord also rebuked this very thing in them, saying: "Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, because you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but inside are full of dead men's bones" (Matt. 23:27). But to the one to whom he had given so many spiritual gifts, he would have seemed to have conferred too little unless he also provided temporal things. Hence it is added: "And I gave to the house of your father all the sacrifices of the children of Israel." As if he were recounting to him with open accusation, saying: "In nothing did I fail him; I bestowed the heights of spiritual honor and power, and I supplied an abundance of earthly plenty for temporal uses."...”