1Sam 2:31

“Hence I beg you to offer a hand to our children lest we ourselves become liable for what is committed by them. Are you not aware of what happened to old Eli for not properly correcting his sons' shortcomings? I mean, when a disease requires surgery, it rapidly becomes incurable if the physician is bent on treating it with skin ointments and does not apply the appropriate remedy. In just the same way it behooved that old man to take appropriate action regarding his sons' failing, but by being guilty of excessive tolerance he too shared in their punishment.”

“32. Now he is without an arm, because he who lost the temple and the tabernacle does not extend his hand for the offering of the old sacrifice. And because He was speaking to Eli, that is, to the chief priests of the Synagogue, He threatens to cut off not only his arm but also his house, so that He might clearly indicate the universal destruction of the old rite, and so that we might perceive that what we now see accomplished in the new age was ordained in ancient times. Therefore the Lord cut off both his arm and his house, because He utterly removed both the high priests of Judea and the lesser priests from the old sacrifice. Whence it is fittingly added: 'So that there shall not be an old man in your house.' By old men we should understand priests, whose office, because it is carried out with the weight of great dignity, is emptied of no childish levity by the burden of religion. His arm, therefore, and the house of his father were so cut off that there is no old man in his house, because the rite of the old priesthood so vanished that absolutely no one remained who could any longer sacrifice according to the old custom. For after the Redeemer of the human race offered Himself for our sins in the new manner of sacrifice, being a priest according to the ancient custom ceased. But he who suffers the losses of a forfeited priesthood bears the torment of a greater punishment from the pain of envy. Wherefore it is added: (Verse 32.) 'And you shall see your rival in the temple, in all the prosperity of Israel.'”

“For the arm of the scorner is temporal strength. And because he departed from the household of the supreme Father by transgressing, the fallen angel began to have him as a father, now cast out from heavenly glory. Therefore the house of his father is that society of subjects which favors him in evil. Of whom indeed it is said above: "You have honored your sons more than me." The arm of the scorner, therefore, and the house of his father is cut off when, with the intervention of the death of the flesh, both the prelate and his subjects alike lose the violence of their tyranny. For then he is without an arm, when he can in no way exercise violence in the oppression of the little ones. Whence it is also decreed by the equity of the eternal Judge: "Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the outer darkness" (Matt. 22:13). In whose house also there shall be no old man. For the house of a condemned man is hell. But true old age is the maturity of wisdom. Therefore in his house there shall be no old man, because in hell no counsels of salvation can be found. Whence also sacred Scripture stirs us to works of true wisdom, saying: "Whatever your hand is able to do, do it earnestly, for there is neither reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge in the underworld, where you are hastening" (Eccles. 9:10). Hence Paul says: "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). Therefore in the house of the scorner there shall be no old man, because whoever rightly has wisdom has prepared a dwelling for himself not in hell but in heaven.”

“Behold, the days are coming, and I will cut off your arm, etc. These days are present, no priest is now chosen from the stock of Aaron; but the boast of the legal priesthood has been cut off, not only in Eli alone, but in the entire succession of the Levitical lineage; so much so that not even a priest of the lesser order, who are called presbyters in Greek, that is, elders, is considered to be sought there. Whence the Septuagint interpreters have more clearly translated: And there shall not be an elder in my house for you, because indeed many from that tribe age in body, but in the house of the Lord they are not endowed with the rank of presbyters.”