Jonathan was not knit to David as a whole, but his soul, the higher parts, which are not cut off when the apparent and visible elements have been cut off from a person and which will not be coerced by any means, for they never move involuntarily. For the soul is free and not imprisoned in any way. . . . For in its primary sense, it is its nature to be wherever the mind is, and if it seems to you to be in a room, you are imagining it there in some secondary sense. So it is never prevented from being in whatever place it wishes to be; but rather, in actual fact, it can only be, and reasonably be thought to be, where the works proper to itself alone are found, and relative to that.

Christ and the church have made a covenant of mutual love and peace, for the church in its more perfect members loves him so much that it has been ready to die for him, thinking it just to give itself, body and soul, for him who for its redemption deigned to put on our human flesh and soul, although he was very God of very God. For it is written, the Word became flesh^[1] and the Lord is the upholder of my soul.^[2] Finally, by its martyrs the church strips itself of the flesh which it had worn and gives it in obedience to Christ. [The church] has not any virtue of talent of its own at all, but depends devotedly on the will of his work. It relies on him even for acumen and skill in speaking and for the diligence to set forth arguments truthful in faith and reason against the wiles of those who are not soundly wise. It relies on him even for preserving the glory of its chastity and spotless honor for his love.

Why do you grieve, my friend, when you yourself have suffered no misfortune? Why are you hostile to someone who is enjoying prosperity, when he has in no way caused your own possessions to decrease? If you are vexed even upon receiving a kindness [from the object of your spite], are you not quite clearly envious of your own good? Saul is an example of this. He made David’s great favors to himself a motive for enmity with him. First, after he had been cured of insanity by the divine and melodious strains of David’s harp, he attempted to run his benefactor through with a spear. Then, on another occasion, it happened that he and his army were delivered from the hands of the enemy and saved from embarrassment before Goliath. In singing the triumphal songs commemorating this victory, however, the dancers attributed to David a tenfold greater share in the achievement, saying, Saul killed his thousands and David his ten thousands. For this one utterance and because truth itself was its witness, Saul first attempted murder and tried to slay David by treachery, then forced him to flee. CONCERNING ENVY.^[1]

That is what the evil of this passion is like, you see: it first has a bad effect on the person giving birth to it.

It is usual, indeed, with persons of a weaker character, to be so built up in confidence by certain individuals who are caught by heresy, as to topple over into ruin themselves. How does it come to pass, they ask, that this woman or that man, who were the most faithful, the most prudent and the most approved in the church, have gone over to the other side? Who that asks such a question does not in fact reply to it himself, to the effect that men whom heresies have been able to pervert ought never to have been esteemed prudent or faithful or approved? This again, I suppose, is an extraordinary thing, that one who has been approved should afterwards fall back? Saul, who was good beyond all others,^[1] is afterwards subverted by envy. David, a good man after the Lord’s own heart,^[2] is guilty afterwards of murder and adultery.^[3] Solomon, endowed by the Lord with all grace and wisdom, is led into idolatry by women.^[4] For to the Son of God alone was it reserved to persevere to the last without sin.^[5]

It was also through a wicked angel that the transgressor was tempted in the account of the book of Kings [Samuel], where it says The evil spirit from God came upon Saul. Just men, too, like Job and the apostle Paul and others of that kind were tried by the devil. It is clear that all created things are subject to the discretion or command of the Creator.

Because Saul was anointed with a holy chrism and given governorship over the kingdom, he preserved himself as a type of Christ. At that time we understood his two daughters to be two peoples, which were begotten by the twofold faith and love for Christ for salvation, namely, of the body and the mind, and made perfect by discipline. We understood the elder daughter to refer to the synagogue and the younger daughter the church. However, because the circumstances have changed in this passage, inasmuch as David represents Christ the Lord and Saul represents the people of the Jews who envied him, the older daughter who was promised but not given, means that portion of the same people which is more numerous and powerful and was promised to the brave and desirable bridegroom. When the predecessors of that portion of the Israelites (that is to say, the scribes, priests, Pharisees and elders of the people) came together to hear him, they called him a good teacher—and what is more, a singularly learned teacher. They wanted to learn to simply test him so, they browbeat him with many a question. And yet that portion of Israel was not given to Christ but to another, when the same teachers, seeking to be called rabbi by men, compelled those they could to listen to them. Now the younger daughter who by her devotion deserved to be given to David is surely that portion of the Jewish people that is less esteemed owing to their lesser numbers and despised position but that prefers to follow, love and hear their Lord and Savior rather than the scribes and experts in the law. They hear Christ say, Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.^[1] Therefore, the Pharisees and other leaders of the Jews said to Christ, Look, we entrust to you that larger part of the synagogue which has been subjected to us. Go ahead and teach it. Only see to it that you be brave in soul and fight with the word for the freedom of the people to whom it was commanded to preserve the law of God and to serve him alone. For ‘we know that you are truthful and that you do not favor anyone nor do you regard any individual but you teach the way of the Lord in truth. Now is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or should we not give it?’ ^[2] However, they said these things while the servants of Herod were present so that, if he should have forbidden them to pay taxes, they themselves would have seemed not to be responsible for his death, if the Herodians would have punished him.

As [David] looks on the greatness of God’s lovingkindness, he is struck with amazement. He considers himself with all his soul to be unworthy of the vision of such goodness and does not wish to look closely at them or fully understand them. He is constrained by trembling, fear and reverence to cry, Who am I, Lord, and what is my father’s house, that you should reveal such mysteries to me, unworthy as I am, and have wondrously made me not only to have a vision of such good things, but even to participate and share in them!