And when they were come down from the high place into the city, Samuel talked with Saul upon the top of the house.
All Commentaries on 1 Samuel 9:25 Go To 1 Samuel 9
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Whoever is received into the eminent office of dispensing pastoral care ought to have in the very sublimity of his rank both the true loftiness of his own life and compassion for the weaknesses of others. Therefore, Saul went with Samuel into the heights and then descended into the town. Let the ruler know how to conduct lofty things, but let him also know how to manage ordinary things. Let him say with Paul, “Our manner of living is in the heavens.” But let him also say with us, “Wretched man that I am! Who will free me from this mortal body? For I see another law in my members that fights against the law of my mind and takes me captive by the law of sin.” He is a true ruler, when he speaks wisdom among the perfect; he descends into the town when he arranges carnal matters and says, “Because of fornication let each man have his own wife and each woman her husband.” He is in the heights when he says, “No creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus,” but he descends into the town when he says, “I became weak to the weak that I might win the weak. I became all things to all people.” Therefore, Samuel brought Saul to the heights and led him down into the town. For when the greatest men put in order the pinnacle of the holy church, namely, those whom they place at the very pinnacle of the church, they teach them to live in a distinguished manner, to preach clearly, to be strict with themselves but more gentle with those under their care, to attend to their own salvation so that they can be weak with the weak. I meant that they are weak by letting their mind feel compassion on the weak rather than by being idle due to some internal malady. For if a teacher suffers from idleness of mind, he is not able to encourage the spiritually feeble and bedridden.
