And the LORD said unto Samuel,
How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill your horn with oil, and go, I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.
All Commentaries on 1 Samuel 16:1 Go To 1 Samuel 16
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
We have touched on these things as they pertain to the literal meaning; now let us see the election of our nobles as we look at the meaning beneath the literal one. When Samuel was told to fill the horn with oil, what else could it mean than this: he who is to be selected as a pastor in the holy church must not be someone clearly known as a transgressor but must be commended by wondrous praise as an example to others. The horn, you see, is the spear of an animal. But the authority and rebuke of even the highest bishop is nothing but his weapon. Indeed, they strike with their horn, whenever they lock horns with sinners as they issue their rebukes. They strike with their horn whenever they sharply confute sinners. The horn is filled with oil, then, whenever the loftiness of preachers does not have the harshness of threats but the allurements of grace. Or the horn is filled with oil when both the sublimity of the heights and the virtue of unction are given to a chosen pastor at the same time, that is, when he both ascends to a high degree, but the one who is taken into the heights is filled with the riches of merits. The priests were anointed with a full horn of oil, inasmuch as they arrived at the highest degree with a full possession of graces. When a fire is lit in a lamp of oil, the oil of the teacher is the love of the heart. A fire is lit in it, for the virtue and grace of the Holy Spirit burns in the richness of the mouth. Since a teacher ought to have the richness of great love, the king is said to have been anointed with a full horn of oil when he was ordered to be anointed. The fullness of the horn refers to the perseverance of the graces. For those who fail before they reach the end are not worthy to be anointed with a full horn of oil.
