Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of your robe in my hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of your robe, and killed you not, know you and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in my hand, and I have not sinned against you; yet you hunt my soul to take it.
All Commentaries on 1 Samuel 24:11 Go To 1 Samuel 24
Gregory of Nyssa
AD 394
Saul, therefore, came out of the cave unaware of what had happened, wearing the little garment which had been trimmed all around. David came out behind him in self-assurance, and having seized the hill lying above the cave in advance, held out the end [of Saul’s robe] in his hand. This was nothing other than a bloodless trophy against his enemies. And he cried out to Saul in a loud voice and told him about this new and marvelous heroism, which was unstained by the defilement of blood, in which the hero was victorious and the one defeated was saved from death. For David’s excellence is not attested in the fall of his enemy, but the superiority of his power is made clearer in the salvation of his opponent from danger. He had such an excess of confidence that he did not think that his own salvation lay in the destruction of those arrayed against him, but even when those who plotted against him survived he was confident that no one would harm him.
But the Word teaches rather by this story that the one who excels in virtue does not fight bravely against those of his own race but fights against the passions. The anger in both men, then, was destroyed by such excellence as David had, in the one, when he destroyed his own wrath by means of reason and quenched the urge to take vengeance, and in the other, when Saul put to death his evil against David because of the clemency which he had experienced. For one can learn from the story itself the kind of things Saul uttered afterwards to the victor when he was submerged in shame for what he had undertaken and demonstrated his spontaneous turning away from evil by his lament and tears.
