Samuel and the Prophetical Office, Lecture XVIII: Samuel (part 2)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.

   Let us take these points in their order.     
   To mediate between the old and the new. -  This,      
as I have before intimated, was indeed the      
peculiar position of Samuel.  He was at once     
the last of the Judges and the inaugurator      
of the first of the Kings.  Take the whole of the nar-      
rative together; take the story first of his opposition,   
and then of his acquiescence, in the establishment of     
the monarchy.  Both together bring us to a just im-       
pression of the double aspect in which he appears; of       
the two-sided sympathy which enabled him to unite       
together the passing and the coming epoch.  The      
misdemeanors of his own sons - the first appearance       
in them of the grasping avaricious character which       
in later ages has thrown so  black a shadow over the      
Jewish character - precipitated the catastrophe which     
had been long preparing.  The people demanded a       
king.  Josephus describes the shock to Samuel's mind,       
"because of his inborn sense of justice, because of      
his hatred of kings, as so far inferior in the aris-     
tocratic rule, which conferred a godlike character on      
those who lived under it."  For the whole night      
he lay, we are told, fasting and sleepless, in the       
depths of doubt and perplexity.  In the visions of      
that night, and the announcement of them on the     
following day, is given the dark side of the new in-     
stitution.  On the other hand, his acceptance of the      
change is no less clearly marked in the story of his      
reception of Saul.  In the first meeting no word is       
breathed to break the impression that God is with      
the new Ruler, and, in his final coronation as king,      
there is no check to the joy with which the whole      
nation, and, according to the Septuagint, Samuel him-      
self "rejoiced greatly."  In the final address is rep-      
resented the mixed feeling with which, after having      
forewarned and struggled and resisted, he at last       
bows to the inevitable course of events, and retires       
gradually to make room for a new order, of which he        
could but partially understand the meaning.  He      
parted from the people, not with curses, but with       
blessings:  "God forbid that I should sin against the      
Lord by ceasing to pray for you ; but I will teach       
you the good and the right way."  He parted from      
Saul, not in anger, but in sorrow.  "Nevertheless     
Samuel mourned for Saul."  He who had begun by        
denouncing the Monarchy as fraught with evil, ended      
by becoming the protector and  counsellor of him who       
was to be its chief glory and support.  Out of the     
dark period in which his early years had been spent,       
arose through his interposition a higher and a nobler    
life.  To Saul succeeded David and Solomon; and in       
their reigns was seen a fulfilment of God's kingdom         
such as could not be understood by those to whom        
there was no king in Israel, who did what was right      
in their own eyes; to whom the Psalms were as yet      
unknown; to whom Prophecy came only by imper-      
fect and distant glimpses; to whom the highest type     
of the Messiah's reign in the person of David and his      
son was a thing inconceivable.        
   Such an epoch of perplexity, of transition, of     
change, as that which witnessed the passage from     
the first age of the Jewish Church to the second,      
has been rarely experienced in any age of the Church     
since.  Yet there have been times more or less simi-      
lar; the passage from every generation to the one      
that succeeds has difficulties more or less correspond-     
ing.  In every such passage there may be or there       
ought to be characters more or less like that of     
Samuel, if the transition is to be safely effected.  Of     
all the characters in the old dispensation, Samuel has       
in later times, both by friends and opponents, been      
the most often misrepresented and misunderstood.  Of       
all characters in later times, those who undertake the      
difficult task of Samuel are the most likely to be       
misunderstood or misrepresented still.  They are at-       
tacked from both sides; they are charged with not      
going far enough or with going too far; they are      
charged with saying too much or with saying too     
little; they are regarded from either partial point of      
view, and not from one which takes in the whole.     
They cannot be comprehended at a glance like Moses     
or Elijah or Isaiah, and therefore they are thrust      
aside.  There have been those who have trod the      
same thankless path in former times of the Christian      
Church.  Athanasius, in the moderate counsels of his     
old age, in his attempts to reconcile the contending      
factions of Christians in the Council of Alexandria,         
was, for this reason, fitly regarded by Basil as the       
Samuel of the Church of his days.  In later times,   
even  in our own, many names spring to our recollec-     
tion, of those who have trodden or (in different de-      
grees, some known, and some unknown) are treading       
the same thankless path in the Church of Germany,       
in the Church of France, in the Church of Russia, in     
the Church of England.  Wherever they are, and      
whosoever they may be, and howsoever they may be      
neglected, or assailed, or despised, they, like their     
great prototype and likeness, in the Jewish Church,    
are the silent healers who bind up the wounds of      
their age in spite of itself; they are the good physi-      
cians who knit together the dislocated bones of a      
disjointed time; they are the reconcilers who turn      
the hearts of children to the fathers, or of the       
fathers to the children.  They have but little praise     
and reward from the partisans who are loud in indis-      
criminate censure and applause.  But, like Samuel,     
they have a far higher reward, and the Davids who      
are silently strengthened and nurtured by them in     
Naioth of Ramah, - in the glories of a new age     
which shall be ushered in peacefully and happily     
after they have been laid in the grave.      
   In two important ways, this character of mediation,      
if I may so call it, was discernible in the Prophetical     
office generally, and, as far as we can see, was spe-      
cially exemplified in Samuel.     
   First, we observe in his position and character that      
independence of spirit which has sometimes       
caused the Prophets, and himself in particular,     
to be regarded almost as demagogues, the trib-     
unes, of the Jewish people.  The song ascribed to his        
mother at his birth well expresses the new element,    
which was in him to break out and run across the       
usual tenor of Jewish society.  "The bows of the      
mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are      
girded with strength."  "The Lord maketh poor and     
maketh rich ; He bringeth low and lifteth up"  Stern     
rebuke of the popular will, stern defiance of regal     
tyranny, stern denunciation of sacerdotal corruption       
marked the entrance of the Prophetic dispensation      
into the Church.  To be above the world, to derive        
courage and strength from a higher source than the      
world, was the first guarantee for a due discharge of      
the Prophetic mission.  "There is none holy as the       
Lord ; for there is none beside thee ; neither is there    
any rock like our God."       
   But secondly, in Samuel as afterwards, this attitude       
of solitary defiance was not the attitude of Priestly     
interest or ambition.  Of all the "vulgar errors" in     
sacred history, none is greater than that which        
represents the conflict of Samuel with Saul as      
a conflict between the regal and sacerdotal power.  It      
is doubtful even whether he was of Levitical descent ;       
it is certain that he was not a Priest.  "Samuel Pro-      
pheta fuit, Judex fuit, Levita fuit, non Pontifex, ne     
Sacerdos quidem," is the just remark of S. Jerome.        
And in accordance with this we may observe that        
Samuel himself, after the fall of Shiloh, dwelt not at      
Gibeon or Nob, the seat of the Tabernacle and the     
Priesthood, but at Ramah.  At Ramah, and at Bethel,    
and at Gilgal, not at Hebron or Anathoth, were the       
Prophetical schools.  He reproved Saul the King, only      
in the same way as, in his early childhood, he had      
reproved Eli the Priest.  The guilt of Saul's sacrifice     
at Gilgal was not that it infringed on the province       
of the Priest: Saul as king had the same right to      
sacrifice as David and Solomon had afterwards.  It      
was that he in his rash superstition broke through          
the moral restraint imposed upon him by the Prophet.    
And in the yet more memorable scene, where Sam-     
uel, as the stern executor of judgment on the       
captive Agag, protests against the misplaced mildness    
of Saul, his words rise far above the special occasion,     
and contain the key-note of the long remonstrance      
of the Prophets in all subsequent times against an     
exaggerated estimate of ceremonial above obedience.    
The very flow of the words recalls to us the form as      
well as the spirit of Amos and Isaiah.  "Hath the       
Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices    
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  Behold, 'to      
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than    
the fat of rams.'  For the sin of witchcraft is          
rebellion, and iniquity and idolatry are stubborn-     
ness. . . .  'The Strength of Israel will not lie,     
nor repent ; for He is not a man that He should     
repent.' "       
   There is one more aspect in which Samuel's life       
may be viewed.  It was not merely as chief leader     
of the People when the they passed into the second stage       
of their national history, nor as the Founder of the      
Schools of the Prophets, that he is especially known    
as "Samuel the Prophet."  It was because, unlike     
Moses or Deborah, or any previous saint or     
teacher of the Jewish Church, he grew up     
for this office from his earliest years.  He was "the     
Prophet" from first to last.  Even in his parentage,    
we find a slight but significant indication of his prepa-    
ration for it.  His mother, as we have seen, was almost      
a prophetess ; the word "Zophim", as the affix of his      
birthplace Ramathaim, has been explained, not unrea-    
sonably, to mean "seers," or "watchmen" ;  and Elka-       
nah his father is, in ancient Jewish tradition, called     
"a disciple of the Prophets."  This early education     
for his office is, after all, the picture of Samuel most     
familiar to our thoughts.  It is not the terrible figure       
which rose up before the apostate king in the cave     
of Endor - the stern old man, ascending like a god    
from the earth, with threatening and disquieted coun-      
tenance, with the fearful aspect of him who had pre-     
sented the mangled remains of Agag as a sacrifice at      
Gilgal, who had called down thunder from heaven,    
who had shaken off Saul from the skirts of that pro-     
phetic mantle with which his face was veiled.  It is     
not this shape, grand and striking though it be, in    
which Samuel usually rises to our recollections.  It is     
as the little child in his linen ephod, and in the little      
"mantle" which his mother brought him from year     
to year ; the child Samuel sleeping in the tabernacle     
Shiloh, in the simple sleep of innocence, unknowing     
of the sins which went on around him ; roused by     
the mysterious voice, listening in deep reverence to    
its awful message.  This is the image of Samuel which     
is enshrined to us in Christian art ; this is the image     
which most appeals to our general sympathy, and on     
which the Sacred Text lays the most peculiar stress.    
On these early chapters of the Books of Samuel, we      
are told that in his gentler moments Luther used to    
dwell with the tenderness which formed the occasional    
counterpoise to the ruder passions and enterprises of    
his general life.  Ever and anon amidst the crimes     
and terrors of the narrative of that troubled time;     
athwart the sins an corruptions of the Priesthood,     
and the passions and the calamities of the nation, the     
scene of the Sacred Story is, as it were, drawn back     
and reveals to us, in successive glimpses, the one      
peaceful, consoling, hopeful image, and we hear the    
same gentle undersong of childlike, devoted, contin-        
uous goodness.  "His mother said, I will bring him     
that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide     
forever."  "And she brought him into the House     
of the Lord in Shiloh, and the child was young."  And     
she said, "For this child I prayed ; and the Lord     
hath given me the petition which I asked of him.    
Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long     
as he liveth, he shall be lent to the Lord.  And he wor-     
shipped the Lord there."  "And the child did minister       
unto the Lord before Eli the Priest."  ("The sons     
of Eli were men of Belial ; . . . and the sin of the     
young men was very great before the Lord. . . . )      
But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child."        
"And the child Samuel grew before the Lord."  ("Now       
Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did to     
all Israel ; and said unto them, 'Why do ye such    
things?' . . .  Notwithstanding they hearkened not      
unto the voice of their father, because the Lord     
would slay them.")  "And the child Samuel grew on,    
and was in favor both with the Lord and with men."         
("There came a man of God unto Eli and said . . .          
Wherefore honorest thou thy sons above me, to make     
yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings     
of Israel my people?  And the child Samuel ministered    
unto the Lord before Eli."  "And Samuel grew and     
the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words     
fall to the ground, and all Israel from Dan to Beer-    
sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet        
of the Lord."     
   It is this contrast of the silent, inward, unconscious     
growth of Samuel, with the violence and profligacy     
of the times, that renders this narrative the first ex-    
ample, the first chapter, it may almost be called, of     
the like characteristic of the history of the Christian      
Church, in so many stages of its existence.  It is also       
the expression of a universal truth.  Samuel is the      
main example, as we have seen, of the moderator and     
mediator of two epochs.  He is, also, the first instance       
of a Prophet gradually raised for his office from the     
earliest dawn of reason.  His work and his life are      
the counterparts of each other.  With all the recollec-    
tions of the ancient sanctuary impressed upon his     
mind, - with the voice of God sounding in his ears,    
not, as in the case of the elder leaders and teachers     
of his people, amidst the roar of thunder and the clash      
of war, but in the still silence of the Tabernacle, ere      
the lamp of God went out, - he was the more fitted    
to meet the coming crisis, to become himself the cen-       
tre of new institutions, which should themselves be-      
come venerable as those in which he had been him-     
self brought up.  Because in him the various parts     
of his life hung together, without any abrupt transi-     
tion; because in him "the child was father to the     
man," and his days had been bound each to each     
by natural piety," therefore he was especially ordained     
to bind together the broken links of two diverging    
epochs; therefore he could impart to others and to     
the age in which he lived, the continuity which he     
had experienced in his own life; therefore he could       
gather round him the better spirits of his time by      
that discernment of "a pure heart, which sees through     
heaven and hell."  In that first childlike response     
"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," was contained      
the secret of his strength.  When in each successive     
stage of his growth the call waxed louder and louder     
to duties more and more arduous, he could still look     
back without interruption to the first time when it     
broke the midnight slumbers ; when, under the fatherly      
counsel of Eli, he had obeyed its summons, and found     
its judgments fulfilled.  He could still, as he     
stood before the people at Gilgal, appeal to the un-      
broken purity of his long eventful life.  Whatever     
might have been the lawless habits of the chiefs of     
those times, - Hophni, Phinehas, or his own sons, -     
he had kept aloof from all.  "Behold, I am old and    
grey-headed, and I have walked before you from my     
childhood unto this day.  Behold, here I am; witness     
against me before the Lord."  No ox or ass had he     
taken from their stalls; no bribe to obtain his judg-     
ment, - not even so much as a sandal.  It is this     
appeal, and the universal response of the people, that     
has cause Grotius to give him the name of the     
Jewish Aristides.  And when the hour of his death     
came, we are told with a peculiar emphasis of expres-    
sion that "all the Israelites," - not one portion or     
fragment only, as might have been expected in that     
time of division and confusion, - "were gathered to-      
gether" round him who had been the father of all    
alike, and "lamented him and buried him;" not in     
any sacred spot or secluded sepulchre, but in
the midst of the home which he had consecrated only      
by his own long unblemished career, "in his house at    
Ramah."  We know not with certainty the situation    
of Ramah.  Of Samuel as of Moses it may be said     
"No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."      
But the lofty peak above Gibeon, which has long    
borne his name, has this feature (in common, to a cer-    
tain extent, with any high place which can have been     
the scene of his life and death), that it overlooks the     
whole of that broad table-land, on which the fortunes      
of the Jewish monarchy were afterward unrolled.    
Its towering eminence, from which the pilgrims first      
obtained their view of Jerusalem, is no unfit likeness     
of the solitary grandeur of the Prophet Samuel, living     
and dying in the very midst and centre of the future     
glory of his country.     
   Is it possible to evade or to forget the illustration     
which this story derives from the experiences    
of education everywhere?  The venerable sanc-     
tuary which Joshua had planted, and where     
Eleazar had ministered, the monuments of which I      
have before termed the mediæval age of the Jewish    
Church, are but the likeness, many times repeated in     
the Christian Church, - but nowhere more strikingly    
than in England and in Oxford, - of the ancient seats    
of education, the cathedrals, the monasteries, the col-       
leges blended both together, where generation after      
generation is trained for the future exercise of the     
pastoral office.  Under such auspices, both in the Jew-    
ish and in the Christian Church, grow up Hophni and    
Phinehas, the profligate son of Eli, and the blameless    
youth of the child Elkanah.  Sacred associations,    
religious services, are as deadening and hardening to     
the one, as they are elevating and purifying to the     
other.     
   In this atmosphere, so charged with good and evil    
for the future, not less impressive is the lesson of the     
connection between Samuel's character and Samuel's     
mission.  Wild excesses in youth are often followed     
by energy, by zeal, by devotion.  We read it in the     
examples of Augustine, of Loyola, of John Newton.      
Sudden conversions of character such as these are         
amongst the most striking points of ecclesiastical his-     
tory.  But no less certain is it that they are rarely, very        
rarely, followed by moderation, by calmness, by impartial    
wisdom.  Count the eager partisans of our own or of     
other times.  How often shall we find that their early     
discipline was one of headstrong and violent passion.    
How often shall we find that the conversion of a law-     
less and reckless youth issues in the one-sided and super-       
stitious zeal which hurries the ark of God into battle,    
after the example of Hophni and Phinehas, - which     
would oppose to the death the erection of the monar-    
chy and the rise of the Prophets, as Hophni and Phine-    
has in all probability would have opposed it, had they    
been converted and spared.      
  Whatever else is gained by sudden and violent con-    
versions, this is lost.  Whatever else, on the other     
hand, is lost by the absence of experience of evil, by     
the calm and even life which needs no repentance,    
this is gained.  The essential work of guiding, mod-     
erating, softening, the jarring counsels of men is for     
the most part the especial privilege of those who have      
grown up into matured strength from early beginnings     
of purity and goodness - of those who can humbly   
and thankfully look back through middle age, and      
youth and childhood, with no sudden rent or breach    
in their pure and peaceful recollections.      
   Samuel is the chief type, in ecclesiastical history, of     
holiness, of growth, of a new creation without conver-     
sion ; and his mission is an example of the special mis-       
sions which such characters are called to fulfil.  In       
proportion as the different stages of life have sprung      
naturally and spontaneously out of each other, without     
any abrupt revulsion, each serves as a foundation on    
which the other may stand; each makes the foun-      
dation of the whole more sure and stable.  In propor-      
tion as our own foundation is thus stable, and as our     
own minds and hearts have grown up gradually and     
firmly, without any violent disturbance or wrench to      
one side or to the other ; in that proportion is it the      
more possible to view with calmness and moderation     
the difficulties and differences of others - to avail our-     
selves of the new methods and new characters that     
the advance of time throws in our way - return from       
present troubles to the pure and untroubled well of    
our early years - to preserve and to communicate      
the childlike faith, changed, doubtless, in form, but     
the same in spirit, in which we first knelt in humble     
prayer for ourselves and others, and drank in the first    
impressions of God and of Heaven.  The call may come     
to us in many ways ; it may tell us of the change of     
the priesthood, of the fall of the early sanctuary, of      
the rise of strange thoughts, of the beginning of a new      
epoch.  Happy are they who, here or elsewhere, are     
able to perceive the signs of the times, and to an-      
swer without fear or trembling, "Speak Lord, for thy     
servant heareth."      

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
"Samuel and the Prophetical Office; Lecture XVIII: Samuel"
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 444-456