Commentary on 1 Kings

Tertullian (155–240)

For even if God does prefer the works of righteousness, still, these works are not without sacrifice, which represents a soul afflicted with fasts. He, at all events, is the God to whom neither a people incontinent of appetite nor a priest nor a prophet was pleasing. To this day the "monuments of concupiscence" remain, where the people, greedy of "flesh"—until, by devouring without digesting the quails, they brought on cholera—were buried. Eli breaks his neck before the temple doors, his sons fall in battle, his daughter-in-law expires in childbirth. For such was the blow that had been deserved at the hand of God by the shameless house, the defrauder of the fleshy sacrifices. Sameas, a man of God, after prophesying the issue of the idolatry introduced by king Jeroboam (the drying up and immediate restoration of that king's hand; after the rending in two of the sacrificial altar), being on account of these signs invited [home] by the king by way of reward, plainly declined [for he had been prohibited by God] to touch food at all in that place. However, having presently afterwards rashly taken food from another old man who deceitfully professed himself a prophet, he was deprived of…

See also

• More works by Tertullian

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