Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Elijah is caught up into heaven by a fiery chariot; Elisha cries out to him: My father! the chariot of Israel and its horseman. Then, at verse 14, dividing the Jordan with the mantle of Elijah, he crosses it on dry foot. Next, at verse 19, he heals the foul waters by casting salt into them. Finally, at verse 23, he tears apart with two bears 42 boys who mock him: Go up, bald head; go up, bald head.
Vulgate Text: 4 Kings 2:1-25
1. And it came to pass, when the Lord was about to take up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven, that Elijah and Elisha were going from Gilgal. 2. And Elijah said to Elisha: Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said to him: As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. And when they had gone down to Bethel, 3. the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him: Do you know that today the Lord will take your master from you? And he answered: I also know it; be silent. 4. And Elijah said to Elisha: Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho. And he said: As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. And when they had come to Jericho, 5. the sons of the prophets who were in Jericho came to Elisha and said to him: Do you know that today the Lord will take your master from you? And he said: I also know it; be silent. 6. And Elijah said to him: Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan. And he said: As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they both went together, 7. and fifty men of the sons of the prophets followed them, and they stood facing them at a distance: but the two of them stood by the Jordan. 8. And Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up and struck the waters, which were divided on both sides, and they both crossed over on dry ground. 9. And when they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha: Ask what you wish me to do for you, before I am taken from you. And Elisha said: I beseech you, let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. 10. And he answered: You have asked a difficult thing; nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you: but if you do not see me, it shall not be. 11. And as they went on and walked talking together: behold, a fiery chariot and fiery horses separated them both; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. 12. And Elisha saw it and cried out: My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and its horseman. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own garments and tore them in two pieces. 13. And he took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him: and going back he stood on the bank of the Jordan, 14. and with the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him he struck the waters, and they were not divided; and he said: Where is the God of Elijah even now? And he struck the waters, and they were divided this way and that, and Elisha crossed over. 15. And the sons of the prophets who were in Jericho, seeing this from the opposite side, said: The spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha. And coming to meet him, they bowed down before him to the ground, 16. and said to him: Behold, with your servants there are fifty strong men who can go and search for your master, lest perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him on one of the mountains, or into one of the valleys. And he said: Do not send. 17. But they pressed him until he consented and said: Send. And they sent fifty men: and when they had searched for three days, they did not find him. 18. And they returned to him; but he was staying in Jericho, and he said to them: Did I not tell you: Do not send? 19. And the men of the city said to Elisha: Behold, the situation of this city is very good, as you yourself, my lord, can see; but the waters are bad and the land is barren. 20. And he said: Bring me a new vessel, and put salt in it. And when they had brought it, 21. he went out to the spring of the waters and cast salt into it, and said: Thus says the Lord: I have healed these waters, and there shall no longer be in them death or barrenness. 22. So the waters were healed to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke. 23. And he went up from there to Bethel, and as he was going up along the way, little boys came out of the city and mocked him, saying: Go up, bald head; go up, bald head. 24. And when he had looked back, he saw them and cursed them in the name of the Lord; and two bears came out of the forest and tore forty-two of the boys. 25. And he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
Verse 2: Stay Here
2. STAY HERE. Elijah out of modesty and humility wished to conceal his rapture, and therefore to send Elisha away from himself. For the gifts of God which pertain to some measure of personal excellence, says Abulensis, ought to be concealed, lest men seem to glory in them; for it belongs to God to make them known, as here He made known the rapture of Elijah through the sons of the prophets. Therefore Elijah does not so much command as exhort Elisha, saying "stay," that is, remain "here;" it is not necessary for you to accompany me. But Elisha wisely refused to depart from Elijah's side, so that he might become a sharer in his blessing and the heir of his zeal and spirit; whence he says:
AS THE LORD LIVES, AND AS YOUR SOUL LIVES (that is, I swear by the life of God and of your soul), THAT I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU. From this it is clear that God had revealed to Elisha that Elijah was about to be taken up, and had suggested to him that he should take care not to desert him.
Verse 3: The Sons of the Prophets Came Out
3. THE SONS OF THE PROPHETS CAME OUT. These were the disciples of Elijah, Elisha, and other prophets, who as religious men gave themselves wholly to God: of whom there were already many communities in Gilgal, Bethel,
Jericho, Carmel, etc., founded by Elijah and others, and therefore Elijah before his rapture visited them here, in order to confirm his pupils in the true faith and in the austere discipline of the eremitical life, and to give them final counsels of salvation and perfection, and to proclaim Elisha as his successor. Salianus vividly depicts Elijah's exhortation to them here. Moreover among them were some true prophets, who received from God the revelation of Elijah's rapture here, and revealed it to Elisha and to the others, as is evident from what follows.
Verse 7: Fifty Men Followed Them
7. AND THEY (Elijah and Elisha) STOOD BY (that is, near) THE JORDAN, so that Elijah might divide it and cross on dry foot.
Verse 9: Let a Double Portion of Your Spirit Be upon Me
9. I BESEECH YOU, LET A DOUBLE PORTION OF YOUR SPIRIT BE UPON ME. "Double," that is, twice as great, say some with Theodoret, Question VII, and the Greeks. Blessed Peter Damian agrees, in sermon 2 On the Nativity of St. John the Baptist: "In Elisha," he says, "there was a double spirit of Elijah, not in the accumulation of merits, but in the performance of miracles, because he performed 24 miracles, while Elijah performed only 12," though others count fewer. Whence Anastasius of Nicaea, Question LV, counts seven signs of Elijah, but fourteen of Elisha. St. Ambrose also agrees, in sermon 2 On Elisha, who exclaims: "O precious inheritance, in which more is left to the heir than was possessed: more is obtained by the one who receives than was possessed by the one who bestows! Truly a precious inheritance, which, when it is transferred from father to son, is doubled by a certain interest of merits! Therefore Elijah, though he himself had a simple spirit of holiness, left to Elisha a double one. Marvelous therefore: Elijah left more grace on earth than he carried with him to heaven: and although he himself is transferred whole in body to higher things, yet with his son there remains a greater holiness." Others say "double" with respect to the remaining third part; so that if the spirit of Elijah were divided into three parts, Elisha was requesting two for himself, and this seems to be indicated by: the mouth of two, which is in the Hebrew. Whence Pagninus translates: Let a measure of two parts of your spirit be upon me. Better still, others attribute the "double" to Elisha, as if to say: I pray, O Elijah, that your spirit, which is double, that is, manifold, strong and extraordinary, may be derived to me, so that when you depart, I as your son may succeed you in your extraordinary spirit, as in a spiritual inheritance, and with the same zeal with which you championed the worship of the true God against the Baalites. Whence Angelomus says: "The double spirit is the spirit of prophecy and of miracles." This is proved first from the Hebrew which has: Let the mouth of two in your spirit be mine; for the firstborn had a double portion of the paternal inheritance, while the other sons had only a single and simple one, as if to say: I ask that I, as your firstborn, O Elijah, may succeed you in both of your spirits. Second, because Sirach XLVIII, 4, it is said of Elijah: "Who can glory like Elijah?" Therefore he was of greater spirit than Elisha; third, because in the same place verse 13, it is said: "And in Elisha his spirit was fulfilled." See what was said there.
Verse 10: If You See Me When I Am Taken
10. IF YOU SEE ME WHEN I AM TAKEN FROM YOU, IT SHALL BE SO FOR YOU: BUT IF YOU DO NOT SEE ME, IT SHALL NOT BE. The reason for this condition proposed by God and Elijah to Elisha was to further inflame Elisha's desire and zeal, and thus prepare him for so great a gift of the double spirit of Elijah, and so that Elijah's own prayers might increase for Elisha, and for obtaining this spirit for him, for his own good and that of all Israel. For both were uncertain whether Elijah would be taken up in the presence of Elisha, so that he might become the heir and successor of his spirit. So says St. Chrysostom, homily 1 on Acts; who also adds that Elijah here prefigured Christ, who did not immediately after His resurrection send the Spirit upon the Apostles, but wished them first to see His ascension into heaven, and thence on the tenth day, namely on the feast of Pentecost, sent upon them the Holy Spirit, so that they might prepare themselves for Him over several days.
Verse 11: A Fiery Chariot and Fiery Horses
11. BEHOLD, A FIERY CHARIOT AND FIERY HORSES SEPARATED THEM BOTH. This was not a truly fiery chariot, for then it would have burned Elijah; but it had the form and appearance of fire, as do meteors formed in the air. For they were in reality Angels, who taking on the form of fire, carried Elijah upward, according to that: "Who makes His Angels spirits, and His ministers a burning fire," Psalm CIV, 4. Therefore this fire was a denser air, shining and glowing red like fire, says Abulensis, Question XVII, Serarius, and others. This fiery chariot, then, was formed by Angels from the clouds, by which Elijah, as a triumphant citizen of heaven, was caught up on high. "For a fiery chariot befitted the fiery spirit of Elijah, to carry him to heaven," says St. Chrysostom, homily 1 On Elijah. The matter pertains to the office for which Elijah is reserved, namely to anticipate the second coming of Christ for judgment. I have recounted many other causes of this chariot and rapture — literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical — on Sirach XLVIII, 9, on the words: "Who were taken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses." Moreover Elijah by this fiery chariot triumphed not only over Ahab, Jezebel, and the idolaters, but also over death and over fire itself: for this was a chariot of triumph, as was the chariot of the Cherubim in Ezekiel I. Our Prado says in the same place, as if to say: It is fitting that you, O Elijah, who in life had commanded fire in heaven, should now be carried to heaven by fire, as its commander and conqueror: whence it is clear how foolishly Rabbi Kimchi says that Elijah was consumed by fire in a fiery sphere. Hear St. Ambrose, sermon 2 On Elisha: "Was not Elijah, the master of Elisha, caught up to heaven with Angels attending him, and placed on a fiery chariot, ascending as a victor in a kind of triumph? For he had been a conqueror not of barbarian nations, but of worldly pleasures. Since indeed corrupt morals are graver enemies than hostile foes: so that we may more easily understand that in this time the might of enemies can be conquered more easily than corrupt morals."
AND ELIJAH WENT UP BY A WHIRLWIND INTO HEAVEN. The Septuagint: and Elijah was taken up in a tumult unto heaven. The Chaldean: to the summit of the heavens.
Sirach chapter XLVIII, 9, has: "Who were taken up in a whirlwind of fire." In Greek ἐν κατιλάπῃ, that is, a fiery tempest. It seems therefore that God sent forth lightnings, flashes, and bolts, and similar fiery storms, which snatched up Elijah and carried him to heaven. Whence Vatablus translates the same passage: Who were lifted up by a fiery tempest in a chariot of blazing horses. So then Elijah was carried to heaven by a whirlwind or wind driving him, a fiery chariot bearing him, and an Angel as charioteer guiding both, says Abulensis, Vatablus, Serarius, Salianus, and others. Hear St. Ambrose at the end of his work On the Apostles' Creed: "Enoch was translated," he says, "so that he would not see death: likewise Elijah, still in this body, was taken up by a fiery chariot, that is by the conveyance of Angels, who are spirits and a flame of fire, who do the will of God, in that tumult unto heaven." The author of the Wonders of Scripture, book II, chapter XXII: "Already Elijah, received onto the fiery chariot as if to heaven, is caught up in the sight of Elisha." Again Ambrose, in his book On Naboth, chapter XIV: "When Elijah was being received, and was being carried as if to heaven by a chariot, Elisha cried out to him: Father, father, charioteer of Israel and its horseman, that is, you who guided the people of the Lord with good leadership, by the merit of your constancy you received these chariots, these horses running toward divine things, because the Lord approved you as the guide of human minds. Therefore as the charioteer of a good contest, you are crowned victor with an eternal prize."
INTO HEAVEN. The Septuagint, verse 1, translates as if into heaven. Hence first, some think that Elijah was truly caught up into heaven, not the aerial heaven, but the ethereal, and there lives as a citizen of heaven. So Dorotheus in his Synopsis, chapter On the Life of Elijah; St. Jerome on chapter IX of Amos; St. Ambrose, book On Paradise, chapter III; Alcimus, book IV; and Serarius. Second, others think that Elijah was caught up "into heaven," that is into the air, and thence led to the earthly paradise; for into that Enoch was caught up, Sirach XLVIII, 7. So Irenaeus, book V, chapter V; St. Justin, Question LXXXV; Isidore, book On the Birth and Death of the Saints, chapter V; St. Thomas, I part, Question CII, article 2. Third, others think Elijah was led to some secret region of the earth. So St. Gregory, homily 29 on the Gospels, and Rupert, book III On the Trinity, chapter XXXIII. Fourth, and more certainly, others say that the place of Elijah and Enoch is unknown. So St. Chrysostom, homily 22 on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and there Theophylact and Oecumenius; St. Augustine, On the Grace of Christ, chapters II and III; St. Cyprian, On the Mountains of Zion and Sinai; Theodoret, Question XLV on Genesis. Whether therefore Elijah is on the earth or in the air, he leads a quiet and holy life in the continual contemplation of God, as I showed from St. Augustine on Genesis V, 22.
Hear St. Gregory, homily 29 on the Gospels: "Elijah was raised into the aerial heaven, so that he might be suddenly led to some secret region of the earth, where in great rest of flesh and spirit he might now live, until he returns at the end of the world and pays the debt of death. For he postponed death, he did not escape it. But our Redeemer, because He did not postpone it, conquered it: and He consumed it by rising again, and declared the glory of His resurrection by ascending." Then he prefers the ascension of Christ to the rapture of Elijah, adding: "It should also be noted that Elijah is recorded to have ascended in a chariot; so that it might be openly demonstrated that a mere man needed external help. For those aids were made and shown through Angels: because he could not ascend even into the aerial heaven by himself, whom the weakness of his nature weighed down. But our Redeemer is not recorded to have been lifted by a chariot or by Angels: because He who had made all things was carried above all things by His own power. For He was returning to where He was: and He was going back to where He remained; because when He ascended into heaven through His humanity, through His divinity He equally encompassed both earth and heaven." And with some passages intervening: "For Enoch is remembered to have been translated, and Elijah to have been conveyed to heaven; so that afterward there might come One who, neither translated nor conveyed, would penetrate the ethereal heaven by His own power."
He then adds that in these three, chastity and holiness progressively increased to the highest degree: "For Enoch was translated," he says, "and he was begotten through intercourse, and begetting through intercourse. Elijah was caught up, begotten through intercourse, but not begetting through intercourse. But the Lord was taken up, neither begetting through intercourse, nor begotten through intercourse."
Finally, Elijah and Enoch are now candidates for eternity, and inhabitants of paradise (whether of that first one, of which Genesis II speaks, or of another similar or better one), confirmed in grace, says Francisco Suarez: and although they do not see God, nor are they Blessed, yet they draw from God much light and consolation; for they dwell as if "in the court of the house of the Lord." Whence they are more frequently visited by Angels than other mortals, and converse with them. Hence they also live by the word of God, without bodily food or drink. For God preserves them incorrupt (just as He preserved the garments of the Hebrews for 40 years in the desert) healthy, vigorous, cheerful, and rejoicing and exulting in their rank, state, and office. For they continually give thanks to God that they alone, two out of so many thousands of men, were chosen to fight for Christ against the Antichrist at the end of the world, and to convert the nations and the Jews, and finally to be crowned with glorious martyrdom, and who by their translation, incorruption, and longevity may persuade men of the faith and hope of the resurrection, and in reality represent it.
Whether they are in a state of meriting or not is a debated question.
The affirmative is held by Abulensis, Question XXIV; Viegas on Apocalypse XI, comment 3; Malvenda, book IX On the Antichrist, chapter V; Henriquez, the last book of On the End of Man, chapter XXIII; and others. The reason is that they are still wayfarers, and since their beatitude is deferred, which was long since given to their contemporaries, it seems that in lieu of this deferral they have been granted the faculty of increasing their merits. The negative is held by Francisco Suarez, volume II on the III Part, disputation LV, section 1; Pererius, book VII on Genesis, disputation On Enoch, Question V; Gabriel Vasquez, I-II, disputation CCXVI, chapter I; and others. The reason is that their rapture is reckoned for them as a kind of death, in which all merit ceases: and because otherwise, by continuously increasing their merits over so many thousands of years, they would surpass all the saints in grace and glory, with the exception of the Blessed Virgin.
Verse 12: My Father! The Chariot of Israel
12. AND ELISHA SAW IT AND CRIED OUT: MY FATHER, MY FATHER! THE CHARIOT OF ISRAEL AND ITS HORSEMAN. In Hebrew: the chariot of Israel and its horsemen; in the Septuagint: and its horseman, as if to say: Farewell, O Elijah, my father, who were the entire strength of Israel, and who helped Israel more by your zeal and prayer than a great multitude of chariots and horsemen. So say Procopius, Vatablus, Cajetan, and others.
Whence the Chaldean translates: My master, my master, who were better for Israel by your prayer than chariots and horsemen. So also King Joash, visiting the dying Elisha, cried out to him in chapter XIII, 14: "My father! the chariot of Israel and its horseman." For such after Elijah was Elisha.
Tropologically, Elijah, that is a teacher and preacher who corrects the morals of the people, is a chariot: because by bearing with them he carries them: a charioteer, because by exhorting he drives them. Hear St. Gregory, book II on Ezekiel, homily 21: "What does it mean that Elijah is called the chariot of Israel and its charioteer, except that the charioteer drives, the chariot carries? Therefore the teacher who both endures the morals of the people with patience, and teaches them with the words of sacred eloquence, is called both chariot and charioteer. Chariot, because by bearing he carries; charioteer, because by exhorting he drives. Chariot, because he endures evils; charioteer, because he exercises the people with good admonitions." Hence St. Cyril also in his Collectanea: "The chariot," he says, "signifies the lofty and illuminated way of life of Elijah." Again St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter VIII: "The chariot," he says, "is the holy soul, the charioteer and driver is Christ; the horses are four: prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice; these carry the soul to heaven. Prudence slows down the faster ones, justice admonishes with its own whip the sluggish ones; temperance makes some gentler, fortitude makes others tougher: it knows how to yoke the discordant, lest they scatter their chariot. And so by an intelligible spectacle one may see each soul caught up to heaven with the greatest struggle, with horses hastening to arrive first at the prize of Christ, whose palms may first be placed upon their necks. These are the horses subjected to the yoke of faith, bound by the chain of charity, by the reins of justice, by the restraints of sobriety."
Politically: "the chariot of Israel and its charioteer" is the ruler, who sustains as a chariot the burdens of the state and people, and directs, as a charioteer, the yoke-horses: he drives, presides, and at the same time carries and bears. A ruler and prelate therefore should be like a mother, who guides and carries her infant. Hence a ruler in Hebrew is called: נשיא nasha, as if to say: a carrier, a porter, who lifts the burdens of the people. Thus in Isaiah IX, it is said of Christ: "Whose government is upon His shoulder."
Morally this signifies that if you have subjected yourself wholly to divine rule, you will easily obtain due obedience from your subjects. When Elijah was departing to heaven by a whirlwind, Elisha cries out from the earth: "My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and its charioteer." He calls him both chariot and charioteer; chariot, which is guided; and charioteer, who guides: to show that he had fulfilled the duties of the best ruler, namely that he not only wisely governed others, but also readily allowed himself to be governed by God Himself. Whence Lyranus in his moral Commentary on 1 Kings chapter IX: "The chariot," he says, "which is led, is placed first; and the charioteer, who leads, second: to show that he leads well in governing who was first docile in obeying."
You may ask in what year, month, and day Elijah was caught up into heaven. I answer that he was caught up before the end of the reign of Jehoshaphat: for we have heard his deeds up to this point and will hear them in the following chapter, where after Elijah's rapture, Elisha prophesied before him. It seems therefore that he was caught up shortly after the death of Ahaziah king of Israel, which he himself had predicted in chapter I: for immediately after that, his rapture is added in this chapter II. Now Ahaziah died in the second year of his reign, which was the 18th year of Jehoshaphat's reign, and the second of his son Joram reigning with his father, as is clear from this book, chapter III, verse 17, and book III, last chapter, verse 52. Whence Salianus, Genebrard, and others assert that Elijah was caught up around the 19th year of Jehoshaphat's reign, which was, says Salianus, the year 3139 from the creation of the world, 2162 after the rapture of Enoch, and 914 before the birth of Christ. The Hebrews in the Seder Olam, Josephus, Abulensis, Torniellus, Serarius, and others roughly agree with these figures. Therefore in this year of Christ 1638, Elijah has been living 2552 years since his rapture. Hence the Syrians, when they pray for a long and happy life for someone, wish him the years and life of Elijah. For Elijah still lives and will live until the end of the world, when fighting for Christ against the Antichrist he will be crowned by him with martyrdom. Elijah was caught up in the month of July, on its twentieth day: for on that day his rapture is recorded in the Roman Martyrology and the Greek Menologion: and indeed the Greeks erected temples in honor of Elijah, as Baronius teaches in the Martyrology for July 20. In exactly what year of his life Elijah was caught up cannot be precisely determined. He began to prophesy shortly after the beginning of Jehoshaphat's reign, says Salianus, in his third year, or fourth, as Torniellus holds: he was caught up in his 19th year, so he prophesied for sixteen years. Add to these thirty years, and more, which he had when he began to prophesy (for no one was allowed to prophesy among the Hebrews before the thirtieth year of age), and you will have at a minimum 46 years of Elijah's life before his rapture.
Finally, Elijah was in many respects a type of Christ, as the Fathers show, especially St. Cyprian, in his book On the Holy Spirit, and St. Augustine, sermon 201 On the Seasons, and from these our Salianus treats the matter exactly, year of the world 3139, number 33 and following.
Elisha succeeded Elijah, a disciple worthy of so great a master, being 40 years old, who under six kings of Judah — namely under Jehoshaphat, Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Joash, and Amaziah (with whom were contemporaneous Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash reigning in Israel) — prophesied for 66 years, and died at the age of 106, which was the eighth year of King Amaziah, the year of the world 3204, 849 years before Christ, as Salianus teaches from St. Cyril, book Against Julian, and Clement of Alexandria, book I of the Stromata, in the year of the world already mentioned, scholium 1. Moreover St. Epiphanius in his Life of Elisha says that on the day Elisha was born, the golden calf fashioned by Jeroboam emitted a sound so loud that it was heard in Jerusalem, by which it was signified that on that day an infant was born who would overthrow the golden calves and all other idols.
AND HE (Elisha) TOOK HOLD OF HIS OWN GARMENTS AND TORE THEM IN TWO PIECES, as a sign of mourning that he was deprived of so great a master, namely Elijah, by his rapture. For this rapture was like a death for Elisha: for it deprived him of the usual instruction, conversation, and consolation of Elijah. By the tearing of his garment, therefore, Elisha mourned the departure of Elijah, and thereby his own bereavement and solitude.
Verse 13: He Took Up the Mantle of Elijah
13. AND HE TOOK UP THE MANTLE OF ELIJAH THAT HAD FALLEN FROM HIM, which Elijah as he ascended was leaving to Elisha, as a memorial of himself and for Elisha's consolation and assistance. Abulensis thinks this mantle was a haircloth made of camel's hair, as was the garment of St. John the Baptist. More probably Serarius and others think it was a melote, that is a garment made of sheepskin. For the Septuagint translates: and he took up the melote of Elijah, which had fallen upon him.
AND THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED. So also the Septuagint. These words, however, are absent from the Hebrew and Chaldean, but are understood: for Elisha struck the waters a second time because they had not been divided at the first blow. For God did not will the waters to be divided at the first blow, lest the new prophet Elisha should become proud from the miracle accomplished, taking pride in his new spirit, but should have recourse to God through prayer. Also so that he might know that he obtained this division of the waters, and the other miracles to follow, not by his own merits, but by those of Elijah. So say Abulensis and Cajetan.
Verse 14: Where Is the God of Elijah?
14. WHERE IS THE GOD OF ELIJAH EVEN NOW? The Hebrew and the Septuagint have: even He, who is always the same, faithful, almighty, and who hears His servants when they call upon Him: "Not that he thought God was absent, but because he sought His presence in His benefits," says St. Ambrose on Psalm XXXVII. Whence the Chaldean translates: Receive my petition, O Lord God of Elijah, even He. This is the first miracle of Elisha, namely that striking the Jordan with the mantle of Elijah, he divided it and crossed on dry foot.
Note: for "even he," the Hebrew is אף הוא aph hu, which Hebrew word the Septuagint retains and renders ἄρω (which Theodoret therefore wrongly takes as Greek and translates as "the hidden one"), as if it were a proper name of God. For the name of God is this: "He Himself is the one who made us, He made heaven and earth, He is the Lord our God," אף הוא although hu is derived from היה haia: therefore it means the same as "He who is," which is Jehovah, or יהוה, that is, "He who is," Exodus III, 6.
Verse 19: The Waters Are Bad and the Land Is Barren
19. THE WATERS ARE BAD AND THE LAND IS BARREN, because, namely, this land is situated near the bad waters; whence in the Hebrew and Chaldean it reads, the land causes bereavement, or the land bereaves or destroys, namely the seeds cast into it, through its bitterness or putrefaction. Therefore when the waters were healed by Elisha, the land was equally healed and made fruitful: for otherwise the field of Jericho was fertile and rich; only the brackish water was harming the neighboring land and rendering it barren. Moreover Aristotle in the Politics teaches that in founding cities and houses two things especially must be considered, namely whether the air is good and the waters wholesome; for water in drink and air in breathing penetrate the innermost parts of man, and thus affect them well or badly, and bring about health or disease and death.
Verse 20: Bring Me a New Vessel and Put Salt in It
20. BRING ME A NEW VESSEL, AND PUT SALT IN IT. The newness of the vessel signified that through the prayers and merits of Elisha there would henceforth be a renewal of the waters and the land, so that from barren it would become fertile. Therefore Elisha seems to have immersed the entire vessel with the salt into the spring, as Josephus, St. Ambrose, Bede, Angelomus, and Eucherius assert.
Verse 21: He Cast Salt into the Spring
21. HE WENT OUT TO THE SPRING OF WATERS AND CAST SALT INTO IT, AND SAID: THUS SAYS THE LORD: I HAVE HEALED THESE WATERS. For these waters seem to have been, if not salty, certainly putrid and foul-smelling, and therefore he fittingly used salt, although by a miracle he only thoroughly purified the waters, and preserved them purified for so long, as Francisco Vallesius says in chapter XXXIV of the Sacred Philosophy. The Church imitates this in the blessing of salt and water, when holy water is blessed, praying that water so blessed may be the health of mind and body. So says Abulensis.
THE SPRING. From this it is clear that not all the waters of Jericho were bad, but only those of this spring, which Josephus describes at length, adding much in his usual manner of amplifying and accommodating things to Roman ears. Hear him, book V of The Jewish War, IV: "They say this spring at one time used to blunt not only the fruits of the earth and of trees, but also the birth of women, and to corrupt all things equally with disease and plague; but afterward it became mild, and on the contrary was made most wholesome and most fruitful by the prophet Elisha, who had been known to Elijah and had succeeded him. For, won over by the hospitality of the inhabitants of Jericho, because he found them more humane, he rewarded them and all that region with perpetual favor: and going to the spring, he cast an earthen vessel full of salt into the flowing water. Then stretching his right hand toward heaven and pouring it over the spring, he prayed to it with gentle libations, asking it to soften its streams and to open sweeter veins of water. And he prayed to God to temper the rivers with more fertile breezes, and to give the inhabitants both abundance of fruits and succession of offspring, and that the water that gives birth to children should not fail them, so long as they remained just. By these prayers, working much also with disciplined hands, he changed the spring: and what had before been the cause of their bereavement and famine, became the author of their nourishment and fertility." And with some passages intervening: "And it produces the finest and most dense gardens, and various kinds of irrigated palms, diverse in both flavor and name; of which the richest, pressed with the heel, yield a great amount of honey, not much inferior to other honey: and indeed that region is also a nurse of honey, and productive of balsam, which is the most precious of all fruits growing there; and likewise it produces henna and myrobalan: so that whoever calls that tract divine would not err, where abundant and excellent things, which are most precious, are produced. Nor could any region in the whole world easily compete with it in other fruits: so abundantly does it return what has been sown. The cause of this seems to me to be the well-known power of the waters and the heat of the air." Here, ridiculously if not impiously, Josephus asserts that Elisha prayed to the spring and to heaven to become mild and sweet; clearly he wanted to accommodate himself to the Roman Gentiles, who superstitiously prayed to springs and heaven, and sometimes worshipped them as divinities. Moreover, what he says about these waters having made women barren, he gathers from the Hebrew text here, which says the land was משכלרת mescakeleth, that is, one that causes bereavement, which directly refers to the fruits of the earth. But Josephus extends the same to women; for they are properly called bereaved when they are deprived of children. Following Josephus, St. Ambrose in sermon 2 On Elisha says: "See how great are the merits of Elisha, whose first act of hospitality in a city is a great fertility of children. For while he averts the barrenness of the waters, he bestows a succession of heirs." He therefore agrees with Josephus that Elisha gave fertility not only to the land but also to barren women. Ambrose continues: "For by this deed Elisha did not heal one man, nor provide medicine for one house, but restored the entire population of the city. For if he had done this later, with barrenness intervening and everyone growing old, the city would have remained without inhabitants. Therefore Elisha, when he healed the water, also healed the people: and when he blessed the spring of waters, he granted a kind of spring to souls. For just as by his sanctification wholesome water came forth from the hidden veins of the earth, so from the hidden recesses of the womb wholesome offspring proceeded. For Elisha did not bless only those streams which were already contained in the bosom of the springs, but also those which, still undifferentiated in the moist soil of the earth, were to flow forth gradually in the future."
Tropologically, St. Ambrose, in sermon 87, which is On Elisha, by the salt understands Christ and the Apostles, who with their salt of wisdom seasoned and made fruitful the whole world: "The barren city," he says, "was that of the Church before the coming of Christ; but when Christ came, as a clay vessel taking on a human body, He healed the vices of the waters, that is, He cut away the sacrileges of the peoples; and immediately the Church, which was barren, began to be fruitful when the salt was sprinkled, that is, the Apostles of whom it is said: You are the salt of the earth." So also Bede in his Questions, who by salt understands the wisdom of Christ: for Elisha was a type of Christ both in his deeds and in his proper name; for Elisha in Hebrew means the same as the salvation of God, or God the Savior. So say Eucherius and Angelomus following Bede. Elisha, they say, put salt in a vessel and cast it into the water; and thus healing and making it fruitful, he signified that all waters, that is, all peoples, previously barren of virtues, would receive fertility and blessing through the incarnation of Christ. Hence in the name Elisha, that is Eliseus, the name of Jesus is contained: for Elisha means the same as El Jeshua, that is God, or mighty (almighty) Jesus. Somewhat differently, St. Augustine, in his book Against Fulgentius the Donatist, not far before the end, by the spring of Elisha understands the Jordan, in which Christ being baptized made the waters of baptism saving: "Elisha," he says, "is Christ the Savior, who healed the barrenness of the waters, that is, the infertility of the nations, by dispelling death. He took a clay vessel, that is, the body of human frailty: He cast in salt, that is, He filled it with divine wisdom. He cast it into the water, that is, He descended into the Jordan: by His descent He healed the waters, that is, by His coming He redeemed the nations, and by His espousing word gathered the Church from the nations, and spread it far and wide into abundant offspring."
Verse 23: Elisha Went Up to Bethel
23. AND ELISHA WENT UP FROM THERE TO BETHEL, where King Jeroboam had set up one of his golden calves as an idol, in order to fight against it.
LITTLE BOYS CAME OUT OF THE CITY AND MOCKED HIM, SAYING: GO UP, BALD HEAD. Baldness is the loss of hair from the head, and therefore a deformity, just as its beauty and, as it were, crown is the hair and locks; especially among the Syrians and Palestinians, where, being in a hot and dry region, almost all have thick hair and dense, coarse locks. Whence Ovid:
Ugly is the mutilated flock, ugly the field without grass, And the bush without leaves, and the head without hair.
And Aristotle, book V On the Generation of Animals, asserts that for a man to become bald is the same as for birds to lose their feathers, or for trees to shed their leaves. Hence the Romans of old used to shave the heads of slaves; and the Emperor Caligula, says Suetonius in his Life, chapter XXXV, whenever handsome and long-haired youths met him, would disfigure them by shaving the back of their heads, as a mockery. On the other hand, St. Ambrose shows how great an ornament of the head the hair is, in book VI of the Hexaemeron, chapter IX: "How pleasant and agreeable is the very crown of the head! How beautiful the hair, how venerable in the elderly, how worthy of reverence in priests, how terrible in warriors, how becoming in young men, how elegant in women, how sweet in children!" Then he adds what Aristotle said just before: "From trees one may estimate what is the grace of the human head. In the crown of the tree is all its fruit; there is all its beauty: take away the foliage from a tree, and the whole tree is unpleasing."
This reproach and insult of the boys against Elisha, "Go up, bald head," is partly physical, partly moral. Physical, because they reproach him with a defect of nature, namely baldness; moral, because they tacitly reproach him with lust. For bald men are regarded by many as lustful. Whence that verse of Juvenal, Satire IV, about the Emperor Domitian, luxurious and cruel:
When the last Flavian was already tearing the half-dead world, And Rome served a bald Nero.
And that saying of Suetonius about Julius Caesar: "Citizens, guard your wives; we are bringing in the bald adulterer." Indeed Pliny and Aristotle assign lust as the proper cause of baldness: for Pliny, book XI, chapter XXXVII, says thus: "The loss of hair in women is rare, in eunuchs unheard of, and in no one before the use of Venus." Yet the same author says in the same place: "Some animals naturally become bald, such as the ostrich, camels, and water creatures." Aristotle, book V On the Generation of Animals, chapter III: "No one," he says, "becomes bald before he begins to have intercourse; but it happens rather from sexual intercourse, namely in those who by nature are more inclined to it." He adds the cause: "For since the brain is the coldest of all parts of the body, the use of sexual matters so cools it that the heat needed to produce hair on the head fails the brain, and thus baldness results." And shortly after: "Those who produce seed become bald at the very age when they begin to emit seed." But these authors must be explained as meaning that baldness in many cases arises from excessive sexual activity, but not in all; again, that those inclined to sexual activity go bald more quickly than others; and moreover that no one goes bald before he is capable of emitting seed, that is, before puberty. Thus Cardanus explains Aristotle, book IV On Preserving Health, chapter XV. For experience shows that even chaste men go bald, as Elisha was bald, whom nevertheless St. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Philadelphians, numbers among Virgins. For addressing virgins, he says thus: "Virgins, have only Christ before your eyes, and His Father in your souls, being illuminated by the Holy Spirit. I am mindful of your holiness as of Elijah, as of Joshua, as of Melchizedek, as of Elisha, as of Jeremiah, as of John the Baptist, as of the beloved disciple (St. John), as of Timothy, as of Titus, as of Evodius, as of Clement, and of those who departed this life in chastity; but I do not detract from other blessed ones who were joined in marriage, whom I do not now recall." Avicenna teaches that baldness in some is a hereditary condition, and therefore they become bald because they were begotten by bald men, just as conversely Ethiopians and those begotten by them hardly become bald on account of great heat. Thus it is established that some become bald from old age, others from illness, others from continuous and intense study, others from profound meditation, etc., for these dry out and weaken the brain. For from various causes the head can be cooled, the brain weakened and contracted, and the skull hardened by dryness, which are the three causes of baldness, as Aristotle, Galen (XIV Meth. chapter XVIII), and the other physicians teach. Whence St. Thomas Aquinas was partly bald from continuous and intense study, who nevertheless was perpetually a virgin, indeed girded with a belt of virginity by Angels, as his Life relates.
Moreover other ancient and modern authors esteem baldness, no less than grey hair, not as a disgrace but as the honor of old age; indeed they teach that bald men were once considered handsome, as if similar to the shining moon, and therefore loved by the moon, as that old verse says:
Mars loved the beardless and the bald, O Moon, you loved them too.
Lucian teaches the same, whose words Robert Titius recites in book III of the Controversies, chapter XVII. For Lucian, speaking of men who are fabulously said to dwell on the moon: "Among them," he says, "the bald man without hair is considered handsome: but they abominate the long-haired. But among those who inhabit the comet stars, the long-haired on the contrary are considered beautiful." Whence I think it also came about that bald men were called "little moons" by Synesius, unless one prefers to refer the cause of this appellation to the splendor of the hairless skull, which shines like the moon: certainly the witticism about Isocrates is recalled, that his brain shone through his bald head. Valerius Maximus indeed, speaking of the poet Aeschylus, says: "Having left the walls of the city in Sicily where he was staying, he sat down in a sunny place; above which an eagle carrying a tortoise, deceived by the splendor of his head (for it was devoid of hair), dashed it against it as if against a stone." Thus Petronius Arbiter in a certain epigram said that a bald head laughed, that is, it gleamed; for that word sometimes means that, as in Horace: "The house laughs with silver." Finally Nicetas Choniates, speaking of Ducas: "Moreover Ducas," he says, "whom we mentioned before, standing near him, having removed the cap from his head, was asking that a diadem be placed on him, displaying his baldness, which shone like the full moon."
Finally, some think that Elisha was bald not by nature or age and old age, but that he had shaved his head according to the rite of religious men and Nazirites, and therefore was bald, that is, shaven. Just as by the example of him and those ancients, in the new law Pontiffs, Priests, and Monks, by the ecclesiastical tonsure with the head shaved in a circle and as it were made bald, both to represent the crown of thorns of Christ, and to bid farewell to the world and dedicate themselves entirely to God, as the Nazirites once did: for St. Isidore relates that this tonsure was received from them, in his book On the Divine Offices at the Council of Aachen, chapter I, whom hear: "The use of the ecclesiastical tonsure arose from the Nazirites, if I am not mistaken; who first having kept their hair, then after the great continence of their life, their devotion being completed, shaved their heads and placed their hair in the fire of sacrifice they were commanded to place; namely, to consecrate the perfection of their devotion to the Lord. This practice therefore was introduced by the Apostles, so that those who are assigned to divine worship and consecrated to the Lord, as Nazirites, that is Saints of God, may be renewed by the cutting of the hair. This was also commanded to the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord saying: You, son of man, take a sharp sword, and pass it over your head and your beard. Clearly because he himself served God in the ministry of sacrifice by priestly descent. We also read that the Nazirites Priscilla and Aquila were the first to do this in the Acts of the Apostles; also the Apostle Paul, and certain of Christ's disciples, who stood out as worthy of imitation in this practice. Now the tonsure is for clerics a certain sign which is figured on the body and accomplished in the soul: namely, that by this sign and religious practice vices may be cut away, and we may be stripped of the sins of our flesh as of hair, and thence with senses renewed, like new-grown hair, we may shine forth; putting off, according to the Apostle, the old man with his deeds, putting on the new, who is renewed in the knowledge of God; which renewal must take place in the mind, but be shown on the head, where the mind itself is known to dwell. And the fact that when the top of the head is shorn, a circle-crown is left below, signifies the priesthood and kingdom of the Church in them."
Therefore just as heretics now mock Priests and Monks and call them shaved and bald, according to that verse of one of them: "A crowd of Priests with heads shaved at the crown;" so also these boys, instructed by their heretical and idolatrous parents, seem to have called Elisha and his disciples, who were Nazirites and hence hermits, and therefore with tonsured and shaven heads, bald in mockery. For these boys were the sons of the idolatrous Bethelites, worshippers of the golden calf; as St. Augustine testifies, whose words I shall shortly cite. Therefore mocking Elisha as a religious man, they cried out: "Go up, bald head," namely up the mountain of our city Bethel, or even, go up into the air, as your master Elijah went up, as if to say: Let some evil spirit snatch and carry you away into the breezes, as it carried away your master Elijah: follow your master, disciple, so that you may cease to trouble us and no longer reprove and rebuke us for the worship of the golden calf. So says St. Justin in Question 80 to the Orthodox: "They were saying this," he says, "to tear down and detract from the assumption of Elijah, just as if they were saying: Let the spirit also snatch you away, and cast you on the impassable and inaccessible ridges of the mountains, just as it cast him, so that we may likewise be freed from you, as we have been freed from him."
Moreover these boys are called little, because they were not adolescents, but boys of nine or ten years, and therefore capable of malice and guilt, as is evident both from the petulant and cursing mockery itself, and from its most severe punishment.
Verse 24: Two Bears Tore Forty-Two Boys
24. AND WHEN HE HAD LOOKED BACK, HE SAW THEM AND CURSED THEM IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, that is, he invoked from God a just punishment and retribution upon them. Elisha did this out of just religious zeal: first, because when the servants and prophets of God are mocked, God Himself is mocked. So says St. Thomas, II-II, Question CVIII, article 1, reply 4. Second, he wished to punish the parents more than the boys; for the idolatrous parents had instilled in the boys their own idolatry and contempt for the true God and His prophets. For as St. Augustine says, sermon 204 On the Seasons: "The insolent boys must be believed to have done this at the instigation of their parents. For they would not have shouted if it displeased their parents." And St. Justin, Question LXXX cited: "God," he says, "scourged the parents through the destruction of the boys, and at the same time warned posterity to educate their children in the true worship of God, in modesty and uprightness, lest they be similarly chastised." Whence St. Gregory, book IV of the Dialogues, chapter XVIII, relates that a certain little child who was accustomed to blaspheming was snatched from his father's bosom by demons. "So that," he says, "his father might recognize his own guilt, who, neglecting the soul of his little son, had nourished no small sinner for the fires of hell." The author of the Wonders of Sacred Scripture, book II, chapter XXII, adds that perhaps these boys had been consecrated by their parents to the golden calf and to idols. Third, Elisha acted in the boys' best interest; for he prevented them from becoming worse through impunity, says Theodoret, Question XIII. For if they had lived longer, they would have become more wicked and idolatrous by the teaching and example of their parents, and therefore more severely condemned.
AND TWO BEARS CAME OUT OF THE FOREST AND TORE FORTY-TWO OF THE BOYS. Fittingly God sent bears to devour the boys before the eyes of their fathers, so that those whom they had neglected to imitate in forming their boys would become their executioners in the boys' destruction. For He showed that these parents, who had been careless, even impious, in forming their children, were worse than bears. For bears shape and form their shapeless cubs by licking them, as Pliny attests, book VIII, chapter XXXVI, and book X, chapter LXIII. Whence St. Ambrose says: "The bear fashions her cubs (by licking) to her own likeness; can you not instruct your children to be like yourself?"
Allegorically, Abulensis, Serarius, and others everywhere say: Elisha ascending the mountain is Christ ascending the hill of Calvary and there being crucified; 42 boys mocked Him, that is the Jews saying:
"If You are the Christ, the Son of God, come down from the cross." Christ cursed them by ordaining against them as punishment the destruction of Jerusalem, namely that forty years after His ascension into "Bethel," that is "into the house of God," that is into heaven, from the forest of the Gentiles two bears should come, namely Titus and Vespasian, who would tear and destroy them. So say Angelomus, Eucherius, Bede, Rupert, and St. Jerome on the title of Psalm XLVI: "Elisha," he says, "bears the figure of Christ; the boys, that of the Jews who said: Hail, King of the Jews: the bears are properly understood as demons; because they devoured their hearts, and therefore that Psalm is inscribed for the sons of Korah, that is, sons of the Bald One." And St. Augustine, book XII Against Faustus, chapter XXXV: "The boys," he says, "insulting Elisha and crying: Bald head, bald head, are eaten by beasts; foolish children mocking Christ crucified in the place of Calvary, invaded by demons, perish."
Tropologically Origen, homily 4 on Ezekiel, by the two bears understands demons and the beasts of vices, which are sent against the sinful soul. Finally Marcion the heresiarch, to prove that Moses was contrary to Christ, and the Old Testament contrary to the New, and that the former was produced by an evil and cruel God, the latter by a good and benign one, said: Christ commands you to be as little children; but that old God sent bears against the little children who mocked Elisha: therefore He is contrary to Him. Tertullian responds, book IV Against Marcion, chapter XXIII: "A sufficiently impudent antithesis, since it conflates such different things — infants and boys; a still innocent age, and one already capable of judgment, which could insult, not to say blaspheme. Because therefore God is just, He did not spare impious boys, demanding honor from the greater age, and certainly all the more from the lesser. But because He is good, He so loves little children that in Egypt He rewarded the midwives who protected the Hebrew births, endangered by the edict of Pharaoh. And so this affection of Christ is one with the Creator's."