Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The encomium of Elijah up to verse 13, then of Elisha up to verse 19, then of Hezekiah up to verse 23, then of Isaiah to the end.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 48:1-28
1. And Elijah the prophet arose like fire, and his word burned like a torch. 2. He brought famine upon them, and those who provoked him by their envy were made few; for they could not endure the commandments of the Lord. 3. By the word of the Lord he held back heaven, and brought down fire from heaven three times; 4. thus was Elijah magnified in his wondrous works. And who can glory like you? 5. You who raised a dead man from the netherworld, from the lot of death, by the word of the Lord God. 6. You who cast down kings to destruction, and easily broke their power, and the glorious from their bed. 7. You who hear judgment on Sinai, and on Horeb the judgments of defense. 8. You who anoint kings for repentance, and make prophets your successors after you. 9. You who were taken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses. 10. You who are written in the judgments of the times to appease the wrath of the Lord; to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. 11. Blessed are those who saw you, and who were honored by your friendship; 12. for we merely live our life, but after death our name shall not be such. 13. Elijah indeed was covered in the whirlwind, and in Elisha his spirit was fulfilled: in his days he did not fear the prince, and in power no one overcame him, 14. nor did any word prevail over him, and after death his body prophesied. 15. In his life he worked wonders, and in death he wrought marvels. 16. In all these things the people did not repent, and did not depart from their sins, until they were cast out of their land and scattered throughout every land: 17. and there was left a very small people and a prince in the house of David. 18. Some of them did what was pleasing to God: but others committed many sins. 19. Hezekiah fortified his city, and brought water into its midst, and dug through rock with iron, and built a well for the water. 20. In his days Sennacherib came up, and sent Rabshakeh, and raised his hand against them, and stretched out his hand against Zion, and became proud in his power. 21. Then their hearts and hands were shaken: and they were in pain like women in labor. 22. And they called upon the Lord who is merciful, and spreading their hands they lifted them to heaven: and the holy Lord God quickly heard their voice. 23. He did not remember their sins, nor did He deliver them to their enemies, but He purified them by the hand of Isaiah the holy prophet. 24. He struck down the camp of the Assyrians, and the Angel of the Lord destroyed them. 25. For Hezekiah did what was pleasing to God, and walked valiantly in the way of David his father, as Isaiah the great and faithful prophet in the sight of God had commanded him. 26. In his days the sun went backward, and he added life to the king. 27. With a great spirit he saw the last things, and comforted the mourners in Zion. 28. He showed things to come forever, and hidden things before they happened.
First Part of the Chapter. Encomium of Elijah
1. AND ELIJAH THE PROPHET AROSE LIKE FIRE, AND HIS WORD BURNED LIKE A TORCH (in Greek λαμπάς, that is a torch, a funeral torch, a candelabrum, a funeral light, a splendor). — In Greek, ἐκκαίω, that is, it burned and scorched. Hence the Complutensian: His word scorched like a torch; Vatablus: Moreover Elijah the prophet arose like fire, and his speech blazed like a torch; the Syriac: There arose a prophet like fire, and his word burning like a kindled oven. Sirach follows the order of the times: for after Solomon, among the illustrious men and heroes of Israel, Elijah stood out, who extinguished the idolatry and impiety introduced by Solomon and propagated by Jeroboam, by his zeal and strength of spirit; for to this end God raised him up, and endowed him with so great a spirit. This is what "he arose" signifies. Just as therefore, in chapter xLVII, 1, he said: "Nathan the prophet arose in the days of David," so here he says: "And Elijah the prophet arose like fire;" for what Nathan was to David, this Elijah was to Jehoshaphat and the kings of Israel, Isaiah to Hezekiah, and Jeremiah to Josiah: who therefore became celebrated and illustrious through these Prophets.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: God raised up Elijah, who burned in his heart with zeal for God and true religion as with fire, and therefore the word of his mouth, flowing from a fiery heart, was like a burning torch setting alight his hearers, those who were obedient indeed with the love and charity of God, but consuming the disobedient with heavenly fire. For the zeal of Elijah killed more idolaters than it converted: for he killed 850 soothsayers, magicians, and false prophets; far more he killed by the three-year famine, about which in the following verse. For in Elijah there was more zeal for justice and vengeance to destroy the impious, than for clemency and charity to convert them: for this was reserved for Christ and the Apostles under the law of grace. Hence when James and John, after the manner of Elijah, wanted to destroy the Samaritans with fire because they refused to receive Christ, and said to Christ: "Lord, do You want us to call fire down from heaven to consume them?" Christ rebuked them, saying: "You do not know of what spirit you are. The Son of Man did not come to destroy souls, but to save them," Luke IX, 54.
Elijah therefore is compared to fire and a torch, first, because he burned with the love of God, and by teaching and preaching kindled others, and thus kept them in the faith, worship, and love of the true God; or, if they had turned aside to Baal and idols, he brought them back to the true God. Second, because he blazed with zeal for the honor of God, and therefore for justice and vengeance, to destroy the idolaters who insulted God. Third, because he was effective in words and deeds, to such a degree that he carried them out and confirmed them by miracles: wherefore he poured forth such burning words that he seemed to belch flames; for they were not words that merely puffed up, but that set all men aflame. Similar was the voice of St. John the Baptist, who therefore is said to have come
in the spirit and power of Elijah. Hence Elijah, or, as the Hebrews say, Eliahu, in Hebrew means the same as אל el Ia, that is, strong God, says St. Jerome, or אלי eli, that is, my strength, and יה la or Jehovah, that is, God. For armed with divine strength and omnipotence he broke the worshippers of Baal, subdued Ahab with Jezebel, commanded heaven and earth, to perform so many and so great miracles.
Fourth, the word of Elijah is called a "torch," because it stirred up a great conflagration among the idolaters: on the one hand, barrenness and famine, by which he withered and shook off plants and men; on the other, fire, which he called down from heaven upon the idolaters. So Sirach explains himself, when he adds: "He who brought famine upon them." And presently: "By the word of the Lord he held back heaven, and brought down fire from heaven three times." So St. Chrysostom, in his homily On Peter and Elijah, recently published, calls this barrenness and famine a fever, which like fire causes a man to burn with heat: "Scarcely," he says, "had his word gone forth, when suddenly the air changed, the sky became like bronze; and that same word settled upon the bowels of the earth like a fever; and immediately everything dried up, everything was horrifying with desolation and devastation, the grass withered, plants and trees alike," etc.
St. Epiphanius in his Lives of the Prophets, in the entry on Elijah, relates that Elijah was nourished by flame as a sign of his burning eloquence; not that he was truly nourished by flame (for this is impossible); but that a flame licked his face and mouth, and seemed to enter it, and to feed and nourish him. So too Dorotheus in his Synopsis: "When," he says, "Elijah was about to be born, his father Sabacha saw him being greeted by radiant Angels, and wrapped in fire as in swaddling clothes, and fed with flame as with food. And going to Jerusalem he reported this matter, and was told by an oracle not to fear; for the child about to be born would dwell in light, and what he said would have firm authority, and he would judge Israel by sword and fire." In a similar way St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers, as the Elijah of his age, was shown to his mother beforehand through a burning torch; for she, being pregnant, seemed to see herself carrying in her womb a puppy, bearing in its mouth a burning torch, which illuminated and set ablaze the whole world. The event confirmed the vision; for he himself through himself and his followers was a torch, that is the light and ardor of his own and subsequent ages. So in this age St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, aspired to share with all the sacred fire with which he burned,
and to those whom he sent to various shores he would say: "Go, set the world on fire," not with burning, but with love.
Allegorically, Elijah burning like fire represented the Apostles with their fiery hearts and fiery tongues received from the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, preaching throughout the whole world the great deeds of God and of Christ. Hence concerning them Christ had said: "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled?" Luke xii, 49. Hence the Cherubim surrounding the chariot of God's glory were fiery, Ezekiel I, 13: "Their appearance," he says, "was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps." Hence St. Chrysostom, homily 4 on Acts: "Just as from fire," he says, "one may light as many lamps as he wishes, and the fire is not diminished: so also it happened with the Apostles at that time. For not only was the bounty of grace demonstrated through fire, but each one received a fountain of the Spirit." And further on: "Just as a man of fire, if he falls into the midst of straw, will not be harmed, but rather will exert his power; for he suffers no evil at all, but those who resist are the ones who destroy themselves: so it happened then. Indeed, rather it is as if someone carrying fire should struggle with one carrying hay: in the same way the Apostles attacked them with great confidence," etc., as if to say: Just as fire is not harmed by hay, but the fire harms the hay: so the Apostles suffered nothing from the persecuting Gentiles, but rather subjected them to themselves, and set them ablaze with their divine fire. Such was St. Paul, who like heavenly fire or lightning, indeed like a Seraph, flew most swiftly through so many cities, so many nations, such vast expanses of land and sea, converting and setting them alight. Excellently therefore St. Chrysostom, in his homily In Praise of St. Paul: "Paul," he says, "walking on earth conducted himself in all things as though he enjoyed the company of angels. For still bound to a mortal body, he rejoiced in their perfection, and subject to such great frailties, he strove to appear in no way inferior to the heavenly powers. For like one with wings he flew through the whole world teaching; and as though incorporeal he despised all labors and dangers, and as though already possessing heaven he utterly scorned all earthly things; and as though already dwelling with the incorporeal beings themselves, he watched with such constant mental attention; and indeed the care of various nations was often entrusted to angels, but none of them governed the people entrusted to him as Paul governed the whole world. To Michael the Jewish nation was entrusted; but to Paul the lands and seas and the habitation of the whole world." And presently: "How is this not a wondrous and astonishing thing, when a word springing from an earthly tongue puts death to flight, dissolves sins, illuminates the darkness of blindness, and by a wondrous transformation converts the earth into heaven."
Elijah therefore was a type of the Apostles, who were like fiery arrows, shot from the most powerfully drawn bow of Christ crucified, striking and setting ablaze the world with the love of God, according to Psalm vii, 14: "He has made His arrows for the burning." Where St. Augustine says: "In this bow, by the strength of the New Testament, as by a certain bowstring, the hardness of the Old was bent and tamed. Hence as arrows the Apostles are sent forth, who hurl the divine proclamations: He made His arrows for the burning, that is, those who were struck would burn with divine love. For by what other arrow was she struck who says: I am wounded by love," Song of Songs II, 5, and v, 8. The Greek has: He made His arrows for the burning; the Latin: Burning, whether the arrows themselves burn, or cause burning: which indeed they cannot do unless they themselves burn. And further on:
The sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of destruction, that is, those by which, struck and inflamed, you may burn with such love for the kingdom of heaven that you scorn the tongues of all who resist and wish to call you back from your purpose, and laugh at persecutions, saying: Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?
Tropologically, Elijah represents zealous men, devoted to reform and morals, and especially fervent teachers and preachers, who by their ardor set others ablaze, according to Jeremiah xx, 9: "His word became in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones: and I grew weary, unable to bear it;" namely: Let the orator burn, if he wishes to kindle the people. Truly says St. Chrysostom, homily 1 To the People: "One man burning with zeal for God is enough to correct an entire people." This was evident in Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, John the Baptist, and other Prophets. This was evident in St. Bernard, who, called by God to the Cistercian Order, became like a fire that burns the forest, and like a flame consuming the mountains, seizing first the things nearest on each side, then advancing to those further away. For thus the fire which God had kindled in the heart of St. Bernard first inflamed all his brothers, then most outsiders, to embrace the same religious vow, to such a degree that mothers hid their sons, wives held back their husbands, friends turned friends away; because the Holy Spirit gave such power to his voice that scarcely any affection could hold anyone back. Therefore St. Bernard, at the age of 22, with thirty companions entered Citeaux, in the year of our Lord 1113. See the author of his Life, book I, chapter IV and following.
The same was evident in St. Dominic, as I have already said, who, as one of the angels, called all to heaven by voice, life, and example, and absorbed by the flame of divine love strove to kindle all with the same fire. Hence when someone asked him from what book he drew such burning sermons, he replied: From the book of charity. To this one book, he said, I devote myself, and from it I bring forth words not that puff up, but that set aflame. His companion was St. Francis, of whom St. Bonaventure says in his Life, chapter xii: "Every age," he says, "and every sex hastened to see and hear the new man given by heaven to the world; for his word was like a burning fire, penetrating the innermost parts of the heart, and filling all minds with admiration. On account of which all persons of whatever condition, whom he rebuked openly or in secret, regarded him with such veneration and heeded him, that being inwardly moved to compunction, they either reformed their state, or, seized with fear and dread, did not dare to murmur against the one correcting them." In him therefore was fulfilled that verse of Psalm LXXVI: "Your lightning flashes lit up the world." For wherever St. Francis went traveling, he stirred up the inhabitants like a thunderbolt, he illuminated those he met like lightning, and like a sharp arrow of a mighty man he penetrated hearts; so that very many followed in his footsteps, while the rest reformed their
ways for the better. For no heart, however hard, could resist his sanctity shining so brightly, and his fiery words and such rare miracles, without growing soft and conceiving the divine fire breathed forth from him. In our own age, following these, St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, against Luther burning with the fire of Lucifer, arose like a fire of the Holy Spirit, and with its ignited spirit kindled and set ablaze the cold hearts both of Catholics and of heretics. Elijah therefore was a living mirror for preachers of the word of God; for his mind was fiery, his tongue fiery, his hand fiery, by which he converted Israel.
Hear the golden rules of preaching, handed down to his preachers by St. Francis in Opusculum Collationum XVII, and in the Annals of Wadding, year of Christ 1220, number 30: "I wish, dearest brothers, that the ministers of the holy word of God be such that, devoting themselves to spiritual studies, they be hindered by no other duties. For they have been chosen by that great King to proclaim to the peoples the edicts that proceed from His mouth. Therefore the preacher must first draw in by secret prayers what he afterwards displays in sacred sermons; first grow warm within, before uttering words without. This office is indeed worthy of reverence, and those who administer it are to be revered by all. They are the life of the body, the fighters against demons, the lights of the world. Those preachers are to be praised who are wise for themselves in due time, and have good taste for themselves; but those divide poorly who devote everything to preaching and nothing to devotion. Others also are to be lamented, who often sell what they do for the oil of vain praise." He then adds: "The office of preaching, brothers, is more acceptable to the Father of mercies than any sacrifice, especially if it is undertaken with the zeal of charity, so that the preacher labors more by example than by word, more by tearful prayer than by verbose speech. Therefore the preacher who in preaching seeks not the salvation of souls but his own praise is to be lamented as one deprived of true piety, as is he who destroys by the depravity of his life what he builds by the truth of his teaching. A simple and speechless brother who by good example provokes others to good is to be preferred to him. 'The barren one has borne many,' says the Prophetess, 'and she who had many sons has grown weak.' The barren one is the poor little brother who does not have the office of begetting sons in the Church. He will bring forth many at the judgment; because those whom he now converts to Christ by private prayers, the Judge will then ascribe to his glory. She who has many sons will grow weak, because the vain and wordy preacher, who now rejoices in the many he has begotten as if by his own power, will then recognize that he has nothing of his own in them."
This manner of preaching St. Anthony of Padua learned from St. Francis, and therefore he is usually depicted with tongues of fire; for like another Elijah, kindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, he burned the cold hearts of men with fiery sermons, and led them from whatever vices to virtues. See his Life,
chapter xiii; it is found in Surius, under June 13. Those therefore who are such are truly Seraphic teachers and preachers, indeed Seraphim, such as was St. Bonaventure, surnamed the Seraphic Doctor; because in illuminating the reader like a Cherub, he equally sets him ablaze like a Seraph.
2. HE WHO BROUGHT FAMINE UPON THEM, AND THOSE WHO PROVOKED (so the Roman and Greek editions: incorrectly therefore Jansenius and others read "imitating") HIM BY THEIR ENVY WERE MADE FEW (some read, wasted away): FOR THEY COULD NOT ENDURE THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD. — The Complutensian Greek, concise as usual, reads thus: And he brought upon them a severe famine, and by his zeal diminished them; the Roman edition, he made them few; the Syriac, he tore apart or consumed them; Vatablus: He sent a grievous famine, and by his vehemence reduced them to few, because they could not bear the commands of the Lord; the Greek reads: τῷ ζήλῳ αὐτοῦ ὠλιγοποίησεν αὐτούς, that is, by his zeal he reduced them to a small number. Our translator instead of αὐτῶν read αὐτῶν, that is, of them, or his own. Hence he took "zeal" as "envy," by which the idolatrous Israelites themselves persecuted Elijah, and envied him the power of bringing famine and performing other miracles, because he had brought famine upon them. The meaning therefore is, as if to say:
Elijah, burning with zeal for the honor and worship of the true God, by his prayer, indeed by his command, shut heaven so that it would not rain, and thus brought upon the idolatrous Israelites barrenness of the land and famine; both to show the power of the true God above idols and idolaters, and to punish their idolatry and crimes with powerful vengeance. From this famine, the idolatrous Israelites, who provoked and harassed Elijah by their rivalry and envy, were reduced to few. For many perished, killed by famine, because they would not endure the commandments of the Lord about fleeing from idols and following the faith and worship of the true God, which Elijah urged upon them. The history of this famine is narrated in III Kings xvii, 1, where Elijah, with his fiery zeal and trust in God, commanding heaven: "As the Lord lives," he says, "the God of Israel in whose sight I stand, there shall not be dew or rain these years, except according to the words of my mouth." And so he shut heaven, and stopped the rain, and brought famine upon Israel for three years: for in the third year, at God's bidding, he opened heaven, to give abundant rain; and thus in place of famine he brought abundance, III Kings xviii, 1.
This is the first prodigy and miracle which the fiery and wonder-working Elijah performed, and by it he demonstrated himself to be Elijah, that is, endowed with the strength and efficacy of God, and that his word was powerful like a torch, and could powerfully consume men by famine as by fire.
BY THE WORD OF THE LORD HE HELD BACK HEAVEN — that is, by the command of the Lord, or commanding by the mouth and authority of God, he shut heaven so that it would not rain upon the earth, as has already been said, and this for three years and six months, as Christ says, Luke IV, 23, and St. James, v, 17. For "held back," the Greek has ἀνέσχε, which the Roman edition translates "held back"; Vatablus, "restrained"; the Complutensian, "sustained," that is, he lifted up and elevated, or kept the heaven elevated and prevented it from raining. It is a catachresis; for even the Spanish, when a heavy downpour falls from heaven, say the sky comes down, or descends, not in itself, but in its effect, namely rain. Hear St. Chrysostom, sermon 2 On Elijah, volume I: "When Elijah, the most holy prophet, looked upon the people who had transgressed, and saw that Baal and the groves were being worshipped by the sacrilegious while the Lord was scorned, and when with the Creator scorned the whole people had given themselves over to idols and sacred groves; moved by zeal for God, he condemned the land of Judea with a sentence of drought and barrenness of rain. Then suddenly the earth gasps, the sky dries up, the rivers thirst, the springs dry up; all moisture seeks the lowest places, abandoning the higher; the air burns, clear skies torment, tranquility is punishment; the nights are sweltering, the days scorching; the crops are parched, the groves sicken, the meadows fail, the forests languish, the fields fast, the earth is foul, it kills the very grasses it produced, every creature testifies to the wrath of God. Famine is grievous, when necessity finds wanting what it hungers for." And presently: "Elijah, higher than the world, close to heaven, enjoyed the dwelling of the mountain and conversation with God, so that he would not see the punishment of those whose crimes he could not bear to see." And
further on: "Finally Elijah stood in the midst between God and the people. He stood, I say, holy among the sacrilegious, just among sinners, devout among the profane, about to provide advocacy for all peoples: he rebukes the people, he implores God, he turns away the wrath of the Lord, and recalls the erring people from the worship of God to the joy of God. He joins the Lord to the people, and the people to God. Through Elijah one concord is made between God and man, between the people and their Father; and so that all might say: Truly the Lord God, He is God; the word of the most holy Elijah becomes the key of heaven; for he commands, and it is shut; he prays afterwards, and it is opened."
AND HE BROUGHT DOWN FIRE FROM HEAVEN THREE TIMES. — So the Roman and Greek editions. Incorrectly therefore Jansenius and others read "to the earth" instead of "three times," which Palacius explains as if the fire came from heaven to Elijah on the mountain, and then Elijah hurled this fire to the earth, where the soldiers were to capture him. Hence he says: "He cast the fire from himself to the earth," that is, onto the earth. But, as I said, one must read "three times," not "to the earth"; Vatablus: He brought down fire from heaven three times, namely twice upon two captains of fifties, whom Ahaziah had sent to capture Elijah and bring him to himself, IV Kings I, 10; and the third time when he competed against the prophets of Baal: for by fire called down from heaven and falling upon his sacrifice, he conquered them, and thus demonstrated the fear and worship of the true God, and killed the prophets of Baal, III Kings xviii, 38. Hence the Syriac translates: And he caused fire to descend three times from heaven, upon the altar, and upon impious men.
This is the second powerful prodigy of Elijah, by which the fiery Elijah dominated heaven in every direction, and as it were suspended and reversed its nature; for since it is natural for heaven to give rain, he himself restrained it, and stopped the power of raining in the sky: on the
other hand, whereas fire does not descend from heaven, but rather ascends to heaven, he himself three times caused fire to descend from heaven to earth. Elijah therefore was master of fire, indeed master of heaven.
He will do the same at the end of the world, when he will return with Enoch to contend against the Antichrist and his followers; for he will convince these by effective and burning reasoning and prayer, and at the same time will burn them with fire sent upon them, according to Apocalypse xi, 5: "And if anyone wishes to harm them, fire will come forth from their mouths, and will devour their enemies; and if anyone wishes to hurt them, so must he be killed. They have the power of shutting heaven, that it may not rain during the days of their prophecy; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they wish." See what I noted in that place.
Who then can resist Elijah, who from his mouth hurls not words, but thunderbolts, so that one knows him as victor before knowing him as warrior? For the battles of flames are triumphs; whose pageantry is light, whose applause is the crash of fire. Here was fulfilled that saying of Zechariah II, 5: "I will be to it, says the Lord, a wall of fire round about, and I will be the glory in its midst." What should he fear from the enemy's sword, whom heavenly fire protects? Why should he tremble at the attack of men, who sees himself in the embrace of divinity? Will not these flames melt any weapons? Will not this ardor check all boldness? Will not this fire draw sweat from the faces of enemies, and blood from their veins? For fire is the conqueror of water, air, earth, and all bodies, and the fierce avenger of those who resist it, consuming all, thundering, and reducing everything to embers and ashes.
Allegorically, Elijah, as in all other things, so also in the sending of fire, was a type of Christ, who sent the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire upon the Apostles at Pentecost; for with this fire they set the world ablaze, burned the idols, and eliminated impiety along with the impious. Again, Elijah, calling down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice, is a type of the Christian priest, who calls the Holy Spirit from heaven in the consecration of the Eucharist to accomplish the sacrifice of transubstantiation, by which bread and wine are truly and substantially converted into the Body and Blood of Christ; which, though daily, is nevertheless the miracle of miracles. So St. Chrysostom, in book III On the Priesthood, comparing and preferring the priest to Elijah: "For the priest is present," he says, "not bearing fire, but the Holy Spirit; he pours forth prolonged prayers, not so that a flame falling from heaven may consume the offerings set before it, but so that grace flowing into the sacrifice may through it inflame the minds of all, and make them purer, as if refined and purified by fire." As a symbol of this, over the head of St. Basil, St. Martin, and other illustrious priests, while they celebrated, a globe of fire appeared, or a column of fire.
Moreover St. Ambrose, in his book On Elijah and Fasting, chapter II, attributes this miracle and the rest of Elijah's merits to his fasting; for he himself fasted 40 days after the manner of Christ, IV Kings xix, 8: "The voice of Elijah," he says, "uttered from a fasting mouth, shut heaven against the sacrilegious people of the Jews, etc. Fasting he raised the widow's son from the dead, fasting he brought down rains by his mouth, fasting he drew fire from heaven, fasting he was carried to heaven by a chariot, and by a forty-day fast he acquired the divine presence. Indeed he merited more when he fasted more. With a fasting mouth he stayed the currents of the Jordan, and the overflowing channel of the river, suddenly dried up, he crossed with dusty feet. Rightly did the divine sentence judge him worthy of heaven, so that he was taken up with his very body, because he was living a heavenly life in the body, and was practicing a heavenly manner of life on earth." And in chapter III: "For what is fasting, if not an image of heavenly life? Fasting is the refreshment of the soul, the food of the mind; fasting is the life of angels; fasting is the death of sin, the destruction of offenses, the remedy of salvation, the root of grace, the foundation of chastity. By this step one reaches God more quickly; by this step Elijah ascended before the chariot. This inheritance of sobriety and abstinence he left to his disciple when departing to heaven. In this virtue and spirit of Elijah, John came. Indeed in the desert he too devoted himself to fasting; and his food was locusts and wild honey. And therefore because he had surpassed the possibility of human life by his continence, he was regarded not as a man, but as an Angel.
4. THUS WAS ELIJAH MAGNIFIED IN HIS WONDROUS WORKS. AND WHO CAN GLORY LIKE YOU? — In Greek: How great a glory you have attained, O Elijah, by your wondrous works! And who can glory as you do? Vatablus: How great a glory you have gained by your miracles, Elijah! Or who may boast as your equal? The Syriac: How terrible you are, Elijah, and whoever is like you, let him be praised! Sirach, admiring the multitude and greatness of the portents and wondrous works of Elijah, turning to him and congratulating him exclaims: Who is so wondrous and glorious in his deeds as you, O Elijah? For Elijah surpassed all his predecessors in prodigies and heroic works, with the sole exception of Moses, but he was not even inferior to Moses. For he raised a dead man, brought down fire from heaven three times, was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, and still lives today awaiting his return, to contend against the Antichrist, and to be crowned with martyrdom by him — none of which applies to Moses. Moreover Elijah and the Saints, glorying in their works, glory not in themselves but in the Lord as their author, according to the Apostle: "Let him who glories, glory in the Lord," II Corinthians xi. They say therefore with the Psalmist: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to Your name give the glory," Psalm cxiii.
5. YOU WHO RAISED A DEAD MAN FROM THE NETHERWORLD, FROM THE LOT OF DEATH, BY THE WORD OF THE LORD GOD. — The Syriac: You who revived a dead man from the netherworld according to the will of God; in Greek: You who raised up a corpse from death, and a soul from the netherworld by the word of the Most High; Vatablus: You who, raising the dead from death, and a soul from Hades by the word of the Most High.
This is the third prodigy of Elijah, that he was the first since the creation of the world to recall a dead person to life. This was the boy, the son of the widow of Zarephath, whom Elijah raised by his word, that is, by the invocation of God, III Kings xvii, 21: "He stretched himself out," it says, "and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech You, return into his body. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived."
The Hebrews relate, followed by Dorotheus in his Synopsis on Jonah, Rupert and others, that this boy raised by Elijah was Jonah the prophet, who would therefore be called the son of Amathi, that is, of truth, because the mother seeing her son raised said to Elijah: "Now in this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true." But they are mistaken; for neither the time, nor the father, nor the other circumstances agree, as I showed in the Prooemium to Jonah.
Note: "You raised from the lot of death" means the same as "you raised from the netherworld"; for before Christ, the lot of death and of the dying was the netherworld, namely the Limbo of the Fathers; for all the just descended there. This was the happy lot of the boy, by which he was transferred from the lot of death to the lot of life and of the living. So St. Francis raised St. Bonaventure from the lot of death, and from this he was called Bonaventure: for when at the age of four he lay languishing unto death, and no hope of life remained, nor any remedy of physicians; his pious mother commended her vows and the boy to the prayers and merits of St. Francis, vowing that if she received the youth back in health, she would restore him to the same saint and offer him to the Order of Friars Minor. St. Francis, consoling the grieving mother, prayed for the boy and obtained that he suddenly leapt up in health, and rejoicing at this sudden miracle, and prophesying the future, he said in his native tongue: "O Bonaventura!" and from then on this name stuck to him; for previously he was called John. Hence in certain ancient codices of his we read the inscription: "Brother John Bonaventure"; but since more often all things, with God's help, went well and happily for him, it came about that he was commonly called simply Bonaventure by the Latins and Italians, and Eutychius by the Greeks, that is, of good fortune, or Fortunatus. So Wadding, in the Annals of the Minors, year of Christ 1221, number 25.
Thus tropologically and anagogically all the Saints, especially those who are to be saved and elected, rescued from the death of sin and hell, are Bonaventures and fortunate, even though they are beset by many adversities and temptations; but the impious and the reprobate, even though they triumph here, are and will be Malaventures and unhappy. For, as St. Augustine says, book XII of The City of God, chapter xx: "The hope of our unhappiness is also the unhappiness of our happiness"; for although St. Augustine says this with a different meaning and purpose, namely against the Origenists, who posited a circulation of souls, by which the damned would sometimes be saved, and the blessed sometimes damned, nevertheless the same saying better fits this place, namely the pious and impious in this life: for in these it is absolutely true, in those only conditionally, namely supposing the opinion of Origen, which is in itself false.
6. YOU WHO CAST DOWN KINGS TO DESTRUCTION, AND EASILY BROKE THEIR POWER, AND THE GLORIOUS FROM THEIR BED. — The Greek, concise and bipartite as usual, reads thus: You who brought down kings to destruction and the glorious from their bed. So the Complutensian; for this means: You easily broke their power; hence Vatablus: You who brought kings to ruin and the glorious from their seat, and broke their power; the Syriac: Casting down the honorable from their thrones. And it adds: And he caused them to hear in his trial the reproof of them; for which our translator renders: You who hear judgment on Sinai.
This is the fourth prodigy of Elijah, the opposite of the preceding one; for in the third he raised from death the son of a poor widow, but here he punished powerful kings with death on account of idolatry and crimes. There were four of them. The first was Ahab with his impious wife Jezebel; for to both Elijah foretold and threatened destruction, and by his prayers obtained it from God, III Kings xxi, where on account of the murder of Naboth he threatens destruction from the mouth of God upon him and his entire family: "I will destroy," He says, "of Ahab every male (that is, all even to the last dog) and the least and last in Israel." And verse 23: "The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the field of Jezreel," so that where she had sinned, there she would be punished; for the vineyard of Naboth, in order to seize which she had unjustly put him to death,
was situated in Jezreel. The second was Ahaziah son of Ahab, who when sick consulted Beelzebub the god of Ekron, whether he would be restored to health or would die; for this crime Elijah announced his death, IV Kings I. The third was Joram brother of Ahaziah, who succeeded him upon his death in the kingdom of Israel, whom Jehu killed along with the entire dynasty of Ahab, and thus destroyed the entire family of Ahab, as Elijah had foretold, IV Kings ix. The fourth was another Joram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to whom Elijah by letter threatened disease and death from it; and so both in Joram and in Ahaziah was fulfilled what Sirach here says of Elijah: "He cast the glorious from their bed." Hear the account in II Paralipomenon xxi, 12, where Scripture, having recounted the apostasy and crimes of Joram, adds: "And letters were brought to him from Elijah the prophet, in which was written: Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, and in the ways of Asa king of Judah, but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, imitating the fornication of the house of Ahab, and moreover have killed your brothers of your father's house, who were better than you; behold the Lord will strike you with a great plague, along with your people and your sons and your wives, and all your substance: and you will suffer a most grievous sickness of your bowels, until your entrails come out little by little day by day"; and verse 18: "And on top of all this the Lord struck him with an incurable disease of the bowels. And as day followed day, and the course of time rolled on, the cycle of two years was completed, and thus consumed by a long wasting disease, so that he even discharged his own entrails, he was deprived alike of his sickness and his life. And he died of a most wretched infirmity; and the people did not perform for him funeral rites with the burning of spices, as they had done for his forefathers."
Note here that Elijah sent these letters after his rapture from paradise. For he was taken up during the reign of Jehoshaphat, father of Joram, and consequently before Joram reigned, as is clear from the fact that under Jehoshaphat Elisha, the disciple and successor of Elijah, prophesied, IV Kings III, 14. So think the Hebrews in the Seder Olam, chapter xvii, Lyranus, Malvenda, book IX On the Antichrist, chapter II, and our own Salianus, in his Annals, where he asserts that Elijah wrote and sent these letters to Joram nine years after his rapture from paradise, either through an Angel clothed in human form, or through a man, so that they might have greater weight and greater authority to strike him with fear, and to convert his followers. Unless you say with Torniello and Emmanuel Sa that Elijah, foreknowing the future, wrote these letters before his rapture, and handed them to Elisha, so that after his rapture he might deliver them to King Joram at the proper time. For what Cajetan asserts, that the Elijah who wrote these letters was a different person from Elijah the Tishbite prophet, lacks foundation as well as plausibility.
From what has been said you may see that Elijah, although an inhabitant of paradise, nevertheless maintains his former zeal for God, and cares for the affairs of mortals, and is concerned about the salvation of his people. Jeremiah showed a similar concern for the Hebrews while existing in Limbo, praying for them and for Judas Maccabeus, II Maccabees xv, 14. So Elijah with Moses appeared to Peter, James, and John at the transfiguration of Christ, and bore testimony to Him, that He was the true Messiah, Matthew xvii.
7. YOU WHO HEAR ON SINAI A JUDGMENT (in Greek ἐλεγμόν, that is, a rebuke; the Syriac, a reproof) AND ON HOREB THE JUDGMENTS OF DEFENSE — that is, of vengeance (for this is what the Greek ἐκδικήσεως means), by which, namely, God was going to defend His honor in such a way as to avenge and punish the idolaters at the same time. See what was said on chapter xlvii, verse 31. Therefore "judgment" signifies one thing in this passage, and "judgments" another. Hence the Complutensian reads: You who hear on Sinai the reproof of the Lord, and on Horeb the judgments of vengeance. Horeb, or as the Hebrews say, Choreb, is Mount Sinai, or a part of it, as I said on Exodus xvii, 6. This is the fifth portent of Elijah. He cites III Kings xix, 12, where Elijah, fleeing the raging persecution of Jezebel, on one hand fearful, fainthearted and grieving, on the other burning with zeal for vengeance and wishing that God would destroy and annihilate Jezebel and her followers, was gently rebuked and corrected by the Lord through the whisper of a gentle and light breeze. For when Elijah, fearful and troubled, was dwelling in a cave of Mount Sinai, God said to him: "What are you doing here, Elijah? And he answered: With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant; they have destroyed Your altars, they have killed Your Prophets with the sword, I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away. And He said to him: Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord; and behold the Lord passes, and a great and strong wind overturning mountains and breaking rocks before the Lord; the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake; the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire; the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire the whisper of a gentle breeze." The Septuagint adds: "And there was the Lord"; for from this whisper God spoke to Elijah, partly consoling him and rebuking his faintheartedness and distrust, partly giving him the judgments of defense, that is, the decrees of vengeance upon the impious idolaters, which Elijah desired. For He says in the same passage, verse 15: "Anoint Hazael king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat, who is from Abel-meholah, you shall anoint prophet in your place. And it shall be: Whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. And I will leave for Myself in Israel seven thousand men, whose knees have not bowed before Baal, and every mouth that has worshipped him by kissing the hands."
Note that the purpose and aim of this vision was for God to pacify, console, and instruct Elijah, who was burning with anger, weariness, and grief over the impunity of the idolaters and Jezebel. At the beginning therefore He presents to his eyes three things most violent: namely first, a most powerful wind; second, an earthquake; third, fire, as if to say: All elements and all creatures, the highest, the middle, and the lowest, serve Me, are at hand and ready, so that I could destroy the idolaters and Jezebel instantly, if I wished, but this is not the customary mode of My providence and clemency; hence I do not wish to use it. Therefore He says to each: "The Lord was not in it." Fourth and finally, He presents to his ears a gentle spirit, or whisper of a breeze, so that through it He might represent Himself and His providence; for this gentle spirit signifies the divine patience, sweetness, and long-suffering in punishing sins and sinners, which Elijah and all the elect ought to imitate and put on. Hence for "the spirit of a gentle breeze," the Hebrew has קול דממה דקה kol demama dakka; which the Septuagint translates, φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς, that is, a voice of a moderate or gentle breeze. Tertullian, book IV Against Marcion, chapter xxiii: "A voice of a gentle spirit: Not in fire," he says, "was the Lord, but in a gentle spirit"; Vatablus: A quiet, faint voice; the Zurich Bible: A calm and thin whisper; Pagninus: "A thin voice":"
The Chaldean: A voice of those singing in silence; others: A quiet, thin voice. This was therefore properly a whisper; but it is called a voice, because from it God, speaking to Elijah, uttered a whisper-like, namely quiet, gentle, and thin voice. The quietness denotes God's meekness, the thinness His efficacy; for God's providence and operation, both in governing and in avenging, just as it is meek and gentle, so in turn it is powerful and effective, according to that saying: "She reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly," Wisdom viii, 1.
So this vision is explained by Theodoret, Procopius, and Cajetan on III Kings xix, and Irenaeus, book IV Against Heresies, chapter xxxvii: "The Prophet," he says, "who was too agitated and eager for vengeance, was being taught to act more gently; and the coming of the Lord was being signified — gentle and calm after the law through Moses (when the Son of God became incarnate and lived in this world), and the gentle and peaceful rest of His kingdom"; namely God is calm, both in punishing and in showing mercy: "And the calm God calms all things, and to look upon Him who is at rest is itself to be at rest," says St. Bernard in his Eight Points of Perfection. "Therefore all useful things, however necessary they may seem, must be spurned so that agitation may be avoided, so that the tranquility of peace and love may be preserved; because nothing is more destructive than anger, nothing more useful than charity, nothing more precious than tranquility of soul, for which not only the advantages of carnal things, but also of spiritual things ought to be spurned." So also Tertullian, in his book On Patience, chapter xiii: "She sits," he says, "(patience) on the throne of His most gentle and most meek spirit, which is not gathered in a whirlwind, does not grow dark with clouds; but is open and simple, of tender serenity, whom Elijah saw the third time: for where God is, there also is His nursling, namely patience. When therefore the Spirit of God descends, His inseparable companion patience accompanies Him; if we admit her with the Spirit, she will dwell in us forever." See St. Gregory, V Moralia xxvi, where he takes this gentle spirit as the Holy Spirit.
Therefore this spirit, or thin and gentle whisper, bore the voice of God instructing Elijah, who was too disturbed and fainthearted, and who thought he was the only remaining worshipper, prophet, and champion of the true God, that all the rest had been killed by Ahab and Jezebel. Hence rebuking this, God said to him: "I will leave (I will reserve) for Myself in Israel seven thousand men, whose knees have not bowed before Baal."
Again, this spirit or thin whisper signified God's spiritual power and effective vengeance that penetrates all things; just as a thin spirit or wind penetrates everything. Hence this whisper likewise contained "judgments of defense," that is, of vengeance; both because before himself, like lictors, it sent forth a most powerful wind, an earthquake, and fire, which God can use at will and does use from time to time to punish the impious; but in such a way that He Himself remains in the gentle spirit, that is, in His meekness and tranquility of soul; and because from this whisper God indicated to Elijah the manner of vengeance to be exercised upon the idolaters and Jezebel through Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha. Therefore through this gentle whisper Elijah indeed laid aside the disturbance of his soul, his faintheartedness and impatience; but not his zeal for vengeance upon the idolaters. For through that same prophet, shortly after, III Kings xxi, he threatened utter destruction upon Ahab, Jezebel, and all their sons and descendants.
Hence some learned men hold that God in this vision showed as in a mirror the manner in which He Himself harasses and shakes sinners through terrors, plagues, and scourges, so that they may repent and receive the spirit of gentleness and the grace of reconciliation with God; and also the manner which princes, judges, rulers, preachers, and others ought to observe in punishing and correcting transgressors of the divine law, namely that through sharp threats, rebukes, and scourges they should strike them with fear, and avenge the contempt of the divine law, and exact just punishment from the impious, and thus through these, like road-builders, prepare the way for God; while through those means they drive sinners to repentance and a change of life, so that they should not assume the sweetness of the gentle and refreshing breeze until they see God and His reconciliation and grace approaching, before whom come the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, that is, threats, terrors, and scourges.
This meaning is indicated by the Chaldean version, which is beautiful, and signifies that all these things were done through angels; for it reads thus: Behold the glory of the Lord is revealed, and before Him was an army of angels of the wind, rending mountains and breaking rocks before the Lord; the majesty of the Lord was not in the army of angels of the wind. And after the army of angels of the wind was an army of earthquake; the majesty of the Lord was not in the army of angels of the earthquake. And after the army of angels of the earthquake, an army of angels of fire; the majesty of the Lord was not in the army of angels of fire. And after the army of angels of fire, a voice of those singing in silence, as it were caressing, and by their song gladdening the soul of Elijah which was grieving, fearful, and troubled.
8. YOU WHO ANOINT KINGS FOR REPENTANCE AND MAKE PROPHETS YOUR SUCCESSORS AFTER YOU. — This is the sixth outstanding deed of Elijah, that namely by God's command he anointed Hazael as king of Syria, and Jehu as king of Israel "for repentance," that is, for the punishment and vengeance of the idolaters, so that they would punish and kill the worshippers of Baal and Jezebel; for the Greek has εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν, that is, for retribution, so that you might impose and repay upon them the punishments deserved by their crimes. So Lyranus, Hugo, Jansenius, and others. Hence Vatablus translates: You who anointed kings for rendering retribution, and prophets as your successors. It is an enallage of number, "prophets" for "prophet"; for Elijah anointed only one Elisha as prophet, and thus designated him as his successor.
III Kings xix, 19; but one Elisha was the equivalent of many. The Syriac: anointing kings to overcome by obligations, that is, binding them to carry out God's vengeance.
Palacius interprets differently: "For repentance," he says, that is, because God repented that He had established Ben-hadad as king of Syria; therefore He ordered him to be killed by Hazael, and Hazael himself to be anointed king of Syria through Elijah, IV Kings viii; and because He had established Joram son of Ahab as king of Israel: therefore He ordered him to be killed by Jehu, and Jehu himself to be anointed king of Israel through Elijah, IV Kings ix. So of Saul God says: "I repent that I made Saul king," I Kings xv, 11. But the Greek requires the former sense.
You will object: Hazael and Jehu were anointed as kings by Elisha, so how is it said here that Elijah anointed them? I respond first, because Elijah commanded Elisha to anoint them as kings; for what someone does through another, he is considered to have done himself, as the rule of law holds; second, it seems that Elijah also anointed them himself; for God expressly commanded him to do so, III Kings xix, 15, and there is no doubt that Elijah obeyed, so that Elisha anointed them a second time, and confirmed Elijah's anointing. So too Saul and David were anointed as kings a second time, as is clear from I Kings x, 1, joined with I Kings xi, 14 and 15, and I Kings xvi, 13, joined with II Kings v, 3. So Palacius. See Abulensis, III Kings XIX, Question XXI.
9. YOU WHO WERE TAKEN UP (in Greek ἀναληφθείς, that is, assumed) IN A WHIRLWIND OF FIRE, IN A CHARIOT OF FIERY HORSES. — The Arabic: And a whirlwind carried you away to paradise with horses, that is, fiery ones, so that you who in life had commanded fire in heaven, should now be borne to heaven by fire as its commander and conqueror. For "in a whirlwind," the Greek has ἐν λαίλαπι, that is, in a fiery storm. It seems therefore that God sent forth lightning, flashes, and thunderbolts, and similar fiery storms, which would catch up Elijah and carry him to heaven. Vatablus: "You who were lifted by a fiery storm in a chariot of burning horses"; the Syriac: You were caught up above by fiery horses into heaven.
This is the seventh prodigy of Elijah, truly wondrous and stupendous. The history is narrated in IV Kings II, 11: "Behold," it says, "a fiery chariot and fiery horses separated them both (Elijah and Elisha), and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and cried out: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its driver." The Hebrews and the Septuagint: The chariot of Israel and its horsemen, as if to say: You, O Elijah, are the entire strength of Israel; for by your zeal, as well as by your reasoning and prayers, you help Israel more than a great multitude of chariots and armed horsemen. So Procopius, the Chaldean, Vatablus, Cajetan, and others.
Note: St. Chrysostom, in his sermon On the Ascension of Elijah, considers this chariot and horses to have been truly fiery, indeed fires themselves: "He stands fearless," he says, "upon the fire and wheels, and his feet do not grow warm at all. Fire surrounds his entire body, and he is not harmed; the flame runs harmlessly over the neck, over the sides." But this chariot does not seem to have been truly fiery, nor the horses truly fiery; for they would have burned Elijah (unless you posit a miracle here without necessity); but they appeared fiery, and had only the appearance of fire; for they were in reality angels, who were carrying Elijah upward; but they assumed the appearance of a chariot and fiery horses, just as they assume the appearance of a human body when they appear to men; for it is certain that that is only an appearance and likeness, not the reality of a human body.
Moreover this was done for many reasons. The first is that this fiery chariot and horses represented the fiery spirit of Elijah toward God, his fiery charity, his fiery zeal; for on account of this he deserved to be borne to heaven in this fiery chariot. So St. Ambrose on Psalm cxviii, octonary 7: "He revealed," he says, "that Elijah, on account of his zeal for God, raised in a chariot into the air, acquired the lodging of a heavenly seat through a new kind of dwelling." So too St. Chrysostom, sermon 1 On Elijah, at the end, gives the cause of Elijah's rapture as his excessive zeal, lest by it the world would be destroyed and perish; for he thus presents God speaking to Elijah: "Because you cannot bear sinners on account of the excess of your zeal, ascend as it were into heaven; but I will be a pilgrim on earth. For if you are to remain long on earth, the human race, which is continually punished by you, would soon be destroyed. Then pass into heaven, O Elijah, fire cannot dwell with stubble. You will henceforth have sinless companions; I will cause you to dwell among the choirs of angels; but I will journey with sinners, I who can carry the straying sheep on My shoulders, I who call to all sinners: Come to Me, all you who labor; I do not punish you, but I will give you rest."
In a similar way St. Francis, burning with zeal for God, while absent appeared to the Brothers of his Order like the sun, in a fiery chariot, as another Elijah. Hear St. Bonaventure in his Life, chapter iv, and from him Wadding in the Annals of the Minors, year of our Lord 1210, number 25: "Behold," he says, "around about midnight, while some of the brothers were resting and others persevering in prayer, a fiery chariot of wondrous splendor entered through the door of the house, and turned itself three times this way and that through the dwelling; upon it rested a luminous globe, which, having the appearance of the sun, made the night bright. The watchers were astonished, and those sleeping were awakened and terrified at the same time, and they felt no less the brightness of the heart than of the body; for by the power of the wondrous light, the conscience of one was laid open to another. For they all understood harmoniously, each seeing into the hearts of all the others, that the holy Father, absent in body but present in spirit, transfigured in such an appearance, irradiated with heavenly splendors and inflamed with ardors, was being shown to them by the Lord through supernatural power in a chariot both shining and fiery, so that like true Israelites they might follow after him; he who of spiritual men,
like another Elijah, had been made by God a chariot and driver."
The second reason is that through this fiery rapture of Elijah into heaven, God wished to establish the faith, religion, and preaching of Elijah against Jezebel and the worshippers of Baal, namely that his teaching was heavenly and from God, who is a consuming fire; but that of Jezebel was diabolical and infernal. For therefore he was taken up into heaven, that is, into the air, since he was not to remain in heaven and the air; but was to be transferred through the air to the earthly paradise, so that his heavenly teaching and life might be shown to have come from God.
Third, because, as I said at the beginning, fire reverenced Elijah as its commander, and as a servant spontaneously offered him its service. The angels also looked up to Elijah as a man not only angelic but even divine: for the symbol of angels is fire, according to the verse: "Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire," Hebrews I, 7; for this chariot of Elijah was made of angels. So St. Ambrose, sermon On Elisha, at the end of volume I: "Elijah," he says, "the master of Elisha, was he not taken up to heaven with angels leading him, and placed on a fiery chariot, did he not ascend as a victor in a certain triumph? For he had been victorious not over barbarous nations, but over worldly pleasures; since evil habits are graver enemies than hostile foes; so that we may more easily understand that in our time the malice of enemies can be conquered more easily than morals. Therefore angels carry Elijah to heaven, angels guard Elisha on earth."
Fourth, because, as St. Chrysostom teaches, in his homily On the Ascension of Elijah, this fiery chariot, as a triumphal one, was owed to Elijah on account of so many of his illustrious deeds: "God," he says, "the King of kings, wishing that His Elijah, zealous with the entire devotion of body and soul, after the sweat of many labors, after the most grievous fatigues of terrible persecutions, after the great and illustrious victories of so many wars, bearing rich spoils from the world and the devil, placed upon a fiery chariot and flaming horses, with triumphal glory shining forth, should arrive at His kingdoms. For it was fitting that the guide of the erring people, the governor of sacred things, the moderator of conflicting pleasures, the charioteer of Israel, who recalled wanton and wandering souls to the yoke of the fear of God, restrained them with bridles and reins, and composed them in a certain harmonious union for running the course of discipline in a straight path, should fly upward to the heavenly kingdoms, borne on a chariot and horses. Hence I believe the poets and painters took their models for depicting the image of the sun; who, himself gleaming and radiant on a chariot and shining horses, lifted up from the wave of the Ocean, passing through the precipitous crags of mountains, seems to ascend as it were to the heavens, fashioned in the likeness of his light: for the sun in Greek is called Helios. Hence Elijah is truly Helios, since on a chariot and horses shining with fire from the Ocean's
wave, that is, from the turmoil of the world, advancing through the crags of mountains, that is, through the difficulties of great labors, he ascended, carried to the heavens."
Fifth, this fire befits the office for which Elijah is reserved, namely to precede the glorious and fiery coming of Christ for judgment: "For fire will go before Him," Psalm xcvi.
Symbolically, this fire signifies the fire of hell, which Elijah threatened upon sinners, while he himself held dominion over it; for as St. Chrysostom says in the passage already cited: "How much would this man have mocked the fires of hell, who had thus become accustomed to commanding the heavenly ones."
Allegorically, this fiery triumphal chariot of Elijah ascending to heaven was an express type of the glory and triumph of Christ ascending to heaven; for all the angels attended Him, including the Cherubim and Seraphim, who are entirely aflame and burning with divine love. For this chariot of Elijah was a chariot of triumph, just as the chariot of the Cherubim was the chariot of triumph of God and of Christ, Ezekiel I. So St. Bernard, sermons 3 and 6 On the Ascension of the Lord.
Anagogically, this fiery chariot of Elijah, which carried Elijah away to heaven and made him a candidate for immortality, represents the blessed resurrection of the Saints to eternal and glorious life in heaven: for by this fiery chariot Elijah triumphed not only over Ahab and Jezebel, but also over death itself. Hence St. Augustine, book XV of The City of God, chapter xxvi, calls Elijah and Enoch "the firstborn of our resurrection." And Tertullian, in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter xxxviii: "Enoch and Elijah," he says, "not yet discharged by the resurrection, because they have not yet experienced death; yet because they were translated from the world, and by this very fact already candidates for eternity, they learn the immunity of the flesh from every vice, from every harm, and from every injury and insult; to what faith do they set their seal of testimony, if not that by which one must believe these things to be proofs of future wholeness?"
Tropologically, St. Ambrose, in On Isaac, chapter viii, takes the fiery chariot as the four-horse chariot of charity, on whose wheels as on wings we are carried up, indeed we fly up to heaven: "With these wings (of charity)," he says, "Elijah was translated to the heights by a fiery chariot and fiery horses." The chariot therefore is the soul; the good horses are the four cardinal virtues; the fire is charity; the charioteer is Christ. The same author, in his book On Naboth, chapter xv: "When Elijah was being received," he says, "and was being borne as it were to heaven by a chariot, Elisha cried out to him: Father, driver 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 moderator of human minds, therefore as the charioteer of a good contest, you are crowned as victor with an eternal prize."
10. YOU WHO ARE WRITTEN IN THE JUDGMENTS OF THE TIMES TO APPEASE THE WRATH OF THE LORD; TO RECONCILE THE HEART OF THE FATHER TO THE SON, AND TO RESTORE THE TRIBES OF JACOB. — This is the eighth
The eulogy of Elijah. For "written," the Greek has katagrapheis, that is, enrolled, described. Whence many read "inscribed." The "judgments of the times" are the determinations of times decreed by God for future events, and as it were adjudicated — namely the times appointed by God for Elijah and for every person and thing. For God decreed by His just and wise judgment that after so many thousands of years, at such a time, in such a year, month, and day, Elijah would return to fight for Christ against Antichrist. Therefore "the judgments of the times" are the series, orders, and successions of ages and times and events that are to happen at any time by God's judgment and decree — namely the chronology that is in the mind of God and which He revealed to the Prophets. As if to say: You who have been prescribed and predicted to return at a certain time judged and determined by God, so that you may appease His wrath. Hence Palacius explains it thus, as if to say: You who have been inscribed, that is, about whom it has been written in the prophecies (namely Malachi 4:5), of future times, that you will come to appease the wrath of God. So also Dionysius. Less aptly, Lyranus takes "judgments of the times" to mean the times of judgment, as a hypallage, as if to say: He who has been decreed to come in the times before the judgment, to expose the treachery of Antichrist.
For "judgments" the Greek has elegmon (that is, demonstration — for elenchein means to convict, to prove, to show), which our translator calls "judgment," as if to say: You who have been written in the prophetic books, that in the revelation of the last times you will appease the wrath of the Lord; or you who have been described, who have been destined to appease, when the signs of the last time are made manifest, the wrath of the Lord. So says Franciscus Lucas here.
But for "judgments of the times," the Greek has: en elegmois eis kairous; which properly means "in reproofs for the times," so that at the opportune time you may reprove the wicked at the end of the world, just as you once reproved Jezebel and the worshippers of Baal. Hence the Greek text corrected at Rome reads: "You who have been described in reproofs for the times to appease wrath before the fury;" for they read pro thymou. But the Complutensian text, reading pros thymos, that is "unto fury," and instead of en elegmois reading elegmous, that is "reproofs," reads thus: "You who have been written to make reproofs in the times, to appease the wrath of the Lord's judgment (decreed and prepared) unto fury." Vatablus: "You who have been designated for reprehensions at certain times, to pacify the wrath of divine judgment before the fury which He will exercise on the day of judgment by casting the wicked down into hell." Others: "You who have been prescribed to reprove at opportune times, to calm the wrath of God." According to the Greek, therefore, "judgments" are called the just reproofs and corrections which Elijah will make in God's name against the wicked at opportune times. And so our translator, in verse 7, said: "Who hear in Sinai a judgment," that is, a reproof; for in Greek it is the same word as here, namely elegmon. The sense therefore fitting the Greek originals, says Jansenius, will be this: You, O Elijah, have been written to appease the wrath of the Lord, and this through your judgments and reproofs, which out of your zeal you will exercise at certain times among the people of Israel, so that, stung by your severe admonitions, having abandoned their vices, they may return to God, and thus the wrath of God may be appeased and calmed. For in Greek, in the more correct manuscripts, it reads: "enrolled in reproofs for the times."
And fittingly that phrase "in reproofs" or "in judgments" is referred to the following word "to appease." It is also clear that what is said "in the judgments of the times" refers to the judgments of God, to signify that Elijah will come so that, when the judgments of God are to be exercised at certain times by which He will reprove the world, he may appease by his teaching the wrath of the Lord. But in what manner the wrath of God is to be appeased he explains when he adds: "To reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob," as if to say: Elijah will appease the wrath of God by bringing it about that the Jews at the end of the world imitate their Patriarchs — namely that they believe in Christ now present, in whom the Patriarchs believed as coming — and consequently that the Patriarchs may acknowledge, love, and embrace the Jews as their legitimate children both in faith and in nature; and by this means he will restore the twelve tribes of Jacob, that is, all the Israelites, to the ancestral faith, religion, grace, splendor, and salvation. Sirach cites the words of Malachi 4:5, where I explained them at length. The Syriac: "He himself will come before the day of the Lord comes, to convert the sons to the fathers, and to announce to the tribes of Jacob."
Jansenius must be read cautiously here when he says that from this passage of Malachi and Sirach it cannot be proven that Elijah will truly come in the time of Antichrist. For it could be said, he argues, that Sirach says this according to the received opinion of his time, by which it was believed from the words of Malachi that Elijah would come, when in fact this was not to be fulfilled in his own person but in John the Baptist, who was to precede Christ's coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. But that Malachi, and consequently Sirach, speaks from the proper sense, that is, of the Holy Spirit, and that Elijah will come in person, I demonstrated at length on Malachi 4:5. Hence Jansenius, having reconsidered the matter more carefully, seems to have retracted his opinion in the Concordia Evangelica, writing on chapter 17 of Matthew. The same thing is clearly taught by the Arabic version, which reads: "And you are about to come, that is, you will come (for this is what this Arabism means, which the Arabs received from the Hebrews) before the mighty Lord, before His day, to turn the hearts of sons to their fathers."
11. BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO SAW YOU, AND WHO WERE ADORNED IN YOUR FRIENDSHIP. — He reads with the Roman edition and Vatablus kekosmemenoi, that is, adorned, decorated. Now the Complutensian and others read kekoimemenoi; whence they translate: "and fell asleep in love." The Syriac: "Blessed is he who saw you, and died; nevertheless he does not die (he will not die), but living he lives, that is, he will live."
12. FOR WE LIVE ONLY IN THIS LIFE, BUT AFTER DEATH OUR NAME WILL NOT BE SUCH. — The past tense words, "saw" and "were adorned," must be extended
to the future: "they will see" and "they will be adorned." For this is a prophecy about the future, namely when Elijah will return at the end of the world to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, as was stated above. The sense therefore is, says Palacius: "Blessed are those who saw you, and were adorned in your friendship. For we live only in this life, but after death our name will not be such." As if to say: Blessed are those Jews who will see you coming before the day of judgment and will be adorned by your friendship; because they will believe in Christ, and will be gloriously transferred by Him into heaven. But we, namely the Jews who will exist up until Christ's ascension into heaven, after our death will not attain such a name as to be immediately called and be glorious from the moment of death. So says Palacius, who takes these words as referring only to the future. More properly and aptly, others understand these words partly of the past, partly of the future, as if to say: Blessed both were those who of old merely saw you and loved you; and blessed will be those who will see you returning and will love you, and will receive your admonitions and carry them out in deed. For you are exceedingly unlike us; because we live only this mortal and brief perishable life; but after death our name will not be such as yours, who were never found to be dead; and after you were taken up, you are even predicted by prophetic writing to be sent again, and this for the salvation of the whole people. So says Jansenius. After death, therefore, our name will not be such as yours; because neither our life, nor our teaching, nor our deeds are similar to yours, says Lyranus; for we are far unequal to these things and to your zeal, and inferior to your heroic exploits. For that these words are to be referred both to the future and to the past is clear from the Greek, in which there are not verbs but participles idontes and kekosmemenoi, which can be rendered both in the future and in the past tense. For it reads thus: Makarioi hoi idontes se, kai hoi te agapesei kekoimemenoi, kai gar hemeis zoe zesometha; which you may translate word for word: "Blessed are those seeing you, and those who have fallen asleep in love, for we too shall live with life" — namely, after your return, having been converted and sanctified by you, and having died in God's grace and charity, we shall rise to glory and be endowed by Christ the Judge with blessed and eternal life. The Zurich Bible: "Blessed are those who will see you and will be adorned with benevolence, because we shall live with life." Others: "Blessed are those who will see you; and who will have fallen asleep in charity; for we too shall live with life."
Morally, learn here how salutary and blessed it is to associate with outstanding men, full of wisdom and zeal; for they rub their zeal and spirit onto those who are familiar with them, and as it were breathe it into them. For just as a straw, if it approaches a fire, is warmed by it and finally ignited, so likewise one who approaches a man burning with divine fire is kindled and inflamed by the same. Thus Elisha and the sons of the Prophets, associating with Elijah, imbibed his zeal and heroic spirit and expressed them in their deeds. So those who dealt with St. Paul and the Apostles put on their fiery spirits. So Isaiah, in chapter 6, engaging with the angels and Seraphim, was made angelic and Seraphic by them. So those who associated with St. Francis drank in the burning spirit of his poverty, prayer, and charity. Conversely, one who associates with the timid, the lukewarm, and the lazy becomes himself timid, lukewarm, and lazy, according to the saying: "He who walks with wise men will be wise; a friend of fools will become like them" (Proverbs 13:20).
Second Part of the Chapter. Encomium of Elisha
13. ELIJAH INDEED (so the Roman edition; less correctly the other Latin and Greek texts read "who" instead of "indeed") WAS COVERED IN A WHIRLWIND (the Syriac: "was gathered up into heaven"), AND IN ELISHA HIS SPIRIT WAS FULFILLED — that is to say, Elijah was indeed covered by a whirlwind and snatched away from men, from earth to heaven, "and," that is "but," nevertheless he left his spirit on earth; for with it he filled Elisha, his disciple, heir, and successor. It is a hypallage. "In Elisha the spirit of Elijah was fulfilled," that is, Elisha was filled with the spirit of Elijah, as the Greek has it. Vatablus: "Elijah who was covered in a whirlwind, and with whose spirit Elisha was filled." Others clearly render the Hebraism that is in the Greek: "Of this Elijah, they say, who was covered by a whirlwind, even Elisha's spirit was filled;" or "even Elisha was filled with his spirit." The Complutensian and others, reading hagiou (that is, "holy") instead of autou (that is, "his"), read thus: "Elijah who was covered in a whirlwind, and Elisha was filled with the Holy Spirit." Again, others reading stomatos (that is, "mouth") instead of pneumatos (that is, "spirit"), translate: "Elisha was filled with the mouth of Elijah," so that he had a fiery mouth and his word burned like a torch, like Elijah's in verse 1. The Syriac: "And Elisha received prophecy doubly, and his mouth spoke many trials and signs."
This is the epilogue and conclusion of the praises of Elijah, through which he fittingly transitions to the praises of Elisha. Therefore this is the ninth encomium of Elijah and the first of Elisha — namely that Elijah was of such great zeal that it extended not only to those present but also to the absent and to future generations, and that when he was about to be caught up into heaven, he transferred it to Elisha, so that he, as his vicar, might defend the true worship of God, fight against idolaters, and preserve Israel in the religion and piety of God. In this matter Elijah was a type of Christ, who, about to depart into heaven, imbued the Apostles with His spirit so that they might advance the Church He had begun and propagate it throughout the whole world. Moreover, Elijah, by communicating his spirit, lost nothing of it; just as one who lights another's torch with his own
loses nothing, but rather multiplies and increases his own light; and one who breathes his charity and zeal into others does not diminish it but intensifies it. The story is narrated in 2 Kings 2; for Elijah, about to be caught up into heaven, said to Elisha his disciple and successor: "Ask what you wish, that I may do it for you before I am taken from you. And Elisha said: I beg that a double portion of your spirit may be in me."
Here the question arises as to what the double spirit of Elijah was that Elisha requested and obtained. Many interpret "double" as meaning twice as great, as though the spirit in Elisha was twice as great as it had been in Elijah — the spirit, I say, of prophecy and miracles. For Elijah is recorded to have performed only eight miracles, while Elisha performed sixteen, which Rupert enumerates one by one in Book 5 on the Books of Kings, chapter 37. So say Theodoret and Procopius in the same place, and Rabanus here, who, allegorically explaining this double spirit of Elisha with reference to the Apostles, says: Christ, like Elijah, had a simple spirit, namely an abundance of graces and virtues; but the Apostles had a double one, namely the remission of sins (which could not exist in Christ, since He was sinless) and an abundance of graces. So also St. Prosper, Book 2 of On Predestination and Promises, chapter 30, where he reads: "I wish that the spirit which is in you may be double in me;" and applying this allegorically to the Apostles, he says: Christ, like another Elijah, poured a double spirit into the Apostles — once after the resurrection, saying: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you remit, they are remitted to them." Secondly, after the ascension into heaven, when at Pentecost He poured out the abundance of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, whereby the Apostles performed greater miracles than Christ had done, as Christ Himself had promised in John 14:12, saying: "He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do." Hence also Christ converted few in Judea, but the Apostles brought the whole world under Christ's dominion. So also St. Ambrose, Sermon 89: "Elijah, he says, though he himself had only a simple spirit of holiness, left a double one to Elisha. In a wonderful manner, therefore, Elijah left more grace on earth than he himself carried into heaven." Hence also Elisha brought a seven-year famine upon Judea, while Elijah had brought only a three-year one. Again, Elisha killed more idol worshippers than Elijah. The same St. Ambrose, in Sermon 2 on Elisha, which is found at the end of volume 1, says: "O precious inheritance, in which more is left to the heir than was possessed! More is obtained by the one who receives than was owned by the one who gives! A truly precious inheritance which, when transferred from father to son, is doubled by a certain interest of merits. Therefore Elijah, though he himself had only a simple spirit of holiness, left a double one to Elisha. In a wonderful manner, therefore, Elijah left more grace on earth than he carried with him to heaven; and although he himself is wholly transferred to higher realms in body, yet greater holiness remains with his son. But what shall we say of Elisha's merits, whose first
praise is that he wished to surpass his father in grace; since he asks to be given more than he knows the one who possesses it has? He is indeed greedy in asking, but worthy in deserving; for when he demands from his father more than he had, he makes him by his merits provide more than he was able to."
The author of On the Wonders of Sacred Scripture, Book 1, chapter 22 (found in volume 2 of the works of St. Augustine), adds to this and provides the reason: "In asking this, Elisha, he says, did not wish for a feeling of arrogance over his master; but seeing the innumerable sins of the people, he foresaw that they could not be restrained by the Prophet who would remain with only the simple spirit of Elijah, but required a double one." So also St. Bernard, Sermons 3 and 6 on the Ascension, who also adds a mystery — namely, that by Elijah is signified Christ, and by Elisha the Apostles, who performed greater miracles than Christ. For the mere shadow of Peter healed any sick person (Acts 5:15), which we do not read that Christ's shadow did. Finally, the Septuagint favors this opinion, translating: "Let the spirit that is in you be dissos," that is, "double in me." And the Syriac here: "And Elisha received prophecy doubly."
But Abulensis and others more probably hold the contrary and explain it thus, as if Elisha were saying: The spirit that is in you, O Elijah, which is double, let it likewise be double in me — "double," that is, manifold, great, strong, powerful. For thus "double" is often taken, as I showed on Jeremiah 40:2, Deuteronomy 21:17, and elsewhere.
This is proven, first, because Elisha would have been arrogant if, being a disciple, he had asked for a spirit twice as great from Elijah his master as Elijah himself had. Nor could Elijah give him what he did not have; therefore he gave him his own double spirit. And this is what is said in 2 Kings 2:15: "The spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha," and it was fulfilled, as Sirach says here, that is, full, not diminished. For just as Elijah had a double spirit, namely of prophecy and of miracles, so Elisha had the same fully, says Palacius.
Secondly, because Sirach in verse 4 here says of Elijah: "Who can similarly boast like you?" As if to say: No one was equal or similar to Elijah — therefore not even Elisha. Thirdly, because the text here says the spirit of Elijah was fulfilled in Elisha, not doubled. The Greek clearly states: "and Elisha was filled with his spirit," namely Elijah's.
Fourthly, because for "double spirit," the Hebrew has pi shenayim beruchakha, that is: "The mouth of two in your spirit let it be upon me," that is, "of two," that is, a double measure or double portion of your spirit. That is, says Vatablus: "Grant that two parts of your spirit divided into three parts may be with me." He did not wish to ask that as much grace be given to him as to his master, as if to say: Do not make me as great as you are, but give me only two parts of your spirit. So says Vatablus. Pagninus translates: "Let, I pray, the measure of two parts of your spirit be upon me." The sense therefore is, as if to say: The firstborn customarily receives the mouth of two,
that is, to have a double portion in the father's inheritance, while the other sons have a single portion. Let me therefore also have your spirit, not a single one like the other Prophets, but a double one, that is, powerful, strong, and manifold, for propagating and defending the worship of God against so many idolaters and enemies; for I, O Elijah, am your firstborn, indeed your only-begotten. I shall therefore succeed to the inheritance and possession of your entire spirit, so that I may be its heir to the whole. For the spirit of Elijah that Elisha was requesting is the one Sirach described in verse 1: "Elijah arose like fire, and his word burned like a torch" — namely, a fiery zeal for defending the true faith, love, and worship of God against idolaters, and for performing miracles in confirmation of the true faith and for the extirpation of idolatry.
Hence many interpret the double spirit as the spirit of prophecy and of miracles. So say Eucherius, Angelomus, Procopius, Theodoret, Lyranus, Dionysius, Palacius, and Jansenius here, as well as St. Thomas in Against the Gentiles, Book 4, chapter 41; for under prophecy is understood the zeal of preaching and defending the true faith, since this is what the Prophets did, and this was their office. Others take "double spirit" to mean the gift of sanctifying grace and gratuitous grace. Cajetan adds, on 2 Kings 2, who holds that Elisha asked for and received the simple spirit of Elijah, but that this was double in comparison with the other Prophets, because it was twice as great as their spirit. For Elisha was, as it were, the firstborn of Elijah, and therefore after Elijah was to be the prince and father, as it were, of the other Prophets, and consequently needed a greater, indeed a double, spirit. For a Superior who has the care of others and perfects them needs a far greater spirit than an inferior who lives for himself alone.
Tropologically, the double spirit is the spirit of the active and contemplative life; likewise, the spirit of prayer and mortification, for one without the other profits little. On this point, St. Bernard, Sermons 3 and 6 on the Ascension, says: The double spirit is the illumination of the intellect and the purification of the affections. Finally, St. Cyprian, or whoever the author is (for the more humble style argues that it is not St. Cyprian's), in the treatise On the Cardinal Works of Christ, Sermon 12, which is on the Holy Spirit, says: "Thus Elisha received Elijah's spirit as double — not that the same spirit was divided into two substances and the holy Prophet had two spirits; but that to the Christian people, whose type Elisha bore, having received the Holy Spirit, power was given in work and word, and having followed the ascending Elijah, that is Christ, with pious desire, he shone in faith and understanding, and blazed in life, signs, miracles, and examples. This Spirit, the distributor of sacred orders, creates kings and princes, consecrates bishops, and chooses priests. This Spirit endows Solomon with wisdom, Daniel with understanding, Joseph with counsel, Samson with fortitude, Moses with knowledge, David with piety, Job with fear, and to the holy
souls He fecundates with virtues of every kind, advancing peaceful affections to such an extent that our conversation is already in heaven, charity being poured out in us through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. He establishes His dwelling in chaste minds. He has the humble and celibate as His household members; He abhors the greedy, and detests counterfeiters. He condemns the mercenary Gehazi with leprosy, and places Jeroboam who sold priesthoods among the apostates. He disinherits Simon, the trafficker of God's grace, from the fellowship of the saints, whose detestable audacity avenging ruin confounds and shatters. He imposes silence on Balaam who was hired to curse, and having reproved him through an ass, with his foot crushed against the wall, empty of money, adorned with disgrace, sent him limping home confused. He is present in all the Sacraments of the Church, which He Himself effects and consummates. He washes away sins, He justifies the wicked, and He recalls the dead to life. He reconciles the quarrelsome and binds and ties them with the bond of love. He carries us into heaven, and having torn us away from the vanities of this world, He makes us heirs of the heavenly kingdom, whose supreme happiness is that this body will converse with the angels in spiritual affection, and there will no longer be any appetite of flesh and blood; but there will be full sufficiency for all, God will be known, and the Holy Spirit will be our indweller."
IN HIS DAYS HE DID NOT FEAR THE PRINCE, AND IN POWER NO ONE OVERCAME HIM. — In Greek: "In his days he was not moved by the prince, and no one subdued him;" for this is the meaning of ou katedynasteusen auton oudeis, that is, no one subjugated him, no one lorded over him. Vatablus: "In his times he was in no way moved on account of princes, nor did he endure anyone's dominion." He reads archonton in the plural, that is "princes," while our translator and others read in the singular archontos, that is "prince;" but by enallage of number, "prince" means "princes." The sense is, as if to say: Elisha freely prophesied and preached the worship of the true God, fearing nothing of the offense, threats, and slaughter of idolatrous and wicked kings; but intrepidly and to their faces he resisted them and reproved them. Thus, when summoned to the camp of three kings — namely two wicked ones, Joram son of Ahab and the king of Edom, and a third pious one, Jehoshaphat king of Judah — who all humbly begged for his prophecy and help in their thirst and lack of water, he boldly said to Joram: "What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and your mother, etc. As the Lord of hosts lives, in whose sight I stand, were it not that I respect the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not have attended to you or even looked at you" (2 Kings 3:14). Again, when surrounded by the army of the king of Syria, and his servant Gehazi cried out in fear: "Alas, alas, alas! My lord, what shall we do?" Elisha replied: "Do not fear; for there are more with us than with them. And when Elisha prayed, the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire" (these were Angels) "round about Elisha" (2 Kings 6:16). These auxiliary
forces of Angels made him more powerful than all kings and armies. For if God is for us, who is against us? If angels protect us, who can harm us? And in verse 32, concerning king Joram: "Do you know, he said, that this son of a murderer has sent here to cut off my head?" This intrepid freedom of Elisha was imitated by the heroes of the faith: St. John the Baptist reproving Herod; St. Athanasius, St. Hilary, Eusebius of Vercelli, and above all Lucifer of Cagliari, who fiercely attacked the Arian Emperor Constantius and called him Antichrist; St. Chrysostom reproving the Empress Eudoxia; St. Ambrose censuring the Emperors Theodosius, Maximus, and Valentinian, and the Arian Empress Justina — because, being full of God and protected by Him, they feared nothing created.
14. NOR DID ANY WORD OVERCOME HIM (the Greek has hypereren, which others translate as "surpassed"). — First, as if to say: No threats of king Joram or others, no flatteries and promises could break or cast down the adamantine spirit of Elisha, as is evident from 2 Kings 6:32. Hence Vatablus translates: "No thing overcame him." And Lyranus: "No word, he says, of threat or flattery drew him away from the truth." The Syriac: "And no flesh, that is, no man, lorded over him, and no word was hidden from him." Hence, secondly, as if to say: No hidden thing pertaining to good, whether his own or public, was hidden from him, nor surpassed his prophecy and knowledge; but immediately through the prophetic spirit he knew and revealed all things, just as he detected all the ambushes of the Syrians for king Joram (2 Kings 6:12), where the servants of the king of Syria, who suspected he had traitors in his household revealing his secrets to the king of Israel, exonerated themselves saying: "By no means, my lord the king, but Elisha the prophet, who is in Israel, reports to the king of Israel all the words that you speak in your bedchamber." So too, from a distance, Elisha saw Gehazi accepting gifts from Naaman the Syrian: "Was not my heart present?" etc. (2 Kings 5:26). Following this sense, the Arabic translates: "Nor was anything of the affairs of the age, that is, of this world, hidden from him."
AND HIS DEAD BODY PROPHESIED — that is, as Dionysius says, the buried body of Elisha raised a certain man killed by robbers, who, cast into Elisha's tomb, upon touching his sacred bones was revived by divine power; through which it was made clear that he had been a true Prophet of God (2 Kings 13:20). "He prophesied, therefore," that is, he performed a miracle; for this was the work of a Prophet. Hence Vatablus translates: "His body acted as a Prophet even after death." The Arabic clearly: "And being dead he brought the dead to life." This is truly marvelous and paradoxical — that a dead man should bring a dead man to life, when naturally a dead man makes a living man dead.
Note: To prophesy properly means to predict the future by the instinct and revelation of God; but because the Prophets who predicted the future were holy and zealous men, and did many other things for the glory of God, hence by catachresis "to prophesy" is taken: first, to mean to teach, or to preach, and to exhort to piety. So in 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle often calls teachers Prophets; for the Prophets taught, preached, and exhorted the people to pious worship of God. Secondly, it is taken to mean to sing psalms and to sing praises to God, for this is what the Prophets did. So Asaph and Heman are said to prophesy, that is, to play on harps, psalteries, and cymbals (1 Chronicles 25:1). So too Saul among the Prophets singing God's praises prophesied, that is, seized by the spirit of God, he sang praises to God. Hence the proverb: "Is Saul also among the Prophets?" (1 Samuel 19:23). Thirdly, it is taken to mean to work miracles; for the Prophets performed these, being holy and divine men. Fourthly, it is taken to mean to confirm prophecy. So the bones of Joseph are said to have prophesied, about which see the next chapter, verse 18. Here it is taken in the last two senses: for Elisha "being dead prophesied," that is, performed a miracle — namely, raised a dead man — and thereby confirmed his prophecy, that is, his preaching about the true worship of God against idolaters, as well as his own holiness. See what was said on 1 Corinthians 14, at the beginning of the chapter.
In a similar way the relics of the Saints prophesy when they perform miracles by which they confirm both their holiness and the true faith which they taught and preached while living. But properly speaking, some Saints after death prophesied when after death they were indicators and witnesses of hidden truth — as when Peter, who had died, was raised by St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Krakow, and testified before King Boleslaus that the price of the field he had sold had been paid to him by St. Stanislaus. So St. Anthony of Padua, in order to free from danger a father who had been falsely accused of murder, raised the murdered man and brought him before the tribunal, where, asked by the judge, he bore testimony to the father's innocence and exempted him from death. So Macarius the Egyptian, disciple of St. Anthony, freed a man falsely accused of murder by questioning the slain man and eliciting from him testimony of the accused's innocence, as is found in Book 2 of the Lives of the Holy Fathers, chapter 28. So the great Spyridon, Bishop of Trimithus in Cyprus, calling forth his daughter Irene from the tomb, learned from her the location of a deposit that the depositor had entrusted to her and was demanding back from her father, as Sozomen relates, Book 1, chapter 11, and Socrates, Book 1, chapter 12. Finally, St. Augustine, in the book On the Care for the Dead, chapter 16, says: "For certain, when we were in Milan, we heard that when a debt was being demanded from a certain man, and the deceased father's bond was produced, which — unknown to the son — had already been paid by the father; the man began to be deeply distressed and to wonder that his father at his death had not told him about what he owed, although he had even made a will. Then, to the exceedingly anxious man, his same father appeared in a dream and indicated where the receipt was by which that bond had been discharged. When it was found, the young man
having found it and shown it, not only repelled the calumny of the false debt but also recovered his father's bond, which the father had not recovered when the money was paid."
15. IN HIS LIFE HE DID WONDERS (the Greek has terata, that is, portents, prodigies, miracles; hence the Arabic translates: "He multiplied miracles in his life." The many and great miracles of Elisha are narrated in a continuous series from chapter 2 of 2 Kings up to chapter 14) AND IN DEATH HE WORKED MARVELS. — For Elisha, when about to die, laying his hands on those of King Joash and blessing his arrows, imparted to him strength and victory against the Syrians. Commanding him to strike the ground with his javelin, when he had struck it three times, he foretold a triple victory over the Syrians, adding that he would have had more victories if he had struck the ground more times (2 Kings 13:14). Elisha therefore prophesied both in life, and in death, and after death — that is, he performed miracles by which he proved to Israel that he was a true Prophet of God and that his faith and preaching were divine. Otherwise the Syriac: "In his life, it says, he did prodigies, and in his death (after his death) he brought a dead man to life" — about which see the preceding verse.
16 and 17. In all these things the people did not repent, AND THEY DID NOT DEPART FROM THEIR SINS UNTIL THEY WERE CAST OUT OF THEIR LAND AND WERE SCATTERED INTO EVERY LAND, AND A VERY SMALL NATION WAS LEFT, AND A PRINCE IN THE HOUSE OF DAVID. — Vatablus: "So that the smallest possible people remained in the house of David." The Syriac: "And Judah alone was left, small in power, for the house of David." As if to say: Elijah and Elisha, sent by God to extirpate the idolatry and wickedness introduced by Jeroboam into Israel — that is, into the kingdom of the ten tribes — accomplished little through so many signs and miracles, because the people, following their idolatrous and wicked kings, did not depart from their idolatry and wickedness. Therefore the entire nation of the ten tribes, variously afflicted by the just judgment of God through the kings of Assyria, was finally completely destroyed in the sixth year of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when Samaria was captured and the people were carried away into Assyria and from there dispersed throughout the whole world. When the ten tribes were thus carried away, there remained a very small nation of two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, and a prince and king from the house and family of David; but even this nation, infected in turns by the contagion of idolatry and wickedness from the related and neighboring Israel, worshipped now God, now idols; whence it too was finally destroyed by the Chaldeans under Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, and carried captive to Babylon. This is what he adds:
18. SOME OF THEM DID WHAT WAS PLEASING TO GOD; BUT OTHERS COMMITTED MANY SINS — that is to say: All the kings of Israel were idolaters and wicked; but among the kings of Judah some were pious, such as David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah; others were wicked, such as Ahaz, Manasseh, Jeconiah, Zedekiah, etc. Moreover, because among the pious ones Hezekiah stood out, and under him the captivity of the ten tribes took place — so that with the kingdom of Israel overthrown, he alone reigned in Judah — and under him the most celebrated Prophet Isaiah flourished, whom he had as a familiar companion and director, therefore, passing over the others, he recounts only the praises of Hezekiah.
Third Part of the Chapter. Encomium of Hezekiah
19. HEZEKIAH FORTIFIED (the Syriac: "repaired") HIS CITY (Jerusalem, the metropolis of the kingdom of Judah), AND BROUGHT WATER INTO THE MIDST OF IT (corruptly in the Greek manuscripts corrected at Rome it reads: "he brought Gog into the midst of them" instead of "Gion," about which presently), AND HE DUG THROUGH ROCK WITH IRON, AND BUILT A WELL FOR WATER. — He praises Hezekiah because, when a siege of the city of Jerusalem by Sennacherib was imminent, he fortified it by restoring the walls, with towers, arms, shields, and leaders; but especially with trust and divine help, as is narrated in 2 Chronicles 32. Again, because he brought water into the city, and for this purpose cut through the intervening rock with iron; for he introduced waters from the upper spring of Gihon into the city through subterranean channels and made them flow into a great interior pool which he built in the middle of the city to the north of the temple; and at it he built a well, so that it might irrigate the whole city (hence the Greek has "wells"), lest the people in the siege should suffer from a shortage of water (2 Chronicles 32:30). So at Bruges in Flanders there are no wells, but from one well or spring water is conveyed through channels into
all the streets and lanes of the city. Rome indeed is full of aqueducts, and in these the ancient Romans displayed their magnificence. Again, Hezekiah restored the spring of Siloam, to which the pool or swimming pool of Siloam was connected, in which the blind man, washing his eyes at Christ's command, was given sight (John 9). See Adrichomius in the Description of Jerusalem.
20. IN HIS DAYS SENNACHERIB CAME UP AND SENT RABSHAKEH, AND RAISED HIS HAND AGAINST THEM, AND LIFTED UP HIS HAND AGAINST ZION. — "Against them," namely the Jews subject to Hezekiah, whom he was besieging; for this, being well known from the Books of Kings, he leaves to be understood. Moreover the Complutensian Greek text (for the Roman repeats aperen kai aperen; whence they translate: "And he advanced, and advanced his hand against Zion;" but others read with our translator eperen kai eperen, that is, "he raised" and "he lifted up;" indeed Rabanus also reads both "raised" and "lifted up" and has it exactly as the Latin Vulgate) does not have the phrase "he raised his hand against them;" for it seems to be the same as what follows: "And he lifted up his hand against Zion." Hence Jansenius suspects that this repe-
tition arose from various versions being joined into one. For some codices have only: "And he raised his hand against Zion," that is, against Jerusalem, insulting it and threatening destruction. See Isaiah narrating his insolence and threats in chapter 36, where I explained them.
AND HE BECAME PROUD IN HIS POWER: — In Greek: kai emegalaucesen hyperephania autou, that is, "and he boasted greatly in his pride." Vatablus: "He lifted up his hand against Zion and gloried in his pride," blaspheming that God could not deliver Jerusalem from the hand of the king of Assyria, just as the gods of the nations had not been able to rescue their people from the same. The Syriac: "He lifted up his hand against Zion and blasphemed with audacity against God."
21. THEN THEIR HEARTS AND HANDS WERE SHAKEN, AND THEY GRIEVED LIKE WOMEN IN CHILDBIRTH — that is to say: When the threats of Rabshakeh were heard, the hearts of the Jews were shaken with fear and their hands with trembling, and they were seized with as great a grief as that which seizes women in childbirth. In Greek it is esaleuthesan, that is, "they were agitated, they surged," just as the waves of the sea are agitated and surge during a storm. Vatablus: "they were struck;"
others: "they were tossed about." Therefore they did not despair; but they implored the help of God, who, when human aid fails, immediately comes to the aid of His own and those who call upon Him.
22. AND THEY CALLED UPON THE MERCIFUL LORD, AND SPREADING OUT THEIR HANDS, THEY LIFTED THEM UP TO HEAVEN; for "Hezekiah rent his garments and covered himself with sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord (to implore God's help), and sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the son of Amos the Prophet," etc., saying: "Lift up a prayer for the remnant that is found" (Isaiah 37). Therefore the holy Lord God QUICKLY HEARD THEIR VOICE — namely, the holy God came to the aid of holy Hezekiah and his people at the prayers of holy Isaiah, and struck down and routed the blasphemous Sennacherib. Fittingly, "Isaiah" in Hebrew means "the salvation of God;" "Hezekiah," or as the Hebrews pronounce it, Chizkiahu, means "the strength and fortitude of God." Hence the Syriac here translates: "And Hezekiah spread out his hands before the Lord, and God also heard his prayer and delivered them through Isaiah the Prophet."
Fourth Part of the Chapter. Encomium of Isaiah and Hezekiah
23. HE DID NOT REMEMBER THEIR SINS, NOR DID HE GIVE THEM OVER TO THEIR ENEMIES; BUT HE PURGED THEM BY THE HAND OF ISAIAH THE HOLY PROPHET — that is to say: God did not remember the sins that the Jews and their fathers had committed, and as if forgetful of them, He prevented them from being handed over to Sennacherib; but He purged them from their sins "by the hand," that is, through the hand, that is, through the work and effort — namely through the exhortation — of Isaiah; for he, exhorting them to repentance and prayer, brought it about that, being penitent and asking pardon from God, they obtained it, and thus were freed from Sennacherib. Hence for "purged," the Greek has elythrosen, that is, "he freed" or rather "he redeemed" them. For the Jews had been consigned by Sennacherib to certain destruction, but God redeemed and freed them from him through Isaiah, who by his prayers and merits obtained this deliverance for them and promised and foretold the same to Hezekiah and the Jews (Isaiah 37:6). The Greek, concise as usual, has only this: "And the Holy One heard them from heaven and redeemed them by the hand of Isaiah." Moreover, Isaiah is given this eulogy and title, that he was a "holy Prophet," that is, singularly and eminently holy above the other Prophets, who were themselves also holy — but not like Isaiah. This is indeed a great praise and dignity for Isaiah; Sacred Scripture, indeed the Holy Spirit, thus canonizes him in this place, which you will scarcely find done for any other.
24. HE CAST DOWN THE CAMP OF THE ASSYRIANS, AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD CRUSHED THEM. — For "cast down," the Greek has epataxe, that is, "he struck." The Syriac: "he crushed." Vatablus: "he slaugh-
tered." The Complutensian: "destroyed utterly." For the Angel of the Lord in one night in the camp of Sennacherib struck down 185,000 Assyrians; whence, stripped of his camp, Sennacherib fled alone, and finally was murdered by his own sons (2 Kings 19:35, and Isaiah 37:36). See what was said there.
25. FOR HEZEKIAH DID WHAT WAS PLEASING TO GOD, AND HE WALKED STRONGLY IN THE WAY OF DAVID HIS FATHER, WHICH ISAIAH THE GREAT PROPHET COMMANDED HIM, WHO WAS FAITHFUL IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. — For "walked strongly," the Greek has enischysen, that is, "he conducted himself strongly, acted robustly, vigorously followed" the footsteps of piety and virtue of David his father. For he broke the idols, and even the bronze serpent that Moses had erected, because the people adored it as God; he destroyed the high places; he instituted a solemn Passover; he restored the worship and religion of the true God not only in Judah but also in Israel; he maintained the priests and Levites and exhorted them to conduct the sacred rites of God devoutly. On account of these works of piety, therefore, he merited that Jerusalem be delivered from the destruction of Sennacherib (2 Chronicles 29). For "faithful in the sight of God," the Greek has pistos en te horasei autou (our translator reads theou, that is "of God," instead of autou) — namely, "in his prophecy," by which he faithfully, freely, and constantly announced to the people the things that had been revealed to him by God; not his own inventions, or the dreams and fabrications of his mind, as the false prophets did. Vatablus: "trustworthy in his prophecy, or certain;" because he prophesied not doubtful things but certain things, which he knew for certain God had told him. For the Greek pistos, that is "faithful," corresponds to the Hebrew ne'eman,
ne'eman, that is, trustworthy, true, certain, firm, established, stable. The Syriac: "praiseworthy among the Prophets," that is, among the Prophets, or above the other Prophets.
Moreover, Isaiah is called a "great Prophet" because, set on fire by a Seraph with a burning coal, he was consecrated as a Prophet and made as it were a Seraph, and of the Seraphic order, to set ablaze with divine love the torpid and cold hearts of the Jews (Isaiah 6). Furthermore, Isaiah's greatness of soul and zeal shone forth in his most free censuring of the vices of kings, princes, and the people, and in threatening them with punishments from God impending over them. Hence that passage in chapter 1:10: "Hear the word, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah." Therefore St. Paul, in Romans 10:20, says: "Isaiah is bold and says." On which Origen comments: "He is bold," he says, "and preaches freely, knowing that death threatened him on account of it." For on this account he was sawn with a wooden saw and fell as a Martyr in a hard but glorious contest. Finally, Isaiah is the most magnificent, most eloquent, most sublime, and most illustrious of all the Prophets. See what was said in the argument on Isaiah.
26. IN HIS DAYS THE SUN WENT BACKWARD (the Syriac translates less accurately), AND HE ADDED LIFE TO THE KING. — When Hezekiah was sick unto death, Isaiah promised him from God health and life, and to assure this promise he caused the shadow of the sun on the sundial of Ahaz to go backward, and consequently the sun itself, as is clear from this passage. There was therefore a double miracle: first, that the sun went backward; second, that life was added to a king of desperate health. Both are attributed both to the piety and prayers of Hezekiah, which merited it, and to the holiness, prayer, and merits of Isaiah, which obtained it from God. Therefore Isaiah, in chapter 38:8, says to Hezekiah: "Behold, I will cause the shadow of the lines to return." Hence likewise the phrase "he added life to the king" is to be referred to Isaiah. However, it can also be referred to the sun, which precedes, in the sense that the sun going backward portended the return of the king's health, and accordingly that as many years should be added to the king's life as the hours by which the sun was increased on that day, namely fifteen. For among the Prophets, the one who prophesies or portends something is said to effect that very thing; because he foretells and declares it as certainly going to happen, for prophecy cannot fail; hence what it predicts must necessarily come to pass. Therefore when it predicts something, it in a moral sense effects and compels that very thing to happen. Hence St. Cyril, on Isaiah 38:8: "That Hezekiah was going to return to life, God made clear by the retrograde shadow of the sun, and the day being extended to an unusual measure of hours." And the author of On the Wonders of Sacred Scripture, attributed to St. Augustine, Book 2, chapter 28: "Fittingly, he says, such a sign most aptly befell the king placed in the expectation of death, which the Lord arranged to happen through the sun by a fitting dispensation; because just as the sun, positioned on the verge of its setting, is brought back to the beginning of the day, so the king, placed in the expectation of death, was as it were brought back to the begin-
ning of the joys of life. Moreover, the Lord said He would add just as much time, that is, fifteen years to his life, so that the son about to be born (Manasseh), when that time had elapsed, would be able to govern the kingdom of his deceased father." I discussed this regression of the sun and the healing of Hezekiah at greater length on Isaiah 38.
27. WITH A GREAT SPIRIT HE SAW THE LAST THINGS, AND HE CONSOLED THOSE WHO MOURNED IN ZION. — The "great spirit" here is the spirit of prophecy, namely a great and ample prophetic light with which Isaiah, being endowed, "saw the last things." In Greek: eschata, which word the Septuagint customarily uses to translate the Hebrew acharonim, that is, "the latter things," as Vatablus translates here. Therefore "the last things" or "the final things" among the Prophets are called the times of the Messiah, which were to be in the future after many centuries, even though they are not absolutely last, except that in respect to the state of the law of nature and the Mosaic law, the state of the Christian law is absolutely the last. He alludes to Isaiah 2, where Isaiah, prophesying about the time of Christ and the Church, says: "And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it." Add that Isaiah foretold absolutely the last things, as I shall show in the following verse. For "with a great spirit," the Syriac translates: "with a spirit of gianthood or of giants," that is, with a strong, lofty, extended spirit reaching very far, just as giants see farther than other men.
Moreover, Isaiah "consoled those who mourned in Zion:" First, when he refreshed Hezekiah and the Jews, who had been stricken with fear of Sennacherib, with the hope of certain deliverance. Again, when he promised a return from Babylon to the Jews about to be carried away there. Secondly, when he consoled the faithful and pious men of his own time who grieved over the crimes and afflictions of their age, with the promise of the coming of the Messiah as liberator and sanctifier. Hence he says in chapter 40: "Be comforted, be comforted, my people, etc. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem;" and so elsewhere he constantly encourages and consoles the faithful, and is wholly filled with divine consolations. Thirdly, since even now he consoles the faithful "in Zion," that is, in the Church, mourning the sins and miseries of this life, with the promise of the grace and glory of Christ. Hence in chapter 61:1, he thus introduces Christ consoling His own: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, etc., that I might console all who mourn in Zion, and give them a crown instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of grief." Sirach alludes to this passage here, as is evident to one who compares the words of both texts.
28. HE SHOWED THINGS TO COME EVEN UNTO ETERNITY, AND HIDDEN THINGS BEFORE THEY HAPPENED. — The Syriac: "Standing in the world he saw signs and trials before they came." Vatablus: "They foretold things to come even unto eternity, and hidden things before they happened." For Isaiah's prophecies extend to Christ and the Church, which will endure through all ages to the end of the world. For he describes the conception of Christ from the Virgin, His birth, preaching, miracles, passion, death, and resurrection so graphically that, as St. Jerome attests, he seems to act not so much as a Prophet but as an Evangelist. Furthermore, he foretells those things that will happen at the end of the world — namely, the universal judgment, the resurrection, and the renewal of the world, as is evident from chapter 24, verses 21ff., chapter 25:8, and chapter 26:21. Finally, he foretells the happiness of the pious in heaven and the unhappiness of the wicked in hell, both of which will endure for all eternity. Hence chapter 32, verse 17: "And the work of justice, he says, shall be peace, and the service of justice quietness and security forever. And my people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and in the tabernacles of confidence, and in wealthy rest." And chapter 33:14: "Which of you can dwell with the devouring fire? Which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" And chapter 35:10: "Those redeemed by the Lord shall return, and shall come into Zion with praise; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away." He has similar passages in chapters 60:19, 65:17, and 66:22.