ON ST. ELIAS THE PROPHET
IN PALESTINE
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY. ON HIS CULT, DEEDS, RAPTURE, AND RETURN.
Elias the Prophet, in Palestine (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. His cult, from the sacred monuments of the Greeks, the Latins, and other peoples.
[1] How stupendous were the deeds of the great Prophet Elias upon earth, how wonderful to all past ages his rapture into heaven, and his life continued through so many thousands of years—so much the more unusual must it seem that a man still surviving on the way should be enrolled in the sacred Fasti of the Church, The cult of the holy Prophet is proved from the Greek Martyrologies, since Ecclesiasticus chapter 11 verse 30 forbade any man to be praised before his death, and the common proverb holds that no one can be called blessed before his passing. But just as in nearly all other respects the prodigious Thesbite rose above the common order of nature, so this too is singular to him, that, transcending the most received maxims of the Church, he was in a manner canonized by God himself, as the most Eminent Bellarmine rightly noted in volume 2 of the Controversies of the Faith, book 1 On the Beatitude of the Saints, chapter 7. Certainly it is clear from the records of both that the Church, both Greek and Latin, follows Elias, still living, with the catholic cult of dulia. The Greeks indeed everywhere inserted him into their ecclesiastical fasti on 20 July. The Typicum of St. Sabas announces him thus on this day: Τοῦ ἁγίου ἐνδόξου προφήτου Ἡλιοῦ. That is: Of the holy and glorious prophet Elias. The Synaxarium of the emperor Basil on the same day has it thus: Ἡ πυρφόρος ἀνάβασις εἰς οὐρανοὺς Ἡλιοῦ τοῦ προφήτου. That is: The fiery ascent into the heavens of Elias the prophet. The Menologium of the Greeks, which Cardinal Sirletus translated into Latin, adds to the announcement a briefer synopsis of the chief Acts in this manner: The birthday of the blessed prophet Elias, who brought down fire from heaven, withheld the rain for three years and six months, burned up two companies of fifty, saw God on Mount Horeb (so the Greeks usually write for Horeb), divided the Jordan with his mantle, and was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot. That I may not be forced to repeat the same things too often, similar accounts are given by the Ruthenian Calendar in Possevinus, Sacred Apparatus volume 2 page 367, the Synaxarium of the Ruthenians sent to us from Moscow by our George David, the Slavo-Russian Menologium rendered into Latin by Baron De Sparwenfeld, the Calendar of the Greeks edited by Genebrardus, a manuscript Menologium which seems to have belonged to the Church of Constantinople, the Menaion of Chifflet, and other monuments of the Greeks both manuscript and printed, which we keep in our Museum.
[2] The printed Menaia celebrate the feast of St. Elias with a long and solemn Office, in the printed Menaia, and indicate the twin authors of that Office. The first Rubric names John the archbishop, who is perhaps John, Metropolitan of Euchaita, known for the several encomia he wrote in praise of the Saints, as may be seen in the Acoluthia of the Greek Office §3, which we prefixed to volume 2 of June. The author of the other part is one or the other Joseph (both flourished in the ninth century), of whom both enough has been said on 17 July in the preliminary Commentary to the Latin acts of St. Alexius, number 33. This whole Office embraces the excellent virtues of Elias and his illustrious deeds, which, since I shall afterward set forth from the sacred Writings, I do not judge should here be reported. I shall therefore bring forward only, together with our version, certain little verses, the first of which is an acrostic, to which the name of John the archbishop is attached: Αἰνῶ χορεύων Ἡλιοὺ τὰ θαύματα. Dancing, I sing the miracles of Elias. The other bears the name of Joseph after it, and runs thus: Νέμοις μάκαρ μοὶ θείαν Ἡλιοὺ χάριν. Obtain for me, O blessed Elias, the divine favor. Then concerning his assumption the following verses are read, also iambic, like the preceding: Ἐπέσχεν ὄμβρον πῦρ τρίτον φέρων κάτω· Σχίζει δὲ ῥεῖθρον Ἡλίας τρέχων ἄνω. He held back the rain, and thrice called down fire from on high; but Elias, tending to the heights, cleaves the water. Finally concerning the same rapture there follows this hexameter poem: Εἰκάδι βήσατο Ἡλίας οὐλυμπόνδε τέθριππος. On the twentieth Elias in his chariot mounts to Olympus. This last verse, with some change made, is found also in the Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides, which were prefixed to the first volume of May. Although in these verses there is a manifest allusion to the deeds of St. Elias, yet their point is obscure and blunt. For the rest, nothing is here to be noted concerning the poetic licenses, which the reader skilled in Greek poetry will easily observe of his own accord.
[3] The Horologium which was printed at Rome in the year 1677 for the use of the Basilian Fathers dwelling in the monastery of Grottaferrata, and in the ecclesiastical Offices of the Greeks, prescribes for 20 July the Office of St. Elias, in which the following Troparion is sung: Ὁ ἔνσαρκος ἄγγελος, τῶν προφητῶν ἡ κρηπὶς, ὁ δεύτερος πρόδρομος τῆς παρουσίας Χριστοῦ, Ἡλίας ὁ ἔνδοξος, ἄνωθεν καταπέμψας Ἐλισσαίῳ τὴν χάριν, νόσους ἀποδιώκει, καὶ λεπροὺς καθαρίζει, διὸ καὶ τοῖς τιμῶσιν αὐτὸν βρύει ἰάματα. These words I thus translate into the Latin tongue: The angel in the flesh, the base of the prophets, the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, the glorious Elias, who from above transmitted grace to Elisha, puts diseases to flight and cleanses lepers; therefore also he abundantly supplies remedies to those who honor him. To the Troparion just given is joined this Kontakion: Ἡλίαν τὸν Θεσβίτην ὁ ἀναλαβὼν ἐν ἄρματι πυρὸς ἀπὸ γῆς πρὸς οὐρανὸν, δός μοι τῆς ψυχῆς μου τὸ παραμύθιον, καὶ τοῦ γήρους μου τὸ στήριγμα. That is: O thou who didst take up Elias the Thesbite in a chariot of fire from earth to heaven, grant me the consolation of my soul, and the support of my old age. In another Greek Horologium, which was perhaps printed at Venice in the year 1607, the same Troparion is read; but the Kontakion differs, and is recited in this manner: Προφῆτα καὶ προόπτα τῶν μεγαλουργιῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν, Ἡλία μεγαλώνυμε, ὁ τῷ φθέγματί σου στήσας τὰ ὑδατόῤῥυτα νέφη, πρέσβευε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τὸν μόνον φιλάνθρωπον. That is: O Prophet and foreseer of the mighty works of our God, most renowned Elias, who by thy word stayest the water-flowing clouds, intercede for us with him who alone loves mankind. Thus far the encomia of St. Elias drawn from the Greeks please me more than that which I now subjoin here from the Appendix of the Council of Florence.
[4] among which the opinion of Marcus, archbishop of Ephesus, does not please us, Gregory the protosyncellus and patriarch, in his apology against the letter of Marcus, in our Labbe volume XIII of the Councils column 806, relates that Marcus, metropolitan of the Ephesians, was asked by the inhabitants of the island of Crete to write a sermon which they might read every year in the Office when the feast of St. Elias recurred. Then he says that this prelate satisfied the petition of the Cretans and composed a sermon on St. Elias, in which, among other things, the following are read: I indeed judge it necessary and true that it is permitted to him (namely Elias), as also to the souls of the Saints, to betake himself wherever he wills through time, and to visit the temples dedicated to him, and to approach those who implore his help; yet I would not on that account say that he is absent from the heavens and from the splendors that shine there, or that he too does not stand with the angels before the Lord: for so it would come about that he should have less than the other Saints, he who goes before almost all, if, because he bears flesh, he were deprived of their fellowship and did not enjoy the clear vision of God, in the enjoyment of which above all he did not lack through the whole course of his life. Then Marcus, to establish his reasoning, adduces the words of a certain Greek Office, in which it is thus sung of Elias: O Prophet, herald of Christ, thou art never separated from the seat of majesty, and thou art ever present to each of the sick, pouring out prayers on high for all, bestowing benefits upon the world, and everywhere celebrated with praises. From this opinion of Marcus, Gregory the protosyncellus argues indeed ad hominem, but does not approve it, as some have wrongly supposed. For the rest, to say what I think, the cited words of the Greek Office do not please me, if one should wish them to be understood strictly of the beatific vision of God. There displeases me also the consequence deduced from them by Marcus of Ephesus, which does not seem sufficiently consonant with sacred Scripture, Exodus 33 verse 20, where God says to Moses: Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live. This opinion the Apostle also seems to contradict, when in his First Epistle to Timothy chapter 6 he thus writes: The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone hath immortality and dwelleth in light inaccessible, whom no man hath seen, nor can see. Besides the things we shall say hereafter, see the theologians everywhere at hand, who commonly attack this opinion of the few by reason and by the authority of the holy Fathers. Let these things said concerning the Greek Martyrologies and Offices suffice; now let us pass on to
the Latin martyrologists and those of other nations.
[5] The Latins seem formerly to have celebrated the feast of St. Elias on 17 June: for on that day his rapture is commemorated in the Barberini manuscript, in our manuscript Florarium, and in Greven, Molanus, Maurolycus, and Canisius. The venerable Order of the Carmelites then retained that same day, as is clear from an ancient manuscript Calendar of that Order which is in our keeping, as was said among the Passed Over on that day. Afterward the most Eminent Cardinal Baronius, following the Greeks, inserted St. Elias into the Roman Martyrology, which was printed at Antwerp in the year 1586, on 20 July, thus: In Judea, of St. Elias the Thesbite, prophet. But in the edition of the year 1608, and in others later, on the same day it is read thus: On Mount Carmel, of St. Elias the prophet. Galesinius, however, placed him on the following day in his Martyrology thus: In Greece, of Elias the Thesbite. Perhaps he announces him in Greece because he was chiefly venerated there, as we shall see in the following paragraph. But I know not why, in the Usuardine appendices edited by Molanus, his rapture is placed in Arabia, since from sacred Scripture it is gathered that St. Elias was taken up from the earth in a fiery chariot not far from the Jordan, which is a river of Palestine or Judea. Whatever be the case concerning the place, which you see assigned here as different by various authors, the Reverend Fathers the Carmelites now follow the Roman Martyrology in observing the day of the cult, and celebrate the feast of St. Elias with a solemn Office on 20 July, as may be seen in their more recent Breviaries and Missals.
[6] Nor did the Greeks and Latins alone enroll Elias in the catalogue of the Saints, and he is commemorated in the Martyrologies of other nations. but other nations also invoke the same holy Prophet, and sometimes venerate him on another day and month. Peter de Natalibus, in his Catalogue of the Saints book 7 chapter 61, asserts that his rapture is honored by the Hebrews on the nineteenth day before the Kalends of September. The Coptic Martyrology, which Simon Moyses the Maronite translated into Latin in the year 1633, on the sixth day of the month Tuba, that is, with us 1 January, after the announcement of the circumcision of Christ, subjoins these words: Likewise of St. Elias the prophet. The Syriac or Chaldean Calendar, rendered into Latin at Rome by the same Maronite, together with the Greeks recalls the yearly memory of St. Elias on 20 July. The Arabic-Egyptian Martyrology, which Gratia Simonius, an alumnus of the Maronite college at Rome, and afterward, in the year 1682, archbishop of Tripoli in Syria, translated into Latin, on 20 July also has thus in our manuscript: The ascension of the greatest prophet Elias, taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot. Then there is subjoined the following elogium, which nearly agrees with the Greek Troparion given above: He who is in body an angel, and the mirror of the prophets, the forerunner of the second coming of Christ, the praiseworthy Elias of God, obtained from on high grace for Elisha to heal infirmities and cleanse leprosies, and will also grant to those who honor him to enjoy health. Finally, in the Calendar of the Ethiopians and Copts, which Ludolf published in his commentary on the Ethiopic History, on 1 December Elias the Thesbite is commemorated. This unanimous consent of various nations sufficiently proves the received cult of Elias, which we now proceed to confirm by other arguments also.
§ II. Temples and oratories dedicated to the Saint in the East.
[7] Sacred buildings were erected in honor of St. Elias at Sarepta, Among the chief signs of the veneration of the Saints certainly come the monasteries, oratories, or temples raised to someone's name: that these were long ago sacred to St. Elias will be shown by John Phocas, whose Itinerary of the holy places we prefixed to volume 2 of May, narrating thus of his church built at Sarepta of Sidon, in number 7: After Sidon the fortress of Sarepta is founded on the very shore of the sea, and the temple of the prophet Elias rises in the middle of the city, in the house of the widow who had received him with hospitality. Of the same sacred building St. Gregory Nazianzen had treated long before, who in the Billian edition volume 2 page 195 composed an epigram upon the temple of Elias, which was called χηρεῖον, and its beginning is as follows: Stranger, here thou beholdest Sarepta of Sidon, and the tower of the widow, who received the pious Seer of God into her most hospitable house with welcoming heart, when a harsh avenger pressed the cities with famine. Of the same place St. Jerome makes mention in his letter to the virgin Eustochium, where in the most recent Paris edition volume 4 columns 672 and 673 he thus enumerates certain holy pilgrimages of Paula: Having left behind Berytus a Roman colony, and Sidon an ancient city, on the shore of Sarepta she entered the little tower of Elias, in which, having adored the Lord Savior, they came through the sands of Tyre, in which Paul fixed his knees, to Acco, etc. I wonder that some more recent writers, citing even Gregory Nazianzen, place the aforesaid oratory of St. Elias on Mount Carmel, and call it Semnion or Dominicum, since Nazianzen indicates its site at Sarepta, and expressly calls it χηρεῖον, which Greek word comes from χήρα, that is, widow. Whence Du Cange in his Greco-barbaric Glossary says that by the word χηρεῖον is signified a house of widows, or one appointed for receiving and feeding poor widows, and from the aforesaid epigram of Nazianzen gathers that buildings of this kind were commonly dedicated to St. Elias on account of the widow of Sarepta, who received the holy Prophet with hospitality.
[8] on Mount Carmel, I would not have anyone so take these things said by me as if I denied that long ago a building sacred to Elias existed on Mount Carmel: for I most willingly acknowledge it, since it has been handed down by ancient writers. Benjamin of Tudela, who in the twelfth century set out from Spain into the East, in his Itinerary page 38 speaks thus of this matter: On one side Mount Carmel overhangs, and at the roots of the mountain are the tombs of very many Israelites, and on the mountain itself the cave of the prophet Elias is seen, beside which the Christians built a chapel, called that of St. Elias. But lest anyone perhaps refuse to give credit to a Jewish man, I add John Phocas, praised in the preceding number, who in the same century made various pilgrimages in the East, and describing Mount Carmel in number 31 has this to our purpose: On the extreme part of the ridge, which looks toward the sea, the cave of the prophet Elias is seen, in which, when that wonderful man had lived out an angelic manner of life, he was taken up into the air. There was in that place of old a great monastery, as the traces of the structures show even to these times, but it was utterly abolished by that time which drives all things into decay, and by the various incursions of the nations. But some years ago a certain monk, a priest in dignity, white-haired, sprung from Calabria, coming to the mountain by a revelation of the Prophet, girded those places, namely the relics of the monastery, with a very small rampart, and having built a tower and constructed a not large temple, and having gathered nearly ten Brothers, even now cultivates that holy enclosure. He who desires to know the present state of this sacred mountain, let him read, among others, our Joseph Besson, an eyewitness, in his Holy Syria, published in French in the year 1660, part 2 chapter 10.
[9] Francis Quaresmius, in his Elucidation of the Holy Land volume 2 book 6 chapter 8 of Pilgrimage I, testifies and not far from Bethlehem. that he saw another church of St. Elias, as he relates in these words: Not far from the cistern of the three Kings, in the middle of the road to Bethlehem, there is met a somewhat mountainous place and a memorable rock, in which the figure of a resting man, as it were impressed in soft wax, is seen, which the inhabitants of this region declare to be that of St. Elias the prophet: for they say that this holy Prophet, passing this way, slept there, and left the figure of his body miraculously impressed in it. And for this reason that place is called Saint Elias. When I first saw this place, it presented the elegantly expressed figure of a resting man; but by piety or I know not whether impiety, on account of the particles scraped from it by the Christians, I afterward beheld it again almost demolished. Not far from the road, on the left side, opposite this rock, there is a not ignoble monastery and temple of the Greeks, called by the name of St. Elias. But why it is so called, the opinion of all is not the same. Then Quaresmius, having refuted the erroneous opinions of certain persons, thus adds his own: Or was it, I say, distinguished by that name because St. Elias once passed this way? Or finally, which I think more probable, because by pious faithful people, on account of their singular piety and devotion toward that Prophet, that church was dedicated to his name, even though no particular mystery was there wrought by the Prophet? I do not doubt that on Mount Horeb and in other places of the Holy Land some sacred monuments, erected in honor of St. Elias, may be found. But for the sake of brevity we do not inquire into them more laboriously, and we descend to Greece, devoted to the cult of Elias now for many centuries.
[10] George Codinus, edited by Lambecius, in his Origins of Constantinople page 47 relates St. Elias in Greece under the emperor Zeno how and on what occasion the church of St. Elias was built in the fifth century. The temple of St. Elias, he says, which is called Petrion, the legions and the whole army of Zeno, returning from Persia, built by contributing a great sum of gold, with the aid also of Zeno himself and of Ariadne, in which camp he had appeared to them. An anonymous Greek writer, older than Codinus, in Anselm Banduri volume 1 in the Antiquities of Constantinople part 3 page 35, hands down the same history in these words: The temple of St. Elias, which stands in the place called Petrion, the schools and legions of Zeno returning from Persia built most spacious, by contributing a great sum of gold, the emperor himself urging it and coming together with Ariadne into a share of the expenses; because St. Elias had appeared to them in the camp. Already then a monastery, marked with the name of Elias, was standing, as I gather from the Council of Chalcedon, to which Eusebius in the year 451, in our Labbe volume 4 of the Councils column 233, thus subscribes: I, Eusebius, presbyter and archimandrite of the monastery of Elias, have subscribed in the deposition of Eutyches. The same appears from the Council of Constantinople, which was celebrated before the middle of the sixth century under the patriarch Menna, to which Silas, abbot of the monastery of Elias, subscribed. I know not whether the Greeks wish to indicate this monastery, when in the printed Menaia on 13 January they celebrate τὰ ἐγκαίνια τοῦ προφήτου Ἡλιοῦ τῆς μονῆς οὗ βαθέου ῥύακος, that is, the Dedication of the prophet Elias in the monastery at the deep stream.
[11] The emperor Basil the Macedonian always attended St. Elias with great veneration. and under Basil the Macedonian, to whose mother he had appeared, Perhaps this pious affection was instilled into him from tender years by his mother, to whom the holy Prophet had appeared and foretold the future dignity of her son, as Constantine Porphyrogenitus, describing the Life of Basil the Macedonian his grandfather, in the Combéfis edition number 8 relates in this manner: Not long after she sees in a dream a man weighty with age, sending fire from his mouth, addressing her in these clear words: To thy dearest son Basil the scepters and helm of the Roman empire are to be entrusted by God, therefore it is necessary that thou exhort him to go to Constantinople. The mother, diffused with this joyful message and full of gladness, having venerated the old man, said: Who art thou, my lord, who hast deigned not only to appear to me thy handmaid, but also to bring so glad a message? To whom he:
I am Elias, he said, the Thesbite. And having said this, he flew from her eyes. Leo Grammaticus and Symeon Logotheta and other Greek historians everywhere write that Basil had great confidence in the patronage of Elias, which indeed an ancient little picture still shows, which is preserved prefixed to a codex of St. Gregory Nazianzen in the library of the Most Christian King, number 155, as Du Cange attests in his Christian Constantinople book 4 section 4. In that picture is seen Basil clad in a precious and royal habit, who holds in his left hand a globe, and in his right, together with St. Elias, a labarum. On the left side is painted St. Gabriel, who places a diadem upon the head of Basil. There too are read these Greek inscriptions: Ὁ ΑΓΙΟС ΗΛΙΑС. ΒΑСΙΛΕΙΟС ΔΕСΠΟΤΗС. ΑΡΧΙСΤΡΑΤΗΓΟС ΓΑΒΡΙΗΛ. That is: SAINT ELIAS. BASIL THE EMPEROR. GABRIEL, LEADER OF THE HOST.
[12] He had oratories dedicated to his name. For the rest, Basil left various monuments of his piety toward St. Elias, which his grandson Porphyrogenitus committed to writing. And first indeed, in the edition of Combéfis already cited, he relates in number 81 how he restored the church of St. Elias at Petrion (without doubt it is the same which we said above was built under the emperor Zeno). The temple of the prophet Elias at Petrion, he says, being at almost its last breath, and whose ruin was nearly awaited, he strengthened and magnificently rebuilt, freeing it from the injury of the common buildings surrounding and pressing upon it. Then the same Porphyrogenitus writes thus of another church of St. Elias, built by his grandfather, in number 86: On the eastern part of the palace stands built the temple of Elias the Thesbite, most magnificently adorned with all ornament and grace, not only within but also without: for above, the whole roof shone with gold, aptly compacted throughout of little tesserae; although now by the force of steep rains, and by wintry storms and frost, it has lost and worn away the greatest part of its former beauty. Finally, in number 90, he thus makes mention of two oratories of St. Elias: In the Pegae, as they are called, the same emperor raised from the foundations the royal lodgings and dwellings, for the sake of change, and adorned them with the structures of sacred buildings. Among these is the venerable building of the holy prophet Elias… In the palaces of Hieria also he built an oratory of the same prophet Elias, which is esteemed second to no other in beauty and elegance. I am not unaware that other temples too are enumerated by Porphyrogenitus, which were consecrated to St. Elias and at the same time to other Saints. But these chief ones will suffice to prove the veneration of the Greeks toward Elias. How, moreover, the emperor Manuel Comnenus ordered the feast of St. Elias to be celebrated, may be seen in the Commentaries of Theodore Balsamon on the Nomocanon of Photius title 7 chapter 1. Now we return from the East into the West.
§ III. Sacred buildings erected to the same Prophet in the West; his miracles and relics.
The Eastern Christians, by building sacred edifices in memory of St. Elias, as we saw in the preceding paragraph, Churches of St. Elias exist showed their veneration toward this Prophet; but the Westerners have imitated the same piety now from time immemorial, as we shall declare by one example or another. Rocchus Pirrus, abbot, in his Sacred Sicily book 3 notice 2, among the other glories of the city of Noto, his native place, reckons the religious and hospitable houses, and to our purpose speaks thus in volume 2 page 223: Not to be passed over is one of St. Elias, which, by its proud and ancient mass, though in a small place, yields to none in Sicily: for it was founded on huge and squared stones. Report has it that it was built by the first colonists of this island, that from thence they might look out upon the shores of Pachynus, of stones laid one upon another without mortar. On a stone this distich is read cut in:
The mass, once the toilsome work of giants, Here Elias, living, began to be honored in this building.
Although in Sicily various Saints distinguished by the name of Elias are venerated, yet that the discourse here is of Elias the prophet is sufficiently clear from the epithet living, which is expressed in the verse.
[14] The same Abbot, in book 4 of the Sacred Sicily notice 8, treating of the monastery of St. Elias of Ebulus or of Ambula, in Sicily thus sets forth its foundation and the occasion of its foundation on page 66: The first foundations of this temple and Basilian monastery in our island were laid, about the year of salvation 1080, by that Roger of so vehement a spirit, than whom none was more warlike, than whom none more outstanding in piety, the first great Count of Sicily. When he had not yet gained possession of it all, he took counsel about storming the most ancient Troina, a city fortified by nature and art, and cultivated in common by Greek worshippers of Christ, in the time of the Saracens. In a rather eminent place among the groves to the north, five miles distant from that city, where in the night the Lord Elias the prophet had appeared with drawn sword against the enemy, having summoned his soldiers and the Christian inhabitants who assented, after a siege of a few days he subjected both the barbarians and Troina to his rule. Wherefore, to pour out the joy of his exulting spirit at the happy outcome of affairs, and to render due thanks to the Saint, he immediately built a sacred edifice under the title of St. Elias of Ebulus in Greek, of Ambula in Latin, that is, of GOOD COUNSEL, and bestowed it upon men living either from the city or through the groves village by village in the eremitic manner under the discipline of St. Basil, when they had been gathered. On the following page Pirrus produces the entire foundation charter, in which the groves and various other things granted to the monks are called by the name of St. Elias. Alexander III, the Roman Pontiff, confirmed this donation, but in Laërtius Cherubinus volume 1 of the Bullarium page 27 he calls it the monastery of St. Elias of Embola. I do not grasp how Pirrus makes the word De Ambula Latin, and hints that by it good Counsel is signified. But if he refers this signification to the Greek surname Ebulus, I nearly understand what he means: for εὔβουλος signifies a good counselor, which arises from the adverb εὖ, that is, well, and from the verb βουλεύω, that is, I take counsel. Wherefore this monastery ought properly to be called that of St. Elias Eubulus, if it took its name from a Greek origin.
[15] and the rest of Italy, Paulus Æmilius Sanctorius, in his History of the monastery of Carbone page 11, says that he hands down to the posterity of the town the benefits conferred by the greatest heroes upon the monastery of the holy great prophet Elias of Carbone. Then on page 13 he thus describes its site: In Lucania, a province of rich soil and abundant in flocks and herds, the monastery of Carbone, of the Order of St. Basil, dedicated to the names of the most holy Mother of God, of the holy martyr Anastasius, torn with monstrous torment among the Persians, and of the great prophet Elias, shone with singular honor and fame of sanctity for the space of a thousand years. Its origin is unknown, the glory of its founders being suppressed. Other authors assert that various churches in Italy are dedicated to St. Elias for obtaining rain, at which, in time of drought, supplications are appointed, and the desired rain is for the most part obtained. Before the rest, in the last century the temple of Sperone became famous, situated in the diocese of Nola, where St. Elias showed himself to be seen by Jacobus Antonius Galeota, the parish priest of that place, and promised his patronage against a contagious pestilence, if he would take care of the church dedicated to him, as we shall now disclose from authentic testimony.
[16] where certain inhabitants of the diocese of Nola The Carmelite Mirror volume 1 part 1 tract 2 chapters 34 and 35 exhibits the authentic testimony of the aforesaid miracle, which, rendered into Latin from the Italian idiom, we here transcribe. I, Don Giovanni Battista Fellecchia, dean of the Cathedral church of the city of Nola, and, at the time of the contagion, capitular vicar of the same city: I say that, when in the month of June, in the year of the aforesaid contagion, I was capitular vicar of the said city of Nola, there came to me Don Jacobus Antonius Galeota, pastor of the church of the land of Sperone, and told me that at night in a dream he had seen an old man with a beard, venerable in aspect, altogether like the picture of St. Elias in a certain church, not far distant from thence, which had once been the parish church of that place, but through age had fallen into ruin, so that nothing remained except part of the chapel, in which was a certain picture of St. Elias: but another new parish church had been built. The people meanwhile were borne with great devotion to the image of the holy prophet Elias in the aforesaid ruinous church; and sometimes during the week a lamp was lighted there before that image. This holy prophet Elias therefore, appearing to the aforesaid pastor, said to him: Take care of my church, and I will obtain from God the grace that the plague may cease. But I, not having an evident motive for believing that vision to be from God, sent him back to take care of the souls committed to him, which were in great need on account of the mortality of that time.
[17] in the time of plague He therefore went away thither; but the Saint did not delay to bestow the promised grace and miracles in this manner: A certain woman of that land of Sperone, infected with the plague, having a swelling or carbuncle in her thigh, went to the aforesaid church, where, kneeling with great devotion, she anointed the place of the contagion with oil from the lamp hung before the image of St. Elias, and was suddenly freed from the plague and restored to entire health. Presently she betook herself to the said village of Sperone, making manifest to the people what had happened to her, saying that the plague was no longer to be feared, since the oil of the lamp before the image of St. Elias drives away the plague. The report of that thing was at once spread abroad, and a great multitude of men flowed together to that ruinous church and the image of St. Elias, and all who were infected with the plague, anointing themselves with oil from that lamp, were healed. I, the superior and superintendent at the time of the contagion, perceived that from the day on which that concourse began to be made to that church, no one thereafter died of the plague, and I wrote to the neighboring pastors for full testimony. Here followed various testimonies of the neighboring pastors, among which the chief is that of the parish priest of Sperone, who confirms the things said above thus: I, Don Jacobus Antonius Galeota, curate of the parish church of the glorious St. Elias in the place of Sperone, dependent on Avella, give full and undoubted faith to all who shall read or hear these present words, both in judgment and out of it, even with an oath, my breast being touched, ready to confirm that in my aforesaid parish many were infected with plague and with other malignant infirmities, who, secretly going to the aforesaid church of St. Elias, anointed themselves with oil from the lamp hanging before his image, and who testified to me that they had been healed without any other remedy applied: but from that time no one thereafter died of the contagious disease. In faith of which thing I have subscribed these words with my own hand
at Sperone on 28 June 1656. Similar to this are the testimonies of the other parish priests.
[18] The aforesaid Don Fellecchia goes on to testify thus: When the aforesaid things had been published abroad in various places, they wonderfully felt his help, the people flowed together from every quarter, some in procession, others singly, and there received very many graces and benefits. On a certain day, among others coming thither, I saw Father Alessandro Carraciolo of the Society of Jesus, almost like a dead man, brought thither: when he had been anointed with oil from the lamp of St. Elias, he was at once healed, and still lives unharmed. The people continually ran up with great piety and confidence toward that same Saint, with many gifts and moneys, so that in a short space of time the offerings rose to several thousand scudi. Hence controversies arose among ungrateful men of no good life, claiming that that money should be committed to their care. To settle that controversy I labored anxiously, and forbade that anyone should thereafter enter into that church, which for some days I caused to be shut. That ingratitude and contempt, or slight regard, toward the church and its prefect, appeared to have displeased God and St. Elias: for straightway the plague began again to rage and crept on, and very many were dying. For this cause the people fled in throngs to that chapel; and very many things were offered, and I had in my hands several thousand scudi. That money I spent on the restoration of the church of St. Elias according to its former form, in conformity with the ancient walls. I also bought lands around the church, that from the revenues six chaplains might live, who should daily read Mass in that chapel, and exercise other works of piety. From the remaining scudi I made a foundation of forty a year for a schoolmaster to instruct the boys.
[19] as is clear from authentic testimonies. The people flowed together in so great a multitude that I was compelled to make two doors of the church, one for the sick coming thither to be healed, the other for the healthy coming to give thanks to St. Elias for the benefits received. But so great was the concourse that this could not be observed. To this present day that concourse and pious zeal of the people persists: for there is no week in which very many do not come thither with great devotion and gifts, to render thanks to St. Elias, or to entreat for new benefits. These are the things I know concerning the church and image of St. Elias, and I myself saw them: of which I bear full testimony, ready also with an oath, my breast being touched, to confirm before all those who shall see or hear these things read, both in judgment and out of it. In sign of the truth I have subscribed and signed these words with my own hand. At Nola on 26 October in the year 1659. While the report of so prodigious a patronage flew about through the neighboring cities, the clergy, senate, and people of Capua chose St. Elias, in the time of the same plague, as the patron and protector of their city, and decreed to celebrate his feast solemnly every year on 20 July, as is clear from the authentic Acts of that election, which may be read in the Vineyard of Carmel part 2 chapter 10.
[20] Another of his patronages, and his relic. I do not here recount other miracles of St. Elias which are commonly circulated; but I have chosen the best-attested, to which I add the help rendered to St. Patrick, apostle of the Irish, concerning which it is thus read in his Confession, in volume 2 of March edited by Papebroch, page 535: But on that same night I was sleeping, and Satan strongly tempted me, in a way that I shall remember as long as I am in this body: for there fell upon me as it were a huge rock, and took away the strength of all my members. But whence it came to me, I know not, that in the spirit I invoked Elias. And amid these things I saw the sun rise in the sky, and while I was crying out Elias with all my strength, behold, the splendor of that sun fell upon me, and at once shook off from me all the heaviness. Jocelin the monk, in the Life of St. Patrick printed in volume 2 of March, narrates these things more fully on page 544. I had resolved to put an end to this paragraph already, when I recall those things which I once heard in Spain concerning the relics of St. Elias, when I was engaged there in the years 1721 and 1722 in investigating the Acts of certain Saints. I began therefore to examine my collectanea, and among other things, in the manuscript reliquary catalogue of the monastery of the Escorial, which I had transcribed in part, I found that a small part of the mantle of Elias is preserved in that royal monastery. I have besides a catalogue, printed in Spanish, of the relics of Oviedo, in which is reckoned a part of the mantle of Elias the prophet. Whence, or at what time, those relics of Elias came into Spain, I know not. Lezana meanwhile, in the Annals of the Carmelites volume 4 at the year of Christ 1289 number 5, brings in Arnold Bostius in the Mirror of History book 7 chapter 33 speaking thus of the destruction of Mount Carmel: From Acre also the Saracens, proceeding to the holy Mount Carmel, which is not far distant from it, utterly devastated the monastery of Mount Carmel of the Order of the Brothers of the blessed Virgin Mary dwelling there, which they had often invaded but never destroyed (read: had destroyed): for slaughtering with the edge of the sword all the Brothers found there, singing the SALVE REGINA, they burned the whole monastery with fire; in which burning, as Brother John of Hildesheim relates in his tract, which he composed concerning our Order, it is established that the mantle of Elias, preserved even until then, perished by fire with many other things. These things, upon what authority they rest, I do not here discuss at greater length, as the divine oracles themselves pertain more nearly to the solid glory of the most holy Prophet, from which I undertake to weave some sequence of his life.
§ IV. The name, country, tribe, and parents of St. Elias; the wondrous prognostics of his nativity, and the form of his body.
What commonly befalls us, that in histories remote from our age by a long interval of time we meet with all things obscure and covered with darkness, A certain admonition premised, stumbling at almost every point, this, it is agreed, has no place in the Acts now to be related. For the sacred Scripture itself, which in the second Epistle of St. Peter chapter 1 verse 19 is compared to a lamp shining in a dark place, here affords us so great a light that we clearly know the chief deeds of St. Elias, although far removed from our time. But other things which are handed down concerning him, and are destitute of this divine light, are wrapped in such great darkness that here you would in vain expect a certain knowledge of them. Yet that in illustrating the life of this most famous Prophet we may observe the right order of time and of the deeds done, certain uncertain things must be premised concerning his name, country, parents, and other matters which preceded his first address to king Ahab. Then we shall pursue the historical sequence of the life of Elias from the infallible monuments of the sacred Writings, just as we have been accustomed to draw forth the Acts of other Saints from the most ancient writers. But lest anyone be deceived by the specious title of SS. Dorotheus, Epiphanius, John of Jerusalem, and similar men, I forewarn that we give no credence to the pseudo-writers who, under the counterfeit name of ancient authors, have forged fables unworthy of such great men, as may be seen in the Life of St. Epiphanius illustrated on 12 May chapter 7. Now let us approach the matter itself.
[22] Cornelius a Lapide, in his commentaries on chapters 17 and 18 of the third book of Kings, interprets the name of Elias from a Hebrew origin, the etymology of Elias is examined, and derives it from El Ia Hu, that is, God himself is mighty. He there cites the Hebrews asserting that he was formerly called Ioberscyth or Iaberichuah; but afterward received the surname of Elias or Eliahu, when the people, on account of the miracle wrought against the impious sacrificers of Baal, 3 Kings 18 verse 39, cried out: The Lord himself is God. To this perhaps Jerome looked, when he wrote thus on chapter 5 of Micah: Elias the prophet coming, which is interpreted God the Lord, shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Nor are there wanting those who have devised a Greek etymology of Elias: for the venerable Bede, Angelomus the monk of Luxeuil, and others will have it that Elias is said as it were ἥλιον, that is, the sun, because he was the sun of Israel, and was carried into heaven in a fiery chariot, and thence it was feigned by the poets that the sun is borne in a fiery chariot. But these things, as our Cornelius rightly observes in the place cited, are said by allusion, since the name of Elias is certainly Hebrew, not Greek.
[23] Certain Rabbis, confounding two distinct persons, called Elias by the name of Phinehas, and drew into their error some Christians illustrious in sanctity and doctrine, who is distinct from Phinehas as is clear from St. Peter Damian, who in book 1 Epistle 6 to Nicholas II the Roman Pontiff, among other things praising the zeal of Phinehas, thus writes on this matter: He himself (namely Phinehas), if I am not mistaken, is Elias the prophet, who, as Elisha looked on, was translated into heaven with fiery horses and a chariot. Whence whoever supposes me to lie, let him rather reprehend Jerome, interpreter of the divine law, who attests this in his book of Hebrew Questions… But Phinehas the son of Eleazar was their leader before the Lord: to whom indeed the name Phinehas was given by his parents; but Elias is a surname befalling him by an event: for Elias is interpreted God the Lord, which is believed to have been imposed upon him from this occasion… From these words, then, of those rendering the reason, he is asserted to have been called Elias, who thus far was called Phinehas, so that their answer seems to be his name. It does not please me here laboriously to refute this opinion, which the interpreters of sacred Scripture and other learned men have already everywhere refuted.
[24] Of the country and tribe of Elias, In the sacred Writings Elias is surnamed the Thesbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead. Whence most gather that his country is Thesbe (Flavius Josephus book 8 of the Jewish Antiquities chapter 7 calls it Thesbon), which place, according to Adrichomius, is situated in the tribe of Gad between Jebaa and Saron. Wherefore our Cornelius a Lapide contends that the Abulensian and others erred, who think that Elias sprang from the city of Thebe, in which Abimelech the son of Gideon fell, because Thebe was in the tribe of Ephraim near Shechem. Francis Quaresmius, in his Elucidation of the Holy Land volume 2 book 6 Pilgrimage 1 chapter 8, refutes those who assigned the birthplace of Elias between Jerusalem and Bethlehem: Because, he says, the place where this monastery and temple are belongs to the tribe of Judah, as also the nearby city of Bethlehem in Ephrata; but Elias the Prophet was born in the city of Thesba or Thesbe of the region of Gilead, which belongs to the tribe of Gad. But if that dispute depends on the tribe of Elias, it will not easily be settled, since various tribes are ascribed to him. For Metaphrastes, or whoever is the author of the Life of Elias edited in Lipomanus and Surius, hands down that he was of the tribe of [*] Aaron, and born in Arabia. Scipio Sgambatus, our own, in
the Archives of the Old Testament book 2 title 29 reports the various opinions of the Jews on this matter, and cites a Hebrew book entitled Bava Metzia, where in the chapter Me Kabbel there is a long disputation concerning his lineage. Some think that he sprang, on his father's side, from the tribe of Gad, but on his mother's from Benjamin; others make him descended from Manasseh. But in the chapter Me Kabbel it is said that he was of the sons of Aaron and the tribe of Levi. Let us therefore permit (I use the words of Lezana in the Annals of the Carmelites volume 1 at the year of the world 3123 number 4) all the Israelite tribes to contend over Elias by a stronger right than the seven cities Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athens contend over Homer.
[25] Nor is there greater certainty concerning the parents of St. Elias, whom sacred Scripture passed over in silence. and his parents Pseudo-Epiphanius and other writers of like meal call his father Sobac or Sabbacha. But the true Epiphanius, in his Work against heresies, which our Petavius edited in Greek and Latin, in Heresy 35 otherwise 55, thus discourses concerning the stock of St. Elias: There are many whose origins are not openly disclosed; for instance Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Elias the Thesbite, whose parents we nowhere read commemorated in the Scriptures. But lest occasion of error from this matter be afforded to anyone, I shall not be reluctant to report in this place those things which we have learned by the tradition of some. Therefore we have received that the father of Daniel was a certain Sabaas. As for what pertains to Elias, we recount such a pedigree and lineage of his, which I review in order in this manner: Elias the Thesbite was the brother of Jodaas the priest (Petavius in his Animadversions on Epiphanius page 220 thinks that this is Jehoiada the pontiff, who under Athaliah and Joash exercised the priesthood), and consequently of priestly stock, the son of Achimaam, and Achimaam of Zadok. Then he goes on to weave the same genealogy.
[26] Whatever be the case concerning the true name of the father, which St. Epiphanius reports from a certain tradition, various things are handed down. you see him here called by Epiphanius Achimaam, who is called Sobac by pseudo-Epiphanius. Which is to be believed? Marcus Antonius Alegre de Casanate follows St. Epiphanius, as he indicates in the Paradise of Carmelite glory page 110 in these words: So great a prince, then (namely Elias), was the son of Sabacha, or, as others prefer, to whom we adhere, of Achimas the high priest, brother of Jehoiada also a high priest, of the tribe of Aaron through Eleazar; and this one was the son of another high priest, Zadok, the grandfather of great Elias and of Jehoiada. He had for mother Basemath, daughter of king Solomon, and sister of Taphet. Although concerning the mother of Elias there is among most writers a deep silence, yet the aforesaid author of the Carmelite Paradise rightly gathered the maternal name and family, if Achimaam was the father of Elias; because in the third book of Kings chapter 4 verse 15 it is read: Achimaam in Naphtali: and he too had Basemath the daughter of Solomon in marriage. I said if Achimaam was the father of Elias, because Lezana and other Carmelites everywhere deny it, in order to uphold the authority of their Breviary, in which the father of Elias is called Sabac.
[27] Uncertain also is the prodigy, to speak most mildly, which pseudo-Dorotheus in his Synopsis on the Life of the Prophets narrates in these words: When Elias was about to be born, It is uncertain what is told of his nativity his father Sabbacha saw him saluted by whitening angels, and wrapped in fire as in swaddling-bands, and nourished by a flame of fire as by food, and having gone to Jerusalem he made known this matter; and it was said to him by an oracle that he should not fear: for it would come to pass that the boy about to be born should dwell in light, and that the things he should say should have a firm sentence, and that he should judge Israel with sword and fire. I have called the author of this little work pseudo-Dorotheus, because he writes many things unworthy of the true Dorotheus: whence the most eminent Cardinal Bellarmine, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, gives such a judgment: Dorotheus is said to have suffered exile at Tyre in the time of Diocletian, and to have written a Synopsis on the Life of the Prophets and Disciples of Christ; which Synopsis is extant in the Library of the holy Fathers and is frequently cited. But of this Dorotheus I have found no mention in Eusebius, St. Jerome, or Gennadius, or even John Trithemius, who wrote of illustrious men. The Synopsis itself is full of fables. And at the end he adds this: I would not have mentioned so fabulous a book, had I not seen it cited by many, and reckoned of no small account. That wondrous history is reported also by pseudo-Epiphanius in the Lives of the Prophets. But our Petavius, in the Greek-Latin edition of the Works of St. Epiphanius, made by him at Paris in the year 1622, in the second volume prefixes a preface to the reader, in which, treating of the supposititious and spurious writings of Epiphanius, he speaks thus by name of this little work: Of these the book on the Life of the Prophets leads the column, which that it is ψευδεπίγραφον, a thousand trifles of falsehoods, with which it is stuffed, persuade. Let the same be the judgment concerning certain other authors reporting this history, who, under the feigned name of the ancients, were written by some fabulists, or at least vehemently corrupted. For the rest, if the truth of this history can be proved from ancient and trustworthy writers, we shall not gainsay them.
[28] and the form of his body is described. And those things indeed which have been said thus far at least present some mask of antiquity; but Ægidius Camartus, General of the Minims, from his own idea alone, if I am not mistaken, so graphically depicted the bodily form of Elias, as if he had beheld him with his own eyes: for in his book On the Deeds of Elias chapter 3 section 15, after various conjectures, he thus concludes: Elias therefore had a most beautiful and comely body, fit for exercising the most beautiful functions of the soul, conspicuous for the majesty of his countenance, adorned with a shape and a fitting frame of members for enduring any labors whatsoever, with shining eyes, as it were vibrating a fiery brightness from themselves; he had a face ruddy with modest blood, a sweet speech, an erect appearance, not a gloomy brow. Whatever be the case concerning this form, St. Chrysostom, in the sermon on Peter the Apostle and Elias the prophet, which Henry Savile edited in Greek in volume 8, calls St. Elias τρίπηχυν ἄνθρωπον, that is, a three-cubit man. I know not whether St. Chrysostom read this somewhere, or received it from the tradition of his elders. Certainly in the festive sermon on SS. Peter and Paul, St. Paul too is called by him a three-cubit man. But it little concerns us of what stature of body he was, since form contributes nothing to the praise of holy men. The same Camartus disputes whether Elias was sanctified in the womb: but these and similar questions we leave to the Theologians to examine, hastening to more certain things.
ANNOTATA* That is, by descent.
§ V. The prediction of the drought before Ahab, the withdrawal of Elias to the brook Cherith, his sojourn at Sarepta with the widow, and the miracles wrought there.
Thus far we have touched certain uncertain points of the history of Elias; but now we shall report his illustrious deeds from divine testimony, Elias, having foretold the drought to king Ahab, and, where it shall seem worth the trouble, we shall elucidate them with some explanation. In the third book of Kings chapter 17 mention is first made of Elias, when he foretold the coming drought to King Ahab in these words: And Elias the Thesbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab: The Lord God of Israel liveth, in whose sight I stand, if there shall be dew or rain these years, but according to the words of my mouth. Sacred Scripture does not indicate what Ahab replied to this announcement. It is credible, says our Salianus in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of the world 3123 number 16, that Elias was cast out of the sight of the King as a madman, who claimed for himself things placed beyond the power of men. Nor did Ahab care, God so disposing, to seize this threatening Prophet and cast him into chains, so that, if the event itself should prove the truth of the threats, he might by prayers or by blows be driven to obtain rain, just as sorcerers are said to be compelled by stripes to remove the mischiefs which by the help of demons they have brought upon men or beasts. If anyone desires to see this prophecy of Elias adorned with the rhetorical eloquence of St. Chrysostom, let him go to our Fronto Ducæus volume 6 page 228, and Savile volume 8 page 18, or Lipomanus volume 7 folio 256.
[30] Then Elias was admonished, whether through an appearing angel, he withdraws to the brook Cherith, and there is fed by ravens, or through some voice formed in the air, or through a dream, or by some other manner in which God is wont to deal with the prophets, and was commanded to withdraw toward the East, which the sacred codex, in the chapter already cited, thus narrates: And the word of the Lord came to him, saying: Depart hence, and go toward the East, and hide thyself in the brook Cherith, which is over against the Jordan; and there thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. He went therefore and did according to the word of the Lord: and when he had gone, he dwelt by the brook Cherith, which is over against the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and likewise bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. The brook Cherith, according to our Cornelius a Lapide, descends from the mountains of Ephraim near the city of Phaselus, where near it there were many caverns, into which Elias could hide himself. Here in his memory St. Helena built a sacred edifice, as Nicephorus Callistus book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History chapter 30 attests. How insipid are the things which the Jews now invent concerning the cave of Elias, see in Francis Quaresmius in the Elucidation of the Holy Land volume 2 book 7 Pilgrimage 6 chapter 6.
[31] On occasion of the ravens, from which Elias received food, which some wrongly explain. there is stirred up a certain new question, foreign to the common sense: for some understand by the Hebrew word Orebim the Arabs, and thus interpret sacred Scripture: And I have commanded the Arabs to feed thee there. To prove this their interpretation they say that the same word Orebim in 2 Paralipomenon chapter 21 verse 16, and in 2 Esdras chapter 4 verse 7, is explained as Arabs. But others will have it that by Orebim are signified the inhabitants of the city of Arabo near Bethshan, which is not far distant from the brook Cherith. Those interpreters had recourse to this new explanation because the raven, by the law of Leviticus 11 verse 15, is an unclean animal. Besides, since it is a voracious and malignant bird, it seems less fit for performing this ministry. But I answer that, although the same word elsewhere signifies the Arabs, yet the seventy interpreters here thus rendered the Hebrew text into Greek: καὶ τοῖς κόραξιν ἐντελοῦμαι διατρέφειν σε ἐκεῖ. That is: And I will command the ravens to nourish thee there. Add that the Chaldaic, Syriac, and Arabic text expressly assert that the ravens brought him food. As for what pertains to the legal uncleanness of the raven, it is to be understood strictly of its carcass and the eating of its flesh, but not of those things which a living raven had touched. Nay, if I freely grant that the raven was an animal unclean in every way, could not God, the supreme lawgiver of ceremonies,
here dispense in his own law? And although the raven is rapacious, and seems less apt for feeding a man, perhaps God used it to show that he commands all animals, and can change their nature, and that all creatures serve and obey the Saints, such as Elias was. So in the Life of St. Paul the hermit written by Jerome we read that a raven, on account of the coming of St. Antony, brought a whole loaf, which before had been accustomed to bring half daily. If anyone more curious wishes to know whence the ravens brought bread and flesh to Elias, let him read our Salianus, who in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Old Testament at the year of the world 3123 number 19 proposes various conjectures on this matter.
[32] He is lodged at Sarepta with the widow, whose food is multiplied, It is uncertain how long Elias remained at the brook Cherith. Salianus thinks that he withdrew thence after one year or another. Others suppose that he departed to Sarepta after a sojourn of some months or days. The sacred text narrates the whole matter thus: But after some days the brook was dried up: for it had not rained upon the earth. And the word of the Lord came to him, saying: Arise, and go to Sarepta of the Sidonians, and thou shalt dwell there; for I have commanded a widow woman there to feed thee. He arose and went to Sarepta. And when he had come to the gate of the city, there appeared to him a widow woman gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her: Give me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And when she was going to fetch it, he cried after her, saying: Bring me also, I beseech thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand. And she answered: As the Lord thy God liveth, I have no bread, but only as much meal as a handful can hold in a pot, and a little oil in a cruse: behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die. And Elias said to her: Fear not, but go and do as thou hast said; nevertheless first make for me of that little meal a little hearth-cake, and bring it to me; but for thyself and thy son thou shalt make afterward. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel: The pot of meal shall not fail, nor the cruse of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the earth. She went and did according to the word of Elias: and he ate, and she and her house; and from that day the pot of meal failed not, and the cruse of oil was not diminished, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken by the hand of Elias. The city of Sarepta, to which Elias was sent, was situated between Tyre and Sidon in the land of the Gentiles, and so it is likely that this widow too was a Gentile. Concerning the present site of that town, Quaresmius may be seen in the Elucidation of the Holy Land volume 2 book 7 Pilgrimage 8 chapter 12. For the rest, nothing peculiar is here to be explained that pertains to the history. The holy Fathers and interpreters of Scripture extol with deserved praises the mercy and other virtues of this widow, which we leave to the preachers to adorn.
[33] and he raises her son from death, When Elias, in the time of public want and private abundance, was dwelling with this widow, God willed to prove the woman's patience, and to reward her charity with a new miracle, which sacred Scripture goes on to narrate thus: And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick, and the sickness was very grievous, so that there remained no breath in him. She said therefore to Elias: What have I to do with thee, thou man of God? Art thou come to me that my iniquities should be remembered, and that thou shouldst kill my son? And Elias said to her: Give me thy son: and he took him out of her bosom, and carried him into the upper chamber where he himself abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord my God, hast thou afflicted even the widow, with whom I am after a sort maintained, so as to kill her son? And he stretched 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 thee, return into his body. And the Lord heard the voice of Elias, and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived. And Elias took the child, and brought him down from the upper chamber into the lower part of the house, and delivered him to his mother, and said to her: Behold thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elias: Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is true.
[34] The question here is, whether the son of that widow was Jonah the prophet, who was not Jonah the prophet. who was afterward sent to convert the Ninevites. Jerome, in the Preface to Jonah, among his works printed at Paris in the year 1704 volume 3 columns 1469 and 1470, thus reports the opinion of others: But the Hebrews hand down that this man, namely Jonah, is the son of the widow of Sarepta, whom Elias the prophet raised from the dead, the mother afterward saying to him: Now I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of God in thy mouth is of truth. And for this cause the boy himself was so called: for Amathi in our tongue means TRUTH; and because Elias spoke truth, he who was raised is said to be the son of truth. So he indeed, reciting, not approving. But these things were devised by the Hebrews more subtly than truly. For who would deny that Jonah, like the rest of the prophets, is surnamed from his father, and thus that Amathi is the proper name of a man, not an appellative; which certainly is consonant with the customary phrase of the sacred Writings, by which the true names of the progenitors are always expressed? Add that Jonah, on this opinion, would not have been a Hebrew, but a Sidonian; whereas nevertheless Jonah himself in his prophecy chapter 1 verse 9 says: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven. Then Jonah would probably be called from his country a Sareptan; and meanwhile in the fourth book of Kings chapter 14 verse 25 it is said that God spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amathi the prophet, who was of Geth, which is in Opher. Finally, the epoch of Jonah cannot easily agree with the son of the widow of Sarepta: for from the time of the said famine until the preaching of Jonah made to the Ninevites more than ninety years elapsed; to which if you add ten years of age, when he was restored to life by Elias, he would already, being more than a hundred years old, have preached penance to the Ninevites, which without special testimony does not seem to be admitted.
§ VI. The return of Elias to Ahab, the contest with the pseudo-prophets of Baal, the victory, and the rain restored to the land.
The holy Apostle James teaches us how long the drought of the land brought about by Elias lasted, when in his Catholic Epistle chapter 5 verse 17 he thus writes: Elias, after three years commanded to return to Ahab, Elias was a man passible like unto us: and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. The same space of dry time is indicated in Luke 4 verse 25. Therefore, the third year of barrenness having elapsed, and the fourth begun, as our Salianus computes, the most clement God, having pity on human calamity, willed of his own accord to relax the penalty due to their crimes, as is reported in the third book of Kings chapter 18 in these words: After many days the word of the Lord came to Elias in the third year, saying: Go and show thyself to Ahab, that I may give rain upon the face of the earth. Elias therefore went to show himself to Ahab. And there was a grievous famine in Samaria. And Ahab called Abdias the steward of his house: now Abdias feared the Lord greatly: for when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, he took a hundred Prophets, and hid them by fifties and fifties in caves, and fed them with bread and water. Ahab therefore said to Abdias: Go into the land unto all the fountains of waters, and into all the valleys, if perhaps we may find grass, and save the horses and mules, and the beasts may not utterly perish. And they divided the countries between them, that they might go round about them: Ahab went one way, and Abdias went another way by himself. Flavius Josephus book 8 of the Jewish Antiquities chapter 7 calls this steward of the royal house Obediah; in which he displeases me less than when he says that this history happened χρόνου δ᾽ ὀλίγου διελθόντος, that is, a little time having passed, since sacred Scripture expressly asserts that it was done after many days.
[36] he meets on the way the royal steward, Since, besides this discrepancy of Josephus the Jew, nothing here occurs to be noted, let us pursue the thread of the history of Elias with sacred Scripture, which in the same chapter thus continues: And when Abdias was on the way, Elias met him: and when he had known him, he fell on his face, and said: Art thou my lord Elias? And he answered him: I am. Go and tell thy lord: Elias is here. And he said: What have I sinned, that thou wouldst deliver me thy servant into the hand of Ahab, that he should kill me? As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee. And when all answered: He is not here, he took an oath of every kingdom and nation, because thou wast not found. And now thou sayest to me: Go and tell thy lord: Elias is here. And when I shall be departed from thee, the Spirit of the Lord will carry thee into a place that I know not; and I shall go in and tell Ahab, and he, not finding thee, will kill me: but thy servant feareth the Lord from his infancy. Hath it not been told thee, my lord, what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred men of the prophets of the Lord, by fifties and fifties, in caves, and fed them with bread and water? And now thou sayest: Go and tell thy lord: Elias is here, that he may kill me. Various authors, from the tradition of the Hebrews, assert that this Abdias, the steward of Ahab, is the same as Abdias the prophet, who among the minor Prophets is reckoned fourth in order, or the captain of fifty of Ahaziah, who, sent to Elias in the third place, humbly deprecated death, of whom we shall treat hereafter. But Cornelius a Lapide, in the proem to Abdias the prophet, and Jacobus Salianus in the Work already praised at the year of the world 3255 numbers 9 and 10, prudently reject their opinion. Scipio Sgambatus, our own, in the Archives of the Old Testament book 2 title 41, concerning Abdias
reports various traditions of the Jews, which indeed merit little credit. [and he rebukes the king, and asks of him that he may enter into a contest with the pseudo-prophets of Baal,]
[37] Elias, having learned the fear of Abdias, made him secure, and appeared before king Ahab, to whom he freely offered a manifest proof of the true divinity, as is clear from the following, which we here thus transcribe from the chapter last cited: And Elias said: As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whose face I stand, this day I will show myself to him. Abdias therefore went to meet Ahab, and told him. And Ahab came to meet Elias; and when he had seen him, he said: Art thou he that troublest Israel? And he said: I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, who have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and have followed Baalim. Nevertheless send now, and gather unto me all Israel on Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, who eat at Jezebel's table. Ahab sent to all the children of Israel, and gathered together the prophets to Mount Carmel. Here Elias freely reproves Ahab, because he worshipped Baalim, that is, idols, which received this name from Nimrod, the first author of idolatry, as our Cornelius a Lapide affirms in the commentary on the third book of Kings chapter 16: for Nimrod was called Baal, that is, Lord; whence from him the other gods of the nations were afterward surnamed Baal or Baalim. Now there were four hundred and fifty pseudo-prophets, who by royal command procured the cult of this idol; but upon the other four hundred, whom the queen fed, lay the care of the groves, that is, of the other gods, who were worshipped in the woods and groves.
[38] After Ahab, on account of his desire for rain daring to deny Elias nothing, whose conditions he sets forth before the people. had convened the pseudo-prophets and the people, the contest for demonstrating the true divinity was entered upon, which in the sacred Codex is thus described: And Elias, coming to all the people, said: How long do ye halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. And Elias said again to the people: I only remain a prophet of the Lord; but the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty men. Let two oxen be given us, and let them choose one ox for themselves, and cutting it in pieces, let them lay it upon the wood; but put no fire under: and I will dress (that is, I will sacrifice) the other ox, and lay it upon the wood; but put no fire under. Call ye on the names of your gods, and I will call on the name of my Lord, and the God that shall answer by fire (that is, who shall send fire from heaven upon the victim offered to him), let him be God. All the people answering said: It is a very good proposal. In passing I here observe that God in this case was not tempted by Elias through the proposal of a miracle, as I have shown from our Suarez in the preliminary commentary § VII to the Life of St. John Gualbert, illustrated on 12 July.
[39] The sacred text thus continues: Elias then said to the prophets of Baal: the pseudo-prophets invoking their idol in vain, Choose you one ox, and do you first, because you are the more: and call on the names of your gods, and put no fire under. And when they had taken the ox which he gave them, they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying: O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered: and they leaped over the altar that they had made. And when it was now noon, Elias jested at them, saying: Cry with a louder voice: for he is a god, and perhaps he is talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey, or certainly he is asleep, and must be awaked. They cried therefore with a loud voice, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till they were all covered with blood. That bloody rite of the sacrificers, according to the pagan writers, was also in use among the Syrians, Greeks, and Romans. Lactantius book 1 On False Religion chapter 21, attacking the cruel sacrifices of the Gentiles, says that there are certain ones in which the priests themselves sacrifice not with another's, but with their own blood: for having gashed their shoulders, and drawing naked swords in both hands, they run, are carried away, rave. And he thus concludes: Is it not better to live after the manner of cattle, than to worship gods so profane, so bloodthirsty?
[40] Elias prepares his sacrifice, But let us return to our history, which immediately after the divine words, adduced in the preceding number, has thus: And after midday was past, and while they prophesied the time was come when the sacrifice is wont to be offered, and there was no voice heard, nor did any one answer, nor attend to them as they prayed: Elias said to all the people: Come ye unto me. And the people coming near to him, he repaired the altar of the Lord, that was broken down. And he took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying: Israel shall be thy name. And he built with the stones an altar in the name of the Lord: and he made a trench for water, of the breadth of two little furrows, round about the altar. And he laid the wood in order, and cut the ox in pieces, and laid it upon the wood, and said: Fill four buckets with water, and pour it upon the burnt offering, and upon the wood. And again he said: Do this the second time. And when they had done it the second time, he said: Do the same also the third time. And they did so the third time. And the water ran round about the altar, and the trench was filled with water. Chrysostom, or whoever is the author of the homily on Peter and Elias, which was edited by Savile volume 8 page 18 in Greek, and by Lipomanus volume 7 folio 256 in Latin, gives the reason for this copious outpouring of waters in these words: I would have thee consider why this was done by Elias. Because it is the way of error to cast its own vices upon the truth. This is what harlots do: for they anticipate, and call freeborn women harlots, that these may have no reproach to cast. For this reason also Elias in this matter bore himself wisely. Attend, I pray, to what I am about to say; for I myself saw what I shall tell. In the altars of the idols there are certain holes in the lower part of the altar, and a certain dark pit. Now the artificers of error descend into that pit, and from the holes which we have mentioned they blow up fire to accomplish the sacrifice, so that many, deceived, suppose that fire to be heavenly. Lest therefore Elias too should come into suspicion that he too had contrived some such thing, he poured out water, that that water might show that there were no holes beneath the altar: for where the water finds a hole, there the water does not stand, but must flow down through the holes themselves. This reason seems sufficiently fitting. But lest anyone wonder that so great an abundance of water was at hand in so great a drought, let him know that the sea flows at the roots of Mount Carmel, whence water could easily be drawn. The miracle which Rabbi Solomon invented on this occasion, there is no leisure here to report, much less to refute.
[41] [which is kindled of its own accord, and after the pseudo-prophets are slain the long-desired rain arises.] It remains that we conclude this paragraph with the prodigious victory of Elias, by which the long calamity of the drought was ended, as is set forth in the third book of Kings chapter 18 in this manner: And when it was now time to offer the holocaust, Elias the prophet came near and said: O Lord God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel, show this day that thou art the God of Israel, and I thy servant, and that according to thy commandment I have done all these things. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may learn that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, the dust also, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God. And Elias said to them: Take the prophets of Baal, and let not one of them escape. And when they had taken them, Elias brought them down to the torrent Kishon, and killed them there. And Elias said to Ahab: Go up, eat, and drink: for there is a sound of abundance of rain. Ahab went up to eat and drink; but Elias went up to the top of Carmel, and casting himself down upon the earth put his face between his knees, and said to his servant: Go up, and look toward the sea. And when he had gone up, and looked, he said: There is nothing. And again he said to him: Return seven times. And at the seventh time, behold, a little cloud arose out of the sea like a man's foot. And he said: Go up, and say to Ahab: Make ready thy chariot, and go down, lest the rain prevent thee. And while he turned himself this way and that, behold, the heavens grew dark with clouds and wind, and there fell a great rain. So Ahab going up went away to Jezrahel: and the hand of the Lord was upon Elias, and girding up his loins he ran before Ahab, till he came to Jezrahel. Benjamin of Tudela, in his Itinerary, which Arias Montanus rendered from Hebrew into Latin, page 38, thus writes: On the highest ridge of Mount Carmel remains the trace of the altar overthrown and burned in the days of Ahab, of which illustrious mention is made in the history of Elias. And the place of that altar is circular, of about four cubits' diameter. Francis Quaresmius, in the Elucidation of the Holy Land volume 2 book 7 chapter 3 Pilgrimage 8, resolves a certain objection formed concerning this sacrifice, and describes the ancient and new state of Mount Carmel.
§ VII. The flight of Elias on account of the anger of Jezebel; the apparition and divine command; the return to king Ahab, and the threats aimed at him by Elias.
[42] Elias, who thus far had twice stood fearless before the angry king, and had intrepidly slain so many sacrilegious worshippers of idols, Elias, fleeing on account of the threats of Jezebel, now by his own example admonishes us of human weakness and inconstancy, when, terrified by the threats of a woman, he seizes upon a sudden flight, as is narrated in the third book of Kings chapter 19 in this manner: And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elias had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. And Jezebel sent a messenger to Elias, saying: Such and such things may the gods do to me, and add still more, if by this hour tomorrow I make not thy life as the life of one of them. Elias then was afraid, and rising up he went whithersoever his will carried him: and he came into Bersabee of Judah, and left his servant there. And he went forward into the desert one day's journey. And when he had come, and sat under a juniper tree, he requested for his soul that he might die, and said: It is enough for me, Lord, take away my soul:
for I am no better than my fathers. And he cast himself down, and slept in the shadow of the juniper tree: and behold, an angel of the Lord touched him, and said to him: Arise and eat. He looked, and behold, at his head a hearth-cake, and a vessel of water. He ate therefore and drank, and again he slept. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time, and touched him, and said to him: Arise, eat: for thou hast yet a great way to go. And when he had arisen, he ate and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights unto the mount of God, Horeb. Elias must in this journey of forty days and nights, stricken with fear and anguish, have turned much aside from the direct path, since Bersabee is distant from Mount Horeb only fifty leagues.
[43] The Lord appears. And when he had come thither, says sacred Scripture in the same chapter, he abode in a cave: and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and said to him: What dost thou here, Elias? And he answered: With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant: they have destroyed thy altars, they have slain thy prophets with the sword: and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away. And he said to him: Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord: and behold, the Lord passeth, and a great and strong wind overthrowing the mountains, and breaking the rocks in pieces before the Lord: the Lord is not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake: the Lord is not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire: the Lord is not in the fire. And after the fire a whistling of a gentle air. And when Elias heard this, he covered his face with his mantle, and coming forth stood in the entrance of the cave, and behold, a voice unto him, saying: What dost thou here, Elias? And he answered: With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant: they have destroyed thy altars, they have slain thy prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away. The Seventy Interpreters, in some editions, after the whistling of the gentle air have: κἀκεῖ Κύριος, that is, and there, namely in the whistling, the Lord. Which renders the sense clearer, although in the Hebrew text and the Vulgate version it is not read. On the same Mount Horeb or Sinai, God, about to give the decalogue, had once shown his majesty to Moses. Concerning this mountain, and the little chapel of Elias built there, and other sacred monuments, Quaresmius discourses in the Elucidation of the Holy Land volume 2 book 8 chapter 2 Pilgrimage 5.
[44] [and foretells to him the destruction of the enemies, and commands the anointing of kings and of the prophet Elisha.] Then God signifies to Elias that he would raise up adversaries against those idolaters of whom Elias complained, which is thus expressed in divine words: And the Lord said to him: Go, and return on thy way through the desert to Damascus: and when thou art come thither, thou shalt anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son (here he signifies the grandson) of Namsi thou shalt anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Saphat, who is of Abelmeula, thou shalt anoint to be prophet in thy place. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall escape the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall slay him: and whosoever shall escape the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall slay him. And I will leave me seven thousand men in Israel, whose knees have not been bowed before Baal, and every mouth that hath not adored him kissing the hands. Elias then, departing thence, found Elisha the son of Saphat, plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, that is, among twelve plowmen, and he himself was one among the twelve yoke of oxen plowing: and when Elias came to him, he cast his mantle upon him. And he forthwith left the oxen, and ran after Elias, and said: Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said to him: Go, and return back: for that which was mine to do, I have done to thee. And returning back from him, he took a yoke of oxen, and killed it, and boiled the flesh with the plow of the oxen, and gave to the people, and they ate: and rising up he went away, and followed Elias, and ministered to him. How this anointing of the kings and of the prophet Elisha is to be understood, the interpreters explain everywhere, and our Salianus in the Annals of the Old Testament at the year of the world 3127 number 18 and following.
[45] When king Ahab desired to possess the vineyard of Naboth, Elias is commanded and could not obtain the object of his wish, his impious wife Jezebel caused Naboth to be killed, as we read in the third book of Kings chapter 21, where from verse 17 the following are added: And the word of the Lord came to Elias the Thesbite, saying: Arise, and go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria: behold, he is going down to the vineyard of Naboth, to take possession of it. And thou shalt speak to him, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast slain, moreover also thou hast taken possession. And after this thou shalt add: Thus saith the Lord: In this place, wherein the dogs have licked the blood of Naboth, they shall lick thy blood also. Since Ahab was buried in Samaria, the interpreters torment themselves variously to explain the literal sense of this prophecy. Some think that this prophecy was fulfilled, when in 3 Kings 22 verse 38, Ahab being slain, they washed his chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked his blood. If you object that the dogs licked the blood of Ahab in Samaria, but the blood of Naboth in Jezrahel, where he was overwhelmed with stones; they answer that Jezrahel belonged to Samaria, and so the same place is understood in general, that is, the same region. Others think that by the blood of Ahab is here understood his son (for sons are begotten from the blood of their parents), and they adduce that verse of Virgil's Aeneid 6: cast the weapons from thy hand, my blood, that is, my son. And in that sense the prophecy was exactly fulfilled, when in 4 Kings 9 verse 25 Jehu commanded Joram the son of Ahab, whom he had slain, to be cast into the field of Naboth the Jezrahelite. But I do not see that there is here need of many and violent explanations, since God himself testifies that, on account of Ahab's penance, he transferred the evils threatened against Ahab himself to his son, as we shall afterward see.
[46] In the same third book of Kings chapter 21 from verse 20 the rest of the conversation of Ahab and Elias is thus recited: to denounce to king Ahab And Ahab said to Elias: Hast thou found me thine enemy? And he said: I have found thee, because thou art sold to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and I will cut down thy posterity, and I will kill of Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up, and the last in Israel. And I will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, and like the house of Baasa the son of Ahia: because thou hast done to provoke me to anger, and hast made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel also the Lord spoke, saying: The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the field of Jezrahel. If Ahab die in the city, the dogs shall eat him; but if he die in the field, the birds of the air shall eat him. The prophecy of the ignominious death of Jezebel was fulfilled to the letter, as is clear from the fourth book of Kings chapter 9 from verse 30. But a certain difficulty appears in explaining those things which are foretold of the ignominy to be inflicted on Ahab after death: for since Ahab perished of a wound in the battle against the Syrians, he was brought into Samaria, and they buried the king in Samaria, as is narrated in 3 Kings 22 verse 37. But there no mention is made of birds or dogs that ate his corpse. If therefore this prediction is to be taken of Ahab himself, it must be said that it was implicitly conditional, namely unless Ahab should repent. But since Ahab afterward did penance, this penalty seems to have been transferred to his son. All difficulty is plainly removed by the Hebrew text, which the Seventy interpreters thus rendered into Greek: Τὸν τεθνηκότα τοῦ Ἀχαὰβ ἐν τῇ πόλει φάγονται οἱ κύνες, καὶ τὸν τεθνηκότα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ φάγονται τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. That is: The dead of Ahab (understand: of the stock of Ahab) in the city the dogs shall eat, and his dead in the field the birds of the air shall eat. This phrase the Chaldaic, Syriac, and Arabic versions also follow. And in this manner the aforesaid prophecy can be explained to the letter.
[47] concerning whose impiety and penance discussion is made. At the end of the aforesaid chapter the crimes of Ahab and his penance are thus described: There was not therefore any other such as Ahab, who was sold to do evil in the sight of the Lord: for his wife Jezebel set him on. And he became abominable, insomuch that he followed the idols which the Amorrhites had made, whom the Lord destroyed before the face of the children of Israel. And so when Ahab had heard these words, he rent his garments, and covered his flesh with haircloth, and fasted, and slept in sackcloth, and walked with his head cast down. And the word of the Lord came to Elias the Thesbite, saying: Hast thou not seen Ahab humbled before me? Because therefore he hath humbled himself for my sake, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house. The interpreters and theologians dispute whether the penance of Ahab was sincere and profitable. But, lest we here put our sickle into another's harvest, our Cornelius a Lapide may be seen, who in the commentary on this place strives to reconcile the various opinions.
§ VIII. The sacrilegious consultation of the idol disturbed: an inquiry concerning the garb of Elias: the heavenly punishment of two captains and a hundred soldiers: the death of king Ahaziah foretold by Elias.
After the death of Ahab, Ahaziah alone began to reign, a son like his father in wickedness, who, besides other misfortunes [Elias sends back the messengers going to consult Beelzebub to Ahaziah, who recognizes him by his figure and garb,] by which he ought to have recognized God the avenger, fell through the lattice of his upper chamber, which he had in Samaria, and, weakened by the fall, fell into a grievous sickness. Nor even so did he flee to the true God, but sent his ambassadors to Accaron, to inquire of Beelzebub the idol of the Philistines what would be the outcome of that sickness. But Elias broke off the sacrilegious journey, as in the fourth book of Kings chapter 1 from verse 3 it is said in this manner: But an angel of the Lord spoke to Elias the Thesbite, saying: Arise, and go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and thou shalt say to them: Is there not a God in Israel, that ye go to consult Beelzebub the god of Accaron? Wherefore thus saith the Lord: From the bed on which thou art gone up thou shalt not come down, but thou shalt surely die. And Elias departed. And the messengers returned to Ahaziah. And he said to them: Why are ye returned? But they answered
him: A man met us, and said to us: Go, and return to the king that sent you, and you shall say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Is it because there was no God in Israel, that thou sendest to consult Beelzebub the god of Accaron? Therefore from the bed on which thou art gone up thou shalt not come down, but thou shalt surely die. And he said to them: What manner and habit is that man of, who met you, and spoke these words? But they said: A hairy man, girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said: It is Elias the Thesbite. Rabbi Eliezer chapter 31 fables, according to our Cornelius a Lapide, that this girdle of Elias was of the skin of that ram which Abraham sacrificed in place of his son Isaac. But, leaving aside the Rabbinical inventions, let us discourse a little concerning the habit of Elias here indicated.
[49] From the last words of sacred Scripture it is sufficiently clear on which occasion various opinions arise that Elias had in the figure or habit of his body some distinctive sign, by which he was distinguished among others. But it is not so evident what that sign was: for when the messengers of king Ahaziah call him a hairy man, some refer this to the hairs of his head and beard, and say that Elias was conspicuous with flowing hair and beard after the manner of hermits; but others interpret it of a shaggy garment, lest these messengers should seem to have omitted the most notable mark of the garment, since the king had asked the habit of the man, which the girdle does not sufficiently indicate, and which is less notable than the garment itself. The Seventy interpreters, and Flavius Josephus book 9 of the Jewish Antiquities chapter 1, seem to treat chiefly of the hairs of the body: for Elias is called by them δασὺς, that is, hairy or shaggy; which Greek word they also use to express the form of Esau, to whom is opposed λεῖος, that is, smooth, such as Jacob was. This opinion is favored by St. Jerome in his Commentaries on Ezekiel chapter 35, thus writing: But if a prudent reader shall object, how in this place Seir, that is, rough and hairy, is understood in a bad sense, since Elias too was called a hairy man, I shall briefly answer that of Esau it is written that he was ruddy, and rough as a skin; but of Elias, only that he was a hairy man. In Esau, who, bloody and cruel, is compared to a rough skin, there is an indication of mortal works and of death itself; in Elias, an argument of manliness. Wherefore both his dwelling in the wilderness, and the austerity of his manner of life, showed not only a man, but a most valiant man.
[50] Others are of opinion that Elias is called hairy both from his shaggy garment and at the same time from the hairs of his body. concerning the garment and figure of Elias This opinion, which can easily be reconciled with the preceding, appears to me more probable, because thus the answer of the messengers will more directly fit the question of king Ahaziah, who inquired concerning the figure and habit of Elias. To this our Cornelius a Lapide adheres, who comments thus upon this answer of the messengers: For Elias went about unshorn, with a long beard and hair, in a rough and hairy garment, namely a sheepskin, or clad in an unshorn sheep's or goat's hide, and girt with a leathern girdle, that is, of hide not dressed, but still hairy and shaggy, like a hermit, a contemner of the world, and a lover of poverty and of ancient simplicity. Nor does this opinion displease the sacred Congregation of Rites: for when between the Fathers the Carmelites and the Basilians a dispute had arisen concerning the habit of Elias, the sacred Congregation in the year 1686 approved the image of Elias proposed by the Basilian Fathers, and granted that it be painted and publicly exposed, as from the Papebrochian Responses you see it here engraved on copper. A similar image was painted among the other prophets in the royal hall before the Pontifical chapel in the Apostolic palace of the Quirinal mount, and it seems to be conformable to the habit of Elias, which is here described by sacred Scripture. The flaming sword which Elias holds forth in his hand denotes nothing else, if I am not mistaken, than his ardent zeal. In this chapter no distinct mention is made of the mantle of Elias, which perhaps is comprehended under the hairy habit. But at least from the fourth book of Kings chapter 2 it is clear that he wore a mantle, which Tostatus thinks was of haircloth from the hairs of camels, as was the garment of St. John the Baptist. But others think it was made of sheepskin, because the Seventy call it μηλωτὴν, of which word we shall presently treat at more length.
[51] are set forth. The Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 11, seems to have thus described this very garment of the ancient prophets: They wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains and dens, and in caves of the earth. Now a melota is properly a sheepskin, from the Greek word μῆλον, which signifies a sheep, although by catachresis it is extended to the skins of other animals, as is read in the Life of St. Fructuosus archbishop of Braga, illustrated on 16 April, in which he is said to have been clad in a melota of goatskins. St. Thomas, in his Exposition on the epistle of St. Paul last cited, lecture 8, thus explains this word: A melota is a garment made of the hairs of camels, as some say. Or better, because the badger has a shaggy skin, of which is made a garment, which is called a melota. Goatskin, besides being shaggy, is also cheap. And these things are said of Elias 4 Kings 1, that he was a hairy man and girt with a leathern girdle about his loins. Whatever be the case concerning the material of the garment, I suspect with Tostatus that Elias was clad in a rough and shaggy garment, like John the Baptist, of whom Matthew chapter 3 verse 4 thus testifies: And the same John had his garment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins. The reason of my suspicion is that the Jews, having sent an embassy to John the Baptist, asked him, John 1 verse 21: Art thou Elias? Perhaps those Jews had read in the sacred Writings that Elias was a hairy man; or had received from the tradition of their elders that he was clad in a shaggy garment, and therefore on account of the likeness of the garment they asked John whether he himself were Elias. This is our conjecture, which we shall willingly abandon, if some more probable reason be adduced.
[52] Now let us return from this longer digression to our history, Elias burns up two captains with their soldiers by heavenly fire, which the fourth book of Kings chapter 1 thus continues: And he (king Ahaziah) sent to him a captain of fifty, and the fifty that were under him. And he went up to him, and as he was sitting on the top of a hill, said to him: Man of God, the king hath commanded that thou come down. And Elias answering said to the captain of fifty: If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him, and the fifty that were with him. And again he sent to him another captain of fifty, and fifty with him. And he said to him: Man of God, thus saith the king: Make haste, come down. Elias answering said: If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty. Most interpreters of sacred Scripture think that Elias was called a man of God by these captains of fifty in irony; which opinion the ensuing punishment renders most probable. Yet there were not wanting, according to Theodoret, those who accused Elias of cruelty, because he delivered these captains of fifty with their soldiers to be devoured by heavenly fire. But the same Theodoret, in the Questions on the fourth book of Kings, Question 4, in the Greek-Latin edition of our Sirmond volume 1 page 336, answers those calumniators thus: They who accuse the prophet move their tongue against the God of the prophet: for he it was that sent the fire. It is therefore of excessive audacity to be angry at the divine administration. For one must know the equity of the divine providence, and that it justly punishes sinners, and confers benefit upon its worshippers. But it is manifest that the captains of fifty, and they who obeyed them, agreed with the aim of him who sent them. Whence also they suffered the punishments sent by the Lord.
[53] Jacobus Salianus, in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Old Testament at the year of the world 3138 number 52, thinks the circumstances of which vengeance are examined. that this tragedy of divine vengeance was accomplished on Mount Carmel, and that the second captain of fifty was ignorant of what had befallen the first. He sets forth the whole matter probably in the place just cited thus: While these things were being done on Carmel, and there survived no messenger to announce the deed to the King, the king was burning with desire to have Elias in his power, a man whom he had more than once heard from his own father to be the latter's ancient enemy, whom he remembered to have brought death upon so many prophets of his gods, whom he held to have afflicted the whole people with a famine of forty-two months, whom he thought hostile and pernicious to himself and to the whole kingdom, as one who had now foretold death to himself, and a little before the destruction of the whole family. And so, when the first captain of fifty neither brought Elias bound to the king, nor sent a messenger about the whole matter, impatient of delay he sent a second messenger, out of the same pride and swelling of mind, into Carmel, who should both learn what had happened to his colleague, and, endued with the same authority, discharge with him the same office, if the matter so required. And it is quite credible that so sad a mischance was still unknown at Samaria, and lay hid both from the king and from the second captain of fifty. From this opinion of Salianus, Cornelius a Lapide dissents, when he thus writes upon this place of the sacred Codex: This second captain of fifty was more impudent than the first; both because, having heard of his punishment, he did not come to his senses; and because he increased his impudence by adding: Make haste; and therefore was smitten with the same penalty, and consumed by heavenly fire. This opinion of Cornelius is also probable: for in the courts of princes there are often found ministers so rash that they are terrified by no dangers, and postpone the welfare of body and soul to the impious command of their masters.
[54] [Sparing the third captain, he goes with him to king Ahaziah, to whom he foretells death.] Since neither the second captain of fifty had satisfied the king's desire, the king sent a third, who, having learned of the punishment of the two preceding, and become more cautious, addresses Elias as a suppliant, and brings him, willing, before the king, as in the same fourth book of Kings chapter 1 verse 13 it is narrated in this manner: Again he sent a third captain of fifty, and the fifty that were with him. And when he was come, he bowed his knees before Elias, and besought him, and said: Man of God, despise not my life, and the lives of thy servants that are with me. Behold, fire came down from heaven, and consumed the two first captains of fifty and the fifties
that were with them: but now, I beseech thee, have pity on my life. And the angel of the Lord spoke to Elias, saying: Go down with him, fear not. He arose therefore, and went down with him to the king. And he spoke to him: Thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast sent messengers to consult Beelzebub the god of Accaron, as though there were no God in Israel of whom thou mightest inquire the word; therefore from the bed on which thou art gone up thou shalt not come down, but thou shalt surely die. And he died according to the word of the Lord which Elias spoke, and Joram his brother reigned in his stead, in the second year of Joram the son of Josaphat king of Judah: for he had no son. To this Joram the son of Ahab there afterward happened those things which Elias had foretold to Ahab while living, as we indicated above.
§ IX. The rapture of Elias, and the questions annexed to it.
In this paragraph we shall report the wonderful rapture of Elias from the sacred Writings; Elias, a little before his rapture, visits various places, but the other questions connected with this rapture, or stirred up on that occasion by the interpreters and other writers, we shall briefly touch. The fourth book of Kings chapter 2 sets forth this prodigious history thus: And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elias into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elias and Elisha were going from Galgal. And Elias said to Elisha: Stay thou here, because the Lord hath sent me as far as Bethel. And Elisha said to him: As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And when they had come down to Bethel, the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said to him: Dost thou know that this day the Lord will take away thy master from thee? And he answered: I also know it: hold your peace. And Elias said to Elisha: Stay here, because the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said: As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And when they had come to Jericho, the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said to him: Dost thou know that this day the Lord will take away thy master from thee? And he said: I also know it: hold your peace. And Elias said to him: Stay here, because the Lord hath sent me as far as the Jordan. And he said: As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. Here the interpreters commonly note that Elias, out of modesty and humility, wished to dismiss Elisha from himself, that he might conceal his honorable rapture: for the singular gifts of God are to be withdrawn from the eyes of men, unless God himself manifest them, as here he had indicated to Elisha and the sons of the prophets the imminent departure of Elias. Wherefore Elias, thrice repeating Stay here, does not command Elisha to remain there, but rather courteously exhorts him to spare himself the labor of the journey, as if he said: It is not necessary that thou accompany me. So nearly Cornelius a Lapide in his commentary on this verse.
[56] Further, the sacred Scripture there thus continues: They two therefore went on together, [and prodigiously crossing the Jordan, while Elisha looks on, he is lifted on high in a fiery chariot.] and fifty men of the sons of the prophets followed them, who also stood over against them afar off, but they two stood upon the Jordan. And Elias took his mantle (the Seventy call it μηλωτὴν, of which above), and folded it, and struck the waters, and they were divided into both parts, and they two passed over on dry ground. And when they had passed over, Elias said to Elisha: Ask what thou wouldst have me to do for thee, before I be taken from thee. And Elisha said: I beseech thee that in me may be thy double spirit. And he answered: Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless if thou see me when I am taken from thee, thou shalt have what thou hast asked: but if thou see me not, it shall not be. And as they went on, walking and talking together, behold, a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder, and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and cried: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the driver thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own garments, and rent them in two pieces. And he took up the mantle of Elias, that fell from him. And returning, he stood upon the bank of the Jordan, and struck the waters with the mantle of Elias that had fallen from him, and they were not divided, and he said: Where is now the God of Elias? And he struck the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, and Elisha passed over. And the sons of the prophets at Jericho, who were over against him, seeing it, said: The spirit of Elias hath rested upon Elisha. And coming to meet him, they worshipped him falling to the ground, and said to him: Behold, there are with thy servants fifty strong men, who can go and seek thy master, lest perhaps the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said: Do not send. But they pressed him till he yielded, and said: Send. And they sent fifty men, who, when they had sought three days, found him not, and returned to him. These sons of the prophets seem to have persuaded themselves that Elias was taken from their eyes only for a certain time, and hidden in some neighboring place. Perhaps translations of the prophets of this kind were at that time quite common, since Abdias the steward of Ahab says above to Elias: And when I shall be departed from thee, the Spirit of the Lord will carry thee into a place that I know not.
[57] Some things in the sacred text of the preceding number are to be explained; and first indeed, what is that double spirit which Elisha requested for himself. It is inquired what was the double spirit which Elisha asked for himself, Theodoret and some of the Greeks write that Elisha was endowed with a double spirit of Elias, because he wrought miracles twice as great or more numerous. These are followed by St. Peter Damian, or another author cited under his name, Sermon 2 on the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, saying: In Elisha was the double spirit of Elias, not in the heap of merits, but in the exhibition of miracles, because he did twenty-four miracles, whereas Elias did but twelve. Anastasius of Nicaea and others count fewer miracles of each prophet, but in such proportion that Elisha wrought twice as many. Sanctes Pagninus renders this petition of Elisha thus: Let a measure of two portions of thy spirit be upon me. By which version he intimates that Elisha asked for himself two portions of the spirit of Elias, just as the firstborn, according to the law of Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 17, was to have a double portion of the paternal inheritance. Others finally will have it that Elisha asked for himself the same gifts of the Holy Spirit; namely the grace of prophecy and of miracles, by which Elias had defended the cult of the true God. Whence Angelomus, praised above, says: The double spirit is the spirit of prophecy and of miracles. Although all these interpretations are quite probable, yet the first seems more to fit the answer of Elias, by which he said: Thou hast asked a hard thing, namely a spirit twice as great as was in me. This interpretation is also confirmed by those things which the interpreters everywhere observed; namely that Elisha raised, not one, as Elias, but two dead men, and brought on a famine not of three years and a half, but of seven years, and wrought twice as many miracles. Here our Salianus may be seen, who at the year of the world 3139 number 12 and following discourses at length on this matter.
[58] Another question is, of what sort was the fiery chariot and the fiery horses and of what sort was the chariot by which Elias was carried up from the earth, by which Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven. Some think they were angels, who under this form bore Elias upward, according to that of Psalm 103 verse 4: Who makest thy angels spirits, and thy ministers a burning fire. This opinion seems to be favored by the author who is everywhere cited under the name of St. Ambrose, when in the Symbol of the Apostles, not far from the end, he thus writes: Elias, placed in that body, in a fiery chariot, that is, by the conveyance of Angels, who are spirits and a flame of fire, who do the will of God, was in that commotion taken up as far as heaven. Others think that this whole machine was composed of a denser air, which shone and reddened like fire, and thus that Elias, the whirlwind or wind impelling, and an Angel guiding this airy chariot, was lifted on high. Cornelius a Lapide, in the commentaries on this place, also says that this chariot was not truly fiery, but only had the appearance of fire, as have the meteors formed in the air. The same thinks Salianus, who at the same time from Tostatus neatly explains how Elias was caught up on high both by a fiery chariot and by a whirlwind, when at the year of the world 3139 number 39 he thus writes: A reddish cloud, namely, thickened into a certain solidity, and as it were a certain meteor formed into the appearance of a chariot and of fiery horses, seemed to run over the earth toward both prophets, and passing between them separated the one from the other, and Elias was caught up to the fiery chariot, where he sat down, Elisha alone remaining on the ground; and at once a rising wind lifted little by little the horses and the chariot from the earth, until he was withdrawn from the eyes of Elisha, gazing and calling out: and so it is true both that Elias was carried into heaven by a fiery chariot and by a whirlwind of wind, the chariot bearing him, the wind carrying him off, and the angel, as I said above, guiding both as a driver.
[59] While Elias was being lifted upward, Elisha cried: My father, [The last words of Elisha, crying out while Elias was lifted upward, are explained] my father, the chariot of Israel and the driver thereof; or as it sounds in Hebrew: The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof; or as the Seventy have: the horseman thereof. Vatablus and others thus expound this exclamation of Elisha, as if he said: Farewell, O Elias my father, who wast the whole strength of Israel, and didst aid Israel more by thy zeal and prayer than a great multitude of chariots and horsemen. The Chaldee interpreter thus renders this phrase: My master, my master, who wast better to Israel by thy prayer than chariots and horsemen. Whence St. Ambrose in the book On Naboth chapter 14 thus writes: When Elias was received, and borne as it were to heaven in a chariot, Elisha cried to him: Father, father, driver of Israel and horseman thereof: that is, thou who didst rule the people of the Lord with good leading, hast by the merit of thy constancy received these chariots, these horses running to divine things, because the Lord approved thee as a moderator of human minds: therefore as a good driver of the contest, victorious, thou art crowned with an eternal reward. The things here said of the eternal reward are to be understood of a sure hope of the same; since Elias does not yet enjoy eternal joy, as the holy Fathers and Theologians teach. Gregory the Great, book 2 on Ezekiel Homily 21, thus tropologically explains the same words of Elisha: What is it, dearest brethren,
that Elias is called the chariot of Israel and the driver, except that the driver drives, the chariot carries? The teacher therefore, who both sustains the manners of the people by patience, and teaches by the words of sacred eloquence, is called both a chariot and a driver. A chariot, because by bearing he carries; a driver, because by exhorting he drives. A chariot, because he sustains evils; a driver, because he exercises the people with good admonitions. Tostatus, in the fourth book of Kings chapter 2 question 19, among other reasons says that Elisha so exclaimed to signify that Elias was seen departing from him, and therefore that he was to be endowed with a double spirit according to the promise of Elias, who a little before had foretold: Thou hast asked a hard thing; nevertheless if thou see me when I am taken from thee, thou shalt have what thou hast asked; but if thou see me not, it shall not be.
[60] No less is it controverted into what place Elias was translated. and various opinions concerning the place are reported, In the Vulgate text it is read that he ascended into heaven. Hence Procopius of Gaza, and some others, thought that Elias, already glorious, reigns in the heavens with Christ. But these authors took heaven too strictly, since nevertheless that word is often taken in the sacred Writings for the air, as when birds are called the fowls of heaven. Therefore perhaps the Seventy rendered this expression into Greek thus: ὡς εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν. That is, as it were into heaven. Besides, St. Augustine, book 9 on Genesis to the Letter chapter 6, openly contradicts this opinion: For it is not to be thought, he says, that Elias is either already such as the Saints will be, when, the day of work being finished, they shall receive the penny, or such as are the men who have not yet departed from this life. Now therefore he has something better, although he does not yet have that which, from this life rightly lived, he is to have in the end. Gregory the Great, Homily 29 on the Gospels, distinguishes a double heaven in these words: In the Old Testament we have learned that Elias was caught up into heaven: but one heaven is airy, another ethereal: for the airy heaven is nearest to the earth. Whence also we call them birds of heaven, because we see them fly in the air. Into the airy heaven, therefore, Elias was lifted up, that he might suddenly be led into some secret region of the earth, where he might now live in great quiet of flesh and spirit, until he return at the end of the world, and pay the debt of death. It does not deserve here to be refuted, the inept fable of certain Rabbis, who feign that Elias was consumed by the fire in a fiery sphere, and penetrated into heaven by his spirit alone. You see here a certain secret region of the earth assigned by St. Gregory to the sojourn of Elias.
[61] into which Elias was translated. Irenaeus and other ancient and grave authors place Elias in the earthly paradise, from which Adam was expelled. But this opinion is not certain, since many probably think that this earthly paradise perished by the waters of the deluge, as may be seen in Blasius Viegas in the exegetical commentaries on chapter 2 of the Apocalypse section 5, Benedict Pererius volume 1 on Genesis book 3 disputation 1 question 5, Jansenius bishop of Ghent in the Evangelical Concord chapter 143, Francis Suarez volume 2 on the 3rd part of the divine Thomas, question 59 article 6 disputation 55 section 1. Very many holy Fathers assert that the place is unknown in which Enoch and Elias now dwell. Nay, St. Chrysostom, Homily 21 on Genesis, admonishes that it is not to be too curiously investigated whither God translated Enoch. Theodoret, question 45 on Genesis, proposes this question: Into what place did the God of all translate Enoch? And presently he answers: Those things are not to be inquired into which are handed down in silence, but those to be venerated which are written. The same is to be thought of the present sojourn of Elias, and one must acquiesce in those Fathers who affirm that this place is unknown to us. It is subtly disputed here by some, whether Elias in this place needs bodily food, whether he is in a state of meriting; concerning which Francis Suarez and Blasius Viegas may be seen in the places just cited, and other Theologians. To this pertain more the things which were done by Elias after his rapture, and which will further be done about the end of the world.
§ X. The present state of Elias, the letter sent by him after his rapture to king Joram, his future return about the end of the world.
The Hebrew writers occupy Elias, in the place where he now dwells, with very many affairs, lest, namely, he should seem to be idle. First in their Seder Olam chapter 17 they hand down Elias, in the place where he now dwells, is by no means idle, that he there writes the deeds of all ages and times. Besides, Rabbi Kimchi devises that Elias is invisibly present at each of the circumcisions of the Jews. Nay, in our Sgambatus, in the place already several times above cited, the Yalkut, Section On the Mountain, has thus: When anyone does anything good, Elias and the Messiah write it, but God seals it. But to omit the uncertain and fabulous traditions of the Jews, it must rather be said that Elias is at leisure for the sweetest contemplations, and by no means enjoys an idle repose, as our Suarez intimates volume 2 on the 3rd part of the divine Thomas question 59 article 6 disputation 55 section 1. But if anyone, against Suarez, with Blasius Viegas and others, holds Elias capable of merit, it may be said that he exercises various acts of virtue, and increases his merits by other occupations that escape our knowledge. Be that as it may, Bernard, Sermon 6 on the Ascension of the Lord, indicates the assiduous occupation of Elias in these words: Too happy those men through whom the Lord's Ascension is read to have been prefigured, Enoch caught up, Elias translated. Plainly happy, who now live to God alone, are at leisure for God alone in understanding, loving, enjoying: for neither do the bodies, which are corrupted, weigh down those souls, nor does the earthly habitation press down their senses as thinking many things, who are known to have walked with God. Every hindrance has been removed out of the way, every occasion taken away, no matter left which may weigh down their affection or depress their intellect. Now concerning the letter of Elias, brought long after his rapture to king Joram, receive these few things.
[63] The second book of Paralipomenon chapter 11, having narrated the impiety of king Joram, and after his rapture he sent a letter to king Joram, speaks thus of this threatening letter, verse 12: And there was brought to him a letter from Elias the prophet, in which was written: Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father: Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Josaphat thy father, and in the ways of Asa king of Juda; but hast gone forward in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Juda and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, imitating the fornication of the house of Ahab; moreover also thou hast killed thy brethren, the house of thy father, better men than thyself; behold, the Lord will strike thee with a great plague, with thy people, and thy sons, and thy wives, and all thy substance. And thou shalt be sick of a very grievous disease of thy bowels, till thy vital parts come out little by little every day. To these threats of Elias the event responded, as the following show, which are there thus subjoined: The Lord therefore stirred up against Joram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, who border on the Ethiopians: and they came up into the land of Juda, and wasted it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king's house, moreover also his sons and his wives: so that there was no son left him, but Joachaz, who was the youngest. And besides all this the Lord struck him with an incurable disease of the bowels. And as day succeeded day, and the spaces of times rolled on, the course of two years was completed, and so, being wasted with a long consumption, so that he voided even his bowels, he lost his life together with his disease, and died of a very grievous sickness; and the people did not make for him a funeral according to the manner of burning, as they had done to his ancestors.
[64] The expounders of sacred Scripture go off into various opinions, the sending of which is variously explained. to find a manner in which Elias more probably wrote this letter, and directed it to Joram so long after his rapture. Cajetan indeed asserts that the Elias here commemorated is distinguished from Elias the Thesbite; but this his assertion is more easily denied than he himself can prove it; especially since that Elias is here called a prophet, by which name Elias the Thesbite is wont to be designated. At least, with the torrent of interpreters, his new opinion is to be rejected, until someone shall show that another Elias the prophet flourished under king Joram. Nor does the evasion of Vatablus please, who by Elias here understands Elisha, because he had received the double spirit of Elias. Others thought that Elias, before his rapture, wrote this letter, and gave it to Elisha or someone like him to keep, that he might afterward deliver it to king Joram: for Elias, they say, could by the prophetic spirit foresee what Joram would do and suffer, and so long before write a letter, which should afterward be rendered to the king. But I do not see the necessity of recurring to this explanation, which seems somewhat violent. What absurdity is there, if Elias, from the place in which he now dwells, sent this letter by an angel clothed in human form, or by Elisha or some other prophet, to whom he had appeared? For as in the Transfiguration of Christ Elias appeared to Peter, James, and John, so also he could appear to some prophet or faithful man, and give him a letter written by himself to be carried to Joram. This is the more common opinion of the interpreters, with which the Hebrews agree in their Seder Olam chapter 17, where this letter is called sent from heaven. Rabbi David Kimchi, according to Scipio Sgambatus cited above, thus explains the sending of this letter: Elias perhaps appeared to one of the prophets, and dictated to him this letter to be carried to the king, that he, considering that Elias wrote these things to him from heaven, might recognize how great a crime he had committed. Lest we seem to have neglected anything concerning the Acts of Elias, we must also treat of the things to be done by him about the end of the world.
[65] According to the common mind of the holy Fathers concerning Enoch and Elias, those things are explained Elias is to return about the end of the world, which in the Apocalypse of St. John chapter 11 are thus foretold: And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire shall come out of their mouths, and shall devour their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, in this manner must he be slain. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they will. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the abyss shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them: and their bodies
shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord also was crucified. And they of the tribes, and peoples, and tongues, and nations, shall see their bodies for three days and a half, and they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in sepulchres. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt upon the earth. And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them: Come up hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies saw them. Now some rather obscure things are here to be elucidated in order.
[66] which some heretics deny, I know that certain Catholics did not understand these things of Enoch and Elias, and thus gave a handle to the heretics for devising and blabbing worse things: for the Calvinists, especially the English, who deny that Elias and Enoch will come at the end of the world, teach that these two witnesses are the New and Old Testament. But this error is excellently refuted by our Lessius, when against the exposition of the king of Great Britain he thus writes: These two witnesses, whom the Lord will send, will be living witnesses, who will be able to explain themselves, dispute, refute their adversaries, show that that man is Antichrist, that his signs are lies, etc. But those two books are dead witnesses, and can neither enter into a contest with adversaries, nor explain themselves and resolve objections, nor be killed. Add that the two testaments are not clothed in sackcloth, nor do those things agree with them which, down to verse 13, are said of two singular persons. Some orthodox writers also think that those two witnesses came long ago, and expound this whole prophecy of Christ our Lord and John the Baptist. Others, among whom Lyranus and Aureolus, by them understand Pope Silverius and Menna Patriarch of Constantinople, who contended against the heresy of Eutyches. Finally there are not wanting those who think that in these two are noted St. Dominic and St. Francis, which did not displease Ubertinus. But the whole series of the Apocalypse manifestly shows that here the discourse is of the last times of the world, and that these two witnesses are Elias with his companion, as our Gregory Ferrarius rightly proves in his commentaries on the Apocalypse.
[67] These two witnesses shall preach 1260 days, which make three years and a half, who also impiously and ridiculously interpret the time of his preaching. as Cornelius a Lapide and Gregory Ferrarius compute, and other interpreters illustrating this place of the Apocalypse with notes. The Lutherans and Calvinists, in explaining these days, ridiculously, or rather miserably, torment themselves, in order to cast some mask over their rebellion against the Roman Pontiff. For they feign that by days here are understood years, and that there is designated the time in which the Roman Pontiff, whom they malignantly and impiously call Antichrist, exercises his tyranny in the Church of Christ. But since they now see that the Roman Pontiffs have presided over the Church longer, and that their reckoning does not succeed, even though out of their own brain they have turned days into years, they have devised other fables, by which to impose upon the rude populace. Bullinger indeed, Sermon 46, says that a certain time is here put for an uncertain. But this does not please Chytraeus and Illyricus, who in their centuries dream that these 1260 days are Angelic. Others devise other things. Thus they disagree among themselves with fanatical explanations, to understand which there would be need of an Oedipus. But what wonder, if the venomous hydra of heresy daily produces new heads of errors? Their insipid follies could here easily be pulled apart; but those unhappy men, so often convicted of calumny, are worthy rather of commiseration than of refutation. Now let us explain the rest.
[68] The circumstances of this last return are explained. By the beast which ascendeth out of the abyss is here commonly understood Antichrist, who will be cruel and fierce, as if he ascended from hell: nay, according to most interpreters, he will be directed by demons, to exercise all savagery against Elias and his companion, and their holy followers, and to put them to death. But the arena of Elias' martyrdom will probably be Jerusalem, which is called spiritually, that is, not properly, but with regard to the base morals of its inhabitants and their nefarious lust, Sodom and Egypt. Although some wrongly interpret this of the city of Rome, yet it is more probably gathered that Jerusalem is designated from these words immediately following: Where their Lord also was crucified. Further, sacred Scripture does not express by what kind of death Elias is to be put to death. The Carmelite Mirror volume 1 part 1 page 124 represents Elias crucified, and cites St. Thomas, who in the Golden Exposition on the Apocalypse is said to expound these words, Where their Lord also was crucified, thus: WHERE, that is, in which city, namely Jerusalem, THEIR LORD, namely of Elias and Enoch, namely Christ, WAS CRUCIFIED, by a bodily crucifixion, and thus they will be conformed to him both in death and in the place of death. I confess that here the future crucifixion of Elias is indicated; but it is denied that this Golden Exposition on the Apocalypse is to be ascribed to the Angelic Doctor. So think several learned men, and most recently Jacobus Echardus the Dominican, who in the Writers of the Order of Preachers lately edited by him volume 1 page 343 judges this work absolutely supposititious. Our Ferrarius, from certain conjectures, thinks it probable that Elias is to be crucified. But it is not of our forum to dispute at length about that matter: let it here suffice to have set forth, according to our design, the chief points pertaining to St. Elias. If these do not suffice for anyone, he has interpreters of sacred Scripture, at hand, whom he may consult.