ON ST. JOAD THE PROPHET IN PALESTINE.
CommentaryJoad the Prophet in Palestine (St.)
[1] The Greeks celebrate this Prophet in nearly all their calendars, and first the manuscript Greek Menologion collected by order of the Emperor Basil the Porphyrogenitus has the following:
The memory of the holy Prophet Joad.
When Jeroboam, the servant of Rehoboam the son of Solomon, had revolted with ten tribes from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, Encomium from the Menologion of the Emperor Basil: and having rejected the true God had made golden calves, and worshipped them with all his people as his gods; this Prophet was sent to reprove him on God's behalf. He came therefore and reproved him. But Jeroboam stretched out his hand to strike him, and saw it become withered: and soon, led by repentance, he asked the Prophet to heal it. When he had done so, he urged him to eat bread, but he could not be induced to do so, because it was forbidden by God. But as he was returning, a certain false prophet met him and compelled him to enter his house and eat bread. On account of this transgression, a lion met him on the road and killed him: when the false prophet learned this, he came and took the remains of his body and buried them.
[2] and of Sirletus: The memory of the same Prophet is in the Menologion translated by Cardinal Sirletus, and in the printed great Menaia, and in the Lives of the Saints published by Maximus Bishop of Cythera, and on the following day in the manuscript Menaia, Menaia: which are preserved at the home of Peter Francis Chifflet at Dijon, on which day also in the manuscript Synaxarion of the Jesuit Clermont College in Paris the following eulogy is found: 31 March, in the manuscript Synaxarion: The memory of the righteous Prophet Joad. He was from Samaria, whom a lion struck and killed, at the time when he reproved Jeroboam on account of the calves. For God had commanded him to go and reprove him, and neither to eat bread nor drink water, but to return quickly. He went therefore and found Jeroboam sacrificing: he addressed him in the power of the Lord and said: O Altar: thus says the Lord: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of Judah, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places. And Jeroboam stretched out his hand to seize him, and his hand withered. But when Jeroboam entreated and the Prophet poured out prayers, his hand was restored as it had been before. But when the Prophet was returning, led by the persuasion of the false Prophet, he ate bread with him. Wherefore, on account of his disobedience, God permitted him to be struck down and killed by a fierce lion, but not to be devoured. He was buried in Bethel, and next to him the false prophet who had deceived him. So far this account.
[3] He who is called Joad by the Greeks is called Jadon by Josephus, Jaddo by St. Jerome on 2 Paralipomenon chapter 10, his various names: Addo by Hugh, Lyra, and others cited by Cornelius a Lapide on chapter 13 of the third book of Kings; by others he is also read to be called Joam, Joel, and Shemaiah in the same place. In Sacred Scripture he is more often called the man of God and said to have come from Judah in the word of the Lord to Bethel. Hence that he was born in Samaria seems to be a gloss of the author of this Synaxarion. Moreover, the other is said in Scripture to have deceived him, but is nowhere called a false prophet, his body preserved as that of a Saint: but is simply called a Prophet, and the word of the Lord came to this Prophet. Hence Joad believed him to be a true, not a false, prophet. Wherefore St. Augustine, Eucherius, Angelomus, Cajetan, Salianus, Serarius, and others, and with those cited by him Cornelius a Lapide, assert that he was killed by the lion for this slight sin, but that his body, as that of a holy man, was preserved whole and untouched by the same lion.