Commentaria in III Regum
24. AND WHEN HE WAS GONE, A LION FOUND HIM IN THE WAY, AND KILLED HIM,—that is, strangled him, or killed him with a bite; but did not devour him, but kept the body whole: so was the prophet punished by God, that Jeroboam from this punishment of his might know that he was a true prophet. For he had said among other things that it was commanded him by God not to eat in Bethel, to show how He hated Bethel. Note: God here punishes only a venial sin with death, because He is Himself the supreme Lord of life and death of all; it is otherwise with a prince and judge, who ought to punish sins proportionally to their desert, grave gravely, light ones lightly. Whence human law cannot punish venial sins with death. So God punished Moses with death in the desert for the venial sin of unbelief, Numbers 20. So Lot’s wife, because she looked back, which was only a venial sin, was struck lifeless and turned into a statue of salt, Genesis 19. So Cassian, Conference 7, chapter 25, and St. Thomas, part 3, Question 7, article 2, reply to 3.
Morally St. Chrysostom, on Psalm 3: “As a dog,” he says, “or any wild beast which a man has tamed by kindnesses and made obedient to him in all things, if he feigns another face, or changes or darkens his own with soot, say, or mud, or a colour not his own, the household dog barks at him and seeks to bite him, or the tamed lion tears him, no less than if he were a stranger. So,” says Chrysostom, “because this prophet by disobedience had defiled his face with soot, the lion did not recognise him as its master, and therefore killed him as a stranger. Far otherwise did the lions behave toward Daniel, though they were hungry in the den, because they found in him such an appearance and face as they were bidden to reverence and kiss: for he had not defiled or changed his face with the soot of sin, as this prophet did, who sprinkled the dung or mire of disobedience on a face before pure and white.”
Again St. Jerome, book 2 Against Jovinian: “He who fasting had worked miracles, after dining paid at once the penalty of satiety.” Finally St. Bridget, book 5 Revelations, Interrogation 14, Question 1, asking why the just sometimes die an evil death, the unjust a good one? Christ answered: “Sometimes a lamentable end befalls the just for their greater merit, that those who throughout life were careful in virtues may fly free to heaven through a contemptible death”; and he brings as example this prophet killed by the lion.
AND THE ASS STOOD BY HIM, AND THE LION STOOD BY THE BODY,—as a guardian of the body of the holy man, and of his ass: wherefore the robber became guardian of his prey. Here God showed the holiness of the prophet: for, as Theodoret says, “He honoured him after death, because He brought his slayer (the lion) as his guardian: in this way honouring him as a prophet; in that punishing him as a transgressor, and terrifying those who are now alive, that they despise not even the small commandments of God.” Theodoret goes on, and after him Procopius, to show from this place how great care God has of the bodies of the saints, that He sets even lions as their guardians. The lion, therefore, who was the executioner of the living man, became the defender of the dead, so that he who was seen slain for disobedience might be believed saved for penance. So Lyranus; for being penitent he patiently accepted from God the death sent for his fault.
Hear St. Augustine, book On the Care for the Dead, chapter 7: “For thus far the Lord wished to chastise His servant, who had not despised to fulfil His precept by his own contumacy, but by the deceit of another deceiving him believed that he was obeying when he did not obey. Nor is it to be thought that he was so killed by the bite of a beast that his soul was thereupon hurried to the punishment of hell; since his very body the same lion that had killed it guarded, the beast of burden on which he rode being unhurt, and standing together with that savage beast, undismayed by its presence, at the funeral of its master. By which wonderful sign it appears that the man of God was rather chastised in time even to death than punished after death.”
Hear also St. Gregory, book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 24: “The lion stood by the ass, and did not eat of the body. By which it is shown that the sin of disobedience was loosed in death itself, because the same lion, which it dared to kill alive, dared not touch when slain. For he who had the daring to kill received no licence to eat of the body of the slain: because he who had been culpable in life, his disobedience being punished, was now just through death. The lion, therefore, who had first slain the life of the sinner, afterwards guarded the body of the just.”
Eucherius and Angelomus transcribed the same from St. Gregory, and add a moral lesson, that no one should deem himself of any virtue, although he has done something bravely: for this prophet, who boasted that he had despised and rebuked king Jeroboam, was permitted to fall and be killed. A similar example of a holy hermit struck by God with a deadly disease for a slight fault, and yet working many miracles, Cassian recounts, Conference 7, chapter 26.
29. THE PROPHET THEREFORE TOOK UP THE BODY OF THE MAN OF GOD,—to bury it honourably and mourn it according to custom, especially because he himself had been by his lie the cause of his death. Whence it is clear from what follows that this prophet was faithful and pious, who by misplaced hospitality had seduced the prophet. Wherefore Josephus, book 8 Antiquities, chapter 3, greatly differs and strays from the narrative of Holy Scripture, when he says that this false prophet confirmed king Jeroboam, terrified by the threats and miracles of the prophet and wishing to come away from idols, in idolatry, and made light of and refuted the prophet’s miracles before him. “For he said,” says Josephus, “that his hand had grown numb through weariness while he was bringing victims to the altar, and then after rest had recovered its former vigour. The altar too, being of recent construction even then, and not able to bear the mass of so many and such great victims, had burst and fallen. Lastly he points to the death of the seer, that he was killed by a lion: so little was there anything divine either in his life or in his words. By these words he persuaded the king, and his mind, already wholly turned away from God and from just and pious works, he precipitated into extreme impiety. For so far thereafter did he rave against all right and law that he sought nothing else than how from day to day he might surpass himself more and more by new crimes.” But these things are foreign to, and as it were contrary to, the narrative of Holy Scripture in what follows.
AND BROUGHT IT BACK TO THE CITY OF THE OLD PROPHET,—that is, to his own city, namely Bethel, as is plain from verse 32, for he was “the old prophet” who had seduced him by his lie, and therefore buried and mourned him killed by the lion.
31. WHEN I AM DEAD, BURY ME IN THE SEPULCHRE WHEREIN THE MAN OF GOD (the prophet killed by the lion) IS BURIED.—He commanded this to the end that his bones might not be burnt by Josias: for Josias dug up all the sepulchres of the rest, as of idolaters, and burnt the bones in Bethel, except the sepulchre of the prophet who had here thundered against Jeroboam, and had foretold that Josias would overthrow his idols and idolaters, as is plain from book 4 of Kings, chapter 23; wherefore he wished his own bones also to be buried in his sepulchre, that his bones might be preserved untouched.
33. WHOSOEVER WOULD, FILLED HIS HAND (with oil and victims, having his hands anointed by another priest, and being consecrated, and offering with his hand the victims customarily offered in consecration. Whence it follows: and by this rite) WAS MADE A PRIEST OF THE HIGH PLACES,—that is, of the calves, which were set up and adored on the high mountain of Bethel. For Jeroboam expelled the Levites and Aaronic priests, who accordingly with the other faithful Israelites detesting the idols of Jeroboam fled to Jerusalem to Roboam, and strengthened his kingdom.
34. AND FOR THIS CAUSE THE HOUSE OF JEROBOAM SINNED (with the great sin of idolatry, namely because he set up golden calves, and compelled the whole people to adore them), AND (therefore) WAS CUT OFF, AND DESTROYED FROM OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH,—as if utterly erased from the earth, so that no one of it remained surviving, as is plain in the following chapter, verse 10.
Note here that the true cause of the ruin and destruction even of royal families, such as that of Jeroboam was, is idolatry, heresy, and the other crimes following from it; and this is shown throughout this book, and the fourth that follows, by the examples of all the kings of Israel, who followed Jeroboam in the idolatry of the calves as well as in the kingdom. Where their wondrous blindness is clear, that when they heard these threats of God, and saw them actually fulfilled in Jeroboam and their other predecessors, they nevertheless, as if demented, followed their idolatry; and therefore they too together with their families were cut off by God.