Commentaria in III Regum
“Those who are men of zeal are drawn away from all pleasure of bodily things; but, free from all evils and moved by the love of God, they love the peace of all goods and holiness; and from this life they make the beginning of the future, since among men they imitate the life of the Angels with all tranquillity of mind, worthy of being called by the name of God, with kindness and the other virtues,” etc. Again, the fortitude of God belongs to Elias, which Isaias describes in chapter 25, verse 4, saying: “Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a hope from the whirlwind, a shadow from the heat; for the blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a wall. Thou shalt bring down the tumult of strangers like heat in a dry place, and as with heat under a burning cloud, thou shalt make the branch of the mighty to wither.” With like fortitude Elias cast down Achab, Jezabel and the Baalites, according to that of Ecclesiasticus 48:3: “They that provoked him (Elias) by their envy, were made few; for they could not bear the commandments of the Lord.” And a little after: “Who castedst down kings to destruction, and brokest easily the power of them, and the glorious from their bed.”
Moreover Bede and Angelomus on 4 Kings, chapter 23, and also St. Chrysostom, homily 3 On Elias, assert that Elias is so called as if “helios,” that is the sun, because he was the sun of Israel and was carried to heaven in a fiery chariot, and hence the poets feign that the sun is carried in a fiery chariot, which, because Phaethon the son of the sun did not know how to drive, he burned himself and the world, of which more in book 4, chapter 1. These things are said by way of allusion: for it is certain that Elias is a Hebrew name, not Greek. In like manner Nazianzen derives the Hebrew name pascha from the Greek “pascho,” that is I suffer, because Christ suffered at the pasch.
You will ask third, what were the eminent virtues and endowments of Elias, by which he overthrew idolatry? I answer, his first endowment was innocence of life, austerity and holiness. Hear St. Isidore, in the book On the Birth and Death of the Prophets, chapter 35: “Elias,” he says, “a great priest and prophet, a dweller in solitude, full of faith, highest in devotion, strong in labours, skilful in industry, endowed with excellent genius, upright in the exercise of discipline, assiduous in holy meditation, and fearless of the fear of death.”
The second endowment of Elias was solitude and contemplation. For withdrawing to Carmel he gave himself to prayer and contemplation, and there gathered Eliseus and other disciples, as the author of the monastic and eremitical life. Whence the Carmelites profess that they received their name and institute from Elias on Mount Carmel, of which more in chapter 18.
The third was his liberty of speaking and rebuking, in which, among other things, he told King Achab and Jezabel to their face that they were sold to sin, and that God would cut off all their stock, and that the dogs would lick the blood of Jezabel, chapter 21:20.
The fourth, an unconquered patience and fortitude of mind, by which he generously endured and overcame all the persecutions of kings and idolaters, nay, slew all the priests of Baal, chapter 18.
The fifth, zeal for the honour and worship of God, which drove him to enter upon all the contests with the king and the Baalites, whence he himself says to God: “With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, they have slain thy prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life,” chapter 19, verse 14. Hence Elias is called by some an Angel; and of John the Baptist the Angel says that he shall go before Christ “in the spirit and power of Elias,” Luke 1. Hence Elias was taken up, that he may run before Christ to the judgment, and fight against Antichrist, by whom he shall therefore be slain, and crowned with martyrdom at Jerusalem; but on the third day, before all the people, he shall gloriously rise from death and ascend into heaven, as I said on Apocalypse 11:3. Finally see the praises of Elias in Ecclesiasticus 48:1: “And Elias the prophet stood up,” it says, “as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch.” See what is said there. For Elias was wholly fiery and thundering.
Hence allegorically Elias was a type of Christ, who was truly “Elias,” that is “the Lord God.” For Christ, like Elias, had great contests about the faith of the Messias with the Scribes and Pharisees, and endured continual persecutions from them, and at last the death of the cross, but on the third day rose from it glorious, and on the 40th ascended into heaven. So Angelomus, Eucherius, Rupert and others.
Finally Elias was the leader and prince of the other Prophets: and for this reason he appeared together with Moses the lawgiver at the transfiguration of Christ, and gave testimony to Him in the name of all the prophets, that He was the true Messias prophesied by them, Matthew 17.
THE THESBITE,—sprung from Thesba or the village of Thesbe, situated in the tribe of Gad between Jaaba and Saron, says Adrichomius in his Description of the Holy Land. Hence St. Epiphanius, Dorotheus, Isidore, Metaphrastes and others in the Life of Elias teach that Elias was born in Thesbe, which borders on Arabia. Hear St. Epiphanius: “Elias was of Thesbis, on the mainland of Arabia: but he dwelt in Galaad, because the houses of Thesbis were consecrated and destined for priests.” But more clearly Metaphrastes: “Elias,” he says, “was called Thesbite by the priests (namely of Jerusalem, to whom his father Sobachus went to consult about the vision), because it was a house which had fallen by lot to the priests, in which he dwelt, exercising virtue from adolescence, and making his soul flaming by the fire-breathing grace of the Holy Spirit.”
Abulensis, Hugh and Lyranus are therefore mistaken, who think that Elias was sprung from the city of Thebe, in which Abimelech the son of Gedeon died, Judges 9:50. For Thebe was in the tribe of Ephraim near Sichem, but Thesbe, the country of Elias, was beyond the Jordan in Galaad, namely in the tribe of Gad. Wherefore Elias seems to have been a Gadite, and from his birth to have drawn manly, strong and warlike spirits. For such were the Gadites, according to that of Genesis 49:19: “Gad, being girded (for this is what Gad means in Hebrew), shall fight before him, and he shall be girded backward.”
Moreover, Thesbite in Hebrew is the same as capturing or converting, says Angelomus and others. For Elias captured and “converted the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers,” as Malachias says, chapter 4, verse 6. Concerning the birth and upbringing of Elias Dorotheus has this in his Life: “When Elias was about to be born, his father Sabacha saw him saluted on high by white-robed angels, and wrapped in fire as in swaddling clothes, and fed with the flame of fire as with food, and he went to Jerusalem and told this matter, and it was said to him by oracle not to fear; for the boy who was to be born would dwell in light, and what he said would have firm sentence, and he would judge Israel with sword and fire.” St. Epiphanius and Metaphrastes have the same in the Life of Elias. Hence the Fathers agree that Elias kept perpetual virginity, namely St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian and to Eustochium, On the Keeping of Virginity, Ambrose, book 1 On Virgins. St. Chrysostom asserts the same, in the book On Virginity, tome 5, St. Ephrem in more than one place: beautifully in Paraenesis 1, tome 2, fol. 90, he says: “The best gift of the monk is virginity, carrying him to heaven in a chariot with Elias;” and fol. 91: “Elias, covering thee with his goatskin, will bring thee into the heavens.”
That Eliseus also and the other disciples of Elias were virgins or celibates is not doubtful: nay, that several of them were slain by Jezabel for the true religion of God and obtained the crown of martyrdom is clear enough from chapter 18, verse 13.
Moreover, Elias does not seem to have been a priest, say Abulensis, Sanchez and others, because he was not sprung from Levi, but from Gad: whence Scripture nowhere calls him a priest, as it calls Jeremias and Zacharias the father of John the Baptist. St. Epiphanius, however, St. Isidore and others call him a priest, and sprung from Levi, because the Levites and priests, since they had no possession of their own, were scattered through all the tribes to instruct them in the faith and worship of God. Elias the Levite could therefore have been born in the tribe of Gad.
Finally the Hebrews judge that Elias is Phinees, the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron, but they err, as I showed elsewhere.
OF THE INHABITANTS OF GALAAD.—Elias migrated from his native Thesbe into the neighbouring Galaad. Why?
I answer first, because the Galaadites at that time were of very corrupt morals, idolaters and murderers. Elias therefore went to them, to recall them, by himself and his disciples, to better fruit. This is clear from the prophet Osee, who prophesied under King Ozias a little after Elias, and in chapter 6, verse 8, says thus: “Galaad, a city of them that work idols, supplanted with blood. And as the jaws of robbers, partaker with the priests, they murder in the way those that go from Sichem.” See what was said there.