Commentaria in III Regum
Allegorically Rupert, book 5, chapter 10, takes by the juniper the holy and life-giving cross of God, to which the faithful man flees when he is beaten by fear or other temptation: there he at once embraces death, there he wishes to die with Christ, because he submits himself wholly to His cross, and desires to be conformed and crucified together with Him.
HE REQUESTED FOR HIS SOUL (that is, for himself; it is a Hebraism) THAT HE MIGHT DIE.—Whence so great a fear, so great a consternation in Elias, who a little before had fearlessly contended with Achab and the Baalites, and overcome them? I answer first, because God withdrew from him the strength given him by Himself, that Elias might recognise that it was the gift of God, and that he was by his own nature timid, like other men. For this reason God is wont to expose the saints who have done illustrious things to fears and temptations, to keep them in humility, lest they be puffed up, but be forced to have recourse to God. So St. Chrysostom, in the homily On Elias and Peter, which is found in Surius on the first of August: “God,” he says, “wished to make clear that those miracles which had been shown were done not by Elias, but by His own power. See what He does: at the time when God Himself was working, kings, princes and peoples gave way before Elias; but when God had departed, even one woman seemed terrible to that prophet. God departed, and human nature was convicted.” And a little after: “Not for one day or two, but for forty days he fled, and betook himself to a wholly desert region, carrying with him no nourishment, no food; for as if drunk with fear, he cared nothing for the rest, but followed only desert regions.” Angelomus and Rabanus have almost the same here: “Holy men,” they say, “are caught up on high by the sustaining Spirit, but as long as they are in this life, they are held down by temptations lest they be proud.”
St. Chrysostom adds that God wished by this fear to punish the cruelty of Elias, in that he had slain 850 false prophets. But this is improbable, since he did it at God’s command out of zeal, to take away idolatry.
Second, because Jezabel, seeing all her prophets slain by Elias, raged against Elias, to torture him most cruelly, and had in her hand Achab her husband the king, through whom she could send countless soldiers against Elias. Wherefore Elias feared Jezabel more than Achab and the Baalites. For, as Ecclesiasticus says, chapter 25, verse 22: “There is no head worse than the head of a serpent, and there is no anger above the anger of a woman.” Whence St. Ambrose, epistle 93, says that the temptations of women are graver than those of men, as brave men have been conquered and laid low by them. So also St. Bernard, sermon 64 among the small ones. Hence St. Peter, who had fought against a whole cohort, and had cut off Malchus’ ear, feared a maid-servant, and through fear of her denied Christ.
THAT HE MIGHT DIE.—You will say: Elias was fleeing from Jezabel who wished to kill him, so he was fleeing death. Why then does he here desire the same? I answer first, because in the flight and its difficulties, and the hardships of the way, the labour grew, and thence the grief and sorrow of Elias, which so depressed him that he desired death, which he had before fled, to escape such and so great hardships. So we see that those who have escaped plague and death, if they afterwards fall into heavier tribulations and dangers, desire and say: Would that I had died with my companions, would that the plague had carried me off with the rest. Such were the Greeks, who, returning after the capture of Troy, tossed by a most violent tempest, wished that they had perished in the siege of Troy:
What can fate do? Pyrrhus envies his father; Ulysses envies Ajax, the younger Atrides Hector:
Agamemnon envies Priam. Whoever lies at Troy is thought happy, (says Seneca in the Agamemnon).
The second and stronger cause was that Elias feared to be slain by Jezabel, not that he dreaded death, but lest he and with him the true religion of God should seem overcome and vanquished by Jezabel. For Jezabel would have boasted that she had slain Elias, and with him had supplanted the faith and worship of God. He desires therefore that death be sent him by God, lest it be inflicted by Jezabel, not so much on himself as on the worship and religion of God. So Herodias slew St. John the Baptist, the antitype of Elias, and Eudoxia St. Chrysostom. See St. Peter Damian, tome 2, sermon 2 On St. Vitalis.
Allegorically, Elias here represents the weakness of Christ fearing in the garden. So Rupert, book 5, chapter 10.
IT IS ENOUGH FOR ME, LORD (to have lived thus far, and to have been adorned by thee with so many and so great benefits. It is enough for me to have conquered Achab, and slain the false prophets). TAKE AWAY (therefore) MY SOUL,—lest Jezabel take it away with disgrace and infamy to me as well as to thee.
FOR I AM NO BETTER THAN MY FATHERS,—both the ancient, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc.; and the nearest, namely the prophets already before slain by Jezabel, whom I venerate as older than I and as fathers, nay as martyrs.
5. AND HE CAST HIMSELF DOWN, AND SLEPT IN THE SHADOW OF THE JUNIPER TREE,—from weariness of the journey and sorrow of mind. Moreover the shade of the juniper is thin, since the juniper has thorns instead of leaves, and is harmful. For, as Virgil says, Eclogue 10: “The shade of the juniper is heavy:” wherefore this shade increased rather than lessened the headache and sorrow in Elias. Whence this shade is a type of human defences, which, though vain and harmful, men nevertheless flee to, whereas they ought rather to flee to the shade and protection of God and Christ, as useful and solid, with the spouse who says, Canticles 2:3: “Under the shadow of him whom I desired I sat, and his fruit was sweet to my palate.” And with Jeremias, Lamentations 4:20: “The Spirit of our mouth, Christ the Lord, is taken in our sins; of whom we said: Under his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles.” “For Christ,” as St. Bernard says, sermon 9 on Missus est, “ceases not to protect the little ones who flee to him under the shadow of his wings, whether from the heat of carnal desires, or from the face of the impious who have afflicted them. A good and desirable shadow is that under the wings of Jesus, where for those fleeing is a safe refuge, for the weary a welcome refreshment.” Hence again Jeremias, chapter 17, verse 5: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, etc. For he shall be like tamarisk in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord.”
7. THOU HAST YET A GREAT WAY TO GO,—as far as Mount Horeb, that there thou mayest see and hear God, verse 11, as Moses saw and heard. So for every faithful man a great way remains to the summit of holiness and perfection, and a greater way remains to the empyrean heaven.
8. HE WALKED IN THE STRENGTH OF THAT FOOD FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS, UNTO THE MOUNT OF GOD, HOREB.—Hence it is plain that a wonderful power was given by God to this food and bread, so that the strength of Elias sufficed for the journey without other nourishment for 40 days and nights. Whence the Author of the Wonders of Holy Scripture, book 2, chapter 19, asserts that this bread was wonderfully made by the hands of Angels, although Abulensis thinks it was natural and common, to which God gave this power of strengthening Elias, so that he needed no other food.