Commentaria in IV Regum
If Any Man Meet Thee, Salute Him Not
Why Giezi was forbidden to salute. The first cause was, that Giezi should not, by saluting those he met and conversing with them, spin out delays on the road, but should at once raise the boy by laying the staff upon him, before the husband learned that he was dead; as if to say, as St. Augustine says, sermon 406 On the Seasons: “Walk so swiftly that thou presume not to be occupied or delayed by any idle talk.” Second, that the matter might remain secret. Third, because Giezi, say Theodoret and Procopius, was greedy of praise, and so, boasting to those he met, would have said: My master Eliseus has sent me to raise the dead, and I am therefore going to him to do it; wherefore by this boasting he would have offended God, and so hindered the miracle, and God would not have raised the boy through him. Fourth, that Giezi might avoid all distraction of eyes and ears, and dispose himself wholly by prayer for the working of so great a miracle. So Cajetan, Abulensis and St. Ambrose on chapter x of Luke, book VII, on those words: “Salute no man by the way:” “For he bade him hasten,” he says, “that he might perform the office of celebrating the resurrection, lest by the chat of anyone he met he should be turned aside from his charge. Therefore here too the duty of salutation is not taken away, but an obstacle to hindering devotion is removed: so that, when divine things are commanded, human things may be set aside for a little while.”
31. HE HAD LAID THE STAFF UPON THE FACE OF THE CHILD, AND THERE WAS NO VOICE NOR SENSE.—St. Augustine gives an allegorical cause, sermon 106 On the Seasons, saying: “This servant (Giezi) had the type of blessed Moses. For God sent him with a staff into Egypt; but the staff without Christ could scourge Egypt, it could not free from original or actual sin, nor raise to life. For the law, as the Apostle says, brought nothing to perfection. It was needful that He who had sent the staff should Himself come down. The staff without Eliseus availed nothing, because the cross without Christ could do nothing.” St. Peter by a staff sent by him raised from death St. Maternus his disciple, and first Bishop of Treves, as his Life has it, and St. Macedonius by his staff raised Theodoretus when almost lifeless, as he himself relates in the Philotheus, chapter xiii.
THE CHILD IS NOT RISEN.—Why? Rabbi Solomon gives the reason in Lyra: “This was,” he says, “because of the demerit of Giezi, who did not keep the command of Eliseus, but boastfully told those who met him that he was sent to raise the dead.” For he is unworthy to work miracles who glories in working them. This Eliseus certainly both foresaw and guarded against, saying to the servant whom he sent: “If any man meet thee, salute him not; and if any man salute thee, answer him not.” For as Theodoret rightly says, Question XVII: “He knew,” he says, “that he was desirous of honour and would give an account of the cause; but vain glory would be a hindrance to his working the miracle.” Rabbi Eliezer, chapter xxxii, gives another cause: “Giezi,” he says, “laughed, saying to those he met: Dost thou believe that this staff will restore life?”
34. AND HE LAY UPON THE CHILD, AND PUT HIS MOUTH UPON HIS MOUTH, etc.—Franciscus Valesius, Sacred Philosophy, chapter xxxv, says: If it were permitted to say that the boy was not altogether dead, but had suffered a swoon, this cure of Eliseus would have been natural: for those seized by a swoon are in danger of dying from the extinction of natural heat, and are wont to be revived by warming and heating (especially by human breath; for this heat is of the same kind and vital). Again Eliseus walked to and fro, that he might stir up his own heat to be infused into the boy:
for this heat is especially excited by exercise; whence presently, taking it from him lying upon him, the boy began to gape, the heat now beginning to stir and drive out the breath, and, as vigour and animal spirits increased, his eyes were opened, and then the instruments of the other senses, and the boy was recalled to the offices of life. But from the narrative of Holy Scripture it is clearly evident that the boy was truly dead, and had not suffered a swoon: Eliseus therefore lay upon the boy for the same reasons for which Elias his master had lain upon a similar dead child, which I have set out in 3 Kings xvii. The allegorical and chief cause was that Eliseus might represent, in deed as in name, the incarnation of the Son of God, in which He put on our flesh, and as it were fitted mouth to mouth, hands to hands, feet to feet.
So St. Augustine, sermon 141 On the words of the Apostle: “What,” he says, “did the dead boy signify, but Adam (and the sinner, the son of Adam, dead through sins)? He laid the staff upon the dead, and he rose not. For if a law had been given which could give life, justice would altogether be from the law. The law therefore could not give life. He Himself came, great, to the little one, the Saviour to be saved, the living to the dead, He Himself came. And what did He do? He drew together His grown limbs, as emptying Himself, that He might take the form of a servant. He drew together, therefore, His grown limbs, He fitted the little to the little; that He might make the body of our lowness conformable to the body of His glory. And so in this very type, Christ prophetically expressed, the dead was raised, as the ungodly was justified.”
Again the same St. Augustine, sermon 106 On the Seasons: “Eliseus came,” he says, “and went up into the upper chamber, because Christ was to come and to ascend the gibbet of the cross. Eliseus bowed himself, that he might raise the boy; Christ humbled Himself, that He might raise up the world lying in sins. Eliseus laid eyes upon eyes, hands upon hands. See, brethren, how much that man of perfect age drew himself together; that he might fit the little one lying dead. For what Eliseus prefigured in the boy, that Christ fulfilled in the whole human race. Hear the Apostle saying: He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death. Because we were little ones, He made Himself a little one. Because we lay dead, the physician first bowed Himself; because in truth no one can raise a brother lying down, if he will not bow himself. But that the boy gaped seven times shows the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, which is given to the human race that it may be raised.” The same things from St. Augustine have Eucherius, Angelomus, Bede, Rupert and others.
Hear also St. Ambrose, tome II, on Ecclesiastes iv, Exhortation to Clerics, who explains this of Christ on the cross measuring Himself to us, warming us and giving us life: “Christ died with us, that He might warm us, who said: I am come to cast fire on the earth. I was dead; but because in baptism I died together with Christ, I received the light of life from Christ. And he who dies in Christ, being warmed through Christ, receives the warmth of life and resurrection. The boy was cold, Eliseus warms him with his spirit, gave him the heat of life. He slept with him, that the heat of his rest might rouse him who in the symbol had been buried with him. He is therefore cold who does not die in Christ. He cannot be warmed to whom the burning fire does not draw near. He cannot grow strong who has not Christ with him.”
Hear finally St. Bernard, sermon 46 on the Canticle: “He touched my eyes with His eyes, adorning the brow of the inner man with bright lights, faith and understanding. To my mouth He joined His own, and to the dead man imprinted the sign of peace; since, when we were yet sinners, He reconciled us to God, dead to justice. He applied mouth to mouth, again breathing into my face the breath of life; but a holier one than the first. For first He created me into a living soul; second, He reformed me into a quickening spirit. He laid His hands upon mine, giving an example of good works, a form of obedience; or surely He sent His hands to strong things, that He might teach my hands to war, and my fingers to battle. And the boy gaped seven times, because seven times a day he was wont to say praise,” Psalm cxviii. Symbolically Blessed Peter Damian, book On the contempt of the world, chapter xxvi: “He,” he says, “whom the rod of terror could not raise, returns to life by the spirit of love, and when he fitted and composed himself to the little one, he easily raised and revived him.”
Again Eliseus here gave a symbol of the Eucharist, in which Christ, as St. Cyril says, mingles Himself wholly with us, and as it were applies eyes to eyes, mouth to mouth, hands to hands, soul to our soul; which was represented in a beautiful appearance through a vision to Rupert, Abbot of Deutz: for when he was ordered by his Superior to take the priesthood, and thought himself unworthy of so great a rank, he saw in a vision Christ crucified inviting him to an embrace. Wherefore Rupert, embracing and kissing Christ most closely, relates that Christ, that he might receive his kisses more deeply, offered his own divine mouth open and gaping: and at the same time it came about that, in that embrace, he was both inflamed in a greater degree with divine love, and also felt a desire for the priesthood, which he had before fled from, inspired in him; which, as soon as day broke, when he had made it known to his Abbot, he fulfilled a little after to the joy of all. He adds also another vision, by which, after receiving that order, he was no less confirmed. For as he lay in his bed, the appearance of a man appeared, gliding down from heaven, with his head covered, as if he wished not to be recognised, and he so gave himself wholly upon him that head to head, feet to feet, and the other limbs with all his limbs he intimately united: nay, he so penetrated and impressed the very substance of the soul, in a manner that could not be expressed in words, and indeed more swiftly and deeply than the softest wax is impressed by a seal. He adds, what may easily be believed, that there followed so great and so incredible a joy and sweetness, that unless it had been quickly checked by God, that torrent of delight would without doubt have drawn the soul out of the body. This, as I have related, Rupert himself reports of himself, book XII on Matthew, page 162, and from him Hieronymus Platus, book I On the good of the religious state, chapter xxxvii.
Tropologically, he who wishes to recall to the life of grace his neighbours dead by sin must accommodate himself to their infirmity, and by excess of charity as it were apply mouth to mouth, hands to hands, tongue to tongue. Let the religious do the same, that he may accommodate himself in all things, as far as is lawful, to other religious as well as to seculars, as the Apostle did, saying: “I became all things to all men, that I might gain all.” For in religion there is the highest union, concord, familiarity and mutual help of all, as Platus teaches from St. Basil, Chrysostom and others, book I On the good of the religious state, chapters xxvii and xxviii.
34. AND HE STRETCHED HIMSELF UPON HIM,—drawing together his great limbs, so as to make them as it were equal to the small limbs of the boy. The Septuagint add, and he breathed upon him, that is, by breathing on him with his breath he warmed the boy. Whence it follows:
AND THE FLESH OF THE CHILD GREW WARM,—namely that by heat it might be disposed to animation and life: as therefore a mother disposes the embryo in the womb, by warming it, for the soul to be infused into it by God, so also Eliseus did here. For God willed him to work this miracle in a manner conformable to nature. In like manner God, forming Adam into a living man, “breathed into his face the breath of life,” Genesis ii,
35. THEN HE RETURNED, AND WALKED IN THE HOUSE ONCE TO AND FRO,—that by walking he might stir up both a greater heat, which he would afterwards breathe into the boy by lying upon him, and a greater fervour of praying for the raising of the boy. Allegorically, Eliseus walking represented Christ walking through Judea, and everywhere scattering the seeds of the Gospel. So Eucherius.