Commentaria in IV Regum
19. And He Said to Him: Go in Peace
Valentia, in his treatise On faith and the profession of faith, disputation I, Question III, point 2, reply to 3, holds that this petition of Naaman contains something unlawful, namely a profession of idolatry; that Naaman cooperated in the idolatry of the king in the adoration of the idol Remmon, and that Eliseus therefore neither assented nor answered directly, but permitted, that is, took a negative attitude, because he saw that Naaman at this time was incapable of correction, to lay aside this pretence of idolatry, and therefore deferred it to another time, and for the present it sufficed him that he had brought Naaman to the knowledge of the true God. But if Naaman was cooperating in idolatry, Eliseus ought to have taught him about it and not have dissembled. For from his saying: “Go in peace,” Naaman altogether gathered that Eliseus assented to his petition, and granted that, when the king adored, he too might adore in the temple of Remmon; wherefore Eliseus would have fostered and confirmed Naaman in his idolatry, which God forbid.
Worse the Priscillianists, whom Machiavelli follows, said that it is lawful to feign outwardly heresy or idolatry, provided that in the mind you retain the true faith; whence they said: “Swear, perjure, do not betray the secret.” More mildly, yet wrongly, Adrian in IV, Question I On Baptism, reply to 5, asserts that it is lawful to feign idolatry externally, if scandal be absent, and the precept of confessing the faith do not press.
pretending to adore Remmon. So nobles, says Cajetan, accompanying their king going to a concubine, do not sin; because they do not accompany him that he may go to fornicate and sin, but absolutely that he may go wherever he pleases: for they accompany him only for honour and service, as servants their lord.
The sense of Naaman, therefore, was, as if to say: I ask, O Eliseus, leave that, when the king bows himself in the temple of Remmon to adore him, I also, supporting the king, may bow myself, not to adore Remmon, but to render this courtesy and service to my king, to which I am held by my office, in the temple as elsewhere, lest I fall from rank and dignity with the king. For the king leans upon me; wherefore wherever he bends and turns, I ought likewise to turn and bend. This act of bowing, therefore, was adiaphoron and indifferent, and the worship was not sacred but civil and political. For to support the king, whether standing, walking or kneeling, is of itself an act of service; but it is by accident that it happens he is supported while he bows before an idol. For that is to show reverence not to the idol, but to the king.
Thou wilt say second: Naaman gave scandal to the courtiers; for they thought that he adored with the king the idol Remmon.
Note therefore that this adoration of Naaman was not adoration properly so called: for so it would have been impious and idolatrous, but improper, namely a bending of the body, or genuflexion for the sake of service. I answer there was no scandal, both because they knew that Naaman was bound by his office to support the king in this bending of the body, and pretended nothing else; and because Naaman, namely, supported and held up the king by the office committed to him in the temple, as he was wont to do elsewhere; which he could not do unless, the king genuflecting, he likewise genuflected. It is a catachresis. This is plain from the Hebrew shachah, which properly signifies to bow or bend oneself, as Arias here translates. The adoration of the king, therefore, was one thing, that of Naaman another; for the king properly adored his idol Remmon: but Naaman adored improperly, that is, bent himself, to accommodate himself to his king bending, and to support and honour him. This adoration of his was therefore not religious, but political and civil; as “Abraham adored,” that is, showed reverence to, “the children of Heth,” Genesis xxiii, 7, and Jacob “adored,” that is, venerated, his son Joseph, prince of Egypt, Hebrews xi, 21.
For the king of Syria, when he walked, or prostrated himself for any cause, was wont to lean either on the hands or on the shoulders of Naaman: wherefore it was necessary that Naaman should accommodate himself to the movement and posture of the king. Whence it came about that when the king stood, he stood; when he walked, he walked; and when he advanced, he too advanced. For if he had omitted this, he would have been held uncivil and rustic, nay unfaithful.
Thou wilt say: Naaman cooperated with the king adoring Remmon; therefore he cooperated in his idolatry. I answer by denying the consequence. For he cooperated with the king in a natural action, namely in the bending of the body only, but not in the moral action, or in the king’s intention, which was to bow himself to adore the idol. Add that Naaman had publicly renounced the idols, and professed the worship of the true God of Israel, and had erected to Him an altar and a shrine, in which he compelled his whole family to adore with him the true God. So Abulensis, Lyra, Burgensis, Cajetan, Serarius, Sanchez, Salianus here, and Suarez, On faith, treatise I, disputation XIV. Nay Tertullian, in his book On Idolatry, chapter xv, at the end: “But since idolatry,” he says, “has so beset the world with evils, it will be lawful to be present at certain things which hold us bound in duty to a man, not to an idol. Plainly, called to the priesthood and to sacrifice I shall not go (for that is the proper office of the idol), but neither by counsel, nor by expense, nor by any other work shall I take part in things of this kind. If I am called on account of a sacrifice and assist, I shall be a partaker of idolatry: if another cause joins me to one sacrificing, I shall be only a spectator of the sacrifice.”
Moreover in this matter one must act circumspectly: for a single circumstance at times changes the character of the act, and makes unlawful what was lawful; as if a king wishes to compel his servants to idolatry, and therefore forces them to go with him to the temple to adore the idol with him, as Julian the Apostate did. Whence Valentinian, commander of the army, afterwards emperor, accompanied Julian going to the temple of the idols, for honour’s sake; but when the idolater in that place sprinkled him with certain dewy leaves at the sacrifice, he struck him a blow on the face, and heaped reproaches on him, and cut off the part of his garment on which a drop of that sprinkling had fallen. Wherefore, being stripped of his military rank by Julian on account of the Christian faith, and driven into exile, by this his constancy in the faith he deserved to succeed Julian in the empire after Jovian. “He therefore who put all things after piety obtained all things by the gift of piety,” says Baronius, in the year of Christ 364.
So Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, chief officers of the Emperor Maximian, accompanied him when about to sacrifice to Jove as far as the doors of the temple; but they would not enter it. Asked the reason, they said they were forbidden by religion; for they were Christians, and worshipped not Jove but the true God. For which cause, tortured, they passed through the glorious struggle of martyrdom on the 7th of October: because at that time the attendants of the emperor were accustomed to cast incense into the censer in honour of the idol, and to acclaim the idol, and by other signs and ways to cooperate in the emperor’s idolatry. Add that at that time, when the persecution of Christians by the emperors was raging, to stand by at sacrifices was a sign of the worship of idols. Finally under the first ten emperors who persecuted the faithful, the Christians were fervent, and shuddered at and avoided any appearance and shadow of idolatry.
Moreover Naaman here became a worshipper of the true God, yet not a Jew or proselyte, because he was not circumcised; wherefore he was not bound to keep the law of Moses, as all the Jews were obliged to it as well as to circumcision, as descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Naaman therefore remained a Gentile, and worshipped the true God, as all the fathers worshipped before the flood in the state of the law of nature. See St. Augustine, sermon 207 On the Seasons, which is on Naaman the Syrian.
REMMON.—Some think that Remmon is Jove, the highest of the gods, and so is called as it were ramam, that is, lofty, as the High Thunderer. Better Serarius, Sanchez and others hold that it is Venus, both because Venus was the goddess of Syria, and because the Syrians made Venus both god and goddess, as Macrobius testifies; and because “Remmon” in Hebrew signifies a pomegranate. Now that apples, especially golden ones, and pomegranates, were sacred to Venus on account of their beauty and the fruitfulness of their seeds, Theocritus, Virgil, Lucian and Ovid, Metamorphoses book X, testify. See Pereira, Hieroglyphics book LIV. So the Romans worshipped Pomona as the goddess of fruits, as St. Augustine testifies, book III of the City of God, chapter xxiv.
SO HE DEPARTED FROM HIM IN THE SPRING TIME OF THE EARTH.—The Chaldee and Pagninus, he departed from him a mile of earth; the Septuagint, in a space of earth; Isidore, as it were by a stadium of earth; Vatablus, an acre of land; Cajetan from Rabbi David, a dinner of earth, that is, Naaman had gone from Eliseus so great a distance, when Giezi came to him asking gifts, as can be covered during a dinner, namely a mile. And to this exposition Sanchez adapts the Vulgate version, so that the “chosen time” is called a mile; for a mile is a common and chosen measure of men, which all by common consent have chosen for measuring the spaces and distances of places.
But our version, Genesis xxxv, 16, translates, in the spring time; elsewhere it translates, the time of greening. The chosen time, therefore, is the spring time, in which all things are green. So Rupert: Scripture adds this to signify that Eliseus prudently prescribed to Naaman the washing in the Jordan, from the fact that it was the spring time; for then, with a mild air, washings are healthful to the body, whereas in winter on account of cold they are harmful. Again, to signify that this cure of leprosy happened to Naaman with greater joy, from the time, since it happened in spring, when all things flourish and breathe gladness on man, so that he returned home most joyful. See what was said on Genesis xxxv, 16.
20. AS THE LORD LIVETH, I WILL RUN AFTER HIM, AND TAKE SOMETHING OF HIM,—as if to say: I swear by God that I will ask of Naaman some antidote, or gift, for the health given him by my master Eliseus. Hence it is plain that Giezi was not properly a simoniac, because he did not sell the miraculous healing to Naaman for a price, nor make a bargain with him about it; but after the health was given him freely by Eliseus, he asked some gift of him: the first simoniac was Simon Magus, who wished to buy the Holy Spirit from St. Peter with money, Acts viii; whence this sin took the name of simony from him. Giezi, however, sinned gravely: First, because, without the knowledge and against the will of Eliseus, he asked and received this gift of Naaman; second, because he lied that Eliseus asked it; third, because he branded Eliseus with this mark of covetousness, which greatly detracted from his holiness and honour. For he, rejecting the gifts of Naaman, was held by him as a divine man, and a heavenly prophet: but now, asking gifts, he might have seemed to him a needy and covetous man, and like the false prophets, who received gifts for their predictions.
Wherefore Naaman might have fallen away from the faith which he had conceived in the true God from the holiness and integrity of Eliseus. Whence it is very probable that Eliseus brought it about that Naaman learned that Giezi had asked these gifts from him without his knowledge, and had therefore been punished by him with leprosy, so that in this way his integrity in contempt of gifts might be established to Naaman; and so he might be confirmed in the opinion he had conceived of him, and in true faith in God. Fourth, Giezi sinned by theft, because Naaman sent these gifts to Eliseus, for whom Giezi was asking them; but Giezi destined them to be turned to his own uses. Whence he hid them, verse 24, that Eliseus might know nothing of them. Wherefore Eliseus presently reproaches him, verse 26: “Thou hast received money,” he says, “to buy oliveyards and vineyards.” Fifth, he sinned by mental simony; for he had a simoniacal mind: he asked gifts of Naaman with a view to the miraculous healing conferred on him by Eliseus, as if this wage and this price were owed to Eliseus for the healing. Whence St. Ambrose, book On the dignity of the priesthood, chapter iv, says that simoniacs are followers of Giezi and Simon Magus, and therefore that the leprosy of simony clings to their minds, not to their bodies.
26. WAS NOT MY HEART PRESENT (was present), WHEN THE MAN (Naaman) TURNED BACK FROM HIS CHARIOT TO MEET THEE?—“Heart,” that is, the mind and the eyes of my mind were supernaturally raised and helped by God, so that I perceived thy reception of the gifts from Naaman, though absent and remote, as if present, when thou didst ask the gifts: but I was present with thee in spirit; for by the intuition of the mind I saw all that thou didst. Much more, therefore, says St. Augustine, City of God, book XXII, chapter xix, can the Saints in heaven discern the absent and remote things which are done on earth.
In like manner St. Benedict saw many absent things, as St. Gregory relates, Dialogues II, chapter xiii, verses 18, 19. Whence St. Gregory adds that he had the spirit of Eliseus.
26. THOU HAST RECEIVED MONEY, etc., TO BUY OLIVEYARDS AND VINEYARDS, AND SHEEP AND OXEN, AND SERVANTS AND HANDMAIDS.—A talent of silver contained six thousand shekels of silver, that is, six thousand Brabant florins, or francs, as the French call them: wherefore the two talents which Giezi received were worth twelve thousand francs, which make four thousand French crowns: each of which contains twelve Julii or Reals; with this sum in that age, when all things were at a low price and silver was rare, all these things could be bought. Others explain it disjunctively, as if to say: To buy either oliveyards, or vineyards, or sheep and oxen. Hence it seems that Eliseus granted and gave to Giezi himself these gifts sent to him by Naaman through Giezi, lest he, possessing them unjustly, should sin continually.
27. BUT THE LEPROSY OF NAAMAN SHALL STICK TO THEE AND TO THY SEED considerable time, for example three hundred years, or to the third and fourth generation, Exodus xxxiv, 7. So Serarius, Abulensis, Sanchez and others.
The silver, therefore, which Giezi wrongfully received was infected with poison and pestilent, like garments and coins to which in a plague-stricken house the plague clings, so that it attacks and infects the one who receives them. So the leprosy of Naaman, as if it had clung to the silver, infected Giezi who received it, and made him a leper.
Wherefore Giezi afterwards did not live with Eliseus, but as a leper had to avoid the company of men according to the Levitical law, chapters 13 and 14: for Eliseus, most zealous for the law, would not have admitted him to himself. So Abulensis, Question X. That Giezi, therefore, in chapter viii is said to have conversed with King Joram, and to have told him the miracles of Eliseus, seems to have happened before he was struck with leprosy; whence Abulensis, Serarius, Salianus and others hold that there is here a hysterologia, and that the leprosy of Giezi, and consequently the coming of Naaman to Eliseus and his healing, happened later, namely in the last year of the reign of Joram, when a little after he was slain by Jehu: if anyone, however, wishes to keep the order of Holy Scripture, he must say that Giezi did penance, and so by his prayers (says Serarius) obtained that the leprosy was driven off, and being then cleansed conversed with King Joram.