Commentaria in IV Regum
St. Augustine, however, sermon 210 On the Seasons, takes by the river flowing pleasures and concupiscences, from which, sunk in them, Eliseus frees us, that is, Christ, through the wood of the cross. “That axe lay in the deep, because the human race had fallen by unhappy ruin into the abyss of all crimes, as it is written: I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep. And again: I am come into the depth of the sea, and a tempest hath overwhelmed me. For that river, where the axe fell, signifies the passing and fugitive pleasure, descending into the abyss, or the luxury of this world. For a river takes its name from flowing. And because all sinners cleaving to transitory pleasures are said to flow, therefore that axe lay in the river and in the mire, pressed down.”
5. ALAS, ALAS, ALAS, MY LORD.—Tropologically, Eucherius: “Rightly,” he says, “did he who had lost the iron cry out: Alas, alas, alas, my lord, and this same was borrowed. For they have this peculiarity, that if ever a stealthy fault of vain glory creeps upon them, they return swiftly to the heart, and whatever they find in themselves blameworthy before the eyes of the strict judge they wash away with tears. Who, weeping, not only cautiously inspect what they have done ill, but what, from the gift received, they ought also to have rendered well.”
6. AND THE MAN OF GOD SAID (Eliseus the servant of God): WHERE DID IT FALL? AND HE SHOWED HIM THE PLACE; THEN HE CUT OFF A PIECE OF WOOD, AND CAST IT IN THITHER, AND THE IRON SWAM.—St. Benedict did exactly the same for a certain poor Goth, who, as St. Gregory says, Dialogues II, chapter vi, “came to the place (to the lake into which the iron of the bill-hook had fallen), took the handle from the hand of the Goth, and cast it into the lake: and presently the iron came up from the depth, and entered the handle. Who at once gave the tool back to the Goth, saying: Behold, work, and be not sad.”
Thou wilt ask whether the miracle here was true. Vallesius asserts it, Sacred Philosophy, chapter xxxvii, saying that God took gravity from the iron and gave it lightness, so that it was borne up from the bottom by floating. But I say that this was not properly a miracle, which must exceed all force of nature and of natural causes, so that it can be worked by God alone. For all this was done by an Angel, who took the wood cut by Eliseus and fitted to the handle, carried it to the bottom of the water, inserted it in the iron, lifted it up, and held the axe floating there, until the woodcutter took hold of it. So Abulensis.
Allegorically, Tertullian, in his book Against the Jews, as above. St. Augustine goes on then to Eliseus, that is, Christ the Saviour: “Eliseus coming cast in the wood, and the iron swam. What is it to cast in the wood and bring the iron into the midst, but to ascend the gibbet of the cross, and to raise the human race from the depth of hell, and by the mystery of the cross to free it from the mire of all sins? And after the iron swam, the Prophet put out his hand, and took it, and it returned to the useful uses of its master. So also has it been done for us, dearest brethren, who by pride had fallen from the hand of the Lord, and through the wood of the cross have again deserved to return to the hand, or power, of the Lord. And therefore, as far as we can, with His help, let us labour, lest by pride we fall again from the hand of the Lord.”
St. Irenaeus, however, book V, chapter xvii, takes by the iron the firm word of God, which through the wood (by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil forbidden by God, Genesis ii) we had carelessly lost, and did not find, but recovered through the wood of the cross of Christ. “That the axe is like the word of God,” he says, “John the Baptist teaches, saying: Now the axe is laid to the root of the trees,” Matthew iii.
Tropologically, Angelomus: “The iron in the handle,” he says, “is the gift of understanding in the heart; and to cut the wood by it is to rebuke those who act perversely; which sometimes, while it is done loosely, while a lapse of vain glory in the same knowledge received is not avoided, the iron is lost in the water, because from loose conduct the understanding is made foolish. This understanding we know to be given for this end, that before the eyes of the giver it ought to be returned by good action. Whence rightly he who had lost the iron cried out: Alas, alas, alas, my lord, and this same was borrowed.” Eucherius has the same in the same words, and Rupert nearly so.
Anagogically, Bede: As the iron sunk in the waters Eliseus brought back to the handle, so Christ recalled His body, sunk in the waters of the passion and death, to life. The same He will do for us in the common resurrection of all. For our body, like iron, is hard, heavy, cold, rusty, and prone to rush into the abyss; but Christ will implant in this iron the contrary endowments of a glorified body, and as it were set it on fire, that it may be bright, agile, light, subtle, impassible, glorious.
12. AND ONE OF HIS SERVANTS SAID.—Abulensis thinks that this was Naaman, whom Eliseus had cured of leprosy; but it seems incredible that he should have betrayed to the king Eliseus, so kind to him, as Abulensis confesses near the beginning of chapter viii.
ELISEUS THE PROPHET, THAT IS IN ISRAEL, TELLETH THE KING OF ISRAEL ALL THE WORDS THAT THOU SPEAKEST IN THY PRIVY CHAMBER.—For it belongs to the spirit of prophecy to know secret, absent and remote things, as well as to foretell the future. For both require the same power, namely divine help and revelation.
16. FEAR NOT: FOR THERE ARE MORE WITH US THAN WITH THEM.—“More,” namely Angels, who fight for God and His saints like innumerable and most valiant heavenly armies, on account of which He is called “the God of Sabaoth, that is, of hosts,” according to that of Psalm xxxiii: “The angel of the Lord shall encamp (in Hebrew chanah, that is, shall pitch camp) round about them that fear him.” So it is said of Jacob fleeing from Esau, Genesis xxxii, 1: “And the angels of God met him, whom when he saw, he said: These are the camps of God.” So Angels fought for Moses and the Hebrews against the camps of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, Exodus xiv. Whence he says that ... drives hostile terror from us. And these are our arms, with which the Saviour has equipped us: prayer, mercy and fasting. For fasting guards better than a wall; mercy delivers more easily than plunder; prayer wounds farther than an arrow. For an arrow strikes the adversary only when he is near and in sight, but prayer wounds even an enemy placed farther off.” And a little after: “A wonderful thing! holiness merits more defenders from heaven than wickedness has brought assailants on earth.” He adds the reason: “For he ought to know that adversaries are overcome by merits rather than by strength, and are mastered not so much by valour as by holiness; as St. Eliseus overcame his enemies not with arms but conquered them by prayer.”
17. AND THE LORD OPENED THE EYES OF THE SERVANT.—“It is not wonderful,” says St. Ambrose, sermon On Eliseus, “if prayer opened the eyes, that he might see the armies; it is not wonderful, I say, if he puts in new eyes, who deserves new helps. Or why should he not bring forth the sight of the array, who had drawn up the ranks of Angels? Why, I say, should he not by his prayer wipe away the dullness of the pupils, who by his merits pierced the darkness of the clouds? Of necessity, therefore, St. Eliseus by this deed gave security to his fearful servant, to whom he had already restored clearness.”