Commentaria in IV Regum
AND BEHOLD THE MOUNTAIN WAS FULL OF HORSES AND CHARIOTS OF FIRE ROUND ABOUT ELISEUS.—The Angels formed these horses and chariots in the appearance of fire out of air and clouds and the rays of the sun shining through them, suitably to show the colour of fire, to represent to Eliseus their heavenly nature and fiery swiftness, strength, force and efficacy, as they had represented to Elias at his rapture. For Eliseus was the successor and heir of the spirit of Elias; in him therefore was fulfilled that promise of God: “I will be to it, saith the Lord, a wall of fire round about, and I will be in glory in the midst thereof,” Zacharias ii, 5. See what was said there. St. Ambrose gives the reason, sermon 2 On Eliseus: “What wonder,” he says, “if he merits helps from heaven whose mind is always in heaven, as the Apostle says: But our conversation is in heaven. If, therefore, our conversation is in heaven, and the conversation of the heavenly beings can be with us, that is, that we who live that life may rightly deserve the fellowship of Angels. There is therefore among those who live holily a certain kinship, union and society, and it makes no difference whether they remain in heaven or on earth; whether their garb be angelic or human, provided there be in them the same life or holiness. For conversation connects those whom the element separates, and though they be divided by different bodies, they are yet joined by the same acts. And so it comes about that the saints, cohering with one another in a certain fellowship, do not depart from one another, and now Angels come to earth, now men are translated to heavenly things; and by better progress those who have a common life begin to have the very elements of living common to them.”
18. STRIKE, I BESEECH THEE, THIS PEOPLE WITH BLINDNESS,—the Septuagint aorasia, that is, not-seeing, so that seeing they see not, nor perceive. Hence these Syrians, struck with it, saw Eliseus and the city, but did not recognise or perceive them. With a like blindness and aorasia the citizens of Sodom were struck, who assailed the house of Lot, Genesis xix. Hear St. Ambrose, in the sermon On Eliseus: “Then Eliseus prayed, and struck the whole hostile army with blindness. It is not wonderful if he brought blindness on adversaries who bestowed clearness on his servant; and if he takes away sight from enemies who gave vision to his minister. Where are those who say that the arms of men can do more than the prayers of saints? Behold, one prayer of Eliseus wounded the whole army, and by the merits of one prophet the whole number of the enemies was made captive. What bands of kings, what crowd of soldiers have wrought such a victory, as so to prostrate the enemies that of them none fell? This is a true and bloodless victory, where the adversary is so conquered that of the conquerors none is hurt.”
19. AND ELISEUS SAID TO THEM: THIS IS NOT THE WAY, NEITHER IS THIS THE CITY.—Abulensis thinks that Eliseus here told a lie of courtesy. For the Syrians saw the city of Dothain in which, or near which, Eliseus whom they sought was then dwelling: but Eliseus seems to deny this, saying: “Neither is this the city” which you seek. Lyra excuses Eliseus, saying that he spoke not of the city of Dothain, in which he was then dwelling, but of Samaria, where he had a house and had fixed his abode, as is plain from verse 32. For Eliseus here does not answer the Syrians’ questions, since they had asked nothing, but their mind, as if he said: You seek Eliseus, O Syrians! come with me, I will show you the way to Samaria, in which he dwells, and there I will show him to you and make you recognise him whom you now have present indeed, yet, struck with aorasia, do not recognise. For he did not wish to be recognised by them in Dothain; but in Samaria, that he might lead them to the king, and receive them with a feast. In these words, however, there was no lie, but only a concealment of the truth, which is lawful and often necessary; for had he laid open the truth and said: “I am Eliseus whom you seek,” he could not have delivered them to the king of Israel, nor shown his power over them and his beneficence. But if the Syrians asked Eliseus: What is the way to Dothain, where is Eliseus? as some think, and the answer of Eliseus hints, Eliseus was not bound to answer according to their mind, as enemies, but according to his own, namely that this was not Samaria, his country, where they would recognise the Eliseus whom they sought, as I have said.
22. THOU SHALT NOT STRIKE THEM,—that is, thou shalt not kill the Syrians whom I have brought to thee: “For if they be killed,” says Theodoret, “the greatness of the miracle will not be known; but if they return to him who sent them, he too will learn the power of our God.”
BUT SET BREAD AND WATER BEFORE THEM, THAT THEY MAY EAT AND DRINK.—Eliseus would not have the Syrians, though enemies, killed by the king of Israel, but kindly and sumptuously treated, that he might overcome them by charity and make friends of enemies, that they should not afterwards invade the land of Israel nor plunder it; which indeed they did, conquered by Eliseus, both by power and rather by love. See St. Chrysostom (or whoever is the author: for the elegance of the style shows that he was Latin, not Greek), the homily On Eliseus and the ambushes of the Syrians detected, tome I, where among other things he says of the Syrians: “They marvel and are amazed that for death a meal, for destruction food, for punishment a feast is prepared for them.” And below: “Then the most holy prophet becomes glorious among his own, more glorious among strangers. He shows to his own the signs of virtue, and to strangers he gives causes for glory. He first taught that enemies are to be cherished, he first taught that foes are to be spared, he taught that for punishment banquets are to be set before adversaries.” Then he teaches that Eliseus was a type of Christ:
“...the new in the old, and the old prefigured in new examples! The most holy Eliseus closes sight and opens it; he makes men blind and enlightens them; takes away vision and bestows it; takes away from the pursuers, and gives to those following him; makes strangers blind, and makes those enclosed in the city see. Those who had come to take the prophet captive are blinded; and those who had already been taken captive are given eyes. The truth of each is fulfilled, that both a figure of Christ and an example of the future people might be shown; that they might now become from strangers his own, from enemies friends, and from foes his own. Eliseus sends back these armies to their own: sends back, I say, as many preachers as he had enemies, as many reporters of his virtues as there were men of the enemy.” Finally he concludes, saying that what was then lacking was afterwards fulfilled by the Apostles at Pentecost and thereafter, as Scripture says, Psalm xviii: “Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.”
23. AND THE ROBBERS OF SYRIA CAME NO MORE INTO ISRAEL,—namely while Eliseus lived, or for a long time; for that they came again afterwards is plain from what follows. This was the fruit of the beneficence of Eliseus toward the Syrian plunderers, as I have said. So St. Chrysostom, homily 4 On Eliseus.
25. TILL THE HEAD OF AN ASS WAS SOLD FOR FOURSCORE PIECES OF SILVER,—that is, 80 shekels, namely 80 Brabant florins, or 80 francs. For the “piece of silver” was a shekel, though some think it was only half a shekel, and so 80 pieces of silver would be 40 francs. Some by “head of an ass” understand the whole ass, as a synecdoche, in which the head signifies the whole body or animal, as when we say: What does this head of a man mean, or this mad head? that is, this man. More simply others take the head of the ass only; for this argues that the famine was immense, and an ass is large in the head beyond other animals, if the proportion to the rest of the body is looked at. So when Hannibal besieged Casilinum, a single mouse was sold for two hundred denarii, as Valerius Maximus testifies, book VII, chapter vi.