Commentaria in IV Regum
10. IF THOU SEE ME WHEN I AM TAKEN FROM THEE, THOU SHALT HAVE WHAT THOU HAST ASKED: BUT IF THOU SEE ME NOT, THOU SHALT NOT HAVE IT,—The reason of this condition proposed to Eliseus by God and Elias was to kindle more the desire and zeal of Eliseus, and so to prepare him for so great a gift of the double spirit of Elias, and that the prayers of Elias himself might increase for Eliseus, and for obtaining this spirit for him, for his own good and that of all Israel. For both were uncertain whether Elias would be taken up in the presence of Eliseus, that he might become the heir and successor of the same spirit. So St. Chrysostom, homily 1 on the Acts; who adds that Elias here prefigured Christ, who did not send the Spirit upon the Apostles immediately after the resurrection, but wished them first to see His ascension into heaven, and then on the tenth day, namely on the feast of Pentecost, sent upon them the Holy Ghost, that they might prepare themselves for Him during several days.
11. BEHOLD A FIERY CHARIOT, AND FIERY HORSES PARTED THEM BOTH ASUNDER.—This chariot was not truly of fire, for so it would have burned Elias; but it had the form and appearance of fire, as have the meteors formed in the air. For they were in truth Angels, who, taking the form of fire, bore Elias upward, according to that: “Who makest thy angels spirits, and thy ministers a burning fire,” Psalm ciii, 4. This fire, therefore, was a thicker air, shining and red like fire, says Abulensis, Question XVII, Serarius and others. This fiery chariot, then, was formed by Angels out of clouds, in which Elias, as a conqueror and citizen of heaven, was carried aloft. “For a fiery chariot suited the fiery spirit of Elias, to carry him into heaven,” says St. Chrysostom, homily 1 On Elias. Likewise it suited the office for which Elias is reserved, namely to go before the second coming of Christ to judgment. Many other literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogical causes of this chariot and rapture I have set out on Ecclesiasticus xlviii, 9, on the words: “Who wast taken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses.” Moreover by this fiery chariot Elias triumphed not only over Achab, Jezabel and idolaters, but also over death and over fire itself: for this was a chariot of triumph, as was the chariot of the Cherubim of Ezechiel i. So our Prado says on that place: as if to say, It is fitting that thou, O Elias, who in life hadst commanded fire from heaven, shouldst now be carried to heaven by fire as by its commander and triumpher; whence it is plain how absurdly Rabbi Kimchi says that Elias was consumed by fire in a sphere of fire. Hear St. Ambrose, sermon 2 On Eliseus: “Did not Elias, the master of Eliseus, with Angels leading, rise to heaven, and, placed in a fiery four-horse chariot, ascend as a victor in a kind of triumph? For he had been victor not over barbarous nations, but over worldly pleasures. Since evil habits are more grievous enemies than hostile foes: so that we may more easily understand that at this time the malice of enemies can be overcome more readily than that of habits.”
AND ELIAS WENT UP BY A WHIRLWIND INTO HEAVEN. The Septuagint: and Elias was taken up in a commotion as far as heaven. The Chaldee: to the summit of the heavens. Ecclesiasticus xlviii, 9, it is: “Who wast taken up in a whirlwind of fire.” In Greek it is lailaps, that is, a fiery tempest. God therefore seems to have sent lightnings, flashes and thunderbolts, and like fiery tempests, to snatch Elias and carry him into heaven. Whence Vatablus on that place translates: Who wast lifted up by a fiery tempest in a chariot of burning horses. So therefore Elias, a whirlwind or wind driving, a fiery chariot carrying, and an Angel as driver guiding both, was carried into heaven, say Abulensis, Vatablus, Serarius, Salianus and others. Hear St. Ambrose in the Apostles’ Creed near the end: “Enoch was translated,” he says, “that he might not see death: likewise Elias also, while placed in this body, in a fiery chariot, that is, by the carrying of Angels, who are spirits and a flame of fire, who do the will of God, was taken up in that commotion as far as heaven.” The author of the Wonders of Scripture, book II, chapter xxii: “And now Elias, received in a fiery chariot as if into a company, Eliseus looking on, is snatched away.” Again Ambrose, book On Naboth, chapter xiv: “When Elias was received, and was borne in a chariot as it were to heaven, Eliseus cried out to him: Father, father, driver of Israel, and horseman thereof, that is, thou who didst rule the people of the Lord with good guidance, by the merit of thy constancy thou hast received these chariots, these horses running to divine things, because the Lord approved thee as the ruler of human minds. Therefore, as a good charioteer of the contest, thou art crowned a victor with an eternal reward.”
INTO HEAVEN.—The Septuagint, verse 4, translate “as it were into heaven.” Hence, first, some hold that Elias was truly taken up into heaven, not the aerial but the ethereal, and dwells there as a dweller in heaven. So Dorotheus in his synopsis, chapter On the life of Elias; St. Jerome on Amos ix; St. Ambrose, book On Paradise, chapter iii; Alcimus, book IV, and Serarius. Second, others hold that Elias was taken up “into heaven,” that is, into the air, and thence conveyed to the earthly paradise; for into it Enoch was taken, Ecclesiasticus xliv, 16. So Irenaeus, book V, chapter v, St. Justin, Question LXXXV, Isidore, book On the birth and death of the Saints, chapter v, St. Thomas, part I, Question CII, article 2. Third, others hold that Elias was led into some secret region of the earth. So St. Gregory, homily 29 on the Gospel, and Rupert, book III On the Trinity, chapter xxxiii. Fourth, others say, more certainly, that the place of Elias, and more truly of Enoch, is uncertain. So St. Chrysostom, homily 92 on the epistle to the Hebrews, and there Theophylact and Oecumenius, St. Augustine, On the grace of Christ, chapters i and iii, St. Cyprian, On the mountains Sion and Sinai, Theodoret, Question XLV on Genesis. Whether, then, Elias be on earth or in the air, he leads a quiet and holy life, in continual contemplation of God, as is shown from St. Augustine. From this rapture of Elias into heaven, Bede, Question XXXVII, asserts that the poets took their fables of the chariot of the sun, and St. Chrysostom, homily 4 On Elias, where he teaches that Elias is called as it were Helios, that is, the sun, and indeed that the sun is called Helios from Elias.
Anagogically, the rapture of Elias was an express type of the ascension of Christ into heaven, as St. Bernard teaches on the Gospel; hear him: “Elias was lifted up into the aerial heaven, that he might be suddenly led into some secret region of the earth, where he would live in great repose of flesh and spirit, until he returns at the end of the world and pays the debt of death. For he deferred death, he did not escape it. But our Redeemer, because He did not defer it, overcame it: and by rising again He destroyed it, and by ascending He declared the glory of His resurrection.” Then he prefers the ascension of Christ to the rapture of Elias, adding: “It is also to be noted that Elias is read to have ascended in a chariot; that it might be plainly shown that a mere man needed another’s help. For those aids were provided and shown through Angels: because he could not ascend of himself even into the aerial heaven, weighed down as he was by the weakness of his nature. But our Redeemer is not read to have been lifted up by a chariot, nor by Angels: because He who had made all things was assuredly borne above all things by His own power. For He returned thither where He was: and from thence He came back where He remained; because, when by His humanity He ascended into heaven, by His divinity He contained at once the earth and heaven.” And after some intervening matter: “For Enoch is recorded to have been translated, and Elias to have been carried up to heaven; that He might come afterwards who, neither translated nor carried up, would of His own power penetrate the ethereal heaven.”