Commentaria in IV Regum
13. AND HE TOOK UP THE MANTLE OF ELIAS, THAT FELL FROM HIM,—which, namely, Elias as he ascended left to Eliseus, in memory of himself, and for the comfort and aid of Eliseus. Abulensis thinks that this mantle was of haircloth made of camels’ hair, as was the garment of St. John the Baptist. More probably Serarius and others think it was a melote, that is, a garment made of sheepskin. For the Septuagint translate, and he took up the melote of Elias, which had fallen upon him.
AND THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED.—So also the Septuagint. These words, however, are lacking in the Hebrew and Chaldee, but are understood: for Eliseus struck the waters a second time because by the first stroke they had not been divided. For God would not have the waters divided at the first, lest the new prophet Eliseus should be puffed up over the miracle wrought by his new spirit, but should have recourse to God by prayers. Again, that he might know that he obtained this division of the waters, and the miracles that were to follow, not by his own merits, but by those of Elias. So Abulensis and Cajetan.
14. WHERE IS NOW THE GOD OF ELIAS?—The Hebrew and Septuagint, even He, who, namely, is always the same, faithful, almighty, and hearing His servants that call upon Him: “Not that he thought God absent, but because he sought His presence in benefits,” says St. Ambrose on Psalm xxxvii. Whence the Chaldee translates: Receive my petition, O Lord God of Elias, even He. This is the first miracle of Eliseus, namely that, striking the Jordan with the mantle of Elias, he divided it and crossed dry-shod. Note: for “even He” the Hebrew is aph hu, which Hebrew word the Septuagint retain and render apphō (which Theodoret therefore wrongly takes as Greek and translates “hidden”), as if it were a proper name of God. For that is a name of God: “He it is that made us, he made heaven and earth, he is the Lord our God,” Hu is a name of God, namely hu is derived from haya: wherefore it is the same as He who is, as Jehovah, or the Greek ho ōn, that is, He who is, Exodus iii, 6.
19. THE WATERS ARE VERY BAD, AND THE GROUND BARREN,—because namely this ground is situated beside the very bad waters; whence in the Hebrew and Chaldee it is, a bereaving land, or the land bereaves, or destroys, that is, the seeds cast into it, by its bitterness or putrefaction. Wherefore, the waters being healed by Eliseus, the ground also was healed and made fruitful alike: for otherwise the field of Jericho was fertile and rich; the briny water alone, therefore, harmed the neighbouring land and made it barren. Moreover Aristotle in the Politics teaches that in founding cities and houses two things are chiefly to be looked to, namely whether the air be good, and the waters wholesome; for water in drinking, and air in breathing, penetrate the inmost parts of man, and so affect them well or ill, and bring about health or disease and death.
20. BRING ME A NEW VESSEL, AND PUT SALT INTO IT.—The newness of the vessel signified that by the prayers and merits of Eliseus there would henceforth be a newness of the waters and of the land, so that from barren it should become fertile. Wherefore Eliseus seems to have plunged the whole vessel with the salt into the spring, as Josephus, St. Ambrose, Bede, Angelomus and Eucherius assert.
21. HE WENT OUT TO THE SPRING OF THE WATERS, AND CAST SALT INTO IT, AND SAID: THUS SAITH THE LORD: I HAVE HEALED THESE WATERS.—For these waters seem to have been, if not salt, at least putrid and foul-smelling, and therefore he fittingly used salt, although by miracle he purified the waters only, and kept them purified so long, as Franciscus Vallesius says in chapter xxxiv of his Sacred Philosophy. The Church imitates this in the blessing of salt and water, when the lustral water is blessed, praying that the water thus blessed may be health of mind and body. So Abulensis.
SPRING.—Hence it is plain that not all the waters of Jericho were bad, but only of this spring, which Josephus describes at length, adding much in his manner by amplifying and adapting it to the ears of the Romans. Hear him, book V On the War, chapter iv: “They say that this spring once used to blast not only the fruits of the earth and of the trees, but also the offspring of women, and to corrupt all things alike with disease and pestilence; but afterwards it became gentle, and on the contrary most wholesome and most fruitful, through Eliseus the prophet, who had been known to Elias and had succeeded him. For, received in hospitality by the inhabitants of Jericho, because he had found them kindly, he repaid them and all that region with perpetual favour: and going forth to the spring, he cast an earthen jar full of salt into the running water. Then stretching his right hand toward heaven, and pouring gentle libations into the spring, he prayed that it would soften its streams, and open sweeter veins of waters. And he besought God to temper the rivers with more fruitful airs; and to give the natives both abundance of fruits and succession of offspring, and that the water, the mother of children, should not fail them, as long as they remained just. After these prayers, working also many things with his hands according to the rite, he changed the spring: and what before was the cause to them of bereavement and famine became the author of sustenance and fruitfulness.” And after some intervening matter: “It produces there the best and thickest gardens, and kinds of watered palms, various both in taste and in names; the fattest of which, pressed, yield much honey, not much inferior to other honey: although that region is also a nurse of bees, and fruitful in balsam, which is the dearest of all the fruits that grow there; it also bears cyprus and myrobalan: so that whoever should say that tract is divine would not err, where both abundant and excellent things are produced which are most precious. Nor in other fruits would any region in the whole world easily contend with it: so greatly does it return multiplied what is sown. The cause of this seems to me to be the force of the waters and the warmth of the air.” Where Josephus ridiculously, if not impiously, asserts that Eliseus prayed to the spring and to heaven that it might grow gentle and sweet; evidently wishing to accommodate himself to the Gentile Romans, who superstitiously prayed to springs and heaven, and even at times adored them as divinities. Moreover, his saying that these waters made women barren he gathers from the Hebrew text here, which has the land meshakkeleth, that is, bereaving, which is said directly of the fruits of the earth. But Josephus extends this to women; for they are properly called bereaved when they are bereft of children. Following Josephus, St. Ambrose, sermon 2 On Eliseus: “See,” he says, “how great are the merits of Eliseus, whose first hospitality in the city was followed by great fruitfulness of children. For while he turned away the barrenness of the waters, he bestowed a succession of heirs.” He therefore holds with Josephus that Eliseus gave fruitfulness not only to the land but also to barren women. Ambrose continues: “For by this deed Eliseus did not heal one man, nor furnish a remedy for one house, but restored the people of the whole city. For if he had done this later, barrenness intervening, all growing old, the city would have remained without an inhabitant. Therefore Eliseus, while he cured the water, cured the people also: and while he blessed the spring of the waves, he granted a kind of spring of souls. For as by his sanctification sound water came forth from the hidden veins of the earth, so from the hidden recesses of the womb sound offspring came forth. For Eliseus blessed not only the streams that were already held in the bosom of the springs, but also those which, still undistinguished in the moist ground of the earth, were gradually to flow out hereafter.” Tropologically St. Ambrose, sermon 87, which is On Eliseus, takes by the salt Christ and the Apostles, who seasoned the whole world with the salt of their wisdom and made it fruitful: “The city of the Church,” he says, “was barren before the coming of Christ; but when Christ came, taking a human body like an earthen vessel, He healed the faults of the waters, that is, He cut away the sacrileges of the peoples; and immediately the Church, which was barren, began to be fruitful, the salt being sprinkled in, that is, the Apostles, of whom it is said: You are the salt of the earth.” So also Bede in his Questions, who by the salt takes the wisdom of Christ: for Eliseus was a type of Christ both by his deeds and by his own name; for Eliseus in Hebrew is the same as the salvation of God, or God the Saviour. So from Bede Eucherius and Angelomus. Eliseus, they say, put salt into the vessel, and casting it into the water, and so healing and making it fruitful, signified that all the waters, that is, all peoples, before barren in virtues, would receive fruitfulness and blessing through the incarnation of Christ. Hence in the name Elisa, that is Eliseus, the name of Jesus is contained: for Elisa is the same as El Jesua, that is, God, or mighty (almighty) Jesus. Somewhat differently St. Augustine, book Against Fulgentius the Donatist, not long before the end, takes by the spring of Eliseus the Jordan, in which Christ baptized made the waters of baptism saving: “Eliseus,” he says, “is Christ the Saviour, who healed the barrenness of the waters, that is, the unfruitfulness of the Gentiles, death being driven away. He took an earthen vessel, that is, the body of human frailty: He put in salt, that is, He filled it with divine wisdom. He cast it into the water, that is, He descended into the Jordan: by His descent He healed the waters, that is, by His coming He redeemed the Gentiles, and by seasoning discourse gathered the Church out of the Gentiles, and spread it far and wide into abundant fruits.”