ELIJAH.

Elijah, one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, lived under the reign of Ahab. His true history is to be found in scripture: to which I refer my readers, and shall content myself with relating some apocryphal stories of him. There was a common tradition among the Jews, that he was the same with Phineas, the son of Eleazar the high-priest, and that the prophet, who lived among men sometimes under the name of Phineas, sometimes under the

name of Elias, was not a man but an angel. St Epiphanius relates one thing which is as incredible as these, I mean the vision of Sobac, the father of Elias. As soon as his wife was delivered, he thought he saw men clothed in white, who saluted the new born child, covered him over with fire, and made him swallow the flame. These are the swaddling clothes in which they wrapped the little Elijah. This is the milk with which they nourished him. Sobac went up to Jerusalem to consult the oracle, and was told what the vision signified. They assured him that bis son should inhabit in light, and that he should judge Israel with fire and sword. This agrees pretty well with that revengeful spirit, which animated Elijah on some occasions, as when he destroyed the priests of Baal, and called for fire from Heaven upon the king’s soldiers. The enemies of toleration do not love to be told that Jesus Christ has abolished this spirit: such an information is an uneasy lesson to them, and they would willingly say to whomsoever puts them in mind of it, as Felix said to Paul,—“go thy way for the present, when a convenient time comes, we will call for thee again.” I do not wonder that they cannot endure to be deprived of the authority of such an example as this; for what can be more strongly urged in favour of massacres out of zeal for religion, than the conduct of Elijah. A man, who had no character in the state, no political authority, no right to make use of the sword, a man, whose office was only to prophecy, assembles all the prophets of Baal, who were 450, and the prophets of the groves to the number of 400, who had the honour to eat at the queen’s table; he convinces them by a miracle, that they worshipped a false God, and immediately orders them to be seized, and care to be taken that none escaped. He commands them all to be killed, without condescending so much as to ask king Ahab, who was present, if it were his will to have it so, and without exhorting them to repentance and conversion. It cannot be said that they acted against their conscience; for if they had believed that Baal was a false God, they would not have submitted to an examination, and by the credit they had with the queen, they might easily have evaded the challenge of the prophet Elijah. Besides, we see they invoked their Deity with the utmost ardour, and cut themselves with knives in honour of him; therefore they were in hope of being heard. In order to excuse Elijah, divines are forced to acknowledge that he had received invisibly, from God, an extraordinary and special mission to put these prophets to death, and that God had revealed to him, that they were reprobates not to be wrought upon by any admonitions to repentance. Peter Martyr indeed alleges the law of Moses against idolaters, the law of retaliation, &c; but after all he confines himself to a particular inspiration, which is a thing not to be disputed among Christians. “Omnia hæc private instinctu Dei agebantur contra legem in communi propositam. Ipse legislator cum aliquid contra suas leges jubet mandatum ejus pro lege habendum est.—All these things were done by a particular inspiration from God, contrary to the law established in common. When the legislator commands any thing repugnant to the laws he has before ordained, his command ought to pass for law.”

It is a pretty common opinion, for many ages received among Christians, that Elijah is not dead, and that God preserves him alive either in the terrestrial paradise, or in the heavens, or elsewhere, to employ him at the end of the world against antichrist. There are some who assure us, that then he is to suffer martyrdom, and that he and Enoch are the two witnesses mentioned in the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse. They also ascribe to him a very exact continence, and conclude that he will be honoured with

three crowns, the crown of doctor, the crown of virginity, and the crown of martyrdom. They pretend that his chastity has far exceeded that of all the other prophets who lived in celibacy; for he was not contented to live chaste, but also ordered his disciples to abstain from women; and it is he that is looked upon as the first founder of the monastic life. The Carmelites boast that he is the founder of their order, and tell a thousand stories which are ridiculed by the other monks. The Apocalypse of Elias has commonly passed among the fathers for a supposititious book; but Origen seems to mention a book of that prophet as a genuine production. There is an old tradition, which they falsely impute to Elijah, that the world shall continue but six thousand years, whereof two thousand were to be before the law, two thousand under the law, and two thousand under the Messiah. The Jews say, that, seven years after he was translated, Elijah wrote a letter from heaven to king Joram, and that he composed in paradise the annals of all ages. Observe that the extraction of this prophet, who is almost equal to Moses, is so little known, that it is yet disputed what country, and also what tribe, he was of. I have cited a Minim, who designed to have written upon the actions of Elijah. This work would have been very long; for what the friends of the author published of it after his death, is one volume of four hundred pages in 4to, which contains only the Prolegomena.

You will find in Baronius, that Basilius, the Macedonian, emperor of Constantinople, erected temples to the honour, and under the name of the prophet Elijah, in his capital city. This was one of the proofs that a Carmelite friar advanced to prove, that father Papebroch had rashly denied mount Carmel to be reckoned among the holy places which were visited by the first Christian pilgrims. Every body may see the impertinence of this proof. It appears

by the book I have cited, that a divine of the order of St Francis confounded the Carmelites in a public dispute in the year 1594. He attacked a thesis, in which it is assured, that Elijah bound himself up by a vow to celibacy. He cited a Jewish doctor, named Rabbenu Haccados, that is, our holy master, and who lived before Jesus Christ. This Rabbi says, the Elijah had a brother, whose wife was barren to the death of Elijah, and consequently the prophet could not devote himself to continency, for the law commanded him to marry his sister-in-law if she became a widow.—Art. Elijah.