Augustine of Hippo

There is another representation of the same truth: Elisha's action in first dispatching his servant with his staff to raise the dead child. The son of the woman who had given Elisha hospitality had died; the news was brought to Elisha, and he sent his servant with the staff. "Go," he told him, "lay the staff on the dead child." Was the prophet unsure what to do? The servant went on ahead and placed the staff on the corpse; but the dead child did not revive. "If a law capable of giving life had been granted to us, then of course righteousness would have been obtainable through the law." The law sent through a servant did not bring life. But Elisha, who had sent his staff with his servant, was to follow later himself and bring the child to life. After hearing that the child had not revived, Elisha came in person; he was a type of our Lord, who had sent his servant ahead of him with a staff that represents the Law. He came to the dead child lying there and placed his body over him. But the dead person was an infant and Elisha a grown man, so he contracted his adult stature and somehow curtailed it, making himself like a child so that he matched the corpse in size. The dead child arose when the living man had fitted himself to him; the Lord accomplished what the staff had failed to do; grace achieved what the Law could not.

What is the point of the addition you thought you should make to this comparison drawn from the example of blessed Elisha, namely, that he raised a dead boy by breathing into his face? Do you really think that the breath of Elisha became the soul of the boy? I would not have thought that you had wandered so far from the truth. If the very same soul, then, that had been taken from the living boy so that he died, was restored to him so that he came back to life, what was the point of your saying that nothing was taken away from Elisha? You imply that we believed that something passed from him into the boy as a result of which the boy was once again alive. But if you said this because he exhaled and still remained whole, what need was there to say this with regard to Elisha raising the dead boy, since you could, in any case, say this of anyone who exhales without raising anyone from the dead? Heaven forbid that you should believe that the breath of Elisha became the soul of the boy when he came back to life! And so, you have certainly spoken without sufficient reflection when you wanted the only difference between what God first did and what Elisha did to be that God breathed once, while Elisha breathed three times. You did, in fact, say that Elisha breathed into the face of the dead son of that Shunammite woman, just as happened at the first beginnings of our race. "And when the divine power," you said, "had by the breath of the prophet warmed the dead members and restored them to life in their former strength, nothing was taken away from Elisha, though by his breath the dead body received its soul and mind restored to life. The only difference is that the Lord breathed into the man's face and he was alive, while Elisha blew into the face of the dead boy three times." Your words make it sound as if it is only the number of breaths that keep you from believing that the prophet did the same thing as God did. This point too must be corrected. There was a great difference between that action of God and this action of Elisha. God breathed the breath of life by which the man became a living soul; Elisha breathed a breath that was neither sentient nor living but symbolic and intended to signify something else. Moreover, the prophet did not cause the boy to come back to life by giving him a soul; rather, because he loved him, he got God to do this. As for your saying that Elisha breathed three times, either your memory—as often happens—or a faulty manuscript has led you astray. What else can I say? You should not look for examples and arguments to bolster your case; you should, rather, correct and change your position. If you want to be a Catholic, do not believe, do not say, do not teach that God made the soul, not from nothing but from his own nature.

This opinion dishonors the holy martyrs; no, altogether removes the possibility of holy martyrdom. For, according to the Priscillianists, the martyrs would act more justly and wisely if they did not confess to their persecutors that they were Christians and by their confession make homicides of their persecutors, but rather, if by lying and by denying what they were, they preserved the advantage of the flesh and the intention of the heart and did not allow their persecutors to perform the wicked deed they had in mind. For these persecutors were enemies of the truth itself, not neighbors of theirs in the Christian faith to whom they were obliged to speak the truth with their tongue that they spoke in their heart. For if Jehu (whom as an example of lying they look on with greater show of prudence than on the others) falsely declared that he was a servant of Baal in order to kill the servants of Baal, how much more justly, according to the perversity of the Priscillianists, would the servants of Christ in time of persecution declare falsely that they are servants of demons in order that the servants of demons not kill the servant of Christ! And if Jehu sacrificed to Baal in order to kill people, how much more justly would they sacrifice to idols in order that people not be killed! Why, according to the remarkable doctrine of these liars, should it be prejudicial to them to profess falsely the worship of the devil in the open, provided they preserved the worship of God in their heart? But not in this manner have the true martyrs, the holy martyrs, understood the apostle. They have seen and kept what has been said, "With the heart a person believes unto justice, and with the mouth profession of faith is made unto salvation," and, "In their mouth was found no lie." So, they have departed irreprehensibly where they will no longer have to be on guard against being tempted by liars, because they will have no more liars, whether strangers or neighbors, in their celestial gatherings. As for Jehu, who by an impious lie and a sacrilegious sacrifice sought to kill the impious and the sacrilegious—him they would not imitate, not even if the same Scripture had said nothing about what kind of man he was. But, since it has been written that he did not have a righteous heart in the sight of God, what did it profit him to receive some transitory reward of temporal rule for some obedience that he displayed in utterly destroying the house of Ahab in accordance with his lust for Ahab's dominion? I exhort you, brother, rather to defend the true opinion of the martyrs, that you may be against liars; not a teacher of falsehood, but an advocate of truth. Pay close attention, I beseech you, to what I say, in order that you may find out, despite your laudable zeal to apprehend and correct or else to shun the impious, how much you must be on guard against a doctrine that you are rather injudicious in thinking should be taught.

The Almighty, who cannot possibly will anything unjust, is able to set in motion even the inclinations of their will in people's hearts in order to accomplish through these people whatever he wishes to achieve through their agency. What meaning can these words have that the man of God addressed to King Amaziah: "Do not allow the army of Israel to go out with you, for the Lord is not with Israel and all the children of Ephraim. And if you think to prevail over them, God will put you to flight before your enemies; for it belongs to God both to help and to put to flight"?How does the power of God help some in war by giving them confidence and turns others to flight by instilling them with fear, except for this reason, that he who has made all things as he willed in heaven and on earth, also works in the human hearts? We also read of what Joash, king of Israel, said when he dispatched a messenger to King Amaziah, who had a mind to go to war with him. Having mentioned certain things, he went on to say, "Sit at home. Why do you provoke evil that you should fall and Judah with you?" The Scripture then went on to add, "And Amaziah would not listen to him because it was the Lord's will that he should be delivered into the hands of enemies because he sought after the gods of Edom."
There you see how God, wishing to punish the sin of idolatry, influenced the heart of this man with whom he was justly angry, that he would not heed salutary advice but, in his contempt for it, would engage in battle, there to perish together with his army.

How do we say that they have been advised who have died before the coming of the evils that followed their death, if after death they perceive whatever misfortunes befall the human life? Or is it that we are mistaken when we imagine that they are at rest when the restless life of the living concerns them? What is this, then, that God promised to the most devout king, Josiah, for a great reward, telling him that he would soon die in order that he might not see the evils that he was threatening to send on that place and that people? The words of God are these: "Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: My words, which you have heard and which you feared from my mouth when you heard what I said about this place and those who dwell in it, that it be forsaken and become a curse, and you rent your garments and wept in my sight, shall not come to pass, says the Lord of hosts. Behold I shall bring you to your fathers, and you shall be brought with peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evils that I bring upon this place and those who dwell in it." And Josiah, alarmed at the dire threats of God, wept and tore his garments and then was made secure by an early death from all future ills, because he would so rest in peace that he would not see those evils. The souls of the dead, then, are in a place where they do not see the things that go on and transpire in this mortal life. How, then, do they see their own graves or their own bodies, whether they are buried or lie exposed? How do they take part in the misery of the living, when either they are suffering their own evil deserts, if such they have merited, or they rest in peace, such as was promised to this Josiah? For there they undergo no evils either by enduring them themselves or by compassionate suffering for others, but they are liberated from all evils that when they lived here they endured for themselves and out of compassion for others.