Therefore he said, Take it up to you. And he put out his hand, and took it.
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Caesarius of Arles
AD 542
When the divine lesson was read now, dearly beloved, we heard that as blessed Elisha was going to the river Jordan with the sons of the prophets to cut some wood, an ax fell into the water, and the man from whose hand it slipped cried out to blessed Elisha, “Alas, my lord, for this was borrowed.” After this blessed Elisha threw a piece of wood into the place where the ax had fallen, and the iron swam. Elisha typified our Lord and Savior, dearly beloved, as we have frequently mentioned to your charity. Moreover, in the boy who was from the sons of the prophets and from whose hand the ax slipped, we not unfittingly understand Christ our Lord. That ax that fell seems to signify Adam or the whole human race. Therefore, the son of the prophets held the ax in his hand, because our Lord and Savior had in the hand of his power the human race, which he had created. Just as the ax fell out of the prophet’s hand into the water, so the human race through pride shook off itself free from the hand o...
This is a symbol signifying the fall of Adam. For water represents the type of sin. Indeed, through water, sin was redeemed by the deluge at the time of Noah and at the fulfillment of times. It was washed in the water of holy baptism by our Lord when he was baptized in the Jordan by John, when he was received and ate with sinners and in his passion was counted among the reprobates. The wood descended, the iron has emerged, because Emmanuel died, was buried and went down to the infernal regions of earth, and from there he has come back, and in his ascension he has lifted up Adam from the deep towards the heights. - "On the Second Book of Kings 6.5"
Elisha, by throwing a piece of wood into the river Jordan, brought up to the surface the iron head of the ax with which the sons of the prophets had begun to cut wood for the construction of a building in which they proposed to read and study the precepts of God; just as our Christ, by being crucified on the wood of the cross and by sanctifying us by water raised up us who had been immersed in the mire of our mortal sins and made us a house of prayer and worship. - "Dialogue with Trypho 86"
And accordingly Elisha, having taken “wood” and cast it into that place where the iron had been submerged, forthwith it rose and swam on the surface, and the “wood” sank, which the sons of the prophets recovered. Thus they understood that the spirit of Elijah was presently conferred on him. What is more manifest than the mystery of this wood: that the obduracy of this world had been sunk in the profundity of error and is freed in baptism by the wood of Christ, that is, of his passion, in order that what had formerly perished through the tree in Adam should be restored through the tree in Christ? - "An Answer to the Jews 13"
