Note 91 — Chapter VI

The moral difficulty must have been early felt, for the Alexandrian LXX. reads καὶ προσκυνήσω ἄμα αὐτῷ ἐγὼ Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ μου. But he would still be bowing in the House of Rimmon, though he might in his heart worship God. "Elisha, like Elijah" (says Dean Stanley), "made no effort to set right what had gone so wrong. Their mission was to make the best of what they found; not to bring back a rule of religion which had passed away, but to dwell on the Moral Law which could be fulfilled everywhere, not on the Ceremonial Law which circumstances seemed to have put out of their reach: 'not sending the Shunammite to Jerusalem' (says Cardinal Newman), 'not eager for a proselyte in Naaman, yet making the heathen fear the Name of God, and proving to them that there was a prophet in Israel'" (Stanley, Lectures, ii. 377; Newman, Sermons, viii. 415).