Elijah 20 1
tion over all mankind, Elijah not excepted. God main- tained that at the creation of heaven and earth He had explicitly ordered the Angel of Death to grant entrance to the living prophet, but the Angel of Death insisted that by Elijah's translation God had given just cause for complaint to all other men, who could not escape the doom of death. Thereupon God : " Elijah is not like other men. He is able to banish thee from the world, only thou dost not recog- nize his strength." With the consent of God, a combat took place between Elijah and the Angel of Death. The prophet was victorious, and, if God had not restrained him, he would have annihilated his opponent. Holding his de- feated enemy under his feet, Elijah ascended heavenward.38
In heaven he goes on living for all time.84 There he sits recording the deeds of men ** and the chronicles of the world.86 He has another office besides. He is the Psycho- pomp, whose duty is to stand at the cross-ways in Paradise and guide the pious to their appointed places ; " who brings the souls of sinners up from Gehenna at the approach of the Sabbath, and leads them back again to their merited punishment when the day of rest is about to depart; and who conducts these same souls, after they have atoned for their sins, to the place of everlasting bliss.88
Elijah's miraculous deeds will be better understood if we remember that he had been an angel from the very first, even before the end of his earthly career. When God was about to create man, Elijah said to Him : " Master of the world! If it be pleasing in Thine eyes, I will descend to earth, and make myself serviceable to the sons of men." Then God changed his angel name, and later, under Ahab,
