The Ascent of Elijah

The readings for the nineteenth week of ordinary time include passages from the the Book or Sirach and tell of Elijah’s Ascent into Heaven in a fiery chariot. The accompanying photo gives us one of eighteen panels of the Great Cyprus Door of the Dominican Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill. These doors date most probably to the fourth decade of the fifteenth century, made and inserted into the church not that long after its making in the third decade of that century. After the Sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in 410, the Illyrian Peter constructed a basilica on the Aventine, most probably over the destroyed home of the Christian Matron Marcella, friend of Jerome. The doors are of cedar cypress. The panel with Elijah has a fine carving of a Roman biga, perhaps the best surviving representation of the two horsed chariot. The angel is modeled after the Roman Victory. See how Elijah’s mantle is falling down to Elisha. Sacred Places p 665.