Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

A CHRISTIAN ROMANCE. 439
again, "He blesseth the years of His righteous ones,
"for His strength is not as the strength of men."
This is the gift which God Almighty giveth unto him
that hath restrained his heart with' His love, and
hath not tainted it with the pleasure of the lust Alexander
of the flesh, even as did Elijah the Tishbite ^°7g,^'^,_
the desert-dweller in Horeb.^ He overthrew the
shrines of devils,^ and slew three* hundred priests
of the god and ministers of the temples of Jezebel,'
for he had restrained his body from fornication,
and by his word he kept the heavens from [giving]
rain,^ because his prayers were pure and well
pleasing unto the Most High, and to those who
may be compared unto him for virginity and for the
fear of God are given their desires. And like
unto Elijah was Alexander' the king. He restrained
his body [p. 261] from fornication and from pol-
lution, and by his prayers he kept back devils^
from the holy city,' and shut them up inside the
' Read 9°tlti ' ^ See i Kings xvii. i; xix. 8.
•3 /. e., the altars of Baal. See i Kings xviii. 40.
s The priests of Baal were 450, and the prophets of the
Asherah, who fed at Jezebel's table, 400 in number; see i
Kings xviii. 19.
* See I Kings xvii. i.
7 The name of Alexander is, throughout the MS, written
in red ink.
* /. e., the twenty-two impure nations among which were
enumerated Gog and Magog; see above, p. 280.
9 The allusion is not quite clear, but the writer seems
to have in his mind the prophecy of Ezekiel, that "Gog shall
come against the land of Israel," see Ezekiel xxxviii. 16, ff.