The Staff

Elisha, himself one of these men, shows that they used to carry a staff. When he sent his servant Gehazi to raise the woman’s son to life, he said to him, “Take my staff and run, and go and lay it on the boy’s face, so that he may live.” The prophet would certainly not have given it to him to take unless he had been in the habit of constantly carrying it in his hand. In its spiritual sense, carrying the staff teaches them that they ought never to walk unarmed among so many barking dogs of faults and invisible beasts of spiritual wickedness. Blessed David, longing to be free of these, says, “Do not hand over to the beasts, O Lord, the soul that trusts in you.” When these attack them, they ought to beat them off with the sign of the cross and drive them far away. And when they rage furiously against them, the monks should destroy them by constantly remembering the Lord’s suffering and by following the example of his self-denying life. [a]