Elias's Forty Days to Horeb and Christ's Forty Days in the Desert
Old Testament: 3 Kings 19:5-8
He looked, and behold there was at his head a hearth cake, and a vessel of water: and he ate and drank, and he fell asleep again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: Arise, eat: for thou hast yet a great way to go. And he arose, and ate, and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God, Horeb.
New Testament: Mark 1:12-13
And immediately the Spirit drove him out into the desert. And he was in the desert forty days and forty nights, and was tempted by Satan; and he was with beasts, and the angels ministered to him.
The connection
Elias, having wished for death under the juniper tree, is instead fed twice by an angel and sent on his way, walking forty days and forty nights in the strength of that food alone until he reaches the mount of God. Christ, driven into the desert by the Spirit, spends the same forty days and nights there, tempted, and is likewise attended by angels. St Thomas Aquinas notes this exact pairing, that Christ's fast reached no further than Moses and Elias, lest His taking of our flesh should seem incredible (Summa Theologiae III, q.40, a.2, citing Chrysostom). Elias walks toward Horeb strengthened for a revelation still to come; Christ, already the Word, walks out of the desert to begin revealing Himself.
Moral sense
The food that carries a soul through its own wilderness, whatever form of strength or grace is given for the road, is rarely given all at once but again and again, as much as is needed for the next stretch and no more.
Anagogical sense
Horeb, the mount of God where Elias meets the Lord not in wind or fire but in a whistling of a gentle air, points forward to the fuller and unveiled encounter every soul who perseveres through its desert is promised at the end.
The Fathers
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 40, a. 2, where the parallel is drawn between Christ's forty days and those of Moses and Elias, citing St John Chrysostom. Aquinas is a Doctor rather than a Father, but the words he cites are St John Chrysostom's own, and Chrysostom draws the parallel of the forty days himself, though not the angel's food or Horeb. St John Chrysostom, Homilies on St Matthew 13.2, on Christ's forty days in the wilderness: "both Moses and Elias, anticipating Him, could advance to so great a length of time, strengthened by the power of God. And if He had proceeded farther, from this among other things His assumption of our flesh would have seemed incredible to many." This is the passage St Thomas Aquinas cites in Summa Theologiae III, q. 40, a. 2.
Warrant
The Chrysostom quotation ("He proceeded no farther than Moses and Elias, lest His assumption of our flesh might seem incredible") is St Thomas Aquinas's rendering, in Summa Theologiae III, q.40, a.2, ad 3, of St John Chrysostom, Homilies on St Matthew 13.2. Checked in the Greek: the number is the same word, tesserakonta at 3 Kings 19:8 in the Septuagint (Swete) and at Mark 1:13, spelled alike.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 538.
The verses
3 Kings 19:5 · 3 Kings 19:6 · 3 Kings 19:7 · 3 Kings 19:8 · Mark 1:12 · Mark 1:13
