Commentaria in Tobiam
Tropologically, God wills that in these three we imitate him. He desires therefore that in all our actions there be a certain “mercy,” that we either succour others or at least ourselves; “truth,” that we act conformably to nature and reason, and conformably also to our end, and if we have said anything to anyone, act conformably to the very words; “judgment,” … he had given everything to the poor, and dying left to his son nothing but Christ as his curator; when the son, now impoverished, entered the temple and devoutly invoked God, he was seen by a certain most wealthy patrician, who for this piety betrothed his daughter to him with an ample dowry.
“IN RAGES, A CITY OF THE MEDES.”—The Greek has, in Ecbatana; for the city of Rages was situated on the mountain of Ecbatana, as is said in chapter 5, verse 8, and was the capital and royal city of the Medes.
8. “BECAUSE SHE HAD BEEN GIVEN (successively) TO SEVEN HUSBANDS, AND A DEVIL NAMED ASMODEUS HAD KILLED THEM, AS SOON AS THEY HAD GONE IN TO HER.”—The cause of the death we shall hear from Raphael, chapter 6, verse 17. Devil: in Greek is added poneron, that is, evil and wicked, namely the worst and most wicked, as St. Prosper says, part 2 of the Promises, chapter 39. Plato in the Cratylus says that demons are called as it were daemones, that is, knowing, because they have full knowledge of nature and of natural things, and Lactantius proves this, Divine Institutes book 2, chapter 14, and St. Augustine, City of God book 9, chapter 20. Secondly, others derive the etymology of daemon from daiein, that is, to rule, because demons are the governors of men; whence Plutarch wrote a book on the genius of Socrates, which directed him. Thirdly, Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel book 4: Demon, he says, is said from deimainein, that is, to terrify, because it frightens men. For “if,” says St. Antony in St. Athanasius, “demons find in the breasts of an evil mind the seed of dread and fear, like robbers who hold deserted places, they heap up the fears begun, and cruelly hanging over, punish the unhappy soul.” St. Athanasius adds: A young man was brought to St. Antony “having a principal demon,” whom he sent away to his disciple, saying: “This is not my work. For against this order of demons,” the principal, namely, “I am not yet given the grace; but this is the grace of Paul the Simple,” as Palladius relates, chapter 28.
Fourthly, Eugubinus, book 8 On Perennial Philosophy, chapter 19, derives the Greek daimon from the Hebrew shedim, or by crasis shedaim, that is, destroyers, wasters; for such they are, and such above all is Asmodeus.
the place where Sara was, asked Raphael to go to Gabelus in Rages, a city of the Medes,” chapter 9, verses 3 and 6. It is answered first that historical writers very often ascribe the building of a city to a prince or leader who only enlarged and adorned that city. So Nemrod laid the foundations of Babylon in the year 1960 before Christ; Belus enlarged it in the year 1933; and yet Babylon is said to have been founded by queen Semiramis in the year 1916 before Christ; and this did not prevent Nabuchodonosor from exclaiming: “Is not this the great Babylon, which I have built?” Daniel 4:27; because both, Semiramis and Nabuchodonosor, had enlarged that city and adorned it most magnificently.
It is answered secondly, either that there were two cities in Media to which the same name Rages was given, as there were two Bethlehems in Palestine; or that the Vulgate is to be corrected from the Greek version, the most ancient of all the interpretations of Tobias, in which it is read: On the same day it happened that Sara, daughter of Raguel, in Ecbatana of Media, and it must be said that Raphael went from Ecbatana to Rages; or that Rages, capital of the whole province where Ecbatana was situated, gave that city its name, as in Europe we see a city and a kingdom together called Naples; or that Sara is said to have been in Rages, not because she was in the city itself, but in a neighbouring place, as one is said to live at Rome who lives at Tusculum or elsewhere in the Roman territory; or lastly, that Raguel and Sara were no longer living in Rages when Tobias came to the house of Raguel, and had migrated from there after the demon had killed Sara’s seven husbands …
You will ask who Asmodeus is. The Rabbis, following Elias the Thesbite, assert first that Asmodeus was born of Noema, who was the sister of Tubalcain and wife of Schimron, Genesis 4:22. For there are four mothers of demons, namely Noemia, or as they name her, Nahema, Lilith, Ogereth and Machlath. Secondly, that Asmodeus is the one who in the Chaldean paraphrase, Job 28, is called Samael, who tempted and overcame Eve, and troubles married persons, and is the author of all quarrels. That Sara had a contest with him, and being helped by an angel of God went away victor: whence she took her name from conquering and prevailing. For Sara in Hebrew is the same as ruling and lady. This latter is apt and true. Thirdly, Ecclesiastes 1:12: “I Ecclesiastes was king”; the Chaldean translates: Aschmedai malca deschedim, that is, Asmodeus king of demons. The Zohar adds that Solomon, cast out of his kingdom by Asmodeus, was detained in the desert, and that Asmodeus himself in the meantime took the likeness of Solomon and gave judgment in Jerusalem. But these are inventions of the Rabbis, and therefore fictions.
I say then that Asmodeus is the demon who stirs men to lust, and afflicts and ill-treats those overcome by him, as he ill-treated Sara’s seven bridegrooms for their impurity. That it is so is gathered from the power granted to Asmodeus, chapter 6, verse 17: “For they who in such manner receive matrimony as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.” And demons are wont to be the executioners of those very ones whom they have deceived: “For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave,” 2 Peter 2:19. Against them, therefore, as against guilty men and his own bondsmen, Asmodeus rages with his punishments. Hence that demon whom Cyprian, first a magician, but afterwards a believer and martyr, summoned by his incantations to bend the virgin and martyr St. Justina to love of the youth who sought her, was either a companion or subject of Asmodeus, but in vain. For St. Justina conquered him by the sign of the cross, prayer and constancy. Such too was that demon who, besetting a girl bewitched by a young magician, when asked by St. Hilarion why he did not rather beset the young magician himself, answered: “Why should I enter into him who had my colleague, the demon of love?” as St. Jerome relates in the Life of St. Hilarion. Finally hear St. Athanasius in the Life of St. Antony: “That demon, falling at the knees of Antony, wept with a human voice, saying: I have led back many, I have deceived very many; but now, as by the other Saints, so by thy labour I am overcome. When Antony asked who it was that spoke so, he said: I am the friend of fornication, I have taken up manifold arms of uncleanness against all youths, hence I am also called the spirit of fornication. How many who had resolved to live chastely have I made fall! how many beginning feebly have I persuaded to return to their former filth! I am he on account of whom the prophet rebukes the fallen, saying: You have been seduced by the spirit of fornication; and indeed by me they had been tripped up; I am he who have often tempted thee, and have always been repulsed.” You will ask secondly, why is he called Asmodeus? The etymology: Serarius answers first: Asmodeus is said as if esh Madai, that is, the fire of Media, because he was king of all the demons who then inhabited Media (in which was Rages, where Sara lived, and her seven husbands killed by Asmodeus) and the neighbouring provinces. For since he dwelt in Media, where else should the king act than in that very region? He therefore stirred all the Medes to lust, and afflicted those overcome by him. For there are Persian demons, Median, African, southern, meridional, sepulchral, aerial, fiery, watery, earthy, as Rhodiginus teaches, book 2, chapters 4 and 5, the Chaldean on Canticles chapter 4, verse 6, and Thomas of Cantimpré, book 2 on Bees, chapter 57.
Secondly, Asmodeus, or as it is said in Hebrew Asmodat, signifies abundance of sin; for ascam is sin, dai is abundance; for where lust burns, there sins abound. For as St. Gregory says in the first book of Kings, chapter 15: “Lust is kindled like fire, and if it be carelessly put out, the adjacent straw is quickly set alight.”