Commentaria in Tobiam
Thirdly, Asmodeus is the same as esh, that is, fire, or ascam, that is, sin, modad, that is, measuring and gauging, so as to find out how great the concupiscence is, and to inflict a penalty measured to the fault.
Fourthly, Asmodeus is the same as destroyer, desolator, from ascam, that is, he made desolate, or from shamad, that is, he destroyed.
Fifthly and most aptly, Asmodeus is said as if esh, that is, fire, or ascam, of sin, shomed, that is, destroyer. For he is here brought in as the avenger of lust and slayer of unchaste bridegrooms.
“AS SOON AS THEY HAD GONE IN TO HER.”—In the Greek: before they were with her, as with wives, that is, before they came together. For God did not permit Sara, so chaste, to be touched by such impure men, but before the touch killed them by Asmodeus, because they wished to assail her with unbridled lust.
9. “MAY WE NEVER (henceforth; for she had borne no son as yet) SEE SON OR DAUGHTER OF THEE UPON THE EARTH, THOU MURDERER OF THY HUSBANDS.”—This was a grievous insult hurled by the maid, or as the Greek has it, by the maids, at Sara; the Greek heightens it more; for thus it has: “And they said to her: Dost thou not understand, thou that strangledst thy husbands? behold, thou hast had seven, and of not one of them wast thou named. Why dost thou scourge us? If they are dead, go with them: may we never see thy son or daughter for ever.”
Here note that three insults were hurled at Sara by the maid; first, that she had killed seven bridegrooms, indeed strangled them, when she had not done it, but Asmodeus. For what is more shameful, what more atrocious to a bride, than to say: Thou hast killed thy bridegroom? Secondly, that she distorts her name; for instead of “Sara,” that is, lady, she calls her tsarah, that is, afflicted and wretched. Thirdly, she imprecates perpetual barrenness on her. So St. Monica, called a wine-bibber by a maid, was greatly afflicted, as St. Augustine relates, Confessions book 9, chapter 8. So also Sara here was so tormented that in verse 15 she prays: “I beg, O Lord, that thou loose me from the bond of this reproach, or else take me away from the earth.”
10. “AT THESE WORDS SHE WENT INTO AN UPPER CHAMBER.”—The Greek is: She was grieved, so that she thought of strangling herself, which Vatablus translates; but drawing back and correcting herself she said: I am my father’s only one; if I do that, it will be an everlasting disgrace to him, and a most present occasion of death, because I shall bring down his old age with sorrow to hell, that is, to death, or the grave, as in chapter 6, verse 7. So also the Hebrew, which has: She was so afflicted that she desired to strangle herself; which she would also have done, had she not thought again, thus I shall bring down the grey hairs of my father and mother with sorrow to the grave. The interpreter of the Royal Greek Bibles translates better: She was grieved to be choked, namely by the anguish of grief and sorrow.
11. “AND FOR THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS SHE DID NOT EAT NOR DRINK; BUT CONTINUING IN PRAYER,”—See here the fruit of insult; for it produced compunction; this, a fast and prayer of three days. For, as Lyranus says: “Fervour of prayer and its length bring forgetfulness of food and drink.” And the Gloss: “By prayer alone he grows fat whom leanness of body feeds.”
13. “BLESSED IS THY NAME, O GOD.”—The Greek has more fully: Blessed art thou, O Lord my God, and blessed is thy holy and glorious name for ever. Let all thy works bless thee for ever. By this three-day prayer Sara obtained from God resignation and tranquillity of mind with great confidence in God, so that, beginning a new prayer, she burst forth into blessing and praise of God; for, as St. Ambrose says, book 3 of Instruction of a Virgin: “A good prayer is that which keeps order, that we begin first with divine praises. For if, when we plead with a man, we wish to make the judge well-disposed, how much more when we pray to our Lord? First, then, let us offer to God the sacrifice of praise.”
“AND IN THE TIME OF TRIBULATION FORGIVEST THE SINS (on account of which they are in tribulation, and consequently the tribulation itself, for when the fault is forgiven the penalty also is often forgiven) OF THEM THAT CALL UPON THEE;”—for, as Ecclesiasticus 2:13 says: “God is compassionate and merciful, and will forgive sins in the day of tribulation.” And again chapter 3, verse 17: “In the day of tribulation thou shalt be remembered, and thy sins shall melt away as the ice in the fair warm weather.”
16. “THOU KNOWEST, O LORD, THAT I NEVER COVETED A HUSBAND”—from lust, but I took him only for offspring, that I might obey my parents, and bear them grandchildren and heirs.
“I HAVE KEPT MY SOUL CLEAN FROM ALL CONCUPISCENCE,”—not only of lust, but of gluttony, pride, avarice and the other allurements. Great was this purity and continence of Sara, for which she deserved to be heard by God and blessed.
17. “NEVER HAVE I JOINED MYSELF WITH THEM THAT PLAY.”—First, the Rabbis take it as impure play, such as obscene fornicators play. And so they explain that of Exodus 32:6: “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play,” that is, to fornicate. Better Hugh and others take any play familiar to girls, especially dancing and the round dance, says Hugh, which a wise and upright man in Caesarius, book 4, chapter 11, calls “the devil’s play”; and Matthew Klinge in his Commonplaces, chapter on the dance and the round: “What,” he says, “is a dance? It is a circle whose centre is the devil and whose circumference is all his angels.” Wherefore the Blessed Virgin, as St. Gregory testifies, Dialogues book 4, chapter 17, admonished the virgin Musa “to do nothing further light or girlish, to abstain from jests and plays.” Whence also Jeremias, chapter 15, verse 17: “I sat not in the assembly of jesters,” he says. On which place St. Jerome: “Would that the Lord grant us also not to sit in the assembly of jesters, and of those who think not of the things to come!” So also Psalm 25, David: “I have not sat with the council of vanity.”
21. “BUT THIS EVERY ONE IS SURE OF THAT WORSHIPPETH THEE, THAT HIS LIFE, IF IT BE UNDER TRIAL, SHALL BE CROWNED,”—if indeed in temptation and trial he remain faithful and constant to God. For, as St. James says, chapter 1, verse 12: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love him.”
“AND IF IT BE UNDER CORRECTION (so it is to be read with the Roman and Greek texts, not ‘corruption,’ as some read), IT SHALL BE ALLOWED TO COME TO THY MERCY,”—he whose fault is rebuked and chastised, asking pardon through penance, will obtain it from thee. For to this end thou hast rebuked and chastised him, that thou mightest drive him to penance for the fault, and spare the penitent, and reconcile him to thyself.
22. “BECAUSE AFTER A STORM THOU MAKEST A CALM: AND AFTER TEARS AND WEEPING THOU POUREST IN JOY,”—namely after clouds the sun, after night the dawn, after winter summer, after sickness health, after desolation consolation, after the cross glory, after death resurrection, and as Tertullian says in the Apology, Christ after gall tasted honeycombs and honey. Truly Solomon, Proverbs 14:10: “The heart, that knoweth the bitterness of its own soul, in its joy the stranger shall not intermeddle.” See what was said there. And the Psalmist, Psalm 93:19: “According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, thy comforts have given joy to my soul.”
25. “AND THE HOLY ANGEL OF THE LORD, RAPHAEL, WAS SENT TO CURE THEM BOTH, WHOSE PRAYERS AT ONE TIME WERE REHEARSED IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD,”—that is, presented and offered by the Angels, guardians of each, indeed by St. Raphael, as he himself asserts to Tobias, chapter 12, verse 12: “When thou didst pray with tears,” he says, “I offered thy prayer to the Lord.” Hence Apocalypse 8:3, an Angel is said to have stood with a golden censer, and with it to have offered to God the incense, that is the prayers of the saints. “Raphael” means physician of God, or medicine and cure of God. So St. Gregory, on Daniel chapter 8. So God himself is called rophe, that is, physician; thy healer and saviour, in Greek ho iomenos se, that is, healing thee and making thee whole, Exodus 15: 26, Psalm 38:5, and often elsewhere. Raphael is therefore the vicar of God the healer, the executor and worker of health. Whence the Church in the office of Michael prays to Christ:
Send Raphael from heaven, a physician of salvation to us, that he may heal all the sick, and likewise direct our acts.