Commentaria in Tobiam
Secondly, because Pliny, book 32, chapter 7, and Francis Valesius, Sacred Philosophy chapter 47, ascribe this virtue to the gall of the callionymus, whom hear: “Because, since for wiping away whitenesses nothing is more celebrated by all physicians than gall, among all kinds of gall that of the callionymus fish is most commended of all, and next that of the hyena.” Galen also, book 10 On the Faculties of Simple Medicines, chapter 12: “Moreover,” he says, “the bile of certain animals is singularly extolled by physicians, as sharpening the keenness of the eyes and dispersing the beginnings of cataracts, as of the fish they call callionymus, the hyena, and the sea scorpion, then the cock and the partridge.” So he. The same teaches Aelian, book 13, chapter 14, and other physicians. So think Lyranus, Dionysius, Serarius and others. You will say: Tobias was blinded, and plainly blind; therefore he could not recover sight from the gall of a fish. I answer, he was blind outwardly because of the skin drawn over his eyes, not inwardly, so that the visual power was extinguished, and therefore he was blind in act, and had lost the proximate power of seeing, not the remote and radical; if anyone contends that he was wholly blind and had lost the visual power, he must consequently say that he was enlightened not by the gall of the fish but by divine supernatural virtue alone, as I said of the driving off of Asmodeus by the heart of the fish. Allegorically Tobias, by the gall enlightening his father, was a type of Christ, who enlightened the man blind from birth with his spittle and clay, John chapter 9, verse 6. Tropologically, the gall is the bitterness of perversity and tribulation, which, once the eyes of the mind blinded by the honey of earthly pleasure are cleared of it, opens them, that they may see the foulness of sin, the atrocity of hell, the beauty of virtue, the goodness of God, the joys of heaven.
Mystically St. Prosper, part 2 of the Promises, chapter 29: “The mystery,” he says, “of this action is that from the inner parts of the fish both the demon was put to flight and Tobias was enlightened. This the great fish, Christ, does by his passion, cleansing Mary, from whom he cast out seven devils.” And afterwards: “For our elders interpreted the Greek ichthys in Latin as fish in the sacred writings, gathering from the Sibylline verses that it is Jesus Christ the Son of God the Saviour, a fish boiled in his passion, by whose inward remedies we are daily enlightened and fed.”
Verses 14 and 15. “I HEAR THAT SHE HATH BEEN GIVEN TO SEVEN HUSBANDS, AND THEY ALL DIED: MOREOVER I HAVE HEARD THAT A DEVIL KILLED THEM. NOW I FEAR LEST THE SAME THING SHOULD HAPPEN TO ME.” Whether a demon loved Sara.—The Greek adds: Because a demon loves her, which does no injury to anyone but those who approach her; as if to say: She has an incubus demon, who, loving her, kills her other suitors. For demons, in an assumed body, receive the seed of some man and pour it into a woman, and by it generate offspring, as they say Merlin and Arthur were begotten, so assert St. Thomas, Abulensis, Victoria, Molina, Cantimpré, Caesarius, Camper, Hector and others whom Serarius cites and follows, “A very frequent report it is, and many affirm that they have experienced it, or heard it from those who had, of whose faith there is no doubt, that Sylvans and Fauns, whom the common people call incubi, have been wanton toward women, and have sought and accomplished intercourse with them, and certain demons, whom the Gauls call Dusii, continually both attempt and effect this uncleanness: so many and such assert it that to deny it would seem impudence.” Hear also an example which the author of the Life of St. Bernard relates, book 1, verse 6: “A woman in the region of Nantes, by a certain wanton demon, in the form of a handsome knight, for six years, with her consent given, was often abused invisibly, her husband lying in the same bed, by that lascivious spirit. In the seventh year, seized by fear, when St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, came to the aforesaid city, the wretched woman fell at his feet, and with many tears confessed the horrible suffering and the devilish mockery, and begged help: by whom she was consoled and instructed what she should do, and after confession the devil could not approach her.”
But the demon does not properly love women for the sake of his lust, since he lacks flesh and therefore has no sense of lust, but feigns love, to entice women to love of him and to unspeakable sin. Moreover it is not probable that Asmodeus here was the lover and incubus of Sara, both because he knew her to be most chaste, and therefore would generously restore her. Wherefore Tobias, saying that Asmodeus loves Sara, said this not of his own mind but from the opinion and report of the people. “I hear,” he says: for the common people, seeing Sara’s seven bridegrooms killed by the demon, suspected that this was done from his rival love and jealousy; for so suitors seeking the same bride often kill one another. For in verse 17, the Angel Raphael brings not this, but altogether another and as it were contrary cause of their slaying, namely that they were slain by Asmodeus on account of their crimes and unbridled lust. So Serarius.
17. “AND TO GIVE THEMSELVES TO THEIR LUST, AS THE HORSE AND MULE,”—for as Aristotle says, History of Animals book 6, chapter 21: “The horse is the most lustful of all, of females as well as males.” Whence that of Jeremias 5:7–8: “They committed adultery, and rioted in the harlot’s house. They are become as horses fed for the stud: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.” The mule also, though sterile, burns with lust. Hence the ancients designated a lecherous man by painting a mule, male or female, as Pierius testifies, Hieroglyphics 12. Add that there is a certain kind of mule, different from the rest, in Cappadocia and Syria, which bears and procreates like horses, as Aristotle testifies, History of Animals book 1, chapter 6, and book 6, chapter 24.
19. “THE LIVER OF THE FISH BEING PUT ON THE FIRE, THE DEVIL SHALL BE DRIVEN AWAY”—not so much by the force of the liver as by my power, that is angelic and divine, on account of thy prayers and merits, O Tobias. See what was said on verse 8. Mystically St. Augustine, in the place cited: “Christ,” he says, “is that fish who came up to Tobias; by whose liver roasted in the passion (on the altar of the cross) the devil was put to flight.” Aptly this is done through the liver, because in the liver is the seat of love and concupiscence, which here is extinguished by the passion of Christ.
20. “BUT THE SECOND NIGHT THOU SHALT BE ADMITTED INTO THE SOCIETY OF THE HOLY PATRIARCHS,”—as if to say: Thou shalt be partaker of the merits, or holiness, of the holy Patriarchs, namely Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc., that as they, using their wives chastely, begot illustrious and holy sons, so thou also mayest do with Sara, as follows in verse 21. Raphael therefore commands Tobias to give himself to prayer with Sara for the first three nights of the marriage before he consummates it; for so Asmodeus, who kills the lustful, will be put to flight, and the marriage will be holily entered upon, and holy children obtained from God. Would that Christian spouses would follow this counsel of Raphael, and the example of Tobias obeying it. In the Council of Trent, Session 24, on the Reform of Matrimony, chapter 1, it is thus read: “The holy synod exhorts spouses that, before they contract, or at least three days before the consummation of the marriage, they diligently confess their sins, and piously approach the Sacrament of the most holy Eucharist.”
22. “MOVED RATHER FOR LOVE OF CHILDREN THAN FOR LUST.”—For the end of intercourse ought to be the desire of offspring of the faithful. “For these are the three goods of marriage, fidelity (conjugal), offspring, sacrament,” as the Theologians teach from St. Augustine. Hear St. Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, chapter 6: “Conjugal intercourse for the sake of begetting has no fault: but that for satisfying concupiscence, yet with a spouse, on account of the fidelity of the marriage bed, has a venial fault. But adultery or fornication has a mortal fault; and therefore continence from all intercourse is better than even matrimonial intercourse itself, which is done for the sake of begetting.” And St. Fulgentius, epistle …, chapter 3: “The use of conjugal power,” he says, “is blameless, assigned by God to the office of begetting, if the excess of lust is not permitted to cross the boundary of justice. The justice of using marriage is this, that spouses be united with one another at a fitting time not for satisfying lust but for the sake of obtaining offspring. So ought the fruit to be sought from marriage that the excess of slippery pleasure be restrained.”
Nay the philosophers too thought the same, as Plato, Laws book 4: “Parents,” he says, “ought to beget and educate children, who may hand on life like a torch to posterity, that there may always be some worshipping God according to his law.”