Commentaria in Tobiam
Chapter 8
Synopsis of the Chapter. Tobias by the fumigation of the heart and liver of the fish puts Asmodeus to flight, whom Raphael binds in the desert. Raguel, the marriage consummated, makes Tobias heir of all his goods.
1. And after they had supped, they brought the young man in to her. 2. And Tobias remembering the angel’s word, took out of his bag part of the liver, and laid it upon burning coals. 3. Then the angel Raphael took the devil, and bound him in the desert of upper Egypt. 4. Then Tobias exhorted the virgin, and said to her: Sara, arise, and let us pray to God today, and tomorrow, and the next day: because for these three nights we are joined to God: and when the third night is over, we will be in our own wedlock. 5. For we are the children of saints, and we must not be joined together like heathens that know not God. 6. So they both arose, and prayed earnestly both together that health might be given them. 7. And Tobias said: Lord God of our fathers, may the heavens and the earth bless thee, and the sea, and the fountains, and the rivers, and all thy creatures that are in them. 8. Thou madest Adam of the slime of the earth, and gavest him Eve for a helper. 9. And now, Lord, thou knowest, that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in which thy name may be blessed for ever and ever. 10. Sara also said: Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, and let us grow old both together in health. 11. And it came to pass about the cockcrowing, Raguel ordered his servants to be called for, and they went with him together to dig a grave. 12. For he said: Lest perhaps it may have happened to him in like manner as it did to the other seven men that went in unto her. 13. And when they had prepared the pit, Raguel went back to his wife, and said to her: 14. Send one of thy maids, and let her see whether he be dead, that I may bury him before it be day. 15. So she sent one of her maidservants, who went into the chamber, and found them safe and sound, sleeping both together. 16. And returning she brought the good news: and Raguel and Anna his wife blessed the Lord, 17. And said: We bless thee, O Lord God of Israel, because it hath not happened as we suspected. 18. For thou hast shewn thy mercy to us, and hast shut out from us the enemy that persecuted us. 19. And thou hast taken pity upon two only children. Make them, O Lord, bless thee more fully, and offer up to thee a sacrifice of thy praise, and of their health, that all nations may know that thou alone art God in all the earth.
20. And immediately Raguel commanded his servants to fill up the pit they had made, before it was light. 21. And he spoke to his wife to make ready a feast, and prepare all provisions that are necessary for such as go a journey. 22. He caused also two fat kine, and four rams to be killed, and a banquet to be prepared for all his neighbours, and all his friends. 23. And Raguel adjured Tobias to abide with him two weeks. 24. And of all things which Raguel possessed, he gave one half to Tobias, and made a writing, that the half that remained should also come to Tobias after their decease.
2. “HE TOOK OUT OF HIS BAG,”—that is, out of the traveller’s wallet, made in the manner of a net, such as fowlers and fishers use. For cassidile is a diminutive name from cassis, as if to say a little net, or small net, namely a little netted sack in which travellers put their small belongings and provisions. So Lyranus, Dionysius and Budé. Or it is called cassidula from cassis, that is a helmet, because it bears the likeness of a helmet.
“PART OF THE LIVER, AND LAID IT UPON BURNING COALS,”—that is, burning and flaming: for fire, stirring itself by the flame and as it were breathing, seems to live. The Greek has more fully thus:
and laid on the heart of the fish, and the liver, and made smoke; and when the demon smelt the odours, he fled to the uttermost parts of Egypt. But the Hebrew: Asmodeus perceived the odour and fled. This smoke of the liver and heart therefore effected something physically, by which the demon was put to flight: what this was I have said in chapter 6, verse 8. To which add that the holiness, merits, blessing and prayers of Raphael as well as Tobias, joined to that smoke, gave it energy for driving off Asmodeus: as at the ringing of bells blessed by the Church the demon who stirs up storms and tempests is put to flight, not by the force of the ringing, but by the force of the prayer of the Church, by which they have been blessed. The same is done by holy water, by blessed Agnus Deis and candles, and by other consecrated things. So formerly St. Jerome, St. Antony and other anchorites, giving a possessed person bread or oil blessed by them, expelled the demon.
Josephus recounts a thing altogether similar, Antiquities book 8, chapter 2, of the root called Baaras shown by Solomon, by whose smell a demon was put to flight: “I saw,” he says, “a certain Eleazar of my countrymen, in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and tribunes, and many other soldiers, curing many possessed. The manner of the cure was this: a ring was brought to the nose of the demoniac, under whose seal was enclosed a species of root pointed out by Solomon; at the smell of which he drew the demon out through the nose, and the man falling presently, he adjured it not to return again: making mention meanwhile of Solomon, and reciting the incantations composed by him.” If these things are true and honest, not magical, as Jansenius and Francis Lucas on Matthew chapter 12, Toletus on Luke chapter 11, Salmeron, tome 8, tractate 45, think them honest, we must say what was said by St. Thomas, question 6 On Power, article 10, reply to 3, and repeated by Victoria in his lecture On Magic, that a certain formula of casting out demons could indeed have been instituted by Solomon, then still holy, which God by his peculiar authority confirmed for putting demons to flight. In this too there is nothing magical, nothing from friendship and covenant with the demon. But if ever exorcisms were written or handed down by Solomon the idolater and afterwards student of the magic art, these must have been magical, and supported by no divine or angelic virtue for driving away demons, but only by an impious pact and wicked magic. Of this surely smells that root of Josephus enclosed in a ring, in which there is no power over spirit, says our Pineda, book 3 On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 29. For to Serarius too here, question 5, chapter 7, two things displease. First, that in Jewish War book 7, chapter 5, he asserts that the root Baaras cannot be pulled out of the earth unless he who pulls it dies, whether man or dog. Second, that he calls demons the spirits of wicked men. Nay Delrio, Magic book 6, chapter 2, question 3, section 2, with Pineda thinks that these roots and exorcisms of demons are falsely ascribed to Solomon. They are therefore suspect, and received with uncertain and doubtful faith. For the Jews who boast of them abound the more, and perhaps that Eleazar of Josephus was a magician. More holy, and therefore safer, and more formidable to the demon was the rod of St. Benedict, of which St. Gregory, Dialogues book 2, chapter 4. Since the monk who was struck, whom a little black boy often drew away from prayer, “thereafter remained immovable in zeal for prayer, and so the ancient enemy dared not rule in his thought, as if he had been struck by a blow.”
Raphael bound Asmodeus in the desert by divine decree and power, detaining him in the desert so that he could not move from place and go out from there. This can be done in three ways; first, by commanding on God’s part that he not move, and if he do otherwise, threatening him with sharp penalties and blows: indeed if he go out, compelling him to return by force and blows. So a law binds a man, that is, obliges him, and so law is said from binding (ligando), as many will have it according to that:
Words bind men, ropes the horns of bulls.
Secondly, by impressing on the demon some detaining quality, for example a permanent impetus and force, which detains him in the place. For so a strong force holds the weak in its arms and fixes him to a certain place. Why could not an Angel do the same to the devil?
Thirdly and most effectively, by praying God to withdraw from the demon his concurrence, which is necessary for local motion, so that he cannot go out. So demons are bound in hell, that they cannot go out. So Lucifer is there bound for a thousand years, Apocalypse 20:2. So four Angels were bound in the Euphrates, Apocalypse 9:14. See what was said there.
Moreover, how long Asmodeus was bound by Raphael is not certain. It is probable that he was bound through the whole life of Tobias and Sara, that he might never be able to harm them: for on their account he was bound. So Sanchez and Serarius.
Much more is the demon bound by Christ, as St. Antony says in St. Athanasius: “By the hook of the cross the dragon has been hooked by the Lord, and bound with a halter like a beast of burden, and like a runaway slave bound with a ring, and his lips pierced with a bracelet, he is permitted to devour no one of the faithful at all. Now, wretched as a sparrow, he is snared by Christ for play, and groans, withdrawn from beneath the heel of the Christians. He who promised that all the seas should be dried up by him, he who promised that the globe of the earth should be held in his hand, behold, he is conquered by us, behold, he cannot hinder me disputing against him.”
“IN THE DESERT OF UPPER EGYPT,”—namely in the southern part of Egypt, which is high and mountainous, from which the Nile flows down, and which is called Thebais, says John Leo, On Africa book 8, chapter 2. St. Jerome gives the reason on Ezechiel chapter 30: “Because there the Nile is unnavigable, and there is the roar of cataracts, and all is pathless and full of serpents and poisonous creatures.” For such a place befits a demon, that he may harm no man. Wherefore demons before the holy Antony, Macarius and other hermits of the Thebaid complained grievously that they had invaded their place and filled their Thebaid with monks, as St. Athanasius relates in the Life of St. Antony, Palladius in the Lausiac History, chapter 10, Cassian, Conference 6, chapter 21.
Tropologically, the demon is bound by many virtues, as by cords, that he may not approach us and harm. The first is abstinence and fasting; the second, prayer; the third, chastity. I know, says Serarius, one who, whenever he feels Asmodeus creeping in and flattering, at once renews by formula the vow of chastity: so that while the demon wishes to inflict a wound, he himself receives a most signal one. So Goliath is slain by his own sword: and the wicked man falls into the pit he made. Fourth, serious meditation on the passion and cross of Christ. Fifth, reading and study of holy Scripture. Sixth, the holy communion and frequent reception: “Like lions,” says St. Chrysostom, sermon 61 to the people, “breathing fire let us depart from that table, made terrible to the devil, and turning our Head over in mind, and the charity which he has shown us.” And a little after: “This mystic blood drives demons out indeed, and makes them far away; but calls Angels to us, and the Lord of Angels. For where they have seen the Lord’s blood, demons flee; but Angels run together.” And St. Bernard, sermon 4 on the Lord’s Supper: “If any of you does not so often now feel such bitter motions of anger, envy, lust or the like, let him give thanks to the body and blood of the Lord, because the virtue of the Lord works in him: and let him rejoice that the worst ulcer is coming to health.” The seventh is alms, and pious offices of charity, which Serarius treats at length here.
4. “LET US PRAY TO GOD TODAY, AND TOMORROW, AND THE NEXT DAY,”—that is, after tomorrow, namely for three nights before the union, as Raphael had commanded, chapter 6.
9. “NOT FOR FLESHLY LUST DO I TAKE MY SISTER TO WIFE,”—Tobias calls Sara sister, not that she was truly his sister, for so he could not have taken her to wife, but because she was a sister by kind; namely because she was descended from the same nation and tribe. “Sister,” then, that is, fellow citizen and fellow tribeswoman.
11. “ABOUT THE COCKCROWING (of cocks and hens)”—namely at dawn before sunrise, of which Pliny, book 10, chapter 21: “Nor do they suffer the sunrise to creep up on the unwary, and they announce the coming day,” Canticles 11.
“TO DIG A GRAVE.”—For although Raguel, comforted by Raphael, hoped that Tobias would be safe with Sara in marriage, yet on the other side he feared that he would be killed by Asmodeus, as the seven former bridegrooms of Sara were killed. The rest of this chapter is plain: whence it needs no other explanation.