Commentaria in Tobiam
This is as marvellous as that which the same writes, Pliny, book 10, chapter 36, that the plucked-out eyes of swallows grow again. The same Aelian asserts, book 3, chapter 3; and Aristotle is cited, but to no purpose. For the words of Aristotle, History of Animals book 6, chapter 5, are:
“The eyes of newly hatched swallows, if one injure them with a pointed instrument, heal again, and afterwards plainly recover the power of seeing.” It is certainly one thing, says Aldrovandus on the Swallow, page 603, to recover an injured sight, another for plucked-out eyes to grow again, which Aelian and Pliny assert. But the same Aldrovandus, page 689, asserts from Dioscorides and Avicenna that the ash of a young swallow sprinkled with honey on the eyes disperses the dimness of them and brings clearness, indeed that the gall and the cold dung of swallows (for the hot is sharp and burning, whence it blinded Tobias) avail for the same, from Albert the Great Tropologically, Blessed Peter Damian, book 2, epistle … says: do not swallows lightly flitting signify the light manners of flatterers and soft-speakers? who, while they soothe with the sweetness of their smooth speech and anoint the head of the hearer with the oil of adulation, blind the inner eyes, that they may not enjoy the unbroken light.
Again Dionysius the Carthusian: While the Church sleeps, he says, dung sometimes falls from the nests of heretical swallows, and we see many blinded. Moreover, in book 2, chapter 56, Thomas of Cantimpré explains how swallows and birds are hostile to bees, that is, demons to pious and chaste souls. “Another kind of temptation too,” he says, “may be designated by the swallows, by whose dung Tobias was blinded, or the harassment of other birds, that under the appearance of virtues we be wrapped in the darkness of vices; for example: someone aims to become rich and to gather riches, that at the end he may make a richer will and make Christ his heir, who left his own abundance to either the lords of the earth, or his relatives, or his dependants, or any most wicked plunderers as owners. This we see especially in clerics, whose goods nevertheless ought to be the poor’s, and what is over to them every day ought to be generously bestowed not in a purse or a chest, but on the mouth of the hungry poor, and in the bellies of the starving.”
12. “NOW THIS TRIAL THE LORD PERMITTED TO HAPPEN TO HIM, THAT AN EXAMPLE MIGHT BE GIVEN TO POSTERITY OF HIS PATIENCE, AS ALSO OF HOLY JOB.”—Tobias and Job are therefore two examples of patience and mirrors for all the blind and afflicted constantly to look upon and imitate; for nothing evil befalls any believer except by the sure foreknowledge and will of God, either to purge him of vices or to perfect him in virtue and patience, and so to increase his merits and rewards in heaven. So God permitted the just Abel to be slain by a brother’s impiety; Abraham to be tried by the holocaust of his dearest son; Joseph to be impiously sold by his brothers; Moses with all the Israelite people to be oppressed by the cruel tyranny of Pharao; David to be subjected to the implacable hatred of King Saul; Susanna to be exposed to the calumnies of the shameless; the prophet Isaias to be sawn in two with a saw; Daniel to be cast to the lions. See ten reasons for which God permits saints to be afflicted, recounted by St. Chrysostom, homily 4 to the people. Truly St. Augustine, sermon 226 On the Season, which is on Tobias: “For this he incurred the ruin of blindness, that he might receive an Angel as physician.”
13. “HE REPINED NOT AGAINST GOD,”—so as to murmur or complain, and say: Lord, why hast thou permitted me, in thy work, namely the burial of the dead, to be defiled by the dung of swallows and blinded? Hear St. Ambrose, book On Tobias, chapter 2: “The prophet, wearied with so holy an office, while he rests by the wall of the court, the dung falling from a sparrow’s nest, falls into blindness by a film, and neither lamented with a groan, nor said: Is this the reward of my labours? He grieved more at being defrauded of his services than of the gift of his eyes: he thought it not blindness but a hindrance.”
Moreover the Greek, and from it St. Ambrose, adds: And whiteness came upon my eyes. And I went to physicians, and they did me no good; but Achiacharus (my brother’s son) nourished me until I went into Elymais, to avoid danger; of whom at the end of the last chapter. For Tobias seems after his blindness to have been again accused by someone before the king and despoiled of his goods, but, as the Greek and Hebrew have, to have been kept and sustained by Achiacharus. Achiacharus seems for that reason to have suffered calumny himself, as is said in the Greek of the last chapter, and then Tobias either was banished or fled into Elymais, as we read in the Greek. So Serarius and others.
14. “BUT CONTINUED IMMOVEABLE IN THE FEAR OF GOD, GIVING THANKS TO GOD ALL THE DAYS OF HIS LIFE.”—This is the state of heroic patience; this the state of the holy and perfect man, who despising all earthly things, adverse as well as prosperous, dwells in mind in heaven, and already begins and foretastes heavenly happiness. So Job, afflicted on all sides, said, chapter 1, verse 21:
“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all adversities, therefore, give thanks to God, and you will be holy, indeed blessed. Moreover the author of the Questions on the Old and New Testament, among the works of St. Augustine, question 119: “How praiseworthy,” he says, “holy Tobias is, we are taught by Scripture, whose devotion neither captivity diminished, nor the loss of his eyes persuaded from blessing God; nor did the loss of substance turn him from the way of justice and truth. For necessity proves the just man. To keep equity in want is true and perfect justice. For whence the devotion of some is diminished, thence Tobias, worthy of praise, makes increase.” And a little after: “The mind of holy Tobias was lifted up to God, neither broken by captivity nor humbled by poverty.”
So the saints in blindness gave thanks to God with Tobias, indeed loved their blindness. Blind was the martyr St. Pigmenius, to whom, when Julian the Apostate reproached him with his blindness: “I,” said Pigmenius, “give eternal thanks to God, best and greatest, that I do not see Julian.” At length, for his distinguished work done for the Christian law and the overthrow of the monstrous idols of the pagans, he was cast into the Tiber and thence departed to heaven; this one blind man saw more than all the sighted worshippers of phantoms. Blind was Didymus, the preceptor of St. Jerome, whom he himself calls his seer. Blind for 4 years was Abbot Spes, whose soul at his death flew to heaven in the likeness of a dove, as St. Gregory testifies, Dialogues book 4, chapter 10. See more in our Matthew Rader, part 3 of the Garden, chapter 4. Blind was St. Audomar, bishop of Terouanne, in the year of the Lord 638, who, when through St. Vedast he had recovered the use of sight long lost, is said to have taken it ill, and to have obtained by prayers that his opened eyes be again veiled by returning blindness, which he kept saying had been sent him by God for his salvation. He saw what advantage blindness brought, and of how many evils it cut off the occasions. That nun in John Moschus, Spiritual Meadow, chapter 96, sent her plucked-out eyes to a young man captivated by the beauty of her eyes, and so pricked his conscience that she made him a most approved monk. St. Aquilinus, in the time of Clovis, made bishop of Evreux, asked of the eternal light that it would close the mortal lights of his eyes, that he might contemplate the heavenly light with the firmer eyes of the mind: he obtained it, and nevertheless discharged the office of the pontificate excellently by preaching. So his life in Surius, 19 October.
15. “FOR AS KINGS INSULTED OVER HOLY JOB.”—Hence it is clear that the friends of Job, namely Eliphaz, Baldad and Sophar, were kings, that is, petty kings and chiefs of certain towns, of which more in Job chapter 2 and the last. They had come to console Job, but instead of consolation brought desolation; for they accused him of grave crimes, as if for them he were so terribly chastised by God: hence it is clear they insulted Job. Are they not in chapter 6, verse 25, spoken of as having “framed speeches,” “uttered words into the wind,” “rushed upon the fatherless, and laboured to overthrow their friend”? Are they not in chapter 13 called “forgers of lies and maintainers of perverse opinions”? chapter 16, verse 3, “talkers of falsehood”? and chapter 19, verse 2: “How long,” says Job, “do you afflict my soul, and break me in pieces with words? Behold, these ten times you confound me, and are not ashamed to oppress me. You rise up against me, and reprove me with my own reproaches.” But finally who is a graver witness or judge against them than God himself? To one of them certainly, chapter 42, verse 7, God cries from heaven: “My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends, because you have not spoken the thing that is right before me, as my servant Job hath.” So Serarius.