Tobit — Chapter 3

TUNC TOBIAS INGEMUIT ET COEPIT ORARE CUM LACRYMIS — The blindness from God Tobias bore with equanimity, but the unjust calumny of his wife deeply afflicted him — for God's offense grieved him more than his own injury. Beginning to pray with tears from the inmost sense of his heart and with devotion and compunction, he as it were compelled God to hear and console him. Augustine (Serm. 226 De Temp.): \"The prayer of the just is the key of heaven. Prayer ascends and God's mercy descends. Though the earth be low and heaven high, God hears the tongue of man if his conscience is clean. He listens to our sighs alone. The flood of our eyes is enough for his ears; he hears weeping more quickly than voices.\" Bernard (De modo bene vivendi 10) enumerates: Anna by prayer obtained Samuel and the gift of prophecy; David by compunction and tears received pardon for murder and adultery; Tobias the elder by prayer merited the cure of his blindness; Mary Magdalene by compunction merited to hear: \"Your sins are forgiven you.\"

ET OMNES VIAE TUAE MISERICORDIA ET VERITAS ET JUDICIUM — God's ways are His ordinances, counsels, decrees, and acts of governance by which He descends as it were by roads to rule creatures and men. All God's works are mercy — for He mitigates a thousand miseries with a thousand acts of compassion, and when He punishes sins, He punishes less than they deserve, and even then with light punishments in this life so that we fear the heavier torments of hell and avoid sin; and truth — conformable to divine wisdom and supremely faithful in fulfilling promises and threats; and judgment — proceeding from the eternal law in God's mind and from primary divine justice. Tropologically: God wills that in these three we imitate Him — mercy toward others or toward ourselves, truth in conforming to our nature, reason, and end, and in matching deeds to words, and judgment in rendering to each his due.

PRAECIPE IN PACE RECIPI SPIRITUM MEUM — The Greek adds: \"because I heard undeserved reproaches.\" Tobias had just cause to desire death, since life in continual great sorrow is not life but death, indeed worse than death; right reason then dictates it is better to die than to live — if God so pleased. So Job (7:15): \"My soul has chosen hanging and my bones death\"; Elias (1 Kgs 19:4) fleeing Jezebel begged to die; Paul (2 Cor. 1:8) said they were \"burdened beyond measure and above strength, so that we were weary even of life.\" Yet it is of stronger and nobler soul not to desire death but to bear all adversity with unconquered spirit. Hence Augustine besieged at Hippo by the Vandals prayed either for the city's deliverance, or for strength to endure whatever God wills, or that God receive him to Himself — and obtained the last: he died three months before the city fell.

EADEM ITAQUE DIE CONTIGIT UT SARA FILIA RAGUELIS...AUDIRET IMPROPERIUM — A remarkable instance of God's provident care for His faithful: on the very same day He combined the affliction of Tobias with that of Sara, and their prayers together, that both might be consoled through the mutual marriage. This is what Solomon means (Prov. 19:14): \"Houses and riches are given by parents; but a prudent wife is from the Lord.\" Lapide cites a parallel from John Moschus (Pratum spirituale, 201): a young man of Constantinople who had given all to the poor and entering a church to pray devoutly was seen by a wealthy Patrician who, moved by his piety, gave him his daughter with a large dowry.

QUONIAM TRADITA FUERAT SEPTEM VIRIS ET DAEMONIUM NOMINE ASMODAEUS OCCIDERAT EOS — Lapide gives an extensive excursus on Asmodeus. On his name: \"Asmodeus\" (Hebrew Asmodai) means \"fire of the Medes\" (Serarius) since he ruled the demons dwelling in Media where Sara and her seven dead suitors lived; or \"abundance of sin\" (ascam = sin, dai = abundance); or \"measurer of sin\" (measuring punishment commensurate with the sin); or \"destroyer\" (from scamad = destroy); or most aptly \"destroyer of fire of sin\" — for he is the demon who drives men to lust and then punishes those he has overcome. On his identity: Lapide rejects all Rabbinical fables and concludes Asmodeus is the demon who incites men to lust and chastises those he defeats, as shown by ch. 6:17: \"Those who take wives in such a way as to shut out God from themselves...over these the demon has power.\" The demon is the executioner of those he has deceived: \"For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave\" (2 Pet. 2:19). Asmodeus was the kind of demon whom Cyprian (once a magician, later bishop and martyr) summoned to inflame a young woman with love — but she overcame him by the sign of the cross and prayer.

AMPLIUS EX TE NON VIDEAMUS FILIUM AUT FILIAM SUPER TERRAM, INTERFECTRIX VIRORUM TUORUM — The maidservant (or servants, as the Greek has) heaped three insults on Sara: first, calling her a murderess of husbands (though it was Asmodeus who slew them); second, corrupting her very name — for \"Sara\" in Hebrew means \"mistress\" and \"dominant,\" but the maid called her saramad meaning \"troubled and wretched\"; third, cursing her with perpetual sterility. Just as St. Monica was called \"wine-bibber\" by her maid (Augustine, Conf. IX.7) and was greatly afflicted by it, so Sara was so tormented that she prayed either for deliverance from this reproach or to be taken from the earth.

AD HANC VOCEM PERREXIT IN SUPERIUS CUBICULUM DOMUS SUAE ET TRIBUS DIEBUS ET TRIBUS NOCTIBUS NON MANDUCAVIT — Sara was so distressed she thought of strangling herself; but drawing back she said (Greek and Hebrew): \"I am my father's only child; if I do this, I shall bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.\" Note the fruit of reproach here: it produced compunction; compunction produced three days of fasting and prayer. As Lyran says: \"The fervor and length of prayer induces forgetfulness of food and drink.\" And the Gloss: \"She alone grows fat on prayer whom bodily leanness nourishes.\"

SED IN ORATIONE PERSISTENS CUM LACRYMIS DEPRECABATUR DEUM — Sara persisted in prayer with tears for three days and three nights, beseeching God to free her from the reproach, or else take her from the earth. Her prayer was the fruit of the affliction she had endured.

BENEDICTUM EST NOMEN TUUM DEUS PATRUM NOSTRORUM — By her three-day prayer Sara obtained from God resignation and tranquility of soul with great confidence in God, so that beginning a new prayer she burst forth in blessing and praise of God. Ambrose (Inst. Virg. 2): \"Good prayer observes order, beginning from divine praises. If when we plead before a man we wish to make the judge favorable, how much more when we pray to our Lord? First let us offer God the sacrifice of praise.\" The Greek gives a fuller version: \"Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers, and blessed is thy holy and glorious name for ever. Let all thy works praise thee for ever. Bless the Lord, all ye elect.\"

TU SCIS DOMINE QUIA NUNQUAM CONCUPIVI VIRUM — Sara declares she never desired a husband from concupiscence or lust, but received him only for the sake of offspring, to obey her parents, and to procreate nephews and heirs for them. She also kept her soul pure not only from lust but from gluttony, pride, avarice, and all other enticements — a great purity and continence, for which she merited to be heard by God and blessed.

NUNQUAM CUM LUDENTIBUS MISCUI ME NEQUE CUM HIS QUI IN LEVITATE AMBULANT PARTICIPEM ME PRAEBUI — Lapide with Hugo takes \"playing\" here to mean any frivolous pastime familiar to girls, especially dancing and choral games (chorus), which a wise man in Caesarius (IV.11) called \"the devil's game\" and Matthaeus Clingius described: \"What is a dance? A circle whose center is the devil and circumference all his angels.\" The Blessed Virgin (Gregory, IV Dialog. 16) warned the virgin Musa \"to do nothing frivolous or girlish, and to abstain from games and play.\" Jeremiah (15:17): \"I did not sit in the assembly of those who play.\"

HOC AUTEM PRO CERTO HABET OMNIS QUI TE COLIT QUOD VITA EJUS SI IN PROBATIONE FUERIT CORONABITUR — Every worshiper of God can hold this for certain: if his life is in trial, he will be crowned — provided he remains faithful and steadfast in temptation. James (1:12): \"Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been proven he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.\" If in tribulation, he will be freed; if under correction, he may come to God's mercy — for God corrects precisely in order to lead to repentance and pardon.

QUIA POST TEMPESTATEM TRANQUILLUM FACIS ET POST LACRYMATIONEM ET FLETUM EXULTATIONEM INFUNDIS — After the storm, sunshine; after night, dawn; after winter, summer; after sickness, health; after desolation, consolation; after the cross, glory; after death, resurrection; as Tertullian noted, Christ after gall tasted honeycomb and honey. Solomon (Prov. 14:10): \"The heart that knows its own bitterness — a stranger shall not share in its joy.\" The Psalmist (Ps. 94:19): \"According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have rejoiced my soul.\"

ET MISSUS EST ANGELUS DOMINI SANCTUS RAPHAEL UT CURARET EOS AMBOS — \"Raphael\" in Hebrew means \"medicine of God\" or \"healing of God\" (Gregory, Hom. 34; Jerome on Dan. 6), for God Himself is called \"your healer\" (Exod. 15:26; Ps. 39:5), and Raphael is the vicar, executor, and operator of God's healing. The Church in the Office of Michael prays: \"Send Raphael, a healing angel, from heaven, that he may heal all the sick.\" Lapide gives an extended excursus on Raphael's angelic rank: some (Bannes) hold he is of the lowest order (guardian angels); Serarius holds he is an Archangel; others assign him to the Powers or Virtues; Lapide with the majority (Gregory of Valentia, Viegas, Nazianzus, Cyrillus, Ribadeneira) holds Raphael is of the highest order of Seraphim, one of the seven chief angels standing before God. Raphael is also the patron of travelers (he guided Vasco da Gama's voyage to India in 1496; he guided Theodosius's army to Ravenna). He is the patron of chastity, and it was he or his assistants who girded Thomas Aquinas with the belt of chastity. The Greek adds that Raphael was sent to wipe away Tobias's cataracts, to give Sara to young Tobias as a wife, and to bind Asmodeus — for it belonged to Tobias by right of kinship to inherit Sara.