Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The Angel Raphael offers himself to Tobias as a guide to Rages, and promises the father that he will lead him and bring him back safe.
Vulgate Text: Tobias 5:1-28
1. Then Tobias answered his father, and said: All things whatever you have commanded me I will do, father. 2. But how I shall seek this money, I do not know. He does not know me, and I do not know him: what sign shall I give him? Nor have I ever known the way by which one goes there. 3. Then his father answered him, and said: Indeed I have his bond in my possession: when you show it to him, he will immediately restore it. 4. But go now, and seek out for yourself some faithful man, who may go with you, his wages being preserved: so that, while I am still alive, you may recover it. 5. Then Tobias went out and found a splendid young man, standing girded, and as if ready for walking. 6. And not knowing that he was an Angel of God, he greeted him, and said: Where do we have you from, good young man? 7. And he answered: From the children of Israel. And Tobias said to him: Do you know the way that leads to the region of the Medes? 8. He answered: I know it, and I have frequently traveled all its routes, and I stayed with Gabelus our brother, who dwells in Rages, a city of the Medes, which is situated in the mountain of Ecbatana. 9. Tobias said to him: Wait for me, I beg you, until I tell my father these very things. 10. Then Tobias went in and told all these things to his father, at which his father, marveling, asked that he come in to him. 11. So he entered and greeted him, and said: May you always have joy. 12. And Tobias said: What joy shall I have, who sit in darkness and do not see the light of heaven? 13. The young man said to him: Be of good courage, it is near that you will be healed by God. 14. Then Tobias said to him: Can you lead my son to Gabelus in Rages, a city of the Medes? And when you return, I will pay you your wages. 15. And the Angel said to him: I will lead and bring him back to you. 16. Tobias answered him: I ask you, tell me from what family or from what tribe are you? 17. The Angel Raphael said to him: Do you seek the lineage of a hired servant, or the hired servant himself, who may go with your son? 18. But lest I make you anxious, I am Azarias, son of the great Ananias. 19. And Tobias answered: You are of a great family. But I ask that you not be angry that I wished to know your lineage. 20. And the Angel said to him: I will lead your son safe, and bring him back to you safe. 21. And Tobias, answering, said: May you travel well, and may God be in your journey, and may His Angel accompany you. 22. Then when all things that were to be carried on the way had been prepared, Tobias said farewell to his father and mother, and they both traveled together. 23. And when they had set out, his mother began to weep, and to say: You have taken the staff of our old age, and sent him away from us. 24. Would that the money had never existed, for which you sent him. 25. For our poverty was sufficient for us, so that we might count it as riches that we saw our son. 26. And Tobias said to her: Do not weep, our son will arrive safe, and will return safe to us, and your eyes will see him. 27. For I believe that a good Angel of God accompanies him, and arranges well all things that are done concerning him, so that he may return to us with joy. 28. At this voice his mother ceased to weep, and was silent.
Verse 5: The Angel Raphael Appears as a Young Man
5. Then Tobias went out and found a splendid young man, standing girded, and as if ready for walking. — Raphael appeared to Tobias as a "young man," on account of his vigor and strength, being immortal, eternal, unchangeable, and therefore never aging or failing; as "splendid," on account of the splendor both of his angelic nature, which is a pure and most luminous spirit, and of beatific glory; as "standing girded," like a guide for the journey; for Raphael is the patron of roads and travelers. Hence he himself opened the way to East India for Vasco da Gama, sent by King Emmanuel of Portugal, and also opened it for the Christian faith in the year of our Lord 1496. Hear our Maffaeus, book I of the History of India: "The flagship was named after St. Gabriel, so that the ship which was paving the way for the Gospel from our world to the antipodes might lie under the protection and guardianship of that Archangel especially, who first from heaven once brought the Gospel to earth: the second ship they dedicated to the Archangel Raphael, guide and protector of travelers." Then, having rounded the Cape of Good Hope, they arrived at a place to which, as Maffaeus says, "the name Good Signs was given, and friendship was established with the natives, the ships were beached and repaired in many places: there a column with the title of the Archangel Raphael was fixed in the customary manner." Thus the army of the Emperor Theodosius, led by an Angel (Raphael, or one of his followers clothed in the guise of a shepherd) through swamps and impassable roads, retreated to Ravenna, and defeated the tyrant John, in the year of our Lord 425, as Socrates relates, book VII, chapter LXXIII, and from him Baronius, volume V.
In exactly the same guise of a traveler, the Angel Raphael offered himself as a guide to St. Macarius the Roman; and in almost the same words with which he here addressed Tobias, indeed he led him to the places of torments, in which the wicked are tormented, and of joys in which the just exult. So says the life of St. Macarius in the Lives of the Fathers, in our Father Heribert Rosweyde's edition.
Verse 7: From the Children of Israel
7. From the children of Israel. — Raphael speaks truth, both because he was coming from the cities of the children of Israel, that is, of the faithful, whose health and salvation had been entrusted to him by God. Hence Lyra and Dionysius the Carthusian say: "What is said and done by Angels among men is figurative; and the speech by which Raphael says he is from the children of Israel signifies the bond of charity by which the holy Angels are joined to devout believers"; and also because "Israel" in Hebrew means the same as 'God rules,' or 'the ruling God,' of whom he, just as all the other Angels are creatures, and as it were sons, according to that passage of Job, chapter XXXVIII: "Where were you when the morning stars praised Me, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" that is, the holy Angels. Sanchez explains differently: Israel, he says, in Hebrew means the same as 'a man seeing God.' Raphael therefore is an Israelite, because he sees God face to face, and is blessed by this vision.
Verse 8: Situated in the Mountain of Ecbatana
8. Which (the city of Rages) is situated in the mountain of Ecbatana. — Ecbatana, or Ecbatanis, is the indeclinable name of a city of the Medes, which then gave its name to the whole mountain and the adjacent plain where Rages was situated. Hence the Hebrews have: It is a journey of two days from Ecbatana to Rages; and Rages indeed is in the mountains, but Ecbatana is in the plain of the field.
Verse 12: What Joy Shall I Have?
12. And Tobias said: What joy shall I have, who sit in darkness and do not see the light of heaven? — First, Hugh explains it thus, as if to say: You have wished me joy: therefore you seem to know the way by which I might recover my sight and thus be able to rejoice; tell me if you know it. Second, Dionysius, as if to say: I do not desire joy in this life, since I now live blind and am about to die soon; I desire the joys to come. Third and genuinely, as if to say: Alas, by what means can I rejoice, who, deprived of all light, live an obscure, miserable, and sorrowful life in the darkness of blindness?
Verse 17: You Seek the Lineage of a Hired Servant
17. You seek the lineage of a hired servant. — See here the wondrous condescension and self-abasement of the great St. Raphael, who calls and makes himself as it were a hired servant of Tobias; hence he had also assumed the form and appearance of a servant. St. Augustine gives the reason, sermon 226 On the Seasons, which is On Tobias: "What did you merit," he says, "father Tobit (for so the Greek names the father Tobit) and son Tobias, to have a heavenly hired worker, and to employ a celestial as a lowly laborer? The Angel concealed his name from you: 'I am Azarias,' he said, 'son of the great Ananias': and he did not say: 'I am the Angel Raphael.' He concealed his dignity in his first name, lest he terrify the employer. For if he said: 'I am an Angel,' he would not be Tobias's hired servant. The dignity of the name was preserved, so that at last the greatness of the dignity might shine forth. Hence he rightly draws and appends this moral lesson: See, beloved, how great is the merit of almsgiving. He merited to have an Angel as his worker. You see how much it profits to bury the dead, that his offering might ascend through the Angel Raphael to the heavenly majesty. You see that alms deliver from death, and they purge sins, bring about the cleansing of eyes, and deliver from the darkness of sins."
Learn therefore here that almsgiving and the piety of both Tobias, father and son, merited so great a guide for the journey, namely St. Raphael.
Verse 18: I Am Azarias, Son of the Great Ananias
18. I am Azarias, son of the great Ananias. — Whitaker, writing against Father Edmund Campion, p. 77, says Raphael lies here: but this is clearly an impudent blasphemy. I say therefore that the Angel speaks truth: first, because, as St. Athanasius says in the Synopsis, Raphael, accompanying Tobias, assumed the likeness and form of Azarias, and bore his person before him: thus we truly call an image of St. Peter 'St. Peter' by metonymy. So in Genesis XXXI, 13, the Angel truly says: "I am the God of Bethel," because he was speaking in the person of God, as His legate. So in Exodus XX, the Angel, promulgating the Decalogue on behalf of God, says: "I am God," because he speaks in the person of God. Some add from St. Thomas, Part I, Question LI, article 2, that Raphael is called Azarias because he had taken up and put on the body of Azarias who had already died, from the tomb. But this would have been unbecoming, nor would it suffice, because the body of Azarias is not Azarias. Finally, they incorrectly derive this from St. Thomas, who attributes an airy body to Angels.
Second, because, as St. Gregory says, homily 34, Angels do not have names in themselves, since they see one another and converse face to face, but they receive and assume them by reason of the ministry they perform among men. Thus Michael, fighting for the faithful against the proud dragon, assumes the name of humility, and calls himself Michael, that is, "who is like God?" Apocalypse XII. Gabriel means the same as "the strength of God," because he presides over the battles of God. Raphael means the same as "the healing of God," because he healed the blindness of Tobias. Here he also calls himself "Azarias," that is, help or aid of God, because he, as well as all Angels, are "ministering spirits," as the Apostle says, Hebrews chapter I, last verse, that is, ministers and helpers of God. Moreover, the Greek has: I am of the family of Azarias and the great Ananias, your brother, as if to say: I am the younger or lesser Azarias, son of the elder Azarias, who was the son of the great Ananias, or the parent Ananias, as the Hebrew has. For Raphael and the other Angels are sons of the elder Azarias, that is, sons of God, who is the equal and helper of the great Ananias, that is, of God the Father.
Azarias could also signify prohibition or restraint of God, from the root 'atzar', that is, he prohibited, restrained, shut up, because Raphael restrained Asmodaeus and shut him up in the desert.
Again, "Azarias" could signify rich, or the riches of God, from the root 'ashar', that is, he was rich: or the treasure of God, from the root 'otsar', that is, treasure: for he contains within himself the treasures of the wisdom and beneficence of God, and is their minister and steward.
Finally, "Azarias" could be rendered as blessed, or the blessedness of God, from the root 'asro', that is, blessedness.
Son of the great Ananias. — If Ananias is written with the letter chet, so that in Hebrew it is called Chananias, it means the same as the grace of God, says Bede, or as Pagninus says, the gift, mercy, and graciousness of God, or God granting, having mercy, and bestowing grace; for of Him the Angels are sons, and Raphael himself, because they freely received from Him their angelic nature, grace, and glory, and this, as Francis Suarez and others hold, through the merits of Christ, who therefore can be understood here through Ananias, as He is the Father, Prince, and Lord of Raphael and all Angels, as the Apostle teaches, Ephesians I, and Hebrews I.
But if Ananias is written with the letter ayin, it means the same as 'anan ia', that is, cloud of God, because namely Raphael and the Angels are sons of God, who is invisible, and incomprehensible in His glory, of which the symbol is the cloud. Hence in Scripture the cloud is called a hiding place, and as it were the garment of God, because God hid Himself in a cloud and spoke, giving answers from the mercy seat, Leviticus XVI, 2, and through the cloud He repeatedly appeared to Moses and the children of Israel. Raphael did the same here in imitation of God, who by his nature was invisible to Tobias, and therefore covered himself with a body as with a cloud, and for this reason was unknown to Tobias on the journey. Hence it is clear that the name Azarias and Ananias here is more appellative than proper, about which more shortly.
Allegorically Raphael was here a type of Christ. He Himself is "Azarias," that is, helper of God, for illuminating, redeeming and saving blind men, and the son of the great Ananias, that is, of God the Father, and of His grace and mercy, because in Him are all the treasures of the wisdom and grace of God hidden, and in Him "all the fullness of the divinity dwells bodily," Colossians II, 9, and therefore He is rightly called and is the son of Ananias, that is, of graces and favors. This is what Christ says, Isaiah chapter L, verse 7: "The Lord God is my helper;" and chapter LXIII, verse 7: "I will remember the mercies of the Lord." Tropologically, Azarias was St. Paul and the Apostles, and apostolic men; for these are God's helpers in procuring the salvation of men. Hence he himself says II Corinthians V, 19: "He has given us the ministry of reconciliation: therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as God exhorting through us: We beseech you for Christ, be reconciled to God."
Furthermore, the name Azarias was illustrious among the Hebrews, and therefore belonged to great Kings, Princes, Pontiffs, Prophets, and Singers. For King Uzziah son of Amaziah was called Azarias; and the Pontiff who courageously resisted King Uzziah when he wished to offer incense was likewise called Azarias, as is clear from II Chronicles XXVI, and he was the son of Johanan the Pontiff, as is clear from I Chronicles VI, 10. Now Johanan is the same as Ananias: Tobias was a contemporary of his. There was also another Azarias, Pontiff, son of Sadoc the Pontiff in the time of Solomon, about whom see III Kings IV, 2, and I Chronicles VI, 9. And there was a third Azarias, son of Hilkiah and father of Seraiah the Pontiff, and grandfather of Ezra, who aided the piety of King Hezekiah, II Chronicles XXXI, 10, and I Ezra VII, 1. Moreover, there was Azarias son of Nathan, superintendent of Solomon's courtiers, III Kings IV, 5. There was Azarias son of Ethan, grandson of Perez and great-grandson of Judah the Patriarch, I Chronicles II, 8, 38; another is named Azarias son of Jesus. In addition, there was Azarias the prophet, who by prophesying encouraged Asa king of Judah to destroy idols, II Chronicles XV, 1 and following. Again, a son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah was called Azarias, II Chronicles XXI, 2. And there was Azarias, a prince of Israel, who generously compelled the Israelites to restore the spoil taken from Judah, II Chronicles XXVIII, 12, in the time of Ahaz king of Judah, who was likewise a contemporary of Tobias. And to pass over many others, Ananias, Azarias, and Mishael were the three royal youths, companions of the Prophet Daniel, who, cast into the burning furnace for the worship of God, remained unharmed in it, Daniel III; and from Azarias the Levite descended the Prophet Samuel, and his grandson Heman the Singer in the temple, in the time of David, I Chronicles VI, 46. To all of these Raphael alludes here, but especially to Azarias the Pontiff, son of Johanan, or Ananias. For Raphael is the king of Angels, as Asmodaeus is of demons, as I have said. Likewise, as a kind of Pontiff, he offered incense to God, namely the prayers of Tobias, chapter XII, verse 12; likewise, as a singer, he continually sings to God: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts," Isaiah VI, 3. For he is from among the Seraphim. He is likewise a Prophet, because here he predicts, indeed performs, the cure of Tobias's blindness. Wherefore Salianus rightly notes, volume IV, year of the world 3226, number 3, that the name Azarias is not so much a proper name as an appellative, inasmuch as many Pontiffs took it for themselves as a kind of surname for the sake of honor, as it were requesting and hoping for the help of God (for this is what Azarias means). For the Septuagint of Sixtus calls the son of Jehoiada not Zechariah but Azarias, II Chronicles XXIV. And King Uzziah himself is called Azarias in the books of Kings, and indeed as a surname, as St. Jerome says on chapter I of Amos. And the Pontiff who flourished in the time of Hezekiah, called Nerias by Josephus and the Hebrew chronologists, is named Azarias in II Chronicles XXXI, 10 and 13.
Verse 19: You Are of a Great Family
19. And Tobias answered: You are of a great family. — The Greek adds that he continued: I already knew Ananias and Jonathan, sons of the great Samaia (the Hebrew has Semeliah, that is, peaceful, or requiting) from the time when we used to go together to Jerusalem to worship, and to consecrate the firstfruits and tithes of our produce; for they were not led astray by the error of our kinsmen, so as to worship the golden calves erected by Jeroboam in Israel. From these words it is clear: first, that there truly was in the time of Tobias an Azarias son of Ananias; second, that Ananias was an Israelite, not a Judean; third, that he was a faithful and pious man; fourth, that he was known to and a friend of Tobias, and therefore Raphael assumed the appearance and name of his son Azarias.
Verse 21: May His Angel Accompany You
21. May His Angel accompany you. — Hence it is clear that in that era Tobias and the faithful believed that guardian Angels were appointed by God for individual men, to accompany them, direct them, instruct them, defend them, etc. The Greek adds that Tobias promised the Angel as payment for his guidance a drachma per day, and necessities for life and sustenance, and that if they returned safe, he would add an honorarium beyond the wages. A gold drachma is a French crown, which would have been too great a price for the poor Tobias; therefore a silver drachma, which is worth a Spanish Real of five stuivers, or ten bajocchi, seems to be meant here.
Verse 23: His Mother Began to Weep
23. And when they had set out — the Greek adds, and the boy's dog with them, which is mentioned in the following chapter, verse 1.
Verse 27: May He Accompany Him
27. May he accompany him — that is, him or with him.
And do not think this is a solecism, for Cicero speaks this way, Tusculan Questions, chapter V, and thus in Latin we say: he is my companion; for to accompany means to be a companion.