Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Raphael advises Tobias to seize by the gills the fish that attacks him, draw it from the water, disembowel it, and preserve the heart, gall, and liver for remedies; then to request Sarah from her father Raguel as his wife.
Vulgate Text: Tobias 6:1-22
1. Then Tobias set out, and the dog followed him, and he lodged at the first stopping place beside the river Tigris. 2. And he went out to wash his feet, and behold a huge fish came out to devour him. 3. Tobias, being frightened, cried out with a loud voice, saying: Lord, it is attacking me. 4. And the Angel said to him: Seize its gills, and draw it to you. When he had done so, he drew it onto dry land, and it began to flop before his feet. 5. Then the Angel said to him: Gut this fish, and keep its heart, gall, and liver for yourself; for these are necessary for useful remedies. 6. When he had done so, he roasted its flesh, and they carried it with them on the way: the rest they salted, which would suffice them until they reached Rages, a city of the Medes. 7. Then Tobias asked the Angel, and said to him: I beg you, brother Azarias, to tell me what remedy these things will have that you commanded me to keep from the fish? 8. And the Angel answered, and said to him: If you place a small piece of its heart upon coals, its smoke drives out every kind of demon, whether from a man or from a woman, so that it may never again approach them. 9. And the gall is useful for anointing eyes in which there is a white film, and they will be healed. 10. And Tobias said to him: Where do you wish us to stay? 11. And the Angel answered, and said: There is here a man named Raguel, a kinsman of your tribe, and he has a daughter named Sarah; but he has no other male or female child besides her. 12. All his property is owed to you, and it is fitting that you take her as wife. 13. Ask for her therefore from her father, and he will give her to you as wife. 14. Then Tobias answered, and said: I hear that she was given to seven husbands, and they died; but I have also heard that a demon killed them. 15. I fear therefore lest the same things happen to me: and since I am the only child of my parents, I would bring their old age down with sorrow to the grave. 16. Then the Angel Raphael said to him: Listen to me, and I will show you who those are over whom the demon can prevail. 17. For those who enter marriage in such a way as to shut God out from themselves and from their mind, and so give themselves to their lust, like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding: the demon has power over them. 18. But when you have taken her, entering the bedchamber, be continent from her for three days, and occupy yourself with nothing but prayer with her. 19. And on that very night, when the liver of the fish is burned, the demon will be put to flight. 20. And on the second night, you will be admitted into the union of the holy patriarchs. 21. And on the third night, you will obtain a blessing, that children may be born from you in good health. 22. And when the third night has passed, you will take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, led by the love of children rather than by lust, so that in the seed of Abraham you may obtain a blessing in your children.
Verse 1: And the Dog Followed Him
1. And the dog followed him — as household dogs follow their masters, by whom they are fed. He says this for the continuity of the narrative: for the sorrowful parents recognized the return of Tobias from the dog running ahead, chapter XI, verse 9.
And he lodged at the first stopping place beside the river Tigris — that is, in a house or inn next to the Tigris. For he had set out that day from Nineveh, which is adjacent to the Tigris.
Verse 2: A Huge Fish Came Out to Devour Him
2. And he went out (from the inn to the river Tigris), to wash his feet — wearied from the journey, and dirty and smelly from dust and sweat.
And behold a huge fish came out to devour him. — You ask: What was this fish? First, some think it was a whale, or a sea monster; for this swallows and gulps down men. But the Tigris river cannot hold whales, which are enormous, but rather the vast sea. Again, Tobias alone could not have extracted a whale.
Second, Dionysius the Carthusian thinks it was a crocodile: for this comes out of the Nile and pursues and kills and devours men on land. For it is amphibious, and lives and feeds both on land and in water. But Tobias could not have extracted a crocodile. Furthermore, a crocodile lives on land; but this fish, drawn onto land by Tobias, began to "flop before his feet," to fail and die, as fish normally do out of water.
Third, the Rabbis, whom George the Venetian follows, volume VI, Problem CLXXXV, think it was a pike, which is voracious and therefore devours other fish, and therefore is called lucius, in Greek lokos, that is, wolfish, as it were the wolf of fish. But pikes are not so large and bold as to dare to attack a man.
Fourth, therefore more plausibly Francisco Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapter XLII, from Pliny, Menander, and others judges this fish to have been a callionymus, that is, "of beautiful name," which is very large, carnivorous and most voracious, having serrated teeth, and eyes fixed on the top of its head; hence it is also called uranoscopos, that is, "looking at the sky," and its mouth is situated between its eyes, and therefore it is called by the Italians bocca in capo ("mouth in the head"); hence Tobias was terrified by its appearance. It abounds in gall, which is effective for wiping away cataracts from the eyes. So says Dioscorides, book I, chapter XCVI, Galen, and Pliny, book XXXII, chapter VII, near the beginning, whom hear: "The gall of the callionymus heals scars, and consumes superfluous flesh of the eyes; no fish has more of this. The same fish is also called uranoscopos from its eye, which it has on its head."
You will say: The callionymus, according to Pliny and Oppian, is a sea fish; but this one was from the Tigris river. I answer: Sea fish are often found in great rivers, especially during the reflux of the sea, when rivers overflow. For fish love fresh water, as is found in rivers; but it is remarkable that the callionymus, which does not exceed two feet in length, according to Rondelet and Aldrovandi, dared to attack Tobias: but this fish is as voracious as it is stupid, and therefore it attacked Tobias.
This fish therefore "came out" not onto land, but out of the water, raising and extending its head and throat, "to devour him," namely Tobias. Furthermore, Oppian, book II, calls the callionymus a ruspeniter, because it sleeps during the day and keeps watch at night for the purpose of seeking prey, just as thieves sleep during the day and keep watch at night to steal. Therefore this fish could have come out of the Tigris onto the nearby sand, and there attacked Tobias. Oppian adds that this fish is so voracious that its belly, swollen to excess by the abundance of food, bursts and it dies, by which sad end it deters men from luxury and gluttony. Rondelet describes this fish vividly through all its members, book X On Fish, last chapter, where he also adds that it is called callionymus, that is, "of beautiful name," because, although in itself it is ugly and unsightly, it nevertheless has eyes on the top of its head, so that it always looks up to heaven, which form is more worthy of a man than of a fish. For it is proper to man to look upward and contemplate heaven with the mind, to despise fragile and transient things that are falsely considered good by the common people, and to look down upon things placed below him: therefore let the mind of man, as well as his name, be uranoscopos, according to that saying of Ovid:
He gave man a sublime face, and bade him gaze Upon the heavens, and lift his upright eyes to the stars.
Verse 8: Its Smoke Drives Out Every Kind of Demon
8. If you place a small piece of its heart upon coals, its smoke drives out every kind of demon. — You ask by what force and power the heart of this fish, as well as the gall in verse 19, puts demons to flight. Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapter XXVIII, says that a supernatural power was given to this fish by God for putting demons to flight, just as the same power was given to the fire of hell for tormenting them, and to blessed water was given the power of putting them to flight and of washing the soul from sins. This power is suggested by the word "drives out!" Guillaume of Paris, book On the Universe, Dionysius the Carthusian, Peter Gregory of Toulouse, Syntagm of Law, book XXXIV, chapter XXII, and Jerome Menghi in the Scourge of Demons support this, saying that demons on account of pride are subjected by God to certain bodies and herbs. But this power in this fish is unheard of, nor could a single fumigation of it have the force of perpetually keeping away a demon, "so that it may never again approach," as is said here.
Second, our Sanchez judges that the demon is put to flight by the smoke of this fish's heart, because this fumigation of so base a thing is done to the demon's shame and contempt, which he, being most proud, cannot endure, and so he departs and flees. Hence exorcists strike blows on the possessed, hang ridiculous images of the most shameful things from their necks, and harass the demon with reproachful words, which he in his pride cannot bear, and therefore not infrequently departs, as experience confirms: hence also in the book entitled The Scourge of Demons, it is asserted that these fumigations should be applied to the possessed, and ignominious words should be hurled at the demon. Hence in the fourth exorcism the demon is addressed thus by the exorcist: "Unclean spirit, most wretched, tempter, deceiver, father of lies, heretic, fool, beast, madman, enemy of your Creator, lecher, senseless one, cruel one, unjust one, plunderer, beast, serpent and lean, starving, and most filthy sow, scabby beast, most savage beast, most beastly of all beasts, cast out of paradise, from the grace of God, from an indescribable place, from the fellowship and society of Angels, creature damned, reprobate, and cursed by God forever on account of your pride and wickedness, villainous and abominable, accursed, and excommunicate, blasphemer, condemned and to be condemned." And Prudentius Against Symmachus is also evidence of this ancient custom:
The priest of the Lord thunders: Flee, cunning serpent, Strip yourself from these limbs, and loose your hidden coils; You torment a bondsman of Christ, most corrupt thief.
Third, more plainly and fully, Lyra, Serarius, and the Abulensian on I Kings XVI, Question XLVI, and Pererius on Daniel, p. 272, judge that the smoke of the callionymus fish's heart expelled the demon by an inchoate natural power, as Raphael here implies, but completely by angelic and heavenly power. Naturally, namely by impeding the action of the demon through a contrary disposition, in the way that David's music impeded the agitation of Saul by the demon. For the demon acts through natural causes and especially melancholic humors: therefore whatever removes or diminishes these humors breaks the demon's action and harassment. Hence the same effect is attributed to rue, hypericum, goat horns, artemisia, chameleon's liver, the Sandy stone, and chrysolite, etc. Because (if this is indeed true) they dispel melancholy, enliven the soul, and thus dissipate the gloom, disturbance, anxiety, and desperation that the demon suggests. See Serarius and Delrio in his work on Magic, book III, Question XXVII, section II. However, the complete cause driving away the demon was the Angel Raphael, who at the burning of the liver put the demon to flight on account of the merits and prayer of Tobias. But Raphael was silent about this, and used the fumigation as a pretext, so as not to reveal himself, lest Tobias know that he was an Angel, whom he regarded as a human companion and guide for the journey; just as for the same reason he called himself Azarias, and ate and drank with Tobias. That this is so the Greek text indicates, which does not attribute this power to the fish's heart; but has it thus: Make the heart and liver smoke before the man, and he will not be disturbed anymore; because, namely, at this sign I, by our agreement and my promise, will expel and put to flight the demon who is the author of the disturbance. Hence also in chapter VIII, verse 2, it says: "Tobias brought out from his bag a piece of the liver, and placed it upon live coals; then the Angel Raphael seized the demon, and bound it in the desert:" therefore not the fish's liver, but Raphael seized and put the demon to flight, not only from the house of Raguel, but from all of Media. In a similar way, magicians and witches harm through certain herbs and signs of sorcery, and kill beasts and children, although those things are in themselves ineffective for this purpose, and have no physical power, but only moral power, namely, from the pact of the demon. For the demon, once the sign given by himself has been placed, inflicts these harms on beasts and children by his own power.
Mystically Bede says: "The fish," he says, "which, wishing to devour Tobias, was killed by the Angel's instruction, signifies the Devil, who, when he attacked the flesh in our Redeemer, was captured by the power of His divinity." Conversely St. Augustine, sermon 4 On Peter and Paul: "Christ," he says, "is that fish which ascended from the river alive to Tobias; by whose liver roasted through His Passion, the devil was put to flight: and by the bitterness of its gall the blind man was touched, and the world was illuminated." Thus Optatus of Milevis, in book III Against Parmenian, understands Christ by the fish of the Tigris.
Drives out. — Note: It is proper to the demon to entangle, but to Raphael and the Angels, to disentangle: for just as the fisherman strives to entangle fish with a hook, the hunter beasts with a snare, and birds with birdlime and a net, in order to catch them; so the demon strives to entangle body and soul with various pains, greater cares, anxieties, difficulties, scruples, lawsuits, quarrels, and lusts, so that it cannot free itself, but becomes his and hell's prey. See St. Gregory, Morals XXXII, chapter XVII, on those words of Job XL, 42: The sinews of his testicles are intertwined. "The arguments of his (the demon's) suggestions," he says, "are bound with entangled inventions, so that he makes most people sin in such a way that, if perhaps they desire to flee from sin, they cannot escape without another sin, and they commit a fault while avoiding one"; and he demonstrates this with various examples, and at last shows the way of extricating oneself from this labyrinth by this rule, as if by the thread of Ariadne: "When the mind is constrained between lesser and greater sins, if there is absolutely no way of escaping without sin, the lesser should always be chosen; because he who is shut in by the circuit of walls on every side lest he flee, throws himself into flight where the wall is shorter."
Verse 9: The Gall Is Useful for Anointing Eyes
9. And the gall is useful for anointing eyes in which there is a white film, and they will be healed. — You ask whether Tobias recovered his sight through the gall of this fish by its natural force and power. I answer affirmatively, though with God or Raphael cooperating and supplying what was lacking to that natural cause, namely the fish's gall, if indeed that hot swallow dung had not extinguished the crystalline humor and inner visual power of Tobias, but had only spread a white film and membrane over his eyes; for the fish's gall eroded this, as is indicated in chapter XI, 13. For there it says: "Then Tobias, taking some of the fish's gall, anointed the eyes of his father. And he waited about half an hour; and the white film began to come out of his eyes, like the membrane of an egg. Which Tobias seizing, pulled from his eyes, and immediately he recovered his sight." What could be clearer? Yet the Greek is even clearer there, which has it thus: He sprinkled the gall on his father's eyes, saying: Be confident, father. And when they were eroded, he rubbed his eyes, and the cataracts peeled away from the corners of his eyes. And seeing his son, he fell upon his neck, and wept and said: Blessed are You, O God.
Second, because Pliny attributes this power to the gall of the callionymus, book XXXII, chapter VII, and Francisco Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapter XLVII, whom hear: "Because, since nothing is more celebrated by all physicians for wiping away cataracts than gall, among all its kinds, the gall of the callionymus fish is most commended of all, and next that of the hyena." Galen also, book X On the Properties of Simple Medicines, chapter XII: "Moreover," he says, "the bile of certain animals is singularly extolled by physicians, as if it sharpens the vision of the eyes, and dispels the beginnings of cataracts, such as the fish called callionymus, the hyena, and the scorpion of the sea, as well as of the rooster and the partridge." So he says. Aelian teaches the same, book XIII, chapter XIV, and other physicians. So judge Lyra, Dionysius, Serarius, and others.
You will say: Tobias was blinded and completely blind; therefore he could not have recovered his sight from the gall of a fish. I answer: he was blind externally on account of the membrane covering his eyes, not internally, so that his visual power was extinguished; and therefore he was blind in act, and had lost the proximate capacity for seeing, not the remote and radical capacity: if anyone maintains that he was completely blind and had lost his visual power, it is necessary to say consequently that he was illuminated not by the fish's gall, but solely by supernatural divine power, as I said about the driving away of Asmodaeus through the fish's heart. Allegorically, Tobias, illuminating his father through the gall, was a type of Christ, who illuminated the man born blind with His saliva and clay, John chapter IX, verse 6.
Tropologically, the gall is the bitterness of perversity and tribulation, which opens the eyes of the mind blinded by the honey of earthly pleasure, once that is dispelled, so that one may see the foulness of sin, the horror of hell, the beauty of virtue, the goodness of God, the joys of heaven, etc.
Mystically, St. Prosper, Part II of the Promises, chapter XXIX: "The mystical meaning," he says, "of this action is that from the innards of the fish, both the demon was put to flight and Tobias was illuminated. This is what the great fish Christ does through His Passion, cleansing Mary, from whom He cast out seven demons." And afterwards: "For ICHTHYS, in Latin 'fish,' our ancestors interpreted from the sacred letters, gathering from the Sibylline verses, that it means Jesus Christ Son of God Savior, the fish cooked in His Passion, from whose inner remedies we are daily illuminated and fed."
Verses 14-15: I Hear That She Was Given to Seven Husbands
14 and 15. I hear that she was given to seven husbands, and they died: but I have also heard that a demon killed them. I fear therefore lest the same things happen to me. — The Greek adds: Because the demon loves her, and injures no one except those who approach her, as if to say: She has an incubus demon, who, loving her, kills her other suitors. For that demons in an assumed body can receive the seed of some man, and pour it into a woman, and through it generate offspring, as they say Merlin and Arthur were begotten, is asserted by St. Thomas, the Abulensian, Victoria, Molina, Thomas of Cantimpre, Caesarius, Camperius, Hector, Boethius, and others whom Serarius cites and follows, chapter VIII, Question IV. Hear St. Augustine, City of God XV, 23: "It is a very common report, and many affirm that they themselves have experienced, or have heard from those who experienced it, whose trustworthiness is not to be doubted, that Sylvans and Fauns, whom the common people call incubi, have been wanton toward women, and have desired and accomplished intercourse with them, and that certain demons, whom the Gauls call Dusii, constantly attempt and carry out this impurity: so many and such persons assert this, that it would seem impudent to deny it." Hear also the example recounted by the author of the Life of St. Bernard, book II, verse 6: "A certain woman in the region of Nantes was harassed for six years by a wanton demon, with her consent, with incredible lust. He had appeared to her in the form of a handsome soldier, and that lustful spirit often abused her invisibly while her husband lay in the same bed. 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, confessed with many tears the horrible affliction and diabolical mockery, and begged that she be helped: consoled by him, and taught what she should do, after confession the devil was unable to approach her."
But a demon does not properly love women for the sake of his own lust, since he lacks flesh, and therefore has no sense of lust, but simulates love in order to entice women into love of himself and unspeakable sin. Moreover, it is not likely that Asmodaeus was here the lover and incubus of Sarah, both because he knew her to be most chaste, and therefore that she would generously resist him. Hence Tobias, saying that Asmodaeus loved Sarah, said this not from his own judgment, but from the common opinion and rumor. "I hear," he says: for the common people, seeing that seven husbands of Sarah had been killed by the demon, suspected that this was done out of his jealous love and jealousy; for suitors courting the same bride often kill one another. For in verse 17, the Angel Raphael gives not this, but an entirely different, and as it were contrary, cause for their killing, namely that they were slain by Asmodaeus on account of their crimes and unbridled lust. So Serarius.
Verse 17: Like the Horse and the Mule
17. And so give themselves to their lust, like the horse and the mule — for as Aristotle says, book VI of the History of Animals, chapter XXII: "The horse is the most lustful of all animals, both female and male." Hence that passage in Jeremiah V, 7 and 8: "In the house of the harlot they indulged in luxury. They became lustful horses and stallions, each one neighing after his neighbor's wife." The mule too, although sterile, burns with lust. Hence the ancients designated a lustful person by painting a mule or she-mule, according to Pierius, Hieroglyphics XII. Note that a certain kind of mule different from others exists in Cappadocia and Syria, which gives birth and procreates like horses, according to Aristotle, book I of the History of Animals, chapter VI, and book VI, chapter XXIV.
Verse 19: The Demon Will Be Put to Flight
19. When the liver of the fish is burned, the demon will be put to flight. — Not so much by the power of the liver, as by my power, that is, by angelic and divine power, on account of your prayers and merits, O Tobias. See what was said on verse 8. Mystically, St. Augustine, in the cited passage: "Christ," he says, "is that fish which ascended to Tobias; by whose liver roasted through His Passion (on the altar of the cross) the devil was put to flight." Fittingly this happens through the liver, because in the liver is the seat of love and concupiscence, which is here extinguished by the Passion of Christ.
Verse 20: The Union of the Holy Patriarchs
20. And on the second night, you will be admitted into the union of the holy patriarchs — that is to say, you will be a partaker of the merits and holiness of the holy Patriarchs, namely Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc., so that just as they, using their wives chastely, begot distinguished and holy children, so you too may do with Sarah, as follows in verse 21. Raphael therefore commands Tobias to devote himself to prayer with Sarah for the first three nights before consummating the marriage; for thus Asmodaeus, who kills the lustful, would be put to flight, and the marriage would be entered into holily, and holy children obtained from God. Would that Christian spouses follow this counsel of Raphael, and the example of Tobias obeying it. In the Council of Trent, Session XXIV, in the chapter on the Reform of Matrimony, chapter I, we 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 devoutly approach the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist."
Verse 22: Led by Love of Children Rather Than by Lust
22. Led by love of children rather than by lust. — For the end of conjugal union should be the desire for faithful children. "For these are the three goods of marriage: fidelity (conjugal), offspring, and the sacrament," as theologians teach from St. Augustine.
Hear St. Augustine, book On the Good of Marriage, chapter VI: "Conjugal intercourse," he says, "for the purpose of begetting has no fault: but intercourse for the purpose of satisfying desire, yet with one's spouse, has venial fault because of the fidelity of the marriage bed. But adultery or fornication has mortal fault; and by this, continence from all intercourse is indeed better than even marital intercourse which takes place for the purpose of begetting." And St. Fulgentius, epistle I, chapter III: "The blameless use of conjugal power," he says, "is divinely assigned to the duty of begetting, if the lustful excess is not permitted to transgress the boundary of justice. And the justice of using marriage is this: that spouses unite at the appropriate time not for the purpose of satisfying lust, but for the purpose of producing offspring. Thus the fruit should be sought from marriage, so that the excess of slippery pleasure may be restrained."
Indeed the Philosophers also thought the same, as Plato, book IV of the Laws: "It is necessary," he says, "for parents to beget and raise children, who hand on life like a torch to posterity, so that there may always be some who worship God, according to His law."