Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Tobias puts Asmodaeus to flight by burning the heart and liver of the fish, and Raphael binds him in the desert. After the consummation of the marriage, Raguel makes Tobias heir of all his goods.
Vulgate Text: Tobias 8:1-24
1. And after they had dined, they brought the young man to her. 2. Then Tobias, remembering the words of the Angel, brought out from his bag a piece of the liver, and placed it upon live coals. 3. Then the Angel Raphael seized the demon, and bound it in the desert of Upper Egypt. 4. Then Tobias encouraged the virgin, and said to her: Sarah, arise, and let us pray to God today, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow; because for these three nights we are joined to God: and when the third night has passed, we shall be in our marriage. 5. For we are the children of saints, and we cannot be joined together like the nations who do not know God. 6. And rising together, they both prayed earnestly, that health might be given to them. 7. And Tobias said: Lord God of our fathers, may the heavens and the earth, the sea, the springs, the rivers, and all Your creatures that are in them bless You. 8. You made Adam from the slime of the earth, and gave him Eve as a helper. 9. And now, Lord, You know that it is not for the sake of lust that I take my sister as wife, but solely out of love for posterity, in which Your name may be blessed forever and ever. 10. Sarah also said: Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us, and may we both grow old together in health. 11. And it happened that around the crowing of the roosters, Raguel ordered his servants to be summoned, and they went with him to dig a grave. 12. For he said: Lest perhaps the same thing has happened to him as to those other seven men who went in to her. 13. And when they had prepared the pit, Raguel returned to his wife and said to her: 14. Send one of your maids, and let her see whether he is dead, so that I may bury him before day breaks. 15. And she sent one of her maids. Who, entering the bedchamber, found them safe and sound, sleeping together peacefully. 16. And returning, she brought good news: and they blessed the Lord, namely Raguel and his wife Anna, 17. and said: We bless You, Lord God of Israel, because it has not happened as we feared. 18. For You have shown us Your mercy, and have shut out from us the enemy who was pursuing us. 19. And You have had mercy on two only children. Grant, Lord, that they may more fully bless You, and offer You a sacrifice of praise for Your glory and their health, that all the nations may know that You are the only God in all the earth. 20. And immediately Raguel ordered his servants to fill in the grave they had made, before day broke. 21. And he told his wife to prepare a banquet, and to make ready everything necessary for food for those traveling. 22. He also had two fat cows and four rams killed, and a feast prepared for all his neighbors and all his friends. 23. And Raguel made Tobias swear that he would stay with him for two weeks. 24. And of all things that Raguel possessed, he gave half to Tobias, and made a written document that the remaining half, after their death, should come into Tobias's possession.
Verse 2: He Brought Out a Piece of the Liver
2. He brought out from his bag — that is, from a traveler's pouch, made like a basket or net, such as fowlers and fishermen use. For cassidilis is a diminutive noun from cassis, as if to say, a small basket, or a small net, namely a netted sack, in which travelers store their small belongings and food. So Lyra, Dionysius, and Budaeus. Or it is called cassidula from cassis, that is, a helmet, because it resembles a helmet in shape.
A piece of the liver, and placed it upon live coals — that is, burning and flaming: for fire, moving itself through flame and as it were breathing, seems to live. The Greek has it more fully thus: And he placed the heart of the fish, and the liver, and made smoke; and when the demon smelled the odors, he fled to the farthest parts of Egypt. The Hebrew says: Asmodaeus perceived the smell and fled. Therefore this smoke of the liver and heart accomplished something physically, by which the demon was put to flight: what this was I explained in chapter VI, verse 8. To which add that the holiness, piety, blessing, and prayers of both Raphael and Tobias, joined to that smoke, gave it the power to drive away Asmodaeus: just as by 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 Church's prayer, by which they were blessed. The same is done through holy water, through blessed lambs and candles, and through other consecrated things. Thus of old St. Jerome, St. Anthony, and other hermits, by giving to the possessed bread or oil blessed by themselves, drove out the demon.
Josephus recounts something entirely similar, book VIII of the Antiquities, chapter II, about the root called Baaras shown by Solomon, by the smell of which the demon was put to flight: "I saw," he says, "one of my countrymen, a certain Eleazar, in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and tribunes, and the rest of the soldiers, curing many who were possessed. The method of healing was this: He brought to the nostrils of the demoniac a ring, under whose seal was enclosed a species of root indicated by Solomon; at whose smell he drew out the demon through the nose, and when the man immediately collapsed, he adjured it not to return again: meanwhile mentioning Solomon, and reciting the incantations invented by him." If these things are true and sound, not magical — as Jansenius and Francisco Lucas on chapter XII of Matthew, Toledo on chapter XI of Luke, and Salmeron, volume VIII, treatise 15, judge them to be sound — it must be said, as stated by St. Thomas, Question VI On Power, article 10, reply to 3, and taken up by Victoria in his rereading on Magic, that it was indeed possible for a certain pious formula of casting out demons to be established by Solomon, while still holy, which God by His special authority confirmed for putting demons to flight. In this there was nothing magical, nothing from friendship or a pact with the demon. But from Solomon the idolater and later student of magical arts, if any exorcisms were ever written down or handed down, they must have been magical, and supported by no divine or angelic power for driving away demons, but only by an impious pact and wicked magic. This is certainly what that root of Josephus enclosed in a ring smacks of, in which there is no power over a spirit, says our Pineda, book III On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter XXIX. For Serarius too, here Question V, chapter VII, is displeased by two things. First, that in book VII of the Jewish War, chapter V, he asserts that the root Baaras cannot be plucked from the earth unless the one who plucks it dies, whether man or dog. Second, that he calls demons the spirits of wicked men. Indeed Delrio in his work on Magic, book VI, chapter II, Question III, section 2, together with Pineda judges that these roots and exorcisms of demons are falsely attributed to Solomon. Therefore they are suspect, and of uncertain and doubtful trustworthiness. For the Jews, who boast of them, are more prone to such things, and perhaps that Eleazar of Josephus was a magician. Holier, and therefore surer, and more formidable to the demon was the staff of St. Benedict, about which St. Gregory writes, book II of the Dialogues, chapter IV. Indeed the monk, whom a little black boy often drew away from prayer, once struck, "thereafter remained immovable in his devotion to prayer, and so the ancient enemy did not dare to dominate his thoughts, as if he had been struck with a blow."
Verse 3: Raphael Bound the Demon in the Desert
3. And he bound him in the desert. — Note: Raphael bound Asmodaeus in the desert by divine decree and power, confining him in the desert, so that he could not move from his place or depart from there.
This can be done in three ways: first, by commanding on God's behalf that he not move, and if he does otherwise, threatening him with severe punishments and blows: indeed, if he goes out, compelling him to return by force and blows. Thus the law binds a man, that is, obliges a man, and therefore the word 'law' (lex) is said to derive from 'binding' (ligando), as many hold, according to the saying:
Words bind men, ropes the horns of bulls.
Second, by impressing upon the demon some detaining quality, for example, a lasting force and power that holds him in place. For thus a strong man holds a weak one in his arms and fixes him in a certain place. Why should an Angel not be able to do the same to the devil?
Third and most effectively, by praying to God to withdraw His concurrence from the demon, which is necessary for local motion, so that he can go out. Thus demons are bound in hell, so that they cannot go out. Thus Lucifer was bound there for a thousand years, Apocalypse XX, 2. Thus four Angels were bound in the Euphrates, Apocalypse IX, 14. See what was said there.
Moreover, how long Asmodaeus was bound by Raphael is not certain. It is probable that he was bound for the entire life of Tobias and Sarah, so that he could never harm them: for it was on their account that he was bound. So Sanchez and Serarius.
Much more has the demon been bound by Christ, as St. Anthony says, cited by St. Athanasius: "Like a dragon hooked by the Lord on the hook of the cross, and bound with a halter like a beast of burden, and like a runaway slave bound in a ring, with his lips pierced by a bracelet, he is permitted to devour absolutely none of the faithful. Now the wretch, snared like a sparrow for sport by Christ, groans, trampled under the heel of Christians. He who boasted that all seas had been swallowed up by him, he who promised that the whole world was held in his hand — behold, he is conquered by us; behold, he cannot prevent me from 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 the Thebaid, says John Leo, book VIII On Africa, chapter II. St. Jerome gives the reason in his commentary on Ezekiel, chapter XXX: "Because there the Nile is unnavigable, and there is the roar of cataracts, and everything is impassable and full of serpents and venomous creatures." For such a place befits a demon, so that he cannot harm any man. Hence demons bitterly complained before Saints Anthony, Macarius, and other hermits of the Thebaid, that they had invaded their place and filled their Thebaid with monks, as St. Athanasius relates in the Life of St. Anthony, Palladius in the Lausiac History, chapter X, and Cassian, Conference VII, chapter XXIII.
Tropologically, the demon is bound by many virtues, as if by ropes, so that he may not approach and harm us. The first is abstinence and fasting; the second, prayer; the third, chastity. I know, says Serarius, a certain man who, whenever he feels Asmodaeus creeping in and flattering, immediately renews his vow of chastity according to a formula: so that while the demon wishes to inflict a wound, he himself receives a most brilliant one. For thus Goliath is slain almost by his own sword: and the impious falls into the pit he made. The fourth is serious meditation on the Passion and Cross of Christ. The fifth, the reading and study of Sacred Scripture. The sixth, Holy Communion and frequent reception: "Like lions," says St. Chrysostom, sermon 61 to the People, "breathing fire, let us depart from that table, having become terrible to the devil, and revolving in our minds our Head, and the charity which He showed us." And shortly after: "This mystical blood indeed expels demons and makes them depart far away; but it calls Angels to us, and the Lord of Angels. For where they see the Lord's blood, demons flee; but Angels gather." And St. Bernard, sermon 1 on the Lord's Supper: "If any of you, not so often now, does not feel such bitter movements of anger, envy, lust, or other such vices, let him give thanks to the body and blood of the Lord, because the power of the Lord is at work in him: and let him rejoice that the worst ulcer is approaching health." The seventh is almsgiving, and the pious offices of charity, which Serarius here pursues at length.
Verse 4: Let Us Pray to God
4. Let us pray to God today, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow — that is, the day after tomorrow, namely for three nights before union, as Raphael had commanded, chapter VI, verse 18.
Verse 9: Not for the Sake of Lust
9. It is not for the sake of lust that I take my sister as wife. — Tobias calls Sarah his sister, not because she was properly his sister; for then he could not have married her, but because she was generically a sister; because she was born from the same nation and tribe. "Sister" therefore means fellow citizen and fellow tribesman.
Verse 11: Around the Crowing of the Roosters
11. Around the crowing of the roosters (of cocks and hens) — that is, at dawn before sunrise, about which Pliny says, book X, chapter XXI: "They do not allow sunrise to creep up unnoticed upon the unwary, and they announce the coming day," Canticle XI.
To dig a grave. — For although Raguel, encouraged by Raphael, had hoped that Tobias would be safe with Sarah in marriage, yet on the other hand he feared lest he be killed by Asmodaeus, as the seven previous bridegrooms of Sarah had been killed. The rest of this chapter is clear: hence it needs no further explanation.