by
Damien F. Mackey
“The resemblance of Tobit to the
Odyssey in particular was not lost on that great student of literature, Jerome,
as is evident in a single detail of his Latin translation of Tobit in the
Vulgate”.
Patrick Henry Reardon
This is most
interesting to learn, given my view of those striking:
Patrick
Henry Reardon writes of
The Wide World of Tobit
The Apocrypha’s Tobit and Literary Tradition
Tobit is
a short book. Indeed, Jerome tells us that translating it into Latin cost him
only “the labor of one day.” …. It should be remarked, however, that this small
book belongs in a big world, with a rich and very wide cultural setting.
I like to
think of the Book of Tobit as a kind of universal essay, in the sense that its
author makes considerable effort to place his brief, rather simple narrative
within a literary, historical, and moral universe of surprising breadth and
diversity, extending through the Fertile Crescent and out both sides. To find
comparable dimensions of such large cultural exposure among biblical authors,
one would have to go to Ezekiel, Luke, or the narrator of Job.
It is the
intention of the present article to indicate and outline several aspects of the
Book of Tobit that join the work to other streams of literary history. These
aspects, which include a fairly wide range of themes, images, and historical
references, will serve to link Tobit to three bodies of literature in
particular: the Bible; the larger world of Near and Middle Eastern religious philosophy,
history, and literature; and the tradition of Christian exegesis down through
the Latin Middle Ages.
Tobit and
the Bible
The world
of Tobit is, first of all, the world of biblical literature and history. Not
only does the book provide an elaborate description of the religious
deterioration of the Northern Kingdom in the eighth century, and then the
deportation and consequent social conditions2 of those tribes after 722, but it
explicitly quotes a prophet of that century, Amos, and makes reference (14:4)
to the preaching of Jonah at Nineveh. …. Tobit thus presupposes the history
narrated in Kings, Chronicles, and the eighth-century prophets.
Tobit’s
explicit reference to Jonah is of considerable interest in the light of certain
affinities between the two books. First and second, both stories take place
about the same time (the eighth century) and both in Mesopotamia. Third, both
accounts involve a journey. Fourth, the distressed Tobit, like Jonah, prays to
die. Fifth and most strikingly, his son Tobias encounters a fish that
attempts—with less success than Jonah’s fish—to swallow him! Finally, in each
book the fish serves as a special instrument of Divine Providence.
Besides
Jonah, Tobit shows several remarkable affinities to the Book of Job, some of
which were noted rather early in Christian exegesis. For example, the title
characters of both works shared a zeal for purity of life, almsgiving, and
other deeds of charity (Job 1 and 31; Tobit 1–2), patient endurance of trials
sent by God … a deep weariness of life itself (Job 7:15; Tobit 3:6), a final
vindication by the Lord at the end of each book, and perhaps even a common hope
of the resurrection. …. As early as Cyprian in the third century, it was also
noted that both men were similarly mocked by wives unable to appreciate their
virtue and faith in God. ….
Moreover,
the book’s description of long-suffering Sarah, whose seven husbands all died
on their wedding night, carries on another major theme of Holy Scripture: the
barren woman, of which the elder Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth
are better known examples. Indeed, the mockery that the younger Sarah receives
from her maids in this regard readily puts one in mind of Hagar’s attitude
toward the older Sarah, as well as Peninnah’s unkind treatment of Hannah at the
beginning of First Samuel. ….
The moral
teaching of Tobit is also of a piece with the covenantal ethics of the Bible
generally. For example, its prohibition against marrying outsiders in 4:12f.
reflects the strict view of Ezra and Nehemiah (and, down the road, 1
Corinthians 7). …. Then, in the very next verse is found the mandate about
prompt payment of the laborer’s salary, which is clearly based on Leviticus
19:13 and Deuteronomy 24:14f. And so forth. The moral teaching of Tobit shows
endless parallels with both the Torah and Israel’s Wisdom tradition, and its
solicitude for social justice and service is at one with the teaching of the
eighth-century prophets. No matter what is to be said relative to its canonical
status, the setting, imagery, and moral doctrine of Tobit is of a piece with
the rest of our biblical literature.
The
Larger World
Even when
the Book of Tobit most closely touches the other biblical literature, however,
it sometimes does so along lines reminiscent of, and running parallel to, more
extensive traditions outside the Bible.
An
obvious and rather large example is the “Golden Rule” in Tobit 4:15, “Do not do
to anyone what you yourself hate.” Not only does this prohibition substantially
contain the biblical command to love one’s neighbor as oneself … not only,
furthermore, does it stand in canonical continuity with the more positive
formulation of the same Golden Rule preserved in the Gospels … it is also the
equivalent to an ideal found in other ethical philosophies. These latter
include Greek authors like Herodotus and Isocrates … and even classical
Confucianism. …. This use of the Golden Rule thus assured Tobit a featured
place in the entire history of religion and moral philosophy. ….
A similar
assessment is true, I believe, concerning the way that Tobit develops the
religious symbolism of the journey. Obviously that motif had long been part of
the Bible, particularly in those sections associated with the Exodus wandering
and the return from Babylon … but it was a topic not limited to the Bible. Back
near the beginning of the second millennium B.C. [sic] the Mesopotamian
Gilgamesh Epic had inchoatively explored the religious symbolism of the
journey, and that exploration would continue down through some of our greatest
literature: the Odyssey, of course, diverse accounts of Jason and the
Argonauts, the Aeneid, etc., and eventually the Divine Comedy, itself inspired
by all of them. In a more secular form the journey imagery continued with such
works as the Endymion of Keats … even after it had been assumed within the
ascetical literature of the Church as xeneteia, conceived as both exile and
pilgrimage. A classical example of the latter use is found in Step 3 of The
Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John of Mount Sinai.
The
resemblance of Tobit to the Odyssey in particular was not lost on that great
student of literature, Jerome, as is evident in a single detail of his Latin
translation of Tobit in the Vulgate. Intrigued by the literary merit of Tobit,
but rejecting its canonicity, the jocose and sometimes prankish Jerome felt
free to insert into his version an item straight out of the Odyssey—namely, the
wagging of the dog’s tail on arriving home with Tobias in 11:9—Tunc
praecucurrit canis, qui simul fuerat in via, et quasi nuntius adveniens
blandimento suae caudae gaudebat—“Then the dog, which had been with them in the
way, ran before, and coming as if it had brought the news, showed his joy by
his fawning and wagging his tail.” …. No other ancient version of Tobit
mentions either the tail or the wagging, but Jerome, ever the classicist, was
confident his readers would remember [sic] the faithful but feeble old hound
Argus, as the final act of his life, greeting the return of Odysseus to the
home of his father: “he endeavored to wag his tail” (Odyssey 17.302). And to
think that we owe this delightful gem to Jerome’s rejection of Tobit’s
canonicity!
Thus,
when young Tobias made his trip to Ecbatana and then, like Odysseus, journeyed
back to the home of his father, he traveled with a vast company of classical
pilgrims. He was neither the first nor the last to decide: “I will arise and
return to my father.” On that trip, moreover, Tobias enjoyed the fellowship of
an angel and a dog, symbolically representing the two worlds of spirits and
beasts, both associated with Paradise and both mysteriously joined together in
the human being that they accompany. ….
Furthermore,
some readers have found in Tobit similarities to still other pagan themes, such
as the legend of Admetus. …. More convincing, I believe, however, are points of
contact with classical Greek theater. Martin Luther observed similarities
between Tobit and Greek comedy,19 but one is even more impressed by
resemblances that the Book of Tobit bears to a work of Greek tragedy—the
Antigone of Sophocles. In both stories the moral stature of the heroes is
chiefly exemplified in their bravely burying the dead in the face of official
prohibition and at the risk of official punishment. In both cases a venerable
moral tradition is maintained against a political tyranny destructive of piety.
That same Greek drama, moreover, provides a further parallel to the blindness
of Tobit in the character of blind Teiresias, himself also a man of an inner
moral vision important to the theme of the play.
Bearing
just as obvious a connection with non-biblical literature, I believe, is the
demon Asmodeus (Tobit 3:8), who is doubtless to be identified, on purely
morphological grounds, with Aeshma Daeva, a figure well known in ancient
Iranian religion. …. Moreover, Tobit’s nephew Ahikar (1:22) is certainly
identical with a literary character of the same name, time, place, and
circumstances, found in the Elephantine papyri from the late fifth century B.C.
…. In short, whatever may be the case relative to questions of historical dependency,
Tobit’s cultural contacts with the ancient world of religion, philosophy, and
literature are numerous and varied.
The
History of Exegesis
And this
consideration brings me to what I suggest is a major question of the Book of
Tobit: How does a loyal servant of God live in this very big and complex world?
How does one spiritually survive, and even thrive, in this world, without being
of this world? The preoccupation of Tobit is, I submit, moral and ascetical. It
is a book about how the loyal servant of God must live.
In this
respect, it is instructive to observe that early Christian exegesis of the Book
of Tobit was of a predominantly moral and ascetical interest. With very few
exceptions, patristic interpretation of Tobit was straightforward and literal,
with relatively little, and hardly any sustained, appeal to hidden symbolisms.
The longest extant patristic work devoted to Tobit, that of Ambrose of Milan,
exemplifies this approach convincingly. After drawing attention to the major
moral features of Tobit’s character, Ambrose devotes the rest of his discourse
to a robust condemnation of avarice and usury. …. That is to say, Ambrose went
to Tobit almost exclusively for moral teaching.
To be
sure, a modest measure of patristic exegesis of Tobit was allegorical, in the
sense of finding hidden references to the mysteries of the Christian faith. For
example, attention was sometimes drawn to Tobias’s fish, whose various body
parts were used to remedy the problems of the family. Given the common and
widespread Christological symbolism of the fish (ichthys) among believers, it
was virtually inevitable that Tobias’s fish, too, who quite literally gave his
life for the family, should be regarded as a foreshadowing of the Savior. This
symbolism is found in the fourth century, first in the mural iconography of the
Roman catacombs … and then in a few literary references. ….
Similarly,
Isidore of Seville believed that young Tobias, inasmuch as he healed his
parent’s blindness, “had an image of Christ.” …. Nonetheless, such recourse to
allegorical symbolism to interpret the Book of Tobit was relatively rare among
earlier Christian writers.
This
assessment, however, does not hold true for the Latin writers of the Middle
Ages. The highly detailed commentary of Venerable Bede … is the example that
comes first to mind. To leave Ambrose’s fairly sober, subdued, and
straightforward remarks on Tobit and then turn to Bede’s elaborate
interpretation of the same book is something on the order of moving to another
planet. In Bede’s commentary, not even the most minute item in the Tobit
narrative is without its hidden doctrinal significance, to be ferreted out by a
rich imagination.
Bede’s
approach was followed by other medieval exegetes who turned their very creative
fancies loose on the book: Walafrid Strabo, Hugh of St. Victor, and Isaac of
Stella. …. At their hands, the Book of Tobit became a rich mother-lode of
hidden Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, sacramentology, and so forth.
These
medieval interpreters certainly present us with a whole new hermeneutic world.
One may legitimately question, however, whether it is any longer the world of
Tobit. Indeed, in these medieval works the overwhelmingly moral interest of
Tobit’s universe is hardly touched at all, so that the major preoccupation of the
book—how does the servant of God live in this world?—becomes almost entirely
lost. This is my chief objection to the approach taken to the Book of Tobit
among medieval Latin exegetes.
Since his
Glossa Ordinaria became a link between Bede and later medieval writers,
Walafrid Strabo may be particularly cited by way of illustration. Strabo begins
his interpretation of Tobit by observing, correctly enough, that the book
“abounds in the greatest examples and exhortations of the moral life,” … but
then he goes on to explain the book in great detail without a single scrap of
moral or ascetical teaching. Tobit’s principal message and concern thus become
hopelessly dispersed in considerations alien to the book.
It is my
persuasion that the message of Tobit should begin with a proper analysis of its
moral message exactly as it appears at the literary level, without recourse to
hidden symbolisms that its author himself could scarcely have suspected and
that float, in fact, without sufficient grounding in ancient patristic and
liturgical texts.
This is
not to say that Tobit should be interpreted apart from the biblical canon
(whatever one holds about its canonical status) or from the context of
Christian theology. Indeed, I maintain the very opposite thesis—namely, that Tobit
(and, for that matter, all other biblical literature handed down in the
Tradition of the Church) should be read and understood within that double
interpretive context of Canon and Christology. I believe, nonetheless, that
this approach is best made on the basis of Tobit’s literal meaning, the meaning
it has as moral literature, not fanciful symbolisms unsustained in either
biblical, patristic, or liturgical testimonies.
Having
now placed Tobit within literary history, I propose, in a subsequent article to
be published in these pages, to explore further the book’s great moral message
and its importance in the Christian life.
