might be said and heard extempore, such as students in schools compose on some given theme, inventing speeches suitable to the character of an injured person, or to that of him who has done the injury.' Origen too, in his epistle to Julius Africanus, throws aside these same additions with contempt." -On these matters every one is free to form his own opinion: but the book of Sixtus Senensis was accepted by Benedict XIV. when dedicated to him by Milante.[a]

[a) The struggles of the author in this, and indeed, in all the preceding sections, to evade the dogmatic decisions of his church, must be evident to every reader. They afford additional proof, if proof were needed, of the correctness of the Protestant canon of Scripture. Tr.]

THE book of Tobit contains a narrative, belonging to the time of the Assyrian captivity, and relating to Tobit the father, (according to the Vulgate Tobias,) and his son Tobias. The principal heads are as follows.Tobit of the tribe of Naphtali, a native of the city Thisbe, or Thesbe, in Galilee, having been carried captive into Assyria by Salmanasar after the destruction of Samaria, and having been made ayopasns, a merchant or factor for the king, in the city of Nineveh, constantly adhered to the law of Moses, was a benefactor of the needy Israelites, and even secretly buried the slain, who were thrown on the outside of the walls. On a certain journey he had deposited ten talents of silver with Gabael in Rages, a city of Media. Being deprived of his office, under Sennacherib, he did not cease secretly to bury the Israelites whom that monarch frequently put to death after the destruction which his army had sustained in Judea. At length being betrayed, he merely saved his life by flight, but was despoiled of all his property, i. 1—20. Sennacherib being a short time after slain by his sons, Tobit, by the intercession of his relative Achiacharus, who had been elevated to an exalted dignity, obtained from Esarhaddon permission to return to Nineveh, and went on in his practice of burying the murdered Israelites. Having interred one of them on the feast of Pentecost, and on account of the uncleanness thus contracted, having lept in the court of his house under shelter of a wall, the dung of swalows who had built their nests in the wall, fell into his eyes, and brough on Asuxwμara or white spots in his eyes,

which reduced the pious old man to total blindness; c. i. 21-ii. 10. He bore this affliction with patience, and was supported at first, till he removed to Elymais, by Achiacharus, and after that by the wages which his wife received for her labour. On some occasion she received a kid in addition to her ordinary wages, and Tobit, upon hearing its bleating, supposed it to have been stolen, and vehemently urged its restitution. His wife, offended at this, reproached him, not only with this unjust suspicion, but even with his former beneficence, which had not prevented his becoming blind. The old man was exceedingly distressed at this, and intreated GOD to put an end to his life; ii. 10-iii. 6.The same day, Sarah, daughter of Raguel, Tobit's cousin, was reproached by her maids with having slain her seven husbands, all of whom had been killed in her chamber by Asmodeus on the very day of their nuptials. This so terrified the young woman that she thought of strangling herself, but desisted lest she should afflict her parents, praying God to grant her death; c. iii. 7— 14.-Tobit, hoping soon to reach the end of his life, furnishes his son Tobias with salutary admonitions, and sends him to the city Rages to receive the ten talents that were due to him there. Tobias, having found out a fit companion who called himself Azariah the son of the elder Ananiah, commences his journey, c. iv. v. -At the end of the first day's journey, Tobias bathing at evening in the Tigris, meets with an enormous fish, which, by the advice of his companion Azariah, he seizes, draws out of the water, embowels, and by the same advice preserves the heart, liver, and gall, as useful medicines; vi. 1-9.As they approach Ecbatana Azariah persuades Tobias to marry the Sarah already mentioned, the daughter of Raguel, who was very rich, and Tobias, informed by Azariah that Asmodeus, who had slain the seven former husbands of Sarah, had no power over those who married merely for the sake of having children, and that this prince of the demons might be put to flight by the smoke of the heart and liver of the fish, consents; vi. 10-17. The marriage is contracted, c. vii., and the first night Tobias burns the heart and liver of the fish, by the smoke of which Asmodeus is put to flight, and to prevent his return he is bound with chains by an angel in the desert of Upper Egypt. Then Tobias offers a prayer to God, in which he states the end of matrimony, c. viii. In the mean time his

companion Azariah having gone alone to the city Rages, brings thence the ten talents, and with them Gabael also to the nuptials. Upon the complete celebration of these, Tobias, accompanied by his wife Sarah, who takes with her the half of her father's fortune as a dowry, returns to his parents, who had already begun to be anxious respecting him. Tobias, in pursuance of the instructions of Azariah, rubs the eyes of his father with the gall of the fish, and so restores his sight, c. ix-xi.—At last Tobit and Tobias, offering Azariah as a reward, five talents of the money received from Gabael, are informed by him that he is the angel Raphael, one of the seven spirits who stand, or minister, in the presence of God, and present the prayers of men. The angel relieves them from their amazement and disappears, Tobit rendering thanks to God, c. xii-xiii. It is added that the father, Tobit, attained the age of 158, (in the Vulgate 102,) and the son, Tobias, that of 127, (in the Vulgate 99,) c. xiv.

§ 237. Difficulties of the Book of Tobit.

The difficulties that occur in this narrative are of no small moment.1) The seven angels standing or ministering before God, who present to God the prayers of men.-2) The angel Raphael, clothed with a human form, falsely asserts that he is an Israelite, and performs a long journey.-3) Asmodeus, or the devil or Ahriman, smitten with love for Sarah, slays her seven husbands,-is put to flight by the smoke of the heart and liver of the fish,-and is bound with cords in Upper Egypt.-4) The dung of the swallows falls upon both the eyes of the old man Tobit at once, and, after having been made blind, his sight is restored by the gall of the fish.— 5) Tobit and Sarah are both unjustly reproached at the same time, pray at the same time for death, and obtain at the same time help from the angel Raphael. So many coincidences do not look like history.6) The city Rages or Ragia in Media was, according to STRABO, p. 524., founded by Seleucus Nicator, after the year 300 B. C., and yet according to our book it must have been already in existence 700 years before Christ. The Rages mentioned by ARRIAN in Expedit. Alexandri, L. III. c. 20., is not called a city, but xwpos, a place, or region, and perhaps Arrian first gave it the name.

−7) Tobit is said to have been carried into captivity by Salma

nasar, whereas the tribe of Naphtali was carried away by Tiglathpileser. Perhaps, however, it may be thought that Tobit had before that time removed to Samaria.The ages of Tobit and Tobias are unreasonably great; but perhaps this has originated in the mistakes of transcribers; for the Vulgate version has smaller numbers.[a]

[a) But it is at least as probable that these numbers should have been altered in the Vulgate to lessen the difficulties of the narrative, as that they should have been increased, against all verisimilitude, by a transcriber.—DE WETTE, Einleit. § 309. anm. . a), adds to this list of difficulties, the significancy of the proper names; referring to BERTHOLDT, S. 2494. f. Tr.]

§ 238. Solution of the difficulties of Tobit.

These difficulties have induced most of the modern interpreters to conclude that the narrative is a parable, teaching that the prayers of the good who are oppressed with calamities are heard by GoD; which is declared by Raphael in express words; c. xii. 15.[a]Some others think that the principal points of the narration are founded on historic truth, and the marvellous circumstances which occur they ascribe either to the gradual exaggeration of a historical fact handed down by a long course of oral tradition, or to the illustration and ornament of the writer.[b] They who place the whole narrative in the rank of true histories, think that they can get over all the difficulties by the single answer, that they are miracles.

(a) This is the opinion of DE WETTE, Einleit. § 309., who grounds it entirely on the similarity of this book to that of Job, and its miraculous stories. But surely the former is not very striking, and is entirely insufficient to prove the parabolic design of the work. Tr.]

[b) So ILGEN, Die Geschichte Tobis nach drey verschiedenen Originalen, dem griechischen, dem lateinischen des Hieronymus, und einem syrischen, uebersetzt und mit Anmerkungen exegetischen und kritischen Inhalts und einer Einleitung versehen, 1800, S. lv-xcix. He relies on 1) the notice of Tobit's tribe, and the tracing of his genealogy through four generations, and the mention of his birth-place, i. 1. s., all of which would have been needless and superfluous in a parable. 2) The mention that Tobit was an orphan, and brought up by his grandmother Deborah, i. 8. 2) The unostentatious notice of Tobit's situation as royal factor,