ii. 152. And with respect to the first explanation, our answer to the second is valid also against it, - that Sargon was the Assyrian monarch who actually captured Samaria, while the theory that so important a family as that of Tobit could have been in the two deportations of Tiglath Pileser (cf. Bib. Com. at 2 Kings xvi. 9) overlooked, or that, with the rigor with which prisoners of war were then guarded, he made his escape from the victorious Assyrian army, has too much the appearance of a subterfuge to require sober investigation. The writer of the book was evidently misled by the apparent statements of 2 Kings xvii. 3-6, xviii. 9-11, and by not comparing them with that of xv. 29. Bosanquet (Transactions, 1874, i. pp. 1–27) maintains that Tiglath Pileser, Shalmaneser, and Sargon were all on the throne together; at first, the first two, then the three, "by some state arrangement which has not yet been explained." If this were to be admitted, it might still be regarded, at least, as highly improbable that Tiglath Pileser being still on the throne, an event of so much importance should have been spoken of as taking place during the reign of his associate and inferior.

A second discrepancy in dates occurs in chap. i. 4. It is there said that Tobit was a young man (vewτépov μov ovTos) when his tribe Nephthali fell away (with the ten tribes) from Judah. But this occurred, if as seems necessary (see Com. ad loc.), the political separation is referred to, a couple of centuries before the Babylonian captivity, while according to the received Greek text (xiv. 2, 11) Tobit reached only the age of 158. On the other hand, if we follow the other texts, the discrepancies are found to be no less perplexing.

Another error is found in the fifteenth verse of the same chapter. Sennacherib is represented as both the son and successor of Ennemessar, i. e., Shalmaneser. But it is now sufficiently well established by the Assyrian inscriptions that Sennacherib was the son of Sargon. Cf. Rawlinson, Ancient Mon., ii. 155; Herod., i. 481, and Schrader, Die Keilinschriften, p. 169. Bosanquet (Transactions, 1874, p. 27) would explain by supposing either that Sennacherib suppresses the name of his father, Sargon, because he wishes to be regarded as descending from the legitimate line of kings, or that he became the son of Shalmaneser by marriage. Both suppositions, however, are simply conjectures.

Also, in the twenty-first verse, it is said that "not fifty days" passed (the Sinaitic MS. says "forty days ''), i. e., as is evident from the connection, after the return of Sennacherib from his disastrous campaign in Palestine, "before two of his sons killed him." But from the account in 2 Kings we learn that he returned to Nineveh and dwelt (1) there. The idea of a considerable time is undoubtedly involved in this word. Moreover, the same fact is clear from the inscriptions (cf. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften, p. 205 f.), according to which he conducted no less than five more or less important campaigns against his enemies after this event. And Rawlinson says (Ancient Mon., ii. 169, 170): “The murder of the disgraced Sennacherib, within fifty-five [?] days' of his return to Nineveh, seems to be an invention of the Alexandrian Jew who wrote the Book of Tobit. The total destruction of the empire, in consequence of this blow, is an exaggeration of Josephus, rashly credited by some moderns. Sennacherib did not die until B. C. 681, seventeen years after his misfortune; and the empire suffered so little that we find Esarhaddon, a few years later, in full possession of all the territory that any king before him had ever held, ruling from Babylonia to Egypt, or (as he himself expresses it) from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same.

Still, again, in the last verse of the book, it is said that Tobias heard, before his death in Media at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven (the other texts give, Vulg., 99; Sin., 117) of the destruction of Nineveh by "Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus." Now, if we compare the date of the period fixed for the beginning of Tobit's captivity (i. 2) with the further date of his blindness, and of his death (xiv. 2), and of the marriage and death of Tobias (x. 10; xiv. 14), it will be evident that our author has made other chronological blunders. First, there is not a sufficient interval between the alleged deportation of Shalmaneser and the destruction of Nineveh for the events narrated in the book. Second, supposing Tobias to have been twenty-seven years of age when he returned with his wife to his father's house Tobit was sixty-six then, instead of moving into Media, and living to a good old age, after his father's death, he must have died, according to the book, very soon after. Or, even if he were less than twenty-seven at the late of his marriage, the representation of the book (xiv. 12-14) would be an exaggeration. Moreover, third, as we have shown below in connection with the commentary, there can be no dependence placed on the statement of

the same verse that "Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus" took Nineveh. Saracus was at this time king of Assyria, with his capital at Nineveh. One of his ablest generals was Nabopolassar, whom he sent to Babylon to operate against the Susianians, while he retained the bulk of his forces to engage the Medes, who also had assailed his empire from another quarter. Nabopolassar, however, instead of continuing to support the waning fortunes of his monarch, proved faithless, made terms with Cyaxares, king of the Medes at that time, on the condition that his son should be betrothed to the king's daughter, and both of them turned their united forces against Nineveh, which fell before them at about B. C. 625. This is Niebuhr's date. Later authorities place the date of this event at B. c. 609-607. Rawlinson (Herod., i. 502) says B. C. 610. Cf. Ancient Mon., ii. 231, 232. This alliance seems to be noticed in a passage in Herodotus (i. 106): They took Nineveh — I will relate how in another history and conquered all Assyria, except the district of Babylonia." It is plainly stated by Abydenus (Euseb., Chron., i. 9): "Sed enim hic, capto rebellandi consilio, Amuhiam Astyagis Medorum principis filiam nato suo Nabucodrossoro despondebat; moxque raptim contra Ninum, seu Ninivem, urbem impetum faciebat." The same also is supported by Polyhistor, through Syncellus (Chronograph., ad loc.) and by Josephus, Antiq., x. 5, § 1). The latter says, "Now Neco, king of Egypt, raised an army and marched to the river Euphrates, in order to fight with the Medes and Babylonians, who had overthrown the dominion of the Assyrians." Hence, while it is possible that Cyaxares may have also borne the name Assuerus," it seems reasonably certain that the introduction of "Nabuchodonosor's name is an anachronism. Sengelmann (Com., p. 118) also cites a Hebrew work of the second century which gives to Nebuchadnezzar the credit of subjugating Nineveh. But the influence that his betrothal with the daughter of Cyaxares had on that event was so important, and his name was so much more distinguished than that of his father, that such a statement is not to be wondered at. This may have been the occasion also for what is said in the present book.

Other Improbabilities.

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In addition to these historical discrepancies, there have also been urged against the credibility of the Book of Tobit, and as it would appear justly, certain other improbabilities of the narrative. Since these, however, have been for the most part noticed where they occur in connection with the following commentary, we need only, with the utmost brevity, refer to them here. In chap. ii. 9, Tobit is represented as sleeping in the court of his house, instead of the house itself, because he had become ceremonially unclean by coming in contact with a dead body. But just before (ver. 4), on the same day, by his own admission, he had handled this very body, and immediately afterwards returned home and partaken of food, apparently without a thought of its impropriety. Again, while lying by the wall in the court, it is said that sparrows "muted warm dung into his eyes" (ii. 10), i. e., into both his eyes at the same time, and he became blind in consequence. The utter improbability of any such thing taking place in this manner needs only to be suggested. Further, in iv. 12, Noah is represented as one who married a wife from among his own kindred. The illustration is, to say the least, "far-fetched," besides, we have no information from the canonical books of Scripture concerning whom Noah married.

Again, there seems to be no good reason for the introduction of Tobit's dog into the narrative (v. 16; xi. 4). To say (with Dereser, Scholz, Com., ad loc.) that it was in order that, on the return of the son and his angel guide, the dog might run ahead to announce their coming, is to say what is quite insufficient, while it lacks the support of the Greek text, according to which it is simply said: 8 kúwv ŏmiodev avtŵv. It is true that the dog was much esteemed in Egypt, and often appears on the monuments of that country (cf. Transact., iv. 172 ff.), and also, as used for the chase, on those of Assyria (Rawlinson, Ancient Mon., i. 234) and Media (idem, ii. 301); but the present is the only known instance where a Jew is represented as treating a dog with anything like familiarity. He was employed by them as a watch for guarding flocks (Job xxx. 1; Is. lvi. 10), but, on the other hand, the term "dog" has always been among them an expression of utter contempt, as it still is throughout the East (see Van Lennep, Bible Lands, p. 278). It is a fact worthy of notice that in both the Chaldaic and Hebrew (Münster) texts all mention of the dog is left out.

Still further, the young Tobias has a remarkable experience with a fish on the first evening of his journey (vi. 3). He went down to the river Tigris to bathe, and "a fish leaped out of the water and would have swallowed him. But the angel said unto him, 'Lay hold of the

to eat.

fish.' And the young man got possession of (mastered, èxpáтnσe) the fish, and drew it to land." And in the following verse it is said that the two travellers, after roasting the fish, ate it. Did they eat all of it? It is elsewhere said (xii. 19) that the angel only "appeared And what sort of a fish was it that thought to have made a meal of Tobias but was made a meal of by Tobias? And where was the dog during this startling episode? In chap. viii. 9, we read that Raguel, after suffering Tobias and being all too easily persuaded, one might say, considering the circumstances to marry his daughter, goes out and digs a grave with the expectation of burying his son-in-law there without any one's knowing it, except his wife. But he afterwards (ver. 18) allows his servants to fill the grave, who would thus learn for what purpose it had been intended. (In the Chaldaic text the account is somewhat different.) Had he disposed of the bodies of seven previous sons-in-law in this manner? How was it possible for him in such a case to escape an investigation on the part of his own brethren, if not of the government of the country? In chap. ix. 1-6, it seems to be represented that Raphael, with camels and a servant, made the journey from Ecbatana to Rages in Media and returned in two days. The distance between the two places must have been nearly or quite two hundred miles, which supposition, moreover, agrees well with the statement of Arrian that the army of Alexander required eleven days to travel it in one direction. Cf. Rawlinson, Ancient Mon., ii. 272 f. Further, in chap. xi. 7, 8, Raphael is said to have counseled Tobias to greet his blind father, on his return, without any previous preparation, by rubbing the pungent gall of the fish on his eyes. The author, in aiming at special picturesqueness here, ceased to be natural. The Syriac fitly represents the father as saying in astonishment: "What hast thou done, my son?" The conduct of the new-comers was truly sensational in more than one respect. Once more, what are we to think of a holy angel, of Raphael's pretended rank, who not only acts in general the part of this angel of the book of Tobit, in connection with a simple family history, but tells deliberate falsehood, even on the slightest occasion? He told Tobias (ver. 6), “I have lodged with our brother Gabael;" he declared to the father (ver. 12): "I am Azarias, son of Ananias the great." It is no sufficient justification of such conduct to refer to the sins of the patriarchs in this respect, as some have done, since no one attempts to justify these sins, much less to hold that angels should take the patriarchs as their examples. To say, with Reusch (Com., ad loc.), that since the angel had assumed the character of Azarias, son of Ananias, therefore, it was only a natural consequence that he should act accordingly, is simply to seek to justify one act of dissimulation by another.

Doctrinal Teaching.

A variety of opinions exists respecting the aim of the author in the preparation of his work, and it may arise from the fact that no one object was particularly prominent in his mind. Cramer's theory seems as well as any to meet the circumstances of the case. He says (Darstell. d. Moral, etc., p. 14): "In the Book of Tobit, various moral doctrines and truths are in the way of example set forth, without one's being in a position to pronounce exactly which the leading idea is . . . . Only so much can with certainty be affirmed, that Tobias and Sarah play the principal part in them. The leading ideas of the book are that righteousness, although it may seem to be at the mercy of wickedness, yet, in the end, conquers; that God hears the true inward prayer of the afflicted in time of suffering; and that one may win the love of Jehovah by the practice of almsgiving, the burial of the dead, and other pious acts. Yet there are so many other moral reflections mixed in, that the former often seem to stand [in the book] on account of the latter." Our object, under the present head, will be to point out certain peculiarities in the doctrinal teaching of the composition with special reference to the claim that is made for it to be reckoned among the canonical books of Scrip

ture.

And we will first notice its position with respect to the ministry of angels. This, in general, is its teaching: there are angels good and bad. Among the good are seven of special prominence, who stand before God and present to Him the prayers of the saints (xii. 15). One of them is Raphael. The same also appear among men, and participate in various human activities and events (xii. 12 f.); serve as guides on long journeys, in which they share with their human companions couch and food, although only in appearance (vi. passim); act the part of physicians in prescribing for bodily ailments (iii. 17). Of the evil angels, on the other hand, one is Asmodæus. They seek to injure men, and have power to

kill them. They are also capable of sexual lust, and have unhallowed intercourse with the daughters of men. But there are special means of exorcising them, which consist, at least at times, in certain prepared medicaments which are burnt, the smoke of the same being to them unendurable (vi. 7). On smelling this smoke the demons will flee to their desolate dwelling-place in Upper Egypt (viii. 3), where they then may be fast bound by the good angels.

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Now, no one needs to ask the question of a person well acquainted with the teaching of the canonical books on these several points, whether the Book of Tobit is in harmony with them. Its angelology will at once be recognized as an exaggeration, and, in some respects, a total perversion of that of these books. There is nothing, for instance, in the acknowledged books of the Bible which, when properly interpreted, can be held to support the view that there are just seven holy angels of superior rank, who specially minister before God. The passages that are sometimes cited from the Old Testament as showing this (Dan. x. 13 ; Ezek. ix. 2; Zech. iii. 9) have obviously not this meaning. And the same may be said of the New Testament (Rev. i. 4; iv. 5; v. 6), although so sagacious and careful a critic as Stuart taught the contrary, adducing, among other grounds in its support, the Book of Tobit, one of the earliest, most simple and attractive of all the apocryphal books" (Apoc., ii. 17 ff.). Moreover, this doctrine of an order of archangels, seven in number, is not only not to be found in the Bible, but is to be found in a fixed and definite form in Parseeism and the later Jewish enlargements and embellishments of the teachings of the Bible. According to the Zoroastrian religion, there were seven superior beings who stood around the throne of Deity, to each one of whom a distinct name was given. And it is well known that among the Jews at the time of Christ, and earlier, there were Cabalists who taught that there were seven archangels set over the planets, and that they ruled the world respectively, on the several days of the week. Raphael was the one whose special sphere was the sun. Among the Babylonians, too, the number seven was even more in use as a holy number than among the Jews, as many instances from the monuments prove. On one, for example, is the following so-called " Song of the Seven Spirits ":

See Records of the Past, iii. 143, and Transact., ii. 58. The following works and articles may be consulted for a fuller presentation of the subject: Rawlinson, Ancient Mon., iii. 347; Kohut (see Index of Authors); Schenkel's Bib. Lex., under " Engel"; Riehm, Handwörterb., ad voc.; Sengelmann, Einleit., p. 23; Bretschneider, Systemat. Darstell., p. 187 f.; Graetz, Geschichte, ii. (2) 20, 416; Rönsch, Buch der Jubiläen, p. 489 f.; Nork, p. 383; Dillmann, Henoch, p. 97; same by Hoffmann, p. 123; Gfrörer, i. 11; Herzog's Real-Encyk., under Engel"; Langen, Judenthum, etc. p. 297; Ilgen, Einleit., p. lxxxiii.; Stud. u. Krit., 1833, pp. 772, 1163; 1839, p. 329.

According to the Book of Tobit (xii. 15), further, it is one of the duties of these superior angels to present to God, in the way of mediation, the prayers of his people. In this respect, too, it stands outside the sphere of Biblical teaching among works that are acknowledged to be apocryphal. Some passages from the Scriptures have been cited, indeed (Job xxiii. 33; Acts x. 4; Rev. viii. 3), as having a similar meaning. But in none of these passages is it, by any means, taught, that angels are actual intercessors for men. The Book of Tobit has taken its coloring, it is clear, from traditional opinions, which are represented in a still more definite form in other similar works. The Book of Enoch, for instance (ix. 3), contains the following address to certain supposed archangels: "And now, to you, O ye holy ones of heaven, the souls of men complain, saying, ‘Obtain justice for us with the Most High.'” At xl. 6, again, Gabriel is spoken of as "petitioning and praying " for those who dwell on earth. In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in connection with a description of the seven heavens, the writer says ("Test. Levi," iii.): "In the fifth are the angels of the presence of God, who minister and make propitiatory offerings to the Lord." Again, in chap. v. of the

same Testament ar. angel is made to say: "I am the angel who intercedes for pardon with respect to the nation of Israel." Cf. Fabricius, Codex Pseudep., i. pp. 546, 550.

Still another peculiar feature of the angelology of the Book of Tobit is the plain intimation that angels may become enamored with women of the human race, and enjoy with them unhallowed sexual intercourse. There is no other reasonable explanation of the relations said to have been sustained to Sarra by Asmodæus. But on what is such an idea based? It can only be based on a false interpretation of the well-known passage in Genesis (vi. 2), where the "sons of God" are spoken of as intermarrying with the daughters of men. This view was widely accepted, at first, in the synagogue and the church, and may have been shared also by the translators of the Septuagint, since the MSS. are divided between the reading υἱοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ and ἄγγελοι τ. Θ. Two important apocryphal works, in addition to the Book of Tobit, contain the teaching, the Book of Enoch, and the Book of the Jubilees, or the Little Genesis. It is not necessary to say that in our day there are scarcely any commentators of note who give it the least countenance as the real meaning of the passage cited from Genesis. Again, the canonical Scriptures give no countenance to the views of the Book of Tobit (vi. 16) respecting the exorcism of demons. These views, however, are in complete harmony with practices which were common among the Jews and other nations before and after the time of Christ. On one of the Babylonian monuments occurs a singular instance of the use of the magic knot (Kaтádeσμos) for the purpose of exorcising demoniacal spirits. The inscription is as follows:

"Go, my son!

Take a woman's linen kerchief,

Bind it (?) round thy right hand: loose it (?) from the left hand;

Knot it with seven knots: do so twice;

Bind it round the head of the sick man;

Bind it round his head and feet, like manacles and fetters:

Sit down (?) on his bed:

Sprinkle holy water over him:

The gods will receive his dying spirit." 1

Many allusions in the New Testament itself show how prevalent the use of extraordinary means for exorcism was at that time (Matt. xii. 27; Acts xix. 13, 16). Josephus, also (Antiq., viii. 2, § 5), gives an account of an instance even more extravagant in some of its features than that used against Asmodæus. And Justin Martyr (Dial. cum Tryph., c. 85) puts the inquiry, whether a Jew could exorcise a demon by using the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That the power exercised so wonderfully by Christ, and before and after his ascension by his disciples, over the powers of darkness, was of quite another sort, and employed in quite another manner, needs no proof. To none of these instances would the term "exorcise," in its usual signification, be at all applicable.

A second important particular in which the Book of Tobit separates itself in its doctrinal teaching from the canonical Scriptures is the emphasis which it lays on the matter of fasting and almsgiving. A careful examination will show that the opinion expressed by Westcott (Smith's Bible Dict., art. "Tobit ") on this point is somewhat too favorable. He says: "There may be symptoms of a tendency to formal righteousness of works; but as yet the works are painted as springing from a living faith. The devotion due to Jerusalem is united with definite acts of charity (i. 6-8), and with the prospect of wider blessings (xiii. 11). The giving of alms is not a mere scattering of wealth, but a real service of love (i. 16, 17; ii. 1–7; iv. 7, 11, 16), though at times the emphasis which is laid upon the duty is exaggerated (as it seems) from the special circumstances in which the writer was placed (xii. 9; xiv. 10, 11).” With respect to fasting, it is well known that among the Jews it was looked upon quite differently at the time of Christ from what it had been up to the period when the canonical books of Scripture were gathered. How much stress the Pharisees laid upon the observance is clear from many allusions in the New Testament, and is proved also from other sources. Cf. Schürer, p. 505. Now, the tendency to exaggerate the duty and the merit of fasting seems to have begun soon after the cessation of prophecy. Some signs of it, indeed, are manifest in the warnings of the later prophets (Is. lviii. 3-7; cf. Zech. vii. 5). But in the various apocryphal books, including the present one, it is seen in rapid development. Cf.

1 See Transact., il. 54.