by
Damien F. Mackey
The
subtle angel may also have had modern biblical exegetes well in mind when,
in
answer to the question of Tobias: ‘Can you go with me to Rages in Media?
Are
you acquainted with that region?’ The angel replied, ‘I will go with you;
I
am familiar with the way …’. (Tobit 5:5-6).
The archangel Raphael appears in the form of a young man when Tobias is looking for someone to guide him to the land of Media at his father Tobit’s request (Tobit 5:3-8):
Then Tobit gave [Tobias]
the receipt, and said to him, ‘Find a man to go with you and I will pay him
wages as long as I live; and go and get the money’. So he went to look for
a man; and he found Raphael, who was an angel, but Tobias did not
know it. Tobias said to him, ‘Can you go with me to Rages in Media? Are
you acquainted with that region?’ The angel replied, ‘I will go with you;
I am familiar with the way, and I have stayed with our brother Gabael’. Then
Tobias said to him, ‘Wait for me, and I shall tell my father’. And he said
to him, ‘Go, and do not delay’. So he went in and said to his father, ‘I have
found some one to go with me’. He said, ‘Call him to me, so that I may learn to
what tribe he belongs, and whether he is a reliable man to go with you’.
The ancient
Greeks enjoyed this colourful incident so much that they absorbed it into The
Odyssey, with Telemachus taking the place of Tobias and the disguised
archangel, Raphael, being replaced by, not surprisingly, a Greek deity, in this
case the goddess Athena disguised as the young man, Mentes.
Mentes (King of the
Taphians) - Wikipedia
“In Book I, the
Goddess Athena disguises herself as
Mentes, an old family friend of Odysseus, when she goes to visit
his son, Telemachus. Athena, disguised as
him, tells Telemachus that he is sailing to the city of Temese with his own crew,
claiming that he is in search of bronze. …. Although Mentes had hardly any
appearances in Greek myths of earlier antiquity, he became a symbol of a
guardian and a mentor. …”.
While
Raphael will help Tobias get the money (silver), Mentes “is in search of
bronze”.
Tobit, old
and presently blind, will be no match for the tricky Raphael when Tobit
attempts to learn the young man’s name and origins (vv. 9-15):
So Tobias invited
him in; he entered and they greeted each other. Then Tobit said to him, ‘My
brother, to what tribe and family do you belong? Tell me’. But he
answered, ‘Are you looking for a tribe and a family or for a man whom you will
pay to go with your son?’ And Tobit said to him, ‘I should like to know, my
brother, your people and your name’. He replied, ‘I am Azarias the son of
the great Ananias, one of your relatives’. Then Tobit said to him, ‘You
are welcome, my brother. Do not be angry with me because I tried to learn your
tribe and family. You are a relative of mine, of a good and noble lineage. For
I used to know Ananias and Jathan, the sons of the great Shemaiah, when we went
together to Jerusalem to worship and offered the first-born of our flocks and
the tithes of our produce. They did not go astray in the error of our brethren.
My brother, you come of good stock. But tell me, what wages am I to pay
you—a drachma a day, and expenses for yourself as for my son?
And besides, I
will add to your wages if you both return safe and sound’. So they agreed to
these terms.
Surely, this
must be the same elusive being as the mysterious one, “the man”, with whom the
patriarch Jacob had wrestled and had hoped to wrest from him his identity – but
to no avail (Genesis 32:24-29):
So Jacob was left
alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man
saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s
hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then
the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak’.
But Jacob replied,
‘I will not let you go unless you bless me’.
The man asked him,
‘What is your name?’
‘Jacob’, he
answered.
Then the man said,
‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have
struggled with God and with humans and have overcome’.
Jacob said, ‘Please
tell me your name’.
But he replied, ‘Why
do you ask my name?’ Then he blessed him there.
Compare:
‘Please tell me
your name’. (Genesis)
‘I should like to
know, my brother, your people and your name’. (Tobit)
Jacob’s (and
Tobit’s) question: ‘Please tell me your name’, like another ancient question,
this time from Jacob’s father, Isaac, ‘Where is the lamb?’ (Genesis 22:7), will
resound down through the centuries, until being definitively answered.
For, the
angel Raphael will, late in the Book of Tobit, reveal his true identity (12:15):
‘ I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present
the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy
One’.
And Isaac’s
question will be answered only upon the arrival of the Messiah whom Isaac had
foreshadowed, when the Baptist declared: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ (John
1:29).
The
archangel had brilliantly chosen an identity that was both accurate in its
meaning, and one that lulled Tobit into thinking that he was a relative from a
good family.
Likewise, in
The Odyssey, the goddess Athena will portray herself as a family friend.
For, as we read above: “… the Goddess Athena disguises herself as
Mentes, an old family friend of Odysseus, when she goes to visit
his son, Telemachus”.
Chris
Cammarata has well explained the archangel Raphael’s resorting to subterfuge:
In the Book
of Tobit, angel Raphael pretends he is Azariah, the son of Hananiah the elder.
Why did the Angel lie? Isn’t it a sin to lie?
It is a sin
to lie, but the angel isn’t exactly lying. In this situation it’s more like he
isn’t revealing the whole truth–at least not yet.
The nature
of St. Raphael’s mission required that he keep his angelic identity hidden.
Other angels in the Old Testament did this as well. Angels are fearful,
powerful, and glorious creatures–that’s why they often begin their messages
with “do not be afraid!” Masking their angelic nature serves a practical
purpose–and it also emphasizes that God is the one who deserves the glory, not
the angel.
The reason
St. Raphael gives the name Azariah to Tobit in the first place is because he
urges the angel to tell him where he is from. So Raphael gets around it
with a funny trick: he gives Tobit and Tobiah the name “Azariah, son of
Hananiah.” The name Azariah means “God has helped” and Hananiah means “God has
shown mercy.” So basically Raphael is disguising his identity while at the same
time secretly hinting at it–his whole mission, as revealed at the end of the
story, began because Raphael brought their family’s prayer before the Lord and
so was sent to help them (see Tobit 12:11-20). He calls himself a “kinsman” and
an “Israelite” as a way of showing that they belong to the same spiritual
family–the people of God.
So you can
sort of think of Azariah as the angel’s “codename” for the mission!
And just to
clear up any confusion on lying, the Catechism notes that “the right to the
communication of the truth is not unconditional” (CCC 2488). We have to judge
in particular situations whether it is the right time and circumstance to
reveal the truth. Being truthful requires prudence, too. Also, “no one is bound
to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it” (CCC
2489). In the case of St. Raphael, Tobit and his family didn’t have the right
to know his true identity–but in the end, he reveals it to them to “declare the
works of God with due honor” (Tobit 12:11).The irony in the story of Tobit is
that when St. Raphael first enters Tobit’s house and greets him, he tells him:
“Take courage! God’s healing is near; so take courage” (Tobit 5:10). What does
the name Raphael mean? “God’s healing” (or “God heals”)!
More angelic tricks
And Raphael,
having revealed his name, lets slip another secret.
He was not
actually eating, as he had appeared to be, when he was Tobit’s family (12:19):
“All these days I merely appeared to you and did not eat or drink, but you were
seeing a vision”.
Early during
their trek to the land of Media, at the River Tigris, the angel will have to
intervene to save Tobias from being devoured by a fish (6:1-3):
Now as they
proceeded on their way they came at evening to the Tigris river and camped
there. Then the young man went down to wash himself. A fish leaped up from
the river and would have swallowed the young man; and the angel said to
him, ‘Catch the fish’. So the young man seized the fish and threw it up on the
land.
In this
incident, the brilliant archangel will demonstrate his breadth of knowledge of
God’s created world, of the healing properties of vital parts of a fish, of
demonology and exorcism: (vv. 4-8):
Then the angel said to
him, ‘Cut open the fish and take the heart and liver and gall and put them away
safely’. So the young man did as the angel told him; and they roasted and
ate the fish.
And they both continued on
their way until they came near to Ecbatana.
Then the young man said to
the angel, ‘Brother Azarias, of what use is the liver and heart and gall of the
fish?’ He replied, ‘As for the heart and the liver, if a demon or evil spirit
gives trouble to any one, you make a smoke from these before the man or woman,
and that person will never be troubled again. And as for the gall, anoint
with it a man who has white films in his eyes, and he will be cured’.
Young Tobias
was in the care of a very astute travelling guide.
The subtle
angel may also have had modern biblical exegetes well in mind when, in answer
to the question of Tobias: ‘Can you go with me to Rages in Media? Are you
acquainted with that region?’ The angel replied, ‘I will go with you; I am
familiar with the way …’. (5:5-6).
For,
according to Fr. D. Dumm, writing on “Tobit” for The Jerome Biblical
Commentary, the angel was confused about the way, leading Tobias in the
wrong direction: “[The angel] Raphael knows the journey of life far better than
the route to Media!” But, unlike our ignorant generation, the archangel well
knew that the land of Media was situated to the west, not to the east
of Nineveh - a fact that Richard Erickson has recently demonstrated (2020) quite
independently of the Book of Tobit:
A
PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
(5) A PROBLEM IN
CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
More
angelic subtlety
As the
travellers neared Ecbatana in Media, Raphael informs Tobias about the
“beautiful and sensible” Sarah, his future wife (6:9-12):
When they
approached Ecbatana, the angel said to the young man, ‘Brother,
today we shall stay with Raguel. He is your relative, and he has an only
daughter named Sarah. I will suggest that she be given to you in
marriage, because you are entitled to her and to her inheritance, for you
are her only eligible kinsman. The girl is also beautiful and sensible.
Now listen to my plan. I will speak to her father, and as soon as we return
from Rages we will celebrate the marriage. For I know that Raguel, according to
the Law of Moses, cannot give her to another man without incurring the penalty
of death, because you rather than any other man are entitled to the inheritance’.
Tobias, however,
knowing that Sarah has been tormented by a demon who had already killed her
previous seven husbands, is none too keen about this proposal (vv. 13-14):
Then the young man
said to the angel, ‘Brother Azarias, I have heard that the girl has been given
to seven husbands and that each died in the bridal chamber. Now I am the
only son my father has, and I am afraid that if I go in I will die as those
before me did, for a demon is in love with her, and he harms no one except
those who approach her. So now I fear that I may die and bring the lives of my
father and mother to the grave in sorrow on my account. And they have no other
son to bury them’.
The
resourceful angel, though, had already made preparations for this very
situation (vv. 15-17):
But the angel said
to him, ‘Do you not remember the words with which your father commanded you to
take a wife from among your own people?
Now listen to me,
brother, for she will become your wife; and do not worry about the demon, for
this very night she will be given to you in marriage. When you enter the
bridal chamber, you shall take live ashes of incense and lay upon them some of
the heart and liver of the fish so as to make a smoke. Then the demon will
smell it and flee away, and will never again return. And when you approach her,
rise up, both of you, and cry out to the merciful God, and he will save you and
have mercy on you. Do not be afraid, for she was destined for you from
eternity. You will save her, and she will go with you, and I suppose that you
will have children by her’. When Tobias heard these things, he fell in love
with her and yearned deeply for her.
All went
according to plan. Tobias and Sarah become happily married, and Asmodeus, “the
worst of demons”, was bound by the archangel (8:3): “And when the demon smelled
the odor he fled to the remotest parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him”.
In The
Odyssey, the demon is substituted by the evil god, Poseidon, who had
pursued Odysseus relentlessly, and who goes off to Ethiopia, “the farthest
limits of mankind”.
Another
subtlety – the archangel’s use of the word “suppose” (Tobit 6:17): ‘You will
save [Sarah], and she will go with you, and I suppose [ὑπολαμβάνω] that you will
have children by her’.
Why does he
say that?
Because,
while he knows that Tobias and Sarah are, indeed, going to have children, many
of them, he likewise knows that Tobias and Sarah, as Job and his wife, will
tragically lose ten of them in one instant (Job 1:19).
The later
Tobias-Job
Tobias-Job,
as an old man, a prophet, still living at the time of the Medo-Persians, when
the second Temple was nearing completion, and here under his Akkadian name,
Habakkuk, will again be visited by he whom he had called in the Book of Job (16:19)
his ‘witness … in heaven’, and his ‘advocate … on high’, surely the archangel
Raphael.
The angel
wants him to take food to Daniel, languishing in the den of lions in Babylon.
Once again,
he who had a long time ago declared (Tobit 5:2): ‘…. I don’t know how to get to
Media’, will now, as an old man, say to the angel: ‘Sir, I have never seen
Babylon, and I know nothing about the den’. (Daniel 14:35).
The
resourceful angel, typically, will quickly fix that problem (14:36): “Then the
angel of the Lord took him by the crown of his head and carried him by his
hair; with the speed of the wind he set him down in Babylon, right over
the den”.
That’s what
clever angels can do.
