AUGUSTINE. On blessed Tobias. The prayer of the just man is the key to heaven. — 1. Blessed Tobias, who knew how to break his bread for the hungry man, prepared to pay quickly the hired servant for his work. After patiently listening to the reading that has just been recited, we were wondering at the treatment of the father and of the son, and at the way they were instructed by the angel, whom they believed to be an earthly hired servant, under heavenly glory. In truth, Tobit was stricken with the calamity of blindness in order to receive the angel as a physician, who, kindled with divine firebrands, gasped, “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tob. 12:8). The prayer of the just man is the key to heaven. The prayer ascends, and God’s mercy descends. Although the earth is deep down and heaven is high up, God hears the tongue of man, if his conscience is clean. He talks with the senses, if there is but a sigh on our part. Rain from the eyes is enough for his ears; he hears tears more quickly than words. The prayer of the hater is always driven away from his ears. The soul of the father and of the son was one; while either of them had his own limbs, they had a singular union of minds. Son, says Tobit, let us dismiss this man, adding something to the wages that were agreed on; because he has brought us much good with his work (ibid. 1, etc.). And the son, after recounting the treatment they had received from him, says to his father: Father, can it possibly be right for so blessed a servant as this to be paid only the wages that were agreed on, while his good guidance is inestimable We shall repay him with too little honor if we determine a measure for his merits. Did he himself provide only what had been agreed on What had been agreed on was that he should show me the region and the man to whom you had entrusted the money. First, travelling as if on a heavenly way, he prepared from the fish the eye salve that both you and I needed; he guided me, got the money back, gave me Sara for a wife. Does he deserve only the wages that were agreed on, while he was for me like a heavenly bridesman, and, what is more, father, cured the spots on your eyes by removing the film that covered them, and lit up our whole house by illuminating the lamps of your eyes I now see more clearly because I behold you seeing. My excellent father, does he not deserve half of the goods Let a guide and provider such as this, such a physician and guardian, as he said, receive as his share half of the goods that he has brought with me, since he has shown such kindness to me in his guidance. The good father liked the response of his wise son. He started asking the hired servant to take indeed his wages. “My brother,” he said, “take what is yours, and then go in safety.” Receive your wages, because you have shown good compassion to me and my son. Take up, as I said, half of the goods you have brought back with my son; for the gratitude we owe you cannot be measured. 2. The angel, who had been sent to do a kindness for free, immediately rejoiced at the wages they had thought about. Tobit, said he, or Tobias, why are you thinking, rather superfluously, about my wages Keep what the heavenly Father has granted you. I am the instrument of healing, he is the maker of health. You do not know what sort of servant it is whose help you have earned the enjoyment of. You were not afraid to bury those who had died in captivity, Tobit: your works ascended to the Lord, because you left your dinner to lay a dead man to rest. I brought rich sacrifices to the Lord on account of this respectable burial; I was sent as a laborer of the heavenly market. The two of you buried a dead man, and were not afraid of the sting of death. The buried man himself clamored in your defense with a silent voice. The blindness of your eyes served as a test, for your patience to earn a brighter decoration from heaven. “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand before the glory of the Lord” (Ibid. 15). I do not need the enjoyment of human wages: I am made rich by dwelling with his majesty. The one who sent me is rich; he ordered things to be expended for free, as he himself granted them for free. Do not even bestow on me the honor of thanks, because you have received nothing through my power. “Bless God, and give thanks to him, and glorify him, because he has done good things among you.” (Ibid. 6, 18). 3. Upon the sudden revelation of the honor of the heavenly mystery, stunned by the voice of the angel Raphael, Tobit and Tobias fell down onto the ground and altogether hid their trembling voices, because they had heard a strange voice. What did you earn, father Tobit and son Tobias To have a heavenly servant, and hire him as an earthly laborer The angel concealed his name from you. “I am Azarias,” he said, “the son of the great Ananias” (Tob. 5:18), and he did not say, “I am the angel Raphael.” With the first name, he concealed his dignity, so as not to cause fright in his hirer. For if he had said, “I am an angel”, he would not have been Tobias’s hired servant. The dignity of the name was reserved, so that the magnitude of the dignity might become clear in the end. See, my dearest, how great the merit of almsdeed is: he earned the privilege of having an angel as a laborer. You see how beneficial it is to bury the dead: it made his offering ascend to the heavenly majesty through the angel Raphael. You see that alms delivers from death, and the same purges away sins. It performs the purgation of the eyes; it delivers from the darkness of sins. Tobias is guided on his way, and Sara, saddened by the loss of so many men, is married thanks to the angel. [Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 226, on the Blessed Tobias]

AUGUSTINE. Questions on the Old and New Testaments: Tobit. The providence of the Lord God towards us is so great that, not wanting us to err, he gave us the law and examples of good works, so that, following them, one may lead an honest and peaceful life with the fear of God. For he who is the maker of life naturally does not wish his work to be subject to death. Although nature itself is not devoid of law, the Lord, being good and merciful, wanted us to have greater knowledge of the things to be pursued and of the things to be avoided, and to this end he showed them through texts and examples, as the present reading attests. Therefore God’s servant holy Tobit was given to us, after the law, as an example, so that we may know how the things we have read are done, and so that, if trials come, we may not desist from the fear of God, and that we may not hope for help from any other source than from him, keeping in mind that it is written, “I have been young, and now am old; and I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread” (Ps. 36:25). Therefore he who hopes in God with all his mind can never be deceived. Even if tribulations arise for a time through Satan’s maneuvers, the examples of holy men teach us that these things are permitted by God only for the sake of increasing our rewards; because if we bear tribulations with composure, we shall here be given consolation with effect, and in the future we shall be given eternal life with glory. For because our God is just and there is no respect of persons with him (Rom. 2:11), he lets us be tested, because he loves us, so that he may give us immense rewards after the hardship. Indeed, when the apostle was praying for his trials to cease, the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in infirmity”. As a reaction to this the apostle said, “When I am weak, then am I stronger”, and “I rejoice in my tribulations,” he said, “that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor. 12:9-10). So, let us be informed by the Scripture of how praiseworthy holy Tobit is, whose devotion captivity did not diminish, whom the loss of his eyes did not stop from blessing God, whom the exhaustion of his resources did not divert from the way of justice and truth (Tob. 1-3). Indeed, need tests a just man and proves him to be just, and keeping fairness when in poverty is the true and perfect justice. From things that diminish the devotion of some, praiseworthy Tobit gained an increase of it. For want, he says, humiliates a man, and he who is humiliated cannot keep justice. But holy Tobit’s spirit, intent on God, was neither broken by captivity nor humiliated by want, because he buried the bodies of the slain in spite of the prohibition, and, certain of God’s generosity, he was compassionate even with the small means that he had, knowing that God prefers the compassion that is done from small means, as did the widow whom the Lord praised in the Gospel (Luke 21:2-4). For the truly faithful person, the person who does not doubt God’s promises, is the one who gives generously from little. Therefore, comforting his heart with the hope of the future, Tobit, devoted to God, was found to be strong and brave in trial, showing that, when in want, one ought to be all the more vigilant in God’s fear, because if want does not prompt you to seek God’s help, how much less will security Therefore holy men, certain that God has reserved for himself the judgement of all that is done in this world, not only have not been vexed about tribulations, losses, and other calamities or reproaches, but they have even accepted them with gratitude, as did our apostles, who after being beaten rejoiced that they had been accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Christ (Acts 5:41). Indeed, the calamities that unjustly strike the faithful, whether in tribulations or in reproaches, are the signs of future rewards. Therefore just Tobit was so pleasing to God that he obtained for his merits a twofold reward: for the present he recovered, through the angel’s agency, the sight that he had lost, and was also enriched with the resources that are useful in this life; and for the future he was made an heir of the kingdom of heaven: so that we might be taught through this that when someone obeys God’s law with all their heart and does not doubt his promises, God often augments their resources in this world, and grants them eternal life in the next. There is also something else that invites us to compliance with God’s law: holy Tobit did not only obtain the rewards of his own justice, because there is added to the sum of his glory also something from the good actions of those who behave as his imitators. For examples are praised in their imitators. This can happen to us as well if we live in such a way that it becomes appropriate for us to have imitators too. [Augustine, Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, De Tobia, PL 35.2363-4]3