432 THE FISH OF TOBIAS— DEMONIC POSSESSION 



angel Raphael, whom God, compassionating both Tobit's 

 plight and Sara's subjection to a demon, has sent purposely 

 from heaven. 



On the journey Tobias (R.V.) " went down to wash himself 

 in the Tigris and a fish leaped out of the river and would have 

 swallowed him. But the angel said unto him, ' Take hold on 

 the fish. ' ' ' And the young man caught hold of the fish and 

 cast it on the land. The angel bids him, " Cut the fish open, 

 and take the heart, the liver, and the gall, and put them up 

 safely," giving as his reasons, " touching the heart and liver, 

 if a devil or evil spirit trouble any, we must make a smoke 

 thereof before the man or woman, and the party shall be no 

 more vexed. As for the gall, it is good to anoint a man that 

 hath white films in his eyes, and he shall be healed." Of the 

 healing of his father's blindness we read later in xi. 11-13, 

 where Tobias " strake of the gall on his father's eyes." 



The great act of the drama, however, is staged in Ecbatana, 

 where the travellers break their journey at the house of a 

 kinsman Raguel, whose daughter Sara " had been given in 

 marriage to seven husbands, but Asmodeus the evil spirit (or 

 demon) slew them before they had lain with her." Tobias, 

 not to be daunted, marries Sara, not, however, before Raguel 

 " took paper and did write an instrument of covenant (or 

 marriage contract) and sealed it." 



" And when they had finished their supper, they brought 

 Tobias in unto her. But as he went he remembered the words 

 of Raphael, and took the ashes of the incense, and put the heart 

 and the liver of the fish thereupon, and made a smoke therewith. 

 But when the devil had smelled the smell he fled into the 

 uppermost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him" (viii. 

 I, 2, 3). Cf. Milton, P.L. iv. "Asmodeus of the fishy fume," 

 etc. 



Dr. Gaster has given us a version, hitherto unpublished, 

 in which " Tobiyah took the heart of a fish and put it in a 

 censer and burnt it under the clothes of Sarah. And Ashmedai 

 (the demon) received the smells and fled instantly." This 

 contra-demonical property in a fish appears elsewhere, e.g. in 

 the Macedonian charm, which prescribes for one possessed the 



