"TOBIAS DAYS"— ORIGIN 435 



continence enjoined on the newly married could only be 

 disregarded if the husband had previously paid for the privilege 

 a fee to some reUgious authority, came to be known as " Tobias 

 Days." 



No searching, however diligent, of the Septuagint or of 

 our A. or R. Versions, nor (it seems) of the Aramaic text of the 

 tale of Tobit sheds light on the origin of the custom or of the 

 application of the name. 



The Vulgate, however, which the Roman Church adopts, 

 sets forth the story of the abstinence of Tobias from Sara. 

 " Then Tobias exhorted the virgin, and said unto her : Sara, 

 arise, and let us pray to God to-day, and to-morrrow, and the 

 next day : because for these three nights we are joined to God : 

 and when the third night is over we will be in our wedlock. 

 For we are the children of the Saints, and we must not be 

 joined together Hke the heathen who know not God." ^ 



From this (apparently) solitary and quite different version 

 sprang the custom of the " Tobias Days," and the jus primes 

 noctis, of which the usual conception is " a monstrous fable 

 born of ignorance, prejudice, and confusion of ideas." 2 



The custom of continence for varying periods probably 

 springs from the common widespread behef (of which Tobit 

 affords a Semitic example) that demons he in wait to harm 

 newly-married couples, and from the hope that if allowed free 



^ Tobit, viii. 4 and 5 (Douai version). The fatuity of his reasoning, 

 although with seven predecessors slain by the demon much must be pardoned 

 to Tobias, is obvious, when we discover that the practice of deferring the 

 consummation of marriage for a certain time is older than Tobit and Christi- 

 anity, and has been observed by heathen tribes, not on any ascetic principle, 

 in many parts of the world. Hence, " we may reasonably infer that far from 

 instituting the rule and imposing it on the pagans, the Church, on the contrary, 

 borrowed it (hke much else) from the heathen, and sought to give it a scriptural 

 sanction by appeahng to the authority of the angel Raphael." Frazer, op. 

 cit., I. 505. 



^ The whole question is fully treated by J. G. Frazer, op. cit., vol. I., pp. 

 485-530, and Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, 3rd ed., vol. I., pp. 57-60. Some 

 writers hold that the period of continence originated at an ancient time when 

 it was deemed advisable that the deflowering should be effected by a god or 

 his representatives — in Israel the Sacred Men — ^so that the woman should 

 receive strength to bear children to her husband. For the practice they rely 

 on Hosea iv. 14, and for the deferment to the seventh night on Gen. xxix. 

 27, and in the correction of the reading in Judges, xiv. 18, from " before the 

 sun went down " to " before he went into her chamber." The evidence to 

 my mind is far from convincing. 



