BEDE.
Here again the mystery of the Lord’s suffering is plainly signified. For the
huge fish that Tobias killed at the angel’s prompting, after it tried to devour
him, signifies the ancient devourer of humankind, namely the devil, whom the
divine power snared while the devil was eagerly anticipating the death of the
flesh in our Redeemer. The river Tigris,
which owing to its rapid course takes its name from the tiger, the swiftest
beast, indicates the downward course of our death and mortality. In it the enormous fish lay hidden because
humanity’s invisible seducer had power over death. (Heb. 2:14) Tobias remained
at the flowing Tigris because when the Lord appeared in the world, he led his
life among sinners and mortals, yet the water of sin did not touch him nor did
the prince of darkness find anything of his own in the Lord when he came
near. And just as Tobias went out to the
river to wash his feet, so the Lord accepted death, to which he owed no debt,
so that he might wash all the faithful (that is, his own members) from death’s
and sin’s pollution. The fish fell upon
Tobias and wanted to devour him; when the Lord suffered on the cross, the
devil, who had instructed that he be crucified-came hoping by chance to find
some wickedness in his soul. [Bede the Venerable, Allegorica interpretatio in
Tobiam PL 91.928B]
.
. .
BEDE.
The Lord disemboweled the fish when he plainly revealed the devil’s wickedness
to the saints and cut out the secrets, as it were, of his snares. He set aside
for himself his heart because he wanted to point out to the saints, from
Scripture, the devil’s cunning, about which it says, Now the serpent was more
cunning than all the creatures of the earth. (Gen. 3:1) Of that heart Paul also said, For we are not
ignorant of its designs. (2 Cor. 2:11)
He set aside even his gall-bladder because, on account of his zeal for
caution, he wanted it to be written and remembered with how much malicious
frenzy the devil rages against humankind.
He also set aside the liver because he deigned to show us through
teachers of truth the seasoned male violence of Satan’s cogitations against
us. For they say that the liver’s heat
and secret strength boil down foods that have been swallowed so that they can
be digested. For when by careful meditation
we truly inquire about in which those things that we determine to do should be
completed, we boil them down, just as we, using the liver’s heat, boil down
foods taken into the stomach. [Bede the Venerable, Allegorica interpretatio in
Tobiam PL 91.929A] (taken from Tobit 6, Patristic
Bible Commentaries)
