Note 1075 — Chapter XLI · THE FISH OF TOBIAS—DEMONIC POSSESSION

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 Christianity, 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 (like much else) from the heathen, and sought to give it a scriptural sanction by appealing to the authority of the angel Raphael.” Frazer, op. cit., I. 505.