The adventures of Tobias and his companion and guardian, the archangel Raphael, are described in the book of Tobit. The story begins in Nineveh during the time of the expulsion of the Jews to Assyria in the 8th century. BC Oe., where Tovit, a devout Jew, lived with his wife Anna and their son. He cared for his fellow tribesmen who were in need, and cared for the proper burial of those who met their death at the hands of the king. For this he was severely persecuted, his property was confiscated, he and his family were about to flee. One day, when he lay down to rest in the courtyard, the sparse droppings fell into his eyes, and this caused him to get a wall-spot, and he went blind.
Feeling that death was near, Tovit ordered his son Tobiah to go to Media, to get some money there. Tobiah first of all began to search for a companion for his journey and met the archangel Raphael, who agreed to accompany him.
Having received the blessing of blind Tobit, this couple set off, mourned by Anna, the mother of Tobias. The young man’s dog was right behind them. When he reached the Tigris River, Tobiah went down to the water to wash himself, when suddenly a big fish rushed out of the water and wanted to devour him. At the direction of Raphael, he grabbed her and gutted it, separating the heart, liver and bile. The archangel explained that smoking, made from her roasted heart and liver, exorcises demons, and the bile of this fish heals the cataract. Upon arrival at the destination, Tobias collected money; then, on the advice of an angel, they went to a relative, whose daughter, Sarah, became Tobiah’s bride. But Sarah, unfortunately, was bewitched by a demon, which was the cause of her seven previous husbands’ death.
However, the wedding of Tobias and Sarah took place, though not without fear. The demon was successfully expelled with the help of a liver and a heart of caught fish, which they put in a censer and smoked. Then the couple in their bedroom offered a prayer of thanks. When they returned to Nineveh, Tobias used bile to restore his sight to his father. The archangel, when Tobias offered him a reward for all that he did for him, found himself, and his father and son fell on his knees before him. Although this story in the form in which it has reached us, dates back to II. BC Oe., it includes elements of distant folklore – Assyrian and Persian.
Among the folk tales of Europe, there are also those that resemble her, for example, Anderson’s Road Friend. The artists illustrated most of the episodes, especially Tobias and the Angel, both dressed like wanderers, accompanied by a dog. “Big fish” was considered a crocodile, whose liver and heart were used in ancient magic as a talisman to protect against demons. When Tobias is shown pulling out a fish, she is depicted as large as a trout.
Tobit’s cure for blindness is usually presented as a kind of anointing, although Rembrandt and other northern artists who wrote after him depict a cataract surgery. This is due to the use of the word in the Dutch Bible to mean “whiteness” in Tobit’s eyes. The concept of the guardian angel was spread in Renaissance Italy, and the plot with Tobiah was used by the family to capture the son’s journey; in this case, Tobias is portrayed like a son of a family. Tobit’s cure of blindness was the plot of the paintings ordered by the victims of the disease, hoping that their vision would be returned to them
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