[206] It does not appear that deacons as such were specially concerned with the burial of the dead. The present passage, indeed, implies the contrary. Malachy was made deacon against his will; his care for the dead poor is mentioned as a work of piety, voluntarily superadded to the duties of his office. His sister (see below) would have been unlikely to ask him to abandon a practice which he could not decline. But there was ancient precedent for a deacon engaging in such work, of which Malachy may have been aware. At Alexandria throughout the persecution of Valerian, one of the deacons, Eusebius by name, not without danger to himself, prepared for burial the bodies of "the perfect and blessed martyrs" (Eus., H.E. vii. 11. 24).
[207] Tobiae. The Greek of the Book of Tobit, followed by the English versions, calls the father Tobit, and the son Tobias; the Vulgate calls both Tobias. The text of chap. ii. is longer in the Vulgate than in the Greek and English, and neither of the verses (Vulg. 12, 23) from which St. Bernard here borrows words is represented in the latter.
[208] Tobit ii. 12 (vg.).
[209] Cp. Gen. iii. 12 f.
[210] She is mentioned again in § 11.
[211] Matt. viii. 22.
[212] Tobit ii. 23 (vg.).
[213] Prov. xxvi. 5.
[214] Ps. xii. 6.
[215] Cellach and Imar.