"... There has been some scholarly interest, often driven by a confessional agenda, in seeking to determine whether or not the Apocrypha were regarded as scriptural by the early church fathers, but little attention has been paid to the question of what texts or themes from individual deutero-canonical books are employed most frequently in patristic writings. Allusions to these works in early Christian literature are rare, but there is little doubt that Tobit was known and regarded as scriptural by at least some of the church fathers, as it is referred to as such by, amongst others, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Cyprian (Clement, Stromata; Origen, Epistula ad Africanum; Cyprian, Testimonia) ... A rather more significant point of contact between Tobit and the writings of the apostolic fathers can be discerned, however, in statements about the practice of almsgiving as something which atones for sin and brings about reward after death (see Tobit 4:10; 12:8-9; 14:11). The clearest expression of this view is to be found in the anonymous mid-second century work 2 Clement ..."