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The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria authoritatively cites Tobit’s negative form of the golden rule as scripture. By using Tobit’s version instead of the positive form Jesus uses, he shows how Christian tradition valued Tobit as authoritative.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 4:15
Deuterocanon
14 Do not let the wages of any man, which shall work for you, stay with you, but render it to him out of hand: and if you serve God, recompense shall be made to you. Take heed to yourself, my child, in all your works, and be discreet in all your behaviour. 15 And what you yourself hate, do to no man. Do not drink wine to drunkenness, and do not let drunkenness go with you on your way. 16 Give of your bread to the hungry, and of your garments to them that are naked: of all your abundance give alms; and do not let your eye be grudging when you give alms. 17 Pour out your bread and your wine on the tomb of the just, and do not give to sinners. 18 Ask counsel of every man that is wise, and do not despise any counsel that is profitable.
Date: 225–175 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Early Christian
According to the opinion of the Stoics, marriage and the rearing of children are a thing indifferent; and according to the Peripatetics, a good. In a word, these, following out their dogmas in words, became enslaved to pleasures; some using concubines, some mistresses, and the most youths. And that wise quaternion in the garden with a mistress, honoured pleasure by their acts. Those, then, will not escape the curse of yoking an ass with an ox, who, judging certain things not to suit them, command others to do them, or the reverse. This Scripture has briefly showed, when it says, "What thou hatest, thou shalt not do to another." But they who approve of marriage say, Nature has adapted us for marriage, as is evident from the structure of our bodies, which are male and female.
Date: 195 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... We find the Church Fathers quoting not only texts that have subsequently become canonical for the majority of Christians (i.e., “the Bible,” including the New Testament), but also texts of the apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and perhaps even otherwise unknown works. In all these instances, the stated origin of the quoted text is impersonal or divine. For example, 1 Enoch is likely quoted in Barnabas 16:5 and 6, with the [scriptural] formulae ... Other quotations of 1 Enoch include the following, also introduced with familiar formulae ... 1 Enoch in Barnabas 4:3 ... 1 Enoch in Origen, Commentary on John 6.25 ... Some of the Deuterocanonicals are quoted with similar formulae. For example Tertullian quotes the Wisdom of Solomon as scripture in Against the Valentinians 2.75. In the following examples, Clement of Alexandria quotes Tobit as Scripture and Ben Sira and Wisdom frequently using standard expressions ... Stromata 2.23 quoting Tobit 4:15 ... the Instructor quoting Sirach 21:6 ..."
Ken M. Penner, “Citation Formulae as Indices to Canonicity in Early Jewish and Early Christian Literature,” in Jewish and Christian Scriptures: The Function of "Canonical" and "Non-Canonical" Religious Texts, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Lee M. McDonald (London: T&T Clark International, 2010), 62–84.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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