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Confessions, Book 4

About this book
Chapter 9

This is what we love in our friends, and we love it so much that a man's conscience accuses itself if he does not love one who loves him, or respond in love to love, seeking nothing from the other but the evidences of his love. This is the source of our moaning when one dies—the gloom of sorrow, the steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness—and the feeling of death in the living, because of the loss of the life of the dying. Blessed is he who loves you, and who loves his friend in you, and his enemy also, for your sake;⁠ for he alone loses no one dear to him, if all are dear in Him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God: the God who created heaven and earth, and filled them because he created them by filling them up? No one loses you except the one who leaves you; and he who leaves you, where does he go, or where can he flee except from you well-pleased to you offended? For where does he not find your law fulfilled in his own punishment? "Your law is the truth" and you are Truth.

Book 5

Texts in conversation

Compare Tobit 13:14 and Augustine, Confessions 4.9

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

In the Confessions, Augustine reshapes Tobit's blessing for those who love Jerusalem into a blessing on those who love God, including those who love their friends in God and their enemies for God's sake.

Passages

Tobit 13:14

Deuterocanon
12 Cursed shall be all they that shall speak a hard word; Cursed shall be all they that demolish you, And throw down your walls; And all they that overthrow your towers, And set on fire your habitations; But blessed shall be all they that fear you for ever. 13 Then go and be exceeding glad for the sons of the righteous: For they all shall be gathered together, And bless the everlasting Lord. 14 Blessed shall they be that love you; And blessed shall they be That shall rejoice for your peace: And blessed shall be all the men That shall sorrow for you For all your chastisements: Because they shall rejoice in you And shall see all your joy for ever. 15 My soul does bless the Lord the great King;
225–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tobit

Augustine, Confessions 4.9

Early Christian
This is what we love in our friends, and we love it so much that a man's conscience accuses itself if he does not love one who loves him, or respond in love to love, seeking nothing from the other but the evidences of his love. This is the source of our moaning when one dies—the gloom of sorrow, the steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness—and the feeling of death in the living, because of the loss of the life of the dying. Blessed is he who loves you, and who loves his friend in you, and his enemy also, for your sake; for he alone loses no one dear to him, if all are dear in Him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God: the God who created heaven and earth, and filled them because he created them by filling them up? No one loses you except the one who leaves you; and he who leaves you, where does he go, or where can he flee except from you well-pleased to you offended? For where does he not find your law fulfilled in his own punishment? "Your law is the truth" and you are Truth.
397–400 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Augustine, Confessions 4

References

“... The history of interpretation of the Book of Tobit has been a somewhat ne- glected area of scholarly investigation. Tobit’s canonicity was generally accepted in the Latin West (Jerome is a notable exception), but its status was debated in the Greek East, at least initially. It was excluded from the Jewish canon, possibly in part because the marriage of Tobias and Sarah did not conform to halakhic regulations. If indeed the reason for its canonicity among some Christians revolved around its high catechetical and pedagogical value, as suggested by Zenger, this would explain the fact that its primary function among early Christian preachers and exe- getes concerned spiritual formation and moral instruction. For example, Augustine alludes to the book of Tobit in his Confessions to describe the blessedness of loving God (4,9,14, citing Tob 13:14)6 and the importance of prayer (5,1,1, citing Tob 3:12). Likewise, in his work On Prayer, Origen takes the story of Tobit as having great teaching value for the way prayer should glorify God (14,4, citing Tob 3:1-2) and the efficacy of intercession (11,1 and 31,5, citing Tob 3:16-17 and 12:11-15).7 ...”
Bradley C. Gregory, “The Marriage of Tobias and Sarah in the Venerable Bede’s Commentary on Tobit,” in Family and Kinship in the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. Angelo Passaro (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 547.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Tobit 13:14 and Augustine, Confessions 4.9

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