Texts in Conversation
Tobit describes God as both punishing and merciful. In the Confessions, Augustine echoes this pairing when he describes God making his youthful pleasures bitter and wounding him in order to heal him.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 13:2
Deuterocanon
1 And he said Blessed is God that lives for ever, and his kingdom, For he chastises, and shows mercy. 2 He leads down to Hades below the earth, And he brings up from the great destruction; And there is nothing that shall escape his hand. 3 Give thanks to him before the Gentiles, you children of Israel, For he has scattered you among them, 4 And there he has shown you his greatness; And extol him before all the living. Because he is our Lord, and he our God, and he our Father, Yes, he is God to all the ages:
Augustine, Confessions 2.2
Early Christian
But, fool that I was, I foamed in my wickedness as the sea and, forsaking you, followed the rushing of my own tide, and burst out of all your bounds. But I did not escape your scourges. For what mortal can do so? You were always with me, mercifully angry and flavoring all my unlawful pleasures with bitter discontent, in order that I might seek pleasures free from discontent. But where could I find such pleasure except in you, Lord—except in you, who teach us by sorrow, who wound us to heal us, and kill us so that we may not die apart from you. Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of your house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the madness of lust held full sway in me—that madness which grants indulgence to human shamelessness, even though it is forbidden by your laws—and I gave myself entirely to it? Meanwhile, my family took no care to save me from ruin by marriage, for their sole care was that I should learn how to make a powerful speech and become a persuasive orator.
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Notes and References
“... Conybeare (2016:59) notes: ‘The entire prayer of Tobit 13 is
in fact of immense importance for the themes of the
Confessions’. O’Donnell (1992b:6–7) demonstrates that
Tobit 13 was important for the Confessiones not only
because of allusions to its content, but even its structure,
which O’Donnell clearly sets out. Tobit 12:7, after all, has
Raphael say that it is important to reveal and confess the
works of God, which is the major impetus of the
Confessiones. O’Donnell (1992b:6–7) notes several allusions
to Tobit 13 in Confessiones 1.1.1, 1.2.2, 1.16.26, 2.2.4, 2.3.6,
2.6.14, 2.9.18, 3.3.5, 4.15.24, 7.21.27, 8.5.12, 8.6.14, 10.2.2,
10.6.8, 12.16.23, 13.38.53 and so on. ...”
de Wet, Chris L.
The Book of Tobit in Early Christianity: Greek and Latin Interpretations from the 2nd to the 5th Century CE
(p. 9) HTS Teologiese Studies Vol. 76, No. 4, 2020
* 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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