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Tobit connects Israel's punishment and exile to its sins. Augustine echoes this language in the Confessions when describing captivity to sin while discussing Paul's account of the struggle between the mind and the body.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 13:5
Deuterocanon
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: 5 He will chastise you for your iniquities, And will show mercy to you all. 6 When you turn to him out of all the nations Wherever you shall be scattered, With your whole heart and with your whole soul, to do truth before him, Then he will turn to you, and will no longer hide his face from you. And now see what he has done with you, And give him thanks with your whole mouth, And bless the Lord of righteousness, And exalt the everlasting King. I, in the land of my captivity, give him thanks, And show his strength and majesty to nations of sinners.) Turn, you sinners, and do righteousness before him. Who can tell if he will accept you and have mercy on you? 7 I exalt my God, and my soul shall rejoice in the King of heaven;
Augustine, Confessions 7.21
Early Christian
For although a man may "delight in the law of God in the inward man," what shall he do with that other "law in his members which wars against the law of his mind, and brings him into captivity under the law of sin, which is in his members"? You are righteous, Lord; but we have sinned and committed iniquities, and have done wickedly. Your hand has grown heavy upon us, and we are justly delivered over to that ancient sinner, the lord of death. For he persuaded our wills to become like his will, by which he did not remain in your truth. What shall "wretched man" do? "Who shall deliver him from the body of this death," except your grace through Jesus Christ our Lord; whom you have begotten, coeternal with yourself, and created in the beginning of your ways—in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet he killed him—and so the handwriting which was all against us was blotted out?
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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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