It is difficult to say exactly when was written the Book of Tobit. Judging by certain details which are mentioned there, one can think that it appeared in the time of the persecution of Antiochus Epiphany, shortly before the revolt of Maccabees. These persecutions were connected with the refusal of the Jews living in Jerusalem to submit...
It is difficult to say exactly when was written the Book of Tobit. Judging by certain details which are mentioned there, one can think that it appeared in the time of the persecution of Antiochus Epiphany, shortly before the revolt of Maccabees. These persecutions were connected with the refusal of the Jews living in Jerusalem to submit themselves to the decree of Antiochus on the construction of the courtyard of the temple of the heathen altars. Altars were of course built, and the resistance of the dissatisfied was broken by force. But the Jews living in the city began to depart from it, rightly considering that it is impossible to do ordinary sacrifices in a desecrated Temple. They always refused to participate in the heathen cults. Then began a systematic persecution organized by the authorities on the Synagogue, the first in its history.
The persecution was severe: was prohibited the participation in religious services (the believing Jews had to meet for their worship in secret), in the study of the Torah, in the preparation of the kosher food, even in the circumcision. Many were put to death for the refusal to abdicate God and to adore Zeus, the cult that Antiochus introduced everywhere (including in Judea). Apparently, it is one of these executed that Tobit buried. Then he remembered the words of the great prophet of the antiquity, who lived before the captivity, Amos, who, addressing the inhabitants of Jerusalem, said to them that on the Day of Judgment their joy shall be turned to sadness.
The persecutions of Antiochus seemed to many Jews the forerunner of the coming of the Messiah and the last Judgment. Tobit also saw things like that, that’s probably why he remembered the words of the old prophet. But unlike people of the pre-captivity period, he thought probably not of the heathen cults imposed by Antiochus, but of what preceded the persecutions, - the passion which embraced everybody of the Greek culture, the Greek traditions, the Hellenistic civilization, in the pursuit of good things for which many forgot their own traditions, and the faith of their fathers, and even the Torah.
Not only Tobit, but also many others saw in this denial the reason of the persecutions that befell the people. The pagan world, for which several Jews were fascinated in those days, unexpectedly turned to them its cruel inverse side. And many then understood that it is necessary to pay for everything in the world according to its laws. Only God gives to man free of charge all the fullness of His Kingdom.
