The Book of Tobit 3:16 Коментар

It is not only the high priest who prays with those who truly pray, but also the angels, who “have joy in heaven on one sinner who repents, more than on ninety-nine just who need no repentance, and the souls of the saints who have passed away. This is clear from the case of Raphael offering a reasonable sacrifice to God for Tobias and Sarah. For the Scripture says that after they had prayed, “the prayers of them both were heard in the sight of the glory of the great Raphael, and he was sent to heal them both.” And Raphael, in revealing to them his mission to them both, enjoined on him as an angel by God, says, “When you prayed, you and your daughter-in-law Sarah, I offered the memory of your prayer before the Holy One”; and a little further on: “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who hear the prayers of the saints and enter before the glory of the Holy One.” And so, according to the word of Raphael, “prayer is good with fasting and alms and justice.” And in the case of Jeremiah, who appears in the Maccabees as “admirable for age and glory” so that “an extraordinary dignity and greatness” was about him, and who “stretched forth his right hand and gave to Judas a sword of gold”21—to him another holy man who had died bore witness saying, “This is he who prays much for the people and for all the holy city, Jeremiah the prophet of God.”