Habacuque 2
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Habacuque 2:1
Where, then, did I find you in order to learn about you? For you were not already in my memory before I learned of you. Where, then, did I find you in order to learn about you, unless in yourself above me? Yet there is no place. We go backward and we go forward, yet there is no place. O truth, you do preside over all things, even those that take counsel with you, and you do answer in the same time all who consult you, however diverse their questions. You do answer clearly, but all do not hear clearly. All seek counsel concerning what they wish, but they do not always hear what they wish. He serves you best who does not so much expect to hear the thing from you that he himself desires, but rather to desire what he hears from you. — Confessions 10.26
Habacuque 2:2-3
Of what else than the advent of Christ, who was to come, is Habakkuk understood to say, "And the Lord answered me, and said, 'Write the vision openly on a tablet of boxwood so that the one who reads these things may understand.' " For the vision is yet for a time appointed, and it will arise in the end, and it will not become void. If it delays, wait for it, because it will surely come and will not be delayed. — City of God 18.31
Habacuque 2:4
Therefore pride is contrary to this justice of God, because it puts its trust in its own works. Thus the psalm continues, "Let not the foot of pride come to me." This justice is the grace of the New Testament, by which the faithful are just, while they live by faith, until, by the perfection of justice, they are brought to the face-to-face vision, as they are also equally brought to immortality of the body itself, by the perfection of salvation. — LETTER 140:30
Habacuque 2:4
Those just people also were saved by their salutary faith in him as man and God who, before he came in the flesh, believed that he was to come in the flesh. Our faith is the same as theirs, since they believed that this would be, while we believe that it has come to pass. Hence the apostle Paul says, "But having the same spirit of faith, as it is written: 'I believed for which cause I have spoken,' we also believe for which cause we speak also." If, then, those who foretold that Christ would come in the flesh had the same faith as those who have recorded his coming, these religious mysteries could vary according to the diversity of times, yet all refer most harmoniously to the unity of the same faith. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles that the apostle Peter said, "Now therefore why do you make trial of your God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus just as they will." If, therefore, they, that is, the fathers, being unable to bear the yoke of the old law, believed that they were saved through grace of the Lord Jesus, it is clear that this grace saved even the just people of old through faith, for "the just man lives by faith." — LETTER 190
Habacuque 2:4
But "Mary," the other sister of Lazarus, "took a pound of perfume made from costly, pistic, aromatic nard. She anointed Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the ointment fragrance." We have heard what happened; let us search out the hidden meaning. You, whoever wishes to be a faithful soul, together with Mary anoint the Lord's feet with costly perfume. That perfume was justice, and so it was a full pound. However, it was perfume made from costly, pistic, aromatic nard. What does "pistic" mean? We might believe it to be some place in which this was costly perfume; and yet this is not an idle phrase and is quite well consonant with the mystery. The Greek word means "faith." You were seeking to work justice: "the just man lives by faith." Anoint Jesus' feet by living well. Follow the Lord's footsteps. Wipe with your hair. If you have more than enough, give to the poor, and you have wiped the Lord's feet. For hairs seem to be the body's superfluity. For you they are superfluous, but for the Lord's feet they are necessary. Perhaps on earth the Lord's feet are in need. For about whom except about his members will he say in the end, "When you did it for one of the least of mine, you did it for me"? You spent your superfluity, but you gave service to my feet. — TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 50:6
Habacuque 2:4
For it is not simply the enduring of such things that is advantageous, but the bearing of such things for the name of Christ not only with a tranquil mind, even with exultation. For many heretics, deceiving souls under the Christian name, endure many such things; but they are excluded from that reward on this account, that it is not said merely, "Blessed are they which endure persecution," but it is added, "for righteousness' sake." Now, where there is not sound faith, there can be no righteousness, for the just man lives by faith. Neither let schismatics promise themselves anything of that reward; for similarly, where there is no love there cannot be righteousness, for "love works no ill to his neighbor." And if they had it, they would not tear in pieces Christ's body, which is the church. — SERMON ON THE MOUNT 5:13