{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6415","native_reference":{"book_number":420,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":4,"verse_to":4},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: 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.<br/><i>— LETTER 140:30</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: 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.\"<br/><i>— LETTER 190</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: 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.<br/><i>— TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF John 50:6</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: 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.<br/><i>— SERMON ON THE MOUNT 5:13</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: \"And if you will not believe, neither will you understand.\" Also the Lord in the Gospel: \"For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins.\" Moreover, righteousness should subsist by faith. In it was life, as predicted in Habakkuk: \"Now the just shall live by faith in me.\" Hence Abraham, the father of the nations, believed. In Genesis \"Abraham believed in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.\" In like manner Paul wrote to the Galatians: \"Abraham 'believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.' So you see, those of faith are the descendants of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.' So then, those who are people of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith.\"<br/><i>— Treatise XII. Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews 12:1.5</i></p><p><b>Leo the Great</b>: And hence Tobias also, while instructing his son in the precepts of godliness, says, \"Give alms of your substance, and turn not your face from any poor man. So shall it come to pass that the face of God shall not be turned from you.\" This virtue makes all virtues profitable, for by its precepts it gives life to that very faith by which \"the just lives\" and which is said to be \"dead without works.\" As the reason for works consists in faith, so the strength of faith consists in works.<br/><i>— SERMON 10:4</i></p><p><b>Theodore of Mopsuestia</b>: \"But the righteous one will live from my faith.\" So even if someone should be uncertain in their trust in the future and doubt if it will really happen, such a one is very much the object of dislike to me, because I define a righteous person as one who trusts in the promises and gets benefit from them.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Habakkuk 2:1-4</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"4fa380f1bd9b5d0b535875cd7f3f31c85ebd4297c888d156b6ff0ed588e56b9f","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6415,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"dc29b48e167b6040c364f99c58c7163c6ac14b5e773a7bdf1fdf775db16067fc","translator":null,"work":null}