Ambrose of Milan

In his own words on Habakkuk

• Habakkuk 2:6

  Let your people not desire many things, for the reason that few things are many to them. Poverty and riches are names that imply want and satiety. He is not rich who wants anything, nor poor who does not want. Let no one spurn a widow or cheat an orphan or defraud his neighbor. Woe to him who has a fortune amassed by deceit and builds in blood a city, in other words, his soul. For it is this that is built like a city. Greed does not build it but sets it on fire and burns it. Do you wish to build your city well? "Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasures without fear." The riches of a person ought to work for the redemption of his soul, not to its destruction. Wealth is redemption if one uses it well; so too it is a snare if one does not know how to use it. For what is a person's money if not provision for the journey?

  LETTER 15

• Habakkuk 2:11

  Helena adored the king, not the wood [of the cross], indeed, because this is an error of the Gentiles and a vanity of the wicked. But she adored him who hung on the tree, whose name was inscribed in the title; him, I say, as a scarab, cried out to his Father to forgive the sins of his persecutors. The woman eagerly hastened to touch the remedy of immortality, but she feared to trample under the foot the mystery of salvation. Joyful at heart, yet with anxious step, she knew not what she should do. She proceeded, however, to the resting place of truth. The wood shone, and grace flashed forth. And, as before, Christ had visited as woman Mary, so the spirit visited a woman in Helena. He taught her what as a woman she did not know and led her upon a way that no mortal could know.

  ON THE DEATH OF THEODOSIUS 46

• Habakkuk 3:7

  We meanwhile, exposed to the outbreaks of the barbarians and the storms of war, are tossing in the midst of troubles, and from these toils and dangers can only gather that those of our future life will be still more grievous. Wherefore that saying of the Prophet seems to accord with our condition, "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction." For since I have now lived in the body fifty and three years, among the shadows of this world, whereby the truth of future perfection is obscured, and have already endured such heavy afflictions, am I not camping in the tents of Cushan, and having my habitation among the dwellers of Midian? For these, owing to their consciousness of their darksome works, dread being judged even by mortal men, "but he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man."

  Letter 59

• Habakkuk 3:15

  For a soul that is at peace quickly turns and corrects itself, even if it has sinned before, and Christ ascends to it more fully and deigns to rule it, to which it is said: "Mount your horses, your chariot of health." And elsewhere: "I have sent forth your horses to Tharsis." Behold the horses of Christ. Thus, Christ ascends his horses, the Word of God ascends to holy souls.

  On Isaac and the Soul 8.66