Isaías 29
Cyprian · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Isaías 29:10
Not to recognize sins lest penance follow is the wrath of God, as it is written: "And the Lord gave to them the spirit of a deep sleep," lest they actually return and be cured and be healed by their lamentations and just satisfactions after their sins.…The first degree of felicity is not to sin; the second, to recognize the sins committed. In the former, innocence runs upright and unimpaired to save; in the latter, there follows the remedy to cure. They have lost both of these by offending God.… Or do you think, brother, that crimes against God are light matters, small and of little moment, because through them the majesty of an offended God is not sought, because the wrath and fire and day of the Lord are not feared, because, with Antichrist at hand, the faith of a militant people is disarmed while vigor and the fear of Christ are taken away? — Epistle LIV:13
Isaías 29:11
Isaiah [prophesied] that the Jews would not understand the holy Scriptures, but that they would become intelligible in the last times, after Christ had come: "And all these words shall be to you as the words of a book that is sealed, which, if you shall give to a man that knows letters to read, he shall say, I cannot read, for it is sealed.… But in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and they who are in darkness and in a cloud; the eyes of the blind shall see." — Treatise XII. Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews 1:4
Isaías 29:13
What is this obstinacy or what is this presumption to place human tradition before the divine plan and not to notice that God is offended and angered as often as human tradition subverts and disregards the divine precepts? He cries and says through Isaiah, the prophet, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far separated from me. In vain, moreover, they honor me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men." — Epistle LXXIII:3
Isaías 29:14
Philosophers also declare that they pursue this virtue, but their patience is as false as is their wisdom, for how can anyone be either wise or patient unless he knows the wisdom and patience of God? For he himself warns and states concerning those who think that they are wise in this world: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject." … Therefore, if their wisdom is not true, their patience cannot be true either. For if that man who is humble and meek is patient, and yet we see that the philosophers are not humble or meek but very pleasing to themselves, and displeasing to God by the very fact that they are pleasing to themselves, it is evident that patience is not found where there is the arrogant boldness of an affected freedom and the shameless boasting of the proud and half-naked breast. — Treatise IX. On the Advantage of Patience 2