Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Argumentum
Haggai is placed tenth among the Prophets, or, as it is written in Hebrew with the letter chet, חגי Chaggai, or Chaggaeus, meaning festive, one who celebrates a feast, from the root chagag, meaning he celebrated a feast, prophesying festively to the people joyfully returning from Babylon to Judea. "Haggai," says St. Jerome to Paulinus, "festive and joyful, who sowed in tears that he might reap in joy, rebuilds the destroyed temple, and introduces God the Father speaking: Yet a little while, and I will move heaven and earth, and the sea and the dry land, and I will move all nations, and the Desired of all nations shall come," namely the Messiah, or Christ. As to the time, Haggai prophesied shortly after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity. For when the Jewish commonwealth had been corrupted by vices, God cut it off and transferred it to Babylon, and there held them captive for 70 years, so that that entire old and corrupted generation might perish, and in their place sons untouched by these vices might succeed, so that a new people might arrive at the renewal of Jerusalem. Therefore they returned in the year of Cyrus; immediately they began to rebuild the temple and laid the foundations of it and of the altar. But when Cyrus was slain shortly after by Tomyris, queen of the Scythians, his son Cambyses succeeded him in the kingdom of Persia — or, as Ezra calls him, Ahasuerus in Chaldaic, Artaxerxes in Persian — who, persuaded by Sanballat and other Samaritan enemies of the Jews that the Jews were building a temple in appearance but in reality a fortress as if about to rebel, forbade them to proceed with the construction. Ezra narrates this at length in Book I, chapter IV, where he also adds in verse 24: "Then the work of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem was interrupted, and it was not done until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia." For the Jews, seeing so many and so great obstacles thrown in the way of the construction by Cambyses, Sanballat, and others, kept saying that its time had not yet come. Therefore God raised up Haggai in the second year of Darius, who would urge them to resume the construction of the temple. For this is what Ezra immediately adds in chapter V, 1: "Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judea and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jozadak, rose up and began to build the house of God in Jerusalem, and with them the prophets of God helping them." And he adds in chapter VI that God turned the mind of Darius, so that he not only permitted the construction of the temple, but also promoted it by his edict, commanding that expenses necessary for the construction and sacrifices be provided from the royal tributes. Where St. Jerome rightly observes in the Prologue: "It should be known," he says, "that Haggai and Zechariah were prophets of great spirit, in that against the mighty edict of King Artaxerxes, and the Samaritans and all the surrounding nations impeding the building of the temple, they commanded the temple to be built; and Zerubbabel also, and Joshua the son of Jozadak, and the people who were with them, were of no lesser faith, in that they obeyed the prophets commanding rather than the prohibition of the king." And he adds, following the Chronicle of Eusebius, that these things occurred "at the time when among the Romans Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh king from Romulus, reigned, having the twenty-seventh year of his rule, who eight years later was expelled by Brutus; and after that the consuls administered the republic for four hundred and sixty-four years until Julius Caesar."
Therefore from this second year of Darius until the forty-second year of Augustus Caesar, in which Christ is said to have been born, 518 years elapsed; thus by so many years did Haggai's prophecy concerning Christ precede Him.
Furthermore, it contains four parts, or visions: the first three refute three excuses of the Jews for delaying the construction of the temple; in the fourth he promises to Zerubbabel, who was resuming the construction, that Christ would be born from his lineage, who would adorn this temple with His presence, teaching, and miracles, and would make it more glorious than the former temple built by Solomon, and would exalt the throne of His kingdom above all the kingdoms of the nations, having subdued them.
Mystically, Haggai, say St. Jerome, Cyril, and Rupert, desires that Jesus and Zerubbabel — that is, Jesus Christ the Son of God, the supreme priest, such as was Joshua the son of Jozadak, and equally the supreme prince, such as was Zerubbabel — build the house of God, that is, His body, for Himself and for us in the Incarnation.
Tropologically, that God may build for Himself in a faithful and holy soul a temple of virtues, say the same St. Jerome and Remigius.
Finally, Haggai was so illustrious, holy, and wise that Origen judged him, along with Malachi and John the Baptist, to have been not men but incarnate angels, as Gabriel Vasquez reports in Part I, tome I, disputation 184, number 7, and others; indeed even St. Jerome in chapter I, 13. Origen's reasoning was that in chapter I, 13, Haggai is called an angel in Hebrew: "And he said," it reads, "Haggai, the messenger (in Hebrew מלאך malach, that is, angel) of the Lord, from the messengers of the Lord." But this is an error: for it is certain that all the Prophets were men, not angels. Epiphanius briefly describes Haggai's life in his book On the Life of the Prophets: "Haggai the prophet, quite young, set out from Babylon for Jerusalem, and freely prophesied about the return of the people. And with his own eyes he saw the construction of the temple of Jerusalem. He himself was the very first there to sing the Alleluia. In that same place, therefore, he ended his life, and was buried in the ground near the priests with honor and glory. Hence even today we sing the Alleluia, which hymn is attributed to Haggai and Zechariah." St. Dorotheus relates the same things, and adds that he prophesied about Christ under the person of Zerubbabel in chapter II, 24, when he says: "I will make you as a signet ring, because I have chosen you, says the Lord; just as John the Evangelist says: For Him God the Father has sealed." Isidore also agrees, and adds that he was born in Babylon and returned as a young man with the other Jews to Jerusalem. Haggai is found inscribed in the Catalogue of Saints together with Hosea in the Roman Martyrology on July 4. Some think that certain psalms were composed by Haggai, namely Psalm 111, which is inscribed: Alleluia, of the return of Haggai and Zechariah; and Psalm 145, whose title likewise is: Alleluia, of Haggai and Zechariah. The same title appears on Psalms 146, 147, and 148 in the Greek Vatican codices of the Septuagint. Some add Psalm 137, which in the same codices is inscribed: A Psalm of David himself, of Haggai and Zechariah. But others commonly hold that these psalms were not composed but sung by the people returning from Babylon, with Haggai and Zechariah leading the singing, since they are festive and eucharistic, and therefore suited to this subject matter and to the joy of the returning people — about which more can be found in the Psalms. When you hear that Haggai was the first to sing the Alleluia in Jerusalem, understand this as the first since the return from Babylon. For before the captivity the Alleluia was in use, as is clear from the psalms, in which the Alleluia resounds frequently; or perhaps that he was the first to add the Alleluia after the psalms, on account of the joyful return from Babylon.