The Book of Faith

BOOK III, CHAPTER FOUR

THE ONCE-CHOSEN PEOPLE

ARE NOW THE ACCURSED RACE

Christ shall be slain, and the people who shall deny Him shall not be His. (Daniel 9:26)

The Gentiles have attained to justice, but Israel has not come unto the law of justice. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, for they stumbled at the Stumbing Stone. (Romans 9:30-32)

Our Lord Jesus Christ referred to Himself as "the Stone" (Mt. 21:44). Lying on the ground, it shakes whoever falls over it; coming from on high, it crushes the proud. The Jews have already been shaken by their previous stumble. What awaits them is to be crushed by His Coming. (St. Augustine)

Christ is the Stone which was rejected which has become the cornerstone: nor is there salvation in any other. For, there is no other name under Heaven whereby we must be saved. ( Acts 4:10-12)

Many shall come from the East and the West, and sit down in the kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out, into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (St. Matthew 8:11-12)

Early and often did the Lord send His messengers to them, for He had compassion on His people. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His warnings, and scoffed at His prophets, till the anger of the Lord against His people was so inflamed that there was no remedy. (II Paralipomenon 36:15-16)

Therefore, I say to you: the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof. (St. Matthew 21:43)

Do not add to your sins by saying that the Covenant is both theirs and ours. Yes, it is ours, but they lost it forever. (St. Barnabas)

Christ annuls the First Covenant to establish the Second. For, if that First Covenant had been faultless, then there would be no place for the Second. They did not persevere in My Covenant, saith the Lord, and I disregarded them. (Hebrews 10:9; 8:7-9)

So clearly was the transition then made from the Synagogue to the Church that, when the Lord gave up His soul, the veil of the Temple was rent in two. (Pope St. Leo the Great)

Since His spouse, the Synagogue, refused to receive Him, Christ answered: "This is a harlot!" and gave her a bill of divorce. (St. Vincent Ferrer)

Dreadful are the ends of a wicked race! (Wisdom 3:19)

Ungrateful for favors and forgetful of benefits, the Jews return insult for kindness and impious contempt for goodness. They ought to know the yoke of perpetual enslavement because of their guilt. See to it that the perfidious Jews never in the future grow insolent, but that they always suffer publicly the shame of their sin in servile fear. (Pope Gregory IX)

Crucifiers of Christ ought to be held in continual subjection. (Pope Innocent III)

It would be licit, according to custom, to hold Jews in perpetual servitude because of their crime. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Let the Gospel be preached to them and, if they remain obstinate, let them be expelled. (Pope Leo VII)

Let their eyes be dim so that they cannot see, and let them walk bent-backed forever with a heavy load. (Psalm 68:24)

The Jews wander over the entire earth, their backs bent over and their eyes cast downward, forever calling to our minds the curse they carry with them. (St. Augustine)

As wanderers, they must remain upon the earth until their faces are filled with shame and they seek the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Pope Innocent III)

Thou shalt eat bread and cover it with the dung that comes out of a man. Thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread all filthy among the nations wither I will cast them out, saith the Lord. (Ezechiel 4:12-13)

The Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and have persecuted us, do not please God, and they have become adversaries to all men, to fill up their sin always; for the wrath of God has come upon them to the end. (I Thessalonians 2:14-16)

One who dies a Jew will be damned. (St. Vincent Ferrer)

Those of the seed of Abraham who live according to the Law of Moses and who do not believe in Christ before death shall not be saved; especially they who curse this very Christ in the synagogues; who curse everything by which they might obtain salvation and escape the vengeance of fire. (St. Justin the Martyr)

Cursed shall you be in the city, cursed in the field. Cursed be your barn and your stores. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep. Cursed shall you be coming in and cursed going out. (Deuteronomy 28:16-19)

Jews are cursed and covered with malediction. The curse has penetrated them like water in their bowels and oil in their bones. They are cursed in the city and cursed in the country, cursed in their coming in and cursed in their going out. Cursed are the fruits of their loins, of their lands, of their flocks; cursed are their cellars, their granaries, their shops, their food, the very crumbs off their tables! (St. Agobard)

The most holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the Mosaic Law cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. Every one, therefore, who observes circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the Law, the Church declares not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation (Council of Florence)

No man cometh to the Father but by Me. (St. John 14:6)

Whosoever denies the Son does not have the Father. (I St. John 2:23)

He who honors not the Son, honors not the Father Who sent Him. He who hates Me, hates My Father also. (St. John 5:23; 15:23)

If any man love not Our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. (I Corinthians 16:22)

O Jewish hearts, harder than rocks! (St. Ambrose)

For all the House of Israel is a hard forehead and an obstinate heart. (Ezechiel 3:7)

O intelligence coarse, dense, and cow-like, which did not recognize God even in His own works! Perhaps the Jew will complain that I call his intelligence bovine, but his intelligence is less than bovine: "The ox knows his Owner, and the ass knows his Master's crib, but Israel has not known Me, and My people have not understood" (Isaias 1:3). You see, O Jew, I am easier on you than your own prophet! (St. Bernard)

Canon Law forbids all intercourse with Jews. (St. Bernardine of Feltre)

Indeed, if any one of the clergy or faithful has taken a meal with Jews, he is to abstain from Communion so that he may be reformed. (Council of Elvira)

How dare Christians have the slightest intercourse with Jews! They are lustful, rapacious, greedy, perfidious bandits: pests of the universe! Their synagogue is a house of prostitution, the domicile of the devil, as is the soul of the Jew. As a matter of fact, Jews worship the devil; their religion is a disease, their synagogue an abyss of perdition. The rejection and dispersion of the Jews was done by the wrath of God because of His absolute abandonment of the Jews. God hates the Jews, and on Judgment Day will say to those who sympathize with them: "Depart from Me, for you have had intercourse with My murderers!" Flee, then, from their assemblies, fly from their houses, and hold their synagogue in hatred and aversion. (St. John Chrysostom)

Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed, Judas is the image of the Jewish people: their understanding of Scripture is carnal; they bear the guilt for the death of the Savior, for through their fathers they have killed Christ. The Jews held Him; the Jews insulted Him; the Jews bound Him; they crowned Him with thorns; they scourged Him; they hanged Him upon a tree. (St. Augustine)

Jews are slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, enemies and haters of God, adversaries of grace, enemies of their fathersÆ faith, advocates of the devil, a brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men of darkened minds, the leaven of Pharisees, a congregation of demons, sinners, wicked men, haters of goodness! (St. Gregory of Nyssa)

Woe to the sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children. They have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they have gone away backwards. And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away My eyes from you, saith the Lord; and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood. (Isaias 1:4,15)

And such are the prayers of the Jews, for when they stretch forth their hands in prayer, they only remind God-the-Father of their sin against His Son. And at every stretching-forth of their hands, they only make it obvious that they are stained with the blood of Christ. For they who persevere in their blindness inherit the blood-guilt of their fathers; for they cried out: "His blood be on us and on our children" (Mt. 27:25). (St. Basil the Great)

Poor Jews! You invoked a dreadful curse upon your own heads; and that curse, miserable race, you carry upon you to this day, and to the End of Time you shall endure the chastisement of that innocent blood! (St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori)

REFERENCES

BOOK III, CHAPTER FOUR

1. Augustine: Sermon 91, PL38:567

2. Barnabas: TAF; attributed to St. Barnabas

3. Leo the Great: Sermon CLXVIII; BVM vol.II, p.119

4. Vincent: ACS p.82

5. Gregory IX: "Epistle to the Hierarchy of Germany," in 1233 A.D., ANNALES ECCLESIASTICI, Cardinal Caesar Baronius, ed. August Theiner, 1864, vol.I

6. Innocent III: "Epistle to the Hierarchy of France," July 15, 1205, PL 215

7. Thomas: "De Regimine Judaeorum"

8. Leo VII: REG. PONTIF., vol.I:3597, Jaffe, Leipzig: 1888

9. Augustine: "Against the Jews," PL 42:51

10. Innocent III: "Epistle to the Count of Nevers," 1208, PL 215