[Remember, the Jews were proxies for all of humanity, including you and me, and with every sin we commit, we too are Christ-killers. We should see ourselves in the baying crowd… and then repent and go to confession, and be washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Would that every Jew today would be converted to Christ and enter the Holy Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. —AB ‘26]
Office of Tenebrae, Good Friday, Reading 6
From the Treatise of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Upon the Psalms
On Psalm 63:
They whetted their tongue like a sword. The Jews cannot say: We did not murder Christ, albeit they gave Him over to Pilate His judge, that they themselves might seem free of His death. For when Pilate said unto them, Take ye Him: and kill Him, they answered, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. They could throw the blame of their sin upon a human judge: but did they deceive God, the Great Judge? In that which Pilate did, he was their accomplice, but in comparison with them, he had far the lesser sin. John xix. 11. Pilate strove as far as he could, to deliver Him out of their hands; for the which reason also he scourged Him, John xix. 1, and brought Him forth to them. He scourged not the Lord for cruelty’s sake, but in the hope that; he might so slake their wild thirst for blood: that, perchance, even they might be touched with compassion, and cease to lust for His death, when they saw What He was after the flagellation. Even this effort he made! But when Pilate saw that he could not prevail, but that rather a tumult was made, Matth. xxvii. 24, ye know how that he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this Just Person. And yet he delivered Him to be crucified! But if he were guilty who did it against his will, were they innocent; who goaded him on to it? No. Pilate gave sentence against Him. and commanded Him to be crucified. But ye, O ye Jews, ye also are His murderers! Wherewith? With your tongue, whetted like a sword. And when? But when ye cried, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Mark xv.13-14
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