Selections of María de Jesús de Ágreda’s Writings on the Jews

Compiled from City of God (Mística Ciudad de Dios), English translation by Fiscar Marison [Rev. George J. Blatter], First Complete Edition (4 vols.), and La Cité Mystique de Dieu, French translation by R. P. Croset, O.F.M., Bibliothèque Franciscaine edition (6 vols.). All passages are direct quotations from the scanned texts. English translations of French passages are provided immediately after each original.

Preface: The Shape of the Corpus

María de Jesús de Ágreda (1602–1665), born María Coronel in Ágreda (Soria), was a Spanish Franciscan abbess and mystic whose principal work, Mística Ciudad de Dios (City of God, 1670, posthumous), purports to be a complete supernaturally revealed biography of the Virgin Mary, dictated to the author by the Virgin herself over the course of many years. Condemned initially by the Sorbonne and the Spanish Inquisition, rehabilitated by Philip IV of Spain and a succession of Franciscan theologians, and finally placed on the Index under Innocent XI before being removed under Alexander VIII, the work has occupied an ambiguous position at the margins of approved Catholic mystical literature ever since. It was translated into French by R. P. Croset in the nineteenth century and into English by Rev. George J. Blatter (writing as Fiscar Marison) in the early twentieth.

The Adversus Judaeos content of the City of God is not incidental. It runs through the Passion narrative (Volumes III–IV of the English edition; Tomes IV–VI of the French) as a continuous thread of theological commentary, in which the mystical narrator — Mary herself, speaking to the author — provides a running interpretation of the events of the Passion and their permanent significance for the Jewish people. The work operates in seven registers:

  1. Deicide and collective guilt — the crucifixion presented as the defining crime of the Jewish nation, explicitly taken upon themselves and their children by their own words.
  2. Divine punishment and hereditary disease — supernatural chastisements visited on those who killed Christ, explicitly said to have descended to Jewish posterity and to persist to the present day.
  3. Jews as demonically transformed — the Jews present at the Passion described as having been “clothed in the guise of demons, or rather transformed into demons,” their cruelty exceeding natural human capacity.
  4. Jews as instruments of Lucifer — Lucifer depicted as recruiting the Jews, exploiting their avarice and ambition, and directing their persecution of the Church across centuries.
  5. Spiritual blindness and obstinacy — the Jews‘ failure to recognise Christ presented not as intellectual error but as a morally caused incapacity, deepened by sin and outrageous perfidy.
  6. Supersessionism — the explicit transfer of the true religion from the Synagogue to the Church, the Jews‘ loss characterised as divinely just dispossession consequent on deicide.
  7. Perpetual enmity — the Jews identified as permanent enemies of the Church whose perfidy spans sixteen centuries and continues into the author’s own day.

Twenty-seven verified passages are presented below, ordered thematically. Each entry includes the text as it appears in the English translation and, where a corresponding French version provides additional clarity or detail, the French original with a facing English translation. The chapter and paragraph number from each edition are given as source references.

I. “The sin of the infidel Jews in taking away the life of their God” — Deicide as the Most Heinous Crime

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §221 (English, tr. Marison); La Cité Mystique, Tome IV, §932 (French, tr. Croset)

English

“The faithful in the Church make much of the sin of the infidel Jews in taking away the life of their God and Master. They are right in doing so, for it was a most heinous crime and merited the punishments decreed against that people.”

French

«Les fidèles aggravent fort dans la sainte Église le crime que les Juifs incrédules ont commis en faisant mourir leur Dieu et leur Maître. Assurément il fut énorme, et il devait leur attirer le châtiment auquel ils ont été condamnés; mais les catholiques ne remarquent pas que leurs péchés sont accompagnés de circonstances particulières qui les rendent plus odieux que les attentats dont se sont rendus coupables les Juifs.»

Translation of French

“The faithful greatly aggravate in the holy Church the crime which the unbelieving Jews committed in putting to death their God and their Master. Assuredly it was enormous, and it was fitting that it should draw down upon them the punishment to which they have been condemned; but Catholics do not notice that their own sins are accompanied by particular circumstances which make them more odious than the outrages of which the Jews made themselves guilty.”

Note

The structural claim of this passage — the foundational assertion of the entire adversus Judaeos thread in the City of God — is that the killing of Christ by the Jews was a “most heinous crime” that “merited” divinely decreed punishments. The word merited is precise and carries full theological weight: the punishments are not incidental misfortunes but justly proportionate consequences. The passage then uses this established baseline to conduct a a fortiori argument against sinful Catholics — but the Jewish guilt is not relativised in the process; it remains the reference point against which all other moral failures are measured.

II. “O perfidious and sacrilegious Jews!” — The Blood Curse

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §§614–615 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1326 (French)

English

“The wrath of the Jews was so blind and foolish that for the satisfaction of seeing Jesus crucified, they entered upon this agreement with Pilate and took upon themselves and upon their children the responsibility for this crime. Loudly proclaiming this terrible sentence and curse, they exclaimed: ‘His blood come upon us and upon our children’ (Matth. 27, 25).

O most foolish and cruel blindness! O inconceivable rashness! The unjust condemnation of the Just and the blood of the Innocent, whom the judge himself is forced to proclaim guiltless, you wish to take upon yourselves and upon your children, in order that his blood may call out against you to the end of the world! O perfidious and sacrilegious Jews! So lightly then weighs the blood of the Lamb, who bears the sins of the world, and the life of a Man, who is at the same time God! How is it possible you wish to load with it yourselves and your children? If He had been only your brother, your benefactor and master, your audacity would have been tremendous and your malice execrable. Justly indeed do you merit the punishment which you meet; and that the burden, which you have put upon yourselves and your children, allows you no rest or relief in all the world: it is just that this burden should rest upon you heavier than heaven and earth.”

French

«O stupide et cruel aveuglement! O témérité inouïe! Vous voulez assumer sur vous et sur vos enfants l’injuste condamnation du juste et le sang de l’innocent, que le juge lui-même déclare être sans crime, afin que ce sang crie contre vous jusqu’à la fin du monde! O Juifs perfides et sacrilèges! croyez-vous donc que le sang de l’Agneau qui lave les péchés du monde, et la vie d’un homme qui est en même temps vrai Dieu, soient d’un poids si léger? Quoi! est-il possible que vous vouliez ainsi vous en charger, vous et vos enfants! Quand il ne serait que votre frère, que votre bienfaiteur, que votre maître, votre inhumanité et votre malice seraient déjà monstrueuses et exécrables. Certes, le châtiment que vous subissez est bien juste: il faut que le sang de Jésus-Christ, que vous avez voulu faire retomber sur vous et sur vos enfants, ne vous laisse jouir d’aucun repos en nul endroit du monde, et que cette charge, qui pèse plus que les cieux et que la terre, vous abatte et vous écrase.»

Translation of French

“O stupid and cruel blindness! O unheard-of temerity! You wish to take upon yourselves and upon your children the unjust condemnation of the Just One and the blood of the Innocent, whom the judge himself declares to be without crime, so that this blood may cry out against you until the end of the world! O perfidious and sacrilegious Jews! Do you then believe that the blood of the Lamb who washes away the sins of the world, and the life of a man who is at the same time true God, weigh so lightly? What! Is it possible that you wish to burden yourselves and your children with it! Even if he had been only your brother, your benefactor, your master, your inhumanity and your malice would already be monstrous and execrable. Assuredly the punishment you suffer is entirely just: the blood of Jesus Christ, which you wished to make fall upon yourselves and upon your children, must leave you no rest anywhere in the world, and that burden, which weighs more than heaven and earth, must crush and overwhelm you.”

Note

This is the central adversus Judaeos passage of the entire work, and the most vehement. The narrator — the Virgin Mary speaking directly to the author — addresses the Jews of the Passion scene in the second person, as though the scene were perpetually present. The phrase allows you no rest or relief in all the world transforms the blood curse of Matthew 27:25 from a historical event into a theological state: the Jews‘ dispersal and restlessness are re-read as the direct and ongoing fulfilment of a self-invoked curse, not merely Roman punishment. The double direct address — O most foolish and cruel blindness and O perfidious and sacrilegious Jews — breaks from narrative into apostrophe, giving the passage the character of a formal theological indictment.

III. “The Jews were the principal actors and more guilty” — Jewish Primary Responsibility for the Condemnation

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §618 (English)

English

“It is true that the Jews were the principal actors and more guilty in the condemnation of the innocent Godman, and that they themselves expressly charged themselves with its guilt.”

Note

The term principal actors operates as a juridical distinction: among the parties involved in the condemnation — Judas, Pilate, the Pharisees, the crowd — the Jews are identified as the primary culpable agents. Pilate’s own guilt is acknowledged in the surrounding paragraph, but it is explicitly subordinated to that of the Jews. This legal precision — the assignment of principal as opposed to accessory guilt — is characteristic of the scholastic tradition within which Ágreda was trained, and it places the passage firmly within the classical adversus Judaeos argument on deicide responsibility.

IV. “Transformed into demons” — The Jews as Demonic at the Passion

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §624 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1335 (French)

English

“Their anger and wrath against the most meek Master was not human, not such as ordinarily is appeased by the overthrow and humiliation of the enemy. For men have hearts of flesh, and the love of their own kind is natural and the source of at least some compassion. But these perfidious Jews were clothed in the guise of demons, or rather transformed into demons, who exert the more furious rage against those who are rendered more helpless and wretched; who, when they see any one most helpless, say: let us pursue him now, since he has none to defend nor free him from our hands.”

French

«Mais ces perfides Juifs étaient comme transformés en démons, qui s’irritent davantage contre celui qui est le plus affligé et le plus humilié, et quand ils le voient dans un plus grand abandonnement, c’est alors qu’ils disent: Persécutons-le maintenant qu’il n’a personne qui le défende, et qui le délivre de nos mains.»

Translation of French

“But these perfidious Jews were as though transformed into demons, who rage all the more furiously against one who is most afflicted and most humiliated; and when they see him most forsaken, it is then that they say: Let us persecute him now that he has no one to defend him or deliver him from our hands.”

Note

The phrase transformed into demons is not rhetorical intensification but a specific supernatural claim: the Jews present at the Passion have undergone a moral-ontological transformation under diabolical influence. The passage distinguishes carefully between natural human wrath — which can be appeased by the sight of suffering — and the Jews‘ wrath, which is intensified by it. This is presented as evidence that the passion animating them is not human but demonic in origin. The conjunction or rather (seu potius in the underlying Latin tradition) is a classical rhetorical correction that escalates from simile to identity: they are not like demons but have actually become demons.

V. “Lucifer inspired them with his own dreadful malice” — Lucifer as Director of the Passion

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §625 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1336 (French)

English

“Such was the implacable fury of the priests and of their confederates, the pharisees, against the Author of life. For Lucifer, despairing of being able to hinder his murder by the Jews, inspired them with his own dreadful malice and outrageous cruelty.”

French

«Telle était la rage implacable des pontifes et des pharisiens leurs complices contre l’Auteur de la vie; car Lucifer, désespérant désormais d’empêcher sa mort, que les Juifs prétendaient, les irritait avec une horrible malice, afin qu’ils la lui donnassent avec une cruauté inouïe.»

Translation of French

“Such was the implacable rage of the chief priests and of the Pharisees their accomplices against the Author of life; for Lucifer, despairing of being able to prevent the death which the Jews demanded, goaded them with horrible malice so that they would inflict it with unheard-of cruelty.”

Note

This passage completes the theological architecture of §624: the demonic transformation of the Jews at the Passion was directly effected by Lucifer, who, having failed to prevent the crucifixion, redirected his energy toward maximising its cruelty. The Jews are simultaneously agents (they choose to act) and instruments (Lucifer operates through them). This dual status — morally responsible yet diabolically manipulated — is a characteristic adversus Judaeos formulation that preserves both Jewish culpability and the cosmic dimensions of the event.

VI. “Diseases descended to their posterity” — Hereditary Divine Punishment

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §65 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1424 (French)

English

“This chastisement was particularly evident in those who had actively concurred in procuring the death of Christ, and who had signalized themselves in their rabid fury against Him. All these fell to the ground on their faces and remained thus for three hours. Those that had scourged the Lord were suddenly choked in their own blood, which shot forth from their veins in punishment for shedding that of the Master. The audacious servant, who had buffeted the Lord, not only suddenly died, but was hurled into hell body and soul. Others of the Jews, although they did not die, were chastised with intense pains and abominable sicknesses. These disorders, consequent upon shedding the blood of Christ, descended to their posterity and even to this day continue to afflict their children with most horrible impurities. This chastisement became notorious in Jerusalem, although the priests and pharisees diligently sought to cover it up, just as they had tried to conceal the Resurrection of the Savior.”

French

«Plusieurs autres Juifs, tout en échappant à la mort, furent également châtiés par des douleurs internes, et par certaines maladies honteuses qui se sont transmises, à cause du sang de Jésus-Christ dont ils se chargèrent, jusqu’à leurs descendants, et qui infestent encore aujourd’hui leurs familles au point de les rendre des objets de dégoût et d’horreur.»

Translation of French

“Several other Jews, though escaping death, were likewise punished by internal pains and by certain shameful diseases which, on account of the blood of Jesus Christ with which they burdened themselves, have been transmitted to their descendants, and which still infest their families to this day to such a degree as to render them objects of disgust and horror.”

Note

This is the most radical passage in the corpus. The City of God here presents a supernatural aetiology for diseases afflicting Jewish families in the author’s own seventeenth century, tracing them causally to the guilt of the Passion. The French text, less encumbered by OCR degradation than the English, renders the hereditary dimension with particular clarity: transmises jusqu’à leurs descendants (“transmitted to their descendants”) and infestent encore aujourd’hui leurs familles (“still infest their families to this day”). The phrase de dégoût et d’horreur (“of disgust and horror”) introduces a tone of social revulsion that goes beyond theological condemnation. The passage explicitly claims to reveal information unknown to Scripture on the grounds of supernatural vision — the standard epistemological claim of the work as a whole.

VII. “Lucifer plotted to enlist the Jews, who clung to their obstinate perfidy” — The Post-Pentecost Deployment of Jews Against the Church

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §141 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §141 (French)

English

“He plotted to enlist the scribes and pharisees, and all of the Jews, whom he perceived still clinging to their obstinate perfidy. He betook himself to them and by many suggestions filled them with envy and hatred against the Apostles and the faithful of the Church; thus, through the unbelievers, he roused the persecution, which he could not begin himself.”

Note

The phrase obstinate perfidy collapses two distinct concepts into a single indictment: the Jews‘ rejection of Christ is at once an intellectual failing (they refuse to see truth) and a moral one (they persist in it against available evidence). The pattern established here — Lucifer finding in the Jews a willing instrument for the persecution of the Church — becomes the template for the entire post-Resurrection narrative of the City of God, in which each successive persecution is attributed to the same mechanism.

VIII. “The avarice and ambition of the Jews“ — Diabolical Exploitation of Jewish Character

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §142 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §142 (French)

English

“These malicious suggestions appealed very strongly to the avarice and ambition of the Jews and therefore they accepted them readily as sane and as very conformable to their own desires. Hence arose the many meetings and cabals of the pharisees, sadducees, magistrates, and priests against the Apostles.”

French

«Ces malicieuses suggestions répondaient admirablement à l’avarice et à l’ambition aveugle des Juifs; aussi les reçurent-ils avec empressement comme des pensées très-raisonnables, et très-conformes à leurs désirs. Il s’ensuivit que les pharisiens, les sadducéens, les magistrats et les pontifes s’assemblèrent en grand nombre contre les apôtres.»

Translation of French

“These malicious suggestions answered admirably to the avarice and blind ambition of the Jews; and so they received them eagerly as very reasonable thoughts, entirely conformable to their desires. It followed that the Pharisees, Sadducees, magistrates and chief priests assembled in great numbers against the Apostles.”

Note

The characterisation of avarice and ambition as the defining Jewish traits exploited by Lucifer is not contextualised as the weakness of particular individuals: it is ascribed to the Jews collectively, as characteristics that made them uniformly receptive to diabolical suggestion. The French adds aveugle (blind) to ambition, reinforcing the connection to the spiritual blindness motif. The “many meetings and cabals” that follow are presented as the natural organisational expression of this combination of vices acting on diabolical suggestion.

IX. “Lucifer resolved to incite all the Jews to persecute the Church” — Jews as Instruments for the Destruction of Christianity

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §252 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §252 (French)

English

“He resolved to incite all the Jews to persecute the Church, until it should be destroyed together with the name of Christ.”

Note

The brevity of this sentence gives it the force of a strategic declaration: Lucifer’s plan is the total destruction of the Church by means of the Jewish people. The phrase all the Jews is absolute and makes no distinction between those Jews who had accepted Christianity and those who had not; the referent is the Jewish people as a collective instrument of diabolical will. This passage functions as the narrative prologue to the entire account of early Church persecution in Volume IV.

X. “Herod and many Jews who abhorred the Crucified” — Jews Designated as Lucifer’s Most Perfidious Agents

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §327 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §327 (French)

English

“Lucifer also pointed out to his demons unbelieving, perfidious, evil-minded and depraved men, whom they were to excite and provoke to envious wrath against the followers of Christ. Among these were Herod and many Jews, who abhorred the Crucified and wished to blot out his very name from the land of the living (Jer. 11, 19). They selected, both from the ones as from the others, the worst and most perfidious to act as helpers and instruments of their malice. In this way they began the persecution of the Church, and they continued in succeeding ages to use similar diabolical arts for the ruin of virtue, of the fruits of the Redemption and the blood of Christ.”

French

«Lucifer signala aussi quelques hommes incrédules, perfides, mal intentionnés et déréglés, auxquels ses démons devraient exciter et irriter l’envie et la haine contre les disciples du Christ. Il désigna plusieurs Juifs, à cause de la haine qu’ils avaient contre le même Seigneur qu’ils avaient crucifié, et dont ils prétendaient anéantir jusqu’au nom. Il choisit les pires et les plus perfides pour servir d’auxiliaires à sa malice. Par là il commença la persécution de l’Église, et il continua dans les siècles suivants à employer les mêmes arts diaboliques pour ruiner la vertu, les fruits de la Rédemption et le sang de Jésus-Christ.»

Translation of French

“Lucifer also designated some unbelieving, perfidious, ill-intentioned and depraved men, on whom his demons were to excite and inflame envy and hatred against the disciples of Christ. He designated several Jews, on account of the hatred they bore against the same Lord whom they had crucified, and whose very name they sought to annihilate. He chose the worst and most perfidious to serve as auxiliaries of his malice. By this means he began the persecution of the Church, and he continued in succeeding ages to employ the same diabolical arts for the ruin of virtue, of the fruits of the Redemption, and of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Note

This passage consolidates the Jews‘ role in the cosmic war against the Church: they are not only the instruments of the Passion but the ongoing instruments of diabolical persecution across all subsequent centuries. The phrase continued in succeeding ages is the key theological claim, extending the specific guilt of the Passion into a permanent characterological verdict on the Jewish people as a whole. The selection of “the worst and most perfidious” among the Jews as primary agents implies that the general Jewish population shares the relevant traits, from which the worst examples are merely drawn.

XI. “The perfidy of the Jews, the idolatry of the Romans” — Jewish Perfidy as an Enduring Historical Force

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §355 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §355 (French)

English

“All the faithful Catholics may see with their own eyes the wonderful preservation of this sanctuary, since it has remained intact and uninjured for more than sixteen hundred years amid all the perfidy of the Jews, the idolatry of the Romans, the heresy of the Arians, and the savage fury of the Moors and pagans; and still greater would the astonishment of Catholics be, if they could know of the plots and schemes which all hell has fabricated in different ages through the hands of these infidel nations for the destruction of this sanctuary.”

French

«maintenu inébranlable, intact depuis plus de mille six cents ans parmi la perfidie des Juifs, l’idolâtrie des Romains, l’hérésie des Ariens et la fureur barbare des Maures; mais l’admiration des catholiques serait encore plus grande s’ils connaissaient en détail les moyens et les artifices que les enfers conjurés ont inventés à diverses époques pour détruire ce sanctuaire par la main de tous ces infidèles et de toutes ces nations.»

Translation of French

“…maintained unshaken and intact for more than sixteen hundred years amid the perfidy of the Jews, the idolatry of the Romans, the heresy of the Arians, and the barbarous fury of the Moors; but the admiration of Catholics would be still greater if they knew in detail the means and artifices that conspiring hell has invented at various epochs to destroy this sanctuary through the hands of all these infidels and all these nations.”

Note

The positioning of la perfidie des Juifs as the first and therefore most prominent item in the enumeration of historical threats is significant: the Jews are named before pagans, heretics, and Moors, and are the only group identified by a theological moral quality (perfidy) rather than by their religious error (idolatry, heresy) or ethnic character (fureur barbare). This passage grounds the adversus Judaeos theology of the City of God in historical claim: the Jews have been active enemies of the Church for sixteen hundred years, operating as instruments of hell across all intervening generations.

XII. “The Jews, in the obscurity which envelops their hearts” — Perpetual Spiritual Blindness

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §50 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome IV, §214 (French)

English

“The Jews, in the obscurity which envelops their hearts (Is. 6, 10), continue to believe. For to the present day they have not yet come to realize, that the glory, the majesty, and the power of the Redeemer, and the liberty which He is to bring to the world, is not of an earthly, temporal and perishable kind, but heavenly, spiritual and eternal; and that it is not intended alone for the Jews, although offered to them before all other nations, but indiscriminately for the whole human race descended from Adam.”

French

«les Juifs aveuglés par les ténèbres qui remplissent leurs cœurs continuent à croire. Car jusqu’à ce jour ils n’ont pas encore compris que la gloire, la majesté et la puissance du Rédempteur, et la liberté qu’il devait apporter au monde, ne sont pas d’une nature terrestre, temporelle et périssable, mais céleste, spirituelle et éternelle.»

Translation of French

“The Jews, blinded by the darkness that fills their hearts, continue to believe. For to this day they have not yet understood that the glory, the majesty and the power of the Redeemer, and the liberty he was to bring to the world, are not of an earthly, temporal and perishable nature, but celestial, spiritual and eternal.”

Note

The present tense — continue to believe, to the present day — is crucial. Ágreda is not describing the Jews of the first century but the living Jewish community of the seventeenth century. The blindness is not a historical condition that may have been remedied by subsequent events; it is a present, ongoing theological state. The citation of Isaiah 6:10 — the hardening of hearts — locates this blindness within scriptural prophecy, establishing it as divinely intended rather than contingent.

XIII. “The Hebrew people — hardened, ungrateful and obstinate” — Collective Character of the Jewish Nation

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome IV, §947 (French only)

French

«tel qu’il fallait à ce peuple hébreu, endurci, ingrat et obstiné, gouverné par des magistrats idolâtres et conduit par des prêtres avares et orgueilleux, sans lumières, sans prophètes, sans piété, sans crainte de Dieu, après tant de châtiments et de calamités que ses péchés lui avaient attirés, pour lui ouvrir les yeux et le cœur dans ce misérable état, afin qu’il reconnût et reçût son Rédempteur et son Maître.»

Translation

“…such as was needed for this Hebrew people — hardened, ungrateful and obstinate, governed by idolatrous magistrates and led by greedy and arrogant priests, without enlightenment, without prophets, without piety, without fear of God, after so many punishments and calamities which their sins had drawn down upon them, in order to open their eyes and their hearts in that wretched state, so that they might recognise and receive their Redeemer and their Master.”

Note

This passage characterises the Jewish people at the time of the Incarnation through a cumulative sequence of negative epithets — endurci, ingrat et obstiné — followed by a systematic indictment of their religious leadership. The description is of the whole people, not of specific opponents of Christ, and it is offered as context rather than condemnation: the implication is that the character of the people made the mission of John the Baptist uniquely difficult. The corollary — which the passage implies without stating — is that a people so characterised bore particular responsibility when they nonetheless failed to receive their Redeemer.

XIV. “Their own wickedness and malice brought them to their ruin” — Jewish Guilt as Self-Inflicted

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §640 (English)

English

“But that these men should happen to be the Jews, the priests and the unjust Pilate, was their own misfortune, not the choice of the Almighty, who wishes to save all (I Tim. 2, 4). Their own wickedness and malice brought them to their ruin; for they resisted the great grace of having in their midst their Redeemer and Master, of knowing Him, of conversing with Him, of hearing his doctrine and preaching, of witnessing his miracles; and they had received such great favors, as none of the ancient Patriarchs had attained by all their longings (Matth. 13, 7). Hence the cause of the Savior was justified. He manifestly had cultivated his vineyard by his own hands and showered his favors upon it (Matth. 21, 33). But it brought Him only thorns and briars, and its keepers took away his life, refusing to recognize Him, as was their opportunity and their duty before all other men.”

Note

The vineyard parable of Matthew 21 is here deployed with its full supersessionist force: the Jews, as the keepers of the vineyard, refused to render to the owner what was his and killed his son. The phrase before all other men intensifies the culpability: the Jews had the greatest privilege and therefore bore the greatest responsibility; their failure was not ignorance but a refusal of recognition that was both their opportunity and their duty. The theological precision of their own misfortune, not the choice of the Almighty attempts to preserve divine justice while nonetheless directing full moral condemnation at the Jews.

XV. “The punishments decreed against that people” — Divine Decree of Punishment

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §221 (English)

English

“It was a most heinous crime and merited the punishments decreed against that people. But Catholics forget, that their own sins are rendered heinous by other elements of guilt surpassing that of the Jews… The holy Church has been founded, spread out, made illustrious by miracles, by saints, by holy writings, by the knowledge and proclamation of truths unknown to the Jews.”

Note

The phrase punishments decreed against that people operates on a collective level: the punishment is not the consequence of individual Jewish sins but of the guilt of that people as a people — a corporate theological entity whose collective crime of deicide has generated a collective divine sentence. The subsequent reference to “truths unknown to the Jews” completes the supersessionist movement: the Church possesses a theological patrimony from which the Jews are excluded by their own prior rejection of its source.

XVI. “Their outrageous perfidy and malice made them unworthy of the truth” — Jews Unworthy of Divine Signs

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §679 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1391 (French)

English

“All the Jews of Jerusalem were dismayed and astonished; although their outrageous perfidy and malice made them unworthy of the truth and hindered them from accepting what all the insensible creatures preached to them.”

French

«les Juifs qui étaient à Jérusalem furent saisis d’étonnement et de terreur; mais leur perfide envie et leur malice les rendaient indignes de la vérité, et les empêchaient d’admettre ce que les créatures insensibles elles-mêmes leur annonçaient.»

Translation of French

“The Jews who were in Jerusalem were seized with astonishment and terror; but their perfidious envy and their malice rendered them unworthy of the truth, and prevented them from admitting what even the insensible creatures themselves proclaimed to them.”

Note

The point of this passage is that the supernatural signs accompanying the death of Christ — the darkening of the sun, the earthquake, the opening of tombs — were maximally available evidence for the Jews, more than sufficient for conversion. Their failure to convert is therefore not a failure of evidence but a failure of moral worthiness. The phrase rendered them unworthy of the truth inverts the usual epistemological analysis: the issue is not what they knew but what they were. Their perfidy and malice operated as an active impediment to receiving what inanimate creation itself proclaimed.

XVII. “The perfidy of the Jews might be confounded” — Mary Prays for the Defeat of Jewish Perfidy

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §678 (English)

English

“When the great Queen of the angels, most holy Mary, perceived that the Jews in their perfidy and obstinate envy vied in dishonoring Him, in blaspheming Him as the most wicked of men and in desiring to blot out his name from the land of the living, as Jeremias had prophesied (Jer. 11, 19), She was inflamed with a new zeal for the honor of her Son and true God. Prostrate before the person of the Crucified, and adoring Him… that the perfidy of the Jews might be confounded and their malice frustrated of its intent.”

Note

The Virgin’s prayer explicitly names the defeat of Jewish perfidy as its object. The prophetic citation from Jeremiah 11:19 — “let us cut him off from the land of the living” — is applied directly to the Jews at the crucifixion, anchoring their motivation in Old Testament prophecy and thereby making their malice part of the divine plan’s self-witness. The word confounded is not merely rhetorical; it means that Jewish perfidy will be publicly exposed and defeated by the very event it seeks to accomplish.

XVIII. “The perfidious Jews — evidencing their unhappy hard-heartedness” — Jews Mock the Dying Christ

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §662 (English)

English

“But the perfidious Jews and the executioners, evidencing their unhappy hard-heartedness, fastened a sponge soaked in gall and vinegar to a reed and mockingly raised it to his mouth, in order that He might drink of it. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of David: ‘In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink’ (John 16, 28; Ps. 68, 22).”

Note

The attributive phrase evidencing their unhappy hard-heartedness presents the gesture of the sponge not as Roman military procedure but as a characterological revelation: in this moment, the inner nature of the Jews is made visible. The word unhappy — infeliz in the underlying tradition — carries its Latin sense of inauspicious and accursed as well as sorrowful, reinforcing the sense of a people for whom their own malice is a self-destructive affliction.

XIX. “The perfidious Jews… confounding by his testimony their perfidy” — The Soldier’s Confession as Refutation of Jewish Perfidy

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §729 (English)

English

“He proclaimed Him as such in the presence of the Jews, confounding by his testimony their perfidy and hardness of heart.”

Note

The structural irony deployed here is a standard adversus Judaeos device: a Roman soldier confesses the divinity of Christ, thereby condemning the Jews who were present throughout the entire Passion and yet refused to confess it. The word confounding means not merely defeating but exposing the irrationality of the Jewish position: a Gentile executioner achieves in a moment of conversion what the people of the Law, possessed of every prophetic advantage, refused to achieve through three years of Christ’s ministry.

XX. “The perfidious Jews and the other unbelievers were much confounded” — Peter’s Pentecost Sermon

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §79 (English)

English

“‘Let then the whole house of Israel understand, and let them be assured, that God hath made this Jesus, whom you have crucified, his Anointed and the Lord of all, and that He has raised Him from the dead on the third day.’ On hearing these words the hearts of many, that stood there, were moved to compunction… Many other words of life saint Peter and the other Apostles spoke to them, by which the perfidious Jews and the other unbelievers were much confounded; and as no one could answer, they withdrew and left the Cenacle.”

Note

The presentation of the Jews at Pentecost as confounded and unable to answer, rather than as three thousand converts (the positive outcome noted immediately after in Acts), is characteristic of Ágreda’s selection: the text acknowledges conversions but places the emphasis on the silencing and defeat of the “perfidious Jews.” The label perfidious is applied even here, at the moment of maximum evangelical opportunity — the implication being that the majority who did not convert were characterologically incapable of doing so.

XXI. “The obdurate perfidy of the Jews esteemed these words as blasphemy” — Jews Stone Stephen

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §192 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §192 (French)

English

“But the obdurate perfidy of the Jews esteemed these words as blasphemy and they stopped their ears in order not to hear them. As the punishment of blasphemers according to the law, was death by stoning, they passed upon him that sentence. Then they all surrounded him like wolves and dragged him from the city with great haste and noise.”

French

«Mais les Juifs perfides et obstinés regardèrent ces paroles comme un blasphème, et se bouchèrent les oreilles pour ne pas les entendre. Comme, suivant leur loi, le blasphémateur doit être puni de mort par lapidation, ils le condamnèrent à cette peine. Alors ils l’entourèrent comme des loups affamés et le traînèrent hors de la ville avec grand tumulte.»

Translation of French

“But the perfidious and obstinate Jews regarded these words as blasphemy, and stopped their ears so as not to hear them. Since, according to their law, the blasphemer must be punished by death through stoning, they condemned him to that penalty. Then they surrounded him like famished wolves and dragged him out of the city in great tumult.”

Note

The simile like wolves — added in the French as loups affamés (“famished wolves”) — escalates the demonic imagery of §624 into the bestial register, completing a trajectory from human to demonic to animal in the characterisation of Jewish violence. The characterisation of Stephen’s testimony as blasphemy from the Jewish perspective is not presented with any sympathy for the internal logic of that position; it is simply further evidence of the obdurate perfidy that defines their response to divine truth.

XXII. “Still more hardened in their perfidy” — Death of Stephen Hardens the Jews Further

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §197 (English)

English

“Covered with wounds from the shower of stones thrown by the Jews, saint Stephen expired, while they became still more hardened in their perfidy.”

Note

The paradox that an act of murder should harden the murderers rather than producing remorse is presented without comment as a matter of fact about the Jewish character. The hardening is progressive — still more — suggesting that each act of violence against a Christian deepens an irreversible moral deterioration. This is the logical consequence of the theology of the City of God applied to post-Resurrection history: the Jews are on a trajectory of cumulative moral decline whose starting point was the golden calf (as in the parallel Luisian tradition) and whose culminating expression was deicide.

XXIII. “God did not wish to hide that much of the effects of the presence of the great Queen, in order that the perfidious Jews might be so much the more confounded” — God’s Signs Designed to Confound Jewish Perfidy

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §194 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §194 (French)

English

“God did not wish to hide that much of the effects of the presence of the great Queen, in order that the perfidious Jews might be so much the more confounded for not accepting the truth preached in such a miraculous way.”

French

«Dieu ne voulut point cacher à ces perfides Juifs cet effet de la présence de la grande Reine, afin qu’ils fussent d’autant plus confondus pour n’avoir point accepté la vérité prêchée d’une manière si miraculeuse.»

Translation of French

“God did not wish to hide from these perfidious Jews this effect of the presence of the great Queen, so that they should be all the more confounded for not having accepted the truth preached in so miraculous a manner.”

Note

The theological claim here is that God arranged supernatural evidence specifically calibrated to maximise Jewish confounding and inexcusability. This is not divine accommodation but divine indictment: the miracles are designed not to persuade but to render the Jews‘ rejection wholly without excuse, and thereby to confirm rather than mitigate their guilt. The phrase so much the more confounded has a cumulative logic: each miracle adds another layer to a guilt already established.

XXIV. “The Jews, confused and disturbed” — Jews Scheme to Conceal the Resurrection

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §739 (English)

English

“The Jews, confused and disturbed by the events, went to Pilate on the morning of the sabbath and asked him for soldiers to guard the sepulchre; for Christ, this seducer, they said, had openly announced, that after three days He would arise; hence his disciples might steal the body and then say that He had arisen. Pilate yielded to this malicious measure and gave them the guard they desired… But the perfidious priests merely wished to palliate the event, which they feared would really happen, as was manifest afterwards, when they bribed the soldiers of the guard to testify, that Jesus had not arisen, but had been stolen by the disciples.”

Note

The Jews are here depicted as consciously dishonest rather than genuinely deceived: they fear the Resurrection will happen, guard against it, and when it does happen, bribe witnesses to deny it. The label perfidious priests in this context carries the specific meaning of those who act in bad faith, knowing the truth and choosing to suppress it. This passage is foundational to a theological tradition that characterises Jewish denials of Christian claims not as sincere disagreement but as wilful suppression of evidence.

XXV. “The faithful in the Church make much of the sin of the infidel Jews“ — Comparison of Jewish and Catholic Guilt

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §221 (English)

English

“The faithful in the Church make much of the sin of the infidel Jews in taking away the life of their God and Master. They are right in doing so, for it was a most heinous crime and merited the punishments decreed against that people. But Catholics forget, that their own sins are rendered heinous by other elements of guilt surpassing that of the Jews; for although their error was culpable, they esteemed it as truth in the end; then also the Lord delivered Himself up to them, allowing them to follow the counsels of hell, by which they were oppressed for their sins (Luke 22, 53). In our days the Catholics are not in ignorance, but in the fullness of the light, by which they know and understand the divine mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption.”

Note

This passage is the most theologically nuanced in the corpus and the only one that qualifies Jewish guilt by reference to invincible ignorance. The qualification, however, is strictly subordinated to the main argument: Jewish guilt is established first, then used as a baseline against which Catholic guilt is measured and found to exceed it in some respects, owing to Catholics’ greater knowledge. The passage does not mitigate Jewish guilt; it uses it as a fixed theological datum, the stable lower bound against which the gravity of Catholic sin is calculated. The phrase punishments decreed against that people remains unqualified.

XXVI. “This carnal and blinded people” — Jewish Carnal Messianism

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §50 (English)

English

“This outward circumstance was an argument of great force among this carnal and blinded people; for they presumed, that the coming greatness and majesty of the promised Messias and the Redemption was intended for themselves only; and they believed this Redemption to be temporal and earthly, just as even now the Jews, in the obscurity which envelops their hearts (Is. 6, 10), continue to believe.”

Note

The phrase carnal and blinded compounds two standard adversus Judaeos diagnoses: carnal (enslaved to the literal, the material, the national and political interpretation of Scripture) and blinded (morally incapacitated in their reception of spiritual truth). Their expectation that the Messiah would come for them alone, and that redemption would be temporal and national, is explicitly connected to the present condition of seventeenth-century Jews: just as even now the Jews… continue to believe. Jewish carnal messianism is not a historical curiosity but a living theological error.

XXVII. “The Jews repudiated Him when He was alive and their Benefactor” — Rejection as the Foundational Jewish Act

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §734 (English)

English

“…in order to receive Him, whom the Jews had repudiated, when He was alive and their Benefactor.”

Note

This brief phrase, embedded in the description of the graves opening at the death of Christ, functions as a compressed theological summary of the entire adversus Judaeos argument of the City of God: the graves receive Christ as King at the moment the Jews repudiate him. The contrast — the dead recognise what the living reject — recalls the Isaianic complaint (the ox knows its owner and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, Is. 1:3), which is the foundational text of the adversus Judaeos tradition. The phrase when He was alive and their Benefactor intensifies the ingratitude: the repudiation was not of an unknown stranger but of one who had lived among them and done them good.

XXVIII. “The fall of the Synagogue and the establishment of the Church among the heathens” — Simeon’s Prophecy as Supersessionist Charter

Source: City of God, Vol. II (The Incarnation), §599 (English)

English

“As in a mirror her spirit was made to see all the mysteries included in this prophecy; how her most holy Son was to be the stone of stumbling, the perdition of the unbelievers, and the salvation of the faithful; the fall of the Synagogue and the establishment of the Church among the heathens; She foresaw the triumph to be gained over the devils and over death, but also that a great price was to be paid for it, namely the frightful agony and death of the Cross.”

Note

This passage locates the supersessionist transaction — the fall of the Synagogue, the rise of the Church among the Gentiles — not in the retrospective theology of the post-Resurrection Church but in a vision granted to Mary at the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, decades before the Passion. The effect is to make the dispossession of the Synagogue a divinely foreordained event, foreseen and accepted by Mary from the infancy of Christ. The phrase the perdition of the unbelievers is juxtaposed with the salvation of the faithful as a strict binary, encoding Jewish unbelief as a predestined category. The passage belongs chronologically to Volume II of the City of God but its content anticipates the Passion theology of Volumes III–IV, establishing its structural foundations as early as the Incarnation narrative.

XXIX. “Still greater was the blindness of the Jews in hoping for a temporal king” — Jewish Carnal Messianism at the Condemnation

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §598 (English)

English

“Still greater was the blindness of the Jews in hoping for a temporal king as their Messias and at the same time calumniously asserting that Jesus made of Himself a king. It seems that they sought for their Messias a King so powerful, that they would not be able to resist Him; although they then would have to receive a king by compulsion and not with the free will benevolently desired by the Lord.”

Note

This passage deploys two simultaneous indictments: the theological error of carnal messianism and the moral failure of calumny. The Jews are shown to be simultaneously inconsistent — desiring a temporal king who would compel submission, while accusing Christ of aspiring to precisely that role — and spiritually incapacitated, unable to distinguish between the material and the spiritual register of their own prophetic tradition. The word blindness connects this passage to the broader theology of morally incurred incapacity that runs through the City of God; the word calumniously adds the charge of bad faith, distinguishing Jewish error from innocent ignorance.

XXX. “My Redemption, ignored by this blind people” — Christ’s Words to the Women of Jerusalem

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §659 (English)

English

“I desire you to weep over your sins, for which I suffer, and by this manner of weeping you shall acquire for yourselves and your children the price of my blood and of my Redemption, ignored by this blind people. For there shall come days, namely the days of universal judgment and chastisement, in which those shall be held fortunate, who have not begotten children; and the foreknown shall call upon the mountains and the hills to shield them against my wrath. For if their sins, now only assumed by Me, have such effects on me, who am innocent, what horrible punishments will they draw upon those, who are so barren and without any fruits of grace and merits?”

Note

This passage renders Christ’s words to the women of Jerusalem (Luke 23:28–30) as a direct apostrophe to the Jewish people, framing the Redemption as something that the Jewish nation — this blind people — has collectively refused. The rhetorical structure is a a fortiori argument: if Christ, bearing only the assumed weight of their sins, undergoes such torments, the punishment awaiting those who hold the sins natively will be proportionally more terrible. The phrase barren and without any fruits of grace and merits applies to the Jews who rejected the Redemption a characterisation of absolute spiritual sterility — they have received nothing from the death that was enacted on their behalf and rejected by them.

XXXI. “Since they have remained obstinate in their malice, I disinherit them” — Christ’s Testament on the Cross

Source: City of God, Vol. III (The Transfixion), §697 (English)

English

“Since they have done all this in opposition to our divine goodness and remained obstinate in their malice, and since they have renounced the rights of sonship merited for them by Me, I disinherit them of my friendship and glory. Just as Abraham separated the children of the slave, setting aside some possessions for them and reserving the principal heritage for Isaac, the son of the freedwoman Sarah (Gen. 25, 5), thus I set aside their claims on my inheritance by giving them the transitory goods, which they themselves have chosen. Separating them from our company and from that of my Mother, of the angels and saints, I condemn them to the eternal dungeons and the fire of hell in the company of Lucifer and his demons, whom they have freely served, I deprive them forever of all hope of relief.”

Note

This is the most juridically precise and theologically severe passage in the entire corpus. Ágreda presents it as the actual content of Christ’s prayer on the Cross to his eternal Father — a kind of divine last will and testament in which the obstinate and malicious are formally disinherited. The legal precision is exact: disinherit, set aside their claims, condemned, deprived forever. The Abraham–Isaac typology renders the disinheritance as the culmination of the Old Testament’s own internal logic: as Ishmael was separated from the inheritance in favour of Isaac, so the obstinate who reject Christ are separated from divine friendship in favour of those who accept Him. The phrase whom they have freely served preserves full human responsibility for the condemnation while naming Lucifer as the entity in whose company they are sentenced to remain.

XXXII. “We have at our service the whole of Judaism, now incensed against the new Church” — Lucifer’s Strategic Deployment of the Jewish People

Source: City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §§141–142 (English); La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §327 (French)

English

“Let us raise a general persecution against the faithful, for we have at our service the whole of Judaism, now incensed against the new Church of the Crucified; through the priests and pharisees we may succeed in all our attempts against the faithful and thus vent our wrath against this hostile Woman.”

French (from §327)

«Nous devons donc persécuter en même temps les fidèles, puisque nous avons de notre côté tous les Juifs incrédules, qui sont enragés contre cette nouvelle Église du Crucifié; et avec la coopération des chefs des prêtres et des pharisiens, nous obtiendrons sur ces fidèles tous les avantages que nous désirons.»

Translation of French

“We must therefore persecute the faithful at the same time, since we have on our side all the unbelieving Jews, who are enraged against this new Church of the Crucified; and with the cooperation of the chief priests and the Pharisees, we shall gain over these faithful all the advantages we desire.”

Note

This passage presents Lucifer addressing his demonic council and explicitly identifying the Jewish people — the whole of Judaism — as a resource already at his disposal, predisposed by their rage against the Church to serve as instruments of persecution. The phrase incensed against the new Church of the Crucified attributes the Jewish hostility to a specific theological cause: the crucifixion, which they perpetrated, generates in them an ongoing fury against all who venerate the Crucified. The French adds enragés (enraged) and specifies tous les Juifs incrédules (all the unbelieving Jews), making the collective scope of the indictment explicit. The architectural role of the Pharisees and chief priests as operational commanders of the diabolically directed persecution connects this passage to the entire post-Resurrection persecution narrative of Volume IV.

XXXIII. “Jamais les hommes n’ont été témoins d’outrages aussi cruels que ceux dont les Juifs accablèrent notre Rédempteur” — The Jews‘ Cruelty Exceeds All Human Record

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1274 (French only)

French

«Jamais les hommes n’ont été témoins d’outrages aussi cruels que ceux dont les Juifs accablèrent dans cette occasion notre Rédempteur. Saint Luc et saint Marc rapportent que ces bourreaux impitoyables lui couvrirent le visage, et que lui ayant bandé les yeux, ils lui donnaient des soufflets en l’apostrophant ainsi: “Devine maintenant, devine, puisque tu es prophète, dis-nous qui t’a frappé.” La cause pour laquelle ils lui couvrirent le visage fut mystérieuse; c’est que de la joie que notre Sauveur avait de souffrir ces opprobres, il rejaillissait sur son vénérable visage une beauté et une splendeur extraordinaires, qui remplirent tous ces ouvriers d’iniquité d’une surprise et d’une confusion intolérables; et pour cacher leur étonnement, ils attribuèrent cet éclat à l’art magique.»

Translation

“Never have men been witnesses to outrages as cruel as those with which the Jews overwhelmed our Redeemer on this occasion. Saints Luke and Mark report that these merciless executioners covered his face, and having blindfolded him, they struck him with blows, calling out to him: ‘Prophesy now, prophesy; tell us who struck you.’ The reason they covered his face was mysterious: for from the joy our Savior felt in suffering these outrages, there shone upon his venerable face an extraordinary beauty and splendour, which filled all these workers of iniquity with an intolerable surprise and confusion; and to conceal their astonishment, they attributed this radiance to the art of magic.”

Note

The claim that the Jews‘ cruelty to Christ exceeds anything in human history — jamais les hommes n’ont été témoins d’outrages aussi cruels — establishes a superlative of wickedness that is specifically Jewish and specifically unique. The supernatural explanation for the blindfolding — that Christ’s face shone with such beauty during his suffering that even his tormentors were confounded — serves as a double indictment: the Jews not only committed unsurpassed cruelty but did so in the presence of visible divine glory, attributing it to magic in order to continue. The phrase ouvriers d’iniquité (workers of iniquity) is a liturgical formula borrowed from the Psalms, reinforcing the theological weight of the identification.

XXXIV. “Ces stupides hypocrites…en se rendant homicides de l’innocent” — Jewish Hypocrisy Before Pilate

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1302 (French only)

French

«Et cependant ces stupides hypocrites ne faisaient point de cas de l’horrible sacrilège dont ils souillaient leurs âmes en se rendant homicides de l’innocent! Pilate, quoique gentil, eut quelque égard pour les cérémonies des Juifs; et, voyant qu’ils faisaient difficulté d’entrer dans le prétoire, il en sortit.»

Translation

“And yet these stupid hypocrites made no account of the horrible sacrilege with which they were staining their souls in making themselves murderers of the innocent! Pilate, though a Gentile, paid some regard to the ceremonies of the Jews; and, seeing that they made difficulty about entering the praetorium, he came out to them.”

Note

The scene being described is the Jews‘ refusal to enter Pilate’s praetorium during Passover in order to avoid ritual impurity — while simultaneously pressing for the judicial murder of Christ. The narrator — the Virgin Mary speaking to the author — names this combination stupide hypocrisie (stupid hypocrisy), the first term indicating a failure of intelligence as well as of morality: only those incapable of basic rational consistency could observe the lesser ceremonial law while violating the greater moral law in so spectacular a fashion. The phrase homicides de l’innocent introduces a precise legal category: murder of a person explicitly and publicly declared innocent by the judge. Pilate’s compliance despite acknowledging Christ’s innocence is noted but contextualized within his desire to satisfy the Jews, making the Jews‘ moral responsibility for the outcome explicit.

XXXV. “Leur crime énorme de ne pas reconnaître Jésus-Christ comme le Messie véritable” — The Priests’ Guilt Greater Than Pilate’s

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1309 (French only)

French

«Toutefois, quoique Pilate se montrât, pour ces raisons et pour plusieurs autres, le plus méchant des juges en condamnant Jésus-Christ, qu’il prenait pour un simple mortel dont on ne pouvait contester l’innocence, son péché fut relativement moindre que celui des prêtres et des pharisiens, non-seulement parce que ceux-ci agissaient par envie, par cruauté et pour d’autres fins détestables, mais aussi parce que ce fut pour eux un crime énorme de ne pas reconnaître Jésus-Christ comme le Messie véritable et le Rédempteur Dieu et homme, promis en la loi que ces mêmes Hébreux croyaient et professaient. Ce fut pour leur condamnation que le Seigneur permit que, quand ils accusaient notre Sauveur, ils l’appelassent Christ et Roi sacré, confessant par leurs paroles la vérité qu’ils niaient.»

Translation

“However, although Pilate showed himself, for these reasons and several others, the most wicked of judges in condemning Jesus Christ, whom he took for a simple mortal whose innocence could not be contested, his sin was relatively less than that of the priests and the Pharisees — not only because these acted out of envy, cruelty, and other detestable ends, but also because it was for them an enormous crime not to have recognised Jesus Christ as the true Messiah and the Redeemer, God and man, promised in the Law that these same Hebrews believed and professed. It was for their condemnation that the Lord permitted that, when they accused our Saviour, they called him Christ and sacred King, confessing with their words the truth they denied.”

Note

This passage performs the characteristic adversus Judaeos manoeuvre of inverting the Jews‘ formal accusation into an inadvertent confession: in calling Christ Christ and King before Pilate, they testify to his identity out of their own mouths even as they demand his execution. The comparative guilt analysis — Pilate worse than almost any judge, but the priests and Pharisees worse still — is a standard scholastic procedure of moral gradation that functions here to ensure that the Jewish responsibility for the Passion is not diminished by the presence of the Roman executioner. The phrase la loi que ces mêmes Hébreux croyaient et professaient is the key: their failure to recognise the Messiah was not ignorance but betrayal of their own stated beliefs.

XXXVI. “Les ministres et les pontifes si impatients de répandre le sang du Sauveur” — The Priests’ Eagerness to Shed Christ’s Blood

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome V, §1315 (French only)

French

«Les ministres et les pontifes étaient ce jour-là si impatients de répandre le sang du Sauveur, qu’ils hâtaient le pas, et menaient le divin Jésus presque en courant, et avec un horrible tumulte.»

Translation

“The ministers and high priests were that day so impatient to shed the blood of the Saviour that they quickened their pace and led the divine Jesus almost at a run, and with a horrible tumult.”

Note

The physical detail of the Jewish leaders hurrying Christ along the Via Dolorosa at near-running pace, driven by impatience to shed his blood, functions as a visible enactment of the theology of the preceding sections: the cruelty that exceeds all human record, the eagerness that is explicitly identified as a desire for blood rather than justice. The word impatients removes all ambiguity about the affective state of the Jewish leadership: they are not reluctant instruments of a divine plan but eager executors of their own malice. Horrible tumulte echoes the demonic register established in the Passion narrative’s opening sections, in which the Jews‘ behaviour is repeatedly characterised as exceeding natural human emotion.

XXXVII. “Les Juifs, plus endurcis dans leur obstination que les pierres mêmes” — The Death of Stephen Hardens the Jews Beyond Stone

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §197 (French); City of God, Vol. IV (The Coronation), §197 (English)

French

«Saint Étienne expira accablé des pierres que lui avaient jetées les perfides Juifs: les Juifs, plus endurcis dans leur obstination que les pierres mêmes.»

Translation

“Saint Stephen expired overwhelmed by the stones thrown at him by the perfidious Jews — the Jews, more hardened in their obstinacy than the stones themselves.”

English

“Covered with wounds from the shower of stones thrown by the Jews, saint Stephen expired, while they became still more hardened in their perfidy.”

Note

The antithesis of stones and hardness — a rhetorical device establishing the Jews as more obdurate than the instruments of their own cruelty — belongs to a long tradition of lapidary imagery in anti-Jewish polemic. Stones are traditionally the type of insensibility and hardness of heart, applied to the Jews since Ezekiel 36:26 (“I will remove from you your heart of stone”). Here the figure is sharpened into a direct comparison and inversion: the stones are the lesser object; the Jews‘ obstinacy surpasses them. The French version, with its sharp chiasmatic structure — les perfides Juifs: les Juifs, plus endurcis — renders the device with particular clarity, the repetition of les Juifs functioning as a hammer-blow emphasising the indictment.

XXXVIII. “Un juif incrédule…le juif tomba mort aux pieds du catholique” — A Jew Struck Dead for Attacking the Creed

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §224 (French only)

French

«Entre autres faits miraculeux, il arriva un jour qu’un juif incrédule, entendant un catholique qui récitait dévotement le Credo, entra en fureur et voulut le lui arracher des mains; mais avant de pouvoir exécuter ce détestable dessein, le juif tomba mort aux pieds du catholique.»

Translation

“Among other miraculous occurrences, it happened one day that an unbelieving Jew, hearing a Catholic who was devoutly reciting the Creed, flew into a fury and wished to snatch it from his hands; but before being able to carry out this detestable design, the Jew fell dead at the feet of the Catholic.”

Note

This miracle narrative, embedded in the account of the early Church’s supernatural gifts, establishes a pattern in which Jewish hostility to the specifically Christian confession of faith is met with instantaneous divine judgment. The Creed being recited contains the explicit assertion that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried” — the deicide clauses of the adversus Judaeos tradition encapsulated in liturgical form. The Jew‘s fury is directed specifically at this confession; his death is presented as the direct supernatural consequence of acting against it. The phrase ce détestable dessein (this detestable design) frames the attempted snatching of the Creed not as a petty dispute but as a theologically motivated attack. The miracle functions as a divine verdict on Jewish hostility to Christian confession, enacted in the moment of attempted suppression.

XXXIX. “Grâce à cet artifice diabolique, les Juifs empêchaient que la foi de Jésus-Christ ne fût embrassée des Gentils” — Jews Employing Diabolical Artifice to Block Gentile Conversion

Source: La Cité Mystique, Tome VI, §323 (French only)

French

«Grâce à cet artifice diabolique, les Juifs empêchaient que la foi de Jésus-Christ ne fût embrassée des Gentils, qui savaient que notre adorable Sauveur était juif, et qui, voyant ceux de sa nation et de sa loi le mépriser comme un imposteur, se décidaient moins facilement, dans les commencements de l’Église, à recevoir sa doctrine.

Or le saint apôtre arriva à Grenade; et à peine eut-il commencé à prêcher que les Juifs le décrièrent, le faisant passer pour un vagabond, pour un menteur, pour un auteur de fausses sectes et pour un magicien. Saint Jacques avait avec lui douze disciples à l’imitation de son divin Maître. Ceux-ci continuèrent à prêcher, et la haine des Juifs et de leurs partisans ne fit que s’accroître, à un tel point qu’ils résolurent de s’en défaire: et en effet ils firent aussitôt mourir un des disciples de saint Jacques qui s’opposait aux Juifs avec un très-grand zèle.»

Translation

“By means of this diabolical artifice, the Jews prevented the faith of Jesus Christ from being embraced by the Gentiles, who knew that our adorable Saviour was a Jew, and who, seeing those of his nation and his law despising him as an impostor, were less readily disposed, in the early days of the Church, to receive his doctrine.

Now the holy apostle arrived at Granada; and scarcely had he begun to preach when the Jews reviled him, making him pass for a vagabond, a liar, an author of false sects, and a magician. Saint James had with him twelve disciples in imitation of his divine Master. These continued to preach, and the hatred of the Jews and their partisans only grew, to such a point that they resolved to be rid of them: and indeed they immediately had one of Saint James’s disciples put to death — one who had been opposing the Jews with very great zeal.”

Note

This passage introduces a new dimension to the adversus Judaeos content of the City of God: the Jews as active saboteurs of the Church’s missionary expansion. Their strategy is two-pronged. First, they exploit the fact of Christ’s Jewish identity to discourage Gentile conversion, arguing that since his own people reject him as an impostor, the Gentiles should be suspicious of his claims. Second, they engage in direct persecution of the apostolic mission: reviling James as a vagabond, liar, and magician, and having one of his disciples killed. The phrase artifice diabolique explicitly identifies the strategy as demonic in origin, assigning to the Jews the same role they play throughout the post-Resurrection narrative — willing instruments of a plan conceived in hell. The specific geographic detail — Granada — extends the anti-Jewish narrative into the Iberian Peninsula and therefore into the immediate historical world of the author herself, a Castilian nun writing in the seventeenth century.

Sources

All passages in this compilation are drawn from the following editions, available in full at the Internet Archive:

English Translation (tr. Fiscar Marison [Rev. George J. Blatter], First Complete Edition):

French Translation (tr. R. P. Croset, O.F.M., Bibliothèque Franciscaine edition):

The Adversus Judaeos content is most concentrated in Volumes III–IV of the English edition and Tomes IV–VI of the French, covering the Passion, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and post-Pentecost period. No Talmud criticism was identified in any volume, as the work is a mystical biography rather than a formal polemical treatise. The French and English editions are parallel translations of the same original Spanish text; passages have been cross-referenced between them, with the French preferred where the English OCR was degraded.