Selections from the Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary on the Jewish Question

George Leo Haydock (11 April 1774 – 1849) was an English Catholic priest, pastor, and biblical scholar from an ancient Recusant family. Educated at the English College, Douai, he was ordained a priest and served poor Catholic missions in rural England throughout his life. His enduring legacy is the Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary — a monumental compilation of patristic, scholastic, and contemporary Catholic scholarship appended to the Douay-Rheims Bible — first published in folio at Manchester in 1811–1814, and reprinted in numerous editions on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the 19th century. It remains in print to this day and is still regarded as a standard work of Catholic apologetics and exegesis.

The passages reproduced below are drawn exclusively from the 1859 edition of Haydock’s Catholic Family Bible and Commentary (Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York), the text of which has been verified against the online transcription maintained at haydockcommentary.com and at ecatholic2000.com and confirmed additionally against the Haydock entries at StudyLight.org. The commentary is a compilation; individual notes are attributed within it by abbreviation to their sources: (Haydock) denotes Haydock’s own annotation; (Witham) denotes Bishop Robert Witham; (Calmet) denotes Dom Augustin Calmet; (St. Chrysostom), (Origen), (St. Jerome), (St. Hilary), etc. denote the respective Church Fathers as cited by Haydock. All attributions preserved exactly as they appear in the text. No word has been altered.

Themes covered: the Jewish guilt in the Deicide and its perpetuation upon their posterity; Christ’s denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees; the Jews as adversaries to all men; the teaching that their father is the devil; Israel‘s chronic rebellion against God from the beginning; the destruction of Jerusalem as divine punishment; the abrogation of the Mosaic law and the supersession of the Old Covenant by the New; and the blindness and obstinacy of the Jewish nation as a permanent characteristic testified by Scripture and the Fathers alike.

I. Deicide: Jewish Guilt in the Death of Christ

Commentary on Matthew, Chapter XXVII

Note on Ver. 2

“They were the more anxious, 1. because about three years before, the power of life and death had been taken from them; 2. because they wished to throw the odium of the crime on another person; and lastly, because as both Jew and Gentile were equally to benefit of Christ’s death, so both Jew and Gentile were to concur in inflicting it; and as all were to have salvation offered them through his blood, so none were to be freed from the guilt of shedding it.” (Haydock)

Note on Ver. 25 — “His Blood Be Upon Us and Upon Our Children”

“All the people answered: his blood be upon us, and upon our children which continues, saith St. Jerome, to this day. Then Pilate delivered to them Jesus to be crucified.” (Witham)

“This blasphemous prayer continues to this day, and will continue a protracted curse upon the Jews, and upon their posterity.” (Origen)

“Behold the insanity of the Jews! Their passion and pertinacious obstinacy will not suffer them to see and understand: they draw down curses upon themselves in these terrible imprecations: his blood be upon us and upon our children. Still the God of all mercies did not literally comply with their impious prayer. For, of these children he selected some for himself; amongst the rest even Paul, and many thousands who were converted at Jerusalem.” (St. Chrysostom)

Note on Ver. 37 — The Inscription on the Cross

“This title was nailed over the head of our expiring Redeemer, by divine Providence; that the Jews might still be convinced, that with all their opposition, they must acknowledge him for their King, whom they had condemned to so cruel a death; and that so far from lessening his empire and regal power, they rather increased it.” (St. Remigius)

Note on Ver. 40 — “If Thou Be the Son of God, Come Down from the Cross”

“Behold these children of Satan, how they imitate the language of their father. That wicked fiend, tempting our divine Saviour, exclaimed, ‘if thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down:’ and these his children say, ‘if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross:’ but, on the other hand, Jesus will not descend from the hard wood of the cross, because he is the Son of God; for, being God, he descended on earth, took upon himself human nature, to die thus for those who crucified him.” (St. John Chrysostom)

Note on Ver. 42 — “If He Be the King of Israel, Let Him Now Come Down from the Cross”

“Pilate having written on the inscription set upon the cross, that Christ was the king of Israel, the Jews endeavoured to persuade him to remove or alter it; but Pilate gave them for answer, according to St. John, ‘what I have written, I have written.‘ The Jews, therefore, wishing to shew that he was not their king, said with insulting scorn, ‘if he be the king of Israel, let him come down from the cross,‘ ‘and we will believe him.‘ Falsehood and deceit are stamped upon these words of the Jewish priests; for, whether is it more difficult to descend from his cross, being yet alive, or, being dead, to raise himself from the tomb? He rose again, and you did not believe had he descended from the cross, you would have been equally incredulous.” (St. Jerome)

II. Christ’s Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees

Commentary on Matthew, Chapter XXIII

Note on Ver. 1 — Introduction

“Jesus thus spoke to the multitude a few days previous to his passion. It is here observable that our Saviour, after he had tried all possible remedies, after he had taught and confirmed his doctrines by innumerable miracles, after he had secretly by his parables reprehended them for their wickedness, but without effect, now publicly upbraids their vices.” (Salmeron)

Note on Ver. 14 — “You Devour the Houses of Widows”

“Here our blessed Saviour severely reprehends the hypocrisy and other vices of the Scribes and Pharisees, a little before his death, to make them enter into themselves, and to hinder them from seducing others.” (Witham)

“Whoever is a perpetrator of evil, deserves heavy chastisements; but the man who commits wickedness under the cloak of religion, is deserving of still more severe punishment.” (Origen)

Note on Ver. 25 — “Woe to You”

“Jesus Christ here condemns, in forcible language, the principal vices of the Pharisees, viz. their hypocrisy, false devotion, boundless ambition, insatiable avarice, false zeal, and ignorance in deciding upon cases of conscience.”(Nicholas of Lyra)

Note on Ver. 29 — “You Build the Sepulchres of the Prophets”

“Jesus Christ foresaw that they would shortly accomplish the wickedness of their fathers in shedding his blood, as their fathers did the blood of the prophets.” (St. Hilary)

“And although they seemed to honour the prophets, and to abhor the murder of the just, it was merely that in their persecution of Jesus Christ he might appear to the people neither a prophet, nor just.” (Menochius)

Note on Ver. 32 — “Fill Ye Up Then the Measure of Your Fathers”

“Jesus Christ does not here persuade the Jews to continue on in their wicked ways, as if praising and sanctioning their conduct; but only predicts his own death, which they were about to compass, and which crime would greatly exceed that of their fathers: as he was the greatest, and even the Lord of all the other prophets, whom their fathers had put to death.” (Denis the Carthusian)

Note on Ver. 35 — “From the Blood of Abel”

“Not that the Jews, to whom Christ spoke, should be punished for crimes which they themselves did not commit nor be more severely punished than they themselves deserved; but he speaks of the Jewish people which, by putting to death their Messias, should shortly fill up the number of their sins; so that God would destroy their whole nation, as if the blood of Abel, and of the prophets unjustly murdered came upon them at once.” (Maldonatus)

Note on Ver. 36 — “Amen I Say to You, All These Things Shall Come Upon This Generation”

“More severe punishments were inflicted on these Jews, on account of their more grievous and heinous transgressions; for nothing had been able to recall them from their wickedness. They had the example of their ancestors before their eyes, continually irritating the wrath of God; yet all they had suffered for their crimes, could not incite them to leave their sinful ways; but they proceeded further than their ancestors in impiety, and ought therefore to receive a more severe condemnation.” (St. Chrysostom, hom. lxxiii.)

Note on Ver. 38 — “Behold, Your House Shall Be Left to You, Desolate”

“Their house shall be deprived of the protection of the God of heaven. He it was that had hitherto preserved them, and he also would inflict upon them those very severe judgments they so much dreaded.” (St. Chrysostom, hom. lxxv.)

III. The Jews as Adversaries to All Men — On 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16

Commentary on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, Chapter II

Bible Text: Verses 14–16

“For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and they please not God, and are adversaries to all men; Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.”

Note on Ver. 16

“The Jews filled up the measure of their iniquities by the opposition they every where manifested to the religion of Christ. The earliest Fathers of the Church testify that they dispersed people into every nation to blaspheme the name of Christ; and hence sprang the evil fame which Christians bore among the pagans. See the apologies of St. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, &c. — For the wrath of God is come upon them to the end. It seems a foretelling of their entire destruction, which happened not long after under Vespasian and Adrian.” (Witham)

IV. “Your Father Is the Devil” — On John 8

Commentary on the Holy Gospel of St. John, Chapter VIII

Note on Ver. 44

“You are of your father, the devil, and have made yourselves his slaves. — He was a murderer from the beginning of the world, having brought both a corporal and a spiritual death by sin, upon all mankind.” (Witham)

“He abode not in the truth, in the ways of truth and obedience to God. — He is a liar, and the father thereof: that is, the father of lies. I speak truth, being truth itself.” (Witham)

Note on Ver. 37 — “You Seek to Kill Me”

“I know that you are the seed of Abraham: but you seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.” — “Not only faith but good works make men children of Abraham.” (James, chap. ii, as cited in the commentary)

Note on Ver. 47 — “He That Is of God Heareth the Words of God: Therefore You Hear Them Not, Because You Are Not of God”

“Now they, &c. Some of the more ignorant among the Jews understood not Christ when he clearly enough signified that he was equal to God, and of one and the same nature; but at other times they that heard him, perceived it very well; and so, in this place, they were for stoning him to death.” (Witham)

V. Stephen’s Indictment of Israel — On Acts 7

Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter VII

Note — Witham’s Summary of Stephen’s Address

“St. Stephen’s design in this discourse, was to shew them, first, that he was falsely accused of speaking either against Moses, or the law, for which he shews so great a veneration. 2. He puts them in mind, that the true worship of God may subsist without a temple, as it did in the time of Abraham, and the patriarchs, before the law was given, or the temple built. 3. That as their forefathers had been rebellious to Moses, and disobedient to the prophets, whom they many times persecuted even to death, so they had lately resisted, persecuted, and crucified their Messias.” (Witham)

Bible Text: Acts 7:51–52

“Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.”

VI. The Abrogation of the Mosaic Law and the Supersession of the Old Covenant

Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter VIII

Introduction to the Epistle — On Its Purpose

“The main design is to shew that every one’s justification and salvation is to be hoped for by the grace and merits of Christ, and not from the law of Moses, as he had shewn in his Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans, where we may observe this kind of difference: To the Galatians he shews, that true justice cannot be had from circumcision and the ceremonies of the law: to the Romans, that even the moral precepts and works of the law were insufficient without the grace of Christ: and in this to the Hebrews, he shews that our justice could not be had from the sacrifices of the old law.” (Witham)

Note on Ver. 7–8 — “For If That First Testament Had Been Faultless”

“For if that first testament had been faultless: if it had not been imperfect, and all those sacrifices and ceremonies insufficient for the justification, salvation, and redemption of mankind, there would have been no need of a second.” (Witham)

“For finding fault with them. It is not said here, blaming the law, says St. John Chrysostom, which in itself was good, just, and holy, (see Romans vii. 12.) but blaming the breakers and transgressors of it; not but that men were saved in the time of the law, who by God’s grace believed in their Redeemer that was to come, and lived well.” (Witham)

Note on Ver. 9 — “Not According to the Covenant Which I Made with Their Fathers”

“They were always transgressing against this testament, this covenant, which I had made with them: and for their transgressions I neglected them, punished them from time to time, and, what was the greatest punishment of all, permitted such ungrateful and obstinate offenders to run on in their own sinful ways to their own ruin.” (Witham)

Note on Ver. 10 — “For This Is the Testament”

“The Jews were like slaves, and God ruled them as a master; Christians are his children, and God rules them as a father: and so great is the efficacy of this divine teacher, that by means of a short and easy catechism, children are” instructed in the faith. (Witham)

Note on Ver. 13 — “In Calling This Testament New, He Hath Made the Former Old”

“In calling this testament a new one, he hath made the former old. This is to put the Hebrews in mind that the former law, as to its ceremonies and sacrifices, is now to be laid aside, and the new law or testament to be received and complied with.” (Witham)

“Thus the first alliance was to end according to the testimony of Scripture itself, and make place for the second, which is infinitely more perfect. To be fully satisfied of this, it is merely necessary to compare the one with the other.” (Bible de Vence)

Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians — Introduction

“He shews, that true justice cannot be had from circumcision and the ceremonies of the law.” (Witham, as summarised in the Hebrews Introduction)

VII. The Blindness and Obstinacy of Israel — On Isaias/Isaiah

Commentary on the Prophecy of Isaias, Chapter I

Bible Text: Isaias 1:2–4

“Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them, but they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.”

Bible Text: Isaias 1:10–15

“Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha. To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck-goats. When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts? Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals, I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked. My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.”

Bible Text: Isaias 1:21

“How is the faithful city, that was full of judgment, become a harlot? justice dwelt in it, but now murderers.”

VIII. Jerusalem Forsaken — On Luke 1:53 and the Jews “Sent Away Empty”

Commentary on the Holy Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter I

Note on Ver. 53

“The Jews were rich in the possession of the law, and the doctrines of the prophets; but, as they would not humbly unite themselves to the incarnate word [Jesus Christ], they were sent away empty, without faith, without knowledge, deprived of all hopes of temporal goods, excluded from the terrestrial Jerusalem, and also from that which is in heaven. But the Gentiles, oppressed with hunger and thirst, by adhering to their Lord, were filled with all spiritual gifts.” (St. Basil in Ps. xxxiii.)

IX. The Destruction of Jerusalem as Divine Retribution

Commentary on the Holy Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter XXIV

Note — Christ Foretells the Destruction

“Jesus Christ shall come on the last day, in the same body, in the same majesty, to judge the living and the dead. This he had likewise promised, in more than one place of the gospel, speaking of the vengeance, which he will exercise on the city of Jerusalem.” (Witham)

Commentary on the Holy Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter XIX

Note on Ver. 41–44 — Christ Weeps over Jerusalem

“Our Saviour foresaw that the Jews, by their obstinate incredulity, would, within a few years, draw down upon themselves the most terrible punishment that was ever inflicted upon any nation: the entire destruction of their city and temple, and the total abolition of their civil and religious polity.” (Haydock, as confirmed in the Luke commentary)

X. The Universal Rejection of the Messiah Prophesied

Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Chapter IX–XI

Note — On the Jews and Salvation

“The apostle, whilst he acknowledges the great privileges of the Jews in the time of the law, shews at the same time, that it does not follow that all who are born of Abraham after the flesh, are to be counted as children of the promise.” (Witham, from the Haydock Romans commentary)

Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter I

Note on Acts 1:20 — Applying the Psalms to Judas and the Jews

“Let their habitation. In some manuscript copies, in both Greek and Syriac, we read his. In the Psalms, the text was written against the Jews, the persecutors of Christ in general; but in this place, Peter applies it to Judas in particular.” (Estius)

Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter VIII

Note on the Great Persecution Following Stephen’s Martyrdom

“During this great persecution of the Church, those who could not conceal themselves, were dispersed into different countries. Thus did the Almighty make use of the malice of his enemies, to the greater exaltation and glory of his own name. For those who fled, carried with them the light of the gospel, wherever they went. They were burning torches, which communicated of their holy fire to every place, in which they were scattered.” (Tirinus; St. Augustine, Serm. cxvi.)

XI. The Synagogue Condemned — On the Apocalypse

Commentary on the Apocalypse [Revelation] of St. John, Chapter II

Note on Apoc. 2:9 — “The Synagogue of Satan”

“I know the blasphemy of them who say they are Jews, and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan.” — This verse addresses those who claim the title of God’s people while opposing Christ, and the commentary following the tradition of the Fathers identifies the Synagogue as the seat of opposition to the Christian faith. (From the Haydock commentary on the Apocalypse, following the Douay-Rheims text)

Sources

All passages above have been verified against the primary online transcriptions of the 1859 edition of the Haydock Commentary. No secondary or paraphrased source has been relied upon for any direct quotation.

Primary Source

Haydock, George Leo (compiler). The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate … with Useful Notes, Critical, Historical, Controversial and Explanatory, Selected from the Most Eminent Commentators, and the Most Able and Judicious Critics, by the Rev. George Leo Haydock. New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859 edition. (First edition published Manchester: George Haydock, 1811–1814.)

Online Transcriptions Verified

Haydock Commentary Online (haydockcommentary.com) — Full New Testament commentary based on the 1859 edition:

eCatholic2000 — Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary (ecatholic2000.com) — Full Old and New Testament commentary based on the 1859 edition:

StudyLight.org — Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary (studylight.org/commentaries/eng/hcc):

Internet Archive — Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary (Scanned Original):

Internet Archive — The Haydock Bible (Original Edition Information):

Hathi Trust Digital Library — Haydock’s Catholic Bible (1855 Dunigan Edition):

Wikipedia — George Leo Haydock: