Louis Billot, S.J. (12 January 1846 – 18 December 1931), born in Sierck-les-Bains, Moselle, France, was a French Jesuit priest, theologian, and Cardinal. Summoned to Rome by Pope Leo XIII in 1885 to teach dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, he taught there for twenty-six years and formed generations of future bishops, cardinals, and theologians. Created Cardinal Deacon by Pope Pius X in 1911, he resigned his cardinalitial dignity in 1927 — the only Cardinal in the twentieth century to do so — over his refusal to retract his support for the French monarchist movement Action Française after its condemnation by Pius XI. He spent his final years in Jesuit retirement at Galloro, near Ariccia, outside Rome. Contemporary theologians described him as “the most important Thomistic speculative theologian of the late nineteenth century.” His principal treatise, the Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, remained an influential seminary textbook until the eve of the Second Vatican Council.
His works bearing on the themes compiled below are: De Verbo Incarnato: Commentarius in Tertiam Partem S. Thomae (Rome, 1892; 2nd ed. 1895; reissued many times thereafter); Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior: De credibilitate Ecclesiae et de intima ejus constitutione (Prati, 1898; 5th ed. Rome, 1927); Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Secundus: De habitudine Ecclesiae ad civilem societatem (Prati, 1910); and La Parousie (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1920).
All English translations of the Latin and French passages below are the work of the compiler of this page and are made directly from the original primary texts cited in the Sources section at the foot of this page. No word of the original has been altered; every passage quoted appears in Billot’s published writings exactly as cited.
The passages reproduced here bear on the following themes: Deicide — the Jews as the direct and principal efficient cause of Christ’s death; the theology of the three tribunals — Caiphas, Herod, and Pilate as embodiments of the three fundamental forms of sin in the condemnation of Christ; the punishment of Jerusalem as divine vengeance for deicide; the Cain-Abel typology of deicidal fratricide, the curse upon the Jewish race, and the dispersal through all the earth with the indelible mark of perfidy; supersessionism — the Church as the definitive and universal successor to the Synagogue, which was a slave and a shadow; the abrogation of the Mosaic religion and the carnal character of Jewish worship; and the eschatological status of the Jewish people as a reprobate nation scattered to carry the sacred books as involuntary witnesses against themselves. Billot’s framework was entirely pre-Nostra Aetate (1965).
I. “The Impious Hands of the Raging Jews”: Christ Admitting Them by His Own Sovereign Will
De Verbo Incarnato, Quaestio XIII, p. 228
[Billot demonstrates that Christ, as simultaneously priest and victim, exercised an act of sovereign priestly will in His death — mere passive permission of “the impious hands of the raging Jews” would not have constituted a priestly act of offering.]
Original:
« Requirebatur tamen visibilis eius actio, consummans seu ordinans destructionem in honorem Dei, eamque constituens in esse oblationis sacrae. Haec porro esse non potuit simplex et mera permissio, qua in se admisit impias furentium Judaeorum manus, eo quod permittere se occidendum, victimae est oblatae, non sacerdotis offerentis. »
Translation:
“There was required, however, a visible act on His part, consummating or ordering the destruction in honour of God and constituting it in the being of a sacred oblation. This could not be a simple and mere permission, by which He admitted into Himself the impious hands of the raging Jews — for to permit oneself to be killed is the act of the offered victim, not of the offering priest.”
[Billot then cites St. Thomas directly and endorses the formula as the complete expression of the doctrine:]
Original:
« ipse Christus voluntarie mortuus est, et tamen Judaei occiderunt eum. »
Translation:
“Christ Himself died voluntarily, and yet the Jews killed Him.“
II. Caiphas and the High Priests: “The First Authors of Deicide”
De Verbo Incarnato, Thesis XLVII (Quaest. 46), p. 416
[Billot identifies the three tribunals before which Christ was judged as emblematic of the three fundamental forms of sin (1 John 2:17): concupiscence of the flesh (Herod), concupiscence of the eyes (Pilate), and pride of life (Caiphas and the High Priests). It is in the last that Billot finds the first authors of deicide.]
Original:
« Nam in Caipha et Pontificibus qui, ne loco cederent et sacerdotii amitterent principatum, primi exstiterunt auctores deicidii, et veluti mens agitans molem, superbiam vitae indubitanter agnoscimus incarnatam: “Collegerunt, inquit, Pontifices et Pharisaei concilium, et dicebant: quid facimus, quia hic homo multa signa facit?… Vos nescitis quidquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit vobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo.” Et rursus: “Pharisaei autem dixerunt ad invicem: videtis quia nihil proficimus, ecce mundus totus post eum abit.” Et demum: “Audistis blasphemiam: quid vobis videtur? Qui omnes condemnaverunt eum esse reum mortis.” »
Translation:
“For in Caiphas and the High Priests, who — lest they should yield their place and lose the primacy of the priesthood — were the first authors of deicide, and as the mind driving the mass, we recognise beyond any doubt the pride of life incarnate: The High Priests and the Pharisees therefore gathered a council and said: What do we do? for this man doth many miracles… You know nothing. Neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people. And again: The Pharisees therefore said among themselves: Do you see that we prevail nothing? Behold, the whole world is gone after him. And finally: You have heard the blasphemy: what think you? Who all condemned him to be guilty of death.“
[Billot then extends the analysis beyond the historical moment, seeing the same spirit of inextinguishable hatred at work in every age that excludes Christ from public life:]
Original:
« Haec est sententia inexstinguibilis odii, qua usque nunc, superbia vitae prosequitur Christum; cum scilicet, humanae rationis independentiam praedicantes, nullumque supra se divini iuris assertorem ac vindicem ferentes, “summo studio moliuntur, ut Christo a mentibus humanis, a vita et moribus populorum excluso, merae quod vocant rationis vel naturae regnum stabiliatur.” »
Translation:
“This is the judgment of inextinguishable hatred, by which, even now, the pride of life pursues Christ — when, that is, those who preach the independence of human reason and tolerate no assertor or vindicator of divine right above themselves ‘strive with the utmost effort to establish the mere kingdom of reason or nature, as they call it, once Christ has been excluded from the minds of men, from the life and customs of peoples.'”
III. “The Jews Are Simply to be Called the Killers of Christ”
De Verbo Incarnato, Thesis XLIX (Quaest. 47), pp. 425–427
[Thesis XLIX treats directly: who are the efficient causes of Christ’s Passion? This is Billot’s most concentrated doctrinal statement on the question.]
Original (Thesis statement):
« In causis efficientibus passionis Christi, aliter et aliter numerantur, tum Judaei a diabolo moti, tum ipse Christus secundum quod homo, tum denique Pater, imo tota Trinitas. »
Translation:
“Among the efficient causes of Christ’s Passion, there are variously enumerated: the Jews, moved by the devil; Christ Himself inasmuch as He was man; and finally the Father — indeed, the whole Trinity.”
Original:
« Judaeorum principes fuisse causam directam corporalis passionis et mortis Christi, manifeste constat ex narratione Evangelii. Non tamen excluduntur Gentiles, puta Pilatus et milites, iuxta illud Luc. XVIII: Tradetur Gentibus, et illudetur, et flagellabitur, et conspuetur, et postquam flagellaverint, occident eum. Sed quia Gentiles non fuerunt nisi instrumenta furoris Judaeorum, operatio autem magis proprie principali agenti tribuitur quam instrumento, ideo ii sunt simpliciter dicendi Christi occisores, qui Pilatum coegerunt et dixerunt: Sanguis eius super nos et super filios nostros! »
Translation:
“That the princes of the Jews were the direct cause of Christ’s bodily Passion and death is manifestly established from the Gospel narrative. The Gentiles are not excluded — Pilate and the soldiers, according to Luke 18: He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and scourged and spat upon, and after they have scourged him they will kill him. But because the Gentiles were nothing but instruments of the fury of the Jews, and an action is more properly attributed to the principal agent than to the instrument, those are simply to be called the killers of Christ who compelled Pilate and said: His blood be upon us and upon our children!“
Original:
« Sed cum in causis efficientibus passionis, praeter persecutores Christi et ipsum Christum hominem, intervenerit etiam divinitas, exponit S. Thomas in art. 3, quotuplici sensu Deus Pater auctor passionis Filii sui dicendus sit. — Primo igitur fuit auctor passionis, quatenus ab aeterno decrevit ordinem illum in quo praevidit, et Judaeos Christum occisuros, et Christum sponte sua se oblaturum, permittendo quidem scelus, praeordinando autem Christi caritatem et obedientiam ad humani generis redemptionem. »
Translation:
“But since, among the efficient causes of the Passion, the Divinity also intervened, St. Thomas explains in how many senses God the Father is to be called the author of His Son’s Passion. — First, He was the author of the Passion in that from eternity He decreed that order in which He foresaw both that the Jews would kill Christ, and that Christ would freely offer Himself — permitting, to be sure, the crime, but pre-ordaining the charity and obedience of Christ for the redemption of the human race.”
IV. Pilate: His Cowardice “Opened the Free Way for the Fury of the Jews”
De Verbo Incarnato, Thesis XLVII (Quaest. 46), p. 417
Original:
« post Caipham et Herodem, Pilatum attende. Ipse est concupiscentia oculorum: vir nimirum fortunae inhians, qui sponte quidem sua, nusquam in scelus Judaeorum consensisset; sed propter respectum Tiberii Caesaris, cuius iras et suspiciones pertimescebat, tandem adiudicavit Innocentem voluntati impiorum, suaque ignavia furori Judaeorum liberam aperuit viam… “Iesum vero tradidit voluntati eorum.” »
Translation:
“After Caiphas and Herod, attend to Pilate. He is concupiscence of the eyes: a man grasping after fortune who, of his own accord, would never have consented to the crime of the Jews; but through regard for Tiberius Caesar, whose anger and suspicion he feared, he at last adjudicated the Innocent to the will of the impious, and by his own cowardice opened the free way for the fury of the Jews… But Jesus he delivered to their will.“
V. The Cross Chosen by the Jews as Most Ignominious — Especially Among Themselves
De Verbo Incarnato, Thesis XLVI (Quaest. 46), pp. 413–414
[Billot explains why the Jewish authorities insisted on crucifixion, a Roman punishment, rather than a Mosaic form of execution.]
Original:
« Ideo quippe sacerdotum principes tradiderunt Iesum Pilato, recusando etiam facultatem concessam iudicandi secundum propriam legem; ideo omni ope coegerunt Praesidem ut causam ad suum tribunal evocaret, quia crucis supplicium per legem Mosaicam nequaquam decernebatur, sed erat a Romanis statutum contra rebelles subditos. Neque enim infensissimis inimicis satis erat Iesum morti addicere; sed intendebant quam maxime eius memoriam in populo penitus abolere, ut hoc modo totus moreretur, et praecedentium signorum nulla amplius recordatio remaneret. Huic autem scopo nihil magis idoneum duxerunt quam mortem in cruce, infamem quidem apud omnes populos, sed maxime apud Judaeos de genere Abrahae et lege Moysis gloriantes; unde Apostolus dicit: Judaeis quidem scandalum, gentibus autem stultitia. »
Translation:
“It was for this reason that the princes of the priests delivered Jesus to Pilate, refusing even the faculty conceded to them of judging according to their own law; for this reason they used every means to compel the Governor to summon the cause to his tribunal, because the punishment of the cross was in no way decreed by the Mosaic Law, but was established by the Romans against rebellious subjects. For to the most bitter of enemies it was not enough to condemn Jesus to death; they intended above all to abolish His memory entirely among the people, so that He should die in every way, and no recollection of the preceding signs should remain. For this purpose they judged nothing more fitting than death on the cross, ignominious indeed in the eyes of all peoples, but most especially in the eyes of the Jews, who gloried in their lineage from Abraham and in the Law of Moses; wherefore the Apostle says: to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles foolishness.“
VI. The Destruction of Jerusalem Ordained as Vengeance for Deicide
De Verbo Incarnato, Pars Tertia: De Credibilitate Incarnationis, p. 527
[In proving the credibility of the Incarnation from Daniel 9, Billot interprets the destruction of Jerusalem as divinely ordained retribution for deicide.]
Original:
« ex tunc, praeparata aderit in causis eversio civitatis et templi, idque, non solum ex parte iustitiae divinae quae excidium Ierusalem ordinavit in vindictam deicidii, verum etiam ex parte Judaeorum, qui ideo Romanos ad iracundiam provocaverunt, variis Pseudo-Christis gladio armatis adhaerendo, quia pacificum Messiam Iesum noluerunt agnoscere. »
Translation:
“From that moment on, the causes of the overthrow of the city and the temple will already be in preparation — and this not only on the part of divine justice, which ordained the destruction of Jerusalem as vengeance for deicide, but also on the part of the Jews themselves, who provoked the Romans to wrath by attaching themselves to various armed pseudo-Christs, because they refused to acknowledge the peaceful Messiah Jesus.”
VII. Cain and Abel: The Deicidal Brothers, the Curse on the Race, the Dispersal with the Indelible Mark of Perfidy
De Verbo Incarnato, Pars Tertia, p. 530 (footnote 1)
[Billot enumerates modes of prophetic preparation, including historical events disposed by Divine Providence as types of future realities. He identifies the events of Cain and Abel as a type specifically of the deicidal relationship of the Jewish people to Christ.]
Original:
« quaecumque gesta sunt in Cain et Abel, significaverunt Christum et populum Judaeorum, necem Christo intentandam a deicidis fratribus, inde secuturam maledictionem gentis, statumque dispersionis per totam terram cum indelebili signo perfidiae, sub quo, sicut Cain, a destructione protegitur. »
Translation:
“All that was done in Cain and Abel signified Christ and the Jewish people: the death plotted against Christ by deicidal brothers, the consequent curse upon the race, and the state of dispersal through the whole earth with the indelible mark of perfidy, under which, like Cain, they are protected from destruction.“
Original:
« Significabant ista, opprobria Christi amore inebriati, et sic pendentis in cruce; impietatem massae Judaeorum conviciantium crucifixo, annuntiantiumque cum derisione passiones eius atque ignominias, et ex adverso, pietatem primitiarum ex Judaeis necnon et plenitudinis Gentium, reverentium opprobria Domini sui, accedentiumque ad Christum pro nobis passum, faciebus aversis, quasi detestantium scelus deicidarum. »
Translation:
“These signified the reproaches heaped upon Christ inebriated by love and thus hanging on the cross; the impiety of the mass of the Jews who railed at the Crucified and announced with derision His Passion and His ignominies; and on the other side, the piety of the firstfruits from the Jews and of the fullness of the Gentiles, who revere the reproaches of their Lord, drawing near to Christ who suffered for us, with faces averted, as though detesting the crime of the deicides.”
VIII. “Reprobate Through Infidelity”: The Jewish Nation Uprooted and Scattered to Bear Witness Against Itself
De Verbo Incarnato, Pars Tertia, p. 530
[Billot quotes and endorses Augustine’s synthesis of the prophetic argument for the credibility of the Incarnation. The passage on the Jewish dispersion is explicitly presented as a confirmation of that credibility.]
Original:
« Reproba per infidelitatem gens ipsa Judaeorum a sedibus exstirpata, per mundum usquequaque dispergitur, ut ubique portet codices sanctos, ac sic testimonium prophetiae qua Christus et Ecclesia praenuntiata est, ne ad tempus a nobis fictum existimaretur, ab ipsis adversariis proferatur; ubi etiam ipsos praedictum est non fuisse credituros. » (August., Ep. ad Volusian., n. 15–16)
Translation:
“The Jewish nation itself, reprobate through its infidelity, is uprooted from its dwelling-places and scattered throughout the whole world, so that it may everywhere carry the sacred books, and thus the testimony of the prophecy by which Christ and the Church were foretold may be brought forward by the adversaries themselves — lest it be thought a fiction invented by us — in the very place where it was also foretold that they themselves would not believe.”
IX. “The Entire Synagogue Cried Out Through the Mouths of Its Princes”
De Verbo Incarnato, Pars Tertia: De Credibilitate, p. 516
[As part of his proof that the messianic prophecy of Jacob’s blessing was fulfilled in Christ, Billot notes the moment when the entire Synagogue formally renounced all kingship but Caesar’s — thereby acknowledging that the sceptre had definitively departed from Judah.]
Original:
« cum de morte ei infligenda ageretur, universa Synagoga per os suorum Principum, conclamavit dicens: “Nobis non licet interficere quemquam”, et iterum: “Non habemus regem nisi Caesarem.” »
Translation:
“When it was a question of inflicting death upon Him, the entire Synagogue, through the mouths of its Princes, cried out saying: ‘It is not lawful for us to put any man to death’ — and again: ‘We have no king but Caesar.’“
X. The Passion Foretold as Scandal to the Jews and Folly to the Gentiles
De Verbo Incarnato, Pars Tertia: De Credibilitate, p. 519
Original:
« incipit apparere vir dolorum, et describi passio illa, quam futuram Gentibus stultitiam, Judaeis autem scandalum, pronuntiat Apostolus. »
Translation:
“There begins to appear the man of sorrows, and to be described that Passion which the Apostle declares would be to the Gentiles foolishness, but to the Jews a stumbling-block.“
XI. The Jews Warned by Moses of Captivity, Dispersal, and Servitude for Their Rejection of Jesus
De Verbo Incarnato, Pars Tertia: De Credibilitate, pp. 517–518
[Billot adduces the curses of Deuteronomy 28 as prophetic confirmation of the punishment that fell upon the Jewish people for their refusal to hear Jesus.]
Original:
« Mitto demum, Iesum esse eum quem audire noluit maxima Judaeorum pars; unde venerunt super illos mala a Moyse, Deuteron. XXVIII-55 et seq., signanter annuntiata: “Servies inimico tuo quem immittet tibi Dominus, in fame, et siti, et nuditate, et omni penuria, et ponet iugum ferreum super cervicem tuam, donec te conterat. Adducet Dominus super te gentem de longinquo et de extremis terrae finibus… Donec te disperdat, et conterat in cunctis urbibus tuis… Disperget te Dominus in omnes populos, a summitate terrae, usque ad terminos eius… In gentibus quoque illis non quiesces, neque erit requies vestigio pedis tui.” »
Translation:
“I leave aside finally that Jesus is He whom the greater part of the Jews refused to hear — wherefore there came upon them the evils notably foretold by Moses, Deut. 28:55 et seq.: Thou shalt serve thy enemy, whom the Lord will send against thee, in hunger and thirst and nakedness and want of all things, and he will put an iron yoke upon thy neck, until he consume thee. The Lord will bring upon thee a nation from afar and from the uttermost ends of the earth… until he destroy thee and break thee down in all thy cities… The Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other… Among those nations thou shalt find no rest, nor shall there be any rest for the sole of thy foot.“
XII. Christ Brought the Mosaic Religion to Its End
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Thesis I (Quaestio I), p. 69
[Billot’s foundational dogmatic statement on the institution of the Church and the ending of the Mosaic religion, directed against the rationalists who denied that Christ intended to found a society distinct from the Synagogue.]
Original (Thesis statement):
« Christus in terris adveniens Mosaicae religioni finem dedit, Ecclesiamque suam ut adimpletionis oeconomiam in quam transiret Vetus Testamentum, primum quidem praedicando annuntiavit, tum in praeparatione proxima antequam pateretur disposuit, denique a mortuis resurgens in actu ultimo fundavit, quae etiam statim post christianam Pentecosten, tam iam perfecta atque distincta a Synagoga societas, vitam agere propriam, et sese per mundum expandere coepit. »
Translation:
“Christ, coming upon earth, brought the Mosaic religion to its end and first announced by His preaching His Church as the economy of fulfilment into which the Old Testament was to pass, then disposed it in proximate preparation before His Passion, and finally, rising from the dead, founded it in the last act — which Church, immediately after the Christian Pentecost, as a society already so perfect and distinct from the Synagogue, began to live its own life and to expand itself throughout the world.”
XIII. The Synagogue Was Shadow and Preparation Only; the Church Is Its Definitive Successor
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Introductio §4, p. 59
Original:
« instituta est in Israel Synagoga, in qua sicut prophetica revelatio in dies clarior, ratio typorum manifestior, ita forma ecclesiae esset expressior. At nondum in mosaica lege finis, imo nihil nisi praeparatio ad testamentum novum, umbra praecedens corpus, et custodia in eam fidem quae revelanda erat. Quapropter ultima ac definitiva religiosae societatis constitutio pertinebat ad Christum de quo visio et prophetia. Qui tandem adveniens, et universum testamentum vetus, non reprobando, sed adimplendo abrogans, instituit ecclesiam suam: ecclesiam quidem a Synagoga plane distinctam, (quamvis ad eam se habeat ut antitypus ad typum et figuratum ad figuram), ecclesiam visibilem et universalem ab omnibus iam hominibus usque in mundi finem ineundam, quae manens regnum immobile, ut dicitur Heb. XII-28, non aliam exspectat consummationem sui status, quam a fide ad visionem in ecclesia coelesti. »
Translation:
“In Israel the Synagogue was established, in which, as the prophetic revelation became each day clearer and the rationale of types more manifest, so the form of the Church would become more explicit. But the end was not yet in the Mosaic Law — indeed, it was nothing but a preparation for the New Testament, a shadow preceding the body, and a custody unto that faith that was to be revealed. Wherefore the last and definitive constitution of religious society pertained to Christ, of whom vision and prophecy spoke. Who at length coming and abrogating the entire Old Testament — not by repudiating but by fulfilling it — established His Church: a Church plainly distinct from the Synagogue (although standing to it as antitype to type and figured thing to figure), a visible and universal Church to be entered by all men henceforth until the end of the world, which, remaining an unshakeable kingdom (Heb. 12:28), expects no other consummation of its state than the passage from faith to vision in the heavenly Church.”
XIV. The Synagogue Was a Slave, Typified by Hagar; the Church Is Mistress and Free
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Quaestio XVI: De Potestate Iurisdictionis, p. 469
[Billot draws the sharpest possible contrast between the Synagogue and the Church on the question of legislative power and universality.]
Original:
« elucet quam maxime differentia inter Ecclesiam et Synagogam. Nam Synagoga instituebatur ad certum tempus, et pro uno populo tantum: ad certum tempus, usquedum veniret fides quae revelanda erat, ut dicitur Gal. III-23; pro uno populo tantum, in quo etiam vinculum politicum coincidebat cum vinculo religioso… Accedit quod Synagoga erat serva, figurata per Agar, cui ex consequenti cuncta in individuo usque ad minutas cultus caeremonias debuerunt praescribi. Sed Ecclesia, cum sit domina, et libera, et in sinu suo omnes terrae cognationes usque in saeculi finem comprehendens, longe diversae conditionis est. »
Translation:
“The difference between the Church and the Synagogue stands out in the highest degree. For the Synagogue was established for a set time and for one people alone — for a set time, until the faith that was to be revealed should come, as it says in Gal. 3:23; for one people alone, in which even the political bond coincided with the religious bond… Moreover, the Synagogue was a slave, typified by Hagar, and in consequence everything in it, down to the minutest ceremonies of worship, had to be prescribed individually. But the Church, being mistress and free, and encompassing in her bosom all the nations of the earth until the end of the world, is of a far different condition.“
XV. The Carnal Character of Jewish Worship; Christ’s New Worship “in Spirit and in Truth”
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Thesis I, §1, pp. 71–72
[Billot expounds Christ’s conversation with the Samaritan woman as a threefold announcement including the condemnation of Jewish worship as carnal and imperfect.]
Original:
« novum cultum mox introducendum opposuerat, tum cultui Samaritano qui nequidem erat in veritate, utpote falsus et a Deo reprobatus, tum etiam cultui Judaico qui etsi verus et legitimus, non tamen erat in spiritu, quatenus propter carnalitatem gentis tot materialibus conditionibus debuerat onerari, ut elementum eius praedominans videri potuisset magis esse corporalis exercitatio quam interior devotio. »
Translation:
“He had opposed the new worship soon to be introduced, both to the Samaritan worship — which was not even in truth, being false and reprobated by God — and also to the Jewish worship, which, although true and legitimate, was nonetheless not in spirit, inasmuch as on account of the carnal character of the nation it had had to be burdened with so many material conditions that its dominant element could have seemed to be bodily exercise rather than interior devotion.“
Original:
« Uno demum verbo annuntiaverat Christus “cessationem adorationis tam secundum ritum Judaeorum adorantium in Ierusalem, quam etiam secundum ritum Samaritanorum adorantium in monte hoc.” »
Translation:
“In a word, Christ had announced ‘the cessation of worship both according to the rite of the Jews worshipping in Jerusalem and according to the rite of the Samaritans worshipping on this mountain.’“
XVI. Peter’s Very First Command: “Separate Yourselves from This Wicked Generation”
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Thesis I, §2, p. 84
Original:
« Ad primam Petri praedicationem plures convertuntur. Hos statim iubet Petrus segregari a Synagoga: Salvamini, inquit, a generatione ista prava (Act. II-40); tum baptizantur et uniuntur in societatem propriam. »
Translation:
“At Peter’s first preaching, many are converted. Peter immediately commands these to separate themselves from the Synagogue: Save yourselves, he says, from this wicked generation (Acts 2:40); then they are baptised and united into a society of their own.”
XVII. From Separation from the Synagogue Arose Persecution — Not the Reverse
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Thesis I, §2, p. 86
Original:
« Ex hac porro segregatione a Synagoga orta est persecutio, non autem vice versa, ut vellent rationalistae, ex persecutione segregatio, prout evidenter attestatur tum ratio agendi Synedrii Iudaici contra apostolos (Act. IV-V), tum historia lapidati Stephani necnon et Sauli devastantis Ecclesiam (Act. VI-VIII). »
Translation:
“From this separation from the Synagogue, moreover, persecution arose — not, as the rationalists would have it, separation from persecution — as is evidently attested both by the manner of acting of the Jewish Sanhedrin against the apostles (Acts 4–5), and by the history of the stoning of Stephen and of Saul ravaging the Church (Acts 6–8).”
XVIII. The Stone Rejected by the Jews Became the Cornerstone: Christ Reprobated by Israel
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Quaestio XIII (De Monarchia Ecclesiae in B. Petro Instituta), p. 631
[Billot cites and endorses St. Chrysostom’s commentary on Psalm 117 in the course of his exegesis of the Petrine texts, drawing out the supersessionist significance of the cornerstone image.]
Original (Chrysostom, quoted and endorsed by Billot):
« Hic tamen reprobatus lapis adeo probus apparuit ut fieret caput anguli. Non enim omnis lapis aptus est ad angulum, sed qui est probatissimus, et potest muros revincere ex utroque latere. Quod ergo dicit Propheta tale est: Qui est a Iudaeis reprobatus et pro nihilo habitus, apparuit adeo mirabilis ut non solum contexeret aedificium, sed duos etiam parietes coniungeret ac revinciret. Quos tandem parietes? Iudaeos scilicet et eos qui credebant ex gentibus. » (Chrysostom., in Psalm. CXVII, n. 5)
Translation:
“Yet this rejected stone appeared so worthy as to become the head of the corner. For not every stone is fit for the corner, but only that which is most approved and can bind the walls together from either side. What the Prophet says, therefore, is this: He who was rejected by the Jews and held as nothing appeared so marvellous as not only to bind together the building but also to join and bind together two walls. Which walls? The Jews and those who believed from among the Gentiles.“
XIX. La Parousie: The Crime of the Deicide Jews and the Double Punishment
La Parousie, Paris, Gabriel Beauchesne, 1920, p. 31
[In expounding the structure of Christ’s eschatological discourse in Matthew 24, Billot identifies its two prophetic objects as two parallel divine punishments.]
Original:
« la ruine prochaine de Jérusalem, en punition du crime des Juifs déicides qui n’avaient voulu ni recevoir, ni reconnaître le Christ, et la ruine suprême, encore cachée dans un impénétrable avenir, en punition du crime du monde apostat qui, après l’avoir connu, aura fini par le rejeter. »
Translation:
“The imminent ruin of Jerusalem, as punishment for the crime of the deicide Jews who had been unwilling either to receive or to recognise Christ, and the supreme ruin, still hidden in an impenetrable future, as punishment for the crime of the apostate world which, having come to know Him, will at last have rejected Him.”
XX. The Generation That Bears the Blood of All the Prophets — and of the Son of God
La Parousie, pp. 39–42
Original:
« la génération sur laquelle retombera le sang de tous les prophètes et de tous les justes répandu depuis l’origine, parce qu’elle devait mettre le comble à la mesure en crucifiant le Fils de Dieu lui-même, et en mettant à mort ses apôtres et ses ministres (Matth., xxiii, 36 ; Luc, xi, 50). »
Translation:
“The generation upon which shall fall the blood of all the prophets and all the just that has been shed from the beginning of the world, because it was to fill the measure to the brim by crucifying the Son of God Himself, and by putting to death His apostles and His ministers (Matt. 23:36; Luke 11:50).”
XXI. The Jews Put to the Sword and Led Captive Among All Nations
La Parousie, pp. 43–44
Original:
« L’une plus rapprochée, où les Juifs seront passés au fil de l’épée et emmenés captifs parmi toutes les nations, l’autre plus éloignée qui ne viendra qu’après que l’Évangile aura été prêché par toute la terre, et que les temps des Gentils auront été accomplis. »
Translation:
“The nearer one, in which the Jews shall be put to the sword and led captive among all the nations; the more distant one, which shall not come until the Gospel has been preached throughout the whole earth, and the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled.”
XXII. Jerusalem — “Murderess of the Prophets”
La Parousie, p. 15
Original:
« Jésus venait de terminer sa prédication publique par un suprême avertissement donné à Jérusalem, homicide des prophètes et meurtrière de ceux qui lui étaient envoyés. »
Translation:
“Jesus had just brought His public preaching to a close with a supreme warning given to Jerusalem, murderess of the prophets and slayer of those who were sent to it.”
Sources
All passages below were read and verified directly from the two text files uploaded by the compiler (full-text OCR extractions of the 1895 and 1898/1927 editions respectively), cross-referenced against the Internet Archive scans and the isidore.co PDF versions cited below. English translations are the work of the compiler of this page.
Primary Works — Editions Consulted
- De Verbo Incarnato: Commentarius in Tertiam Partem S. Thomae, by Ludovico Billot, S.J. Editio altera, aucta et emendata. Rome: ex Typographia Polyglotta S.C. de Propaganda Fide, 1895. Full scan (Internet Archive, Duquesne University / Gumberg Library): https://archive.org/details/deverboincarnato00loui. Direct PDF: https://archive.org/download/deverboincarnato00loui/deverboincarnato00loui.pdf. The specific passages above are located at the following pages of the 1895 edition: p. 228 (Q. XIII — “impias furentium Judaeorum manus”); pp. 413–417 (Thesis XLVI–XLVII — conveniences of the Passion, the three tribunals, “auctores deicidii”); pp. 425–427 (Thesis XLIX — efficient causes of the Passion, “Judaei simpliciter dicendi Christi occisores”); pp. 515–519 (Pars Tertia — prophecies of the dispersion; the Passion as scandalum Judaeis); pp. 527–531 (Pars Tertia — Daniel 9, “in vindictam deicidii”; Cain-Abel, “deicidis fratribus”; Augustine, “Reproba gens”).
- Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior: De credibilitate Ecclesiae et de intima ejus constitutione, by Ludovico Billot, S.J. Prati: ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et Soc., 1898. 5th ed., Rome: apud Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1927. Full scan, 1898 edition (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/BillotDeEcclesiaChristiI. Further scan (Internet Archive, 2023): https://archive.org/details/tractatusdeeccle01bill_202307. The specific passages above are located in: Introductio §4 (pp. 59–60 — the Synagogue as shadow and preparation; the Church as its definitive successor); Thesis I §1–§2 (pp. 69–87 — Christ ending the Mosaic religion; carnality of Jewish worship; Peter’s command of separation; separation causing persecution); Q. XIII (p. 631 — cornerstone image, Christ reprobated by the Jews); Q. XVI (p. 469 — Synagoga as serva/Agar vs. Ecclesia as domina/libera).
- Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Secundus: De habitudine Ecclesiae ad civilem societatem, by Ludovico Billot, S.J. Prati: ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et Soc., 1910. Full scan (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/BillotDeEcclesiaChristiII. OCR-layer PDF (isidore.co): https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/ITOPL_OCR-layer-only/5a.%20Dogmatic/Billot%20SJ-%20Opera%20Omnia/Billot,%20SJ%20-%20De%20Ecclesia%20Christi,%20Tomus%202_OCR.pdf.
- La Parousie, by Cardinal Louis Billot, S.J. Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1920 (352 pp.). Originally published as articles in Études, vols. 54–56, 1917–1919. Full scan (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/LaParousie000000565. Direct PDF: https://archive.org/download/LaParousie000000565/La_Parousie_000000565.pdf.
Secondary Reference and Bibliographical Sources
- Encyclopedia.com, “Billot, Louis,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (2003): https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/billot-louis.
- Wikipedia, “Louis Billot”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Billot.
- Journal of Jesuit Studies 8/4 (2021): “Louis Cardinal Billot, S.J. (1846–1931): Thomist, Anti-Modernist, Integralist” (Brill): https://brill.com/view/journals/jjs/8/4/article-p585_585.xml.
- Angelus Online, “An Anti-Liberal Theologian” (based on Fr. Henri Le Floch’s Le Cardinal Billot, lumière de la théologie, Rome, 1927): http://www.angelusonline.org/index.php?section=articles&subsection=show_article&article_id=3845.
- Open Library entry for Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, 1927 edition: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL17271363M/Tractatus_de_ecclesia_Christi.