Compiled from Les Controverses (The Controversies), Œuvres Complètes, Tome VIII, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899. All passages are direct quotations from the scanned texts. Translations are provided immediately after each French original. Latin passages cited by De Sales from patristic sources are translated alongside the French commentary.
Preface: The Shape of the Corpus
St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622), Bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church, is best known as a spiritual director and devotional writer — the author of the Introduction to a Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God, works that shaped Catholic piety for four centuries. Less studied is the polemical and doctrinal dimension of his career. Between 1594 and 1598, as a young priest on mission in the Chablais region of Savoy, De Sales undertook the systematic reconversion of a Protestant population to Catholicism. The instrument of that mission was a sustained series of written disputations, later collected as Les Controverses (The Controversies) — a dense work of doctrinal argument engaging Scripture, the Church Fathers, and the history of Christian institutions.
The Controverses belong squarely to the classical adversus Judaeos tradition insofar as they repeatedly ground Catholic ecclesiology in a theology of supersession: the Church is what the Synagogue was, properly understood; the Synagogue ceased to be the people of God at the precise moment it resolved to put Christ to death; and those who continue to regard the old dispensation as valid after the Resurrection perpetuate the error of those who cried Crucifige. The Jews appear in the Controverses not primarily as a contemporary social group but as the theological type of rejected Israel — the community whose condemnation of Christ simultaneously ended the old covenant and inaugurated the new.
The Adversus Judaeos content in De Sales’s Controverses operates in four main registers:
- Deicide as the terminus of the Synagogue — the Synagogue did not fade away or gradually give place to the Church; it ended at the precise moment it resolved to put Christ to death, its authority extinguished by the act of deicide.
- Supersessionism — the Church is not a new institution alongside Israel but the legitimate continuation of Israel‘s covenantal identity, transferred whole from the Synagogue to the Catholic Church at the moment of the Synagogue‘s self-annulment.
- Divine abandonment — citing St. Jerome’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes, De Sales presents the Jewish people as the dead lion of Scripture: abandoned by God, knowing nothing, awaiting no promise and no reward, their very memory having run its course.
- Carnal misreading of Messianic hope — Jewish expectation of the Messiah is characterised as a misreading rooted in carnal and worldly categories, contrasted unfavorably with the spiritual kingship Christ actually exercised.
Six verified passages are presented below, ordered thematically. Each entry includes the original French text (with Latin patristic quotations where embedded by De Sales), an English translation, the source location within the Œuvres, and a brief note.
I. “Ce lion est mort, ce peuple ayant été abandonné de Dieu” — The Jewish People as the Dead Lion, Abandoned by God
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 4695–4736.
This passage quotes at length from St. Jerome’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which De Sales reproduces in Latin and then renders into French. Jerome’s exegesis of Ecclesiastes 9:4 (“A living dog is better than a dead lion”) becomes, in De Sales’s hands, an authoritative patristic judgment on the present condition of the Jewish people.
Latin (St. Jerome, as quoted by De Sales)
“Leonem verò mortuum Judæorum est populus à Domino derelictus, et melior est apud Dominum iste canis vivens quàm leo ille mortuus; nos enim viventes cognoscimus Patrem, et Filium, et Spiritum sanctum; illi verò mortui nihil sciunt, neque expectant aliquam repromissionem atque mercedem, sed completa est memoria eorum…”
Translation of the Latin
“But the dead lion is the people of the Jews, abandoned by the Lord; and better before the Lord is this living dog than that dead lion; for we who are living know the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but they who are dead know nothing, await no promise and no reward, but their memory is complete…”
French (De Sales’s own commentary)
“Nous donnerons, selon l’expression de l’Évangile, le nom de chien à la Chananéenne à qui il a été dit : Votre foi vous a sauvée; par le lion mort, nous entendrons le peuple de la circoncision dont le prophète Balaam a parlé en ces termes : ‘Voici tout le peuple qui se lève comme un lionceau et qui bondit comme un lion.’ Nous sommes donc le chien vivant, nous qui sommes d’entre les nations, le lion qui figuroit les Juifs est mort, ce peuple ayant été abandonné de Dieu : le chien qui a la vie est donc plus agréable au Seigneur que ce lion qui l’a perdue. Car nous qui sommes vivans, nous connoissons le Père, le Fils et le Saint-Esprit; quant à ceux là, qui sont morts, ils ne savent rien, n’attendent aucune promesse, n’espèrent aucune récompense. La mémoire de leur nom a eu son terme, et comme ils ont oublié ce qu’ils devoient faire, le Seigneur ne les est plus ressouvenu d’eux.”
Translation
“We will give, following the expression of the Gospel, the name of dog to the Canaanite woman to whom it was said: Your faith has saved you; by the dead lion we will understand the people of the circumcision, of whom the prophet Balaam spoke in these words: ‘Behold all the people who rise like a young lion and leap like a lion.’ We are therefore the living dog, we who are from among the nations; the lion that figured the Jews is dead, this people having been abandoned by God: the dog that has life is therefore more pleasing to the Lord than this lion that has lost it. For we who are living know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; as for those who are dead, they know nothing, await no promise, hope for no reward. The memory of their name has run its course, and as they forgot what they were required to do, the Lord no longer remembered them.”
Note
This is the most striking patristic citation in the Controverses corpus. De Sales invokes Jerome not merely as a theological authority but as the interpreter who definitively assigns the two animals of Ecclesiastes to their respective peoples: the living dog is the Gentile Church; the dead lion is the Jewish people. The phrase abandonné de Dieu (“abandoned by God”) is not rhetorical excess but a precise theological claim: the abandonment is total, permanent within history, and divinely willed. The parallel structure — nous… connoissons / ils… ne savent rien (“we know / they know nothing”) — enacts the supersessionist substitution at the level of grammar.
II. “Perditio tua ex te, Israel“ — Israel‘s Ruin Comes from Itself
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 11762–11767.
French
“Ce qui revient au dire du Prophete : Perditio tua ex te Israel : pouvés-vous ignorer que nostre Seigneur estoit vray Sauveur, venu pour esclairer tout homme vivant, et servir de lumiere pour la revelation des Gentils, et pour la gloire d’Israël? Cependant Israël en prend l’occasion de son ignominie, ne voila pas un grand malheur?”
Translation
“This returns to the saying of the Prophet: Your ruin is from yourself, O Israel [Hosea 13:9]: can you be ignorant that our Lord was the true Saviour, come to enlighten every living man, and to serve as a light for the revelation of the Gentiles and for the glory of Israel? Yet Israel takes from this the occasion of its ignominy — is that not a great misfortune?”
Note
De Sales embeds the Hosea citation (Perditio tua ex te) in Latin, allowing the Hebrew prophet to speak the condemnation of his own people in their own sacred tongue — a characteristic adversus Judaeos move. The rhetorical question that closes the passage — ne voila pas un grand malheur? (“is that not a great misfortune?”) — is not compassionate mitigation but an intensification of the indictment: it is precisely the magnitude of what Israel has thrown away that makes the self-inflicted ruin so theologically terrible.
III. “La Synagogue prit fin au moment où elle se resolut de faire mourir Jesus-Christ” — The Synagogue Ended When It Resolved to Put Christ to Death
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 22648–22668.
French
“Ainsy voulut nostre Seigneur conduire cette Synagogue, et l’authorité sacerdotale, avec un remarquable honneur, mesme en sa sepulture, pour luy faire succeder l’Eglise Catholique, et le sacerdoce Évangélique : et là, où la Synagogue prit fin (qui fut au moment où elle se resolut de faire mourir Jesus-Christ), l’Eglise fut fondée, et entée en son lieu et place… Il ne faut donc plus mettre en compte les prerogatives de la Synagogue, qui estoyent fondées sur un Testament ancien, supprimé et abrogé, quand les Juifs dirent ces abominables paroles, Crucifige, ou ces autres, en blasphemant, Quid adhuc egemus testibus?“
Translation
“Thus did our Lord wish to conduct this Synagogue, and the sacerdotal authority, with remarkable honour even in His burial, in order to make the Catholic Church and the Evangelical priesthood succeed to it: and there, where the Synagogue came to an end — which was at the moment it resolved to put Jesus Christ to death — the Church was founded, and grafted in its place and stead… One must therefore no longer reckon with the prerogatives of the Synagogue, which were founded on an old Testament, suppressed and abrogated, when the Jews uttered those abominable words, Crucifige [Crucify him], or those others, in blaspheming, Quid adhuc egemus testibus? [What further need have we of witnesses?]”
Note
This is the doctrinal centre of De Sales’s supersessionism, and one of the most precisely dated supersessionist claims in the Catholic tradition. The Synagogue did not fade; it ended at an identifiable historical moment — the moment the Sanhedrin resolved on the death of Christ. De Sales grounds this not in general theological principle but in two specific scriptural utterances: Crucifige (the cry of the crowd) and Quid adhuc egemus testibus? (the high priest’s declaration, Matthew 26:65). These words are called abominables and blasphémant respectively. The “old Testament” — meaning the old covenant — is explicitly described as supprimé et abrogé (“suppressed and abrogated”) by the act of deicide.
IV. “Toute la Synagogue devoit estre changée et transferée” — The Synagogue Transferred to the Church
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 22619–22622.
French
“Toute la Synagogue devoit estre changée et transferée en ce tems-là, et cette sienne decision avoit esté predite… Mais l’Eglise Catholique Chrestienne ne doit jamais estre transferée pendant que le monde sera monde; nous n’attendons point un troisieme Legislateur, ni aucun autre Sacerdoce legitime; le nostre doit estre eternel.”
Translation
“The whole Synagogue was to be changed and transferred at that time, and this its determination had been predicted… But the Catholic Christian Church must never be transferred for as long as the world shall be world; we do not await a third Lawgiver, nor any other legitimate Priesthood; ours must be eternal.”
Note
The word transferée (“transferred”) is juridical: what the Synagogue possessed by divine institution — authority, priesthood, covenant — was not destroyed but transferred whole to the Church. The prediction of this transfer (cette sienne decision avoit esté predite) grounds the supersession in the Hebrew prophets themselves. The declaration that no third Lawgiver is awaited is an implicit rejection of any future Jewish messianic expectation, including any form of restored Jewish religious sovereignty, as outside the bounds of legitimate theological hope.
V. “Une conspiration tumultuaire” — The Pharisees Who Judged Christ Held No Legitimate Council
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 22601–22614.
French
“Non plus que l’assemblée des Prestres et Pharisiens, qui se meslerent de juger Jesus-Christ : car cette troupe de confusion ne tint aucune forme de Concile, ce fut une conspiration tumultuaire, et sans aucune procedure requise, laquelle tant s’en faut qu’elle eust aucune asseurance en l’Escriture, de l’assistance du saint Esprit, qu’au contraire elle avoit esté declairée nulle par la prevision du Roy des Prophetes.”
Translation
“No more than the assembly of the Priests and Pharisees who took it upon themselves to judge Jesus Christ: for this company of confusion held no form of a Council whatsoever; it was a tumultuous conspiracy, without any of the required procedure, which was so far from having any assurance in Scripture of the assistance of the Holy Spirit that on the contrary it had been declared null by the foreknowledge of the King of Prophets.”
Note
De Sales here dismantles any residual claim to legitimate authority for the Sanhedrin’s condemnation of Christ. The legal vocabulary is precise — aucune forme de Concile, aucune procedure requise (“no form of a Council, no required procedure”) — reducing the trial of Christ to a conspiration tumultuaire (“tumultuous conspiracy”). More theologically significant is the final clause: the nullity of this assembly was declared in advance by the foreknowledge of the King of Prophets — meaning that God Himself, through prophetic Scripture, had already voided whatever juridical authority the Sanhedrin supposed itself to possess.
VI. “Le Royaume ne s’est pas produit avec le faste d’une majesté mondaine, comme les Juifs le croyoient” — The Jews‘ Carnal Misunderstanding of the Messianic Kingdom
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 13655–13657.
French
“Le Royaume icy ne s’est pas produit avec l’apparat et le faste d’une majesté mondaine, comme les Juifs le croyoient.”
Translation
“The Kingdom here did not come forth with the pomp and splendour of a worldly majesty, as the Jews believed.”
Note
Though brief, this sentence performs an important function in the Controverses: it dismisses the entire Jewish messianic tradition as a misreading rooted in worldly categories. The contrast between majesté mondaine (“worldly majesty”) and the Kingdom that actually came is the contrast between carnal and spiritual understanding — a contrast that, for De Sales as for the whole adversus Judaeos tradition, defines the Jewish error at its root. The past tense of the indictment (comme les Juifs le croyoient) assigns this misreading to the Jews as a defining characteristic of their expectation.
VII. “Les Juifs estoyent comme un troupeau de bestail, assemblé et attrouppé par crainte” — The Synagogue as a Herd Driven by Fear
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 23349–23365.
French
“la Synagogue, à proprement parler, veut dire un troupeau; l’assemblée des Juifs s’appelloit Synagogue, celle des Chrestiens s’appelle Eglise, parce que les Juifs estoyent comme un troupeau de bestail, assemblé et attrouppé par crainte; les Chrestiens sont assemblés par la parole de Dieu, appellés ensemble en union de charité, par la predication des Apostres, et celle de leurs successeurs. En effect, saint Augustin advouë que l’Eglise est nommée de la convocation, et la Synagogue du troupeau, parce qu’estre convoqué appartient plus aux hommes, estre attroupé appartient plus au bestail.”
Translation
“The Synagogue, properly speaking, means a herd; the assembly of the Jews was called Synagogue, that of Christians is called Church, because the Jews were like a herd of cattle, assembled and herded together by fear; Christians are assembled by the word of God, called together in union of charity by the preaching of the Apostles and their successors. Indeed, Saint Augustine acknowledges that the Church is named from the convocation, and the Synagogue from the herd, because to be convoked belongs more to men, to be herded together belongs more to cattle.”
Note
De Sales draws here on an etymology attributed to Augustine to establish a hierarchical distinction between the two assemblies at the level of their very names. The Synagogue‘s name — troupeau (“herd”) — is not incidental but definitional: it encodes the spiritual condition of those assembled under the old covenant, governed by fear rather than charity. The contrast is precise and damning: the Jews relate to God as livestock to a drover; Christians relate to God as persons responding to a call. This passage extends the supersessionist argument from the institutional level (covenant, priesthood, sacrifice) down to the anthropological level: the mode of assembly itself reveals the difference in the two peoples’ standing before God.
VIII. “Les Juifs se trompoyent, entendant du premier avenement du Messie, ce qui est souvent predit du second” — The Jews Misread Their Own Prophets
Source: Les Controverses, Tome VIII, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899, lines 25919–25923.
French
“les Anciens disoyent sagement que celuy qui sçavoit observer exactement la difference des terns, avoit en main un bon moyen pour expliquer les Escritures : à faute de quoy les Juifs se trompoyent, entendant du premier avenement du Messie, ce qui est souvent predit du second.”
Translation
“The Ancients said wisely that he who knew how to observe exactly the difference of times had in hand a good means for explaining the Scriptures: for lack of which the Jews were deceived, understanding as referring to the first coming of the Messiah what is often foretold of the second.”
Note
De Sales here turns the Jews‘ own prophetic scriptures against them through a temporal argument: they cannot distinguish between prophecies of the first and second coming of the Messiah, and this failure of discernment is the structural cause of their rejection of Christ. The implication is characteristically adversus Judaeos: the Jews read their own scriptures and still cannot see what they plainly say, not because the texts are obscure but because the readers lack the hermeneutical key that only the Church possesses. The error is attributed not to malice here but to incapacity — a blindness of method that is itself, for De Sales, a consequence of the deeper spiritual blindness treated in earlier passages.
Sources
All passages in this compilation are drawn from the following work, available in full at the Internet Archive:
- St. Francis de Sales, Œuvres Complètes, Tome VIII (Paris: Louis Vivès, 1899) — contains Les Controverses. https://archive.org/details/oeuvres08francuoft