Compiled from the five volumes of St. Thomas of Villanova’s Œuvres (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1897 ed.), translated from the Latin by P. V. Ferrier, Prêtre de la Miséricorde. All passages are direct quotations from the French text. English translations are provided immediately after each French original.
Preface: The Shape of the Corpus
Thomas of Villanova (1486–1555), born Tomás García Martínez, was an Augustinian friar and Archbishop of Valencia under Emperor Charles V. One of the most celebrated preachers of sixteenth-century Spain and a canonized saint, he is known for his rigorous theology, his elaborate scriptural exegesis, and his intense Passion spirituality. His collected sermons, translated from the Latin and spanning five volumes in the Ferrier edition, are deeply shaped by the classical adversus Judaeos tradition running from the Church Fathers through the Scholastics, and provide a systematic theological indictment of the Jewish people and their religion.
His anti-Jewish passages operate in seven registers:
- Deicide and collective guilt — the crucifixion as the defining crime of the Jewish people, for which they incurred perpetual punishment.
- Blindness and obstinacy — extended meditations on the caecitas and obstinatio of Israel, its inexcusable refusal to recognise the Messiah despite overwhelming scriptural and miraculous evidence.
- Supersessionism — the Synagogue explicitly described as abolished and replaced by the Church; the Mosaic Law as a dead letter; the kingdom of God transferred from the Jews to the nations.
- The Synagogue as enemy — the Synagogue named a “Synagogue of Satan,” the Jewish people characterised as the permanent enemies of Christ and His Church.
- Criticism of the rabbis and Talmud — rabbinic exegesis dismissed as absurdity, “childish follies deserving nothing but ridicule and contempt.”
- Jewish dispersion as divine punishment — the fifteen-hundred-year exile and statelessness of the Jewish people treated as providential retribution for the murder of Christ, with explicit interrogation of still-living Jews about their crime.
- The Jews as carnal, mercenary, and coarse — a recurring portrait of the Jewish people as incapable of spiritual elevation, serving God only for material reward, and constitutionally unable to embrace the Catholic faith.
Forty-six verified passages are presented below, ordered thematically. Each entry includes the original French text, a literal English translation, the volume source, and a brief contextual note.
I. “Synagogue de Satan, incrédule et perfide !” — The Synagogue of Satan at the Last Judgement
Source: Vol. I — Second Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent
French
« Et, se retournant vers le peuple qu’il s’était choisi et qu’il avait voulu éclairer de sa doctrine et de sa foi, il lui adressera ces paroles : « O mon peuple, que t’ai-je fait ? quel déplaisir t’ai-je causé ? réponds-moi. » Synagogue de Satan, incrédule et perfide ! Que de travaux, que de fatigues n’ai-je pas endurés pour toi ! que de miracles et de prodiges n’ai-je pas opérés en ta faveur ! que de bienfaits ne t’ai-je pas prodigués ! « Combien de fois n’ai-je pas voulu rassembler tes enfants, comme une poule rassemble ses petits sous ses ailes et tu ne l’as pas voulu. Que dis-je ? ô malheureuse, pour prix de mes fatigues et de mes bienfaits, regarde, voilà la récompense que j’ai reçue de toi. » »
Translation
“And, turning toward the people He had chosen for Himself and had wished to enlighten with His doctrine and His faith, He will address them these words: ‘O my people, what have I done to you? What displeasure have I caused you? Answer me.’ Synagogue of Satan, unbelieving and treacherous! What labours, what fatigue have I not endured for you! What miracles and wonders have I not worked in your favour! What benefits have I not lavished upon you! ‘How often have I wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not. What more? O unhappy one, for the reward of my labours and my benefits, behold — this is the recompense I have received from you.'”
Note
Thomas here places the designation Synagogue de Satan in the mouth of Christ Himself at the Last Judgement, directing it toward the Jewish people. The locution draws on Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 and follows the patristic identification of post-Pentecost Judaism with satanic opposition to Christ’s Church. The passage frames the entire history of Jewish-Christian relations as a divine complaint of unrequited love — boundless beneficence returned with treachery — and positions it as the centrepiece of the Last Judgement.
II. “L’aveugle Synagogue — toujours perfide” — The Church and the Blind Synagogue
Source: Vol. I — Second Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent
French
« L’Eglise et l’aveugle Synagogue. L’Eglise, toujours fidèle, confessait Jésus-Christ, disant : « Vous êtes celui qui doit venir. » La Synagogue, au contraire, toujours perfide, le reniait, disant : « Non, mais nous en attendons un autre. » »
Translation
“The Church and the blind Synagogue. The Church, always faithful, confessed Jesus Christ, saying: ‘You are He who is to come.’ The Synagogue, on the contrary, always treacherous, denied Him, saying: ‘No, but we await another.'”
Note
Thomas sets up the fundamental opposition of his ecclesiology: Church versus Synagogue, the one always faithful, the other always treacherous. The adverbs toujours are emphatic — Jewish faithlessness is not incidental but constitutive, a permanent and defining trait across all of history. This passage is the thesis that governs much of Thomas’s preaching on the Incarnation: the mystery was hidden from the Jews not by divine caprice but because of their inherent incapacity for spiritual perception.
III. “Ô lamentable aveuglement de ce peuple !” — The Inexcusable Blindness of the Jewish People
Source: Vol. I — Second Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent
French
« Mais, ô lamentable aveuglement de ce peuple ! Celui qui avait été l’objet d’une si longue attente, de désirs si brûlants, Celui qu’avaient annoncé tant de figures, tant de prophéties, ne fut pas reconnu de ces aveugles. « Il était dans le monde, et le monde a été fait par lui, et le monde ne l’a point connu. Il est venu chez les siens, et les siens ne l’ont pas reçu. » »
« Voyant donc l’aveuglement et l’endurcissement de ce peuple, son obstination à repousser les oracles des prophètes et le témoignage qu’il avait lui-même rendu à Jésus-Christ, Jean-Baptiste, frappé au cœur d’une douleur profonde, ému de pitié pour ce peuple… »
Translation
“But, O lamentable blindness of this people! He who had been the object of so long a wait and of such burning desires, He whom so many figures and so many prophecies had foretold, was not recognised by these blind men. ‘He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world did not know Him. He came among His own, and His own did not receive Him.'”
“Seeing therefore the blindness and the hardening of this people, their obstinacy in rejecting the oracles of the Prophets and the testimony that they had themselves rendered to Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, struck to the heart with deep sorrow, moved with pity for this people…”
Note
Thomas rehearses the classical caecitas Iudaeorum — the blindness of the Jews — a patristic theological category developed by Augustine, Chrysostom, and Isidore of Seville. The blindness is not a misfortune but a moral judgment: despite the evidence of figures, prophecies, and miracles, the Jewish people chose not to see. The word obstination further signals that the blindness is willed, not accidental, placing the full weight of culpability on the Jews themselves.
IV. “Ô peuple obstiné ! Ô déplorable aveuglement !” — They Did Not Wish to Believe
Source: Vol. I — Second Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent
French
« Ils n’ont pas voulu croire à tant de témoignages entendus de leurs oreilles, à tant de miracles opérés sous leurs yeux… Ah ! leur incrédulité méritait bien que le Seigneur les rejetât ! C’est avec raison qu’Isaïe avait dit : « Obscurcissez, Seigneur, le cœur de ce peuple ; appesantissez ses oreilles, fermez ses yeux, de peur qu’il ne voie la Lumière. » »
Translation
“They were not willing to believe in so many testimonies heard with their own ears, in so many miracles worked before their very eyes… Ah! Their unbelief rightly merited that the Lord should cast them away! It was with reason that Isaiah had said: ‘Darken, O Lord, the heart of this people; weigh down their ears, close their eyes, lest they see the Light.'”
Note
Thomas cites Isaiah 6:10 — the hardening of Israel — not as a lament but as a juridical verdict that has been fully and justly executed. The casting away of the Jewish people is presented not as divine arbitrariness but as the inevitable consequence of their own willed refusal. The exclamation Ô peuple obstiné ! recurs across the five volumes as a refrain marking passages of heightened anti-Jewish polemic.
V. “Seuls les Juifs n’ont pas su mêler leur voix” — All Creation Testifies; the Jews Alone Are Silent
Source: Vol. I — Second Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent
French
« Le ciel, la terre, la mer, les astres, les éléments, les animaux, les plantes, les plus durs rochers, tous les êtres de la Création s’unissent pour vous rendre témoignage ; seuls les Juifs n’ont pas su mêler leur voix à toutes ces voix de l’univers. Toute créature atteste la venue du Créateur ; les anges, les hommes, les démons, les Ecritures, les miracles, les prophéties, les martyrs… tout, ô mon Sauveur, vous rend un solennel témoignage. »
Translation
“Heaven, earth, the sea, the stars, the elements, animals, plants, the hardest rocks, all beings of Creation unite to bear witness to you; the Jews alone were unable to mingle their voice with all these voices of the universe. Every creature attests the coming of the Creator; angels, men, demons, the Scriptures, miracles, prophecies, martyrs… all, O my Saviour, render you solemn testimony.”
Note
The rhetorical structure is a catalogue of ascending witnesses — from inanimate creation to the heavenly host — all testifying to Christ, with the Jews placed in stark isolation as the single exception. Thomas uses this device to maximise the inexcusability of Jewish unbelief: even stones and demons bore witness, yet Israel refused. The passage draws on the classical a minori ad maius argument against Jewish obduracy.
VI. “Israël m’a méconnu, rejeté, outragé” — Israel Did Not Know Its God
Source: Vol. I — Fifth Sermon for Christmas Day
French
« « Le bœuf connaît son Maître et l’âne l’étable de son Maître, et Israël ne m’a point connu. » Israël pour qui je suis venu, pour qui je me suis soumis à toutes ces misères, Israël, pendant que tous les autres êtres m’adoraient, lui, m’a méconnu, m’a rejeté, m’a outragé ; les êtres les plus insensibles, pour la plus grande honte d’Israël, m’ont offert leur respect et leur obéissance à ma venue dans le monde… tous les êtres, à leur manière, m’ont reconnu et adoré ; seul ce peuple charnel, vers lequel et pour lequel j’étais venu, seul ce peuple m’a méconnu. »
« Ô trop aveugle insensibilité ! ô trop grossier aveuglement ! ô… »
Translation
“‘The ox knows his Master and the ass the stall of his Master, and Israel has not known Me.’ Israel for whom I came, for whom I submitted to all these wretchednesses — Israel, while all other beings adored Me, misknew Me, rejected Me, outraged Me; the most insensible creatures, to the greatest shame of Israel, offered Me their reverence and their obedience at My coming into the world… all beings, in their fashion, recognised and adored Me; this carnal people alone, toward whom and for whom I had come, this people alone did not know Me.“
“O too blind insensibility! O too gross blindness! O…”
Note
The citation from Isaiah 1:3 — applied in patristic tradition to the Jews as less attentive than dumb animals — is developed here into an extended dramatic monologue by Christ. The phrase peuple charnel (“carnal people”) carries the full weight of its Pauline and patristic background: a people incapable of transcending the material and sensory, constitutionally closed to spiritual realities. Thomas employs the amplification seul ce peuple twice in succession for rhetorical emphasis.
VII. “Rougissez de honte, ô Juifs perfides !” — The Angels Testify; the Jews Are Unmoved
Source: Vol. I — First Sermon for Christmas Day
French
« Vous auriez douté peut-être de la parole d’un seul, mais voilà qu’une multitude confirme cette parole. Ah ! rougissez de honte, ô Juifs perfides, vous à qui un oracle si solennel des anges ne peut donner la foi en Jésus-Christ. »
Translation
“You would perhaps have doubted the word of one alone, but behold — a multitude confirms that word. Ah! Blush for shame, O treacherous Jews, you for whom so solemn an oracle of the angels cannot give faith in Jesus Christ.“
Note
A brief but emphatic formula, directed outward from the pulpit to address the Jews in the second person. The shaming imperative rougissez (“blush”) is a standard classical vituperatio device, here combined with the epithet perfides (treacherous). Thomas’s congregation is invited to share his indignation: the angelic proclamation of the Nativity is set against Jewish imperviousness to further intensify the charge of willed blindness.
VIII. “Ce peuple juif — ignorant, grossier, tout charnel” — The Jewish People Cannot Rise to the Mysteries of God
Source: Vol. I — Fourth Sermon for Christmas Day
French
« Ce peuple juif en effet, ignorant, grossier, tout charnel, tout terrestre, ne goûte point les choses de Dieu ; il ne peut s’élever aux mystères d’en haut. Mais une génération viendra dans les temps futurs, je le sais, génération bien différente, génération pleine de foi et de sagesse, dont la beauté égale l’intelligence, peuple docile, prudent, saint et parfait. »
Translation
“This Jewish people in effect, ignorant, coarse, entirely carnal, entirely earthly, has no taste for the things of God; it cannot raise itself to the mysteries of the heights. But a generation will come in future times, I know it — a generation very different, a generation full of faith and wisdom, whose beauty equals its intelligence, a docile, prudent, holy, and perfect people.”
Note
Thomas here makes carnality the defining characteristic of the Jewish people as a whole, not merely of the wicked among them. The contrast is drawn between this carnal, earthly Israel and a future (implicitly Christian) generation capable of spiritual elevation. The passage reflects the patristic tradition, derived from Paul’s contrast of letter and spirit (2 Corinthians 3), in which adherence to the Mosaic letter is itself a sign of spiritual incapacity.
IX. “Ô aveugle Judée” — Challenge to the Blind Judaea
Source: Vol. I — Fourth Sermon for Christmas Day
French
« Aussi je m’adresse à toi aujourd’hui, ô aveugle Judée : je veux interroger ta conscience. Quels sont, je te le demande, ces prodiges nouveaux que Dieu devait opérer et dont la grandeur devait faire pâlir les prodiges antiques ? Montre-moi les miracles plus éclatants qui ont été depuis lors accomplis ? La mer a-t-elle encore devant vous divisé ses flots et les fleuves se sont-ils desséchés ? La manne est-elle de nouveau tombée du ciel ? Le rocher vous a-t-il donné ses eaux ? Avez-vous vu un prodige au moins semblable pour ne pas dire plus grand ? »
Translation
“And so today I address you, O blind Judaea: I wish to interrogate your conscience. What are these new wonders, I ask you, that God was to work and whose greatness was to eclipse the ancient wonders? Show me the more glorious miracles that have since been accomplished! Has the sea once more divided its waters before you, and have the rivers dried up? Has manna once more fallen from the sky? Has the rock given you its waters? Have you seen a miracle at least equal to these, not to say greater?”
Note
Thomas turns the pulpit into a court of interrogation, with Judaea summoned as a defendant. The rhetorical questions pile up in a catalogue of the Mosaic miracles that have not been renewed under post-Christian Judaism, building a cumulative case for the fulfilment of the Old Testament in Christ and the spiritual bankruptcy of ongoing Jewish expectation. The address in the second person (toi, tu) is a formal prosecutorial mode.
X. “Jérusalem, ô perverse, ô perfide cité” — Jerusalem Conspires Against Its Messiah
Source: Vol. I — First Sermon for the Epiphany
French
« Hérode est donc troublé : cela devait être : c’était un tyran et un étranger : mais toi, Jérusalem, ô perverse, ô perfide cité, pourquoi te troubler ainsi ? Pourquoi t’attrister avec le plus méchant des despotes ? »
« Que te dirai-je, ô génération mauvaise et perverse ? Race de vipères, pleine de poisons, que te dirai-je ? « Sont-ce là les honneurs que tu rends » à ton Dieu, à ton Messie, « peuple aveugle et insensé ? » »
« Peuple coupable ! Vous l’avez rejeté, Seigneur, il l’avait bien mérité ; vous l’avez dissipé, c’était justice ; vous ne l’avez pas même traité comme il le méritait, et sa punition est loin d’égaler sa malice. Peuple aveugle ! »
Translation
“Herod is troubled: that was to be expected; he was a tyrant and a foreigner. But you, Jerusalem, O perverse, O perfidious city, why trouble yourself thus? Why sadden yourself with the most wicked of despots?”
“What shall I say to you, O evil and perverse generation? Race of vipers, full of poison, what shall I say to you? ‘Is this the honour you render’ to your God, to your Messiah, ‘O blind and senseless people?’ Is this the joyful welcome you give to His coming?”
“Guilty people! You have cast them away, Lord; they well deserved it. You have scattered this people; it was justice. You have not even treated them as they deserved, and their punishment falls far short of their malice. O blind people!“
Note
This passage moves through three intensifying registers of denunciation: the apostrophe to the city (ô perverse, ô perfide), the Gospel quotation against the generation (race de vipères), and a direct doxological affirmation of God’s justice in punishing the Jews. The phrase race de vipères cites Matthew 3:7 and 23:33, placing the Jewish people in continuity with those denounced by John the Baptist and by Christ Himself. Thomas’s editorial comment — that the punishment “falls far short of the malice” — intensifies the sentence beyond the Gospel’s own register.
XI. “La dépravation des prêtres juifs” — The Depravity of the Jewish Priests
Source: Vol. I — First Sermon for the Epiphany
French
« Faut-il moins détester la dépravation des prêtres juifs ? Semblables aux milliaires des grands chemins, ils montrent la voie aux autres et eux-mêmes demeurent immobiles. »
« Poursuivez donc, docteurs sacrilèges. Pourquoi tronquer l’Ecriture ? pourquoi la mutiler ? pourquoi ne pas ajouter ce qui suit… Ah ! c’est qu’ils craignaient d’offenser le roi, et dans cette crainte, ils lui cachaient cette divine puissance du Christ. Ennemis, eux aussi, du Seigneur, ils ne voulaient pas exposer aux autres, ils ne voulaient pas comprendre eux-mêmes des paroles qu’ils repoussaient. »
Translation
“Must one detest less the depravity of the Jewish priests? Like the milestones on the great roads, they show the way to others and themselves remain immobile.”
“Pursue on, then, sacrilegious doctors. Why mutilate the Scripture? Why not add what follows?… Ah! It is because they feared to offend the king, and in that fear, they concealed from him the divine power of Christ. Enemies themselves of the Lord, they did not wish to expose to others, they did not wish to understand for themselves, the words they repudiated.”
Note
Thomas indicts the priestly establishment not merely for weakness but for active enmity toward God. The term docteurs sacrilèges — sacrilegious doctors — removes any vestige of religious authority from the Jewish clergy. The charge of mutilating Scripture to serve political ends connects the Passion-era priests to the broader charge of falsifying the biblical witness, a standard element of the adversus Judaeos tradition since Justin Martyr.
XII. “Ô prodigieux aveuglement ! Étonnante perversité !” — The People Conspires with Herod
Source: Vol. I — Second Sermon for the Epiphany
French
« Ô prodigieux aveuglement ! endurcissement inconcevable ! étonnante perversité ! Ce peuple s’unit à son tyran pour conspirer contre le Messie. Quelques-uns même, ainsi que l’enseigne saint Jérôme… quelques-uns, dis-je, préparent avec Hérode la mort du Sauveur. »
Translation
“O prodigious blindness! Inconceivable hardening! Astonishing perversity! This people united itself to its tyrant to conspire against the Messiah. Some, as Saint Jerome teaches… some, I say, prepared with Herod the death of the Saviour.“
Note
Thomas uses the triple exclamation as a structural intensification, stacking three moral categories — blindness, hardening, perversity — to frame the Jewish conspiracy against the Messiah. The citation of Jerome lends patristic authority to the historical claim. The theological point is that Jewish opposition to Christ was not limited to the ruling class but extended into the general population, which “united itself” to the tyrant.
XIII. “La puissance des jugements du Très-Haut” — Divine Retribution: The Jews Punished Through Herod
Source: Vol. I — Second Sermon for the Epiphany
French
« Ô puissance des jugements du Très-Haut ! Les Juifs avaient conspiré avec Hérode contre le Fils de Dieu, et Hérode devint le bourreau de ce peuple et fit mettre à mort une multitude de ses enfants. »
Translation
“O power of the judgements of the Most High! The Jews had conspired with Herod against the Son of God, and Herod became the executioner of this people and put to death a multitude of its children.”
Note
The providential reversal — the instrument of Jewish malice becomes its own chastisement — is a structural principle of Thomas’s theodicy. Herod, used by the Jews as a tool against Christ, is immediately turned back upon them as a divine punishment. The exclamation Ô puissance des jugements du Très-Haut! frames the massacre not as a tragedy but as a manifestation of divine justice, pre-empting any sympathy for its Jewish victims.
XIV. “LES JUIFS REJETÉS DE DIEU” — The Jews Cast Out of the Kingdom
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for the Friday of the Second Week of Lent (Sermon Title: Les Juifs Rejetés de Dieu)
Text: “Le royaume de Dieu vous sera ôté et sera donné à un peuple qui en portera les fruits.” (St. Matt. XXI, 43)
French
« Le sens littéral de cette parabole est clair. Le père de famille, c’est Dieu ; la vigne, c’est la Synagogue ; la haie, c’est la loi ; le pressoir, c’est l’autel des sacrifices ; la tour, c’est le temple ; les laboureurs, ce sont les Juifs ; les messagers, ce sont les prophètes ; le Fils, c’est J.-C. Les Juifs ont rejeté le Fils de Dieu hors de la cité, ils ont mis à mort l’Héritier du royaume des cieux ; c’est pour cela que s’est accomplie sur eux la sentence portée contre les laboureurs : « Il fera misérablement périr ces méchants ; » le royaume de Dieu leur a été enlevé et a été donné à l’Église qui en porte les fruits. »
« Nous dirons premièrement avec quelle justice le royaume de Dieu a été enlevé aux Juifs ; secondement combien nous devons craindre qu’il ne nous soit pareillement enlevé. »
Translation
“The literal sense of this parable is clear. The father of the household is God; the vineyard is the Synagogue; the hedge is the Law; the wine press is the altar of sacrifices; the tower is the Temple; the labourers are the Jews; the messengers are the prophets; the Son is Jesus Christ. The Jews rejected the Son of God outside the city; they put to death the Heir of the kingdom of the heavens. It is for this reason that upon them was accomplished the sentence passed against the labourers: ‘He will miserably destroy those wicked men.’ The kingdom of God has been taken away from them and given to the Church which bears its fruits.“
“We will say first with what justice the kingdom of God was taken away from the Jews; and second how much we should fear that it might likewise be taken from us.”
Note
This is Thomas’s most sustained treatment of supersessionism, delivered under the explicit sermon title Les Juifs Rejetés de Dieu (“The Jews Rejected by God”). The allegorical reading of the parable of the wicked husbandmen is systematic: each element of the parable is mapped onto Jewish history with theological precision. The phrase mis à mort l’Héritier du royaume des cieux is a direct deicide formula. The sermon then proceeds to argue the justice of the rejection in detail, constituting the most concentrated adversus Judaeos passage in the five volumes.
XV. “Leur malice, leur obstination, leur insolence, leur ingratitude” — The Justice of God’s Rejection
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for the Friday of the Second Week of Lent
French
« Oh ! s’il m’était permis de vous dérouler toutes les actions de ce peuple dès son origine, et de vous montrer partout sa malice, son obstination, sa dureté, son insolence, son ingratitude ; non, vous ne seriez pas étonnés qu’il ait été rejeté. Vous vous étonneriez, au contraire, que Dieu ait supporté si longtemps une telle perversité. »
« Moïse… dépeint leur conduite et leurs mœurs : « Est-ce là, s’écrie-t-il, ce que tu rends au Seigneur, peuple stupide et insensé, race dépravée et perverse, nation sans prudence et sans sagesse ? » »
« Que de saints, que de prophètes travaillaient à leur salut… Et eux ont saisi ces prophètes, ils les ont accablés de toutes sortes de supplices et de tourments, ils les ont livrés à la mort la plus cruelle, remplissant ainsi du sang des innocents toutes les rues de Jérusalem, la cité sainte. »
Translation
“Oh! If it were permitted me to unfold before you all the actions of this people from its origin, and to show you everywhere its malice, its obstinacy, its hardness, its insolence, its ingratitude — no, you would not be astonished that it was rejected. On the contrary, you would be astonished that God endured such perversity for so long.“
“Moses… depicts their conduct and their morals: ‘Is this what you render to the Lord, O stupid and senseless people, depraved and perverse race, nation without prudence and without wisdom?‘”
“How many saints, how many prophets laboured for their salvation… And they seized these prophets, they heaped upon them all sorts of tortures and torments, they delivered them to the cruelest death, thus filling with the blood of the innocent all the streets of Jerusalem, the holy city.”
Note
Thomas marshals a cumulative indictment across Jewish history: a sequence of five vices (malice, obstinacy, hardness, insolence, ingratitude), Moses’s own denunciation of his people, and the murder of the prophets. The rhetorical structure is a gradatio, each charge intensifying the last. The detail of innocent blood filling the streets of Jerusalem connects this historical survey directly to Matthew 23:35 — “all the righteous blood shed upon the earth” — which Christ attributes to the scribes and Pharisees.
XVI. “Vous avez mis à mort le Christ Seigneur, le Fils de Dieu” — The Defining Crime and Its Punishment
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for the Friday of the Second Week of Lent
French
« Réfléchissez au moins et, à la grandeur du châtiment, comprenez la grandeur de la faute. Quel crime avez-vous donc commis ? Vous avez mis à mort le Christ Seigneur, le Fils de Dieu. »
« Depuis cette époque jusqu’à ce jour, pendant quinze cents ans, ils sont dispersés parmi tous les peuples du monde, vivant dans l’opprobre et dans l’ignominie ; ce fait est manifeste, le monde entier en est témoin. »
« Aussi je m’adresse maintenant à vous, ô Israélites, et je vous interroge. Qu’avez-vous donc fait, quel crime avez-vous commis pour demeurer si longtemps dispersés, sans roi, sans sacerdoce, sans temple, sans sacrifice ? »
« Quels crimes nouveaux avez-vous commis, pour demeurer ainsi repoussés, sans remède, sans consolation, non pas soixante-dix ans, mais quinze cents ans ? »
Translation
“Reflect at least, and from the greatness of the punishment understand the greatness of the fault. What crime have you committed? You put to death the Christ the Lord, the Son of God.“
“Since that time until today, for fifteen hundred years, they are dispersed among all the peoples of the world, living in opprobrium and ignominy; this fact is manifest, the whole world is witness to it.”
“And so I now address myself to you, O Israelites, and I interrogate you. What have you done, what crime have you committed, to remain so long dispersed, without king, without priesthood, without temple, without sacrifice?“
“What new crimes have you committed, that you remain thus repulsed, without remedy, without consolation, not for seventy years, but for fifteen hundred years?“
Note
Thomas steps outside the parable to address the Jewish people directly, using the present tense and the second person to eliminate any historical distance between the Passion-era crime and its contemporary consequence. The dispersion, statelessness, and ignominy of the Jews in Thomas’s own day is cited as empirical evidence for the magnitude of the deicide. The argument is essentially: the punishment proves the crime, and the crime was the murder of God. The rhetorical interrogation (qu’avez-vous commis?) is also an aporia device — the audience knows the answer, making the rhetorical question a form of accusation.
XVII. “Ô Judée perfide !” — Judaea Does Not Convert at the Resurrection of Lazarus
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent
French
« Ô Judée perfide ! comment, à la vue d’un tel prodige, a-t-elle pu ne pas se convertir ? Etrange aveuglement de ces prêtres ! Ils tiennent conseil pour donner la mort à l’auteur de la vie ! Quelle perversité ! quelle démence ! »
« Aucun miracle ne peut vaincre une telle perfidie ; aucun prodige ne peut triompher d’une telle malice ; telle était la jalousie de ces méchants contre Jésus-Christ, tel était l’aveuglement où la malice avait plongé cet infâme conseil, que l’éclatant miracle qui aurait dû les convertir, ne fit qu’augmenter leur perversité. »
Translation
“O perfidious Judaea! How, at the sight of such a miracle, could she fail to be converted? Strange blindness of these priests! They hold council to bring death to the Author of life! What perversity! What madness!“
“No miracle can overcome such perfidy; no wonder can triumph over such malice; such was the jealousy of these wicked men against Jesus Christ, such was the blindness into which malice had plunged that infamous council, that the brilliant miracle which should have converted them only increased their perversity.”
Note
Thomas makes an important theological claim: Jewish malice is so total that it is impervious even to direct miraculous evidence. The normal economy of grace — in which miracles open hearts — is inverted in the Jewish case: miracles only harden them further. This positions Jewish unbelief not as ignorance (which miracles could correct) but as a condition beyond the reach of normal providential means, an extreme form of the obstinatio theology.
XVIII. “La cause de la conduite des Juifs fut la jalousie” — Jealousy Caused the Crucifixion
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for Passion Sunday
French
« La cause de cette conduite des Juifs, fut la jalousie. Fuyons, M. F., un vice aussi mauvais. « C’est par la jalousie du démon que la mort entra dans le monde » ; ce fut par jalousie que Caïn tua son frère innocent ; ce fut par jalousie que Joseph fut vendu par ses frères ; ce fut par jalousie que les Pharisiens firent mourir Jésus-Christ ; la jalousie a enfanté des maux innombrables. »
Translation
“The cause of this conduct of the Jews was jealousy. Let us flee, my brethren, from so evil a vice. ‘It was by the jealousy of the devil that death entered the world’; it was by jealousy that Cain killed his innocent brother; it was by jealousy that Joseph was sold by his brothers; it was by jealousy that the Pharisees put Jesus Christ to death; jealousy has engendered innumerable evils.”
Note
By placing the Pharisaic murder of Christ in a genealogy that runs from the Devil’s jealousy through Cain’s fratricide and the sale of Joseph, Thomas inserts the Passion into a typological history of envy-driven evil. The structural parallel between the jealousy of the Devil (which caused the fall) and the jealousy of the Pharisees (which caused the crucifixion) effectively diabolises the Jewish leadership, aligning them with the principle of evil from the beginning of time.
XIX. “La perfide Synagogue se serait glorifiée contre le Christ” — The Perfidious Synagogue Against the Resurrection
Source: Vol. II — Easter Sermon
French
« La perfide Synagogue se serait tout le long du jour glorifiée contre le Christ, et, accomplissant la parole de l’Ecriture, les ennemis du Sauveur se seraient écriés les uns aux autres, dans les transports de leur joie : « Courage ! courage ! nos yeux ont vu sa ruine ! » »
« Le Seigneur s’adressant à la Synagogue lui dit par son prophète : « Ne te réjouis pas sur moi, ô toi, mon ennemie, parce que je suis tombé ; je me relèverai, et lorsque je serai assis dans les ténèbres, le Seigneur sera ma lumière. » »
Translation
“The perfidious Synagogue would all day long have gloried against the Christ, and, accomplishing the word of Scripture, the enemies of the Saviour would have cried out to one another, in the transports of their joy: ‘Courage! Courage! Our eyes have seen His ruin!'”
“The Lord, addressing Himself to the Synagogue, said to it through His prophet: ‘Rejoice not over me, O thou mine enemy, because I have fallen; I shall rise again, and when I am seated in the darkness, the Lord shall be my light.'”
Note
The identification of the Synagogue with the enemy of Christ, drawn from Micah 7:8, is developed here into a full portrait of gleeful malice. Thomas uses the conditional — se serait glorifiée — to imagine what the Synagogue would have done had the Resurrection not occurred, making the Jewish rejoicing at Christ’s death a vivid imaginative reality before its providential frustration. The epithet ennemis du Sauveur is presented not as a metaphor but as a permanent theological designation.
XX. “Ô endurcissement ! ô obstination coupable !” — Jewish Rage at the Spread of the Gospel
Source: Vol. II — Easter Sermon
French
« Lorsque la vérité devint manifeste, lorsque le peuple se convertissait, que les apôtres faisaient de grands miracles… comme ils frémissaient, comme ils séchaient de rage dans leur cœur ! »
« Ô endurcissement ! ô obstination coupable ! Pourquoi ne se sont-ils pas convertis à la vue de toutes ces merveilles ? Ah ! que le patriarche Jacob avait bien dépeint leur malice, leur endurcissement et leurs conseils pervers dans une figure remarquable. »
Translation
“When the truth became manifest, when the people were being converted, when the apostles were working great miracles… how they trembled, how they withered with rage in their hearts!“
“O hardening! O guilty obstinacy! Why were they not converted at the sight of all these wonders? Ah! How well the patriarch Jacob had depicted their malice, their hardening, and their perverse counsels in a remarkable figure.”
Note
The “rage” of the Jewish establishment at the progress of the Gospel is presented as empirical evidence for their incorrigibility: miracles that should convert them instead intensify their hatred. Thomas then appeals to the figure of Jacob’s prophecy over his sons to suggest that Jewish opposition to Christ was foreknown and pre-announced from the beginning of Israel‘s own scriptures. The adversus Judaeos argument thus becomes self-sealing: Jewish rejection of Christ was itself prophesied by Jewish scripture.
XXI. “Persécution des Juifs perfides contre l’Église naissante” — The Jews Persecute the Church
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for Lent
French
« Que de violentes persécutions dut subir dans Jérusalem de la part des Juifs perfides, l’Eglise encore à son berceau et s’efforçant de jeter ses premiers fondements ! Que de contradictions soulevaient contre elle les princes des prêtres et le peuple ! »
« Mais la persécution ne s’arrêta pas là. Les Juifs eurent recours à un genre de persécution tout nouveau ; ils subornèrent de faux apôtres, pour prêcher sur J.-C. de grossières erreurs et pour détruire ainsi le Christianisme sous le nom du Christ lui-même. »
Translation
“What violent persecutions the Church in its cradle, striving to lay its first foundations, had to endure in Jerusalem at the hands of the treacherous Jews! What contradictions the princes of the priests and the people stirred up against it!”
“But the persecution did not stop there. The Jews had recourse to an entirely new kind of persecution; they suborned false apostles, to preach gross errors about Jesus Christ and thus destroy Christianity under the very name of Christ Himself.“
Note
Thomas extends the Jewish enmity against Christ into the apostolic era, accusing the Jewish leadership not only of physical persecution but of ideological subversion through the infiltration of false teachers. The claim that the Jews “suborned false apostles” draws on Paul’s polemics in Galatians and 2 Corinthians. Thomas presents the entire history of heresy in the primitive Church as a Jewish plot to destroy Christianity from within.
XXII. “Des démons ouvraient la bouche des Juifs” — Demons Used the Mouths of the Jews at the Crucifixion
Source: Vol. II — Holy Thursday Sermon
French
« Quelques démons ouvraient la bouche des Juifs et leur faisaient pousser ce cri satanique : « Crucifiez, crucifiez-le. » »
Translation
“Some demons opened the mouths of the Jews and made them utter that Satanic cry: ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!‘”
Note
This compact passage delivers a radical theological claim: the Jewish demand for the crucifixion was not merely a human act but was literally effected by demonic possession. The cry Crucifige is described as satanique — satanic — not merely in its moral quality but in its origin. The passage aligns directly with John 8:44 (“your father is the Devil”) and with the demonological reading of Jewish opposition to Christ common in the patristic tradition.
XXIII. “Le sacerdoce des Juifs et leur Synagogue“ — The Priesthood of the Jews Murmurs Against the Church
Source: Vol. I — Fifth Sermon for Christmas Day
French
« Qu’Aaron murmure, que Marie se plaigne, c’est-à-dire le sacerdoce des Juifs et leur Synagogue, ce Chef illustre ne renverra pas son Ethiopienne qu’il aime, qu’il a purifiée par son sang, qu’il a achetée en livrant son propre corps. »
Translation
“Let Aaron murmur, let Mary complain — that is to say, the priestly order of the Jews and their Synagogue — this illustrious Leader will not send away his Ethiopian whom He loves, whom He has purified with His blood, whom He has purchased by delivering His own body.”
Note
Interpreting Moses’s marriage to an Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12) as a type of Christ’s union with the Gentile Church, Thomas identifies Aaron and Miriam’s objection as the figure of the Jewish priesthood and Synagogue. The typology is supersessionist: just as Moses did not send away his wife despite his siblings’ protests, Christ does not abandon the Gentile Church despite Jewish objection. The “priesthood of the Jews” is thus exegetically cast as the voice of protest against the divine plan of inclusion.
XXIV. “L’Esprit-Saint lui avait montré que le peuple juif serait abandonné” — The Jewish People Abandoned and Rejected
Source: Vol. III — Sermon for the Feast of the Annunciation
French
« L’Esprit-Saint lui avait montré que le peuple Juif serait abandonné et rejeté, et que le royaume et le trône de David seraient transférés aux nations, au moment où le Christ serait élevé sur le bois de la croix. Aussi il presse un Gentil, le procureur de la Judée, de ne pas permettre à la malice des Juifs d’effacer le titre de la royauté du Christ. »
Translation
“The Holy Spirit had shown him that the Jewish people would be abandoned and rejected, and that the kingdom and the throne of David would be transferred to the nations, at the moment when Christ would be raised upon the wood of the cross. And so he presses a Gentile, the procurator of Judaea, not to allow the malice of the Jews to efface the title of the royalty of Christ.”
Note
Thomas here provides the theological basis for his anti-Zionism avant la lettre: the transfer of the Davidic kingdom and throne to the Gentile nations is not a future hope but a completed act, accomplished at the moment of the crucifixion. The Jewish expectation of a Messianic restoration of the Davidic kingdom is thus theologically precluded — the kingdom has already been given away. The effort of the Jews to remove the inscription Rex Iudaeorum from the cross becomes, in Thomas’s reading, an act of malice against their own destiny.
XXV. “Le peuple juif rejeté et les nations appelées à sa place” — Simeon Foresees the Rejection of the Jews
Source: Vol. III — Sermon for the Feast of the Purification
French
« Eclairé par la divine lumière, le saint vieillard voit l’aveuglement et l’ingratitude du peuple, la future passion du Sauveur et sa mort ignominieuse… il voit encore la résurrection du Sauveur, le peuple juif rejeté et les nations appelées à sa place. »
Translation
“Enlightened by the divine light, the holy old man sees the blindness and the ingratitude of the people, the future Passion of the Saviour and His ignominious death… he sees also the resurrection of the Saviour, the Jewish people rejected and the nations called in their place.“
Note
Simeon’s prophetic vision at the Presentation in the Temple is given a detailed supersessionist content by Thomas: the old man foresees not merely salvation but the specific destiny of Israel — rejection — and its replacement by the Gentile nations. This is presented as revealed knowledge, making the rejection of the Jews not a human political outcome but a divine decree announced by prophecy before the Passion itself.
XXVI. “Malheur à toi, Synagogue infortunée !” — Woe to the Unhappy Synagogue
Source: Vol. I — First Sermon for the Epiphany
French
« Malheur à toi, Synagogue infortunée ! malheur à toi, imprudente et aveugle ! Tu as perdu celui que tu attendais depuis si longtemps. Oh ! si tu avais connu, si tu avais su ce qui se passe aujourd’hui au milieu de toi ! Mais hélas ! bientôt on te laissera dans ton veuvage, seule, solitaire et désolée. Ainsi te l’avait prédit Isaïe : « La fille de Sion sera délaissée, comme la hutte après la vendange, comme une cabane dans un champ de concombres. » »
Translation
“Woe to you, O unhappy Synagogue! Woe to you, imprudent and blind! You have lost Him whom you had awaited for so long. Oh! If you had known, if you had understood what is happening today in your midst! But alas! Soon you will be left in your widowhood, alone, solitary, and desolate. Thus Isaiah had foretold you: ‘The daughter of Zion shall be forsaken, like a hut after the vintage, like a cabin in a field of cucumbers.'”
Note
The woe-oracle (malheur à toi), modelled on the prophetic genre, is directed at the Synagogue as an institution. Isaiah’s oracle (1:8) about the desolation of Zion is applied to the permanent condition of post-Christian Judaism: the Synagogue in a state of widowhood, deserted and desolate. The image of widowhood is particularly pointed in the nuptial typology Thomas employs throughout, in which the Church has taken the Synagogue‘s place as the Bride of Christ.
XXVII. “Que fais-tu, ô Synagogue malheureuse ? Nation aveugle et perverse” — The Synagogue Purchases the Redeemer
Source: Vol. III — Sermon for the Feast of the Purification
French
« Que fais-tu, ô Synagogue malheureuse ? Nation aveugle et perverse, que vas-tu négocier auprès de cet apôtre perfide ?… La Synagogue, coupable de l’achat, a été détruite, dispersée et vendue à son tour ; et Judas, le vendeur sacrilège, « fut brisé par le milieu du corps et ses entrailles se répandirent sur la terre. » »
Translation
“What are you doing, O unhappy Synagogue? Blind and perverse nation, what are you negotiating with this treacherous apostle?… The Synagogue, guilty of that purchase, was destroyed, dispersed, and in turn sold; and Judas, the sacrilegious vendor, ‘was burst asunder in the middle of his body and his bowels gushed out upon the ground.'”
Note
Thomas identifies the Synagogue as the true buyer in the betrayal of Christ: Judas merely acted as its agent. The phrase coupable de l’achat — “guilty of the purchase” — attaches juridical responsibility for the deicide directly to the Synagogue as an institution. Its subsequent destruction, dispersion, and “sale” (into bondage under Rome) is presented as exact providential retribution — the Synagogue is sold as it sold the Son of God.
XXVIII. “Vos jugements, ô mon Dieu, sont admirables et terribles” — The Full Story of Jewish Guilt
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for the Friday of the Second Week of Lent
French
« Vos jugements, ô mon Dieu, sont admirables et terribles. Vous aviez choisi ce peuple… et, après tant de faveurs et de bienfaits, saisi d’indignation contre lui, vous l’avez haï, vous l’avez rejeté, vous l’avez détruit, vous l’avez repoussé, vous l’avez dispersé sous tous les climats de la terre ; votre haine contre lui n’était pas moins grande que votre ancien amour. »
« Vous les avez supportés, jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient venus se heurter contre la pierre de scandale… car alors leur iniquité fut consommée, leur perversité fut portée à son comble, et le Seigneur ne put les supporter plus longtemps. Le Sauveur lui-même le leur avait dit : « Remplissez la mesure de vos pères » ; votre iniquité est montée à son comble ; en sorte que tout le sang innocent répandu sur la terre, depuis le sang du juste Abel jusqu’au sang de Zacharie… retombera sur vous. »
Translation
“Your judgements, O my God, are admirable and terrible. You had chosen this people… and, after so many favours and benefits, seized with indignation against it, You hated it, You rejected it, You destroyed it, You repulsed it, You scattered it under all the skies of the earth; Your hatred against it was no less great than Your former love.“
“You endured them until they came to dash themselves against the stone of stumbling… for then their iniquity was consummated, their perversity was carried to its height, and the Lord could no longer endure them. The Saviour Himself had told them: ‘Fill up the measure of your fathers‘; your iniquity has risen to its height; so that all the innocent blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of the just Abel to the blood of Zechariah… shall fall back upon you.”
Note
This is the centrepiece of Thomas’s adversus Judaeos theology, a direct address to God that surveys the entire history of Jewish sin and divine response. The statement that God’s haine (“hatred”) for the Jews equalled His former amour is among the most extreme formulations in the corpus. The citation of Matthew 23:35 — all innocent blood from Abel to Zechariah — applies to the Jewish people as a collective the most comprehensive blood-guilt charge in the Gospel.
XXIX. “Quinze cents ans dispersés dans l’opprobre et l’ignominie” — The Dispersion as Proof of Guilt
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for the Friday of the Second Week of Lent
French
« Réfléchissez au moins et, à la grandeur du châtiment, comprenez la grandeur de la faute. »
« Non pas soixante-dix ans, mais quinze cents ans… sans roi, sans sacerdoce, sans temple, sans sacrifice… Vous êtes devenu l’opprobre et le mépris des nations. »
Translation
“Reflect at least, and from the greatness of the punishment, understand the greatness of the fault.“
“Not seventy years, but fifteen hundred years… without king, without priesthood, without temple, without sacrifice… You have become the opprobrium and the contempt of the nations.“
Note
Thomas uses the empirical fact of ongoing Jewish statelessness — observable in his own day — as a theological proof. The argumentum ex poena (“argument from punishment”) is a standard adversus Judaeos device: the punishment’s severity and duration testify to the crime’s magnitude. The contrast with the Babylonian captivity (seventy years, with a known end) is made explicit to foreclose any Jewish hope of return: the present exile is of an entirely different, irrevocable kind.
XXX. “Votre nom est une mer immense ; le peuple juif est bien petit” — God’s Name Confined in the Narrow Limits of the Jewish People
Source: Vol. I — Sermon for the Feast of the Circumcision
French
« Vous diminuez, Seigneur, la grandeur de votre nom ; vous le rétrécissez dans l’étroite limite du peuple juif. Votre nom est une mer immense, plus vaste que l’Océan, et vous l’enfermez dans les flancs resserrés d’un vase. « Dieu, s’écrie le psalmiste, est connu dans la Judée, son nom est grand dans Israël. » Oui, il est grand, et le peuple juif est bien petit. Que faire donc ? Que l’huile se répande, Seigneur, qu’elle soit versée sur toutes les nations. »
« Des insensés, les Scribes et les Pharisiens ont dit : Venez : « détruisons l’arbre et son fruit ; retranchons-le de la terre des vivants, et que son nom soit effacé à jamais. » Les insensés ! »
Translation
“You diminish, Lord, the greatness of Your name; You confine it in the narrow limits of the Jewish people. Your name is an immense sea, vaster than the Ocean, and You enclose it in the narrow flanks of a vessel. ‘God,’ cries the Psalmist, ‘is known in Judaea, His name is great in Israel.’ Yes, it is great — and the Jewish people is very small. What is to be done then? Let the oil spread, Lord; let it be poured out upon all the nations.”
“Senseless men, the Scribes and the Pharisees said: ‘Come, let us destroy the tree and its fruit; let us cut it off from the land of the living, and let its name be effaced forever.’ The fools!”
Note
Thomas turns the geography of Old Testament religion against Jewish particularity: the divine name, too vast for the Jewish vessel, must be poured out on the nations — and the Jewish leaders’ plot to destroy Christ (“the vessel”) is, paradoxically, the means by which this outpouring occurs. The argument is darkly ironic: the Scribes and Pharisees, by attempting to destroy Christ, only accelerate the universalisation of what they tried to contain. Their act of deicide becomes the mechanism of supersession.
XXXI. “Que d’absurdités les rabbins ont inventées !” — The Absurdities of the Rabbis
Source: Vol. III — First Sermon for the Feast of Corpus Christi
French
« Que d’absurdités, grand Dieu, les rabbins ont inventées sur ce passage ! Futilités d’enfants qui ne méritent que le ridicule et le mépris. Ne pouvant l’expliquer, quelques-uns, comme forcés par la vérité, ont imaginé que la lumière divine dont se nourrissent les anges s’était mêlé à cette nourriture, et c’est ainsi, pensent-ils, que l’homme et l’ange ont eu le même aliment. Explication fausse pour la manne des Hébreux, mais entièrement vraie pour la manne des chrétiens. »
Translation
“What absurdities, great God, have the rabbis invented on this passage! Childish follies that deserve nothing but ridicule and contempt. Unable to explain it, some, as if forced by the truth, imagined that the divine light on which the angels feed had been mixed with that food, and it is thus, they think, that man and angel had the same aliment. An explanation false for the manna of the Hebrews, but entirely true for the manna of Christians.”
Note
Thomas’s dismissal of rabbinic exegesis on the manna in Psalm 78:24–25 as futilités d’enfants méritant le ridicule et le mépris is a direct attack on the Talmudic interpretive tradition. The strategy is characteristic of adversus Judaeos polemics: the Jewish exegesis, unable to reach the spiritual meaning, stumbles accidentally on a truth that applies not to the Jews but to the Christians, who have taken possession of the Scripture’s real significance while the Jews retain only the empty letter.
XXXII. “Leur erreur judaïque” — Judaism as Error; a Jewish Convert’s Vision
Source: Vol. III — Second Sermon for the Feast of Corpus Christi
French
« Un Juif converti se trouvait sur son lit de douleur… J’étais enfant, dit-il ; le Judaïsme était ma religion ; je voyageais… Quoique bien jeunes, nous parlions avec une grande piété de ce Messie que notre erreur judaïque nous faisait attendre encore… Tout-à-coup vers le soir, au moment du crépuscule, une merveilleuse clarté se montra sur un point du ciel… nous vîmes apparaître au milieu de la clarté, un calice rayonnant au-dessus duquel était une hostie, comme les chrétiens ont coutume de le présenter. »
Translation
“A converted Jew was lying on his deathbed… I was a child, he said; Judaism was my religion; I was travelling… Though quite young, we spoke with great piety of that Messiah whom our Jewish error still caused us to await… Suddenly, toward evening, at the moment of twilight, a marvellous light appeared in one part of the sky… We saw appear in the midst of the light a radiant chalice above which was a Host, as Christians are accustomed to present it.”
Note
Thomas narrates this anecdote in the first person — he claims to have heard it from the dying convert’s own lips — lending it the authority of personal testimony. The phrase notre erreur judaïque (“our Jewish error”), placed in the convert’s own mouth, frames Judaism itself as an error requiring correction by Christian truth. The miraculous vision of the chalice and Host is presented as God’s direct response to the sincere Jewish longing for the Messiah: what Judaism awaited was, all along, the Catholic Eucharist.
XXXIII. “Les sacrifices ne furent pas donnés pour la justification du peuple juif” — The Mosaic Sacrifices Given Only for Jewish Weakness
Source: Vol. V — Sermon for Sexagesima Sunday
French
« Nous savons en effet que ces sacrifices ne furent pas donnés au peuple juif pour sa justification : ils n’étaient qu’une servitude, qu’un exercice. Le Seigneur, voyant combien ce peuple était porté à l’idolâtrie et connaissant d’un autre côté son obstination, ne voulut pas les lui défendre entièrement : il voulut qu’on lui offrit à lui-même ce qu’on aurait offert aux idoles, non pas que cette offrande lui fût agréable, mais par condescendance pour la faiblesse et pour l’imperfection de ce peuple : « Je leur ai donné des préceptes imparfaits. » »
Translation
“We know in effect that these sacrifices were not given to the Jewish people for its justification: they were only a servitude, an exercise. The Lord, seeing how much this people was inclined to idolatry and knowing on the other hand its obstinacy, did not wish to forbid them entirely: He wished that to Himself they should offer what they would have offered to idols, not that that offering was pleasing to Him, but out of condescension for the weakness and imperfection of this people: ‘I gave them imperfect precepts.'”
Note
Thomas applies the principle of divine condescension to the Mosaic sacrificial system: the Law was not given because the Jewish people deserved it or could profit from it spiritually, but as a concession to their idolatrous inclinations. The characterisation of the entire sacrificial economy as servitude and imperfection, condescended to a people inclined to idolatry, strips the Mosaic religion of any intrinsic value. This is the Thomistic development of the patristic paidagogos argument (Galatians 3:24).
XXXIV. “Ô Juif insensé !” — The Jews Place Their Hope in Animal Sacrifices
Source: Vol. V — Sermon for Sexagesima Sunday
French
« Les Juifs ne connaissaient pas ce sens divin de leurs sacrifices et ils mettaient en eux leur espérance. Ô Juif insensé ! Ton salut te viendra-t-il des animaux ? « Est-ce que Dieu se soucie des bœufs ? » « Il est impossible que le sang des boucs et des taureaux efface les péchés. » »
Translation
“The Jews did not know the divine sense of their sacrifices and they placed their hope in them. O senseless Jew! Will your salvation come to you from animals? ‘Does God care for oxen?’ ‘It is impossible that the blood of goats and bulls should efface sins.'”
Note
The direct address Ô Juif insensé ! is a formally prosecutorial apostrophe, citing Paul (1 Corinthians 9:9 and Hebrews 10:4) to demonstrate the theological vacuity of Jewish sacrificial religion from Paul’s own testimony — the argument ex ore ipso (from their own authority) being a standard adversus Judaeos strategy. Thomas presents Jewish observance of sacrifice as a self-defeating exercise in misunderstanding one’s own religion.
XXXV. “Les dépouilles des Juifs sont les richesses des chrétiens” — Christians Have Despoiled the Jews of Their Law
Source: Vol. V — Sermon for Sexagesima Sunday
French
« Ces Egyptiens sont les Juifs eux-mêmes. Ils dépouillèrent les autres, figurant par là leur propre spoliation ; les dépouilles des Juifs sont les richesses des chrétiens. Nous leur avons pris la loi qu’ils ne pouvaient ouvrir ; nous en avons retiré la moelle si douce qu’elle cachait sous cette écorce que les Juifs ne savaient que savourer. »
Translation
“These Egyptians are the Jews themselves. They despoiled others, figuring thereby their own spoliation; the spoils of the Jews are the riches of Christians. We have taken from them the Law which they could not open; we have drawn from it the sweet marrow which it hid beneath the bark that the Jews knew only how to taste.“
Note
Thomas turns the Exodus typology against the Jews themselves: just as the Israelites despoiled the Egyptians on leaving Egypt, so the Christians have despoiled the Jews of their own Scripture, taking from them what they were incapable of understanding. The metaphor of the bark and the marrow — the Jews could only lick the bark of the Law, the Christians drew out its nutritious core — is a vivid expression of the typological supersessionism that runs throughout Thomas’s exegesis.
XXXVI. “Les Juifs et les mahométans répugnent aux vérités catholiques” — Jewish Converts Cannot Embrace the Faith
Source: Vol. III — Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity
French
« De là vient que les Juifs, les mahométans qui, à l’âge de l’adolescence embrassent le christianisme, se plient facilement aux exercices de la vie chrétienne… mais rarement vous les verrez s’attacher à la foi. Vous parviendrez plus facilement à leur faire embrasser la vie du monastère, de la solitude ou du désert, qu’à leur faire accorder un plein assentiment à tous les articles de notre foi ; leur intelligence répugne aux vérités catholiques et ne peut les aborder : elle les résiste, elle les repousse et ils éprouvent plus de difficultés à forcer leur intelligence à croire, que leur volonté à obéir. »
Translation
“Hence it is that Jews and Muhammadans who, at the age of adolescence, embrace Christianity, bend easily to the exercises of Christian life… but rarely will you see them attach themselves to the faith. You will more easily succeed in making them embrace the life of the monastery, the solitude, or the desert, than in making them give full assent to all the articles of our faith; their intelligence repudiates the Catholic truths and cannot approach them: it resists them, it repels them, and they experience more difficulties in forcing their intelligence to believe than their will to obey.”
Note
Thomas here makes an argument about the congenital religious incapacity of Jewish converts: they can conform externally to Christian practice but cannot truly assent to Catholic dogma. This is a sophisticated and distinctive position — it attributes Jewish resistance not to bad will (the usual obstinatio argument) but to an intellectual defect that makes genuine faith structurally inaccessible to the Jewish mind. The practical consequences for the reception of conversos in Thomas’s Spain are significant.
XXXVII. “Les absurdes explications des rabbins” — Rabbinic Interpretations Deserve Ridicule
Source: Vol. III — Analysis of Sermons on the Eucharist (Table of Contents)
French
« L’antique manne objet d’orgueil pour les Pharisiens. — Cet orgueil confondu par le Sauveur. — Absurdes explications de la manne par les rabbins. — Vie immortelle donnée par l’Eucharistie. »
Translation
“The ancient manna — an object of pride for the Pharisees. — This pride confounded by the Saviour. — Absurd explanations of the manna by the rabbis. — Immortal life given by the Eucharist.”
Note
The analysis heading, which summarises Thomas’s sermon on the Eucharist in the table of contents of Vol. III, confirms that the dismissal of rabbinic exegesis as absurde is not an incidental remark but a structural theme of the sermon, prominent enough to be listed as a main point in the analytical summary.
XXXVIII. “Ce rabbin juif — ignorants et aveugles” — Those Who Follow Jewish Interpreters Walk Toward Antichrist
Source: Vol. V — Sunday after the Octave of the Ascension
French
« …qui embrassent les explications insensées d’un Samuel, rabbin juif, et autres de cette nation ! Ignorants et aveugles, ils suivent d’autres aveugles et, en plein midi, ils ne touchent que les ténèbres ; c’est-à-dire, au milieu des claires splendeurs de l’Ecriture, ils vont chercher les explications les plus ténébreuses. De tels hommes s’éloigneront facilement sur les traces de l’Antéchrist. »
Translation
“…who embrace the senseless explanations of a Samuel, a Jewish rabbi, and others of that nation! Ignorant and blind, they follow other blind men, and in broad daylight they touch only the darkness; that is to say, in the midst of the bright splendours of Scripture, they go to seek the most tenebrous of explanations. Such men will easily stray in the footsteps of the Antichrist.“
Note
Thomas here issues an explicit warning against consulting Jewish rabbinic interpreters, calling those Christians who do so blind followers of the blind and forecasting that they will be led to the Antichrist. The connecting of Jewish biblical interpretation with the Antichrist is a significant escalation of the standard adversus Judaeos exegetical polemic, adding an eschatological-apocalyptic dimension to what might otherwise be merely a hermeneutical dispute.
XXXIX. “Les Juifs ne connaissaient pas ce sens divin” — The Jews Tricked by the Appearances of Mortality
Source: Vol. V — Sunday of the Passion
French
« Saint Bernard explique ainsi cette figure de l’Ecriture : Isaac fut trompé, en touchant son fils et en sentant le parfum qu’exhalaient ses vêtements. Il était la figure des Juifs qui reçurent avec joie les parfums des oracles prophétiques concernant le Messie qu’ils attendaient avec ardeur, mais qui, trompés par ses vêtements, ne reconnurent point son visage. »
« Ne vous laissez pas tromper, ô Juifs, par ce vêtement, ne le croyez pas purement homme, enfant d’Adam ; sous la vétusté de ce vêtement, reconnaissez le nouveau Jacob, le Verbe de Dieu. »
Translation
“Saint Bernard explains this figure of Scripture thus: Isaac was deceived in touching his son and smelling the fragrance exhaled by his garments. He was the figure of the Jews who received with joy the fragrance of the prophetic oracles concerning the Messiah they awaited with ardour, but who, deceived by His garments, did not recognise His face.“
“Do not allow yourselves to be deceived, O Jews, by that garment, do not believe Him to be purely human, a child of Adam; beneath the worn-out texture of that garment, recognise the new Jacob, the Word of God.”
Note
The typology of Isaac and Jacob’s deception is applied to Jewish history with careful precision: the Jews, like Isaac, had the prophetic fragrance in their nostrils — they felt the truth approaching — but were deceived by the outward appearance of Christ’s humanity and crucifixion. Thomas’s address to the Jews in the second person (ne vous laissez pas tromper) is characteristically direct, collapsing the historical and contemporary audiences into a single address.
XL. “Les Pharisiens radieux et triomphants d’avoir réussi” — The Pharisees Exult at the Crucifixion
Source: Vol. II — Passion Sunday Sermon
French
« Lorsqu’ils virent plus tard le Seigneur mis en croix, pâle et expirant, les Pharisiens radieux et triomphants d’avoir réussi, insultaient ce divin Crucifié disant : « Il a sauvé les autres, et il ne peut se sauver lui-même ; s’il est roi d’Israël, qu’il descende maintenant de la croix et nous croirons en lui. » »
« Les Pharisiens parlaient encore, lorsque tout-à-coup le soleil s’obscurcit, la terre tremble, le rocher se brise au pied de la croix, le voile du temple se déchire, les éléments se troublent, au point que le Centurion, saisi d’effroi à la vue de ces prodiges, s’écriait : « Vraiment celui-ci était le Fils de Dieu. » »
Translation
“When they saw the Lord later placed on the cross, pale and expiring, the Pharisees, radiant and triumphant at having succeeded, insulted the divine Crucified, saying: ‘He saved others, and He cannot save Himself; if He is the King of Israel, let Him come down now from the cross and we will believe in Him.'”
“The Pharisees were still speaking, when suddenly the sun was darkened, the earth trembled, the rock was broken at the foot of the cross, the veil of the Temple was torn, the elements were troubled, to the point that the Centurion, seized with dread at the sight of these wonders, cried out: ‘Truly this was the Son of God.'”
Note
Thomas sets the triumphant Jewish mockery at Calvary against the cosmic response — earthquake, eclipse, torn veil — that immediately follows, creating a tableau of divine verdict. The Centurion’s confession at the moment of the Pharisees’ exultation forms the structural counter-point: the Gentile recognises what the Jews deny, fulfilling the supersessionist typology in the very act of the Passion.
XLI. “Dieu meurt sur la croix et les Juifs ne l’entendent pas” — The Jews Deafer Than Stones
Source: Vol. V — Sunday after Pentecost
French
« Rien n’est plus sourd que le pécheur, ni les pierres, ni les morts, pas même le néant. Dieu meurt en poussant un grand cri sur la croix, et les Juifs ne l’entendent pas. Les pierres se fendent, faisant ainsi ce que devraient faire les cœurs. Ô cœur de l’homme plus dur que les rochers ! »
Translation
“Nothing is more deaf than the sinner — not stones, not the dead, not even nothingness. God dies, crying out with a great voice on the cross, and the Jews do not hear Him. The stones split, doing what hearts should do. O heart of man, harder than rocks!“
Note
The image of the rocks splitting at the death of Christ (Matthew 27:51) while the Jews remain unmoved is a classic a minori ad maius argument: even inanimate matter responded to the death of God, but the chosen people — created rational, in receipt of revelation — were unaffected. Thomas uses this contrast as the foundation for a general meditation on human hardness of heart, but with the Jews explicitly named as the originating case of the hardness he is denouncing.
XLII. “Seuls les Juifs rejetés ; les nations glorifiées” — The Jews Abandoned to Excite the Nations
Source: Vol. II — Sermon for the Friday of the Second Week of Lent
French
« Moïse… avait prévu et annoncé tous ces événements : « Ils m’ont provoqué, s’écrie-t-il, par des dieux qui n’en sont pas ; et moi je les provoquerai avec un peuple qui n’est pas le mien et je les irriterai avec un peuple insensé, » c’est-à-dire, afin qu’ils voient de leurs yeux, et qu’ils sèchent d’envie. »
« Les Gentils n’étaient pas meilleurs, mais Dieu voulait humilier son peuple et exciter sa jalousie. Et plus les Gentils étaient méprisables, plus les Juifs devaient se sentir humiliés. »
Translation
“Moses… had foreseen and announced all these events: ‘They have provoked me,’ he cries, ‘with gods that are not gods; and I will provoke them with a people that is not my people and I will irritate them with a senseless people,‘ — that is, so that they see it with their own eyes and wither with envy.”
“The Gentiles were not better, but God wished to humiliate His people and excite their jealousy. And the more despicable the Gentiles were, the more the Jews should have felt humiliated.“
Note
Thomas cites Deuteronomy 32:21 (quoted in Romans 10:19) to explain the replacement of the Jews by the Gentiles as an act of deliberate humiliation. The Gentiles were chosen not for their merit — they were, Thomas insists, méprisables (despicable) — but precisely to maximise the insult to Jewish pride. This reading of election as humiliation is a striking inversion of the usual theology of chosenness.
XLIII. “La perfide Synagogue — son ennemie” — The Synagogue as God’s Enemy
Source: Vol. II — Easter Sermon
French
« Le Seigneur s’adressant à la Synagogue, sa jalouse ennemie… lui dit par son prophète : « Ne te réjouis pas de ma chute, ô mon ennemie ; lorsque je serai assis dans les ténèbres, je me relèverai ; le Seigneur est ma lumière. » »
Translation
“The Lord, addressing Himself to the Synagogue, His jealous enemy… said to it through His prophet: ‘Rejoice not of my fall, O mine enemy; when I am seated in the darkness, I shall rise again; the Lord is my light.'”
Note
The application of the word ennemie — enemy — to the Synagogue in prophetic citation (Micah 7:8) establishes a permanent theological enmity between the Synagogue and God. Thomas’s gloss sa jalouse ennemie (“His jealous enemy”) intensifies this by adding the motivating emotion: jealousy. The Synagogue is not merely in error or even in sin, but constituted as the enemy of God, animated by jealousy of the Gentile Church that has supplanted it.
XLIV. “Il faut croire Magdeleine seule plutôt que les Juifs nombreux, mais menteurs” — Magdalene Alone Against the Many Jews
Source: Vol. IV — Sermon for the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene
French
« …comme l’Eglise le chante au sujet de sainte Magdeleine : « Il faut croire Magdeleine seule, mais sincère, plutôt que les Juifs nombreux, mais menteurs. » »
Translation
“…as the Church sings of Saint Magdalene: ‘We must believe Magdalene alone, but sincere, rather than the Jews, many in number, but liars.’“
Note
Thomas quotes a liturgical text of the Church as authoritative support for the characterisation of the Jews as collective liars. The antithesis — one sincere woman versus many Jewish liars — is rhetorically structured to amplify both the quality of Christian testimony and the worthlessness of Jewish witness. The liturgical source ensures that this characterisation is not Thomas’s personal opinion but the Church’s official utterance, which Thomas cites as theological authority.
XLV. “Les Juifs, les Indiens, les hérétiques — réservés à la damnation éternelle” — Jews Among Those Reserved for Eternal Damnation
Source: Vol. III — Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity
French
« Ne parlons pas des Païens, des Juifs, des Indiens, des hérétiques, de ce nombre infini d’hommes réservés pour l’éternelle damnation et pour lesquels il vaudrait beaucoup mieux n’avoir jamais reçu l’existence, puisqu’ils semblent n’être nés que pour brûler éternellement, pour être l’aliment du feu inextinguible. »
Translation
“Let us not speak of Pagans, of Jews, of Indians, of heretics, of that infinite number of men reserved for eternal damnation for whom it would have been far better never to have received existence, since they seem to have been born only to burn eternally, to be the fuel of the inextinguishable fire.“
Note
This is the most extreme statement in the corpus. Thomas consigns the Jews — along with pagans, Indians (non-Christians of the Americas), and heretics — to what amounts to a theology of pre-damnation: they seem, he says, to have been born for no other purpose than eternal burning. The phrase aliment du feu inextinguible (“fuel of the inextinguishable fire”) is a vivid eschatological formulation. Thomas immediately follows with a remark about the rarity of true zeal even among Christians, suggesting this is offered as a rhetorical darkening of the comparative background rather than a formal doctrine of double predestination.
XLVI. “Le peuple juif, peuple mercenaire” — The Jewish People: A Mercenary People
Source: Vol. II — Analysis of Sermons (Table of Contents, Septuagesima Sunday)
French
« Le peuple juif, peuple mercenaire. — Peuple chrétien, sert Dieu par amour. »
Translation
“The Jewish people, a mercenary people. — The Christian people serves God out of love.“
Note
This heading from Thomas’s analytical summary of the Septuagesima sermon captures in two lines the central theological contrast he draws between Judaism and Christianity as religious systems. Judaism is mercenary service — worship motivated by material reward and legal obligation. Christianity is filial love — worship springing from interior transformation. The contrast is rooted in Paul’s opposition of Law and Grace and in Origen’s distinction between the paidagogos and the pneumatikos. Thomas restates it as the defining structural difference between the two religions.
Sources
The following scanned volumes from the Internet Archive were used in compiling these passages:
- Vol. I — Œuvres de Saint Thomas de Villeneuve, Tome I — Sermons pour l’Avent: https://archive.org/details/oeuvresdestthoma01thom/
- Vol. II — Œuvres de Saint Thomas de Villeneuve, Tome II — Sermons pour le Carême: https://archive.org/details/oeuvresdestthoma02thom
- Vol. III — Œuvres de Saint Thomas de Villeneuve, Tome III — Sermons pour les Fêtes: https://archive.org/details/oeuvresdestthoma03thom
- Vol. IV — Œuvres de Saint Thomas de Villeneuve, Tome IV — Sermons des Saints: https://archive.org/details/oeuvresdestthoma04thom
- Vol. V — Œuvres de Saint Thomas de Villeneuve, Tome V — Sermons du Temps Ordinaire: https://archive.org/details/oeuvresdestthoma05thom