“For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.”
Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would have no further consciousness of sin? — the logical reductio: if the sacrifices actually removed sin, they would have become unnecessary; the perpetuation of offerings proves their insufficiency. Consciousness of sin (syneidesis hamartion) persists because external ritual cannot address internal guilt.
Church Fathers on Hebrews 10:2
You see again the superabundance [of his proofs]? This sacrifice (he says) is one; whereas the others were many: therefore they had no strength, because they were many. For, tell me, what need of many, if one had been sufficient? So that their being many, and offered “continually,” proves that they [the worshipers] were never made clean. For as a medicine, when it is powerful and productive of health, and able to remove the disease entirely, effects all after one application;…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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