MATTHEW 23:30 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.”
Saying: if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. The Pharisees' self-distancing from the prophets' killers: if we had been there, we would not have done it. The would-not-have is the self-righteous assumption that they are different from their ancestors.
Church Fathers on Matthew 23:30
By a most subtle syllogism He proves them to be the sons of murderers, while to gain good character and reputation with the people, they build the sepulchres of the Prophets whom their fathers put to death.
Without just cause He seems to utter denunciations against those who build the sepulchres of the Prophets; for so far what they did was praiseworthy; how then do they deserve this 'woe'?
He does not blame them for building the sepulchres, but discovers the design with which they built them; which was not to honour the slain, but to erect to themselves a triumphal monument of the murder, as fearing that in process of time the memory of this their audacious wickedness should perish.
Read all 9 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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