Pope Leo XIII
☣︎Caution Prevost speaks:
The Gnostic Gospel of Judas according to Prevost:
Interpretations which oppose the teaching of the Church are senseless and falseWherefore, it is clear that that interpretation must be rejected as senseless and false, which either makes inspired authors in some manner quarrel among themselves, or opposes the teaching of the Church. . . . (Denzinger-Hünermann 3283. Leo XIII, Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, November 18, 1893)
Pope Pius X
Saint Augustin, de Haer: [The error of the heretics about Christ is limited to three areas: They err either about his divinity, or his humanity, or the two together.]
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
St. Ambrose:
“Even heretics appear to possess Christ, for none of them denies the name of Christ. Still, anyone who does not confess everything that pertains to Christ does in fact deny Christ.”
Acts 17:30-31God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, but now he commands people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world with justice by a man whom he has appointed. He has given public confirmation of this to all by raising him from the dead.”
He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Catena Aurea:
REMIGIUS. Woe also to all who draw near to Christ’s table with an evil and defiled conscience! who though they do not deliver Christ to the Jews to be crucified, deliver Him to their own sinful members to be taken. He adds, to give more emphasis, Good were it for that man if he had never been born.
JEROME. We are not to infer from this that man has a being before birth; for it cannot be well with any man till he has a being; it simply implies that it is better not to be, than to be in evil.
AUGUSTINE. (Quæst. Ev. i. 40.) And if it be contended that there is a life before this life, that will prove that not only not for Judas, but for none other is it good to have been born. Can it mean, that it were better for him not to have been born to the Devil, namely, for sin? Or does it mean that it had been good for him not to have been born to Christ at his calling, that he should now become apostate?
JEROME. His question feigns either great respect, or a hypocritical incredulousness. The rest who were not to betray Him, said only Lord; the actual traitor addresses Him as Master, as though it were some excuse that he denied Him as Lord, and betrayed a Master only.
Hebrews 9:28so Christ, having been offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Commented Bible by Monsignor Juan Straubinger: “The tradition that is valid for the Church is the one that has its origin in divine revelation, that is, in the preaching of Jesus Christ himself and of the apostles, "so that the absolute and immutable truth preached from the beginning by the apostles may always be believed in the same way” (Pius X in the oath focuses on the modernists)
The Oath Against Modernism: The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.
St. Peter warned that those who maliciously twist the Scriptures weave their own condemnation:
2 Peter 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.
2 Peter 2:2 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
John 13:27 And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
Ver. 27. Satan entered into him, who presently went out with great anger and indignation. It was then night, likely about nine o'clock. (Witham) — That which thou dost, do quickly. It is not a license, much less a command, to go about his treason: but a signification to him, that Christ would not hinder or resist what he was about, do it as soon as he pleased: but was both ready, and desirous to suffer for our redemption. (Challoner). — Christ does not by these words exhort the traitor, much less command him, to perform his wicked deed; but he means to reprobate it, and at the same time testify that he would not hinder his being betrayed. St. Chrysostom hom. lxxi. in Joan. — It is the voice not of command, but of permission, not of a person in fear, but of one prepared for death. S. Leo.
Cardinal Prevost Defends Francis' Judas Heresy
Raban.: He “hung himself,” to shew that he was hateful to both heaven and earth.
It profits nothing to do an act of penance which is incapable of correcting the sin. If a man sins against his brother in such a way that the wrong he committed can be amended, it is possible for him to be forgiven. If the consequences of his sin remain in force, however, in vain does he attempt to do penance. The psalmist applies this truth to our most miserable Judas when he says, “Let his prayer be counted as sin.” Not only was Judas unable to repair the damage of his sinful betrayal, but he even continued to compound the evil of that initial crime by committing suicide. Of such things the apostle speaks in his second epistle to the Corinthians: “Let not a brother be overwhelmed by greater sorrow.”
St Jerome: The weight of Judas’s impiety overshadowed the magnitude of his avarice. Seeing the Lord condemned to death, he brought the money to the priests as if it were in his power to change the sentence of Christ’s persecutors. Although he would change his mind eventually, he could not change the consequence of his first decision. Yet if he sins who betrays innocent blood, how much more do they sin who purchase innocent blood and provoke a disciple by offering a reward for his apostasy. Those who deny the apostle’s free will and attempt instead to explain Judas’s betrayal by attributing to him an evil nature will need also to explain how a person of evil nature can repent.
John Chrysostom
This was a charge both against him and against these others. Against Judas, not because he repented but because he did so late and slowly and became selfcondemned. For that he gave himself up, he himself confessed. And it was a charge against the others, in that having the power to reverse the verdict, they did not repent. But observe when it is that Judas feels remorse. When his sin was completed and had been fully accomplished. The devil is like this. He does not permit those that are inattentive to see the evil in due time, lest they might repent. At least when Jesus was saying so many things, Judas was not influenced. But when his offense was completed, then repentance came upon him. And then it was too late to be profitable. For to condemn it and to throw down the pieces of silver and not to regard the Jewish people were all acceptable things. But to hang himself, this again was unpardonable and a work of an evil spirit. For the devil led him out of his repentance too soon, so that he should reap no fruit from it, and carried him off by a most disgraceful death, and one manifest to all, having persuaded him to destroy himself. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily
Acts 1:24-25Then they prayed, saying, “Lord, you know the hearts of everyone. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry that Judas abandoned to go to his own place.”
To the wretches who, with increasing pride and insolence, in word and deed, with disbelief and apostasy, trample upon the holy religion and the divine law.
They use the words of Sacred Scripture and the Gospel, corrupting their true meaning to support their perverse intentions and their crooked principles.
But woe to those religious men and women who do not obey God's law, who despise the holy rules! Woe, woe! Because they will all perish under the terrible chastisement... as will all who deliver themselves to debauchery and follow the false maxims of the deplorable philosophy of those times!”
“In His omnipotence He will chastise the proud for their temerity and shameless insolence. God will use the powers of darkness to exterminate these sectarian, iniquitous and criminal men who plotted to eradicate the Catholic Church, our Holy Mother, to her deepest roots and throw her to the ground.
“God will allow wicked men to be cruelly chastised by fierce demons because they voluntarily submitted to the power of the devil and conspired with him to cause damage to the Holy Catholic Church.”
ORIGEN. (t. xxxii. 16.) Our Lord then said to Judas, That thou doest, do quickly, and the traitor this once obeyed his Master. For having received the sop, he started immediately on his work: He then having received the sop, went, immediately out. And indeed he did go out, not only from the house in which he was, but from Jesus altogether. It would seem that Satan, after he had entered into Judas, could not bear to be in the same place with Jesus: for there is no agreement between Jesus and Satan. Nor is it idle enquiring why after he had received the sop, it is not added, that he ate it. Why did not Judas cat the bread, after he received it? Perhaps because, as soon as he had received it, the devil, who had put it into his heart to betray Christ, fearful that the bread, if eaten, might drive out what he had put in, entered into him, so that he went out immediately, before he ate it. And it may be serviceable to remark, that as he who eateth our Lord’s bread and drinketh His cup unworthily, eateth and drinketh to his own damnation; so the bread which Jesus gave him was eaten by the rest to their salvation, but by Judas to his damnation, inasmuch as after it the devil entered into him.
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