Chapter XIV.—Apostrophe.

Albeit Israel washed daily all his limbs over, yet is he never clean.  His hands, at all events, are ever unclean, eternally dyed with the blood of the prophets, and of the Lord Himself; and on that account, as being hereditary culprits from their privity to their fathers’ crimes,87    See Matt. xxiii. 31; Luke xi. 48. they do not dare even to raise them unto the Lord,88    I do not know Tertullian’s authority for this statement.  Certainly Solomon did raise his hands (1 Kings viii. 54), and David apparently his (see Ps. cxliii. 6; xxviii. 2; lxii. 4, etc.). Compare, too, Ex. xvii. 11, 12. But probably he is speaking only of the Israel of his own day. [Evidently.] for fear some Isaiah should cry out,89    Isa. i. 15. for fear Christ should utterly shudder.  We, however, not only raise, but even expand them; and, taking our model from the Lord’s passion90    i.e. from the expansion of the hands on the cross. even in prayer we confess91    Or, “give praise.” to Christ.

CAPUT XIV .

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Caeterum satis mundae sunt manus, quas cum toto corpore in Christo semel lavimus. Omnibus licet membris lavet quotidie Israel, nunquam tamen mundus est. Certe manus ejus semper immundae sanguine prophetarum, et ipsius Domini cruentatae in aeternum. Et ideo conscientia patrum haereditarii rei nec attollere eas ad Dominum audent , ne exclamet aliquis Isaias, ne exhorreat Christus. Nos vero non attollimus tantum, sed etiam expandimus e 1170A dominica passione modulatum , et orantes confitemur Christo.