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, they do not dare even to raise them unto the Lord, for fear some Isaiah should cry out, for fear Christ should utterly shudder. We, however, not only raise, but even expand them; and, taking our model from the Lord’s passion even in prayer we confess to Christ.
Reproduced in full. Translation: Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (Roberts and Donaldson, 1885), public domain (Public domain).