Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Ethical/On Prayer/Apostrophe

Chapter XIV.&#8212;Apostrophe.

Albeit Israel washed daily all his limbs over, yet is he never clean.&#160; 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&#8217; 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.&#160; We, however, not only raise, but even expand them; and, taking our model from the Lord&#8217;s passion even in prayer we confess to Christ.