Do understand what “sit on the seat of Moses” means? If so, what?
“Also, if we’re going to pretend to rigor, let’s be careful. Our Catholic scoundrels are REAL scoundrels. But not all the pipes are rusty. Some might seem to be solid gold.”
Was every religious leader in Israel a “whitewashed tomb”?
Were there none that did anything good?
It really made no difference because those “solid gold” religious leaders that were still in Jerusalem in 70 c.e. perished just like anyone else.
The ‘rusty but good pipes’ were those that heeded Jesus’ words and left Jerusalem before it fell.
The ‘house’ was being abandoned by God, leave it or perish with it.
“The same came to Him by night.”
Well, as I said, I believe in what I take to be the promises of God. YES, of course I see how an enemy might take that as saying “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”
Without pretending to the intelligence, learning, or virtue of John Cardinal Newman, I will lay claim to his dictum that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.
I know what happened to Israel. I draw a different conclusion.