"Titus, enlightened enough to recognize that Judaea was perishing by a manifest effect of God’s justice, did not know what crime God had willed to punish so terribly. It was the greatest of all crimes, a crime unheard of till then, that is to say, that of deicide — which also gave rise to a vengeance of which the world had not seen such an example... There is the story of the Jews. They persecuted their Messiah, in His own Person and in that of His followers; they stirred up the world against His disciples; they did not leave them at rest in any city; they armed the Romans and the emperors against the nascent Church; they stoned St. Stephen, killed the two Jameses (whose holiness made them venerable even among them); they immolated St. Peter and St. Paul by the sword and by the hands of the Gentiles. It was necessary that they perish. So much blood, mixed with that of the prophets whom they massacred, cried out for vengeance before God."

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle, p. 298-99