Romans 11:10

This prophecy speaks of those who gave the Savior vinegar and gall to drink.

Behold mercy and judgment—mercy on the elect, who have obtained the righteousness of God, but judgment upon the others who have been blinded. And yet the former have believed because they willed it, while the latter have not believed because they have not willed it. Hence mercy and judgment were executed in their own wills.

Now therefore let us see how the sense of the chapter before us ought to be explained. The blindness of heart by which the remainder of Israel — that is, the part which did not believe — was blinded, he proves by two prophetic testimonies, the one which seems to be taken from Isaiah, and the one from David; and in both a single sense, in a certain way, is set forth. For here eyes are given them with which they may not see, and ears with which they may not hear; and there it is wished that their table before them may become a snare, and a trap, and a recompense, and a stumbling block, and that their eyes may be darkened so that they may not see. And it does not seem idle to show how these things may be believed to be worthily said, and especially in the psalm from the person of Christ. See, then, whether we can explain in this way what is sought. Just as each person uses his bodily eyes for seeing either good things or evil, and has it in his power either to lift up his eyes to heaven and, through what he sees, to acknowledge its Founder and to praise the Creator, or to turn them toward the spectacles of the circus or of the theater, or to the delights of any sordid sights whatever, by which the mind is inflamed either to lust or to rapacity or to any other vices: so understand for me also the eyes of the soul, which some indeed use so as to recognize the Word of God and the teaching of truth, and daily to take profit from his wisdom; but others use these eyes to the contrary end, exercising themselves daily, namely, and inquiring how they may break down the doctrines of truth and, so far as it seems to them, assail the faith of Christ. Let us suppose, then, that someone prays for those who are sharp-sighted and full of argument in false knowledge, and says: May God give them "eyes that they may not see" the subtleties of a perverse understanding, "and ears that they may not hear" the teachers, namely, of falsehood, and "let their eyes be darkened that they may not see" — does not the man who wishes for them those things by which their sins are lessened seem to you one to be embraced? For it is much better not to know than to know evilly. Does it not seem to you, I say, that Marcion, who composed blasphemous writings against God the Creator, or Basilides, or Valentinus, or the other authors of depraved doctrines, would have been blessed if they had not had…