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| That Up to the Time of the Destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews Rightly Appointed the Fourteenth Day of the First Lunar Month.
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V.—That Up to the Time
of the Destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews Rightly Appointed the
Fourteenth Day of the First Lunar Month.
I.2364
| 2364
Apud Galland, Ex Chronico Paschal., p. 1, seqq.,
edit. Venet., 1729. |
1. Since the mercy of God is everywhere great, let
us bless Him, and also because He has sent unto us the Spirit of truth
to guide us into all truth. For for this cause the month
Abib was appointed by the law
to be the beginning of months, and was made known unto us as the first
among the months of the year; both by the ancient writers who lived
before, and by the later who lived after the destruction of Jerusalem,
it was shown to possess a most clear and evidently definite period,
especially because in some places the reaping is early, and sometimes
it is late, so as to be sometimes before the time and sometimes after
it, as it happened in the very beginning of the giving of the law,
before the Passover, according as it is written, “But the wheat
and the rye were not smitten, for they were not grown
up.”2365
Whence it
is rightly prescribed by the law, that from the vernal equinox, in
whatsoever week the fourteenth day of the first month shall fall, in it
the Passover is to be celebrated, becoming and conformable songs of
praise having been first taken up for its celebration. For this
first month, says he, “shall be unto you the beginning of
months,”2366
when the
sun in the summer-time sends forth a far stronger and clearer light,
and the days are lengthened and become longer, whilst the nights are
contracted and shortened. Moreover, when the new seeds have
sprung up, they are thoroughly purged, and borne into the threshing
floor; nor only this, but also all the shrubs blossom, and burst forth
into flower. Immediately therefore they are discovered to send
forth in alternation various and diverse fruits, so that the
grape-clusters are found at that time; as says the lawgiver,
“Now, it was the time of spring, of the first ripe
grapes;”2367
and when
he sent the men to spy out the land, they brought, on bearers, a large
cluster of grapes, and pomegranates also, and figs. For then, as
they say, our eternal God also, the Maker and Creator of all things,
framed all things, and said to them, “Let the earth bring forth
grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after
his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth.” Then he
adds, “And it was so; and God saw that it was
good.”2368
Moreover, he makes quite clear that the first month amongst the Hebrews
was appointed by law, which we know to have been observed by the Jews
up to the destruction of Jerusalem, because this has been so handed
down by the Hebrew tradition. But after the destruction of the
city it was mocked at by some hardening of heart, which we observing,
according to the law, with sincerity have received; and in this,
according to the Word, when he speaks of the day of our holy festivity,
which the election hath attained: but the rest have become
hardened,2369
as said the
Scripture; and after other things.
2. And He says as follows: “All
these things will they do unto you for My name’s sake, because
they know not Him that sent Me.”2370
But if they knew not Him who sent,
and Him who was sent, there is no reason to doubt but that they have
been ignorant of the Passover as prescribed by the law, so as not
merely to err in their choice of the place, but also in reckoning the
beginning of the month, which is the first amongst the months of the
year, on the fourteenth day of which, being accurately observed, after
the equinox, the ancients celebrated the Passover according to the
divine command; whereas the men of the present day now celebrate it
before the equinox, and that altogether through negligence and error,
being ignorant how they celebrated it in its season, as He confesses
who in these things was described.
3. Whether therefore the Jews erroneously
sometimes celebrate their Passover according to the course of the moon
in the month Phamenoth, or according to the intercalary month, every
third year in the month Pharmuthi2371
| 2371
[Vol. ii. p. 333, note 4. Clement is always worth noting, for his
influence is thus traceable very widely in the early literature.] | matters not to us. For we have no
other object than to keep the remembrance of His Passion, and that at
this very time; as those who were eye-witnesses of it have from the
beginning handed down, before the Egyptians believed. For neither
by observing the course of the moon do they necessarily celebrate it on
the sixteenth day of Phamenoth, but once every three years in the month
Pharmuthi; for from the beginning, and before the advent of Christ,
they seem to have so done. Hence, when the Lord reproves them by
the prophet, He says, “They do always err in their heart; and I
have sworn in My wrath that they shall not enter into My
rest.”2372
4. Wherefore, as thou seest, even in this thou
appearest to be lying greatly, not only against men, but also against
God. First, indeed, since in this matter the Jews never erred, as
consorting with those who were eye-witnesses and ministers, much less
from the beginning before the advent of Christ. For God does not
say that they did always err in their heart as regards the precept of
the law concerning the Passover, as thou hast written, but on account
of all their other disobedience, and on account of their evil and
unseemly deeds, when, indeed, He perceived them turning to idolatry and
to fornication.
5. And after a few things. So that
also in this respect, since thou hast slumbered, rouse thyself much,
and very much, with the scourge of the Preacher, being mindful
especially of that passage where he speaks of “slipping on the
pavement, and with the tongue.”2373
For, as thou
seest again, the charge cast by
thee upon their leaders is reflected back; nay, and one may suspect a
great subsequent danger, inasmuch as we hear that the stone which a man
casts up on high falls back upon his head. Much more reckless is
he who, in this respect, ventures to bring a charge against Moses, that
mighty servant of God, or Joshua, the son of Nun, who succeeded him, or
those who in succession rightly followed them and ruled; the judges, I
mean, and the kings who appeared, or the prophets whom the Holy Spirit
inspired, and those who amongst the high-priests were blameless, and
those who, in following the traditions, changed nothing, but agreed as
to the observance of the Passover in its season, as also of the rest of
their feasts.
6. And after other things. But thou oughtest
rather to have pursued a safer and more auspicious course, and not to
have written rashly and slanderously, that they seem from the
beginning, and always, to have been in error about the Passover, which
you cannot prove, whatever charge you may wish to bring against those
who, at the present time, have erred with a grievous wandering, having
fallen away from the commandment of the law concerning the Passover and
other things. For the ancients seem to have kept it after the
vernal equinox, which you can discover if you read ancient books, and
those especially which were written by the learned Hebrews.
7. That therefore up to the period of the
Lord’s Passion, and at the time of the last destruction of
Jerusalem, which happened under Vespasian, the Roman emperor, the
people of Israel, rightly observing the fourteenth day of the first
lunar month, celebrated on it the Passover of the law, has been briefly
demonstrated. Therefore, when the holy prophets, and all, as I
have said, who righteously and justly walked in the law of the Lord,
together with the entire people, celebrated a typical and shadowy
Passover, the Creator and Lord of every visible and invisible creature,
the only-begotten Son, and the Word co-eternal with the Father and the
Holy Spirit, and of the same substance with them, according to His
divine nature, our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, being in the end of the
world born according to the flesh of our holy and glorious lady, Mother
of God, and Ever-Virgin, and, of a truth, of Mary the Mother of God;
and being seen upon earth, and having true and real converse as man
with men, who were of the same substance with Him, according to His
human nature, Himself also, with the people, in the years before His
public ministry and during His public ministry, did celebrate the legal
and shadowy Passover, eating the typical lamb. For “I came
not to destroy the law, or the prophets, but to fulfil them,” the
Saviour Himself said in the Gospel.
But after His public ministry He did not eat of
the lamb,2374
| 2374
[But compare Browne, On the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 717,
note 3, American edition, 1874.] | but Himself
suffered as the true Lamb in the Paschal feast, as John, the divine and
evangelist, teaches us in the Gospel written by him, where he thus
speaks: “Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of
judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the
judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the
passover.”2375
And
after a few things more. “When Pilate therefore heard that
saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat, in a
place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the third
hour,”2376
| 2376
John xix. 13, 14. And about the sixth hour is the
reading of our English version. According to St. Mark, the
crucifixion took place at the third hour (chap. xxv. 25). Eusebius, Theophylact, and Severus (in the Catena, ed.
Lücke, ii.) suppose that there has been some very early
erratum in our copies. See Alford’s note on
the passage. | as the
correct books render it, and the copy itself that was written by the
hand of the evangelist, which, by the divine grace, has been preserved
in the most holy church of Ephesus, and is there adored by the
faithful. And again the same evangelist says: “The
Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should
not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day (for that Sabbath-day was
an high day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that
they might be taken away.”2377
On that day, therefore, on
which the Jews were about to eat the Passover in the evening, our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ was crucified, being made the victim to those
who were about to partake by faith of the mystery concerning Him,
according to what is written by the blessed Paul: “For even
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us;”2378
and not as some who, carried along
by ignorance, confidently affirm that after He had eaten the Passover,
He was betrayed; which we neither learn from the holy evangelists, nor
has any of the blessed apostles handed it down to us. At the
time, therefore, in which our Lord and God Jesus Christ suffered for
us, according to the flesh, He did not eat of the legal Passover; but,
as I have said, He Himself, as the true Lamb, was sacrificed for us in
the feast of the typical Passover, on the day of the preparation, the
fourteenth of the first lunar month. The typical Passover,
therefore, then ceased, the true Passover being present:
“For Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us,” as has
been before said, and as that chosen vessel, the apostle Paul,
teaches.2379
| 2379
[Compare Anatolius, p. 151, supra.] |
II.2380
| 2380
Apud Galland, Ex Chronico Paschal., p. 175, D. |
Now it was the preparation, about the third hour,
as the accurate books have it, and the autograph copy itself of the
Evangelist John, which up to this day has by divine grace been
preserved in the most holy church of Ephesus, and is there
adored2381
| 2381
[Adored, i.e., etymologically, = kissed.] | by the
faithful.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
