VIII.
Accordingly, it is not the case, as certain
calculators of Gaul allege, that this assertion is opposed by that
passage in Exodus,1174
where we read: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day
of the first month, at even, ye shall eat
unleavened bread until the
one-and-twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall
there be no
leaven found in your
houses.” From this they
maintain that it is quite permissible to celebrate the
Passover on the
twenty-first day of the
moon; understanding that if the twenty-second
day were added, there would be found eight days of
unleavened
bread. A thing which cannot be found with any probability,
indeed, in the Old Testament, as the
Lord, through
Moses, gives this
charge: “Seven days ye shall eat
unleavened
bread.”
1175
Unless
perchance the fourteenth day is not reckoned by them among the days of
unleavened bread with the celebration of the
feast; which, however, is
contrary to the Word of the
Gospel which says: “Moreover,
on the first day of
unleavened bread, the
disciples came to
Jesus.”
1176
| 1176
Matt. xxvi. 17; Mark xiv. 12;
Luke xxii. 7. |
And there
is no doubt as to its being the fourteenth day on which the
disciples
asked the
Lord, in accordance with the
custom established for them of
old, “Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the
Passover?” But they who are
deceived with this error
maintain this addition, because they do not know that the 13th and
14th, the 14th and 15th, the 15th and 16th, the 16th and 17th, the 17th
and 18th, the 18th and 19th, the 19th and 20th, the 20th and 21st days
of the
moon are each found, as may be most surely
proved, within a
single day. For every day in the reckoning of the
moon does not
end in the evening as the same day in respect of number, as it is at
its beginning in the morning. For the day which in the morning,
that is up to the sixth hour and half, is numbered the 13th day of the
month, is found at even to be the 14th. Wherefore, also, the
Passover is enjoined to be extended on to the 21st day at even; which
day, without doubt, in the morning, that is, up to that term of hours
which we have mentioned, was reckoned the 20th. Calculate, then,
from the end of the 13th
1177
| 1177 But
the text gives 12th. |
day of the
moon, which marks the
beginning of the 14th, on to the end of the 20th, at which the 21st day
also begins, and you will have only seven days of
unleavened bread, in
which, by the guidance of the Lord, it has been determined before that
the most true feast of the Passover ought to be
celebrated.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
