De solemnitate paschali

Of Eusebius of Caesarea on the Feast of Pascha. 1. Perhaps it would not be untimely to treat again of Pascha, which was handed down figuratively to the children of the Hebrews from ancient times. For when the Hebrews, performing shadows of things to come, first celebrated the feast of Phasek, a young animal was taken by them from the flock; this was a lamb or a sheep. Then they themselves sacrificed it with their own hands. And next, each of them first smeared the lintels and doorposts of their own houses with its blood, thus bloodying the thresholds and roofs for the repulsion of the destroyer. Using the flesh of the sheep as food, and having their loins girded with a belt, partaking also of the food of unleavened bread, and taking bitter herbs, they passed from place to place, from the land of the Egyptians to the desert. These things, then, together with the slaughter and consumption of the sheep, were legislated for them to do. Hence their departure from Egypt fulfilled for them the name of the Crossing. But these things happened to them typically, yet they were written for our sake. And indeed Paul interprets, revealing the truth of the ancient symbols, when he says: "For our Pascha, Christ was sacrificed." And the reason for his being sacrificed the Baptist sets forth, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." For the salvific body, an expiatory sacrifice for all evils, was delivered to death, which, like a purification, removed the sin of the whole world. For Isaiah cries out clearly: "This one bears our sins and suffers pain on our behalf.

2. So we, nourished by this saving sacrifice—the one who saved the whole race of men with his own blood—on rational meats, that is, on teachings and words that proclaim the kingdom of heaven, appropriately enjoy a feast according to God. And also by faith in his blood, which he gave as a ransom for our salvation, marking the houses of the soul, that is, the bodies, we drive away every race of plotting demons from ourselves; and celebrating the feast of crossing over, we practice crossing over to divine things, as once we crossed from Egypt to the desert. For this reason, we too set out on a path untrodden and deserted by the many, banishing the old leaven of godless error from the soul itself, and partaking of the true bitters through a bitter and painful regimen. And the season of the feast is well-timed, not introduced in the middle of winter, for that is gloomy; nor was it suitable in the middle of summer, when the blazing solstice robs the beauty of those who are at leisure in the fields; it also surpasses the seasons that are not ambiguous in their equality; for the sight of the autumnal solstice is not pleasant, the land being bereft and deprived of its own fruits as of children. So the bright spring remains, which, as a kind of head of the whole year, leads the body, with the sun just traversing its first segment, and the moon, in parallel, with its nearly full light, transforming the course of the night into a bright day. This dissolves the terrors of winter storms, dissolves long intervals, and changes the floods of waters.

Now a fresh sky shines, calm settles the seas for sailors, and fair weather grants travelers on land. Fields in the countryside, pregnant with seeds, and plants swelling with fruits, rejoicing in the gifts from God, provide farmers the rewards of their labors in blessings. 3. This season of the feast brought destruction to the Egyptians, friends of demons, and to the Hebrews celebrating for God, freedom from evils. It was that very same season preserved from the first creation of the universe, in which the earth sprouted, in which the luminaries came to be, in which heaven and earth and all things in them were brought forth. In this season the Savior of the whole world accomplished the mystery of his own feast, and the great luminary illuminated the inhabited world with the rays of piety, and the season seems to contain the birthday of the cosmos. In this season the ancient Pascha, which is also called the crossing, was celebrated as a type; it bore the symbol of the slaughter of a sheep; it also hinted at the image of the food of unleavened bread. All these things were fulfilled in the saving feast: for the sheep was himself, in the body he wore. He himself was also the sun of righteousness, of a divine spring, as it were, and of a saving turning from worse to better things, taking hold of human life. Even now, divinely driven scourges are sent down upon the Egyptians, friends of demons, and peoples dwelling everywhere on earth celebrate their freedom from much-wandering atheism.

The deceiving spirits have ceased, and the evils of winter; a bounty of new fruits crowns the Church of God with diverse gifts of the Holy Spirit. And simply every race of humanity has been transformed toward our way. All lands, having received from the husbandman Word the cultivation of the soul, have blossomed with the beautiful flowers of virtue. Moreover, freed from the evils of darkness, we have been deemed worthy of light in the day of the knowledge of God. 4. Such are the new teachings, formerly obscured through symbols, but recently revealed into the light. And indeed we ourselves rekindle the culmination of the feast in the cycles of the years each year, taking up the forty-day ascetic practice for the sake of preparation before the feast, according to the zeal of the holy Moses and Elijah, and renewing the feast itself for an unforgettable eternity. So, setting out on the journey toward God, we bind our loins tightly with the belt of temperance, and guarding the steps of the soul in safety, we prepare the course of the heavenly calling as if with sandals. Using the staff of divine speech in the power of prayers for defense against enemies, we cross with all eagerness the passage leading to the heavens, hastening from things here to the heavenly, and from mortal life to the immortal. For thus, having crossed the crossing well and rightly, another greater feast will receive us from here: the children of the Hebrews call it Pentecost, bearing an image of the kingdom of the heavens. So Moses says:

When you begin your harvest, you will count seven weeks for yourself, and you will offer new loaves from the new harvest to God. Now this signified, by a prophetic type, the harvest of the nations as the calling, and the new loaves as the souls offered to God through Christ, and the churches from the nations, on whose account a very great feast is celebrated for the philanthropic God. We, who have been reaped by the rational sickles of the apostles, and, as it were, gathered into one threshing-floor, the Churches everywhere on earth, and formed into one body by the unanimous disposition of faith, and seasoned with the teachings from the divine words as with salt, and regenerated through water and fire of the Holy Spirit, are offered as nourishing loaves, gentle and pleasing to God, through Christ. 5. In this way, with the prophetic symbols in Moses passing into works with more solemn results, we ourselves have received the tradition of celebrating the feast more brightly, as being gathered together with the Savior and enjoying his kingdom. Therefore, we are no longer permitted to labor during this feast, but are taught to bear the image of the rest hoped for in heaven; hence we neither bend the knee in prayers nor are we distressed by fasts. For those deemed worthy of resurrection according to God can no longer fall to the ground; nor can those freed from the passions suffer the same as those who are enslaved. Therefore, after Pascha we celebrate Pentecost in seven complete weeks, having shown manly vigor in the six weeks of the forty-day period of asceticism before Pascha; for the number six is practical and active.

Therefore God is said to have made the whole universe in six days. The second feast will fittingly succeed the labors of that period with seven weeks, the rest being multiplied for us, whose symbols the number seven intends to signify. Yet the number of Pentecost does not stop at these; but, surpassing the seven weeks, it is sealed with the final unit after them, the all-festal day of Christ's Ascension. Fittingly, then, during the days of holy Pentecost, as we delineate the future rest, we delight our souls and give rest to the body, as if already dwelling with the Bridegroom and unable to fast. 6. Moreover, that the holy evangelists recorded the saving passion as having occurred during the days of the Jewish Passover of unleavened bread, no one would doubt; for this was the reason for the law spoken by Moses concerning Passover. Since the Lamb of God was to be led as a sheep to slaughter among the Jews themselves, and to suffer this for the common salvation of all mankind, at no other time than the indicated season, God, anticipating the future by means of symbols in a figurative manner, commanded that at that very season which would one day come around in cycles of time, a tangible lamb be sacrificed among the Jews. And this was performed by them annually, until the truth, being fulfilled, circumscribed the ancient images.

Hence from that time, among the nations, the true feast of the mysteries has prevailed, but among the Jews not even the memory of the symbols is preserved, their place where the feast was ordained to be celebrated having been destroyed. Reasonably, therefore, the divine writing of the Gospels says that the Savior suffered at the time of the Jewish unleavened bread, since then, as a sheep led to slaughter, he was brought in accordance with the prophetic utterances. 7. And those under Moses once in the whole year sacrificed a sheep of Passover on the fourteenth of the first month, toward evening; but we of the New Covenant, celebrating our own Passover on each Lord’s day, always partake of the body of the Savior, always partake of the blood of the sheep. Always we gird the loins of our own soul with purity and temperance, always we prepare our feet in readiness for the Gospel, always we have the staffs in our hands, and we rest upon the rod that came forth from the root of Jesse, always we depart from Egypt, always we pursue the desert of human life, always we set out on the journey to God, always we celebrate the crossing festival. For the evangelical word wishes us to do all these things not once a year, but always and through every day. Therefore also each week we celebrate the feast of our Passover on the saving and Lord’s day, fulfilling the mysteries of the true sheep through which we were redeemed; and we do not circumcise the body with iron, but with the cutting word of the soul we remove every vice.

nor do we use physical unleavened bread, but only that of purity and truth. For grace, having freed us from the aged custom, has delivered to us the new man created according to God, and the new law, the new circumcision, the new Passover, and the hidden Jew; thus it has set us free from the old times. 8. However, when the most God-beloved emperor, seated in the midst of the holy synod, brought the question concerning Passover to the fore, many things were said; but the threefold portion of the whole world, from the other side, prevailed over the multitude of bishops, opposing those of the East. For the northern, southern, and western nations, fortified by agreement, pulled against those of the East who were defending the ancient custom. In the end, the Easterners yielded; and thus there came to be one feast of Christ; and thus they separated from the Lord-killers and joined those of like faith; for nature draws like to like. But if someone should say that it is written: "On the first day of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came and said to the Savior, 'Where do you wish us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?' And he sent to so-and-so, instructing him to say, 'I will keep the Passover with you'"—we shall say that this is not a commandment, but a narrative of an event that occurred at the time of the saving passion. For it is one thing to recount an ancient practice, and another to legislate and leave commandments for those after.

But the Savior did not celebrate the Passover with the Jews at the time of his own passion. For when they sacrificed the sheep, he did not then keep his own Passover with his disciples. For they were doing this on the Preparation, on which the Savior suffered; hence they did not enter the praetorium, but Pilate came out to them. But he, a whole day earlier, on the fifth day of the week, reclined with his disciples and, eating with them, said: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you." Do you see how the Savior did not eat the Passover with the Jews? Since that was new and strange compared to the customary Jewish practices, he necessarily drew attention by saying: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you, before I suffer." For the old customs, which were ancient and which he had eaten with the Jews, were not desirable; but the new mystery of his New Covenant, which he imparted to his own disciples, was naturally desirable to him. For many prophets and righteous men before him had desired to see the mysteries of the New Covenant; and the Word himself, always thirsting for the common salvation, was imparting a mystery through which all people would celebrate, and he confessed that this was desirable to him. The Passover of Moses was not suitable for all the nations of that time; how could it be, since it was legislated to be celebrated in one place, in Jerusalem? Therefore it was not desirable. But the saving mystery of the New Covenant, suitable for all people, was naturally desirable to him.

10. But he himself, before his passion, ate the Passover with his own disciples and celebrated the feast, not with the Jews. After he had celebrated in the evening, the high priests together with the traitor set upon him and laid hands on him. For they themselves did not eat the Passover in the evening; otherwise they would have had no leisure to attend to him. And indeed they seized him and led him away to the house of Caiaphas, where they spent the night, and when day came they assembled and first interrogated him; then after this they rose and together with the crowd led him to Pilate. And then, the Scripture says, they did not enter the praetorium, lest, as they thought, entering under a Greek roof they be defiled, but remaining pure—the utterly polluted ones—when evening came they would eat the Passover, they who strain out a gnat but swallow a camel, they whose souls together with their bodies were stained with murderous pollution against the Savior, yet feared to go under a roof. But they, on that very day of the passion, ate the destructive Passover of their own soul, demanding the saving blood not for themselves but against themselves. Our Savior, however, did not do so then, but reclining with his disciples before daybreak, he held the feast that was desirable to him.

11. Do you see how, from that point, he separated himself from them and withdrew from Jewish bloodshed, and joined with his disciples, celebrating with them the longed-for feast? Therefore we too must eat the Passover with Christ, purging from our own mind every leaven of vice and wickedness, and filling ourselves with the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity, having within ourselves, in the soul, the hidden Jew and the true circumcision, and anointing the doorposts of our mind with the blood of the lamb sacrificed for us, to ward off the destroyer against us. And this not for a single period of the whole year, but throughout every week. Let Friday be for us a fast, a symbol of mourning, on account of our former sins, and for the sake of remembering the saving passion. 12. I say that the Jews have been deceived from the beginning concerning the truth, from the time they plotted against the truth itself, driving the Word of life away from themselves. And this the writing of the holy Gospels clearly demonstrates. For it bears witness that the Lord ate the Passover on the first day of Unleavened Bread; and, as Luke says, they did not eat the customary Passover on the day on which the Passover ought to have been sacrificed, but on the following day, which was the second of Unleavened Bread, the fifteenth of the moon, on which day, while our Savior was being tried by Pilate, they did not enter the praetorium. Therefore they did not eat it on the first day of Unleavened Bread, on which it ought to have been sacrificed according to the law; for then they would have kept the Passover together with the Savior.

But from that time, together with the plot against our Savior, they were blinded by their own wickedness and fell away from all truth. We, however, celebrate the same mysteries throughout the entire year, making remembrance of the saving Passion on every Friday by means of the fast which the apostles first observed when the Bridegroom was taken from them; and on every Lord's day we are given life by the consecrated body of that same saving Passover and seal our souls with his precious blood.