In sanctum pascha sermo

The Jews celebrate an earthly Passover, having denied the heavenly one; but we, celebrating a heavenly Passover, have transcended the earthly one. Among them, the Passover that was accomplished was a symbol of the salvation of the firstborn among the Jews, when the firstborn of the Jews were not destroyed together with the firstborn of the Egyptians, being symbolically preserved by the blood of the Passover sacrifice. But the Passover accomplished among us is the cause of the salvation of all humanity, beginning from the first-formed man, who is being saved and given life in all. The parts of the perfect and the temporary things were premeditated as images and types of the eternal, being sketched out in shadow toward the truth that has now arisen. But when the truth is present, the type is untimely, just as when a king has arrived, no one, leaving the living king himself, deems it worthy to venerate his image. The inferiority of the type compared to the truth is evident from this very fact: the type celebrates the short-lived life of the Jewish firstborn, but the truth celebrates the perpetual life of all humanity. For it is no great thing to escape death for a short time, only to die a little later; but it is a great thing to escape death altogether, which is what accrues to us, for whom "Christ was sacrificed as the Passover." And even the name of the feast itself, when interpreted, has the greatest superiority in the case of the truth. For "Passover" means "passing over," when the destroyer who struck the firstborn passed over the houses of the Hebrews; but among us, there is a true passing over of the destroyer, when he passes over us once and for all, as we are raised to eternal life by Christ.

Thus the whole subject of Passover must be contemplated spiritually and believed according to the apostolic interpretations. The faithful also desire to understand how the entire typology relates to the truth and, as it were, to behold through the then corporeal things the spiritual things concerning themselves, so that for him all the things of the law may be understood in a manner proper to Christ, and through the spiritual the corporeal may become more manifest, and the invisible may be revealed as if painted in the visible. When God was about to bring the tenth plague upon the Egyptians—this was the death of the firstborn—he said to Moses: "This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it is the first for you among the months of the year," and he proceeded to ordain the sacrifice of Passover and the anointing of blood upon the doorposts. And by this anointing he promised salvation for the firstborn. What is this, when considered directly in the truth, that that season is defined as the beginning of the year, in which the Passover and the salvation of the firstborn occur? That for us also the beginning of eternal life is the sacrifice of the true Passover—for the year is a symbol of eternity, because going around in a circle it always turns back into itself and never ceases in any end—and Christ, offered as a sacrifice for us, is "father of the coming age," and making all our former life untimely, he gives a beginning of another through the bath of regeneration, in likeness of his own death and resurrection.

Thus everyone who knows the Passover sacrificed for himself must set this as the beginning of life for himself, from the time when Christ was sacrificed for him; and he was sacrificed for him then, whenever he recognizes the grace and understands the life that comes through that sacrifice; and knowing this, let him strive to take the beginning of the new life and no longer run back to the old, which has reached its end; for "we who have died," it says, "to sin, how shall we still live in it?" Such then is the symbol of the beginning of the year; and it commands that "on the tenth of the month" each household take a sheep, and that there be as many eaters in the household as suffice for the meal and that nothing be left over, and that the sheep be sacrificed "on the fourteenth toward evening." So for five days the victim is together with those who are to be saved through it; when the fifth day is past, the victim is sacrificed, death passes over, and the saved one enjoys perpetual light, through the whole night of the shining moon and the sun succeeding the moon, for this happens on the fifteenth and at the full moon. And these five intervals indicate the entire time of the world divided into five: from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to the coming of Christ, and the fifth, that of the coming itself.

At whatever time salvation through the blessed sacrifice was available to a person, it was not yet accomplished; but in the fifth interval of time the true Passover was sacrificed, and the firstborn man saved through it went forth into perpetual light. And the fact that the Passover was sacrificed not at evening itself but "toward evening" indicated that Christ would suffer not at the very end of the present age but toward it. Thus time was divided, as the parable of Christ showed when he cut the day into five parts and spoke of those called to the vineyard—that is, to the labor of righteousness—saying that some were called at the first hour, others at the third, others at the sixth, others at the ninth, others at the eleventh. For these were different callings and different ordinances: one under Adam, another under Noah, another under Abraham, another under Moses, and last and most perfect under the coming of Christ, when the reward for works is given first to the last, according to the saving parable, since we first receive regeneration in baptism, for whom "Christ was sacrificed," upon which he rose and breathed the Holy Spirit for our renewal. This, then, is the fourteenth day understood mystically, and such is the symbol of the sacrifice, and the luminous night and day that follow the sacrifice.

The whole matter—that the sacrificial victim was eaten in each house and its flesh not carried "outside"—indicates that only one house possesses salvation in Christ, and this was the church throughout the whole inhabited world, which formerly was alien to God but now alone is intimately related to God because it received the envoys sent by the Lord Jesus, just as the house of Rahab, the former prostitute, which received the spies sent by Joshua, alone was saved when Jericho was destroyed. So even if the houses of the Hebrews, more than one, have the force of one, just as the churches in cities and countries, many in number, are one church; for in them Christ is one and the same everywhere, perfect and undivided—therefore the sacrificial victim was "perfect" in each house and was not divided among different places. Indeed, Paul also tells us that all are one in Christ, because the Lord is one and the faith is one. The law necessarily prefigured the undivided unity of the sacrificial victim in Christ, and in this it also prefigured the unity of the church. In Christ we have salvation and in the sacrifice of Christ, and we know that all things prepared before the coming were prepared for the coming, and that this alone was set before all humanity for salvation from the beginning, as if before our eyes Christ was sacrificed for all, and we understand that this salvation belongs to the one church, and that no one outside the catholic church and faith can partake of Christ or be saved.

And knowing these things, we understand that the salvation of the whole world is accomplished not in the things according to the law but in Christ, and we assign nothing to the godless heresies with respect to hope, but we place them entirely outside of hope, since they do not have even the slightest participation in Christ, but vainly claim for themselves the saving name, to the deception and harm of those who are able to attend to name and form rather than truth. Therefore let no one tear away the ancient things from Christ, nor suppose that any of those before could be saved without Christ; nor let anyone now name as Christians those who teach otherwise and counterfeit the truth and prepare vain forms of churches outside the truth and alien to Christ, nor choose communion with them; for it is not permitted, since the sacrificial victim is not carried out of the sacred house nor brought forth into communion with those "outside." 16 Now we see that the sheep, being "perfect" and "male" and "year-old," was prefigured for the glory of the Lord. "Perfect" because Christ alone is without need in all virtue and in every way blameless, and from beginning to end lacking in no righteousness, as he himself says: "For it is fitting for us thus to fulfill all righteousness." Therefore all the sacrificial victims were offered perfect and blameless, because all were sacrificed as a type of Christ, and God commanded the priests to be sound and perfect in body, because they were all a type of the true priest.

Male" is the sheep, because it is also the ruling principle, having rule by nature, just as the male has bodily rule over the female; for by nature and in truth Christ is ruler and king, being a heavenly man, and ranged with us as a brother according to the fleshly nature, but standing over us as master according to the spiritual divinity. Wherefore he himself is also the bridegroom and the only one, as of the bride of all humanity, and neither is John the bridegroom, the greatest of the prophets, who says concerning Christ and himself, concerning Christ: "He who has the bride is the bridegroom," and concerning himself: "The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears his voice, rejoices with joy because of the voice of the bridegroom; therefore my joy is fulfilled," nor indeed are the apostles bridegrooms of the church, although they have received likeness to Christ by grace and have become sons of Christ through the Spirit of Christ, but what does the blessed Paul say? "For I betrothed you to one man, to present a pure virgin to Christ.

The Lord is therefore truly leader and master and king, not only because he was God among men, but also according to his pre-existing divinity, because he is by nature king of all creation, not having received the kingship as a gift, but possessing it in truth and by generation from the father. Moreover, the sheep is "year-old," which signified that the Lord was young on earth and had nothing of the oldness that exists among men. If, then, anyone says that the Lord is a mere man and places Christ as of our nature, for him the sheep is not "perfect" nor "without blemish," for no man is without blemish; for him the sheep is not "male," for no man has natural and complete rule over his fellow men. And whoever counts the Lord among creation and says he has divinity as a gift, not as true, does not have the sheep sacrificed for him as "male" either, for he has not known the king by nature but turns him into another who is not by nature nor in truth. But also, if anyone brings anything of human old age into Christ or dares to say he is receptive of sin or subject to the servitude of law or necessarily subject to death, this person does not have the sheep as "year-old" nor has perceived the newness in Christ. It remains to consider the symbol of the sheep and of the goat. So then, the sheep is, according to Isaiah, a symbol of Christ's gentleness: for "he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb voiceless before its shearer," and the goat is, according to the law, a sacrifice for sin. For it says, "a goat from the flock for sin.

Led therefore as a gentle lamb, he is sacrificed for sin as a scapegoat, giving himself through his gentleness for the salvation of men, which we shall pray to obtain through faith and love for our Lord Jesus Christ who suffered for us, through whom and with whom glory is to the Father together with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.