NOTICE CONCERNING THE FOLLOWING WORK (71*)
This work is exhibited by the Madrid Greek codex LXXXII, a paper manuscript in quarto, containing 118 folios, the paper being quite solid but only moderately white; it is entirely written in a very small hand by Constantine Lascaris. It contains: St. Athanasius’ *On Unleavened Bread*; Psellus’ *Epitome of Logic*, an introduction to rhetoric; Blemmydes’ *On the Three Figures of Syllogisms*, and other matters pertaining to dialectics; John Geometres’ *In Praise of the Apple or Fruit*; St. John Damascene’s *Theological Work*, or *On the Orthodox Faith* (books); excerpts from Cydones’ *Theology* on the procession of the Holy Spirit; and various minor extracts. Folio 1: St. Athanasius’ *On Unleavened Bread*. Although we have searched diligently for this work, it appears neither among the genuine nor among the doubtful or spurious works of St. Athanasius; nor does the very word "Azyma" (unleavened bread) appear anywhere in the index of his works. Therefore, whoever its true author may be, we have considered it not alien to ecclesiastical scholarship to transcribe it here, as it has hitherto remained unpublished.
OF SAINT ATHANASIUS ON UNLEAVENED BREAD
A The Jews once celebrated the Passover with three materials, and with three virtues, and with three witnesses, according to the order of the Law. The three materials were the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the wild lettuce. The three virtues were the girdles, the shoes on their feet, and the staff in their hands. The three witnesses were the scribes B standing at the table, precisely observing the full moon, with a vessel being shaken, and foretelling the future. Immediately the priest would blow the trumpet, indicating that it was the Lord’s Passover; and then, after the hearing of the sound of the trumpet, they would make the leaven without bread on the seventh day. Before the signal of the vessel and the trumpet, they had no authority to prepare the lamb, or the leaven, or the bitter herbs on the seventh day; for thus also the great David sang: "Blow the trumpet in the New Moon" (Ps. LXXX, 4). But our Lord Jesus Christ, on the fifth day, delivered the sacred mysteries at the seventh hour of the night. The entry of those eating unleavened bread took place on the evening of the Preparation, after the burial of the Lord. For this reason the Evangelists say that the Lord delivered perfect bread in the holy mysteries, and not unleavened bread, that it might be believed that the body born of the holy Virgin is perfect—that is to say, endowed with soul and mind— C and not, as the heretic Apollinarius said, that He took only a body. But we say that this perfect bread is composed of flour, leaven, and salt, just as an animal consists of body and spirit; for a body without spirit is dead; and unleavened bread alone, not having leaven, is dead and not a life-giving bread; since leaven gives life to the dough and unity, just as spirit does to the body, and salt to the mind; and for this reason we perform the mystery with perfect bread, so that we may not fall into the blasphemies of the impious Apollinarius. D Now the waning of the light occurs in fourteen days and a half, and three hours; but in the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, it went beyond the sixteenth day, so that it might bear witness that He is the true and eternal life. One must therefore know that in the time of Christ and his holy apostles, no Church neglected to eat or distribute the finest flour of unleavened bread. Since, however, neither did Christ Himself, at the time of His passion, eat the legal Passover, hear the Evangelist John saying: "Before..."
the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father"—and when supper was done, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him. And when he says, "the hour was come," that is, when the time had arrived for Him to be betrayed, the twelve disciples sat down with Him. And He said to them, "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." A You see, He says "before I suffer." Since, therefore, it was necessary for Him to suffer on the day of the legal Passover, on which the lamb was also sacrificed by the Jews, and the passion was to be brought about by the God-slayers on the day of Preparation, as John again says: "Since it was the Preparation, for that day was a great day of the Sabbath, on which also the fourteenth day of the moon of the first month, in the five hundred and thirtieth year, happened to fall," so that by being betrayed he would not fail to deliver His own Passover to the disciples, reclining at supper late, and in the evening, as night was drawing on, that is to say, on the fifth day, He indeed ate, but it was His own Passover before the feast of Unleavened Bread. B And this is evident from His reclining; for it was not legal, since the law commanded the Jews to eat the Passover with haste, standing and girded, having sandals on their feet, and holding a staff in their hands. He put an end to the temporal constraint of the legal Passover, and gave His own Passover through the supper. Therefore, after supper, He took bread, and broke it, and gave to the apostles the mystery of His New Testament and Liturgy, on the night, that is to say, of the fifth day, on which He was betrayed. It must be known that at the hour when the God-slayers crucified the Lord of glory, at that same hour they were sacrificing the lamb and eating the legal Passover. And this is evident from the words of the evangelist John: that they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. So that Christ was sacrificed on the same day as the lamb. But what does Luke say? He narrates that Christ took bread and not unleavened bread; for there was none yet, as it was then the fifth day. C The moon was still on its thirteenth day and there was no unleavened bread because it had not yet been prepared. For it was ordained to eat the unleavened bread on the day of the moon; but the lamb was to be sacrificed on the fourteenth day only. Therefore, the law proclaims as the Passover the fourteenth day of the moon of the first month; and the fifteenth it calls the first Sabbath. If, therefore, Christ was sacrificed on the fourteenth of the moon, on the day of the Preparation, and the Sabbath was the feast of Unleavened Bread, when did He eat the unleavened bread? And when did He deliver these things to the apostles in the New Testament? For the imitators of the Jews say that we have neglected to eat the unleavened bread, as if the apostles had commanded it. For He did not eat this legal Passover at that time beforehand; since this is the truth, in testing the matters related above, hear the legislation of Moses which he brought forth concerning the Passover and Unleavened Bread: "These are, therefore, he says, the holy feasts of the Lord which you ought to celebrate in their times. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening is the Passover of the Lord: and on the fifteenth day