ON THE SOLEMNITY OF PASCHA
NOTICE ON THE SUBSEQUENT WORK (Mai, *Bibl. Patr.* IV, 208.)
In the *Life of Constantine the Great* which he wrote, Eusebius narrates in book IV, chapter 54, that he had composed a descriptive treatise on the most holy Paschal solemnity and its rationale, which he had announced to the aforementioned Constantine. In the following chapter, the same Eusebius recites Constantine's letter to him, in which the Emperor acknowledges having received and read the book, highly commends it, and announces that, by his royal command, it has been made known and useful to many others as well. The very words of the most Christian Augustus are: "It is indeed a most significant matter, and one exceeding all power of speech, to set forth the mysteries of Christ according to their dignity, and to explain in a becoming manner the Paschal controversy and the origin of this feast, as well as its useful yet laborious celebration. For divine matters are such that not even those who are able to attain them in thought are sufficient to recount them. Nevertheless, I have greatly admired your learning and diligent endeavor, and I myself have read the book; and I have commanded that it be transmitted to the hands of many who sincerely profess the observance of the divine religion, just as you wished. Since, therefore, you understand with what pleasure we receive such gifts from your ingenuity," etc. The emperor proceeds shortly to say that the same book had been translated from Greek into Latin, which it merits deservedly by the fame and worth of its author.
Now, this highly praised little work, which Eusebius had written on account of the Paschal controversy discussed at the Nicene Council, had long since perished both in Greek and in Latin; were it not that Nicetas, Bishop of Serrhae, had preserved a significant and lengthy portion of it in his great manuscript catena on Luke; which I, having discovered it in a Vatican codex, edited some years ago in Greek; but now I have judged it worthy to be presented with a Latin translation as well. And I rejoice because in this writing, beyond its other erudition, Eusebius also gives noble testimony to the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist. To be sure, Balthasar Corderius, a learned man whom I mention for the sake of honor, seems to have brought forth in his catena of the Fathers on Luke (which is different from our Nicetiana), p. 544-545, this excerpt of Eusebius translated by himself into Latin; but first, it is not intact, because with him the sixth and eighth sections are entirely missing, as well as almost the whole of the tenth and eleventh, besides other scattered, mutilated, and disordered passages. Furthermore, Corderius's interpretation is of such a character that if I were to weigh and correct it item by item, I would appear as a truly fastidious and unpleasant judge. For he speaks sometimes in such a way that one cannot easily recognize what it was he read in his Greek manuscript. But what is of greater interest is that the Greek text—that is, the original text of Eusebius—was entirely unpublished before our book.
EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA ON THE SOLEMNITY OF PASCHA.
A 1. It will perhaps not be inopportune to discourse once more on the Pascha, as it was formerly handed down to the Hebrews in the form of a figure. When, therefore, the Hebrews, performing (a rite) for the sake of the imagery of what was to come, first celebrated the feast of the *phasek*, they took for themselves a beast from the flock: there was then a lamb or a sheep. They slaughtered this victim with their own hand. Thereafter, each of them smeared the blood on the lintels and doorposts of their own houses; smearing the thresholds and the tops of the doors in this way, certainly, for the frightening away of the destroyer. Eating then of the flesh of the sheep as nourishment, and with their loins girt about, B
A partaking of unleavened bread, and offering bitter herbs, they passed from place to place, that is, from the land of the Egyptians into the desert. These things they were commanded to do, along with the slaughter and eating of the sheep. Wherefore that departure from Egypt gave the name of "the Passing" to the festival among the Hebrews. But these things happened to them in a figure; yet they were written for our benefit. And thus Paul interprets this, when he reveals the truth of the ancient symbols with these words: "For Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us." 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 truly the Savior’s body, the offering that averts all evils, was handed over to death, which, as a propitiation, took away the sin of the whole world; wherefore Isaiah clearly cried out: "He bears our sins and suffers for us."
B 2. Therefore, nourished by the intellectual flesh of this saving victim, who by His own blood saved the human race—namely, by the teachings and doctrines announcing the kingdom of heaven—we are deservedly delighting in divine delights. But also by faith in His blood, which He gave as a ransom for our salvation, sealing the houses of the soul, that is, our bodies, we banish from ourselves every kind of insidious demon; and celebrating the solemnity of the passing, we study to pass over to divine things, just as they once migrated from Egypt into the desert. Thus we, too, make a journey through a certain pathless and desert place to many, expelling from our soul the old leaven of godless error, and setting before ourselves the true bitter herbs through a bitter and unpleasant way of life.
The time of the festival, moreover, is opportune; it does not fall into the middle of winter, which is gloomy, nor, conversely, into the middle of summer, at which time the scorching solstice destroys the beauty of those working in the fields; likewise, the hours are too long, not divided into equal parts. But neither does the autumnal equinox offer a pleasant appearance, with the field widowed and despoiled of its fruits as if of its children. There remains from these seasons of the year the joyful spring, which is in a way the head of the whole year, as it were of a body, when the sun runs the first part of its course, and the moon likewise transforms the course of the night into a bright day with the full light of its orb. C Spring, I say, dispels the terrors of the winter storms, takes away the long spaces D of the nights, and restrains the flooding of waters. And now, with a new and shining serenity, the seas become tranquil for those sailing, and the air becomes clear for those traveling upon the land. Regions meanwhile in the fields are pregnant with seeds, and the trees, swelling with fruits and adorned with the gifts of God, offer to the farmers the reward of their labors in a blessing.
C 3. This time of the festival, while it brought destruction to the Egyptians as friends of the demons, brought an end to evils for the Hebrews, who celebrated God with festival rites. This was the very same time also kept at the original creation of the universe, the time when the earth brought forth its products, and the luminaries came into existence; the time when heaven, earth, and all that is in them were produced. D At this very time the Savior of the whole world performed the mystery of his own festival, and he illuminated the world with the splendors of true religion, and the birthday of the world seemed to return. At this time the figure was being fulfilled, namely the ancient Pascha, which is called the "passing over," but it also bore the symbol of the slaughter of the sheep, and the eating of unleavened bread was the image of a certain likeness. All these things were fulfilled in the Savior's festival; for he himself was that sheep, insofar as he was clothed with a body. He is also the Sun of Justice, when the spring of divine and salutary renewal arrived for the human way of life, changing it from worse to better. For the Egyptians, the divinely sent plagues are even now being inflicted upon their demons, while the peoples inhabiting every part of the earth joyfully celebrate their freedom from the multiform error of impiety. B Therefore, with the deceptive spirits of the peoples suppressed and the winter of evils past, the abundance of new fruits adorns the Church of God with the various gifts of the Holy Spirit; and to speak summarily, the whole human race has crossed over to our side; all regions, having experienced the cultivation of the soul by the Word as farmer, have brought forth the beautiful flowers of virtue; and we, having been snatched from the darkness of evils, have been deemed worthy of the light, the day on which we drank in the knowledge of God.
4. These are the new teachings, formerly overshadowed by symbols, but recently brought forth into the manifest light. And indeed, we too renew the head of the festival in the cycles of the years, taking up the forty-day exercise before the feast for the sake of preparation, imitating the saints Moses and Elijah, and repeating the feast itself for an unending age. Therefore, having undertaken the journey to God, we gird our loins well with the belt of temperance, and securely guarding the steps of the soul, we set out on the course of heavenly calling as if shod; and using the rod of the divine word with the power of prayer for the repelling of enemies, we pass over with all eagerness the passage that leads to the heavens, hastening from these lower things to the higher, and from mortal life to the immortal; for thus, having successfully completed the passage, a greater festival will receive us from thence, which the children of the Hebrews name Pentecost, bearing the image of the kingdom of the heavens. For Moses says: *Ex quo falcem in messem miseris, numerabis tibi septem hebdomadas, novosque panes ex nova messe propones ante Deum* (Deut. xvi, 9).
A This prophetic figure signified the calling of the nations through the harvest, and the souls offered to God by the merits of Christ through the new loaves, as well as the churches formed from the Gentiles, for whose sake a most great festival is celebrated before the benevolent God. For, reaped by the rational sickles of the apostles, gathered together from all parts of the world into the church as if into a threshing floor, joined together in the concordant sentiment of faith, seasoned with the salt of divine doctrines and disciplines, and regenerated by the water and fire of the Holy Spirit, we are offered as pleasing and acceptable loaves to God through Christ.
5. Therefore, since the prophetic symbols of Moses have passed into effects of a holier reality, we have learned by tradition to celebrate a more joyful solemnity, as we are already united with our Savior and enjoying his kingdom. For this reason, we are not permitted to be worn down by any ascetic labor during this feast, but we are taught to present an image of the rest hoped for in the heavens. For this reason, we neither bend the knee in prayers nor afflict ourselves with abstinence from food. For it is no longer fitting for those who have been granted the grace of resurrection in God to fall to the ground again, nor for those freed from the passions to suffer the same things as slaves to desire. Wherefore, after Pascha, we celebrate Pentecost for seven full weeks, having manfully endured the preceding period of forty days of exercise before Pascha in six weeks. For the number six is active, so to speak, and efficacious. It is for this reason that God is said to have created the universe in six days. But to the labors endured in that period, the second solemnity worthily succeeds in seven weeks, our rest being multiplied, the symbol of which the number seven is intended to signify. C Yet the number of Pentecost, or the fifty, is not strictly composed of these seven weeks; for the last [week] being exceeded by a monad, we seal this most solemn day of the ascension of Christ. Worthily, therefore, representing in the days of holy Pentecost the future rest, we are glad in spirit, and at the same time we indulge the body with rest, as if we were already dwelling with the Bridegroom, and therefore it is not permitted for us to fast.
6. But that the sacred evangelists narrate that the passion occurred during the days of the unleavened bread of the Jewish Pascha, no one will doubt. For this was the cause of the law given by Moses which is called paschal. For because the Lamb of God was to be led by the Jews themselves as a sheep to the slaughter, and was to suffer this for the common salvation of all men, at no other time than the time indicated, God, prefiguring the future event by demonstrative symbols, commanded a material lamb to be sacrificed by the Jews at that very time which, as the cycles of years revolved, was to occur. D And this was done by them every year, until complete truth circumscribed the old images. Wherefore, from that time, the true solemnity of the mysteries remains among the nations; but among the Jews, even the memory of the symbols themselves does not survive, the place where they performed the rite of the feast having been taken away from them.
Fittingly, therefore, does the divine Scripture of the Gospels say that the Saviour suffered at the time of the Jewish unleavened bread; since even then, as a sheep, he was led to the slaughter in accordance with the prophetic voices.
B 7. And while those in accordance with Moses used to sacrifice the Passover lamb once in the entire year, on the fourteenth day of the first month, toward evening; we, however, the men of the New Covenant, celebrating our own Passover on every Lord’s day, ARE ALWAYS FILLED WITH THE BODY OF THE SAVIOUR, AND ARE ALWAYS PARTAKING OF THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB. We are always girding the loins of our own soul with chastity and modesty, we are always prepared in our feet with the preparation of the Gospel; we always have staves in our hands, and we rest by leaning upon the rod that sprang forth from the root of Jesse; we are always departing from Egypt, we are always pursuing the solitude of human life, we are always setting out on the journey to God, we are always celebrating the feast of the passing over. For the evangelical word desires us to perform all these things not once a year, but always and through every day. Therefore, also in each week we perform the feast of our Passover on the saving and Lord’s day, completing the mysteries of the true Lamb through whom we were redeemed; and we do not circumcise the body with iron, but with the cutting word of the Gospel we cut away all malice from the soul; nor do we use physical unleavened bread, but only that of sincerity and truth. For grace, having set us free from the aging custom, has handed over to us the new man who was created according to God, and the new law, and the new circumcision, and the new Passover, and him who is a Jew in secret C (Rom. II, 29). Thus it has left us released from the yoke of the ancient times.
8. Furthermore, when the God-beloved Emperor D sat in the midst of the holy synod, as the question concerning the Passover was brought into the middle, he said what he said. The triple portion of the bishops of the whole world, however, prevailed, which was contending from the other side against those of the East. For the peoples of the North and the South, and also those towards the setting sun, having fortified themselves with harmony, held an opinion contrary to those of the East, who were defending their old custom. Finally, those of the East yielded; and thus one feast of Christ came to be; and thus they departed from the killers of the Lord, and were joined to those of the same faith. For nature...
draws like to like. But if anyone says that it is written: "On the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came and said to the Savior, 'Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Pascha?'" and that He sent to a certain man to tell him, "With thee I keep the Pascha"—we answer that this is not a commandment, but a A history of an event that happened at the time of the Savior’s passion. For it is one thing to narrate an ancient event, and another to legislate and leave behind these things as commandments for those to come.
9. But the Savior did not celebrate the Pascha with the Jews at the time of His own passion. For not when they were sacrificing the sheep did He Himself also perform His own Pascha with His disciples. For they celebrated it on the Friday, the day on which the Savior suffered; hence, not even did they enter the praetorium, but Pilate went out to them. Christ, however, sat down with His disciples on the very fifth day of the week, and while dining with them, He said: "With desire have I desired to eat this Pascha with you." Do you see how the Savior did not eat the Pascha with the Jews? Because that B was something new and strange, contrary to custom and Jewish habits, He necessarily insisted, saying: "With desire have I desired to eat this Pascha with you before I suffer." For those ancient and indeed antiquated habits which He ate with the Jews were not desirable; but the new mystery of His New Covenant, which He was transmitting to His own disciples, was deservedly desirable to Him, since 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 transmitting a mystery by which all of mankind was to celebrate the feast, and He confessed that this was desirable to Him. The Pascha of C Moses was not suitable for all the nations of that time; for how could it be, when it was ordained to be performed at one place, that in Jerusalem? Therefore it was not desirable. But the Savior’s mystery in the New Covenant, being suitable for all men, was by best right desirable.
10. But He Himself, before He suffered, ate the Pascha with His own disciples and performed the feast, [and] not with the Jews. Now after He had celebrated the feast in the evening, the high priests, with the traitor, set upon Him and laid their hands upon Him; for they were not eating the Pascha themselves at that evening, otherwise they would have rested from His persecution. Him, having been captured, they led to the house of Caiaphas, where, having spent the night, as day dawned they gathered, and they examine Him D first; then after this, having arisen, they led Him with the multitude to Pilate. And then the Scripture says that they did not enter into the praetorium, that they might not, by entering under a Gentile roof, be defiled, as they thought—but that remaining pure, these most impure men, as evening approached, might eat the Pascha; they who strain out the gnat but swallow the camel, and who were defiling their own souls and bodies with the murder of the Savior, feared to enter under a roof; but
they, on that very day of the passion, ate the Pascha that was the destruction of their own souls, imploring the saving blood not for themselves, but against themselves. Our Savior, however, did not eat it then, but having reclined with his disciples the day before, he had celebrated the feast he desired A with them on the very day of the Lord’s passion.
11. Do you see how, from that time, Christ was separating himself from them and was turning away from the murderous disposition of the Jews, but was joining himself to the disciples, celebrating with them the desired feast? Therefore, we too must eat the Pascha with Christ, purging our mind from every leaven of malice and wickedness, and filling ourselves with the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity, having within ourselves in the soul the Jew who is in secret, and true circumcision, and anointing the doorposts of our mind with the blood of the Lamb sacrificed for us, for the averting of our destroyer. And this is not for one period of the whole year, but throughout every week. Let the preparation for us be fasting, a symbol of mourning, for the sake of our former sins, and to keep the memory of the suffering Savior.
12. I say that the Jews have wandered from the truth from the time when they persecuted the truth itself and drove the Word of life from themselves. And the Holy Scripture of the Gospels clearly demonstrates this. For it testifies that the Lord ate the Pascha on the first day of Unleavened Bread; but they, not on the day when it was necessary, as Luke says, ate the Pascha customary to them, but on the day following it, which was the second day of Unleavened Bread, and the fifteenth of the moon; on which day, while Pilate was exercising judgment over our Savior, they did not enter the praetorium. Therefore, they did not eat the Pascha on the first day of Unleavened Bread, on which it was necessary for it to be sacrificed, as the law required—for thus they would have performed the Pascha with the Savior—but at that time, being occupied with plotting against our Savior and blinded by their own malice, they fell away from all truth. We, however, celebrate the same mysteries throughout the whole year, on every day preceding the Sabbath commemorating the passion of the Savior with fasting, which the apostles first observed when the Bridegroom was taken from them; and on every Lord's day we are quickened by the sanctified body of the same saving Pascha, and are sealed in the soul by his precious blood. B C D