for forgiveness has risen from the sepulcher. Let no one fear death; for the death of the Savior has liberated us. Captured by death, He extinguished death. He chastised hell, He who descended into hell; He made it bitter when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, anticipating this, cried out: "Hell has become bitter," he says, "from below." When it encountered Him, it became bitter; for it was taken away: it became bitter and was mocked. He accepted a body, and encountered God; He accepted earth, and met heaven: he accepted what he saw, and fell into what he did not see. "O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?" A Christ has risen, and you have been overthrown. Christ has risen, and the demons have fallen. Christ has risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ has risen, and no dead remain in the tomb. For Christ, having risen from the dead, has become the firstfruit of them that sleep; to Him be glory and power unto the ages of ages. Amen.
On Pascha I
The Jews, who denied the heavenly Pascha, celebrate a earthly one; but we, who celebrate the heavenly Pascha, have surpassed the earthly. And that which they perform, the Pascha B of the salvation of the firstborn who were among the Jews, was a symbol, when the firstborn of the Jews did not perish together with the firstborn of the Egyptians, having been symbolically preserved by the blood of the paschal victim; but the Pascha celebrated by us is the cause of salvation for all mankind, beginning from the first man, who in all is preserved and brought to life. The parts, however, of the perfect and those temporary things were images and types of eternal things, conceived beforehand in order to shadow forth the truth now arising. But the truth being present, the type must yield to time; just as when a king arrives, no one, the king still living, deems it worthy to worship his image. From this, indeed, it is clear how much the type yields to the truth, because the type celebrates the brief life of the Jewish firstborn, but the truth the perpetual life of all men. For it is no great thing to avoid death for a brief time, for one who is soon to die; but it is certainly a great thing to avoid death altogether; which happens to us, for whom Christ has been immolated as our Pascha. C The very name of the feast carries great excellence, if it is explained according to the truth of the matter. For Pascha signifies "passing," because that exterminator who was striking the firstborn "passed over" the houses of the Hebrews. Furthermore, the passing of the exterminator is true among us, because He passes over us untouched, having been raised up to eternal life by Christ. Thus it is necessary to contemplate the whole argument of the Pascha spiritually, and to believe the apostolic narrations. The faithful soul deeply desires to understand the whole rationale of the figure, how it stands in relation to the truth, and, so to speak, to contemplate its own spiritual realities through those things that were once bodily; so that all legal matters may be perceived in the mind according to Christ, and through spiritual things the bodily ones may be more clearly understood, and the invisible things may appear as if depicted by the visible. Therefore God, being about to inflict the tenth plague upon the Egyptians (and that was the death of the firstborn), said to Moses: "This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it D is the first to you among the months of the year" (Exod. 12:2). And then He commanded the sacrifice of the Pascha, and the anointing of blood on the doors; and by this anointing He promised the salvation of the firstborn. What does this mean, if it is immediately referred to the contemplation of the truth, that that time of the year is defined as the beginning, when the Pascha was taking place and the salvation of the firstborn? Because for us, too, the sacrifice of the true Pascha is the beginning of eternal life. For the year is a symbol of the age, because, running its course in a circle, it always revolves into itself, and rests in no end. And the Father of the future age, Christ, was offered for us in sacrifice, and, as if rendering our former life of no time, He gives us the beginning of another life through the laver of regeneration, according to the likeness of His death and resurrection. Therefore, whoever knows that the Pascha was immolated on his behalf, let him set this as the beginning of life for himself, from which Christ was immolated for him. For then He is immolated for him, when he acknowledges the grace, and understands the life obtained through this sacrifice. With these things understood, let him strive to receive the beginning of a new life, and let him not return again to the old life, the end of which arrived. For, "We who died to sin," he says, "how shall we still live in it?" (Rom. 6:2). The beginning of the year, therefore, has such a symbol. On the tenth day of the month He commands each house to take a single lamb, and for there to be as many in the house as will eat, so that they may eat the whole, and nothing remains; and likewise that the lamb be immolated on the fourteenth day at evening. Therefore, the victim is to be immolated with those who are to be saved by it for five days; but the fifth day being ended, the victim is immolated, death passes over; and he who is saved enjoys perpetual light, with the moon shining at night, and the sun succeeding the moon: for this is how it happens on the fourteenth day and the full moon. These five intervals of time denote the whole time of the world distributed into five parts: from Adam, indeed, down to Noah, from Noah down to Abraham, from Abraham down to Moses, from Moses down to Christ, and the fifth part from the advent of Christ. At which time salvation was proposed to every man through that blessed sacrifice; but it was not yet being perfected. In the fifth interval of time, however, the true Pascha was being immolated, and the firstborn man who obtained salvation through it, went forth into perpetual light (Matt. 20:1 sqq). That the Pascha was not immolated in the very evening, but at evening, signified that Christ was to suffer not at the very end of the present age, but at the end. The parable, which distributed the day into five parts, exhibited the time thus divided, and says that those were called to the vineyard—that is, to the operation of justice—some about the first hour, others about the third, others about the sixth, others about the ninth, and the last about the eleventh. For there were these diverse callings, and diverse justifications; one in the time of Adam, one in the time of Noah, one in the time of Abraham, one in the time of Moses; the last and most perfect in the advent of Christ, when the reward of works is rendered first to those who were the last, according to the Savior's parable; because we who are first in baptism receive the regeneration, to whom Christ was immolated, at which time He rose, and breathed into us the Holy Spirit for our renovation. This fourteenth day, therefore, is mystically considered, and such is the symbol of the sacrifice, and that night is luminous, and the day which succeeds the sacrifice. And that the victim was entirely eaten in individual houses, and the meat not carried outside, signifies that there is one house only having salvation in Christ, namely the Church poured out over the whole world, which was once alien to God, but now belongs properly to Him alone, because it received those who were sent by the Lord Jesus; just as the house of Rahab, the former harlot, who received the explorers sent by Jesus, was the only one preserved when Jericho was devastated. Therefore, even if there are many houses of the Hebrews, they have the power of one, just as different churches throughout cities and villages, which are many in number, are one Church. For Christ is one in them everywhere, perfect and indivisible. Therefore the victim was perfect in individual houses, nor was it divided into different parts. For Paul says we are all one in Christ, because there is one Lord, and one faith (Ephes. 4:5). The law, therefore, necessarily prefigured that the union of the indivisible victim would be in Christ, and likewise the unity of the Church. In Christ, indeed, and in the sacrifice of Christ, we have salvation; and