The name of the Passover is treated here, and first indeed: whence [is] it? Certain of the ancients — in Nazianzen (oration on the holy Pascha), [and] St. Jerome (on Matt. 26) — said [it comes] from the Greek verb πάσχειν [paschein], that is, “to suffer.” Whence also, on Psalm 120 [121], St. Augustine [says]: “Pascha,” he says, “is a Hebrew word; and men think [it] is Greek, as [if] ‘passion’: but [it] is not. [It] was found out by the more diligent and more learned, that pascha is a Hebrew word.” And at the beginning of tractate 55 on John: “Pascha, brethren, is not — as some think — a Greek name, but Hebrew.” Tertullian (bk. against the Jews, ch. 2), Irenaeus (bk. 4 ch. 23) — as Suárez cites them (tom. 2, disp. 40, sect. 2). A certain sermon among the works of St. Jerome, on the celebration of the Passover: “Pascha,” [it] says, “is not Greek, as [it] is wont to seem to the common [people]; but those who know both tongues say [it] is Hebrew.” But not only to the common [people], but to great men also, thus—
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—[but to great men also] thus [it] seemed [good], he says, in the Quinquagena [Fifty Questions] ch. 34 — [namely,] Nebrissensis [Nebrija]; and for [the sake of] example he names Lactantius and Ambrose. Yet concerning this [author] who, of the books On Cain (ch. 8), has better weighed [the matter] — [I] would not easily, as indeed I think, assent, as I shall say a little after. But he [Lactantius] (bk. 4 ch. 26) only says: “The immolation of a beast is named ‘pascha’ by those very [people] who make [keep] the Passover, because [it] is a figure of the Passion.” But of whichever [these views] may be, [it] is an inept opinion. For how could a pure — [and] to be considered [wholly] — Hebrew word have a Greek origin? [There] are indeed not a few Greek [words] which arose from the Hebrews, but of [words] Hebrew from the Greeks or Latins, not even one. For that tongue [Hebrew] is much more ancient than these, and thus the mother of all tongues, as St. Jerome says (on the third [chapter] of Zephaniah and the sixth of Isaiah; and epistle 142). “Pascha,” therefore, is drawn from the Hebrew pesach, which properly and primarily signifies “a crossing-over,” and “a leaping-up.” For פסח [pasach] is “to leap, to spring up, and, as [it were], by leaping to pass by and cross over” — as is understood from ch. 12 of Exodus (v. 13, 23, & 27); Isaiah 3 v. 5 [31:5]; 3 Kings [1 Kgs] 18:26. For hence also he who limps [claudicat] — especially somewhat more vehemently, because, on account of a more vehement and steeper motion from side to side, he seems to leap — is called פסח pisseach [lame] (Lev. 21:18; 2 Kings [Sam] 5:7, 9; Mal. 1; Isaiah 33 v. 23). And that word also signifies “to limp” (3 Kings [1 Kgs] 18:20); taken passively, [it means] “to become lame” (2 Kings [Sam] 4:6). And that [it] indeed signifies “a crossing-over,” Josephus teaches (bk. 2 ch. 5); Nazianzen (in the cited oration); the Collectanea of Cyril or Maximus (ch. 21); St. Bernard (serm. 1, on the Passover); likewise St. Jerome (in the cited place, and on Isaiah 31 and Micah 7); St. Augustine (on the cited Psalm 120; epistle 119; bk. 2 On the Trinity ch. 17; bk. 16 [City] 34; tractate 55 on John); St. Ambrose (sermon 55; bk. 1 On Cain ch. 8): “Pascha,” he says, “is a crossing-over from the passions to the exercise of virtue.” And more clearly (bk. 1 of the Hexaemeron ch. 8): “The Passover of the Lord is celebrated every year — that is, the crossing-over of souls from vices to virtue, from the passions of the flesh to the grace and sobriety of the mind, from the leaven of malice and wickedness to the truth and sincerity of regeneration.” For although he makes mention of “passions,” yet he expressly says [it] is “a crossing-over.” Yet if, from the cited places, we look more diligently at the usage of Scripture, we shall find [that] not just any crossing-over is signified by that name, but only that by which certain [things] out of many are passed by, and, by not touching [them], are leaped over — as in German [one] says überhüpfen; in Greek (in Josephus, cited place) ὑπερβασία [hyperbasia], and in Symmachus ὑπέρβασις [hyperbasis]. But on account of some likeness, the signification of this word among the Greeks and Latins — partly [those] cited, partly others — is amplified, so that [it] embraces any crossing-over whatever; and thus by Philo (bk. On the sacrifices of Cain and Abel) [it] is called διάβασις [diabasis], and (bk. 3, On the life of Moses) διαβατήρια [diabatēria]. But from which crossing-over chiefly the word “Pascha” began to be so used, Nebrissensis (in the cited place) makes [it so] that [it] is not so much to be asked as explained. For he intimates [that] it is the opinion of the Church [that] this name was made from the crossing of the Red Sea, because, namely, she sings: “After the crossing of the Red Sea, let us sing to Christ [our] Leader.” Ribera attributes the same to St. Augustine too (tractate 55 on John),—
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—and to Villalpandus (bk. 5, On the temple, ch. 3). But truly the mind of neither [is that]. For the Church there calls the crossing of the Red Sea “Baptism,” from St. Paul (1 Cor. ch. 10 v. 2). And therefore [it is] afterward the true [crossing] from which that word indicates “crossing,” saying:
“Protected on the Passover-eve from the destroying Angel,” &c. “Now our Passover is Christ, who is the immolated lamb.”
But St. Jerome indeed says: “In the Hebrew tongue ‘Pascha’ is called ‘a crossing,’ for this [reason]: because the people of God then first celebrated the Passover, when, fleeing from Egypt, they crossed the Red Sea.” But by these words he shows only the time of this name, not the cause; which he rather shows by these [words] subjoined: “Now that prophetic figure is completed in truth, when — like a sheep led to the slaughter — CHRIST [is led], by whose blood, smeared on our doorposts (that is, by whose sign of the cross, [with] our foreheads signed), we are freed from the destruction of this world, as [it were] from the Egyptian captivity or slaying; and we make a most-salutary crossing, when we cross over from the Devil to CHRIST.” Nazianzen (in the cited oration), and (as [it] seems) Josephus (bk. 17), call “pascha” the crossing from Egyptian servitude into liberty, but by a secondary notion, as is plain from Josephus (bk. 2 Antiquities ch. 5). The true cause, therefore, is [this]: [that] the Lord, about to bring a most deadly slaughter upon the firstborn of the Egyptians, afflicted with no harm all the houses of the Israelites, whose doors had been smeared with the blood of the slain lamb; but, when [he] had come to them, [he] as [it were] leaped further on, and left them free from all slaughter, and passed over — as is clearly asserted (Exod. 12 v. 13, 23, & 27). This, therefore, is the proper and primary notion of this word. But from it [there] arose three secondary and less-proper [notions].
1. The first, [namely] that the victim itself — which, by God’s prescript (Exod. 12; Lev. 23 v. 5), was immolated — is called “pascha” (in the same place, v. 27, according to the Seventy; 2 Paral. [Chr.] 30 v. 17, “the Levites should immolate the Phase”; or, as [it] is in the Hebrew, “the Levites [performed] always the slaughter of the happesachim”; and v. 18, “A great part of the people of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and Issachar, and Zebulun, which had not been sanctified, ate the Phase” [הפסח]; ch. 35 v. 8, of which place below; Matt. 26: “Where wilt thou [that] we prepare for thee to eat the pascha?”; Luke 22: “The day of the unleavened [bread] came, on which [it] was necessary [that] the pascha be killed”; Josephus, bk. 3 Antiquities ch. 10). And in that notion, [there] is a twofold pascha: one old and Mosaic; the other new and Christian, which is CHRIST himself, who at the paschal time was slain for us. For thus St. Paul (1 Cor. 5:7): “Our Pascha, CHRIST, has been immolated.” Where [it] could also be translated from the Greek: “Our Pascha, CHRIST, has been sacrificed for us.” Who therefore is called by the Church “the Paschal Victim,” as when [she] says: “Let Christians immolate praises to the Paschal Victim.”
2. The second notion is the anniversary day of this immolation. Luke 22: “The festal day of the unleavened [bread] was approaching, which is called the pascha.” And to this — or to the former — notion pertain those [words of] Exod. 12 v. 43: “This is the religion [rite] of the Phase”; or, “this is the statute, and ceremony, of the pesach itself”; and ch. 34 v. 25: “There shall not remain in the morning [aught] of the victim of the solemnity of the Phase,” or of the pesach itself. The third [notion] is the whole solemnity of the Unleavened [bread], joined to it [the Passover] for seven days, which is affected [called] by the same name (Acts 12 v. 4). For when, on those very days of the Unleavened [bread] — perhaps on the second, or third—
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—[when, on those days of the Unleavened bread] (for on some days prayer was made by the Church for St. Peter without intermission, v. 5) Herod had cast Peter into prison, he wished, after the pascha, to bring him forth to the people [Acts 12].
Two other notions are adduced by certain [authors]. The former, by Bellarmine (bk. 4, On the sacrament of the Eucharist), Toledo (on John 13, annot. 3 & 5), Suárez (tom. 2, disp. 4, 5, 2; tom. 3, disp. 41, S. 1), Ribera (bk. 5, ch. 3), when they say [that] the victims which were immolated on the seven days of the Unleavened [bread] are also called “Pascha” (Deut. 16 v. 2; 2 Paral. [Chr.] 35 v. 8); and Suárez thinks this confirmed, in the indicated places, from Augustine (quaest. 24 on Deuteronomy). But I cannot assent. For Deut. 16 v. 2, in the Hebrew, we read thus: “You shall immolate the pesach to the Lord your God — sheep and cattle.” Where the precept is twofold: one about immolating the pesach, or lamb; the other about the sheep and oxen to be immolated — namely, those which the Lord had commanded (Num. 28 v. 19 & 21). And Suárez indeed (Tom. 3, disp. 41, sect. 1) says [that] [it] must entirely be conceded [that] there [the discourse] is about the paschal lamb, but [that] in those words (v. 1, “observe the [Passover] month, that you may make the phase”) — but I have already shown clearly enough [that] also at v. 2, “phase” is taken for the lamb. But in Paralipomena [Chronicles] (v. 8), in the Hebrew likewise we read thus: “The princes of the house of God gave to the priests Lappesachin” — that is, “[so] that paschal [offerings] might be made” — “two thousand and six hundred” (lambs, namely, and kids, as [they] are named in the same place in the preceding verse); and by our translator [these] are rendered “cattle,” “and three hundred oxen.” Where we see a twofold gift: two thousand six hundred lambs and kids; then three hundred oxen. But those former [ones] only, not these [oxen], are called “paschal [offerings]” [paschata]. And [they] are accurately distinguished below (v. 13), where again those [are] called paschata, [and] these kodaschim — that is, “holy [things],” or, as our [translator] renders, “pacific victims.” But Augustine (in the cited question) only says [that] the oxen are added on account of the sacrifices to be immolated on the days of the Unleavened [bread]; but he does not say [that they] are called paschata. The latter [notion is] from Alcuin (in St. Thomas, on Matt. 26): [that] the unleavened breads themselves are also called “pascha.” But [this] will be weighed below (quaest. 31; quaest. 7).
But our translator [Vulgate], in the Old Testament, generally renders the Hebrew pesach [as] “phase,” except [at] Ezekiel 45; Ezra [Esdras] 1:6; and, if [one] pleases to add from the apocrypha, 3 Esdras ch. 1. But the Greeks, in the New Testament indeed, always [render it] πάσχα [pascha]; in the Old [Testament] too, as here (Joshua 5 v. 10; Exod. 12; elsewhere): Theodotion, in Theodoret (on Exod. 12, quaest. 24), [renders it] φασέκ [phasek]; and in the Seventy, in 2 Paral. [Chr.] ch. 30, [it appears] often. Hence, finally, [it] is asked: In what manner, from that Hebrew pesach, was formed both “phase” and “pascha”? Nebrissensis (in the cited place), when he had said [that] he preferred to hear another [opinion], at last expounds the whole matter not ineptly thus — and about “phase” first. “The thin P is frequently turned into an aspirate by those who translate from the Hebrew tongue into Greek or Latin — as, for that which the Hebrews say פרעה Paro [Pharaoh], פסגה Pisga, פשחור Paschur, with a thin p, the Greeks first, then the Latins, translated Pharaon, Phasga, Phasur, with an aspirate ph, and thousands of others. But the sheva which is placed under the letter p — since by others [it] is almost always pronounced with the vowel e — the Greeks and Latins mostly turn into a: as, for that which they say with a sheva — שמואל Semuel, זבלון Zebulon, רפאים rephaim — we pronounce with a [Samuel, Zabulon, raphaim]. Moreover, that which they [say] זרח Zerah, נבר gever,—
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—עקרון Ekron, with a segol, we pronounce Zara [Zerah], Gader, Accaron [Ekron] with the vowel a. [That] the samech too is to be turned into S, [there] is no doubt — which letter, although [it] does not differ much in pronunciation from zeta, corresponds to our S and the Greek sigma, since the ש sin and צ tsade are forcibly transferred into those, as we demonstrated in the little book On the Power of Letters, and by the authority of Jerome. That [is] marvellous — what pleased the Greek and Latin translators [in this]: the letter which Jerome calls ‘a double aspiration’ [i.e. heth], with a patah or qamets underneath, to turn always into the letter e — as נח Noah → Noe, תרח Therah → Thare, קרח Corah → Core, יפתח Iphtah → Iephte; and by the same reasoning פסח Pesah → Phase — the thin p into an aspirate, the e into a, the samech into S, the heth (with a patah underneath) into e. But the Greeks, the letters being transposed, turned [it] into πάσχα [pascha]; for they mostly change the letter heth into their χ. The Latins, because [they] do not recognize such a sound except only in Greek words, almost always strike it out, or turn [it] into a simple aspiration — as, for that which the Hebrews say with heth: חרן Charan, חורי Chori, חרב Choreb, חברון Cebron — the Greeks with their χ [say] χαρὰν, χωρὰι, χωρὴβ, χεβρὼν; but the Latins, the letter ה struck out, pronounce Aron, Ori (or horri), Ebron (or Hebron).”
I. [To this] I add four [things]. First: that in Scripture [it] is sometimes written pasach — Num. 9 v. 2 in the Hebrew; 2 Paralipom. [Chr.] 35 v. 6. II. The second: that [it] is entirely a Chaldaean [Aramaic] word. For those [Chaldaeans] are wont to add an a to the Hebrew [forms], as [is] clear in Abba, Golgotha, Chesda; and that [is] truer than what Nebrissensis says (the letters transposed by the Greeks) — since not so much a letter, as a single [vowel-]point, would have been transposed. And Philo (bk. 3, On the life of Moses) too says [it is] Chaldaean; but he is reproved by St. Jerome (on Daniel ch. 2), because he confounds the Chaldaean tongue with the Hebrew. And indeed, in the book On the Decalogue, he says “pascha” is said in the ancestral tongue of the Hebrews; [and] in the Legation to Caius, he says “Israel,” in the Chaldaean tongue, is “one seeing God.” And hence [it] came about that, among the Greeks, [it] is entirely indeclinable. For we read τῷ πάσχα [tō pascha] (Luke 2; John 11:55; ch. 12:1; ch. 19:14); ἐν τῷ πάσχα [en tō pascha] (John 2:23; ch. 18 v. 39). III. The third: that Philo writes (bk. 2, On the life of Moses, and On the Decalogue) πάσχα; but Josephus (bk. 2 ch. 5, and bk. 5) writes πάσχα. For the Hebrew can be read in either manner, as [was] said in [the case of] “Pharaon” and others. Yet [it is] better, at the beginning, [to read it] with a simple and gentle p — just as also (bk. 6 of the Captivity [Jewish War], ch. 45), for πατρία [patria] [there] is written φατρία [phatria]; whence some thought [it] should be read φρατρία [phratria], as (bk. 7 of the Captivity) Rufinus (ch. 17), when he renders [it] “contubernium” [a mess-company] — which Scaliger praises (bk. 6, On emendation). [It] is to be noted, says St. Jerome (at the end of [his] commentary on Daniel 11), that the Hebrew tongue does not have the letter P, but uses for it פ [pe], whose force the Greek φ sounds. And indeed similarly, [it] seems, (bk. 3 of the Antiquities ch. 10) in Josephus [it] should be read κατὰ φατρίας [kata phatrias]; especially since there Rufinus (ch. 13) renders [it] no longer “contubernia,” but “tribes”; and (bk. 2 ch. 5), when, at the departure from Egypt, Moses is read [to have arranged] the people διατάξας εἰς φατρίας [diataxas eis phatrias, “arranged into companies”], where Rufinus (ch. 13) renders [it] “to have constituted [them] by tribes.” IV. Finally: the Syrians — as [may] be seen in the whole New Testament — retain the Chaldaean termination, but change the Hebrew samech into tsade, and say petscha [פצחא].
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