First indeed, that animal had to be — as in the Hebrew [it] is said — seh [שֶׂה]. The Seventy render [it] (Exod. 12; Gen. 30) πρόβατον [probaton], which often signifies “a sheep,” yet sometimes also, generally, “of the flock-beasts” — or, as in St. Augustine (quaest. 42 on Exod.), “a beast [pecus].” For in Eustathius and Suidas, πρόβατα, πάντα τὰ τετράποδα [probata, panta ta tetrapoda, “probata [are] all four-footed [animals]”]; and [there] are examples in Hippocrates (in the book On the sacred disease, and the book On joints), as Galen advises. And [in] Deuteronomy 14 v. 4, the Seventy rendered [it] partly ἀμνὸν [amnon, “lamb”], partly χίμαρον [chimaron, “kid”] — namely, putting the species accommodated for the genus, just as our Latin [translator] too (Exod. 12 v. 3 & 4) called [it] agnum [a lamb], for which others either everywhere substitute pecudem, or pecus [a beast]; or, at least — which is both truer and more modest — expound [it thus]. For [that] that Hebrew word extends more widely than “sheep” or “lamb,” the cited place of Deuteronomy teaches, [and] Radak, Pagninus, Oleaster, [and] others. But from this genus of “flock-beast,” some said [that] the pascha could be [of] three species — lambs, kids, calves; others [of] two — lambs and kids; others [of] one only. But of these, in Abulensis (quaest. 9 on Exod. 12) and Lipomanus (in the Catena) — some [say] kids only, others lambs only (as, on the same place of Exod., Paul Burgensis, addition 2; and already of old St. Augustine, in the cited 42nd question, where, although he concedes [that] πρόβατον [probaton] can of itself be rendered pecus, yet here he does not wish [it] to be so rendered, because, he says, “something else would [then] be understood [than a lamb], nor would the sacrament [mystery] be preserved”). One author of the 21 Questions (in tom. 4 of Augustine, quaest. 2) [says it was] a beast blended of sheep and kid — like a Chimaera, namely, and a monster.
[It] is to be said, first, [that] two flock-beasts were instituted for the pascha — namely, lambs and kids. [It] is proved from ch. 12 of Exod. (v. 5), where — when [the Lord] had before set down “a lamb” — the Lord subjoins: “According to which rite you shall take also a kid.” But that version does not agree, says the cited Burgensis, with the Hebrew truth, which has thus: “of rams and goats you shall take it.” Yet [that] it agrees as to the sense itself, he will understand who notices [that] in the Hebrew [it] is not “of rams,” but “of lambs.” But [that there] is a great difference between these [lambs] and those [rams], Radak teaches (in [his] Roots) — just as between boys and [grown] men. For lambs are tender, and with tender hearts; but rams [are] already more robust, and with more robust horns. Whence also [rams] are called אילים [ʾelim] from “strength” [fortitudo]. Since, therefore, the Translator had before said [that] “a lamb” [was] to be immolated, and [since] Scripture now adds [that] a beast could be taken “of the goats” — did not the Translator rightly say, “according to which rite you shall take also a kid”? For a kid is a tender goat, and in the genus of goats the same [thing] that in the genus of sheep [is] a lamb.
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[Burgensis] then tries to expound the Hebrew text, [so] that the sense may be: “You shall take a lamb from some flock, in which are rams and goats, as [they] are commonly wont to be associated [together].” As if indeed the name of “flock” were lacking to the Hebrews, so that [it] could not be expressed, if this had been Moses’s meaning! Then, [it] is a usual manner of speaking, that the material be signified, when we say: “You shall take of these or those herbs, coins, cattle, &c.” — that is, such-and-such herbs, coins, and cattle, &c. Thirdly, by his opinion indeed, a lamb would not be suitable for the paschal immolation which was taken from a flock in which goats were not associated with the sheep. Fourthly, if to someone — as [in] 2 Kings [Sam] 12 v. 3 — [there] were only one or another lamb, and it were pastured not in a flock, but at home and in a little field, that could not be a pascha [on his view]. [It] remains, therefore, [that] both the version and the exposition [are] good: [that] a lamb and a kid can be taken. [It] is confirmed, 2., from the Seventy, who — about the “flock-beast,” or (to retain the Greek, with Pliny, as I said in 2 Macc. ch. 14, f. 1, 705) about his probaton — say: ἀπὸ τῶν ἀρνῶν καὶ τῶν ἐρίφων λήψεσθε [apo tōn arnōn kai tōn eriphōn lēpsesthe, “you shall take from the lambs and the kids”]. 3., the Fathers teach the same with these: Theodoret (on Exod., qu. 4), Procopius of Gaza (on Exod. 12), the Collectanea of Cyril (ch. 21), Peter of Blois (epistle 3); Finally, the Chaldaean Paraphrase, and with it all the Rabbis — as St. Augustine already long ago indicated (on Exod., quaest. 42): “The Jews,” he says, “try to understand [that] a kid too is to be taken for celebrating the Passover; and [they] think this too is said — [that it is] to be taken ‘of lambs and kids’ — as if [he] said: either a lamb of the lambs, or a kid of the kids; if the [one] be lacking, [the other] ought to be taken.” In the tractate Corban Pesach (ch. 10), expounding from the 16 paschal precepts, Rambam himself [says]: “The pascha [is] not [to be] sacrificed, except of the sheep or goat kind only.” [There] is added, 4., the emptiness of the reasons of the same Burgensis. One is, that this was prescribed by the Lord against the Egyptians’ God, the Ram — but [that] was denied (quaest. 17 [18]). The other — which he seems to have borrowed from St. Augustine (the cited q., where he says [it is] “figuring the sacrament and the precept”) — [is] that this victim is a figure of CHRIST the Lord; but [that] one is called “a lamb” (John [1:29]; Isaiah 53), never “a kid.” For by “kids” too the wicked are signified (Matt. 25 v. 33). But this is just as if someone, from [the fact] that the devil is called “a Lion” (1 Pet. 5:8), should conclude [that] CHRIST the Lord is not “a Lion” (Apoc. 5 v. 5). But [there] is, both in the Scriptures and among profane writers, [something] much fouler [and] baser [than a kid] — a he-goat [hircus], [rather] than a kid [hoedus]; and yet by the type of a he-goat our same Lord himself is marked (Lev. 16 [the scapegoat]). Nor [is it] true, what is said by the same Burgensis: [that] in the Passover CHRIST is figured under the aspect of meekness and innocence only, but not inasmuch as he had “the likeness of the flesh of sin”; for surely, inasmuch as he bore death for us, so far he had “the likeness of the flesh of sin.” And yet, of him crucified, from that paschal figure, [it] is said (John 19:36): “These [things] were done, that the scripture might be fulfilled: ‘You shall not break a bone of it.’” [It] is to be said, secondly, [that] not both flock-beasts [were] to be taken in the same house, and by the same head-of-household, for the pascha — but only one. For [it] is the common opinion of all Christians and Jews, and their perpetual practice of old; 2., because Scripture, as often as [it] speaks of the eating and ceremony of the pascha, always speaks as [it were] of one victim only in each house (Exod. 12—
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—v. 6 & following; Deut. 16; Num. 28:3), because the Fathers say [that] a lamb was especially to be taken, but if [it] were lacking, a kid could be taken. Augustine (q. 42), Theodoret (q. 34), Hugh of St. Victor (on Exod. 4) [say so], because [it] is not unusual [for] the particle “Et” [And] — placed in the Hebrew, Chaldaean, and Greek, [and] indicated by the Latin too — to be taken for “vel” [or], as Pagninus shows (bk. 1 Institutions ch. 21 and following), and among the Greeks in the definition of “nature” (bk. 2 Physics ch. 1), and likewise among the Syrians (1 Cor. 11 v. 27), as is clear there from the Greek and Latin. Unless, however — [as] seems to me — [there] happened in the Syriac there [what] is established to have happened in other tongues: that, because at the end of the preceding word [there] was an olaph [aleph], it was omitted at the beginning of the following [word]; which, if [it] were added, would be not “Et” but “Vel.” And so, perhaps, below (ch. 10 v. 24), in the Hebrew [there] is א [aleph] after the third-person plural of the verb.
[It] is to be said, thirdly, [that] the paschas [were] not [of] kids alone. [This] is plain from the first conclusion; secondly, from the empty exposition of the authors of this opinion. For they think [that] on the tenth day of the month a lamb was to be eaten, [and] on the 14th day a kid? But [is it] not clear (ch. 12 of Exod.) [that] the same animal which had been taken on the 10th day is commanded to be kept until the 14th day, and then immolated? Thirdly: from the Fathers before cited, [it was] not [that a kid was to be immolated], except when a lamb could not be had, [in which case] a kid was to be immolated. [It] is to be said, fourthly: Beyond kids and lambs, no [other] beast could be a pascha; because (Exod. 12 v. 5) only those two species are numbered, and elsewhere no other is numbered. But those who add oxen adduce the chapter of Deut. 16 v. 2; but above (q. 16) that place was explained. Yet these fight with a reason, but without reason. “A family,” they say, “could be so large that neither a lamb nor a kid would suffice for it; therefore [it] would have behooved [them] to immolate an ox.” Truly indeed, if the family had had to be satiated from the eating of the pascha, not even one ox would perhaps sometimes have been enough. But according to the size of the family, those who were in the family ate more or less of the paschal victim — if few, more; if many, less; and [it] was enough to take even a tiny morsel [buccella] thence, as Ribera answers (bk. 5, On the temple, ch. 3). And we see, in the Gallican Churches, on Sundays, to how great a multitude of men one blessed bread (which, because they are wont to take [it] as [it were] in place of the Eucharist, the Greeks call ἀντίδωρον [antidōron]) is divided piece by piece, and suffices. And [it] was the custom — as I shall say below — that, after the pascha was eaten, they took other foods, with which they might be satiated. And of these [is] the 16th paschal precept in Rambam (in the cited place): “That nothing of the flesh of the pascha of the 14th day be left over, until the third day.” Therefore only a lamb or a kid was [the] pascha; but from the more frequent and more celebrated use, [it] is commonly called only “a lamb.”