In the Passover can be considered [the] immolation and [the] consumption, or eating. And both are its very formal cause, to which the manner of preparing and eating it can be recalled — but of that more conveniently afterward. But the efficient cause is he who either immolates that victim, or eats [it]. And concerning both — who [it] is — there is a hand-to-hand dispute. The immolator [is thus indicated]: Some of the Innovators, in Bellarmine (bk. 2 On the Mass ch. 7), [say] anyone whatever of the Israelite multitude. For thus Chemnitz (part 2 of the Examen, fol. 765, Frankfurt ed.): “The paschal lamb was immolated not by the priests, but by the multitude.” And the [Council of] Trent indeed (session 22, ch. 1) says [it was] immolated “by the multitude” — but in that sense which is taught below. For [it does] not [say], as that Innovator prefixed, “not by the priests.” Others [say it was immolated by] certain definite [persons] out of the whole multitude; and these Lyra reckons (on 2 Paralip. [Chr.] ch. 30), and the same Bellarmine in the same place, and Suárez following him (tom. 2, q. 50, a. 6, disp. 40, sect. 2), and, before both, Dionysius the Carthusian (on 2 Par. 30), with them Marcellus (bk. On the time of the canonical hours, ch. 71, num. 11) — [namely] that [they] were the heads of households. But certain [others say it was immolated by] the Levites themselves. But that [it] was the right of all to slaughter and immolate that lamb — who would believe [it]? What Commonwealth, or what nation, ever was, which — if [it] made any sacrifices to some deity — would appoint, [as] their true and proper minister and Priest, anyone whatever from the common [people]? Yet [there] could be objected from Scripture (Exod. [12] v. 47): “The whole assembly of the sons of Israel shall make it”; or, to say [it] word-for-word from the Hebrew, “they shall make it” — which seems to signify [that] the individuals out of the assembly, or out of the Church of the Israelites, have the right of making the Passover; and likewise any of the strangers, if only he be circumcised. For in the following v. 48 [it] is subjoined: “and then he shall rightly celebrate it” — namely, the Passover; or, as in the Hebrew, “and then let him approach to make it.” [There] could be added Philo too — but of that afterward.
(col. 547 — left column; printed “554”)
Now I only say [that], from that place of Exodus, [it is] not made out [that] anyone whatever — either of the Israelites, or a circumcised proselyte — could discharge this immolation. For, first, “to make,” in this place, a lamb, we could take for “to eat,” as was noted above (quaest. 16). For this is also a certain consummation of the immolation itself; and indeed, from v. 43 onward, [the discourse] there is always about this very eating: “No alien shall eat of it. The bought [slave] shall be circumcised, and so shall eat. The stranger and hireling shall not eat of it. In one house shall [it] be eaten.” And this very [thing] is called “to make the Passover.” For at v. 48, afterward, [it] is again added: “If anyone be not circumcised, he shall not eat of it.” But secondly: “to make the Passover,” in this place, signifies properly the immolation itself. Individuals can be said to make it — not by themselves, but through those to whom this public office and care [belongs]. For so, too, among us: the priest indeed properly sacrifices, but through him the people [sacrifices] too. Not unknown [is] the rule of law: “What we do through another, we are reckoned to do through ourselves”; and [it is] a most common phrase [that] “That head-of-household today slaughtered an ox, or a pig” — and yet the butchers did it by [their] labor, as [is] acknowledged even by the adversaries, [namely] Lavater, who will be cited below. Otherwise, if we hold tenaciously to the bare words, all who can eat will seem properly able to slaughter the lamb. But circumcised slaves, foreigners, boys, women, and girls can [eat]; and thus, in the affirmative precepts of the Jews, [there] is this, the “50th”: “Let male and female rightly make [keep] the Passover.”
The second opinion seems more like the truth. First, because when the Passover was instituted, [there] were not yet priests and Levites set apart from the other tribes; and therefore the [persons] then usual [as] ministers of sacrifices seem to have made the first Passover — that is, the firstborn, who were the first heads of families, and [were] the fathers. And [that] the reckoning of ministers which was in that first Passover [was] thereafter — for the clearer memory of the whole matter — not badly reckoned unchanged. Secondly: Philo himself seems to add great weight of authority, partly to the former, partly to this opinion. For (bk. 3, On the life of Moses): “At the paschal time,” he says, “not as at other [times] do plebeian men lead victims to the altar to be slaughtered by the priests; but, the law commanding, the whole nation sacrifices, while each one slaughters his victim by himself, with his own hands.” Behold — each one slaughters the victim with his own hands, and neither leads it to the priests, nor is it slaughtered by these, but by the plebeians themselves. And he subjoins: “then, the whole people jointly celebrating joyful feasts, each one bears himself in place of a Priest.” [In Greek: ἑορτὴ τὸ Χαλδαϊστὶ λεγόμενον πάσχα, ἐν ᾗ οὐχ οἱ μὲν ἰδιῶται προσάγουσι τῷ βωμῷ τὰ ἱερεῖα, θύουσι δ᾽ οἱ ἱερεῖς, ἀλλὰ νόμου προστάξει σύμπαν τὸ ἔθνος ἱερᾶται, τῶν κατὰ μέρος ἑκάστου τὰς ὑπὲρ αὑτοῦ θυσίας ἀνάγοντος τότε καὶ χειρουργοῦντος — “a feast called in Chaldee ‘pascha,’ in which not the private men lead the victims to the altar and the priests sacrifice [them], but, by the law’s command, the whole nation performs the priestly office, each one in particular then bringing up and performing with [his own] hand the sacrifices on his own behalf.”] And in the book On the Decalogue, almost near the end: “In the Passover, when — popularly — INDIVIDUALS sacrifice, not awaiting the priests, they themselves, by the law’s permission, performing the priestly office once a year, for one Day appointed to this business.” Do you see — [that] by that privilege, or the law’s permission, those who were otherwise not priests and Levites sacrificed only once in each year; and thus were priests, as [it were], “for-a-day” [ephēmerios]? So that — just as a certain Roman was consul for one day only — so also these [were priests for a day], except that he [was consul] once in [his] whole life, [but] these [priests] every year. [In Josephus’s words: οἱ Ἰσραῖοι πατρίῳ γλώττῃ πάσχα προσαγορεύουσιν, ἐν ᾗ θύουσι πανδημεὶ αὐτῶν ἕκαστος, τοὺς ἱερεῖς αὐτῶν οὐκ ἀναμένοντες, ἱερωσύνην τῷ νόμῳ χαρισαμένῳ τῷ ἔθνει—
(col. 548 — right column; printed “555”)
—παντὶ μίαν ἡμέραν ἐξαίρετον ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος εἰς αὐτουργίαν θυσιῶν — “the Israelites in [their] ancestral tongue call [it] ‘pascha,’ in which they sacrifice in a full body, each of them, not awaiting their priests, the law having granted the priesthood to the whole nation for one special day in every year, for the self-performance of the sacrifices.”] Suárez also cites, in the cited place, Josephus (bk. 2 Antiquities ch. 6, or 10). Yet I reckon [that], in Philo, by the name “individuals,” none but the individual heads of households are to be understood. Otherwise, either there would have to be as many victims and lambs, or kids, as there were Israelites — young and old, boys and adolescents — or [it] would behoove all to set [their] hand and knife to one and the same beast being slaughtered. Philo, therefore, stands with the second opinion. And who would think [that] he was ignorant of the manner of sacrificing the lamb, since he lived before the destruction of Jerusalem, and, according to the solemn custom, went up to that festal day more than once?
Yet the third opinion [that the Levites immolated] seems to be established from this: that in it [stands] Claudius Sainctes (in [his] Repetition on the Eucharist, ch. 7), and not the last of the Rabbis — as Rambam in [his] Corban, whose words about the paschal Korban itself are: “Both he who slaughters, and he who sprinkles the blood, and he who burns the entrails, are here reckoned the same. If, in the possession of one of these — or of one of the associates about to eat this pascha — there be, at the time of the oblation, [even] as much leaven as an olive-berry, behold, that one is beaten [with stripes], though the pascha [be] valid.” Secondly: because no other cause seems [to exist] why the Lord willed the Passover to be eaten only at Jerusalem, or only in that place where the Temple or tabernacle was (Deut. 16, as [in] Exod. 12; Abulensis quaest. 44). Thirdly: clearly (2 Paral. [Chr.] ch. 30 v. 17), the Hebrew text says, “the Levites were over the slaughter of the happesachim” — that is, “occupied in slaughtering the paschal [victims]” — [for] everyone not clean, for the sanctifying [of them] to the Lord. Fourthly: clearly likewise (2 Paral. [Chr.] 35 v. 6 & 11), the Levites are said “to have immolated the pascha,” and “to have flayed the skins from them”; and the whole [is] clearer in the Hebrew. For surely this office is given to them not only in the holocausts and paschal peace-offerings, but in the very paschal [victims]; nor only in those which they themselves eat with their own [households], as — yet hesitantly — Lavater there says (fol. 208.8); but simply, as the same [Lavater] had confessed on the earlier page, saying: “The heads of households are said to have immolated the lambs; but from this chapter, and ch. 30 of this book, [it] seems to be gathered that [it] was the office of the Levites, &c.” Fifthly: Abulensis (on Deut. 16), saying [that] the Passover is a sacrifice: “The priests themselves,” he says, “immolate [the victims] which the people brought.” And besides, “[it] was not,” he says, “necessary that the eating of the lamb should be done within the Temple, but [it] could be done in the whole city” — as if [he] said [that] there is another reckoning of the immolation. And again: “The blood was drawn.” Sixthly: Josephus (bk. 6 ch. 45) writes [that] Cestius, when he wished to indicate to Nero — [who was] despising the multitude of the Jewish nation — by what strength and flower the city of Jerusalem was powerful, asked from the chiefs of the Priests that, if it could be done, they should take the number of the people. And they did [it]; but how? The Passover was at hand; and from the number of the victims they gathered the multitude of the people. But how, if they themselves, and the rest of their [temple-]company, did not slaughter the victims, could they have numbered [the people] from them? How would they not have as easily numbered the houses of the city, or the persons, as the victims themselves? And what need would [there] have been for Josephus to argue thus? The Priests numbered 255,600 victims; and for each victim to be eaten [there] were present at least ten pure and holy banqueters. Therefore of these banqueters [there] were at least 2,556,000? Truly, to spare so many calculations and windings—
(col. 549 — left column; printed “556”)
—[to spare so many calculations and windings] could [it] be spared, unless all the paschal [victims] had been led to the priests — from which they, most easily of all, might reckon the number of those who [were] to eat, which could be the least [uncertain]. Seventhly: the sons of Israel of the transmigration [return from exile] “made” [the Passover] (1 Esdras 6 [Ezra 6:19–21]) “on the fourteenth day of the first month. For the priests and Levites had been purified as [it were] one [man]; all clean, to immolate the Passover for all the sons of the transmigration,” &c. “And the sons of Israel ate [it], who had returned from the transmigration.” For [that] the paschal lamb [was] then immolated, the very eating of the people — signified by those words, “And they ate” — teaches; and [there] is set down there a distinction of the unleavened [bread] from the Passover. Eighthly: all the Israelites would have been truly priests, because [there] would have been to them a true power of sacrificing. You will say, [it was] only once a year. But this in no way hinders the reckoning of the priesthood. For only once did the Lord sacrifice his own body and blood, bloodily or unbloodily. And this difference would only bring [it] about that some were priests somewhat more — not in essence, but in the frequency and multitude of priestly actions; just as today, those who work at the sacred [rites] more rarely differ only accidentally from those who do [them] more often. Ninthly: 2 Paralipom. [Chr.] ch. 30 v. 1: “Hezekiah sent, that they should come into the House of the Lord in Jerusalem, and should make the phase to the Lord.” Why did he prefix, “to the House of the Lord”? Would [it] not have been enough [to say] “in Jerusalem”? [There] is added, 5., Bachiarius (in the epistle On penance), thereupon saying [that] Aaron the priest immolated the paschal lamb. For although [Aaron] was then not yet initiated into the priesthood, yet — because [it] was [the office] of priests to immolate the lamb, and this [Aaron did] because he was the firstborn — [Bachiarius] calls [him] “priest,” as [it were] by anticipation. And in that way, the law which was afterward passed about the priests would in no way have to be dissolved, as is done by the second and first opinion; nor, as regards the minister, would any other institution be held here than in the other sacrifices. For others too, of old — before the law was promulgated — offered men from every tribe; but afterward [only] from the Levitical. And the same [is] persuaded even to the Innovators — besides Lavater, cited before — [it] seems [so] to Beza himself, when (as [is] to be repeated below, q. 24) he writes (on Matt. ch. 26, p. 122) [that] the immolation of this lamb [was] done in the Temple. [Now] there follows [the question] about the eaters of the lamb. But lest that question be too long, these [matters] are to be sent into the following question, as [it were to] a new table.