The time of the Passover can be considered [as] fourfold: namely, the year, the month, the day, and the hour. And the year, indeed, in which [it] was either first instituted [in Egypt], or repeated at Sinai, or here at Gilgal celebrated a third [time]—
(col. 569 — left column; printed “576”)
—celebrated [a third time], is plain from the [things] said in Exodus, and above (ch. 4, part 2, quaest. 2). But indeed, from this very Gilgal Passover onward [it] was to be celebrated perpetually, every year — because the Lord had commanded [it] so to be done, when [it] was granted to the Israelites to set up in the promised land their seat and the home of their affairs. And [it] was granted from this very time. For thus we read [it] written (Exod. 12 vv. 24 & 25): “Keep this word [as a] statute [legitimate ordinance] for thee and thy sons unto eternity. And when thou hast entered the land which the Lord will give you, as [he] has promised, ye shall observe these ceremonies.” [In] Leviticus 23, where [those things] are appointed which throughout the perpetual course of time would have to be observed as solemnities, [it] is said (v. 5): “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, [it] is the Lord’s Pasch.” Most clearly, Deuteronomy 16 (v. 1): “Observe the month of the new fruits, and of the first [part] of the spring time, that thou mayest keep the Pasch to the Lord thy God.” But the cause [of the season] was delivered above (quaest. 17). And this was kept until the overthrow of the Temple — first by Nebuchadnezzar, then [its] defilement by Antiochus, and at last [its being] utterly cut off and taken away by Titus. [It is] granted [that] in the times of Ezechias [Hezekiah] (2 Chron. 30) and of Josiah (same book, ch. 35) fewer than usual came from the tribes of Israel to it — until [they] were roused by the letters and messengers of those pious Kings, and kept the Passover at Jerusalem after the custom.