Question XXIX. What was the day for keeping the Passover? (Paschali agendo dies quis?)

Just as the paschal month was twofold — the ordinary, namely, the month Nisan, and the extraordinary, either Iyar or Adar, as [was] shown in the preceding question — so also must [one] inquire concerning the paschal day; and first concerning the ordinary [one], what it was. [There are] two opinions. One, common and ancient: [that it] was the fourteenth day of the month Nisan — the day, as we count [it] today, being taken from sunrise. The other, recent and of very few: [that it] was the 13th day, understood in our same manner. For this [view] Aloysius Legionensis [Luis de León] lately began to teach in Spain, in [his] book On the lawful time of the immolation of the typical and true lamb; and Petrus Lopez Montoyanus [Pedro López de Montoya] joined himself to him in some measure, in [his] book of annotations on the sacred canon of the Mass; but outside Spain, in Holland, Scaliger (bk. 5 On the emendation of times, fol. 351). But I have warned [that] the day is taken as regards our manner of counting; because, although those authors indeed say [that] the Passover was to be eaten [on] Moon 14 (or the 14th day of the month), they take the day in the Jewish manner. For [it] must be known, from Lev. 23 (v. 32), [that] the Jews had two “vespers” [evenings] to [their] feast-days: one earlier, from which those days began, and the other later, at which [they] ended. Now that earlier [one] was the evening which precedes the night and morning time of the feast-day — that is, the evening which [is] the end of the prior day. Among us, what is done in an evening of this kind is said to be done on that prior day; but among the Jews, on the later day, or the feast itself, of which that evening is the beginning and a certain part. Hence, therefore, those [authors] construct their first argument. [Namely]: what in Scripture is commanded to be done “at the evening of the feast-day” is understood, in our manner, to be done “on the evening of the day before.” But in Scripture the Passover is commanded to be kept “on the evening before the 14th day of the first month,” which [is] the feast-day. Therefore, in our manner, [it] had to be done on the 13th, in the evening. The minor premise [assumption] seems to be had from Leviticus 23 (v. 5), thus: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, [it] is the Lord’s phase.” And like [texts] are Exod. 12 (v. 6), Num. 9 (v. 2). — The other argument of the same [authors] is [this]: on whatever day of the first month the Passover was celebrated the very first [time], on that same [day] thereafter [were] ordinarily all the Passovers [kept], as is plain from the end of this ceremony expounded above, and from the Scriptures (Exod. 12). But on the 13th day of the first month that first [Passover] was celebrated. For, first—

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—Josephus (bk. 2, ch. 5) says in the Greek: ἐνστάσης τῆς τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτης πάντες πρὸς ἔξοδον ἔχοντες, ἔθυον [enstasēs tēs tessareskaidekatēs, pantes pros exodon echontes, ethuon] — that is, as that Aloysius [Luis de León] renders [it], “As the fourteenth day drew near, all, girded for the road, were sacrificing.” And the old translator Rufinus hints [at] the same opinion in the Latin (ch. 13): “When,” he says, “the fourteenth day was pressing on, all, hastening toward the going-out and immolating the blood, cleansed their own houses with the fronds of hyssop.” If the 14th day was only “drawing near” or “pressing on,” and yet the lamb [was] eaten at evening — therefore the Passover was on the day before, that is, on the 13th. Second. The Jews went out of Egypt by night, at sunset, at the end of the 14th day and the beginning of the 15th. Therefore, on the day before — that is, the 13th — at evening they had eaten the Passover. The antecedent is proved as to its single parts. The first, [that they] went out by night: Exod. 12 (v. 37 with 42). The second, at sunset: Deut. 16 (v. 6). Third, [that] that night was the end of the 14th day and the beginning of the 15th: Num. 33 (v. 3). And that consequence seems to be plain, because the Israelites ate the Passover at the evening — which could not be this very [evening] of the 14th day on which they went out. First, because on the night of that eating [it] was forbidden them to go out of their houses (Exod. 12 v. 22). Second, because (Num. 33 v. 3) the day of the going-out is called “the other [next] day” from the eating of the lamb. The evening, therefore, on which that [lamb] was eaten was not the very day of the going-out, or its beginning and part. Third, because after the lamb was eaten, and before the going-out itself from Egypt, so many things had to be seen to and done by the Israelites that, even had they wished, they could not have set out on the journey the [same] night [on] which they ate the Passover. For [they] had then first to be gathered out of all the villages, when, after the slaughter of the firstborn, the Egyptians were driving them to the going-out; [they] had also to demand the golden and silver vessels from the Egyptians — so that a natural day easily seems to have intervened. And therefore [it is likely that] they ate the lamb altogether on the 13th day at evening, which was the beginning of the 14th day; that, the whole following night, each kept himself at home; that, the 14th day following, [they] began to seek those vessels from the Egyptians, and to flow together in throngs into one place; and that at last, at the evening of the same day (which was the beginning of the 15th), the sun now set, they went out happily — that is, on the 16th day according to our present reckoning of days, but on the 15th according to the Jews’, as I expounded above. — The third and last argument. CHRIST the Lord celebrated the Passover at the lawful time. For [he] never willed to violate the divine law. But his last Passover, when [he] instituted the Eucharist, [he] celebrated not on the 14th day but the 13th. For on the very morrow of this Passover — as is clear from the series of the Passion in the Evangelists — [he] was crucified. But that morrow-day could not be the 15th, but only the 14th; because the 15th day of the first month was a feast-day and solemn (Num. 28 vv. 6 & 7), on which [they] would never have dared to conduct judgments — much less to prepare a cross, to lay [it] on [him] to be carried, to fix and set [it] up, [and] to nail anyone on it with nails — [they] who did not dare even to enter the praetorium, for purity’s sake (John 19). And indeed, how would Joseph, and the rest of the crowd of the pious, have wished to bury him on the feast? [It] is added [that] the truth answers the figure better if, on the very same 14th day, both the typical and the true lamb are said [to be] slain — although, at the beginning of that day (that is, in the evening which closed the 13th) the typical lamb was immolated, and the true [one] was immolated at midday.

Yet by no means [would I depart] from the ancient and consenting [judgment of the Church]—

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—[nor should] the judgment of all others draw us away [from the ancient and consenting view]. But since a twofold “vespera” [evening] of any day can be considered — one, which is that [day’s] close, and which answers to the setting [sun] (to the sun that is the father of the day, and has by its rising brought the light of this day); the other, which precedes the day itself and is the close of the prior day — [it] must be understood [that] properly and simply the “evening” of a day is called [so] in the former manner, [the evening] which namely closes and terminates it; but improperly, and only from the usage of the Jews, “evening” is sometimes and in some places taken in the latter manner. For all nations judged [it] fitting, and the Lord himself taught [it] in the first beginnings of the world (Gen. 1), that — just as the sun, for a certain space of time, shines upon one part of the earth, and that time is called “day” — so its first part should be called “morning,” [and] the last, “evening.” Yet when the Lord sanctioned to the Jews (Lev. 23 v. 32), “From evening until evening shall ye celebrate your sabbaths,” [he] did not take away that common and most usual manner of understanding and speaking of the evening of all days, but in the sabbaths — by whose name are signified all [things] which were as sabbaths, [i.e.] feasts — [he] willed the preceding evening to be [their] beginning, and a part of the sabbaths themselves. And therefore, when mention is made in Scripture of any day, “evening” ought always to be taken from the common sense and speech — [the evening] which is the terminus and end of the day — unless the reasoning of a feast, or the circumstance of the place, show otherwise. And therefore I say [that] the Passover was to be kept on the 14th day of the first month — speaking always of the day in the manner of our custom, because that evening on which the lamb was to be eaten was not the beginning of that day, but the extreme [end]; not [the evening] which would close the 13th, but this very 14th; or, as others say, [the evening] which was not the prior evening, but the posterior. But if [one] should please to speak in the manner of the Jews, [it] must be said [that] the Passover was to be kept on the 15th of Nisan; and thus [it fits] when in Scripture the seven weeks to Pentecost are said [to be] numbered from the day after the Passover, [and] when the Hebrews say in their calendars [that] Pentecost always falls on the second feria [weekday] of the Passover — namely, so that if Nisan be feria III, Pentecost be feria IV. For, first, the 14th day was not a feast, but only the 15th. Therefore its [the feast’s] evening is not to be occupied on the 13th day, but on the very 14th only — so that its exit [end] be [the same], and [it be] the beginning of the 15th day, which was the feast. Secondly. At the same time also begin the seven days of the unleavened bread, and the Passover is eaten — because with them this had to be eaten, and not before, as [was] said above and will again be said below. But those [days] begin on the 14th day at evening — or, in that evening which is the first part of the 15th feast-day and of the first day of the unleavened bread. For (Lev. 23; Exod. 12) the days of unleavened bread had to be seven, so that they should end on the evening of the 21st day, which indeed would terminate that [seventh]. For otherwise [there] would be not seven but eight days. For example:

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Begin from the evening of the 15th day, or end at the evening of the 22nd day, [and] you will have beyond what [is] prescribed: eight days. You will say [that] Josephus (bk. 2 Antiquities, ch. 5) sets down eight days of unleavened bread. [It] will be answered afterward. Now I say [that] the same Josephus (bk. 3, ch. 10) most clearly teaches [that] on the 14th day the Passover is immolated and eaten, when [he] says: “The fifteenth day, succeeding to it, takes up the Passover itself.” For this is [what] διαδέχεται [diadechetai, “succeeds, takes over”] [means]. And in the same place [he] makes seven days of unleavened bread. But these reasons, though most firm, I propose rather briefly — partly because [they] depend on [things] said or to be said, [and] partly because [they] have already been more amply set forth by our Father Ribera (bk. 5 On the Temple, ch. 3, no. 7 & following) [and] Soarez [Suárez] (tome 3, disputation 40 & 41). Thirdly. [It] is proved from the authority of all — ancient and recent, Latins, Greeks, and Hebrews — so that, as will become plain below, today the Jews remove all leaven from their houses only on the 14th day. Fourthly. [It] is proved from the solution of the contrary arguments.

To the first, the minor premise [assumption] is denied. For in Josephus, ἡμέρα ἐνστᾶσα [hēmera enstasa] is a day which has already become present, which already has been — not, however, one which [merely] approaches. For even if [it] were [only drawing near], [it] could nevertheless be called “the present day,” but not one which is not yet, but will presently be — since war, which is already being waged, is called by Demosthenes ὁ ἐνεστὼς [πόλεμος] [ho enestōs polemos, “the present war”], or ὁ ἐνεστηκὼς πόλεμος [ho enestēkōs polemos], as Budaeus notes in [his] Commentaries; [and] with our Apostle, “things present and things to come,” ἐνεστῶτα καὶ μέλλοντα [enestōta kai mellonta] (Rom. 8 v. 38; 1 Cor. 3:22); and “present necessity” (1 Cor. 7 v. 26); “the present evil age” (Gal. 1 v. 4); “the present time,” καιρὸς ὁ ἐνεστηκώς [kairos ho enestēkōs] (Heb. 9:9); and “the day of CHRIST ἐνέστηκεν [enestēken] is at hand, has become present” (2 Thess. 2:2). Nay, Josephus himself (bk. 13, ch. 16), ἔνστη ἡ πεντηκοστή [enstē hē pentēkostē], that is, “[Pentecost] was present [Aderat],” or “Pentecost had come between”; and (bk. 6 of the War, ch. 45) ἐνστάσης ἑορτῆς [enstasēs heortēs, “the feast being at hand / present”]. But Rufinus’s version teems with that kind of errors — as in this very sentence, [where] [it] ought [to have been] said not “immolating the blood,” but “they were immolating, and with the blood — having taken tufts of hyssop — purified their own houses.” Yet [it] could be taken in him [Josephus] [as] “cum instaret” [when [it] was pressing on] for “cum praesens esset” [when [it] was present]. For thus [it is used] most frequently among the Philosophers, and also in Cicero (Tusc. 4, and the book On fate), “instans” is said for “praesenti” [the present].

To the second, the antecedent is denied. First, as to the second part. For [they] did not go out on the 14th day “at sunset.” But after [the sun] had set — nay, after more than half the night, and almost the whole [night], had passed, and the morning of the 15th day was now approaching — so that on that account [they] are said [to have] gone out on the 15th day. But when the Lord says (Deut. 16 v. 6): “Thou shalt immolate the phase in the evening, at the setting of the sun, when thou wentest out of Egypt” — that “when” does not precisely signify the same hour, but the time taken generally. And therefore in the Hebrew [it] is: “according to the setting of the sun, [at the] time of thy going out of Egypt.” And thus all our [writers] speak: “In the morning hours of thy birthday, diligently pray to God in the sanctuary, when [he] gave to thee that thou shouldest be born—”

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—[when he gave to thee that thou shouldst be born]. And yet [it was] in the afternoon hour, the 6th or 7th, of that day [that] thou wast born. [The “when” does not fix the hour.] — [It] is denied, secondly, [as to] the antecedent, concerning the third part — if by the name “night” the evening time be taken. But if the whole night, as [it] ought, be understood, that third part of the antecedent is conceded. For truly by night, near the morning twilight, the Israelites departed from Egypt, as [was] said in Exodus; and thus truly the 15th day is attributed to their departure (Num. 33 v. 3). But Aloysius [Luis de León] presses certain words of Zonaras, saying [that] the Israelites went out τῇ πεντεκαιδεκάτῃ κατὰ σελήνην [tēi pentekaidekatēi kata selēnēn] — that is, as he indeed interprets [it], “on the 15th day, at the rising of the moon.” But since it was full moon in that year, this [moon] rose in the evening, while, namely, the sun — set opposite to it diametrically — was setting. But, first, in place of Zonaras (whose authority [is] almost only “proletarian” [of the lowest rank]), [Aloysius] could have cited the very [author] from whom [Zonaras] borrowed those words — Josephus (wrongly cited in Scaliger, p. 350, [as] bk. 5 On emendation, [and as] bk. 5 ch. 5) — [namely] bk. 2, ch. 6, at the beginning. Secondly. That [phrase] κατὰ σελήνην [kata selēnēn] does not mean “at the rising of the moon,” but “according to the moon” — because, according to the Moon’s course, from its conjunction with the sun, [it] was the 15th day of the month, as [was] expounded above (quaest. 27). For thus also (bk. 1) Laertius relates [that] Solon prescribed to the Athenians τὰς ἡμέρας κατὰ σελήνην ἄγειν [tas hēmeras kata selēnēn agein], as the translator rightly saw there when [he] rendered [it]: “to keep the days according to the Moon’s course.” But if [one] wished to expound κατὰ σελήνην as “according to the moon,” namely “shining” [borrowing this] from Josephus, I think [it] would depart from the truth in intent, yet in nothing [else]. For at full moon [the moon shines] the whole night, and until the sun rises the next day [it] can illuminate — and [it is] most pleasing to travel by night and before dawn, [the moon] giving light to travelers, of which kind I said the Israelites were. But that consequence [drawn] from the antecedent is easily denied too, or explained. To its first proof I say [that] to those [Israelites] [it] was forbidden to go out of [their] houses that night — namely, until the Angel had passed through and had taken away the firstborn of Egypt. To the second: because [they] went out after the middle of the night, near the twilight of the 15th day, [it] is rightly called the day of the setting-out, “the fifteenth,” and likewise “the day after the Passover” — or, as the Seventy there rendered [it] word for word, ἡ ἐπαύριον τοῦ πάσχα [hē epaurion tou pascha, “the morrow of the Passover”] — speaking according to the common [reckoning] (of which above) and the usual numbering of days, as Josephus too rightly signifies (bk. 3, ch. 10, in the Greek).

To the third. How all these [things] were done — partly before the slaughter of the firstborn, partly straightway after — I have said (Exod. 12); and [it] can be seen [in] tom. 3 of Soarez [Suárez], in the cited place, and in Ribera, in the cited place, at the end of the second argument.

To the third argument, furthermore, the antecedent is denied. To the former proof, [I grant] [that] the 15th day was altogether a feast and solemn; but that [other point] I deny — [namely] that the Jews here did anything against the law. For [those] who, mad with fury against CHRIST the Lord, dared to lay [their] most wicked hands [on him], to exercise [their] most lying tongues, and to bring forth with such force and savagery the poison and most deadly hatred conceived in [their] mind — why should they be reckoned “touched by the scruple of the solemnity” [so as] not to slay him — which [they] most desired? But be it [so]: [suppose they] were touched by religion — [it was] not they themselves, but the Gentiles, who fabricated CHRIST’s cross, laid [it] on [him] to be carried, set [it] up, and fixed [it], and drove God [onto it]—

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—[they] fixed [it], and into it drove God. But to them [the Jews] [there] is no scruple in using, on feast-days, alien labor — [that] of those whom they call goiim [Gentiles] — [and] in getting anything done by [their] labor, provided [that] these [Gentiles] be not their own slaves. For I have also seen, when [they] had received certain letters addressed to the temple of the deity [the synagogue], [that] they, out of superstition, did not dare to open [them], but asked a Christian to open [them]. Thirdly. Nay, [they] even persuaded themselves [that] they rendered great worship to God, [in] that [they] would, even on a feast-day, strike and — with alien hands — slaughter him [Christ], whom [they] wished to seem a blasphemer, an enemy of the law, an aspirer to divinity, a Persian [magus], and a pseudo-prophet. For thus (Num. 15), when a certain [man] was found gathering wood, they seized him with their own hands, bound [him], and cast [him] into prison. And Josephus — as a certain question [will] teach below — relates how, on the first day of unleavened bread (which was a feast), certain armed [men] went around the walls of Jericho, and on the seventh day (which was likewise a feast) took it, and made a very great slaughter of men, women, children, slaves, and the sick — nay, even of the beasts of burden (bk. 5, ch. 1). But others of the Jews say indeed — as will also be said below in its place — [that] after the days of unleavened bread Jericho was taken, and yet on the Sabbath day, as [it] is in Seder Olam (ch. 11). But concerning burial, [there is] an easier matter. For, first, by the force of another law, that [burial] had necessarily to be done (Deut. 21). Secondly, [it] was done, as [it] appears, at that hour of the day on which any servile work was lawful, unless the evening of the following sabbath had impeded [it]. For just as that 15th, the first day of unleavened bread, had begun at the evening of the preceding 14th day, so [it] had [its] end when its own [next] evening began. Thirdly, I say [that] to them [it] was lawful to bury even on feast-days and sabbaths, as Cajetan notes on Lev. 23; and [it] appears well enough in Tobit (ch. 12). For when [Tobit], leaving the banquet, would take up a dead man from the street with great labor and hide [him] in his house, [it] was the day of Pentecost — as I noted on that place, from the Greek and Hebrew text. And on that same day of Tabernacles, of which above, I have seen the Jews of Worms burying a certain one of their own dead. But what if someone should say [that] to them [it] was nowhere forbidden to take, accuse, [and] punish evildoers on a feast-day and sabbath? Certainly Rambam (bk. 14, ch. 3) said [that] the judges, who were of the great Sanhedrin, judged elsewhere [at other times] from morning until the time which is “between the evenings” (of which below); but on sabbath days and good [days], or feasts, [they] sat in the house of the sanctuary, which [is] the house on the mount [the Temple]. Yet because [it] seems otherwise to great men, from that [word of] John 18: “[It] is not lawful for us to kill anyone” — I do not much object. See Bellarmine (bk. 4 On sacrifice, ch. 8). — To the later proof I say, first, [that it] is hardly necessary [that] both the type and the truth fall on entirely the same day. Nevertheless I add, secondly, [that] here [they] did fall [together]. For, as will be said afterward, the lamb was a type not only of the Lord’s Passion, but also of the Eucharistic sacrament — which was sanctioned by the Lord on the 14th day. [It is] manifest, therefore, [that] the Passover was to be kept on the 14th day of the first month (as we now commonly name the days) — or in the last part of that day, which by a certain Jewish reckoning was the first [part] of the following feast-day.

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