Since in Greek ζύμη [zymē] is “leaven,” [that] bread is called azymus [unleavened] which lacks leaven — just as, on the contrary, [that is] enzymus or zymites which is leavened. “Jewish bread is held by no leaven,” says Tacitus (bk. 5 of the history); and such bread Colophonian Nicander (in the Glosses) called “Paratum” [prepared], as Athenaeus [is] witness (bk. 3); others [call it] “apopyrian” [ἀπόπυριαν], as [says] Pollux (bk. 6). But of this various [things] are asked.
1. Whether the unleavened [azymus] is truly bread?
Some of the Greeks have denied [it] — as Michael of Constantinople the Bishop, and Nicetas, whose words [are] most verbosely related by the Centuriators (Century 11, ch. 8) and in Baronius (tom. 11); Euthymius (on Matthew 26); others in S. Anselm (book On the unleavened bread); and lately Hieremias [Jeremias] of Constantinople the Patriarch, in [his] censure of the Lutheran confession (ch. 10). Their reason is: because “bread” in Greek [is] ἄρτος [artos], said from the verb αἴρω [airō], which is “to raise up” [attollo]; but flour or dough is not raised up except by leaven. But truly [it] is bread, [Serarius] teaches — first, by the matter and form of which [it] consists. Secondly: within the seven days of unleavened bread came JESUS CHRIST with two disciples [to] Emmaus; and there, as S. Luke says (last ch.), “He took bread, blessed [it], and broke [it]; and afterward they knew him in the breaking of bread.” But on those days [there] was no leavened [bread] among the Jews; [it was] therefore azymus — and so, from the usage of Scripture, [it] is truly “bread.” And Deut. 16 v. 3, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, without any obscurity, the unleavened [breads] are called “bread.” Secondly [i.e. thirdly]: profane authors too, when they reckon [things] to generate bread, put azymum among them. For in Athenaeus (in the cited place) Tryphon Alexandrinus, in his Physics (that is, On plants), says [there is] straightway another bread [called] zymites, another azymum, and again others [called] semidalites [σεμιδαλίτης], chondrites [χονδρίτης], and syncomiston [συγκόμιστον]. Thirdly: why would [it] not be bread? “Because [it] is not raised up by leaven,” [they] say. But among the Hebrews [bread] is called [bread] not from raising-up, but from eating; and perhaps among the Greeks, not because [it] is raised up by leaven, but because [it] is raised up to the table as [a thing] most necessary [as] nourishment — or because by its power [he] is raised up and sustained who eats it. And although the Greek name was drawn from the raising-up by leaven, yet not therefore, if any bread were not raised up, would [it] therefore not be bread. For from that which is most usually done the etymology would be sought, not from that which [is done] always and necessarily — just as, among the Latins, a stone [lapis] is therefore seen [to be] called [so] because “it hurts the foot” [laedat pedem]; [but] if [it] hurt no one, will [it] not be a stone? And [there] was a King of the Messapians whose name [was] Ἄρτος [Artos], of which [in] bk. 7 [of] Thucydides; [and] Demetrius the Comic [poet], in the play Sicilia (Athenaeus, cited place) — was [he] so named from leaven? Fourthly: leaven [is] nothing other than a rather bitter part of the same grain-material, which therefore in Hebrew is called שאור [seor] — especially when [it] is a little older; and from it, in German, [is] “Sauer” [sour], whence also “Sauerteig” [sourdough], the leavened mass. But an admixture of this kind, [being] small, does not make [it] that the species of things be changed. Otherwise, salt foods [would differ in species] from insipid [ones], and [those] to which something of sourness — whether vinegar, or—
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—some other seasoning — is admixed, would differ in species from the sweeter and more insipid [ones]. Fifthly. Theodoret, on Daniel ch. 10, being a Greek, laughs at those who deny [that] the azymum is bread. Finally, among those who collect the kinds of bread — namely Athenaeus (cited place), Pliny (bk. 18, ch. 11), Caelius Rhodiginus (bk. 9, ch. 16), and others — a difference is instituted either by reason of the material [ratione materiae] (as wheaten, barley[-en], olirites [pulse-bread], bean[-en], etnites); or by reason of the place [ratione loci] whence either the bread itself or the grain is sought (as among the ancients [there is] Eresian, Theban, Cilician, Cappadocian; among us in Franconia, Tettelbacensian, Gemundanian). Thirdly, by reason of the manner of cooking [ratione modi coquendi] (as apopyrias [ἀπόπυριας], ipnites [ἰπνίτης], escharites [ἐσχαρίτης], epanthiacis, encryphias [ἐγκρυφίας], clibanites [κλιβανίτης], and cribanites). Fourthly, by reason of the mixture [ratione admistionis] (as nastus, streptitius, staitites, encris, aleiphatites, tracta, cheese[-bread] tyrū, laganū). Fifthly, by reason of the quantity [ratione quantitatis] (as Cilician, colabus). Sixthly, by reason of the quality [ratione qualitatis] — e.g. of color [coloris], white, black; of flavor [saporis], as Cyprian, cibarius [common]; of form [formae], as collix, collabus, boletinus, thronus. Seventhly, by reason of the time [ratione temporis] (as Thargelos, and Thalisius, which is first made after the harvest from the new crops). But these, and several other differences — except if [they] be from materials which differ in species — are not essential, but accidental. Most greatly, however, [is] that [difference], whether [it] be leavened [fermentatus] or unleavened [infermentatus]. You will say: “A little leaven corrupts the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5 v. 6; Gal. 5 v. 9). I respond: 1. For “corrupts,” in Greek [it] is ζυμοῖ [zymoi], that is, “leavens.” Yet because our translator rendered [it] “corruption,” I say [it] is an accidental corruption. Nor indeed did the translator badly so call [it], since Plutarch too, in the same sense (bk. of Roman Problems), says [that] the leaven τὸ φύραμα φθείρει [to phyrama phtheirei, “corrupts the dough”].
2. Whether the unleavened bread [azymus] is healthful?
I remember once hearing a certain physician who would say [that] in the spring time, and to those making a journey, unleavened bread [is] useful — because sharp [foods] are then wont to be harmful, [and] sweet [ones] to profit. For, as Pliny says (bk. 22, ch. 24), “in weariness and thirst men [are] more prone to wrath. Therefore this asperity of mind — or rather, the soul — is mitigated by a sweeter juice.” But all others assert [it] noxious and unhealthful. “They are,” says Abulensis (on Exodus, quaest. 11), “unleavened breads, very harmful to the stomach and heavy. For leaven, from its own sharpness, subtilizes and digests the weight and humidity of the flour mixed with water. But when leaven is not mixed [in], [it] is very heavy, and ill-digestible.” And [on] Deut. 16: “Great [is] the labor in eating unleavened bread, and in digesting [it]. For [it] is insipid to the taste, and most heavy to the stomach, because [it] is mixed with most cold water [and] most cold flour, to make those breads without salt and without leaven. For those [things — salt and leaven] subtilize and digest. Wherefore those breads are heavier than the other breads, and more repugnant to health.” [It] is confirmed, first: because [it] is therefore called “bread of affliction” [panis afflictionis] (Deuteronomy 16 v. 3), ἄρτος κακώσεως [artos kakōseōs]. For if you should say [that they] are so called because these breads are signs of the affliction which [they] endured in the Egyptian exodus — I confess that indeed (for the subjoined reason too indicates [it]); but [they] were signs accommodated to signifying that thing, [signs] which by their own innate power would in some manner renew that affliction, and bring trouble to those eating [them]. And in the Syriac text (1 Cor. 5 v. 8) — where our version has “the leaven of wickedness” — [it] is read “leaven de-marirutha,” that is, “of bitterness” or “of wormwood.” Secondly. The Jews too so call [it], and ex—
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—[the Jews too so call it] and explain [it]. For while the head of the family uses the paschal unleavened breads on the [Passover] night, and while [he] distributes the fragments of the unleavened bread to the domestics, this [is] the formula: הא לחמא עניא [ha lachma ʿanya], ὅδε ἄρτος τῆς ταλαιπωρίας [hode artos tēs talaipōrias, “this [is] the bread of misery”]: “This is the bread of affliction, or of misery, which our fathers ate in the land of Egypt.” Thirdly. By reason. For into the unleavened [bread] come together the [qualities] which [Diphilus] says about the encryphia in Athenaeus (bk. 3): Diphilus of Siphnos [says it] “weighs down the stomach [Ventriculum], namely, [and] is with difficulty conquered and digested.” Now indeed, in the second [book] of the first [part of the Canon], are these words of Avicenna, which Rhodiginus judged worthy of his Racemationes (bk. 9, ch. 17): “Bread [is] an impediment, when the belly does not cook [it] through; [it] ought to be reckoned the greatest [impediment]; but of flesh, not so.” “From this,” says the translator, “we understand that [passive suffering]: [that] any dissolution is indeed an incommodity, but [that] which is made from bread [is] the worst — [it] resides long in the stomach, [with] a burden especially troublesome; and if [it be] not sufficiently concocted, [and] finally have slipped down, [it] stuffs the liver and the mesaraic [veins]. But flesh leads a greater similitude with the human body, and thence provides less of harm, and [is] a lighter stuffing of the liver, and less and less resisting the cure — the members imbibing [it] much more readily, on account of a certain kinship of the juice of flesh, than bread.” Finally, if the mass of flour that has remained in the kneading-trough be balled up, hard, and heavy, this — by contempt, because [it is] insipid and noxious — our bakers today call “Matz” or “Matzkuchen.” For thus by them the Jewish unleavened [breads] are called, namely from the Hebrew (because [they] received [it] from the Jews), [by] the name מצה [matzah], and in the singular (Num. 6 v. 19) מצה [matzah]. Whence also perhaps, among the Greeks, μάζα [maza] — unless perhaps from that which is (Gen. 45) מזון [mazon, “food”]. And to this greatly make [i.e. support], [the things] which about the maza Hippocrates and Galen have so frequently handed down. He [Hippocrates] indeed (bk. 2 On diet, nn. 6, 7, & 60; [and] the book On the regimen in acute diseases, n. 18); but Galen commented on this book On the regimen (bk. 2), and (bk. 6 On popular diseases, comm. 3), [and the] bk. On healthful diet — “to dry and warm less” (bk. 1 On the faculties of aliments) — [on] what the maza [does], of what faculty, and how [it] is made. Pliny indeed (bk. 18, ch. 11): “Stronger are the bodies which are nourished by leavened bread.” And (bk. 22, ch. 25), when [he] had said, “Bread itself, by which [one] lives, contains almost innumerable medicines,” [he] subjoined: “To all these, [the bread] which is leavened, which is called αὐτόπυρος [autopyros], [is] more useful.” The same indicates Galen (bk. 7 On the method of healing).
3. Why [was] the same bread prescribed by God? (Cur idem panis à Deo praescriptus?)
In the history [of] the fifth cited book, Tacitus [says]: “Of snatched crops, the Jewish bread is held by no leaven.” If [he] should say [they were] “snatched” because [there] was to them no leisure of kneading, subduing, and fermenting, [he] would say [it] truly. But if [he] wishes [them] snatched — reaped by force and rapine, and taken from [their] true owners — [he] is deceived. And yet [he] wishes rather this, as [it] appears; for [he] is wholly there in the false criminations of the Jews. [It] must be known, therefore, [that] a twofold law about the unleavened [breads] was given to the Jews going out of Egypt. One, that with the paschal lamb [they] should eat them (Exod. 12 v. 8). The other, that thereafter throughout the whole seven days (same place, v. 15 & 18; Exod. 13 v. 6 & 7). The cause of the former Abulensis gives (Exod. 12, before q. 12): that in that eating the utmost speed could be employed. For most certainly the unleavened breads are prepared [quickly] (Gen. 18 & 19); the departure from Egypt was pressing. But this reasoning takes [it] as [it were] certain [that] other breads were surely not at hand to the Israelites—
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—[not at hand]. For if [they] were, not only was the eating of the lamb not accelerated, but [it] was even delayed by new breads — [however] great the speed of kneading and cooking. But [that there] were, either to all or at least to very many, other breads — who would not think [it]? [They] were expecting from day to day, and almost from hour to hour, the departure and the passages [of the journey]; and would [they] have prepared nothing at all of bread? Was nothing at all of residue from the provisions of the earlier days? [Were] all [things], even the smallest fragments, eaten and consumed? For if anything remained, why did the Lord forbid that to be employed for eating the lamb? Why does [he] command only the unleavened [bread]? But thus I think. First: [that] the Israelites, on the earlier days indeed, cooked leavened breads, but in that quantity and measure which would be enough for the evening of that 14th day, nor yet would extend beyond. Secondly: then, for that evening, [they] quickly kneaded and cooked unleavened breads alone. Thirdly: [that they] had in mind to knead and prepare, as travel-provisions on that night, leavened breads for the journey which was pressing; but, struck by the Egyptians [with] the calamity of their firstborn, [and] compelled to go out more quickly, [they] were able only to sprinkle and mix the flour with water, but not to ferment [it] — or, [because] even the time for the leaven-fermenting to happen [they] would perceive as about to fail, [they] were unwilling. Fourthly. Thus [it was] done, that when [they] departed, [they] carried off with them this floury mass sprinkled with water alone; and thence afterward, in Succoth, in great haste — which the hunger of the fasting people, and the necessity of all things, brought on — [they] made unleavened breads, and did not attempt to fit [prepare] that [mass] with leaven (which nevertheless can scarcely, or certainly only with the most obstinate and almost vain labor, be done) — perhaps also because [they] had brought out nothing of leaven, nor held the ways of preparing [it] anew, which (bk. 18, ch. 11) Pliny handed down (by what means [some] hold ready more, or hop-yeast, lees, and similar [things], which the cleverness of later [men] has devised), or [because they] lacked leisure. But these [things] all are confirmed partly from Moses’s own narration (Exod. 12 v. 39), partly from the consideration of all the circumstances, and some also by Josephus’s attestation (bk. 2, ch. 5), [and] Abulensis (q. 12, Exod. 12). But hence the reason of the latter law, about the seven days of unleavened bread, is easily understood. For [the Lord] himself expounded it (Exod. 12 v. 17; ch. 13 v. 8 & 9; Deut. 16 v. 3): namely, [that the memory] of the hastening — and especially of this want in the Egyptian going-out — might be fixed perpetually in the minds of the Israelites, and that of it, among all posterity, [there] should be into eternity a perpetual experience. But two [things] remain, which can be asked.
The second: whether the law about these 7 days was [given] from the occasion of the preparation and want of it, promulgated afterward by the Lord — or indeed already before? I respond. [It] was already before, but foreseen from this occasion by the Lord himself. For (Exod. 12 v. 15), before [they] went out, this precept is already given by the Lord. Nor may [one] here say [that] these [things] were indeed said by the Lord after the exodus, but by anticipation narrated by Moses. For (v. 17) our Latin [translator] renders: “And ye shall observe the unleavened [breads]. For in that same day I will lead out your army from the land of Egypt.” Nor do I deny [that] in the Hebrew [it] is not “future” but “past.” But [that] this is often taken for that [past for future], those are not ignorant who have tasted that tongue even with the [tips of the] lips, as [they] say, [with] the foremost [edges]; and thus [it is] here to be taken — [as] the best authors, the Seventy Translators themselves, [take it], when [they] render ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ταύτῃ ἐξάξω τὴν δύναμιν ὑμῶν [en tēi hēmerai tautēi exaxō tēn dynamin hymōn, “on this day I will lead out your host”]. Nay, [also] from the Innovators, Tre—
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—[Tre]mellius and Junius so [render it]: “Ye shall observe the day itself of the unleavened [breads], when in that same day I led out your armies from the land of Egypt.”
The other [second remaining question] is: since unleavened breads are harmful to health — as [was] made plain above — why did the Lord will to impose their eating on his people for so many days? Three causes [are] at hand. First: that by the very eating of those breads — so insipid, [and] hostile to the stomach and health — the past affliction and misery of the elders might be more renewed among posterity, and laid up more deeply in the mind: [they] who, through the excessive hastening of the journey and the want of all food, had to sustain themselves noxiously and sadly by that heap of flour. For much more lively and efficacious is that memory which is effected by the sense and by experience itself — as in the pious Catholics we see daily, when, by fasting, afflicting the body, and scourging [it], [they] recollect the forty-day fast of our Savior Jesus, [and] the atrocious torments and death undertaken for our sake, with so great a sense of piety. And, on the contrary, our heretics, while [they] imitate the old Manichees (of whom [in] the book against the epistle of the Fundament, ch. 8), [as] D. Augustine [says] thus: “The Lord’s Passover is frequented by few [with] a most lukewarm celebration, sometimes; with no vigils, with no more prolonged (nay, altogether with no) fast indicted to your auditors; [and] with no more festive apparatus.” Second: that we might understand [that], to religion and the other virtues by which God is served, [one] ought to yield not delights only, and superfluous [things] — whether food, or other care of the body — but even health itself, and a certain necessity of augmenting, or guarding and preserving it. For — that the mind of the Israelites might be pleasing to God, that [they] might be more excited to his love, and worship him with more flagrant piety — the Lord willed [that] for the whole seven days [they] use those very breads which would [make one] lose taste, and which, by unleavened bread, would sometimes bring on nausea to the sound, weigh down the stomach, [could] scarcely be digested, block the passages of the body, generate less good juice and blood, and harm the whole health, strength, and beauty of the body. Which [thing] those observe who cry out rather vehemently, sometimes, against the Ecclesiastical fasts, the Lenten foods, [and] the Carthusian fish. But let those morose complainers read Francis Victoria’s [Vitoria’s] Relectio “On homicide.” The heretic Beza too acknowledges (1 Cor. 5 v. 8) [that], from the pristine custom of living — just as we in Lent — the Jews had to depart. “From leaven,” [he] says, “[with] a certain new kind of life, [they] abstained the whole seven days, which number denotes perfection.” The third cause, finally, is the figure of the things which the Lord willed to be signified by the unleavened [breads]. For just as the more bitter herbs, which had to be joined with the lamb, had the signification of penitence, so also the nauseous unleavened breads. And just as the unleavened bread — although [it] makes less for health and strength — [is] nevertheless simpler, corrupted by no accidental corruption even, always pressed-down and humble, swelling up by no leaven, not bearing itself up, sweet in flavor, and easily prepared — so those [Christians], whom S. Paul (1 Cor. 5) wishes [to be] “unleavened” [azymos] — although [they] augment less the commodities of the body, nay, even diminish and attenuate them — nevertheless ought to be simple, sincere, lowly, sweet, and easily tractable.
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4. How many [are] the days of unleavened bread? and which of them [is] the first? (Quot azymorum dies? et ex iis quinam sit primus?)
First. The days on which the Israelites first of all used unleavened [breads], in the Egyptian exodus, are said by Josephus (bk. 2, ch. 5) [to have] been thirty. And [it] can in some manner be gathered from ch. 16 of Exod. (v. 1). For when they were now [in Succoth], [they] began to cook unleavened [breads] in Succoth (Exod. 12 v. 39); nor thereafter are [they] read to have used other bread — or truly to have been able to use [it] — until the manna was given; because, as [is] more likely, [they] had neither carried leaven with them, nor prepared new [leaven], as [I] said above (q. 3). But [they] went out on the 15th day of the first month, and on the 15th day of the second month [they] came into Elim, where the manna was given them straightway. Rightly, therefore, says Josephus τοῖς ἀζύμοις … ἡμέρας ἐχρήσαντο [tois azymois … hēmeras echrēsanto, “they used the unleavened [breads] for [those] days”]. And so also (bk. 3, ch. 1).
Secondly. To the recollection of these [things], the Lord instituted anniversary days of unleavened bread — namely, seven only (Exod. 12 v. 15 & 19; ch. 13 v. 6; Lev. 23 v. 7; Num. 28 v. 17 & 25; Deut. 16 v. 3). And of these the first was the 15th day of the first month (Lev. 23 v. 6; Num. 28 v. 17); the last, the 21st day of the same [month] (Exod. 12 v. 18). And again, the first and last were “festi” [feast-days], so that on them [it] was lawful to do nothing of work (Exod. 12 v. 16): “The first day shall be holy and solemn; and the seventh day [shall be] venerable [by] the same festivity” (ch. 13 v. 6; Lev. 23 v. 7 & 8; Num. 28 v. 18 & 25; Deut. 16 v. 8), “except those [things] which pertain to eating” (Exod. 12 v. 16). But to some objections here answer must be made.
The first. The days of unleavened bread seem to be fewer than seven, because Deuteronomy 16 v. 8 [it] is said: “Six days shalt thou eat unleavened [breads]; and on the seventh day, which is the collect [assembly] of the Lord, thou shalt not do work.” I respond: [it] was said a little before (v. 3 & 4) [that] the unleavened [breads] were to be eaten [for] seven days. Therefore, [as to] what is now added about six days, [it] must be expounded by one or the other of those two modes: either [that] the discourse be about the six days which follow the first (because about this the discourse had already been, v. 4 & 7); or rather, [about those] which precede the seventh, being first — because about this [the Lord] wished to hand down something new separately, namely [about] the day of the collect [assembly]; since in it [the seventh] [it] was already sufficiently established otherwise, from the cited v. 3 & 4, [that] one must feed on unleavened [breads].
Secondly. The first day of unleavened bread seems to be the 14th day of the first month, not the 15th; because they began those [unleavened breads] with the eating of the lamb — which, as [is] clear above, was eaten on the 14th day. Then, Exod. 12 v. 18 [it] is said: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, ye shall eat unleavened [breads].” By these two arguments Rupert (bk. 2, ch. 15) was impelled to write [that] the first day of unleavened bread was the 14th day of the first month. I respond: [that] that extreme little part of the 14th day — or the evening on which the lamb was both immolated and eaten — pertained (as [was] explained in the earlier questions) not to our modern reckoning, but to the Jewish [reckoning] of numbering, to the 15th day; because the 15th, as I said, was festal. And this is confirmed, first, because the 14th day was not (as [was] said above) festal, but the first of the unleavened [breads] was festal. Secondly: the first day of unleavened bread was that very day on which the Israelites migrated out of Egypt (Exod. 12 v. 17; Deut. 16 v. 3). But Num. 33 v. 3: “They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the 15th day of the month, on the morrow of the phase [Passover]” — that is, after [they] had kept the phase according to our and the natural [reckoning of the] day—
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—[according to our natural custom of the day], on the 14th day. Thirdly. Innocent III wrote this expressly (bk. 4, On the mystery of the altar, ch. 4); and all the other Christian Doctors teach [it], nay, the Jewish [ones] too. Josephus (bk. 18, ch. 3), in Greek, says the “festal day of the unleavened [breads]” is “Pascha.” In whatever manner [one] please to speak, Henricus Stephanus [Henri Estienne] wrote unlearnedly in his Thesaurus [that] “the feast of the unleavened [breads] precedes the Pascha.”
Thirdly, the days seem to be more than eight. First, because — as [was] said — on the 14th the unleavened [breads] were eaten at evening with the lamb, and the end of the eating was the 21st day of the same month, as [was] proved. Now put on [your] fingers the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st. [Are they] not eight? Then indeed Josephus (bk. 2, ch. 5): ἑορτὴν ἄγομεν ἐφ’ ἡμέρας ὀκτὼ τὴν τῶν ἀζύμων λεγομένην [heortēn agomen eph’ hēmeras oktō tēn tōn azymōn legomenēn, “we keep for eight days the feast called that of the unleavened [breads]”]. Rupert too writes this, in the cited place. [There] accedes the modern custom of the Jews. For [they] abstain from leaven the whole eight days, and the whole week of unleavened bread is called by Josephus (bk. 2, ch. 10) ἑορτή [heortē, “feast”]. And clearly Lev. 23 v. 6. I respond: [that] the evening of the 14th day is to be numbered Israelitically [by the Jewish reckoning], as [was] often said, [to] the 15th day; and so, on the fingers, the 14th day ought not to be put, but [one] must begin from the 15th. Josephus, however, because [he] looked to the natural and vulgar number of days, included the 14th day; and [in] the same book, ch. 10, when [he] says: “The festivity of the unleavened [breads] receives [follows] the day of the Passover, because [it] is of 7 days, and in the same manner [there is] the 15th day.” [It] is called “the first day of the unleavened [breads]” (Matt. 26 v. 7), and “before the day of the Passover” (John 13 v. 1); and so above (quaest. 29). Of Rupert [it was] said, to the second objection. About the modern custom of the Jews [one] need not labor: by superstition indeed — of which a solid cause cannot be brought — [they] add one day to the seven days prescribed by God above. But when [they] are asked why [they] do so, I have often heard [them] responding [that they] do not know when truly the paschal New Moon begins, and therefore neither which [is] the true paschal day; [and] lest they err, [they] observe two paschal days, so that if perchance one be not [the right one], the other at least may be. But from their Chesbonim [reckonings], and from ours, [they] can know this as easily, and as certainly, as all the other days. And truly, by this reasoning, [they] ought, of those seven days of unleavened bread, to keep four festal days. For grant [there be] to the paschal feast-day two days; therefore also to the seventh day, which is likewise festal, [it] will behoove to give two days. For let [it] be, for example, [that] according to their Badu, the 15th day of the first month, feria second, be the festal [day] of unleavened bread. But because [they] doubt whether it [be] the true paschal, [they] keep also the festal third feria. Therefore [it] will behoove them afterward to keep the festal first and second feria of the following week. These indeed are the seventh-day’s [feasts corresponding] to the second and third feria of the prior week. At the last, that whole week is called ἑορτή [heortē, “feast”] from its beginning and end — that is, from the first and seventh day.
Fourth. The first and seventh day do not seem to be festal, or at least [not] of equal solemnity. For Deut. 16 v. 8, mention is made of the feast of the 7th day, but no solemnity of the first day. And Lev. 23 v. 7 [it] is said [that] the first day [is] “most celebrated and holy”; but (v. 8) “the seventh day shall be more celebrated and holier.” Num. 28 v. 18, the first day is called “venerable and holy”; but (v. 25) “the 7th day [shall be] most celebrated and holy to you.” To the first I say [that it is] elsewhere sufficiently expressed about the first festal day; but there, in Deuteronomy, [there is] more—
(col. 610 — right column; printed “617”)
—mention made of the 7th day, because [it] was not only festal, but had this also as chief, [namely] that [it] was the “collect” [collecta, assembly]. What this may be, I will say elsewhere. To the second: [there] are no comparatives in the Greek and Hebrew, or superlatives; but by the same phrase by which the first day is called “venerable and holy,” by the same wholly is called also the seventh — as much in Leviticus as in Numbers — wholly as [in] Exod. 12 v. 16, where the translator uses no comparatives, but renders: “the 7th day [is] to be venerable [by] the same festivity by which also the first is.” Into this opinion, therefore, [it] behooves [us] to take the comparatives and superlatives which [the translator] elsewhere placed — not so as to give more than [to] the 7th day, but so that, after the manner of the Greek and Latin authors, those placed [comparatives] be counted for positives. But the phrase which everywhere in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers Moses employed is, in Hebrew, מקרא קדש [miqra qodesh]. This, as [it] appeared, our translator renders very variously; in whom some thought [that] “a holy day” is called [so] because [it] would be consecrated to God, but “solemn” because in it certain [things] would be done chiefly and specially for the worship of God, which would not be done on the other days. For [they] say [that] certain days are “holy,” but “not solemn” — for example, the sabbaths; but certain [days are] both “holy and solemn,” as the first and last of the unleavened [breads]. But, first, [were there] not on the sabbaths peculiar sacrifices offered too, which [were] not [offered] on other days (Num. 28 v. 9 & 10)? And what other day [is] “holy,” which, besides the daily [sacrifices], would not have also certain proper sacrifices? Every holy day, therefore, is also solemn. Secondly: why are not certain days also established by them [as] “solemn and not holy”? For certainly, on the third, 4th, 5th, and 6th day of the unleavened [breads], peculiar sacrifices were decreed (Num. 28 v. 24); and yet those [days] were not festal, and therefore — as these [scholars] describe them — nor holy. Thirdly: the sabbath, or the 7th day, is expressly said [to be] by the same Hebrew phrase miqra qodesh (Lev. 23 v. 3), by which [also] the first and last day of the unleavened [breads]. Therefore [it] can be called not only holy, but equally solemn too. Fourthly: all the other festal days likewise are adorned there by the same phrase (v. 2 & 4, and thereafter). What, therefore, does that Hebrew phrase wish for itself? Pagninus and others always render [it] “holy convocation” [convocationem sanctam]. And the Tremellian annotation (on ch. 12 of Exodus) so expounds [it]: “that is, the people, free from the rest of the businesses of this life, will assemble, that [they] may be busied with the sacred [things].” And Lev. 23 v. 2, Junius and Tremellius render: “Speak to the sons of Israel, that thou mayest indicate to them the solemnity of Jehovah, by which — being about to convoke these [the people] — [they call them] ‘holy convocations, or [convocations] of holiness.’” And in the annotation: “Ye shall be about to convoke: namely, you the priests, from the law [of] Num. 10.” But much more [it] pleases [me] what our Seventy teach — namely, [that] by that phrase nothing else is signified than [that] the day is “holy by [its] calling” [vocatione sanctum], or [that it is one] which is to be affected “by a calling of holiness”; and if [there] be several [days], [that they] are “holy by [their] calling,” or “appellations of holiness” — that is, [days] which are to be called holy. For thus [in] Exod. 12: ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ πρώτη κληθήσεται ἁγία, καὶ ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ ἑβδόμη κλητὴ ἁγία ἔσται ὑμῖν [hē hēmera hē prōtē klēthēsetai hagia, kai hē hēmera hē hebdomē klētē hagia estai hymin, “the first day shall be called holy, and the seventh day shall be to you a called [convoked] holy [day]”]. Lev. 23: αἱ ἑορταὶ κυρίου, ἃς καλέσετε αὐτὰς κλητὰς ἁγίας [hai heortai kyriou, has kalesete autas klētas hagias, “the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall call holy convocations”]. And a little after: σάββατα ἀνάπαυσις, κλητὴ ἁγία τῷ κυρίῳ [sabbata anapausis, klētē hagia tōi kyriōi, “sabbaths of rest, a holy convocation to the Lord”]. And again: αὗται αἱ ἑορταὶ τῷ κυρίῳ κληταὶ ἅγιαι [hautai hai heortai tōi kyriōi klētai hagiai, “these [are] the feasts to the Lord, holy convocations”]. And of the first [day] of the unleavened [breads]: ἡ πρώτη κλητὴ ἁγία ἔσται ὑμῖν [hē prōtē klētē hagia estai hymin]; of the 7th: ἡ ἑβδόμη κλητὴ ἁγία ἔσται ὑμῖν [hē hebdomē klētē hagia estai hymin]. Why should I pursue the rest? From these [it is] abundantly clear [that] not therefore [is] this phrase employed by Moses because the priests convoke—
(col. 611 — left column; printed “618”)
—[not therefore is this phrase employed because the priests convoke] the people, but because both the priests and the whole people would call such days “holy.” And that without doubt, because [they] were holy. For God would not wish [them] called holy, unless [they] were [so]. And this — because our Innovators have hated [it], and put all their worship of God in mere “callings” and preachings — therefore [they] devise these new interpretations. And indeed that [phrase] is the same by which S. Paul (Rom. 1) calls the Christians κλητοὶ ἅγιοι [klētoi hagioi, “called saints”], as [was] said there by me at greater length.
Fifthly. The 16th day of the same month, or the second [day] of the unleavened [breads], also seems to be festal — because then (Lev. 23 v. 11) the first-fruits sheaf [manipulus] of the harvest was offered, and with it certain sacrifices. I respond: [that] these [things] indeed had to be done on that day, yet not therefore was [it] festal. And [whether] the Innovator Lydiat (of whom [in] bk. 1, ch. 4, quaest. 9) will [it] or nill [it], [it] is wont to be called “the morrow after the Passover,” or “the postridian [next-day] of the Passover” or “of the sabbath” — that is, of the paschal feast (same Lev. 23 v. 15); and again “iom habomer [yom ha-ʿomer],” that is, “the day of the sheaf,” which on that day [they] offered from their own crop — [those] who at Jerusalem either dwelt or were near. But to me those cannot at all be pleasing, who [say that] that sheaf was not of wheat but of barley, and again, [that it was] not brought from the neighboring fields of Jerusalem, but from the tribe of Nephtali [Naphtali]. For in that month, as [was] said above, the crops were ripening in that region [Judaea], and so some ears could then be riper than others, which would be reaped and offered. For we see too, among us, before the harvest, in the seventh and eighth weeks sometimes, some ripe ears somewhere, though not yet all. “Then,” says Philo (bk. 3 On the life of Moses), “the crops necessary for food ripen; but the fruits of the trees, recently produced, come to maturity.” And [in his] book On the Decalogue: “A sheaf of thanksgiving is offered, for the fertility of the fields and the abundance of the crops.” And a clear testimony of this thing [there] is from this ch. 15 of Joshua, and from Josephus (bk. 5, ch. 1), where on the 15th day the Israelites began to eat the wheaten harvest, as [is] said below (q. 8) [and] Lev. 23 v. 14, as Masius observes (fol. 92); and this is the common opinion of the Rabbis in the Talmud (tractate On every beginning). Yet Josephus somewhere perhaps might seem to deny the wheaten ears, because (bk. 2, ch. 10) [he] says the Israelites then offered to God “the first-fruits of barley.” But [he] affirms indeed barley first-fruits, [and] does not deny wheaten [ones]. But because these [wheaten ears] were only as regards the ears, before the harvest, [he] describes rather those [as] barley [ears], which were already reaped, and whose grains [they] wished commonly to begin to eat. And why [were] these ears from the Nephtalitic tribe? As if Judaea were not more southern and warmer! And as if [there] were need of so many ears, that [it] would behoove to bring [them] from elsewhere! But in Pentecost, again, [there] were wheaten first-fruits — but not in ears, before the harvest, [rather] in breads, after the harvest. But see [the things] which [are] above (ch. 3, part 2, quaest. 5).
Sixthly. Why is the seventh day of the unleavened [breads] called “collecta” [the collect / assembly]? (Cur septimus azymorum dies vocatur collecta?) Various opinions. First. Because on that day [there] were collected the [things] necessary for the expenses of divine worship — D. Thomas (1.2, quaest. 102, art. 4). Second. Because for the sustenance of the poor money was then collected — certain [scholars] in Lyranus [Lyra] (on Lev. 23). Third. Because [there] was then convoked the people, for celebrating the praises of God, by reason of some benefit — Oleaster (Lev. 23). Fourth. Because the fruits of the earth [they] then began to reap and collect—
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—Sigonius (bk. 3, On the Hebrew Republic, ch. 9). Fifth. Because then men gather themselves together — namely, by abstaining the hand from servile works, and by restraining themselves within the enclosures [septa] of the temple-ground — so that [it] is almost nothing other than a “festal day.” And [it] is proved, first, because what [in] Deut. 16 v. 8 is called “collecta,” is elsewhere described [as] “festus dies” [feast-day]: Num. 28 v. 25; Lev. 23 v. 8; Exod. 12 v. 16; and clearly [in] 2 Paral. [Chron.] 7 v. 9 [that] the “collecta” — that is (3 Kings [1 Kgs] 8 v. 65) — is a festal day. Secondly, because the Hebrew name is עצרת [ʿatsereth], which is drawn from “holding-in,” “restraining,” and “circumscribing.” But the same [is] the notation [etymology] of the Greek name ἑορτή [heortē] — namely from εἴργειν [eirgein], which means “to restrain and circumscribe by enclosures.” Thirdly, because therefore this one name our translator seems [to have] rendered by those two [words], “coetus” [gathering] and “collecta” (Lev. 23 v. 36). Fourthly, because [it] is not likely [that] Solomon — who had built the temple [with] such magnificence and opulence, [and] had offered so many and so great hecatombs, and had given [them] to the people — would have wished then straightway to exact a fee from the people, and, in the manner of an innkeeper, to demand at once the price of the banquet given. Fifthly, the old commentators of the Jews teach [that] moneys [were] wont [to be] collected for the uses of the temple, and other public necessities of that kind, on the first day of month 12. Sixthly. Because almost always, where this ʿatsereth is prescribed, [there] is adjoined a certain quasi-exposition, [namely] “that [one] cease from works.” Seventhly. Because thus the Rabbis, and — from our [side] — the good author Paulus Burgensis [Paul of Burgos] (on Lev. 23), and others, teach. Nor does [it] obstruct [this], what the Replicator objects against this [view]: [that] “collecta Domini” [collect of the Lord] is said, not “of the people.” For [it] is “of the Lord,” because in the honor of God, to whom that kind of days is consecrated, it is [made]. Whence also the Hebrew could be rendered “collecta to the Lord” — or “a feast, which is to the Lord for glory.” [Something] else [one] might object: that [some] render that word, [in the] 70 [LXX], always ἐξόδιον [exodion, “a going-out / concluding festival”]. But this is not so much an objection as a question, which has place in any of the higher opinions. For that Greek word signifies either “a going-out” or “a little going-out.” And what [has] that [to do] either with the temple, or with the moneys of the needy? What either with the fruits of the earth, or with the celebration of the divine praises and the keeping of a festal day? For indeed some say [that] it looks to the feast, because the going-out and, as [it were], the coercing and closure of someone’s feast — which is kept for several days — is [that] “exit.” But 2 Paral. [Chron.] 7, [it] was not the exit of that most-celebrated dedication of Solomon, but either the middle, or certainly the beginning, of the posterior week of the encaenia [dedication-feast]. Then, since elsewhere [it] is said only ἐξόδιον, to it is added [in] Deut. 16 [the word] ἑορτή — not so that [it] be ἐξόδιον τῆς ἑορτῆς [exodion tēs heortēs, “the closing of the feast”], the going-out or closure of the feast, but “a going-out and a closing feast.” Yet I see nothing better meanwhile, unless perhaps we should say [that] ἑορτή [was] here added by an epexegesis [explanatory gloss] — so that either the 70 themselves, or certain others in another version or in the margin (whence [it was] afterward brought into the text), wished to explain what would be signified, as much by the Hebrew עצרת [ʿatsereth] as by the Greek ἐξόδιον — namely, nothing else than ἡ ἑορτή [hē heortē], or “a festal day.” Yet this — [namely] that [it] can be the general name of all feasts — sticks properly in some [places]. For commonly today, by “collecta,” the eighth day of Tabernacles is understood by our [writers]; but by the Rabbis today [it] is attributed even to the feast of Pentecost, as [they] say in the canons of the times: “Lest into eternity ʿatsereth עצרת — that is, the day of Pentecost — ever be [on] feria third, fifth, [or] seventh; because, namely, from another canon of theirs, always—
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—[always] on the other paschal feria, which is the 17th day of the first month, [it] is the same feria which [is that] of Pentecost. And [that] this very day of Pentecost [was] affected by the ancients [with] the same appellation, Josephus clearly shows (bk. 3, ch. 10), when [he] writes τῇ πεντηκοστῇ ἣν Ἑβραῖοι ἀσαρθὰ καλοῦσι [tēi pentēkostēi hēn Hebraioi asartha kalousi, “the Pentecost, which the Hebrews call asartha [ʿatsereth]”]. Repeat [see] what [is] in bk. 1, ch. 4, at the extreme [end of] quaest. 11, [noted] against Lydiat.
Seventh. Why [were] seven days of unleavened bread instituted by the Lord, [and] not more or fewer? Just as, in the 40 years in which the Israelites had lived in tabernacles [tents], the Lord instituted the memory [of that] by the seven days of Scenopegia [Tabernacles], so also — [as] a recollection now of the whole time in which, going out of Egypt, [they] had eaten unleavened bread — [he] willed a week of those days. [There] is in that number something of mystery and figure, of which S. Paul (Heb. 4); Nazianzen (oration 44 On Pentecost, & oration On the 7 Maccabees); D. Bernard (sermon 15 on the Canticle); V. Bede (on ch. 6 of Acts); Philo (bk. On the contemplative life); Tacitus (bk. 5 hist.); Censorinus (ch. 5); and several others cited by me (q. 7, on Tob. 12). And even Beza confesses [it] (cited above, q. 3, 1 Cor. 5 v. 8).
5. Whether [it] would be enough, on the days of the unleavened [breads], not to eat leavened [bread]? Two [things there] are which can here be called into question. One, whether [he] would satisfy the precept of unleavened bread who indeed would not eat leavened [zymiten] on those days, but would abstain from each kind of bread? To this Rashi responds [with] three [points]. First: [one] must always abstain from leavened. Second: [it] is necessary to eat unleavened with the paschal lamb. Third: on all the other days, if anyone wishes to take only other foods, [it] is lawful, nor is unleavened necessarily to be joined. Now of these three, the prior two [are] most certain; but the third Abulensis denies (Exod. quaest. 2), and deservedly. For just as [in] Exod. 12 v. 8 & 18 [it] is said, “And they shall eat the flesh that night” (of the 14th, namely, or 15th day) “and unleavened breads” — so also [it] is said (v. 15): “seven days shall ye eat unleavened breads.” Num. 28 v. 17: “seven days shall [one] feed on unleavened [breads].” Deut. 16 v. 8: “six days” (why not “seven” here — [it was] expounded before, q. 4, objection 1) “shalt thou eat unleavened.” And the reason can be taken from the causes of the instituted unleavened [breads] (before, in quaest. 3). The other [thing] is: whether, on those seven days, [it] was lawful to tolerate — or even to look at — leaven or leavened bread in the houses? Indeed truly these are the words of Scripture. Exod. 12 v. 15: “On the first day [there] shall be no leaven in your houses” — [in] Hebrew, “ye shall make leaven cease from your houses.” And v. 19: “seven days leaven shall not be found in your houses.” Ch. 13 v. 7: “nor shall there appear with thee anything leavened, nor in all thy borders” — [in] Hebrew, word for word: “leaven shall not be seen by thee, and old leaven [chametz] shall not be seen by thee in all thy border.” Deuteronomy 16 v. 4, similarly: “leaven shall not appear in all thy borders seven days.” So accurately, namely, and so seriously, did the Lord will the memory of the past bitterness of the ancestors to be renewed and really felt. And this the Jews today still keep so superstitiously that, on the 14th day of the first month, before the hour of the slaying of the lamb has begun, every paterfamilias most diligently goes through his whole house, and — a candle also being lit — most curiously surveys, and searches the corners and all the inner recesses, lest anything of filth or leaven lurk anywhere: almost as the once-mad Roman women in the rites of the foolish Goddess [Bona Dea], while, so that—
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—so that from those [rites] [they] might keep off every male, [they] even covered the images of male brute-animals; and, lest perhaps some male had brought himself into hiding in some hole, [they] most studiously searched all the hollows — as the authors are, in the Roman Questions, Plutarch, Seneca in the epistles, Lactantius, [and] Gyraldus.
6. What sacrifices had to be on those same days? (Quae in iisdem diebus esse debeant sacrificia?) [They] are described clearly enough [in] Numbers 28 v. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. For on each of the days [there] were:
- [Group 1 — the daily offering]: (1) the daily sacrifices — the morning and evening lamb.
- [Group 2 — the festal holocaust]: (2) two bulls, for a holocaust; (3) one ram; (4) seven lambs; (5) fine flour sprinkled with oil; (6) three tenths [of flour], for each bull; (7) two tenths, for the ram; (8) a tenth [each], for each lamb.
- [Group 3 — the sin-offering]: (9) one he-goat, for sin.
7. Whether those who ate the unleavened [breads] had to be pure and undefiled? (An, qui azyma edebant, puri & incontaminati esse debebant?) A twofold opinion. One indeed denies [it] — which, on Matt. 26, Maldonatus embraced. The other affirms [it] — which, in the Catena, D. Thomas [Aquinas], and in him Alcuin, handed down; and indeed, as I think, [it is] more probable. For 1. The Jews “were unwilling to enter Pilate’s praetorium” (John 18 v. 28) “lest they be defiled, but that they might eat the pascha.” Which [pascha]? Not the lamb — because [it] was eaten the day before, as [was] proved above (q. 29). Therefore [they mean] some other foods, not usual and daily — as [is] plain, because otherwise [they] would never [have needed] not to be unclean. But these foods either were the paschal victims, of which [in] the earlier [sub-q] 6 — namely the ram and the 7 lambs, with the he-goat, which by the law (Lev. 6 v. 26) ceded almost wholly to the use of the priests — or [they were] the unleavened [breads]. And indeed so easily, and so aptly, could this name of “pascha” be accommodated to them [these foods] as to the days of unleavened bread, which all — as [was] said (q. 15) — are called “Pascha” (Acts 12), and perhaps (John 18 v. 39). For if those [foods are called] “Pascha” because their beginning is from the eating of the lamb, or because they look to some commemoration of the same thing, why not also those victims? But because [a place] whence [it] could certainly be proved [that] they are so called does not yet appear, [it] will be safer, by that “eating of the pascha,” to understand the eating of the unleavened [breads]. And [it] is confirmed from the Syriac text, in which, word for word, [it] is: “They did not go up into the praetorium” (la-pretorin) “that they might not be polluted, [but] that they might eat those petscha [pascha]” — that is, “while they ate the pascha,” or “as long as they might eat the pascha.” 2. “I would believe [it],” says Maldonatus, “if [it] were proved by any example or authority.” An example, therefore, I give: the solemn formula by which every Jewish paterfamilias, each year, invites and exhorts his domestics to the eating of the unleavened [breads]. In it, clearly, the eating of the unleavened [breads] is called “paschatismus,” and therefore the unleavened [breads] too are “pascha.” And that formula is in Ram[bam] (tom. 1, bk. 3, helacah 1 [Hilkhot…]); and in the great [book] of precepts [Sefer Mitzvot Gadol], in Hilkhoth ha-shevitath chamets & following (fol. 118, 119) — from which some [things], which [are] in the Scaligerian formula (bk. 6, fol. 536), can be corrected; and [that] the Jews call those four cups of wine, which [they] drink up in the paschal supper, also “paschata,” as [was] shown above (q. 24, toward the end). And hence, if the Christian doctors praised at the beginning of the question [Aquinas, Alcuin] be thought not sufficiently suitable, the Rabbis’ [authority] — which, as regards the use of the Hebrew word, especially in a matter which [pertains] to—
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—[which pertains to] the explication of the Christian Gospel avails against them [the Jews] themselves, [and] ought not to be despised (the authority is had, and thus, as regards each [point], [it is] enough, I think, [what] was done by Maldonatus). 3. Yet I add also, of the Innovators, not the authority, but whatever kind of opinion — on account of the other Innovators especially, who fight even against [it]. Junius and Tremellius (on John 18): “Unleavened breads,” [they] say, “God had commanded to be eaten in sanctity for 7 days.” And [they] constitute a synecdoche in that place of John cited before — so that, namely, the unleavened [breads] be called “pascha,” because [they] are a certain part of the paschal supper. 4. When the Apostle says (1 Cor. 5 v. 8): “Therefore let us feast, not in old leaven, nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened [breads] of sincerity and truth” — does [he] not seem to signify [that] the unleavened breads had to be eaten in sanctity? For [he] speaks of the time which [is] straightway after the immolation of the paschal lamb. For therefore, when [he] had said, “Our pascha, CHRIST, is immolated,” [he] subjoined, by way of conclusion, “Therefore.” And, for “let us feast [epulemur],” in Greek [it] is ἑορτάζωμεν [heortazōmen], and in Syriac “the festal day of unleavened [bread].” But to the “leaven of malice,” which is חמץ [chametz], [he] opposes “the unleavened [breads] of sincerity”; and to the “leaven of wickedness,” “the unleavened [breads] of truth” — or, as [it] is in Syriac, “the unleavened [breads] of sanctity.” And the reasoning of the opposition itself so shows [that] “truth” is [to be] taken [thus]; where, in passing, [it] must be noted [that there] is a notable error in the Royal Bibles [Biblia Regia]. For in the Hebrew character placed [for] the text of the Syriac, [it] is “ella ba-chamira” [“but in leaven”], for that which is rightly read in the Syriac itself, “ella ba-patira,” that is, “but in unleavened [breads].” 5. Finally, [it] is confirmed from their solution [of the argument], which [things] bound [convinced] that great man [Maldonatus]. “Neither does the Law,” [he] says, “establish anything about that matter, nor [is it] to be believed [it was] introduced by any tradition of the Jews.” As regards the Law — as [it] is nakedly read in the text — indeed I grant nothing [is] properly commanded about this sanctity of the unleavened [breads]; yet as the law is rightly understood, [it] seems to be generally commanded. For with the unleavened [bread] [there] was something sacred, having a sacred signification, and [they] were as [it were] a certain appendix of the paschal lamb and the other paschal sacrifices. Why, therefore, from their use, would stains and all filth not be kept off? And indeed this still today displays that so great care of the Jews, as great as [they] employ in kneading, cooking, and preserving their unleavened [breads] most purely. For 1. even the most needy most studiously seek out the purest wheat; 2. then [they] store it in sacks cleanly and freshly washed. 3. The millstone by which that [wheat] is to be ground, [they] most diligently cleanse thoroughly; nay, when [it] is lawful, [they] make a new and fresh cutting of it. 4. The flour thence [they] call sacred, and store [it] in the cleanest little sacks. To knead it, two days before the Passover, after the setting of the sun, every paterfamilias draws water from a flowing [source], if [he] can, and keeps [it] in the cleanest vessels. 6. [Those] who otherwise allow their bread to be kneaded by Christian bakers, this one [bread] [they] themselves wish to knead, lest [it] be touched by “profane” hands, as [they] miserably think. 7. When [they] use the ovens of Christians, [they] bring that [bread] to these [ovens] covered with the cleanest little linen cloths. 8. [They] always stand by, until [it] is put into the oven, and as long as [it] remains there and is cooked; and [they] give sedulous care, lest either the Baker, or another, by design or chance, touch those breads even lightly. 9. [Those] taken from the oven again with the cleanest—
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—cloths [they] cover [and] carry home; and thus, as cleanly as [they] can, [they] hide away the food of the whole week. Now since these [things] are nowhere in the law, [that] [they] flourish from tradition among them cannot be doubted. “But [it] would have been,” says the same author [Maldonatus], “intolerable to the Jews, if [they] could eat only unleavened bread [that was] clean — since [they] would be contaminated by so many, so slight, [and] so commonly-occurring things, that scarcely could [they] keep themselves clean for one day; but the days of unleavened bread were seven. In which time whoever would use leavened bread was guilty of death (Exod. 12 v. 15). But if, [being] contaminated, [they] could not eat the unleavened [bread] — since [they] would be contaminated by so frequent and so many things — which, I ask, of men would not, daily, even on the festal days, have to be condemned?” I respond, first: about the entry into the Praetorium, or into a Gentile’s house (John 18) — [it] was not similarly expressly forbidden in the divine precepts, but was a tradition only of the Jews. Secondly: if, in that place of John, the “pascha” were the paschal lamb itself, [they] could have still eaten it then, because — [it being] that morning, as [is] noted there — [it] would have been feasible; but the lamb [it] was lawful to eat toward the evening and at the coming-on of night, as [was] declared above (quaest. 31). But the contamination which arose from the entry of the Praetorium would have been only until evening, so that before this [evening], or in it, [one] could be expiated (Num. 19). [It] would have been another [matter] concerning those contaminations which needed a seven-day lustration, as [was] expounded (quaest. 28). Thirdly. [It] is likely [that] they, in those seven days of caution, employed also more of zeal, lest [it] should happen [that they] be polluted by anything. Fourthly. If, however, any pollution had bound [them] — even [when they were] cautious and unwilling — [there] were various modes by which [they] would be cleansed, as the water of lustration (Num. 19), and so many and so frequent washings of the hands which are employed afterward (Mark 7 v. 3 & 4). Fifthly. [It] is a rule of law [that] “penalties are to be restricted.” But the penalty of death is imposed on those who would use leaven, [but] never on those who would use unleavened bread, [being] pure and clean, though less [so]. [It] is not therefore to be gathered, from the difficult flight of contamination, [that] very many daily had to be condemned to death. Sixthly. And truly, though [they] were guilty of death, [they] did not necessarily have to be punished on the festal days. For [they] could have been struck on those days of unleavened bread which were not festal (above, quaest. 4); or certainly [their] punishment [could] be deferred until the unleavened [days] had elapsed — as, in S. Peter, was done by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12 v. 4). Nay, of those who seemed to violate the ceremonies and worship of God, [the Jews] were led by no religion [scruple], if [they] would exact punishment even on festal days — as [they] did in [the case of] CHRIST the Lord (above, quaest. 29, at [point] 3). For in the Jews machinating death against CHRIST the Lord, [there] was no religion [scruple] so great as Socrates narrates [there] once was to the Athenians (in Plato, Phaedo). For to the Phliasian Echecrates asking why [they] had brought the sentence of death upon him [Socrates], and yet had inflicted death on him only [after] a long time [later], [Socrates] responded [that], since [the Athenians] send a votive ship each year to the Delian Apollo, [they] meanwhile lustrate the city, and put no one to death publicly in all that time in which [the ship] goes and returns — though, on account of the inconstancy of the winds, that [voyage] sometimes was very long. In sum: [that] there is required, for the sanctity of the unleavened [breads]—
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—[for the sanctity of the unleavened breads] was not more intolerable than the other [things] which the Mosaic law commands, of which [in] the cited Author (15).
8. At what time, in the land of promise — [with] Joshua [as] leader — did the Israelites begin to eat unleavened bread and polenta [parched grain]? and what [is] polenta? (Quonam tempore, in terra promissionis, duce Iosue, azymos & polentam edere coeperunt Israelitae? quidque polenta?)
I have made the Joshuan Passover — so that I might pass over hitherto to the whole nature of the Passover and [its] disputation; now I return nearer to that same Joshua, and ask what [it] may be that [in] ch. 5 v. 11 [it] is written: “They ate of the fruits of the land on the second day [die altero], unleavened breads.” Which [is] this “second day”? This [is] omitted in the corrected 70 [LXX], though [it] may be read in certain Greek exemplars. If we consult the text — both ours and the Hebrew — we shall straightway seem to see [it]. The Israelites ate the pascha on the 14th day of the first month, at evening; and “on the second day” [they] ate unleavened [breads]. [Is it] not therefore on the very 15th day? Clearer even [is] the Hebrew, expressly saying “on the morrow of the Passover [postridie paschatis]” — which [pascha], on the 14th, toward evening, had been slain and eaten. Nevertheless, [that it] is rather the 16th, some [things] seem to persuade. First: the 16th day is wont to be called the postridian of the Passover, by that same phrase (as [was] said above, quaest. 4, at objection 5). Secondly: because before the same 16th day [it] was unlawful to feed on new crops, since their first-fruits [were] then offered in the sheaf (as [was] said in the same place). For either the Israelites used old [crops] for those unleavened [breads], or new [ones]. If old, whence did [they] have them? If new, [they] would have committed against the law of first-fruits. Four, therefore, about this matter, [there] are opinions. First: [that it] is the 14th day of the first month. So, in his Calendar, the Samaritans, as indeed Scaliger relates (bk. 3, Isagog. p. 219). The second opinion is [that it] is the 15th day. So, of our [writers], Abulensis (ch. 5, after quaest. 67), and Arias Montanus; of the Rabbis, Radak, and several others; and the more ancient in the Jerusalem Talmud (Seder 1, Masechta 9, ch. 2, folio 38). The third [is] [that it] is the 16th day. So, of our [writers], Lyranus [Lyra] seems to feel, when [he] wishes the polenta which is here added to the unleavened breads to be from new grains — “of which the solemnity would be made,” as [he] says, [namely] “the paschal oblation,” on the 16th day. But of the Rabbis, so clearly feel Ralbag [R. Levi ben Gershon] and several others, and the Babylonian Talmud itself (in the Massechet Rosh Hashanah, ch. 1); and, following these, Calvin (on this place, fol. 21), [and] Scaliger (Isagog. bk. 3, part 2, [p.] 19). The fourth, finally, [is] the opinion of Masius, sustaining the assent and opinion [of no one firmly]: “Which,” [he] says, “opinion is truer, I confess to be uncertain to me, and therefore I leave the matter in the middle.” And truly the same [opinion] I would reckon [is why] the Fathers, among the ancients, left [it] — S. Augustine, Theodoret, Origen, Rupert — and even Josephus himself, perhaps, someone might suspect. Yet I would rather estimate the cause of the 70’s own silence [to be that] of which [I spoke] a little before. But why these were silent, I have nothing to affirm. For perhaps [they] did not read this in the Hebrew; perhaps [they] read [it], but had some cause of being silent; or [they] did not indeed keep silent, but — which I judge truer — [it] fell out from their translation. But among those three opinions, I take the middle. So that here the order of the transacted things was [this]: On the 15th, toward evening, the Israelites had eaten the lamb, and with it unleavened breads, which [they made] either from manna — of which [there] was nothing of leaven — or from old crops, which [they] had brought with them, some from beyond-Jordan—
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—[some from beyond-Jordan] they had prepared. And because, as [was] said above, this paschal supper — Judaically taken — looked to the 15th day, in the rest of the food which on that same evening could follow the lamb, and which was taken through the whole 15th day, [they] employed the same unleavened [breads] as [they employed] their usual manna. On the 16th day descended, in the accustomed manner, the manna; and the first-fruits of that day’s crops [were] solemnly offered to God Most High and Best; and straightway — the sickles being thrust into the ripe harvest, of which, to them, from the regions a little before conquered beyond the Jordan, the supply was not lacking — [they] began, from those same day’s crops, to prepare unleavened breads and polenta. But [that] all these [things] are rightly and in order said, I show — because Scripture proposes this eating of unleavened bread and polenta as [it were] something new, and from new crops. For when, above (ch. 3 v. 15) [it] had said [there] was a harvest, and now [it] says [they] ate “of the fruits” — not simply “of the land,” but, as in the Hebrew the prefixed [article] he indicates, and in Greek the article, “of that land” — [it] indicates sufficiently [that] these were new [crops], and not brought from beyond-Jordan, but there born and collected fruits. Then, so that all handle of doubting be cut off, the 70 themselves, for “polenta,” put νέα [nea], that is, “new crops”: ἐφάγοσαν ἀπὸ σίτου τῆς γῆς ἄζυμα καὶ νέα [ephagosan apo sitou tēs gēs azyma kai nea], that is, “They ate of the wheat of the land unleavened [breads] and new [grains].” Nor does anything effect [contradict] against [this] the ingenious etymology of Radak, [that] the word עבור [ʿavur] (by which word [Scripture] denotes those crops, v. 11, and once, v. 12) signifies “the crops of the past year,” since עבר [ʿavar] is “to pass” and “to pass over.” For that word signifies generally every kind of grain, whether [it] be old or new — as, first, from the Targum [it] is understood (Isa. 28; and 4 Kings [2 Kgs] 18), where for “degan” is put “hibura”; secondly, from the 70, who here render [it] σῖτον [siton, “wheat”], and from these Josephus (bk. 5, ch. 1); thirdly, from Josephus translated into the Chaldaean tongue, in which “hibura” always stands for every kind of grain; fourthly, from the opinion of other Rabbis, who — against Radak himself — attribute to that name a general notion; fifthly, if [we are] to deal with etymologies (of which above, quaest. 1, at argument 3), we can bring other [etymologies] no less probable. For [it] can be said [that] by that name [is meant] grain — either “from passing-over,” because, namely, [the seed] committed to the earth by men passes as [it were] through it, and returns again to the same [men] with multiplied interest [foenore]; or “from impregnating and making-gravid.” For this signification of that Hebrew verb too is most common, as Elias explains in the Thisbi: so that, as long as an infant is in the mother’s womb, [it] is called “hober,” and a pregnant woman “mehubereth [meʿubbereth]” — nay, “scanah,” or the embolic [intercalary] year, as [it were] (as [he] says, bk. 7, folio 298). Scaliger [holds] that the intercalary month bears itself within itself as a pregnant woman [carries] a foetus in the womb; and that same embolism [is called] “hibbur” by him, as [it were] from [its] chief part, [being] the whole computation of the Hebrews. Now indeed — does not Tullius [Cicero] (2nd [book] On laws, at the end) say [that] “the earth bears crops, and, as a mother, supplies foods”? And again (bk. 2 On the nature of the gods): “The earth,” [he] says, “gravid with seeds, brings forth and pours out all [things] from itself.” Because, therefore, among all [things] which the pregnant earth thus brings forth and pours from itself, grain is held [to be] the most excellent and most necessary, therefore [it is called] “univer—
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—[universal-]ly that Hebrew name receives [i.e. grain gets its name from being “general”]. And perhaps from that very Hebrew — the first letter, [being] heavier and more difficult, cast off, as [is] wont to be done — [there was] made the Greek βρῶσις [brōsis] and βρόω [broō], and likewise the German “Brod” [bread]; though [it] be from “barah,” which is “to eat,” and from “baruth,” which is “food” — [these] I would prefer. But besides these [things] — lest [one] think [that] the legitimate time of the first-fruits [was] anticipated by eating [before it] — [I am] much moved by the authority of Joshua himself: [his] most-recent ingress into the promised land, and that so wonderful and happy; the most-recent circumcision, and the keeping of the Passover — and nowhere [is there] even the least sub-indicated reproof. For, the law of first-fruits being neglected, they would have sinned against God; and would Joshua not have turned aside a public crime of this kind, lest [it] be admitted? [Would he] not, [it] being admitted, have sharply castigated and severely punished [it]? Finally, for this opinion stands the Chaldaic Paraphrase [Targum], saying [that] these [things were] done “after the day of the good, or festal, Passover.”
But what polenta may be, I have said (Judith 10, quaest. 3). But note, in the more ancient editions of Lyra — for example, the Strasbourg of the year 1501 — [it] is here called “granatum” [grained], because [it] is made from grains recently threshed out; but in the later [editions] — for example, the Lyons of the year 1548 — that [word] is omitted, and in its place is substituted “polenta.” For polenta [is] “toasted meal [tostum far]”: for [it] is made from ears, or from their grains, toasted by fire — and indeed with much still greater speed than unleavened [breads] are made. [It] can be seen [in] bk. 18, ch. 7 & 8, Pliny; Seneca (epistle 18, bk. 2); and [in] Ruth ch. 2, quaest. 25.
But the land is here called “of Canaan” by the 70: γῆ τῶν φοινίκων [gē tōn phoinikōn], Exod. 16 v. 35: τῆς φοινίκης [tēs phoinikēs]. Whence, in Origen (hom. 46), and others, some interpreters render [it] “the region of the palms”; nor badly — and indeed from the mind of Origen himself, who wove an allegory thence. But see ch. 2, quaest. 4; ch. 1, quaest. 5, & following.