Because the wretched Jews lack the city of Jerusalem and the temple — [and] the Lamb, to which, as [was] expounded above (question 25), that place [Temple] was owed — [they] do not sacrifice, nor eat the [lamb] (either [as if] quasi-sacrificed in the old manner, or even whole, on one night, according to the rule which Abulensis noted, on Exod. 12, quaest. 44); but [rites] which are tied to no place, partly old, partly new, and devised by the Rabbis, [they] observe. These rites of theirs I will briefly throw together into one little table [tabellam], as [it were].
1. Before the Passover, 8 or 10 days [before], every paterfamilias prepares for himself the cleanest wheat for the unleavened [breads], and puts it in excellently-washed sacks; [and] takes care to grind [it] with a millstone recently cut and thoroughly cleansed. “The Jewish nation,” says St. Augustine (on Psalm 39 [40]), “today subjected to Roman law, is still with the sign of circumcision and of unleavened [breads], as [was] Cain.”
2. In the week before the Passover, [they] cleanse the whole household furniture; [and] at the Passover [they] use not the whole [set], but proper vessels, as [it were] dedicated to that day.
3. Whatever of silver and pewter dishes [lances], little bowls [capedunculae], and platters [scutellae] they have — if indeed [it] be not battered and broken — [they] give effort that [it] may shine: this [they] carry to their Rabbi, that [he] may see whether all [things] be clean and whole enough for the paschal banquets. He attentively looks [them] round, turns [them], and turns [them] again; and if [he] judges [them] clean and whole enough, [he] arranges [them] in a spotted net, like a fisherman’s [net], and so throws [them] into a bronze [vessel] set over the fire, and straightway draws [them] out, and pours cold [water] over [them], saying three times, “Iustum, iustum, iustum!” [Clean, clean, clean!]. Nor, however, [are they] content with this so great censure: but to the water — if any flowing [water] be near — [they] carry them, and immerse [them] three times in it.
4. Two days before the Passover, at sunset, every paterfamilias draws flowing water — if indeed [he] can [do it] by himself — and carries [it] home, and keeps [it] cleanly.
5. [They] sweep the houses with the greatest zeal and care — so much that the paterfamilias lights a candle, and curiously surveys all the corners of the house, lest anything of filth reside anywhere. If perchance [he] find any [filth], [he] collects [it], and commands [it] be given to Vulcan [fire], that [it] be reduced into ash.
6. On the day before the Passover, from that clean flour of which I spoke [in] number 1, and from the water of which [in point] 4, unleavened breads are made — and indeed by the Father of each family, as many as [he] reckons necessary for his whole family for the solid week. From the same mass of unleavened [breads] too, three cakes [liba] are prepared, which are called by them “sacred [sacra].”
7. On the same day, toward evening, the Passover begins; and while [it is] still faintly light [dubia luce], [with] the garments which each one has—
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—[the garments which each one has], adorned [with] the best, [they] approach their synagogue; [they] joyfully sing together the Eucharistic song to God — that before the other peoples [they] are chosen by God, [and] that [he] has granted [them] to arrive at this joyful feast, on which [is] the anniversary memory of the liberation from Egypt. Etc.
8. Returned home from the Synagogue, [they] clothe themselves in white; [they] enter the dining-room [triclinium], which, according to each one’s means, is spread with a varied tapestry and adorned all around — as also [is] the silk[-covered] table, beside which [there are] couches likewise [covered] with silks, and covered with cushions interwoven with gold. These [couches] they call “Messibboth” [mesubbin]. With many lamps [they] light up all [things]. Then onto the table those three unleavened cakes [liba], of which [in point] Num. [6], are brought, and likewise a portion of roast lamb, [and] bitter herbs with salt water. First the men sit [down]; then to each woman [there] is her own cup, and that — if by [their] means [it] be permitted — golden, or silver. And wine, only red (as I said above, quaest. 24), is ready.
9. [They] repeat that Eucharistic song which was sung in the synagogue; after the end of which, [they] all recline on those spread couches, and, with great reverence, each will drink up his own cup.
10. The paterfamilias, [his] hands washed, breaks one of the three cakes placed before [him] into two parts, one of which [he] places back in the middle of the table, [and] the other [he] hides under the cushion of his couch. [He] takes some of the bitter herbs, and dips [them] into salt water. Then [he] himself eats first, with great reverence and attention; then [he] offers [them] to all, that [they] may eat. [He] who eats more of those [herbs] is held [to be] holier by them. The two remaining cakes — one of which [is] placed upon the other — [they] all lift up on high, and with a great and sonorous voice cry out: “This is that wretched bread which our fathers ate in Egypt. [Those] who hunger, as [they did] then, let [them] come and eat. He who has need of it, let him come to this feast. It has come, and now the salutary year is present in the land of Israel. Once we were servants; but now [we are] free.” Other similar [things they] go on to say; and at last [they] gently let those cakes down into the middle of the table.
11. All afterward, young and old, wash [their] hands. For this feast requires a twofold washing, according to their canon: לטבול שני במרור [litvol shenei bi-merorim], that is, “A twofold baptism [washing] is to be employed in the bitterness” — or, while the bitter herbs are eaten.
12. From the two cakes still whole, the paterfamilias takes that which [is] placed upon the other; and breaks it, giving thanks to God with the family, that [he] has deigned to grant this to them to be eaten. Of this broken [cake] now [he] joins a part with the exposed part of the middle cake broken before; from these so joined [he] bites off only as much as [he] can. All [do] the same after him.
13. The third cake at last, which [was] remaining whole, [he] takes, and breaks, as [he did] from the other; and from it, with bitter herbs, [he] eats; then onto the cushion of the couch, with great joy, [he] reclines himself. Likewise also all [do the same].
14. Then with other common foods, which [they] have prepared for that supper, [they] feed; but always together with unleavened bread, as also [through] that whole seven-day [period].
15. Toward the end of the supper, the paterfamilias [takes] the hidden—
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—[cake] under the cushion of the middle cake, [and] brings [it] forth; and gives a little bit of it to all to eat. [He] who wishes to eat a larger bit is reckoned by them [to be] about to receive a larger reward in paradise. For after this little morsel of unleavened bread, [it] is unlawful to drink anything, so that that sad and insipid savor of dry unleavened [bread] may remain in the mouth. And the canon of the Passover, among the Rabbis, established: אסור לאכל בלום אחר בוס הלל [asur le-echol blum achar…], that is, “It is forbidden to eat anything after the ‘people of praise’ [or the hymn]” — which was the last, of which [in] question 24 & 34.
16. Each takes into [his] hands the book of psalms and prayers; and meanwhile the paterfamilias orders the doors of the dining-room to be opened: before which is seen a certain [figure], masked, sitting on some ass [or other], to whom this [part] of the duty is imposed. For [they] believe the Messiah [will be] about to sit on an ass (from Zachariah 9), and by this rite [they] signified [it]; and then with a clear voice [they] cry out against us Christians, from Psalm 78 [79]: “Pour out thy wrath upon the nations which have not known thee.” [They] recite afterward Psalm 113 [114], “In the going-out of Israel”; and thereupon the following Psalms up to Psalm 117 [118], which begins “Confitemini Domino, quoniam bonus [Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good]”; [and] that verse [of it], “Benedictus, qui venit in nomine Domini [Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord].” For when [they] arrive at this [verse], all rise up, and sing it [with] a more elevated voice — [with] a great tumult, praying to God concerning Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the temple, and other similar [things].
17. While these so many [things] are being done, the night nearly passes to [its] middle; and then [they] betake themselves to their spread [couches], and on them [they] wanton then with the greatest lust — because each persuades himself [that] the Messiah, so long awaited in vain, could that night be generated by him. For — O blind and unhappy nation! — when that oracle (of which [was] said, quaest. 38) had been received from the greater [ancestors], by their [forebears] who from Moses up to the times of CHRIST the Lord existed — namely, [that] on the very paschal day true liberty [was] to be given by the Messiah — [the nation] does not wish [to acknowledge] that which was done on that day (namely, the passion of the true Messiah), nor to recognize our liberation through him from the devil’s tyranny; but to the asinine mask commemorated above (Num. 16), to the impure and insane “bed-wrestlings” [clinopalas] of this night, [it] has most wretchedly and most foolishly slipped down.
18. The same [things] nearly all [they] renew on the following light [day], lest anything be omitted by any negligence or ignorance. And to the prescribed seven days of unleavened [bread] [they] add an eighth, against Deuteronomy 4 v. 2: “Ye shall not add to the word which I speak to you, nor take away from it.” And these [things], in the Talmud [of] Rambam, in the great book of precepts, [one] can see nearly all. Whence Scaliger too tasted some [of them] (bk. 6 On the emendation of times, p. 534, & following). But of the Passover and the unleavened [breads, enough] hitherto. But all these [things] explains — and accommodates [them] to the mystery of the most holy sacrament, that [it] may be piously and usefully received — John Pfefferkorn, once a Jew, in a booklet which [was] printed at Cologne in the year 1509. Which [book], if that religious and Christian man had taken [it] up, [he] would have obtained a better end than “Halla” obtained, in the year of the Lord 1514, in the month of September.