Letter LV.
Or Book II. of Replies to Questions of Januarius.
(a.d. 400.)
Chap. I.
1. Having read the letter in which you have put me
in mind of my obligation to give answers to the remainder of those
questions which you submitted to me a long time ago, I cannot bear
to defer any longer the gratification of that desire for
instruction which it gives me so much pleasure and comfort to see
in you; and although encompassed by an accumulation of engagements, I have given the first place to the work of supplying you with the answers desired. I will make no further comment on the contents of your letter, lest my doing so should prevent me from paying at length what I owe.
2. You ask, “Wherefore does the anniversary
on which we celebrate the Passion of the Lord not fall, like the
day which tradition has handed down as the day of His birth, on the
same day every year?” and you add, “If the reason of this is
connected with the week and the month, what have we to do with the
day of the week or the state of the moon in this solemnity?” The
first thing which you must know and remember here is, that the
observance of the Lord’s natal day is not sacramental, but only
commemorative of His birth, and that therefore no more was in this
case necessary, than that the return of the day on which the event
took place should be marked by an annual religious festival. The
celebration of an event becomes sacramental in its nature, only
when the commemoration of the event is so ordered that it is
understood to be significant of something which is to be received
with reverence as sacred. Therefore we observe Easter in such a
manner as not only to recall the facts of the death and
resurrection of Christ to remembrance, but also to find a place for
all the other things which, in connection with these events, give
evidence as to the import of the sacrament. For since, as the
apostle wrote, “He was delivered for our offences, and was raised
again for our justification,” a certain transition from death to
life has been consecrated in that Passion and Resurrection of the
Lord. For the word Pascha itself is not, as is commonly thought, a
Greek word: those who are acquainted with both languages affirm it
to be a Hebrew word. It is not derived, therefore, from the
Passion, because of the Greek word πάσχειν, signifying to suffer, but it takes
its name from the transition, of which I have spoken, from death to
life; the meaning of the Hebrew word Pascha being, as those who are
acquainted with it assure us, a passing over or transition. To
this the Lord Himself designed to allude, when He said,” He that
believeth in Me is passed from death to life.” And the same evangelist who
records that saying is to be understood as desiring to give
emphatic testimony to this, when, speaking of the Lord as about to
celebrate with His disciples the passover, at which He instituted
the sacramental supper, he says, “When Jesus knew that His hour
was come, that He should depart from this world unto the
Father.” This
passing over from this mortal life to the other, the immortal life, that is, from death to life, is set forth in the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord.
Chap. II.