THE OLD NEW ENGLAND THANKSGIVING

An extract from: THANKSGIVING: ITS ORIGIN, CELEBRATION AND SIGNIFICANCE AS RELATED IN PROSE AND VERSE, 

EDITED BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER, NEW YORK,

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY, Copyright 1907

THE OLD NEW ENGLAND THANKSGIVING

By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

The king and high priest of all festivals was the autumn Thanksgiving. When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labors of the season were done, and the warm, late days of Indian Summer came in, dreamy, and calm, and still, with just enough frost to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm traces of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of spirit, — a sense of something accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance, — and the deacon began to say to the minister, of a Sunday, " I suppose it's about time for the Thanksgiving proclamation."

Winston Churchill speaks on American Independence Day in 1918

Extracted from:  A Declaration of Interdependence, Commemoration in London in 1918 of the 4th of July, 1776. Resolutions and addresses at the Central hall, Westminster, with an introduction by George Haven Putnam; THE LIBRARY OF WAR LITERATURE, 511 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

Mr. Winston Churchill:

We are, as the Chairman has stated, met here to-day in the City of Westminster to celebrate the hundred and forty-second anniversary of American Independence. We are met also, as he has reminded you, as brothers in arms, facing together grave injuries and perils, and passing through a period of exceptional anxiety and suffering. Therefore we seek to draw from the past history of our race inspiration and encouragement which will cheer our hearts and fortify and purify our resolution and our comradeship. A great harmony exists between the Declaration of Independence and all we are fighting for now. A similar harmony exists between the principles of that Declaration and what the British Empire has wished to stand for and has at last achieved, not only here at home, but in the great self-governing Dominions through the world. The Declaration of Independence is not only an American document; it follows on Magna Charta and the Petition of Right as the third of the great title deeds on which the liberties of the English-speaking race are founded. By it we lost an Empire, but by it we also preserved an Empire. By applying these principles and learning this lesson we have maintained unbroken communion with those powerful Commonwealths which our children have founded and have developed beyond the seas, and which, in this time of stress, have rallied spontaneously to our aid. The political conceptions embodied in the Declaration of Independence are the same as those which were consistently expressed at the time by Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke and by many others who had in turn received them from John Hampden and Algernon Sidney. They spring from the same source; they come from the same well of practical truth, and that well, ladies and gentlemen, is here, by the banks of the Thames in this famous Island, which we have guarded all these years, and which is the birthplace and the cradle of the British and the American race. It is English wisdom, it is that peculiar political sagacity and sense of practical truth, which animates the great document in the minds of all Americans to-day. Wherever men seek to frame polities or constitutions which are intended to safeguard the citizen, be he rich or be he poor, on the one hand from the shame of despotism, on the other from the misery of anarchy, which are devised to combine personal liberty with respect for law and love of country — wherever these desires are sincerely before the makers of constitutions or laws, it is to this original inspiration, this inspiration which was the product of English soil, which was the outcome of the Anglo-Saxon mind, that they will inevitably be drawn.

We therefore feel no sense of division in celebrating this anniversary. We join in perfect sincerity and in perfect simplicity with our American kith and kin in commemorating the auspicious and glorious establishment of their nationhood. We also, we British who have been so long in the struggle, also express our joy and gratitude for the mighty and timely aid which America has brought and is bringing to the Allied Cause. When I have seen during the last few weeks the splendour of American manhood striding forward on all the roads of France and Flanders, I have experienced emotions which words cannot describe. We have suffered so much in this country — and in gallant France they have suffered still more — that we can feel for others. There are few homes in Britain where you will not find an empty chair and aching hearts, and we feel in our own sorrow a profound sympathy with those across the Atlantic whose dear ones have travelled so far to face dangers we know only too well. Not British hearts only, but Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African hearts [A voice: "And Indian too"], beat in keen common sympathy with them. And Indian hearts as well. All who have come across the great expanses of the ocean to take part in this conflict feel in an especial degree a sympathy, an intense and comprehending sympathy, with the people of the United States, who have to wait through these months of anxiety for the news of battle.

The greatest actions of men or of nations are spontaneous and instinctive. They do not result from nice calculations of profit and loss, or long balancing of doubtful opinions. They happen as if they could not help happening. The heart, as the French say, has reasons which the reason does not know. I am persuaded that the finest and worthiest moment in the history of Britain was reached on that August night, now nearly four years ago, when we declared war on Germany. Little could we know where it would carry us, or what it would bring to us. Like the United States, we entered the war a peaceful nation, utterly unprepared for aggression in any form; like the United States, we entered the war without counting the cost, and without seeking any reward of any kind. The cost has been more terrible than our most sombre expectations would have led us to imagine, but the reward which is coming is beyond the fondest dreams and hopes we could have cherished.

What is the reward of Britain? What is the priceless, utterly unexpected reward that is coming to us surely and irresistibly in consequence of our unstudied and unhesitating response to the appeals of Belgium and of France? Territory, indemnities, commercial advantages — what are they? They are matters utterly subordinate to the moral issues and moral consequences of this war. Deep in the hearts of the people of this Island, deep in the hearts of those whom the Declaration of Independence styles "our British brethren," lay the desire to be truly reconciled before all men and before all history with their kindred across the Atlantic Ocean; to blot out the reproaches and redeem the blunders of a bygone age, to dwell once more in spirit with our kith and kin, to stand once more in battle at their side, to create once more a true union of hearts, to begin once more to write a history in common. That was our heartfelt desire, but it seemed utterly unattainable — utterly unattainable, at any rate, in periods which the compass of our short lives enabled us to consider. One prophetic voice [Admiral Sims] predicted with accents of certitude the arrival of a day of struggle which would find England and the United States in battle side by side; but for most of us it seemed that this desire of union and of reconciliation in sentiment and in heart would not be achieved within our lifetime. But it has come to pass. It has come to pass already, and every day it is being emphasized and made more real and more lasting! However long the struggle may be, however cruel may be the sufferings we have to undergo, however complete may be the victory we shall win, however great may be our share in it, we seek no nobler reward than that. We seek no higher reward than this supreme reconciliation. That is the reward of Britain. That is the lion's share.

A million American soldiers are in Europe. They have arrived safely and in the nick of time. Side by side with their French and British comrades, they await at this moment the furious onslaught of the common foe, and that is an event which in the light of all that has led up to it, and in the light of all that must follow from it, seems — I say it frankly — to transcend the limits of purely mundane things. It is a wonderful event; it is a prodigious event; it is almost a miraculous event. It fills us, it fills me, with a sense of the deepest awe. Amid the carnage and confusion of the immense battlefield, amid all the grief and destruction which this war is causing and has still to cause, there comes over even the most secularly-minded of us a feeling that the world is being guided through all this chaos to something far better than we have ever yet enjoyed. We feel in the presence of a great design of which we only see a small portion, but which is developing and unfolding swiftly at this moment, and of which we are the honoured servants and the necessary instruments in our own generation. No event, I say, since the beginning of the Christian era has been more likely to strengthen and restore faith in the moral governance of the Universe than the arrival from the other end of the world of these mighty armies of deliverance. One has a feeling that it is not all a blind struggle; it is not all for nothing. Not too late is the effort; not in vain do heroes die.

There is one more thing I ought to say, and it is a grave thing to say. The essential purposes of this war do not admit of compromise. If we were fighting merely for territorial gains, or were engaged in a domestic, dynastic, or commercial quarrel, no doubt these would be matters to be adjusted by bargaining. But this war has become an open conflict between Christian civilization and scientific barbarism. The line is clearly drawn between the nations where the peoples own the governments and the nations where the governments own the peoples. Our struggle is between systems which faithfully endeavor to quell and quench the brutish, treacherous, predatory promptings of human nature, and a system which has deliberately fostered, organized, armed, and exploited these promptings to its own base aggrandizement. We are all erring mortals. No race, no country, no individual, has a monopoly of good or of evil, but face to face with the facts of this war, who can doubt that the struggle in which we are engaged is in reality a struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil? It is a struggle between right and wrong, and as such it is not capable of any solution which is not absolute. Germany must be beaten; Germany must know that she is beaten; Germany must feel that she is beaten. Her defeat must be expressed in terms and facts which will, for all time, deter others from emulating her crime, and will safeguard us against; their repetition.

But, Ladies and Gentlemen, the German people have at any rate this assurance: that we claim for ourselves no natural or fundamental right that we shall not be obliged and even willing in all circumstances to secure for them. We cannot treat them as they have treated Alsace-Lorraine or Belgium or Russia, or as they would treat us all if they had the power. We can not do it, for we are bound by the principles for which we are fighting. We must adhere to those principles. They will arm our fighting strength, and they alone will enable us to use with wisdom and with justice the victory which we shall gain. Whatever the extent of our victory, these principles will protect the German people. The Declaration of Independence and all that it implies must cover them. When all those weapons in which German militarists have put their trust have broken in their hands, when all the preparations on which they have lavished the energies and the schemes of fifty years have failed them, the German people will find themselves protected by those simple elemental principles of right and freedom against which they will have warred so long in vain. So let us celebrate to-day not only the Declaration of Independence, but let us proclaim the true comradeship of Britain and America and their determination to stand together until the work is done, in all perils, in all difficulties, at all costs, wherever the war may lead us, right to the very end. No compromise on the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong — that is the Declaration of July 4th, 1918; that is the Declaration which I invite you to make in common with me, and, to quote the words which are on every American's lips to-day, "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."

The Unknown Dead: A Decoration Day address

The Unknown Dead
A Decoration Day address (1912) in Littleton, N.H.
by John Edgar Johnson. Capt. & A. Q. M., U. S. V.

The leading purpose for which the Grand Army was organized, as set forth in its first prospectus, was the annual decoration of the graves of Union Soldiers. No such organization had ever existed before, or could have existed before, for the simple reason that nowhere in history is there any record of soldiers having been carefully buried in separate graves, with head-stones to mark them, until the United States Government made such, provision for its fallen heroes in the War for the Union. All the soldiers of Alexander the Great; all the soldiers of Caesar; all of those of Charlemagne, and of Napoleon were buried in unknown graves. Three thousand of General Washington's soldiers died and were buried that winter at Valley Forge, but only two graves are now pointed out there, and one of these is of a commissioned officer and the other is of a dog. The round globe itself is a vast mausoleum to the Unknown Dead — and old ocean is another.

John Edgar Johnson

But at the close of our Civil War the National Government not only gathered upon the battlefields of the South the remains of all Northern soldiers that could be identified, and had them re-interred in various cemeteries reverently set apart for that purpose, but it also erected in the great cemetery at Arlington Heights, near Washington, a profoundly impressive monument to "The Unknown Dead," beneath which lie buried the miscellaneous remains, impossible of identification, of a great number of those who fell fighting for liberty and their native land.

I suppose it was that Memorial which suggested so many of a like character all over the country. Visitors at Arlington invariably stand with bowed head beside it, and the tears of a sympathetic nation have fallen here as scarcely anywhere else on the continent. It appeals to the pity and the pathos and the patriotism of the Nation.

And now I venture to call attention to a distinction, not too fine perhaps, which may be drawn between “nameless graves" and "unknown dead."

Uncertainty attaches itself more particularly to the living than it does to the dead. Death is revelation. At death the scales drop from our eyes. We leave our death-mask behind us when we pass out of the body. Yonder we stand exposed and confessed to ourselves, to our fellow-men and to our Creator.

We are sometimes asked if we believe we shall recognize our friends in another world. Why we are never sure of them until we get there.

A monument to an "Unknown God," or to "Unknown Friends," I can understand, but a monument to the "Unknown Dead" is a misnomer. What does it signify whether the dead are unknown to us or not. The sun in the heavens is unknown to a mole in your garden. Here we see through a glass darkly; yonder they see face to face. Here we know in part; there they know even as they are known. The things we now see are fleeting shadows; the things seen beyond the veil are the substantial facts and eternal verities of the universe.

We talk much, for instance, about the Grand Army. Where is it? Is this the Grand Army; this corporal's guard of old men who once a year feebly grope their way to the graves of their comrades all over the country to decorate them with flowers? Ah, no! They are the Rear Guard of a great host who have marched on ahead. The Grand Army has passed over. It has forded the river and pitched its tents on the grand camping grounds beyond the grave.

There is a pious legend of an old monk who, wasted by fasting, sought the chapel of his monastery one day late in Lent, and there, with others, engaged in meditations. The walls of the chapel were covered with frescoes illustrating its history from its foundation centuries before. Among the figures there were not a few of those who had fought the good fight of faith and purchased the halo of the saint.

Overcome by his austerities, the aged man half fainted; passed, in fact, into the state of coma. He seemed to himself to be disembodied. He saw his own figure and those of his companions around him, like so many marble statues fixed and lifeless, while the frescoed images on the walls appeared to be moving about and conversing with one another.

He was soon discovered in his swoon, and carried to his cell, where he was resuscitated.

Now on Decoration Day old soldiers "dream dreams and see visions." Everything inverts itself. The earth mirrors itself in the skies. The Grand Army is on high, looking down upon us. They are the living heroes, and we are the lifeless figures on the ground.

When, from time to time, the roll is called up yonder, they who are there are reckoned "present." We who are here are "absent" or "missing," or, perchance, we may be written down as of whereabouts unknown or as unaccounted for.

But we, too, are moving onward and upward. We shall soon join the main column.

And what a day it will be over there when the "last survivor," as we lifeless mortals sometimes foolishly phrase it, shall cross over, ascend the bank on the other side, and close the long roll call with his "Here!"

Will it be in the feeble squeaking voice of an old man — a Veteran — or will it be in trumpet tones, echoing and re-echoing along all the arches of the universe?

I love to think of this "last man," clad once more in immortal youth, mounting up on high, leading captivity captive, falling into line and filling the last gap in the serried ranks of the reunited Union Army. That will be a Reunion and Review the glory of which is beyond the power of the imagination to conceive.

What a scene it will be! All heaven will be there to behold it. In the foreground will stand Father Abraham waiting to clasp this last man by the hand.

General Grant will be there, and the "silent man" will find his tongue, at last and shout "Hosannah!" General Sherman will be there — Old Tecumseh — who could talk almost as well as he could fight. He will "make a few remarks," no doubt. General Sheridan will be there— "Fighting Phil"—half horse and half man; as near a centaur as anything ever was.

General Custer will be there. How well we remember him at the Great Review at Washington at the close of the war. As he approached the grandstand his horse ran away with him — back along the lines. He conquered it, and when he came up again (his long, yellow hair streaming over his shoulders) and saluted the President and the rest of the reviewing officers, what a yell rent the air from that vast multitude. I can hear it now, although it is many a day since I last heard even the roll of heaven's artillery in a thunderstorm. That was, indeed the Grand Army.

But as the ranks thin here they swell yonder, and the Final Review and Reunion is not far distant. “How the banners will wave on that great day! How the flags will flutter! How the drums will roll! How the fifes will shriek! How the bands will play "When Johnnie Comes Marching Home"!

Then "the peace which passeth all understanding" will settle down upon the universe.

"The war drums will throb no longer and the battle flags will be furled." There will be no more death and no more darkness, but all will be life and light unending.

We shall see eye to eye finally and forever; and there will be no "Unknown Dead," for we shall all have arrived, at last, in "The Land of the Living."

A look at Easter Circa 325 A.D.

 

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA: On the Celebration of the Pascha

Translated by Andrew Eastbourne

 

It would perhaps not be inappropriate here again to discuss the Pascha, which was handed down long ago[1] to the children of the Hebrews as an image. Now then, when the Hebrews, performing "shadows of things to come,"[2] first used to celebrate the festival of Phasek,[3] they would take for themselves a young domestic animal (this was a lamb or a sheep[4]). Next, they would sacrifice this animal themselves; and then, with the blood, everyone would first anoint the lintels and door-posts of their own homes, bloodying the thresholds and houses to ward off the destroyer.[5] The flesh of the lamb, on the other hand, they would use for food; and girding up their loins with a belt, partaking of the nourishment of un-leavened bread, and serving themselves bitter herbs, they would "pass over" from one place to another—[meaning,] the [journey] from the land of Egypt to the wilderness.[6] It had been enjoined by Law that they do this, along with the slaughter and eating of the lamb. Hence, the passing over out of Egypt produced[7] for them the name of the "Passover."[8] But these things happened to them by way of a type; and they were written down for our sake.[9] Indeed, Paul [implicitly] gives this interpretation, revealing the truth of the ancient symbols, when he says, "For indeed, Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed."[10] And the reason for his being sacrificed is presented by the Baptist, when he says, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."[11] The Savior's body,[12] you see, was handed over to death as a sacrificial victim to ward off all evils: In the manner of a purificatory ritual, it took away the sin of the whole world. That is why Isaiah cried out clearly, "This one bears our sins, and suffers pain on our behalf."[13]
 

When we are nourished by the rational[14] flesh of this sacrificial Savior,[15] who rescued the entire human race by his own blood—that is, when we are nourished by his teachings and discourses, which announce the kingdom of heaven—then we are rightly luxuriating with the luxury[16] that is in accordance with God. But in addition to this, when we mark the houses of our souls, that is, our bodies, by faith in his blood, which he gave as a ransom in exchange for our salvation, we drive away from ourselves every kind of treacherous demon. And when we celebrate the "Passover" festival, we are training ourselves to pass over to divine things, just as in ancient times they passed over out of Egypt into the desert. Indeed, in this way, we too are setting out on a kind of path that is untraversed and left deserted by the many, putting out of our souls the ancient "leaven" of godless error; and we serve ourselves "bitter herbs" by means of a bitter and painful way of life.

 The appointed time for the festival is well-timed too: It did not come along in the midst of the winter season—for that time is gloomy—nor yet did it correspond to the middle of summer, when the sweltering solstice takes away the beauty of those who spend their time in the fields, and the length of the hours is too greedy, not balanced with equal shares.[17] For[18] the sight of the autumnal equinox is not pleasing, as the countryside is then bereft and deprived of its characteristic fruits, as though of its children. What is left is spring, the radiant season that takes the lead as head of the year, like the head of the body, when the sun is just now traversing the first section [of the Zodiac], and the moon likewise, with its light full, is shifting its nightly course into bright day. This season relieves the terrors of winter-storm thunders, removes the long intervals of time,[19] adjusts the floods of water;[20] and now, as the fresh fair weather shines forth, calmness settles the seas for the sailors and grants land-travellers a mild atmosphere; in this season, the countryside is pregnant with seeds in the fields, and the plants swelling with fruit, exulting in the gifts of God, provide to farmers the due returns for their toil, with blessings.

This is the appointed time for the festival. To the Egyptians, the friends of demons, it brought destruction, but to the Hebrews, who celebrate the festival in God's honor, it brought freedom from evils. This very time was that one which was observed at the original creation[21] of the universe, when the earth sprouted plants, when the luminaries came into existence, when heaven and earth were brought onto the scene, and all that is in them. At this time, the Savior of the whole world[22] accomplished the mystery of his own festival, and the "great luminary" brightened the earth[23] with the rays of piety; indeed, this time seems to embrace[24] the birthday of the world. At this time also, the type was celebrated—the ancient Pascha which was also called Passover. But it also bore a symbol—consisting of the slaughter of a lamb; and also obscurely presented an image—that of nourishment by unleavened bread; and all these things were fulfilled in the Savior's festival. For he himself was the lamb, insofar as he was clothed with a body; he himself was also the sun of righteousness, when the truly divine spring and the saving equinox, the turn[25] from worse things toward the better, took hold of human life. And god-driven scourges are sent down even to this day on the demons of the Egyptians, whereas peoples who dwell everywhere on earth are festively celebrating their freedom from long wandering in godlessness. And as the deceitful spirits have ceased, along with the storm of evils, an abundance of new fruits garlands the church of God with various gifts of the Holy Spirit. And simply put, the whole human race has been changed to take up our side, and all the fields, having received the cultivation of the soul from the Logos who is the husbandman, have sprouted the seasonable flowers of virtue. But also, now that we have been freed from the evils of darkness, we have been deemed worthy of light, in the day of the knowledge of God.[26]

 

Such are the new teachings which in olden days were obscured through symbols, but which have now been unveiled and brought into the light. And in particular, we rekindle the beginning of the festival every year with periods of cycles. Before the festival, for the sake of preparation, we take up the forty-day training period, in emulation of the holy Moses and Elijah. And the festival itself we keep renewing, unforgetful forever.[27] Indeed, as we set forth on our journey toward God, we bind our loins well with the bond of self-control; we guard the steps of our soul with caution, and, as though in sandals, we prepare for the course of our heavenly calling; we use the staff of the divine word with the power of prayer to ward off the enemy, and with all eagerness we pass over to the path that leads to the heavens, hurrying from earthly affairs to heavenly things, and from mortal life to the immortal. For in this way, when we have accomplished the passover nobly and well, another, greater festival will greet us. The children of the Hebrews call it by the name of Pentecost; it bears the image of the kingdom of heaven. Indeed, Moses says, "When you begin [to use] the sickle on the crop, you shall count for yourself seven sevens, and you shall present new loaves from new crops to God."[28] Now then, he was giving indications by prophetic types: By the "crop," he was referring to the calling of the nations; and by the "new loaves," he was referring to the souls presented to God by Christ, the churches from the nations, in which[29] the greatest festival is celebrated in honor of the God who loves mankind. We have been harvested by the spiritual sickles of the Apostles, and have been gathered together into the churches everywhere in the world, as it were into threshing-floors; we have been made into a body by a harmonious disposition of faith, and have been prepared with the salt of teachings from the divine words; we have been reborn through the water and fire of the Holy Spirit—and we are presented to God by Christ, as nourishing, agreeable, and well-pleasing loaves.

 

In this way, as the prophetic symbols spoken by Moses give way to realities, with more solemn results, we ourselves, at all events, have learned to conduct the festival [i.e., Pentecost] with more lustre, as though we had already been assembled together with Christ and were enjoying his kingdom. For this reason, at this festival we are no longer allowed to undergo laborious toil, and we are taught to bear the image of the rest that is hoped for in heaven. Hence, we do not bend the knee as we pray, nor do we wear ourselves out with fasting; for those who been deemed worthy of the resurrection effected by God[30] can no longer fall down on the ground, nor can those who have been freed from the passions have the same experience[31] as those who are enslaved. Therefore, after the Pascha we celebrate Pentecost, with seven complete sets of seven [days]—after manfully completing the previous forty-day period of training before the Pascha with six sets of seven. For the number six relates to action and accomplishment, and for this reason God is said to have made the universe in six days. The labors in that [number six] will be quite rightly succeeded by the second festival in seven sevens, when there is a multiplication of our rest, which the number seven signifies symbolically. The number of Pentecost [i.e., 50], however, is not complete with these [seven sevens]; overshooting the seven sevens, it puts a seal on the all-festive day of Christ's ascension by means of a monad,[32] the last day after these [seven sevens].[33] Rightly then, as we trace out in the days of the holy Pentecost a representation of the rest that is to come, we rejoice in soul, and rest for a time in body, as though we were already with the bridegroom himself, and unable to fast.

 

 But no one would dispute the fact that the sacred Gospel-writers reported that the Savior's passion took place during the days of the Jewish Pascha of the Unleavened Bread. For the reason for the law that was proclaimed regarding the Pascha by Moses was as follows: Because the Lamb of God was going to be led to the slaughter among the Jews themselves, and was going to suffer this for the sake of the common salvation of all mankind at no time other than the one now being described, God anticipated the future by means of symbolic images, and commanded that the Jews sacrifice a physical lamb at that very time that was going to be established at some point after the passage of years. And this was performed by them every year, until the truth in its full completeness put an end to the old images. Hence, from that time, the true festival of the mysteries has held sway among the nations, whereas among the Jews, not even the memory of the symbols themselves is preserved any longer, since the place in which the Law had prescribed that the festival's rituals be carried out[34] has been taken away from them. Quite rightly then does the divine Scripture of the Gospels say that the Savior suffered at the time of the Jewish festival of Unleavened Bread, since he was indeed at that time led as a sheep to slaughter, in conformity with the words of prophecy.

 

Also, they [i.e., the Jews], following Moses, would sacrifice the sheep of the Pascha once in the whole year, on the fourteenth day of the first month, at evening. We of the new covenant, on the other hand, who celebrate our own Pascha each Lord's day, always take our fill of the Savior's body, always partake of the blood of the Lamb; we have always girded the loins of our souls with chastity and self-control, we have always prepared our feet in readiness for the Gospel;[35] we always hold the staves in our hands, and rest on the rod that came forth from the root of Jesse;[36] we are always being set free from Egypt, we are always going in search of the wilderness of human life, we are always setting out on the journey toward God: We are always celebrating the Passover. For the Gospel's word [/ Word] wants us to do this, not once in the year, but always and every day. For this reason, we celebrate the festival of our Pascha every week, on the day of our Savior and Lord, carrying out the mysteries of the true Lamb, by whom we have been ransomed. And we do not circumcise our bodies with a blade—rather, we remove every evil of the soul by means of the sharp word [/Word]; nor do we make use of physical unleavened bread—but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. For grace, having freed us from our former habits that had grown old, bestowed on us the new man, the one created in accordance with God, and the new Law, a new circumcision, a new Pascha, and the "Jew in secret."[37] And thus, it also left us free from the old appointed times.

 When, however, the emperor most beloved of God was presiding in the midst of the holy Synod,[38] and the question of the Pascha was brought forward, there was said all that was said. And three [fourths] of the bishops of the whole world had the advantage in numbers as they strove against those of the East: The peoples of the North, the South, and the Occident together, being fortified by their harmony, pulled in the opposite direction from those of the Orient, who were defending their ancient custom. But at the end of the discussion, the Orientals yielded, and thus there came to be a single festival of Christ—and thus they stood apart from the killers of the Lord, and were joined to those who hold the same doctrine.[39] For nature draws like to like. And if someone were to say that it is written, "On the first day of [the festival] of Unleavened Bread the disciples approached the Savior and said to him, 'Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Pascha?'—and he sent them to such-and-such a man, bidding them to say, 'I am celebrating the Pascha at your house'"[40]—I will answer that this is not a command, but a historical account of an event that took place at the time of the Savior's passion. It is one thing to recount the ancient event, and quite another to make a law and to leave behind commands for posterity.

 But furthermore, the Savior did not celebrate the Pascha along with the Jews at the time of his passion. For when they were sacrificing the lamb, at that time he himself was conducting his own Pascha with his disciples. They [i.e., the Jews] were doing this[41] on the Preparation day on which the Savior suffered; for this reason, they did not enter the praetorium, but instead Pilate came out to them. But he [i.e., Jesus] a full day earlier, on the fifth day of the week, was reclining at table with his disciples, and as he ate with them he said, "I have very much desired to eat this Pascha with you."[42] Do you see how the Savior did not eat the Pascha along with the Jews? Because this was a new custom, and one foreign to the customary Jewish ways, it was necessary for him to institute it by saying, "I have very much desired to eat this Pascha with you before I suffer." The one set of practices, being now ancient and indeed antiquated—the [Pascha] which he used to eat along with the Jews—was not desirable; but the new mystery of his new covenant, which he imparted to his disciples, was desirable to him, quite rightly so. Since many prophets and righteous ones before him desired to see the mysteries of the new covenant, and since the Word himself, who thirsted at all times for the general salvation, was passing down a mystery by which all people would celebrate the festival, he professed that this was desirable to him. The Pascha of Moses was not suitable for all the nations of all time—of course not, when the Law had stipulated that it be celebrated in a single place, namely Jerusalem.[43] And so it was not desirable. But the Savior's mystery of the new covenant is suitable for all people, and so it was naturally desirable to him.

 

But he himself, before he suffered, ate the Pascha and celebrated the festival with his disciples, not with the Jews. But when had celebrated the festival at evening, the chief priests came upon him with the traitor and laid their hands on him; for they were not eating the Pascha [that] evening, otherwise they would not have busied themselves with him. And then, having seized him, they led him off to the house of Caiaphas, where, after spending the night, they gathered together and conducted the preliminary inquiry. Then, after that, they arose and led him, in company with the crowd, to Pilate; and at that point, the Scripture says that they did not enter the praetorium, so that they would not become defiled[44] (so they thought) by coming in under a pagan roof, and would eat the Pascha at evening with their purity intact—those most foul ones—who strained out a gnat but swallowed a camel;[45] those who had become defiled already in soul and body by their bloodthirstiness against the Savior feared to come in under [Pilate's] roof! They, on the one hand, on that very day of the passion, ate the Pascha that was injurious to their own souls, and asked for the Savior's blood—not on their own behalf, but to their own detriment; our Savior, on the other hand, not then, but the day before, reclined at table with his disciples and conducted the festival that was desirable to himself.

 

Do you see how from that time, he [i.e., Jesus] was separating himself from them and moving away from the Jews' bloodthirstiness, but was joining himself with his disciples, celebrating the desirable festival together with them? So then, we too ought to eat the Pascha with Christ, while purifying our minds from all leaven of evil and wickedness, and taking our fill of the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity, and having within ourselves, in our souls, the "Jew in secret"[46] and the true circumcision, and anointing the doorposts of our minds with the blood of the Lamb who was sacrificed for us, to ward off our destroyer. And we do this not only at a single time of the whole year, but every week. Let our "Preparation" be fasting,[47] the symbol of mourning, on behalf of our former sins, and for the sake of remembering the Savior's passion.

 

I assert that the Jews have gone astray from the truth, ever since they plotted against the Truth itself and drove away from themselves the Word of Life. And the Scriptures of the holy Gospels present this fact clearly. For they testify that the Lord ate the Pascha on the first day of Unleavened Bread; but they did not eat the Pascha that was customary for them on the day on which, as Luke says, "the Pascha had to be sacrificed,"[48] but instead on the following day, which was the second day of Unleavened Bread and the fifteenth day of the lunar month, on which, when our Savior was being judged by Pilate, they did not enter the praetorium—and consequently, they did not eat it on the first day of Unleavened Bread, on which it had to be sacrificed, in accordance with the Law. For in that case they themselves too would have been celebrating the Pascha along with the Savior; instead, they were blinded by their own wickedness from that very time, concurrently with their plot against the Savior, and they wandered from all truth. We, on the other hand, conduct the same mysteries [as Christ did] all through the year: On every day before the Sabbath we carry out a remembrance of the Savior's passion through a fast that the Apostles first engaged in at the time when the bridegroom had been taken away from them; and every Lord's day we are made alive by the consecrated body of the same Savior, and are sealed in our souls by his precious blood.

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[1] Gk. ἄνωθεν; alternatively, "from above" (i.e., by God).

[2] Col. 2.17

[3] Gk. θαζέκ. For this transliteration of the Hebrew Pesach, cf. 2 Chron. 30.1, 5, 15, 17, 18; Jer. 38.8 (LXX). Elsewhere, Pascha (Gk. πάζτα) is typically used, as also elsewhere in the present text. For the Biblical injunctions relating to the celebration of the Passover, see especially Ex. 12; Lev. 23; Deut. 16.

[4] Gk. πρόβαηον; I have translated this term freely as "lamb" elsewhere in this text. Ex. 12.5, by contrast, allows for a young sheep or goat; Deut. 16.2, for sheep or cattle.

[5] Gk. εἰς ἀναηροπὴν ηοῦ ὀλοθρεσηοῦ; Ex. 12.23 speaks of the ὀλοθρεύων; for ὀλοθρεσηής, see 1 Cor. 10.10. Euseb., Comm. on the Psalms [PG 23: 560], uses the phrase εἰς ἀποηροπὴν ηοῦ ὀλοθρεσηοῦ—similarly also section 11 in the present text.

[6] At this point, Euseb. is really thinking of the absolutely first "Passover," not simply the early celebration of the festival.

[7] Gk. ἐπλήροσ. This meaning is odd, but something like this is required for the sense here; corruption may have obscured the original wording. Mai translates similarly: Quamobrem illa ex Aegypto digressio, nomen fecit apud Hebraeos festo transitus.

[8] Gk. ηὰ διαβαηήρια, i.e., "[festival / rites] of crossing / passing over"; Philo uses this term for Passover (LSJ).

[9] Cf. 1 Cor. 10.11.

[10] 1 Cor. 5.7.

[11] Joh. 1.29.

[12] Gk. ηὸ ζῶμα ηὸ ζωρήριον, which can be translated either as "the Savior's body" or "the saving / salvific body." The adjective appears frequently in this text; I have normally translated it as "Savior's."

[13] Isa. 53.2 (LXX).

[14] Alternatively, "spiritual"; Gk. λογικός, which is of course derived from the word λόγος, and thus Euseb. is playing on the fact that Christ was identified as the Logos. The phrase could almost be translated, "the Word's flesh."

[15] Gk. ηὸ ζωηήριον θῦμα; lit., "sacrifice of the Savior" or "saving / salvific sacrifice."

[16] Both "luxuriating" and "luxury" are based on a Greek root (ηρύθ-) that is very similar-sounding to the one for "nourishment" (ηρέθ-/ηρόθ-).

[17] I.e., when the hours of daylight are much longer than the hours of night, and thus each of the twelve daylight hours is much longer than each of the twelve nocturnal hours. (So Mai.)

[18] Gk. γάρ; the odd defective logical connection here suggests that a sentence or clause has been lost before this one.

[19] A reference to the long winter nights, according to Mai.

[20] That is, it moves away from the storms typical of winter.

[21] Gk. κοζμογονία.

[22] Gk. κόζμος.

[23] Gk. οἰκοσμένη.

[24] Gk. περιέτειν; alternatively, "seems to contain a reference to…"

[25] Gk. ηροπή, which means a "turn" and so by extension the solstice or equinox as one of the turning points of the year—I have thus had to translate it twice to capture the proper effect, first as "equinox," second as "turn."

[26] Mai interprets this as meaning "the day of our knowledge of God": qua die Dei notitiam hausimus.

[27] Gk. εἰς ἄληζηον αἰῶνα.

[28] Deut. 16.9, somewhat freely cited; the last part is not in that verse, however—cf. Lev. 23.16-17 for the content, although there too the phraseology is somewhat different.

[29] Gk. ἐθ' αἷς.

[30] Gk. καηὰ Θεόν.

[31] Gk. πάζτειν – the verb is related to the noun "passion" (πάθος) used just before.

[32] I.e., a single (50th) day in addition to the 49.

[33] I.e., the ascension, 40 days after the resurrection, was followed up by the experience of Pentecost (Acts 1.3; 2.1).

[34] Cf. Deut. 16.6.

[35] Cf. Eph. 6.15.

[36] Cf. Isa. 11.1.

[37] Cf. Rom. 2.29. The phrase, "in secret" (Gk. ἐν κρσπηῷ) is rendered by many translations as "inwardly."

[38] I.e., Constantine at the Council of Nicaea.

[39] I.e., fellow Christians, as opposed to Jews.

[40] Mt. 26.17-18, freely cited.

[41] I.e., celebrating their Pascha. That is, not only was the Pascha instituted by Christ different in character, but it was also not on the same day as the Jewish authorities celebrated their Pascha

[42] Lk. 22.15.

[43] Cf. Deut. 16.6.

[44] Cf. Jn. 18.28.

[45] Cf. Mt. 23.24.

[46] Cf. Rom. 2.29 and the end of section 7 above.

[47] Cf. the end of section 12 below.

[48] Lk. 22.7.