63. The difference between the Pasch and the Feast of Unleavened Bread
TRANSLATION
date is 27 days old, then they deviate quite far from the truth indeed, because undoubtedly they count the Moon which is new on the 3rd nones of March [5 March] as belonging to the ¢rst month, which Moon is manifestly full three days before the equinox.77 And because /454/ it is not valid to celebrate Easter Sunday on the ¢fteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth days [of the Moon], since these [days] fell on the 14th, 13th and 12th kalends of April [19, 20, 21 March], assuredly none of its remaining days can be suitable for the celebration of the Lord's Resurrection, even though they follow the equinox.
63. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PASCH AND THE
FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
Because we have been surveying some matters concerning the observance of Easter, it is proper to point out here that according to the text of the Law, the celebration of the Pasch is di¡erent from the celebration of Unleavened Bread.78 The single day of the Pasch, that is, the ''passing over'', is the fourteenth day of the ¢rst month, when it is commanded to sacri¢ce the lamb at sundown. And then, in the night which followed, the Lord passed over, striking the ¢rstborn of the Egyptians and exempting the houses of the children of Israel which had been marked with the blood of the lamb.79 But the seven days which follow, that is from the ¢fteenth to the twenty-¢rst day of that same month, are properly called [the days] of Unleavened Bread.80 For it is written in Exodus, where it is commanded that the lamb be slain on the fourteenth day of the ¢rst month at sundown: And you shall eat in haste, for it is the Pasch, that is, the Lord's Passover. And on that night I shall pass through the land of Egypt and strike every ¢rstborn in the land of Egypt.81 And shortly thereafter: And when your sons shall say to you, what is this rite?
77 The epacts in Victorius' table are keyed to 1 January. In years when the epact is
25, a new lunation will begin on 7 March, and the Moon will be 16 days old on 22 March,the earliest calendar date of Easter. But because the 14th Moon will fall on 20 March, before the equinox, in Bede's eyes this is not a valid Easter. The problem is even worse in years with a Victorian epact of 27, for then the lunation will begin on 5 March, and the Moon will be 14 days old on 18 March. This is the situation discussed in ch. 51.
78 Cf. Exodus 12.11.
79 Bede, In Gen. 1.19 (19.561^20.582); Exodus 12.3, 12, 16.
80 Exodus 12.18.
81 Exodus 12.11^12.
THE RECKONING OF TIME
youshallsay,Itisthesacri¢ceoftheLord'sPassover,whenHepassedover the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, striking the Egyptians and exempting our houses.82 And again in Leviticus: The Lord's Passover is in the ¢rst month, on the fourteenth day of the month at sunset. And on the ¢fteenth day of the month, it is the Lord's Feast of Unleavened Bread.
For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. The ¢rst day shall be for you most solemn and holy; on it, you shall do no servile work. But you shall o¡er a sacri¢ce in ¢re to the Lord for seven days.83 And lest anyone object that we have understood the words of the Law otherwise than truth would have it, let him see what Josephus, a man most learned in the legal writings and a priest, has to say about this. In the book of the Antiquities, he writes in this wise: the lamb is sacri¢ced on the fourteenth
Moon /455/ of the ¢rst month; and on the ¢fteenth day there follows the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is celebrated for seven days. And on the second day of Unleavened Bread, which is the sixteenth day of the Moon, they o¡er the ¢rst-fruits which they have gathered.84
It is the custom of the Church even now to imitate, not ignobly, the tradition of the sacred laws, observing principally the single night of the Lord's Passover, that is, of His Resurrection from the dead, by which He deigned to save the faithful in triumphing over the impious, and in the shedding of whose blood ^ the blood of that immaculate Lamb ^
His people have been washed clean of every sin in the fountain of regeneration. And then we add on another seven days as a suitable festival in memory of the Lord's Resurrection. Indeed, because this day of the Pasch is also commanded to be free of leaven, the Gospel text also counts it as the ¢rst day of Unleavened Bread, saying: And on the ¢rst day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacri¢ce the Passover, His disciples said to Him, Where do you wish that we should go and make ready for you that you may eat the Passover?85 He calls that day ^ the ¢fteenth day of the ¢rst month in which the seven days of Unleavened Bread begin ^ by the name of [Passover] because of its proximity to Passover, when he says: And they did not enter the praetorium, lest they be polluted and not be ableto eat the Passover.86 The Gospel text does not thereby contradict
82 Exodus 12.26.
83 Leviticus 23.5^7.
84 Josephus, Antiquitates 3.10.5 (ed. Blatt, 250.16^17, 20^22).
85 Mark 14.12.
86 John 18.28.