Section IV: Holy Times, § 22.
SECTION IV: HOLY TIMES
§ 22. The sacred times include festivals and solemn feast days [solennitates], of which the Jewish people had many. These had all been instituted in memory of a benefit, either commemorating the past or prefiguring the future—for instance, weekly, monthly, and annual feast days. (See Thomas, [ST,] part 1, bk. 2, q. 100, art. 5.)
** Gualtperius (Nota, on John 7, p. 267) and Cramer (at the beginning of Hortuli animae) report which feasts the Jews celebrated each month. **
We spoke about the Sabbath in our treatise On the Moral Law [Commonplace XV, §§ 123–42]. At new moons they would give thanks for the benefits given them during the month past.
The Feast of the Passover.
The Feast of the Passover was celebrated annually on the fourteenth day of the first month in memory of the Lord’s favor when He passed through Egypt, killing the firstborn of the Egyptians but sparing the Israelites and freeing them from bondage to Egypt. This also served as a type of the spiritual liberation we have through Christ from the captivity and kingdom of Satan. In Deut. 16:16 it is called “the Feast of Unleavened Bread” because unleavened bread was eaten during the entire time of the Passover festival.
The Feast of Pentecost.
The Feast of Pentecost was celebrated on the fiftieth day after Passover. They offered their firstfruits and sacrifices to God in memory of the benefit of when God solemnly published His Law to the people of Israel. This also served as a type for the spreading of the Gospel into all the earth, for which the apostles had been equipped on the first Pentecost of the New Testament when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them from above. In Deut. 16:16 it is called “the Feast of Weeks,” because they had to count seven full weeks from the feast of offering the firstfruits to the festival of Pentecost.
The Feast of Atonement.
The Feast of Atonement [propitiationis] or expiation had to be celebrated on the tenth day of the seventh month. On that day they would afflict themselves with fasts, and by this external discipline they were invited to a true acknowledgment of their sins and genuine contrition. They also would offer burnt offerings to propitiate God. This festival symbolized the Passion and death of the Son of God, who was the wholly pleasing “ransom” [ἱλαστικóν] by which we have been reconciled to God.
The Feast of Trumpets.
The day of preparation for this Feast of Atonement was the Feast of Trumpets, celebrated on the first day of the seventh month. On it one would hear the blare of the horns to arouse the minds of the Israelites to the imminent Feast of the Atonement. This feast prefigured the ministry of John the Baptist, who “prepared the way for the Lord” (Luke 1:76) and who by the preaching of repentance “raised his voice like a trumpet” (Isa. 58:1).
The Feast of Tabernacles.
Even as the Feast of Trumpets was the preparation day for the Feast of the Atonement, so closely connected with it was the Feast of Tabernacles or of Booths. This was to be celebrated on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. On this day they lived in tents built of leafy branches in memory of God’s benefit when He caused the Israelites, whom He had led out of Egypt through the wilderness, to dwell in the very fertile and pleasant land of Canaan. This also served as a type of the very blessed and joyful dwelling place which the devout await in the eternal dwellings.
The Feast of the Ingathering.
The Feast of the Ingathering, which some count among the solemn feast days, was part of the Feast of Tabernacles and was to be celebrated on the eighth day thereof, for the first and eighth days of the more solemn festivals were more distinguished than the intervening days. (See Exodus 23 and Leviticus 23, where the festivals of the Jewish people are listed.) Therefore there were three very solemn feasts for the Israelites: that of the Passover, of the Atonement, and of Tabernacles. For these all males had to travel to Jerusalem by God’s command, bringing their gifts with them as an offering for the preservation of the ministry (Exod. 23:14; Deut. [16]:16).
The final causes for the annual pilgrimage to the city of Jerusalem.
The reasons for this divine ordinance were: (1) To renew the memory of God’s benefits by those annual pilgrimages. (2) To preserve the unity of the people in their religious worship. (3) To solidify love all the more among the tribes of Israel by this mutual gathering and conversation. (4) To preserve the ministry through their offerings of the gifts and sacrifices. (5) To exercise faith and obedience to God, for the Israelites were compelled to leave everything at home idle and unguarded (Exod. 34:24).
Sabbatical years.
Here mention should also be made, first, of the sabbatical years celebrated every seven years. (See Exod. 23:11; Lev. 25:3.) For six years they would cultivate their vines and fields and harvest the fruits. But in the seventh year they would have a Sabbath of rest during which they would rest from cultivating the fields and vines for the honor of God and the good of their neighbor, for whatever grew spontaneously belonged to everyone.
There were three main reasons for this ordinance: (1) Typological [typica], seeing as this rest for the land was a figure of the eternal and most blessed rest where we, free from every labor of our hands, shall celebrate from Sabbath to Sabbath. In this rest God will no longer remember our sins, just as creditors were not permitted to exact debts in a Sabbath year (Deut. 15:2), and we shall finally obtain full and perfect freedom, just as Hebrew slaves were set free during the sabbatical year (Deut. 15:12).
(2) Moral, because this external discipline should have been for them an exercise of confidence in and obedience to God, who had promised that He would bless the crops of the sixth year so that the fields and vines would bear in [the seventh] year three years’ worth of crops; it was also an exercise of love toward one’s neighbor.
(3) Economic,19 for some rest had to be given to the ground for the crops in the following years to be more fruitful.
The jubilee years.
Second, there were the jubilee years or “horn years,” for jobel20 means “horn”; they were also years of liberty and were celebrated after seven times seven years had passed—that is, in the fiftieth year—with the following rituals. On the tenth day of the seventh month the trumpet would sound to remind the Israelites that it was the jubilee year. In this year all debts were remitted, each person would have his paternal inheritance restored, and slaves would receive manumission. Christ, our Mediator, began such a jubilee throughout the world with His salutary coming and the preaching of the Gospel, because “He was sent to preach liberty to captives and the opening of prison to those in chains,” and “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isa. 61:1–2). Therefore whoever embraces the Gospel with true faith receives the remission of spiritual debts, freedom from bondage to sin and Satan, and the restoration of his heavenly inheritance. By the trumpet of his preaching at the beginning of the New Testament, John the Baptist more than sufficiently testified that this spiritual jubilee had come.
Some would draw a comparison between the life of Christ on earth and the age of His mystical Body, that is, of the church militant on earth. They reckon that the church militant on earth should have as many jubilees as years Christ spent in this world during the days of His flesh. (Concerning this subject, see Nicholas Cusanus, Andreas Osiander, Crentzheimius, Philipp Nicolai, and many others.)