especially a sabbath which coincided with a feast like the passover, as it did in that year according
206 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS with the light, since the refrain is regularly repeated, "there was evening and there was morning, the nth day"; evening including, presumably, the whole night, and morning all the daylight hours—in fact the current Jewish way of reckoning the day.
12. Parasceve is a Greek word meaning "preparation," applied to the day before the sabbath, especially a sabbath which coincided with a feast like the passover, as it did in that year according to the calendar presupposed by the gospel of John; see Jn 19:31. Now it seems that the Latin speaking Jews of North Africa latinized this rather unpronounceable Greek word parasceve into pura cena, and then gave it—or Augustine gave it for them—the more correct sounding form, noun before adjective, of cena pura, literally "the pure supper." He refers to this again in his Homilies on the Gospel of John 120, 5.
13. See Rom 6:9.