On Pascha

St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople

 

The Jews celebrate the earthly Passover, denying the heavenly Passover. However, we, who celebrate the heavenly Passover, have surpassed the earthly one. What they accomplish with the Passover, a symbol of the salvation of the firstborn among the Jews, when the firstborn of the Egyptians did not perish but were symbolically saved through the blood of the Passover victim, is an image of the temporary and fleeting, representing eternal realities and types. These types were first conceived to shadow forth the truth that is now emerging. In the presence of the truth, the type must necessarily give way. When the true King arrives, no one, with the living King present, deigns to worship his image. Hence, it is evident how much the type gives way to the truth, as the type celebrates the short life of the Jewish firstborn, while the truth signifies the eternal life of all humanity.

Avoiding death for a brief period is not a great achievement, considering that one who is about to die shortly afterward achieves it. What is truly significant is to completely escape death, a fate that befalls us, as Christ was sacrificed for us during the Passover. The very name of the festival carries great excellence, especially when explained according to the truth of the matter. For "Pascha" means "passage," signifying the passage of that destroyer through the houses of the Hebrews, who struck down the firstborn. The true passage of the destroyer among us is real, as he passes over us untouched, having been raised to eternal life by Christ.

Thus, it is necessary for one to spiritually contemplate the entire Passover narrative and believe in the apostolic explanations. The faithful desire to understand the entire rationale of the figure, how it relates to the truth, and, so to speak, to perceive its spiritual aspects through the once corporeal; to comprehend all legal aspects in the light of Christ with the mind, and to understand them more clearly through the spiritual, so that the invisible may appear as if depicted by the visible.

Therefore, when God was about to inflict the tenth plague on the Egyptians (which was the death of the firstborn), He said to Moses, "This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is the first month of the year for you" (Exodus 12:2). Subsequently, He commanded the sacrifice of the Passover and the anointing of blood on the doorposts, promising the salvation of the firstborn through this anointing. What is the significance if we immediately refer this determination of the beginning of the year to the contemplation of the truth, in which the time of the Passover and the salvation of the firstborn is defined? It means that for us, the true sacrifice of the Passover is the beginning of eternal life. The year is a symbol of the age, as it continually revolves in a perpetual cycle, never resting in any finality. And Christ, the Father of the future age, was offered for us as a sacrifice, making our former life as if of no time, and giving us the beginning of another life through the cleansing of regeneration, according to the likeness of His death and resurrection. Therefore, whoever knows the Passover because it was sacrificed for him should consider this as the beginning of life, from which Christ was sacrificed for him. He is then sacrificed for himself when he acknowledges grace and understands the life obtained through this sacrifice. Once he knows this, he should strive to receive the beginning of the new life and not return to the old life, whose end has come.

For, as he says, "How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:2). Therefore, the beginning of the year has such a symbol. On the tenth day of the month, it commands each household to take a lamb, and there should be enough in the house to consume it all, and nothing should be left over. Also, the lamb should be sacrificed on the fourteenth day at evening. Therefore, for five days, the victim is to be sacrificed together with those who are to be saved through it. However, on the fifth day, the sacrifice is completed, death passes over, and the one who is saved enjoys perpetual light, with the moon shining at night and the sun receiving the moon. This happens on the fourteenth day with a full moon. These five periods of time denote the entire duration of the world divided into five parts: from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ, and the fifth part from the advent of Christ. During each of these times, salvation was offered to every person through that blessed sacrifice, but it was not yet perfected. However, in the fifth period of time, the true Passover was sacrificed. The firstborn man who obtained salvation through it entered into eternal light (Matthew 20:1). The fact that the Passover was sacrificed not in the evening itself but toward evening signified that Christ would suffer not at the very end of the present age but toward its end. The parable, which divides time into five parts and calls laborers to the vineyard at various hours—some at the first, third, sixth, ninth, and the last at the eleventh—illustrates this division of time.

For there were different callings and different justifications; one in the time of Adam, another in the time of Noah, another in the time of Abraham, another in the time of Moses; the last and most perfect one in the advent of Christ when the reward for works is first given to those who were the last according to the Savior's parable. This is because we, the first ones, receive regeneration in baptism when Christ was sacrificed, at which time he rose and breathed the Holy Spirit into us for renewal. Thus, this fourteenth [day] is mystically considered, and it is a symbol of the sacrifice, the luminous night, and the day that receives the sacrifice.

That the entire victim was to be eaten in each house, and the meat not to be taken outside, signifies that there is only one house having salvation in Christ, namely, the Church spread throughout the entire world. Once alienated from God, it now exclusively belongs to God because it has received those who were sent by the Lord Jesus—just as the house of Rahab, once a prostitute, which received the spies sent by Joshua, was the only one saved in the devastated Jericho. Therefore, although there are many houses of the Hebrews, they have only one vine, just as the various churches in different cities and towns, though numerous in number, constitute one Church. Christ is everywhere in them, perfect and indivisible. Hence, the victim was perfect in each house and was not divided among different houses. For Paul says that we are all one in Christ, for there is one Lord and one faith (Ephesians 4:5). Therefore, the law necessarily prefigured in Christ both that indivisible union of the victim and the unity of the Church. In Christ and in the sacrifice of Christ, we indeed have salvation. All that existed before his advent and was prepared for his advent, we know, was intended from the beginning for the salvation of the entire human race, as if Christ were offered for all before everyone's eyes.

Moreover, we know that this salvation belongs to one Church, and we are aware that no one outside the Church and the Catholic faith can be a partner in Christ or salvation. Knowing this, we understand that the salvation of the entire world is not achieved through legalistic means but through Christ. We do not entertain any hope in impious heresies; rather, we completely exclude them from our hope. They have no communion whatsoever with Christ, and those who boast of the Savior's name in vain are only deceiving and harming themselves. Those who focus more on the name or appearance than on the truth are misled.

So, let no one separate the old [testament] from Christ; let no one suspect that anyone from the old [testament] has obtained salvation without Christ; let no one call those who now teach falsehood and distort the truth, and who prepare vain forms of churches outside the truth and alien to Christ, Christians, or have communion with them; for it is not permissible, since the victim is not carried out from the sacred house, nor is it offered for communion to outsiders. "We see that the lamb should have been a perfect one, male, and a yearling, prefigured for the glory of the Lord. It was perfect because Christ was completely equipped with every virtue, immaculate in every way, and from the beginning to the end devoid of injustice, as he himself said: "For thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15). Therefore, all victims were offered as perfect and immaculate because all were sacrificed in the figure of Christ. God also commanded that the priests be perfect and whole in body, as they were a figure of the true Priest. The lamb was male because this gender is the leader; for the male has authority over the female.

For in nature and truth, Christ is both leader and King, being the heavenly man, united to us as a brother according to carnal nature, yet ruling as Lord according to spiritual divinity. Therefore, he himself is the one spouse because the entire human nature is the bride. Even John, the greatest of the prophets, says this about Christ and himself. Concerning Christ, he says, "He who has the bride is the bridegroom" (John 3:29). As for himself, he declares, "The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete."

The apostles, however, are not the spouses of the Church, even if they, by grace, share a likeness to Christ and become sons of Christ through the Spirit of Christ. But what does the blessed Paul say? "For I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2). Therefore, the Lord is the leader, ruler, and king, not only because God was in human form but also according to the pre-existent divinity. In his nature, he is the King of all creation—not that he received the kingdom by grace but because he truly possesses it through generation from the Father.

He was also a yearling lamb, indicating that the Lord was new on earth, having nothing of antiquity in humans. So, if anyone claims that the Lord is a simple man and thus considers Christ to be of our nature in such a manner, this lamb is neither perfect nor immaculate. No human is immaculate. This lamb is not male; indeed, no man has natural dominion and authority over his fellow human beings.

And the one who counts the Lord among creatures, claiming that He has divinity through grace, not true divinity, does not have the male victim sacrificed for Himself. For he does not know the one who is King by nature but turns to another who is neither a true king nor by nature. And if anyone attempts to derive something from human antiquity into Christ, dares to consider Him capable of sin, or subjects Him to the servitude of the law or necessity of death, this person does not have the lamb, or the experience of that newness found in Christ.

Let us now understand the symbol of both the lamb and the kid. According to Isaiah, the lamb symbolizes the gentleness of Christ: "He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent" (Isaiah 53:7). As for the kid, according to the law, it is a sin offering: "And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for a sin offering" (Leviticus 5:6). Therefore, the meek one, offered like a lamb, was sacrificed as a kid for sin. Through His gentleness, He offered Himself for the salvation of humanity. May we obtain this salvation through faith and love in Jesus Christ, who suffered for us, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen.

 

Source: Patrologia Graeca, Volume 59, trans. Jacques Paul Migne (Paris: Imprimerie Catholique, 1857), 723-726.