XI.
Moreover, the allegation which they sometimes make
against us, that if we pass the moon’s fourteenth we cannot
celebrate the beginning of the Paschal feast in light,1181
neither moves
nor disturbs us. For, although they lay it down as a thing
unlawful, that the beginning of the Paschal festival should be extended
so
far as to the
moon’s twentieth; yet they cannot deny that it
ought to be extended to the sixteenth and seventeenth, which coincide
with the day on which the
Lord rose from the dead. But we decide
that it is better that it should be extended even on to the twentieth
day, on account of the
Lord’s day, than that we should anticipate
the
Lord’s day on account of the fourteenth day; for on the
Lord’s day was it that
light was shown to us in the beginning,
and now also in the end, the
comforts of all present and the tokens of
all future blessings. For the
Lord ascribes no less
praise to the
twentieth day than to the fourteenth. For in the book of
Leviticus
1182
the injunction
is expressed thus: “In the first month, on the fourteenth
day of this month, at even, is the
Lord’s
Passover. And on
the fifteenth day of this month is the
feast of
unleavened bread unto
the
Lord. Seven days ye shall eat
unleavened bread. The
first day shall be to you one most diligently attended
1183
| 1183
Celeberrimus, honoured, solemn. |
and
holy. Ye shall do no servile
work thereon. And the seventh
day shall be to you more diligently attended
1184
and holier; ye shall do no servile
work
thereon.” And hence we maintain that those have contracted
no guilt
1185
before the
tribunal of Christ, who have held that the beginning of the Paschal
festival ought to be extended to this day. And this, too, the
most especially, as we are pressed by three difficulties, namely, that
we should keep the solemn festival of the Passover on the Lord’s
day, and after the equinox, and yet not beyond the limit of the
moon’s twentieth day.
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