Commentaria in Exodum
You will say: John chap. 19, verse 36, it is said of Christ crucified: “For these things were done, that the scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him”; therefore these words literally signify that the bones and legs of Christ were not to be broken on the cross.
cised); nor is this strange: for God is the Lord of all.
I answer, that this Scripture of Exodus is fulfilled in Christ in a sense and signification not literal but typical and allegorical, in which way Christ is said to have fulfilled all the types of the old law. Where note: God commanded literally that no bone be broken in the lamb, that thereby the haste and the hurried passage of the angel might be signified, which compelled the Egyptians to hasten, that they might drive the Hebrews to go out in haste, as if the Hebrews, therefore, in eating the lamb were so hurried that they had no time to crush the bones of the lamb to get at its marrow. The mystical cause, however, was that it might be signified that the most sacred body of Christ the Lord would remain unbroken and whole in the passion, and that the soldiers would not, as was customary with other crucified men, break His legs: which because the Holy Ghost chiefly intended to signify by this figure, hence in John chap. 19, verse 36, in the passion of Christ this Scripture is said to be fulfilled: for a type and figure is properly fulfilled by the very truth of the thing, when that is done which the figure foreshadowed. For the tropology see St. Bernard, sermon On the skin, flesh and bones of the soul.
47. IT SHALL MAKE IT,—that is, shall sacrifice it through its head of family, and by the rite here prescribed shall eat and celebrate it.
Allegorically, to embrace everything together in summary, the immolation of the lamb was a manifest type of Christ to be immolated on the cross, by whom we have been freed from the captivity of Pharao, that is, of the devil, and by whose blood and cross (which the posts and lintel smeared with the blood of the lamb signified) we escape the divine vengeance, and are delivered from the striking angel; for this is what the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians chap. 5: “Christ our pasch is sacrificed.” For, first, the lamb was immolated in the evening: because Christ, long expected, was at last immolated at the consummation of the ages: hence also many sick persons were healed by Christ in the evening, when the lamb was immolated, and at which Christ suffered and expired, as is plain from Matthew chap. 8, verse 16, and Mark chap. 1, verse 32. Secondly, the whole multitude of the children of Israel immolates it: because all the Jews asked of Pilate that Christ be crucified. Thirdly, on the 14th day, when it is full moon, the lamb is immolated: because Christ slain illumined the whole Church. Fourthly, Christ was as a lamb on account of His purity, meekness, and patience more than lamb-like; whence Isaias says, chap. 53: “He shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.” Fifthly, it is a male on account of fortitude; of one year, because He was in the flower of age; without blemish, on account of innocence. Sixthly, Christ was also as a kid, because He was reputed among the wicked: for a kid signifies the sinner; next, because He Himself was a victim for sin; finally, because He took upon Himself our sins. Seventhly, this Lamb we immolate and eat in the Eucharist. Whence St. Andrew, to Ægeas the proconsul of Achaia, threatening him with the punishment of the cross unless he sacrificed to the idols, answered: “I sacrifice daily to Almighty God, who is one and true God, not the smoke of incense, nor the flesh of bellowing bulls, but the spotless Lamb, whose flesh, after all the people of believers have eaten it, the Lamb that was sacrificed remains whole and living.” Eighthly, both posts are smeared with the blood of the lamb, when the memory of Christ’s passion is set in the heart by faith, and in the mouth by profession: “for with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”; the lintel too is smeared, when our heart is lifted up to the hope of heavenly things through the merit of Christ’s passion. Ninthly, the blood smeared on the posts delivers from the destroyer: because all who are not saved by the merits of Christ eternal death condemns. Tenthly, its flesh is eaten by night: because we do not see Christ in the Eucharist, but rest in the obscurity of faith as believers. Eleventhly, it is not eaten raw or boiled, but roasted: he eats raw flesh who believes Christ to be only man; boiled in water, who by human reason and wisdom examines the mysteries of the passion and the Eucharist, so as not to believe that in the Eucharist true God and man lie hidden; he eats it roasted who considers and embraces the fiery charity with which Christ was roasted for us. For Christ, as St. Thomas sings:
Being born, He gave Himself as companion; at table, as food;
Reigning, He gives Himself as reward.
Twelfthly, if anything remain of it until morning, it is burned with fire: because what of the mysteries of Christ we cannot understand we humbly reserve to the power of the Holy Spirit, says St. Gregory, homily 99 on the Gospels. Thirteenthly, the whole lamb must be eaten: because whole Christ, with all that the Church teaches about Him, must be believed, nor can any article of faith be rejected. Fourteenthly, only Hebrews eat of it, and he who has contracted the foreskin of sin must circumcise it before he partakes of it. Fifteenthly, the lamb must be eaten with unleavened bread and wild lettuce: so the Eucharist is to be received with purity of soul and sorrow for sins; again, the passion of Christ is to be ruminated with great purity of mind and compunction. Hear Ambrose in the prayer to be said before Mass: “With how great contrition of heart, and fountain of tears, with how great reverence and trembling, with how great chastity of body and purity of soul, is that divine and heavenly mystery to be celebrated, O Lord God, where Thy flesh is in truth received, where Thy blood is in truth drunk, where the lowest are joined to the highest, the human to the divine, where is present the presence of the holy angels, where Thou art priest and sacrifice, wondrously and ineffably? Who can worthily celebrate this mystery, unless Thou, almighty God, make the offerer worthy?” Sixteenthly, the head with the feet and entrails is to be devoured: the head signifies Christ’s divinity; the feet, His humanity; the inward parts, the more secret mysteries: all of which we ought to devour, that is, to believe. “The Sacrament of God Most High,” says St. Bernard in an Epistle, “is to be received, not discussed; venerated, not judged; obtained by faith, not inborn; sanctioned by tradition, not invented.” And sermon 20 on the Canticle: “Christ,” he says, “can be touched; but with affection, not with the hand; with desire, not with the eye; with faith, not with the senses. Thou touchest with the hand of faith, with the finger of desire, with the embrace of devotion, thou touchest with the eye of the mind.”
Seventeenthly, the lamb is eaten in many houses: because in many Churches Christ is immolated and received. Eighteenthly, it is not lawful to carry a particle of the lamb outside the house: because it is not lawful to give the Eucharist to unbelievers, schismatics, and others who are outside the Church. Nineteenthly, a bone is not broken: because the legs of Christ hanging on the cross were not to be broken, as were the thieves’, John 19, 36. Again, the bone, that is, the fortitude of virtue and excellence of Christ, in the passion was not to be broken, but only His weak flesh. Twentieth, he who eats the lamb, let him gird his reins: he who eats Christ in the Eucharist, let him restrain lust and the delights of the flesh, says St. Gregory. Twenty-first, let him likewise hold a staff, as a traveller tending to heaven: for the Eucharist is the viaticum of pilgrims and of the dying; again, let him accomplish his journey with a staff, that is, let him persevere in good works and labours, and grow in virtues. So Paulinus narrates in his Life of Ambrose, that when he was now about to die, he received the Eucharist as viaticum from Honoratus, Bishop of Vercelli, divinely admonished. Hear also St. Chrysostom, book On the Priesthood: “Someone,” he says, “who had seen and heard it, told me that those who are about to depart from this life, if they have been partakers of such mysteries with a pure conscience, when about to breathe forth the spirit, are escorted by angels who surround their bodies like attendants because of that Sacrament received, and are led thence straight into heaven.” For this reason the Eucharist is called by the Fathers “the medicine of immortality,” because by its virtue not only the soul is made blessed, but the body also shall rise from death to glory. Twenty-second, let him be shod, that through stones and thorns, that is, all difficulties, he may press into heaven with unhurt foot. Twenty-third, the lamb is eaten with haste: because in the Eucharist not so much pleasure is sought as nourishment and strength for bearing the labours in the way of God, and for hastening to the heavenly country. Twenty-fourth, the firstborn of the Egyptians, because they did not eat of the lamb, died; so he who neglects the Eucharist will perish by eternal death. Whence Christ says, John 6: “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.” So from St. Gregory, Bede and others, Abulensis, Question 50, and Ribera, book 5 On the Temple, chap. 4.