Commentaria in Leviticum
he says, “we must provide more carefully that we celebrate the solemn day not so much with abundance of food as with exultation of spirit; for it is very absurd to wish to honour by excess of fullness a Martyr whom you know to have pleased God by fasting.” See St. Bernard, serm. 3 On the Advent. Finally hear Isaias, chap. 58, ver. 13: “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy own will in my holy day, and call the sabbath delightful,” etc. “and glorify him, while thou dost not thy own ways, and thy own will is not found, to speak a word, then shalt thou be delighted in the Lord,” etc. The heathens therefore keep feasts with the belly, Christians with the mind, worshipping God in spirit and in truth. With good reason the heathen Antisthenes, when asked, “What is a feast?” answered, “It is a provocation of gluttony and an occasion of luxury”; Maximus is witness, serm. 91.
Note: The feasts of the Jews were of two kinds: some were instituted by God, others by the Jews themselves. By God seven feasts were instituted: first, the sabbath; secondly, the pasch; thirdly, pentecost; fourthly, the feast of trumpets; fifthly, the feast of propitiation or expiation; sixthly, the feast of tabernacles; seventhly, the feast of the assembly or collection. The eighth feast, of the New Moon, of which Num. 28:11, is omitted here. By the Jews four feasts were instituted: first, the feast of lots, on the 15th of Adar, or February, in memory of the deliverance of the Jews; secondly, the feast of the dedication, or purification of the temple, which was done under Judas Machabeus, 1 Machab. 4:49; thirdly, the feast of the sacred fire received from heaven, 2 Machab. 1:18; fourthly, the feast for the slaying of Nicanor, 1 Machab. 7:49, and 2 Machab. last verse 37: on which see Ribera, book 5 On the Temple, chap. 17 and following, and Genebrard in his Calendar.
Note: The feasts instituted by God had these three things. First, rest from labours; secondly, the offering of sacrifices proper to each feast, different from the others, and prescribed by God, as is plain from Numbers 28 and 29; thirdly, ceremonies peculiar to each feast.
Ceremonies peculiar to each feast, as in the feast of the pasch or of azymes there was the offering of a sheaf of ears; at pentecost, the offering of new loaves; in the feast of trumpets, the blowing of trumpets; on the day of expiation, affliction and fasting were enjoined; in the feast of tabernacles, they dwelt in tents, and there rejoiced with branches and fruits.
3. THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF REST.—In Hebrew, the seventh day is the sabbath of sabbaths, that is, of rest, as if to say: There shall be the greatest rest and cessation from work on the seventh day, and hence this day shall be called the sabbath, that is, rest. So Plato said that the gods, taking pity on the labours of men, instituted feasts, that by them they might obtain from their labours some rest and relaxation. This was the first and chief feast of the Jews, whose causes and significations I shall set forth
IT SHALL BE CALLED HOLY—that is, this day of the sabbath shall be holy, so that it may rightly be called holy, that is, dedicated to my worship. So often is it called, for “not my people, my people,” as if to say: The Gentiles who before were not my people shall thereafter be my people, because they shall be Christians: whence I shall have and cherish them as my people.
YOU SHALL DO NO WORK ON IT—that is, none at all.
Hence on the sabbath it was not lawful to kindle fire, nor to cook food, nor to do anything else of work, as neither on the day of expiation, as is said at ver. 31; but on all the other feasts these things were lawful.
Hence of these it is said here: “You shall do no servile work therein”; but of the sabbath and of the feast of expiation it is said absolutely and in general:
“You shall do no work therein.” Yet the Jews could on the sabbath eat, drink, water their cattle, as Christ asserts, Luke 13:15, make medicines, and in necessity gather and prepare food: because these things are necessary.
IT IS THE SABBATH OF THE LORD.—“Of the Lord,” that is, dedicated to the Lord; or secondly, “of the Lord,” that is, on which the Lord rested in the first creation of all things; thirdly, “of the Lord,” on which one is to rest in honour and for the worship of the Lord God; and that in all your habitations, because in the tabernacle or temple on the sabbath day there was no rest; for then the priests there sacrificed, that is, slew, flayed, cut up and cooked the victims, and this is what Christ objects to the Jews, Matt. 12:5: “Have ye not read in the law, that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple break the sabbath (materially), and are without blame?”
5. IN THE FIRST MONTH (Nisan, which answers partly to our March, partly to April), THE FOURTEENTH DAY OF THE MONTH AT EVENING, IS THE PHASE OF THE LORD.—For “at evening,” the Hebrew is between the two evenings, that is, between the setting of the sun and night, namely in the evening twilight, before the star rises which is called Vesper or Hesperus; for from the rising of this star night begins, and the 15th day; but the paschal lamb had to be immolated before the 15th day, at the end of the 14th: therefore the 14th day was not a feast, but only its evening, in which the phase was immolated. This is the second feast, namely of the Pasch and of Azymes, which for its solemnity was celebrated for seven days, and that in memory of that great benefit by which God had freed the Hebrews from Egypt and led them forth.
THE PHASE OF THE LORD.—The feast of the Pasch is dedicated to the Lord. For phase in Hebrew signifies a passing over, or rather a passing across: hence secondly, phase signifies the paschal lamb, which was immolated on account of the passing of the striking angel. Finally, thirdly, phase signifies the very feast on which this lamb was immolated. See what was said on Exodus 12:11.
This feast of the Pasch, then, was celebrated among the Jews; it is more celebrated among Christians, who in it have been delivered, through Christ rising again, not from the servitude of Pharaoh, but of the devil and of death. Hence God has made it illustrious with great miracles. It is related in the Life of St. Marcellinus, Bishop of Embrun, whom Ado mentions in his Martyrology on the 19th of the Kalends of May, that the baptistery which he himself built near Embrun was, by the power of God, every year in the holy vigils of the Pasch suddenly flooded with waters, and this was wont to continue through the seven days of that solemnity. And from this miracle they gathered that the Pasch is not to be celebrated on the 14th moon itself with the Jews, as the Quartodecimans wished, but on the Sunday following. For then this miracle happened.
In like manner in the year of the Lord 417, when an error had been made in celebrating the day of the Pasch, this error was declared by God through a miracle; for on the true paschal night, at the very hour of baptizing, the baptistery of the church was filled with water by a miracle, as Paschasius, Bishop of Lilybaeum, testifies, in St. Leo after epist. 63, and from him Baronius, in the year of Christ 417, who also teaches from Cassiodorus that the same miracle was wont to happen in another font of Lucania. And in another font of Lusitania the same is wont to happen, Gregory of Tours testifies, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chaps. 24 and 25. The same happens in a font of Lycia, and the water in it lasts until pentecost and then vanishes, Sophronius teaches in the Spiritual Meadow, chap. 214.
So also the error of the Britons about the day of the Pasch was refuted by the miracle by which St. Augustine, Bishop of the English, gave sight to a blind man, as the Venerable Bede relates, book 2 of the History of the English, chap. 2.
In the Life of St. Maurilius, Bishop of Angers (who was a disciple of St. Martin), on the 5th of September, it is told of a certain man named Belgicus that on the day of the Pasch he had commanded his servants to clear the cornfields; they replied that it was the day of the Pasch; he pressed them and compelled the unwilling; but when they tried to hoe the crops, Belgicus was at once struck with blindness of the eyes, and cried out that they should cease. When he had remained three years in that blindness, at length touching the garments of St. Maurilius as he passed by, he was healed.
In the Life of St. Maurice it is told that on the very night of the resurrection three servants of his monastery gave themselves to fishing, and caught indeed a great quantity of fish, but two of them were deprived of the use of hands and feet and crushed in the whole body; the third was made both lame and deaf, and at length, on the night of the resurrection, visiting the monastery of St. Bertin and invoking him with tears, was restored to health through his merits. Hence emperors also have honoured the day of the Pasch with great privileges, and have given prisoners their liberty. In the year of Christ 367, Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, Augusti, decreed, and wrote back thus to Lampadius, prefect of the city: “On account of the day of the Pasch, which we celebrate with inmost heart, we have loosed the prison-bonds and bars of all whom guilt constrains and prison encloses; as soon as the paschal day has dawned, let no prison hold any enclosed, let the chains of all be loosed.” This rescript is extant in book 8 On Indulgence to Criminals, of the Theodosian Code. The Emperor Theodosius gave the same indulgence to prisoners on the same feast in the East, as St. Chrysostom testifies, in his oration On Flavian the Bishop.