Chapter 1
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Having read the letter in which you have put me in mind of my obligation to give answers to the remainder of those questions which you submitted to me a long time ago, I cannot bear to defer any longer the gratification of that desire for instruction which it gives me so much pleasure and comfort to see in you; and although encompassed by an accumulation of engagements, I have given the first place to the work of supplying you with the answers desired. I will make no further comment on the contents of your letter, lest my doing so should prevent me from paying at length what I owe.
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You ask, Wherefore does the anniversary on which we celebrate the Passion of the Lord not fall, like the day which tradition has handed down as the day of His birth, on the same day every year? and you add, If the reason of this is connected with the week and the month, what have we to do with the day of the week or the state of the moon in this solemnity? The first thing which you must know and remember here is, that the observance of the Lord’s natal day is not sacramental, but only commemorative of His birth, and that therefore no more was in this case necessary, than that the return of the day on which the event took place should be marked by an annual religious festival. The celebration of an event becomes sacramental in its nature, only when the commemoration of the event is so ordered that it is understood to be significant of something which is to be received with reverence as sacred. Therefore we observe Easter in such a manner as not only to recall the facts of the death and resurrection of Christ to remembrance, but also to find a place for all the other things which, in connection with these events, give evidence as to the import of the sacrament. For since, as the apostle wrote, He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification, a certain transition from death to life has been consecrated in that Passion and Resurrection of the Lord. For the word Pascha itself is not, as is commonly thought, a Greek word: those who are acquainted with both languages affirm it to be a Hebrew word. It is not derived, therefore, from the Passion, because of the Greek word πάσχειν, signifying to suffer, but it takes its name from the transition, of which I have spoken, from death to life; the meaning of the Hebrew word Pascha being, as those who are acquainted with it assure us, a passing over or transition. To this the Lord Himself designed to allude, when He said, He that believes in Me is passed from death to life. And the same evangelist who records that saying is to be understood as desiring to give emphatic testimony to this, when, speaking of the Lord as about to celebrate with His disciples the passover, at which He instituted the sacramental supper, he says, When Jesus knew that His hour had come, that He should depart from this world unto the Father. This passing over from this mortal life to the other, the immortal life, that is, from death to life, is set forth in the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord.
Chapter 2
- This passing from death to life is meanwhile wrought in us by faith, which we have for the pardon of our sins and the hope of eternal life, when we love God and our neighbour; for faith works by love, and the just shall live by his faith; and hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. According to this faith and hope and love, by which we have begun to be under grace, we are already dead together with Christ, and buried together with Him by baptism into death; as the apostle has said, Our old man is crucified with Him; and we have risen with Him, for He has raised us up together, and made us sit with Him in heavenly places. Whence also he gives this exhortation: If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. In the next words, For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory, he plainly gives us to understand that our passing in this present time from death to life by faith is accomplished in the hope of that future final resurrection and glory, when this corruptible, that is, this flesh in which we now groan, shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. For now, indeed, we have by faith the first-fruits of the Spirit; but still we groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body: for we are saved by hope. While we are in this hope, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Now mark what follows: But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. The whole Church, therefore, while here in the conditions of pilgrimage and mortality, expects that to be accomplished in her at the end of the world which has been shown first in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the first-begotten from the dead, seeing that the body of which He is the Head is none other than the Church.