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,
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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
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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
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and
holy. Ye shall do no servile work thereon. And the seventh
day shall be to you more diligently attended
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and holier; ye shall do no servile work
thereon.” And hence we maintain that those have contracted
no guilt
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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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Lucidum.
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Levit. xxiii.
5–7
.
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Celeberrimus
, honoured, solemn.
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Solemn.
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[The
sanctification
of the Lord’s Day is thus shown
to be a Christian principle. The feast of Easter was the Great
Lord’s Day, but the rule was common to the weekly
Easter.]