Numbers 29

There is still also another festival, when they afflict their souls and humble themselves, celebrating festivals to God. O wondrous festival: the affliction of the soul is called a feast day! "For this," He says, "is the day of propitiation, on the tenth day of the seventh month." See, therefore, if you wish to keep a feast day, if you wish that God rejoice over you, afflict your soul and humble it. Do not permit it to fulfill its desires, nor grant it to wander off into wantonness, but as far as can be done, afflict and humble it. Finally, both the festival of the Passover and that of the unleavened bread is said to have the bread of affliction, nor can anyone keep a feast day unless he has eaten the bread of affliction, and has eaten the pasch with bitterness. "For you shall eat," He says, "the unleavened bread with bitterness," or with bitter herbs. You see, therefore, of what sort the festivals of God are; they admit no bodily sweetness, they wish nothing relaxed, nothing voluptuous or luxurious, but they demand affliction of the soul and bitterness and humility, because "he who humbles himself shall himself be exalted" before God. This, then, the day of propitiation too demands; for when the soul has been afflicted and humbled in the sight of the Lord, then God is made propitious to it again, and then there comes to it He whom God set forth as a propitiator through faith in His blood, Christ Jesus, its Lord and redeemer.

After these, in the seventh month other solemnities are kept. On the "first day of the month" the new moon of the trumpets, as it says in the Psalm: "sound the trumpet at the beginning of the month". But on the "tenth day of the seventh month" is this solemnity of atonement. "On this" day alone the high priest is clothed with all the priestly garments, then he is clothed with "manifestation and truth", then he enters into those inaccessible places, whither it is permitted to approach only "once in the year", that is, into the "holy of holies". For "once in the year" the high priest, leaving the people, enters into that place where is the "propitiatory" and above the "propitiatory" the "cherubim", where is also the "ark of testimony" and the "altar of incense", whither it is lawful for no one to enter except the high priest alone.

Then next follows the festival of the sevenths. For just as among the days every seventh day is observed as a sabbath and is a festival, so also among the months every seventh month is the sabbath of the months. There is therefore kept in it the festival which is called the sabbath of sabbaths, and on the first day of the month there is made the memorial of trumpets. But who is it that keeps the festival of the memorial of trumpets, except he who is able to commit to memory the prophetic and evangelical and apostolic scriptures, which sound forth like a certain heavenly trumpet, and to store them up within the treasury of his heart? He therefore who does this, and meditates on the law of God day and night, this man keeps the festival of the memorial of trumpets. But also, if anyone is able to merit those graces of the Holy Spirit by which the prophets were inspired, and to say, singing psalms: "Sound the trumpet at the beginning of the month, on the day of its notable solemnity," and he who knows how to make a joyful noise in the psalms, he worthily keeps to God the solemnity of the trumpets.

But now let us see what is the last feast day of God, on which God rejoices in man. "Tabernacles," He says. He rejoices, then, over you when He sees you dwelling in this world in tents, when He sees you not having your mind and purpose fixed and founded upon the earth, nor desiring the things that are earthly, nor reckoning the shadow of this life as your own perpetual possession, but as though set in transit and hastening to that true fatherland of paradise, whence you came forth, and saying: "I am a sojourner and a pilgrim, as all my fathers." For the fathers too dwelt in tents, and Abraham dwelt in little huts, that is, in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. When, therefore, you have been a sojourner and a pilgrim on the earth, and your mind is not fixed and rooted in the desires of earthly things, but you are ready to pass over quickly and ready to stretch yourself always to the things that are before, until you arrive at the land flowing with milk and honey and receive the inheritance of things to come — if, I say, God sees you set in these things, He rejoices in you and will keep a feast day over you. These things indeed in the present; but as for the future, if you wish to consider how the feast days are kept there, lift up your senses a little, if you can, from the earth, and forget for a while these things that are held before your face. Describe to yourself how heaven and earth pass away, and how all this fashion of the world passes away, and a new heaven and a new earth is founded. Remove from your sight even the light of this sun, and give to that world which is to come a sevenfold light of this sun; nay rather, according to the authority of Scripture, give to it the Lord Himself as its light. Set the angels of glory standing by, set the virtues, powers, thrones, dominions, and every name of the most illustrious and heavenly powers, not only that which is named in the present age but also that which is named in the age to come. Among all these, consider and conjecture how the feast days of the Lord may be kept, what festivity there is there, what joys, what magnitude of gladness. For concerning those spiritual festivals of which we spoke above, even though they are great and true, especially when they are kept spiritually in the soul, yet they are in part, not in whole; for just as the Apostle said: "We know in part and we prophesy in part," so it follows that we keep a feast day in part. But that you may know that this is so, let us return to that very discourse of Paul which he set forth about feast days and new moons, and see how observantly he said: "Let no one therefore," he says, "judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a part of a feast day." Attend, therefore, more diligently how he did not say "on a feast day" but "in respect of a part of a feast day." For in part and not in whole do we, set in this world, celebrate the feast day; for we are interrupted, even against our will, by the burden of the flesh, we are beaten by its concupiscences, and are bored through by cares and anxieties. For "the corruptible body," as the most wise man says, "weighs down the soul and depresses the mind that ponders many things." In part, therefore, in this world do the saints keep the feast day, because in part they know and in part they prophesy. But when the things that are perfect shall have come, those things which are in part shall be destroyed. For just as this which is in part gives way to perfect knowledge, and this which is in part gives way to perfect prophecy, so also this festival which is in part gives way to the perfect festival. For neither can this world receive that which is perfect, where, as we have said, the necessity of the body now suggests food, now drink, now sleep, now also stirs up as much anxiety of the present life as is necessary; all of which without doubt interrupt the continuation of the festival of God. But when that shall have come which was said concerning those who shall be restored into the holy places — if indeed we too may be counted worthy to be among those who are to be restored, who shall neither hunger nor thirst nor slumber nor labor, but shall be ever-wakeful, as the life of the angels is said to be ever-wakeful — when they shall be counted worthy to be restored into that order, then there will be a true and incorrupt festival, of which festival the prince and bridegroom and lord will be Jesus Christ Himself, our Savior, to whom is glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen!

All who are to be trained in the higher disciplines regard the labor of the rudiments as burdensome, so long as they do not know what the end and fruit of that discipline is to which they are being introduced. But when, having been led through in order, the perfection of the discipline has been attained, then it will be a delight to have endured the burdens of the rudiments. There are, therefore, also in holy and divine matters certain first rudiments, by which those are introduced who strive toward the perfection of blessedness. This the servant of God clearly indicates in the song of Exodus, saying: "Bringing them in, plant them on the mountain of your inheritance, in your prepared dwelling, which you have prepared, O Lord." Paul the Apostle also, knowing that there are certain first beginnings of instruction, and that then afterward, in the course of time, one comes even to perfection, writing to certain persons said: "For indeed, when you ought already to be teachers by reason of the time, you again need to be taught what are the elements of the beginning of the words of God, and you have become such as have need of milk, not strong food. For everyone who is fed on milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness; for he is a little child. But solid food is for the perfect, who according to their capacity for receiving have their senses trained to the discernment of good or evil." And again elsewhere he recalls that the letter of the law and every writing of this kind are the elements of the world. And so now those things which pertained to those who were being instructed in the first elements seem burdensome to us at first hearing; for when each of the hearers wishes to learn about those things which pertain to salvation, and there is recited to them about the sacrifices of rams and goats and calves, they judge that writings of this kind confer no benefit upon them, so far as concerns the hearing itself. But if there be found anyone who can remove the veil which is placed upon the reading of the Old Testament, and thence search out what are the true sacrifices which purify the people on the festal days, then he will see how wonderful and magnificent are the things which are indicated through these, which by the ignorant are held to be superfluous and superstitious. But these things indeed Paul, and any who are like him, will have come to know more fully and more perfectly from Wisdom herself and from the Word of God; but we, so far as we can gather from their own writings, in which they have given us certain indications as it were through shadow and image, will attempt to discuss summarily, for the common edification, some things concerning the rite of the sacrifices. At the festival of Passover a lamb is written to be that which purifies the people, in others a calf, in others a goat or a ram or a she-goat or a heifer, as you have learned from those things which have been recited. One therefore of these animals which are taken to purify the people is the lamb. And this lamb is said to be our Lord and Savior himself. For thus understood John, who is greater than all the prophets, and he indicated concerning him, saying: "Behold, the Lamb of God, behold, him who takes away the sin of the world." But if the lamb which was given to purify the people is referred to the person of our Lord and Savior, it seems to follow that the other animals also, which are appointed to these same uses of purification, ought likewise to be referred to certain persons who confer something of purification upon the human race. See therefore whether perhaps, just as our Lord and Savior, led like a lamb to the slaughter and offered as a sacrifice upon the altar, granted remission of sins to the whole world, so perhaps also the blood of the other saints and just ones, which has been shed from the blood of Abel the just even to the blood of Zechariah the prophet, who was slain between the temple and the altar — the blood of one poured out as of a heifer, of another as of a goat or a she-goat or of one of these — was shed to expiate the people for some part. Whether therefore these things are to be seen as referred to the persons of the just and the prophets who were slaughtered in this world, or of those who say: "For your sake we are put to death all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter," or even to the higher powers to whom the care of the human race has been given, who would easily dare to affirm? For these animals are to be thought referred to this or that person not by species, but by figure. For the Lord Jesus Christ himself is not called a lamb as though he had been changed and turned into the species of a lamb. Yet he is called a lamb because his will and goodness, by which he propitiated God toward men and gave pardon of sins, was such, being to the human race as it were the immaculate and innocent victim of a lamb, by which the divine powers are believed to be appeased toward men. So therefore perhaps also, if there is any of the angels and heavenly powers, or if any of the just men or even of the holy prophets and Apostles who intervenes more earnestly for the sins of men, he can be taken as having been offered a sacrifice for the divine propitiation, like a ram or a calf or a goat, to obtain purification for the people. Or does not Paul seem to have offered himself as a whole-burnt-offering like a ram or a goat for the people of Israel, when he said: "I myself indeed was wishing to be anathema from Christ for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh"? And do you wish to know that Paul offers himself as a victim to be slaughtered? Hear him saying also in another place: "For now I am being sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution" — or, as we read in the Greek codices, "of my return" — "is at hand." So therefore it can be seen figuratively that one is offered for the festival of the new moons, another for the festival of the sabbath, another for the festival of tabernacles, like a goat or a calf or a ram, to reconcile God to men. For so long as there are sins, it is necessary that victims also be sought for sins. For suppose, for example, that there had been no sin; if there had been no sin, it would not have been necessary for the Son of God to become a lamb, nor would there have been need for him, placed in the flesh, to be slaughtered, but this would have remained, which in the beginning was God the Word; but since sin entered into this world, and the necessity of sin requires propitiation, and propitiation does not come about except through a victim, it was necessary that a victim be provided for sin. And since the qualities of sin itself were diverse and various, the victims of diverse animals are commanded, without doubt such as would suit the varieties of sins. So therefore it comes about that one of the saints — whether of angels, as we have said, or of men — is a calf, who intervenes at that festival for the transgressions of the people, and another is a ram at another festival; by whose intercession purification is made for sins. But if men can be purified from sins and be purer, the victims also are diminished. For if the victims are for sins, and for the multitude of sins they are without doubt multiplied, so also for the smallness of sins they are diminished. And of this matter we have indications in the present passages of Scripture, that is, in the last festival of the setting-up-of-tents, when for eight days victims are commanded to be offered. And on the first day indeed, as though still in an abundance of sins, fourteen calves are commanded to be offered. But on the second day, the sins as it were being diminished, the victims also are diminished, and thirteen calves are offered. On the third day twelve, and after this eleven, and thus, as the multitude of sins fails through the days by the purifications, the number of victims also is consequently diminished. So therefore understand also, for the dispensation of the whole world, the account of purification; for not only the things which are on the earth need purification, but also the things which are in the heavens. For destruction threatens the heavens also; for thus says the prophet: "The heavens shall perish, and all shall grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you shall roll them up and they shall be changed." Behold therefore the purification of the whole world, that is, of the heavenly and the earthly and the infernal; see how many victims all these need, how many calves they require, how many rams, how many goats. But in all these there is one lamb, who could take away the sin of the whole world; and therefore the other victims have ceased, because this victim was such that it alone sufficed for the salvation of the whole world. For the others remitted sins by prayers, this one alone by power; for he said: "Son, your sins are forgiven you." So therefore the world is first instructed to seek remission of sins through diverse victims, until it comes to the perfect victim, to the consummated victim, the perfect yearling lamb, who takes away the sin of the whole world; through whom it may keep spiritual festivals, not to the satiety of the flesh, but to the advancement of the spirit, spiritual sacrifices being offered by the purification of the mind. For it is fitting that there be immolated to God the victim of the heart and the sacrifice of a contrite spirit, not of flesh and blood to be slaughtered, because even though we have known Christ at one time according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him thus, and therefore let us keep the festal day in the spirit and let us slaughter spiritual sacrifices. Let these things be discussed by us, according to our strength, concerning the diversity of the sacrifices, the clear understanding of which he knows to whom all things are bare and revealed, nor is there any creature invisible in his sight.