On the celebration of Easter

Eusebius of Caesarea (260–339)

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA

On the Celebration of the Pascha

[Translated by Andrew Eastbourne]

1. It would perhaps not be inappropriate here again to discuss the Pascha , which was handed down long ago to the children of the Hebrews as an image. Now then, when the Hebrews, performing "shadows of things to come," first used to celebrate the festival of Phasek , they would take for themselves a young domestic animal (this was a lamb or a sheep). Next, they would sacrifice this animal themselves; and then, with the blood, everyone would first anoint the lintels and door-posts of their own homes, bloodying the thresholds and houses to ward off the destroyer. The flesh of the lamb, on the other hand, they would use for food; and girding up their loins with a belt, partaking of the nourishment of unleavened bread, and serving themselves bitter herbs, they would "pass over" from one place to another—[meaning,] the [journey] from the land of Egypt to the wilderness. It had been enjoined by Law that they do this, along with the slaughter and eating of the lamb. Hence, the passing over out of Egypt produced for them the name of the "Passover." But these things happened to them by way of a type ; and…

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• More works by Eusebius of Caesarea

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