stephan huller

Mark Delcogliano's been on a tear posting articles to this site.

http://www.academia.edu/1860514/The_...east_of_Pascha

Duvduv

Reading through once, it is rather amazing how confused the early writer(s) (good old "Eusebius") were on the matter of the sacrifice and the metaphor. Was their Jesus the sacrifice of Yom Kippur who atoned for all their sins, or was he the Passover sacrifice which was part of the ritual of the festival of Passover, which happened to be when the authors of the religion decided was the time of Jesus' death (based on the tradition of Ben Pandera)? A Yom Kippur sacrifice AND a Passover sacrifice?

It's also rather interesting to see how the author himself uncritically takes at face value that the early sources were written and described what they claim to do, and that some "primitive Christianity" had long celebrated the holiday, WITHOUT any evidence whatsoever that this was the case before the 4th century. He also uncritically accepts the claims regarding the events surrounding the Nicaea council just as the Church presents them, ignoring all the anomalies related to it.

Roger Pearse

Wasn't the author BORN well before the 4th century began? and did he attend the council of Nicaea in person?

Roger Pearse

Yes, I was delighted to see that appear online. I do have a translation already of De solemnitate paschalis online, but Mark's work is always very sound, and his article and translation are peer-reviewed of course.

DCHindley

Duv,

The confusion goes back to the Epistle of Barnabas, chapter 7:

Barnabas 7:1 Understand therefore, children of gladness, that the good Lord manifested all things to us beforehand, that we might know to whom we ought in all things to render thanksgiving and praise. 2 If then the Son of God, being Lord and future Judge of quick and dead, suffered that His wound might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not suffer except for our sakes. 3 But moreover when crucified He had vinegar and gall given Him to drink. Hear how on this matter the priests of the temple have revealed. Seeing that there is a commandment in scripture, Whatsoever shall not observe the fast shall surely die, the Lord commanded, because He was in His own person about to offer the vessel of His Spirit a sacrifice for our sins, that the type also which was given in Isaac who was offered upon the alter should be fulfilled. 4 What then saith He in the prophet? And let them eat of the goat that is offered at the fast for all their sins. Attend carefully; And let all the priests alone eat the entrails unwashed with vinegar. 5 Wherefore? Since ye are to give Me, who am to offer My flesh for the sins of My new people, gall with vinegar to drink, eat ye alone, while the people fasteth and waileth in sackcloth and ashes; that He might shew that He must suffer at their hands. 6 Attend ye to the commandments which He gave. Take two goats, fair and alike, and offer them, and let the priest take the one for a whole burnt offering for sins. 7 But the other one--what must they do with it? Accursed, saith He, is the one. Give heed how the type of Jesus is revealed.

7:8 And do ye all spit upon it and goad it, and place scarlet wool about its head, and so let it be cast into the wilderness. And when it is so done, he that taketh the goat into the wilderness leadeth it, and taketh off the wool, and putteth it upon the branch which is called Rachia, the same whereof we are wont to eat the shoots when we find them in the country. Of this briar alone is the fruit thus sweet. 9 What then meaneth this? Give heed. The one at the alter, and the other accursed. And moreover the accursed one crowned. For they shall see Him in that day wearing the long scarlet robe about His flesh, and shall say, Is not this He, Whom once we crucified and set at nought and spat upon; verily this was He, Who then said that He was the Son of God. 10 For how is He like the goat? For this reason it says the goats shall be fair and alike, that, when they shall see Him coming then, they may be astonished at the likeness of the goat. Therefore behold the type of Jesus that was to suffer. 11 But what meaneth it, that they place the wool in the midst of the thorns? It is a type of Jesus set forth for the Church, since whosoever should desire to take away the scarlet wool it behoved him to suffer many things owing to the terrible nature of the thorn, and through affliction to win the mastery over it. Thus, He saith, they that desire to see Me, and to attain unto My kingdom, must lay hold on Me through tribulation and affliction (this last quote is an Agrapha, that is, supposed words of Jesus outside of the four Gospels).

The next chapter describes what the author claims are traditions of the Jerusalem priests, and how they too served as a type that foretold the death of Jesus. This early Christian document was likely written after the destruction of the temple (although in its current form it is presented as written by Barnabas the travel companion of Paul the apostle).

Early Christians also thought of Jesus as the Lamb sacrificed in the temple and eaten by Jewish families in Jerusalem, possibly because he was actually crucified around Passover. As you know, the Passover ritual was observed to remember how the lamb's blood, splashed on the lintels of the Israelites' doors, kept the Angel of Death from taking their first born sons like it did to those of the Egyptians. For gentiles who converted to Judaism because they believed that God would someday establish a new kingdom and punish the rest of the nations, this might have had even greater significance.

If you were to ask me, I'd say that Christian confusion over Jewish traditions of the "apostolic age" indicates that by the time "Christians (as we know the from their writings) became aware of or considered themselves distinct from Jews, the Judaism that they had once been associated with was then a distant memory. They already had formal community bonds that they were not willing to give up, and so had to explain away their relationship to Judaism in order to preserve them.

DCH