Some, therefore, students of such matters have inquired much concerning the numbers and motions of the stars, and those who have investigated these things more subtly have conjectured the waxings and wanings of the moon from the turning of its globe — not that anything of substance either accrues to it when it waxes, or recedes when it wanes, which the Manichaeans, opining with raving ignorance, said that it is filled, as a ship is filled, from a fugitive part of God, which they do not hesitate to believe and to speak, with sacrilegious heart and mouth, is mingled with the princes of darkness and defiled by their filth. Hence, therefore, they say the moon is filled, when that same part of God, purged with great labors from the defilement and fleeing out of the whole world and from all the sewers, is rendered back to the mourning God, until it may return;
but that it is filled for half a month and in the other half is poured back into the sun as into another ship. Yet among these blasphemies that are to be anathematized, they could never contrive any reason why it should shine either when beginning to give light or when ceasing, with a horned light, or why it should begin to be diminished from the half-month and not reach fullness for the pouring-back.
But those who have traced out these things by fixed numbers, so as long beforehand to predict not only why eclipses of the sun and moon happen, but also when they were to be, and to fix them by determined intervals of time by canonical calculation and commit them to writing — which those who now read and understand foretell them no less, and they happen no otherwise and at no other time than they foretell — such men, then, are not to be pardoned, as Holy Scripture says, because, though they were so mighty as to be able to estimate the world, they did not more easily find its Lord, whom by suppliant piety they were able to find. From the very horns of the moon, which are turned away from the sun, whether waxing or waning, they conjectured that it is illumined by the sun, and by how much
more it recedes from the sun, so much the more it receives the sun's rays on that part which appears to the earth; but by how much more, after the half-month, it approaches the sun from the other semicircle, so much the more, being illumined on the upper part, it cannot receive the rays on that part which it turns toward the earth, and therefore seems to decrease; or, if it had its own light, it has it on one part in the hemisphere, which part, when receding from the sun it gradually shows to the earth, until it shows the whole, it as it were displays increases — not that what was lacking is added, but that what was within is brought forth — and again gradually hides what lay open, and therefore seems to decrease.
But whichever of these two it may be, this at least is manifest and easily known to anyone who attends: that the moon is not increased to our eyes except by receding from the sun, nor diminished except by approaching the sun on another part. Attend now to what we read in the Proverbs: 'The wise man remains as the sun, but the fool is changed as the moon.' And who is the wise man who remains, but that sun of righteousness of whom it is said: 'The sun of righteousness has risen for me,' and whom the impious, lamenting that it had not risen for them on the last day, shall say: 'And the light of righteousness has not shone upon us, and the sun has not risen for us'? For God makes this sun, visible to the eyes of the flesh, to rise upon the good and the evil, who also rains upon the just and the unjust.
And congruent likenesses are always drawn from visible things to invisible things. Who, then, is that fool who is changed like the moon, but Adam, in whom all have sinned? For the human soul, receding from the sun of righteousness — that is, from that inward contemplation of unchangeable truth — turns all its powers to earthly things, and is more and more darkened in its inner and higher parts.
But when a man begins to return to that unchangeable wisdom, the more he draws near to it by the affection of piety, the more the outer man is corrupted, yet the inner man is renewed from day to day; and all that light of native intelligence, which was inclining toward lower things, is turned toward higher things and is in a certain manner withdrawn from earthly things, so that more and more he may die to this world and his life may be hidden with Christ in God. He is therefore changed for the worse when he advances toward outward things and, in his own life, casts away his inmost parts; and this seems better to the earth, that is, to those who savour earthly things, when the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does wicked deeds is blessed.
But he is changed for the better when little by little he turns his intention and his glory away from earthly things, which appear in this present age, and turns them toward things higher and more inward; and this seems worse to the earth, that is, to those who savour earthly things. Whence those impious ones, performing their final and fruitless repentance, will say among many things also this: These are they whom once we held in derision and as a byword of reproach; we senseless ones esteemed their life to be madness.
And therefore the Holy Spirit, drawing a likeness from visible things to invisible and from bodily things to spiritual mysteries, willed that that passage from one life into another life, which is called the Pasch, should be observed from the fourteenth moon; so that not only on account of the third period, which I mentioned above (because from there the third week begins), but also on account of that very conversion from outer things to inner things, a likeness might be taken from the moon; and indeed up to the twenty-first day on account of the number seven itself, by which the signification of universality is often figured, and which is also attributed to the Church herself on account of her being an image of the universal. For this reason the apostle John in the Apocalypse writes to seven churches.
Now the Church, still set within this mortality of the flesh, is signified in the Scriptures by the name of the moon on account of that very changeableness. Whence comes that saying: They have prepared their arrows in the quiver, that they may shoot in the dark moon at the upright in heart. For before that comes to pass which the Apostle says, When Christ your life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory, the Church seems dark in the time of her pilgrimage, groaning amid many iniquities; and then are to be feared the snares of deceitful seducers, which He willed to be understood under the name of arrows. Whence in another place, on account of the most faithful messengers of the truth whom the Church everywhere brings forth, it is said: The moon, a faithful witness in heaven; and when the psalm sang concerning the kingdom of the Lord:
In His days, it says, shall righteousness arise and abundance of peace, until the moon be destroyed; that is, the abundance of peace shall so increase, until it consume all the changeableness of mortality. Then shall the last enemy, death, be destroyed, and whatever resists us out of the weakness of the flesh (whence our peace is not yet made perfect) shall be wholly consumed, when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality. Whence also the walls of that city which is called Jericho—which word in the Hebrew tongue is said to be interpreted as 'moon'—fell down when the ark of the covenant had been carried round it seven times.
For what does the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven now effect—which the carrying round of the ark signified—except that all the fortifications of mortal life, that is, all the hope of this present age which resists the hope of the age to come, should be destroyed by the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit through free will? For this reason, when the ark went round, those walls fell not by violent thrust but of their own accord. There are also other testimonies of the Scriptures which press upon us, through the commemoration of the moon, the signification of the Church, which in this mortality goes on pilgrimage in hardships and toils away from that Jerusalem whose citizens are the holy angels. Yet the foolish, who are unwilling to be changed for the better, ought not for this reason to think that these luminaries are to be adored.
For because a likeness is sometimes drawn from them to figure divine mysteries—for from every creature a likeness is drawn—we ought not on that account to rush into that sentence of condemnation which is pronounced by the apostolic mouth concerning certain men who worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. For just as we do not adore cattle, although both a lamb and a calf are named, nor a wild beast, because a lion of the tribe of Judah is named, nor stones, because Christ was a rock, nor Mount Zion, because in it the Church is figured, so neither the sun nor the moon, although from that heavenly creature, as from much of the earthly, figures of the sacraments are taken for mystical instruction.
Wherefore the ravings of the Manichaeans are to be laughed at with detestation; for when we have cast at them the empty fictions by which they hurl men into that error into which they themselves were first hurled, they think themselves clever when they say to us: 'Why do you also celebrate the Pasch according to the computation of the sun and moon?' As though we found fault with the courses of the stars or the alternations of the seasons, which were founded by the supreme and best God, and not rather with the perversity of those men who abuse things most wisely established for the most empty opinions of their own folly. For if a mathematician is going to contradict us for drawing likenesses from the stars and luminaries of heaven for the mystical figuring of the sacraments, let the augurs also contradict, lest it be said to us: Be simple as doves;
let the Marsians also contradict, lest it be said to us: Wise as serpents; let the players contradict, lest in the psalms we name the harp; or, because from these things signs of likenesses are taken for the mysteries of the word of God, let them say, if they please, that we either seek to catch auspices, or brew poisons, or affect the wantonness of the theatre—which is the most senseless thing to say.
Therefore we do not conjecture from the sun and moon, from the yearly or monthly seasons, the outcomes of our actions, lest, in the most perilous storms of human life, dashed as it were upon the rocks of a wretched servitude, we should suffer shipwreck of free will; but rather, for the sacred signifying of a thing, we take up the likenesses employed with most religious devotion—as from the rest of creation, from the winds, from the sea, from the earth, from the birds, from the fishes, from the beasts, from the trees, from men, indeed in speech manifoldly, but for the celebration of the sacraments now, in Christian liberty, most sparingly—as from water, from grain, from wine, from oil.
But in the servitude of the old people many things also were commanded to be celebrated, which are handed down to us only to be understood. We therefore do not observe days and years and months and seasons, lest we hear from the Apostle: I am afraid of you, lest perhaps I have laboured among you in vain; for he blames those who say: 'I will not set out, because it is the day after' or 'because the moon is thus borne along'; or: 'I will set out that things may turn out prosperously, because the position of the stars is thus arranged'; 'I will not do business this month, because that star governs the month for me'; or: 'I will, because it takes up the month'; 'I will not plant a vineyard this year, because it is a leap year.' But no wise man judges that those observers of the seasons are to be reproved who say:
'I will not set out today, because a storm has arisen,' or: 'I will not sail, because there are still remnants of winter,' or: 'It is time to sow, because the earth is soaked with the autumn rains'; or if perchance any other natural effects concerning the movements of air and moisture, tending to vary the qualities of the seasons, have been noted in the most orderly revolution of the stars—concerning which it was said, when they were created: And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.
But if any figures of likenesses are drawn, not only from heaven and the stars but also from the lower creation, unto the dispensation of the sacraments, it is a certain eloquence of saving doctrine, accommodated by admonition to the affection of learners, leading from visible things to invisible, from bodily to spiritual, from temporal to eternal. Nor does any of us take heed that at the time when we celebrate the Pasch the sun is in Aries, as those men call a certain region of the stars where in truth the sun is found in the month of the new grain; but whether they choose to call that same part of heaven Aries or something else, we have learned this from the holy Scriptures: that God created all the stars and set them in the heavenly places which He willed.
Let them, marking off and ordering the heaven distinguished by stars, divide it into whatever parts they please and note them with whatever names they please: wherever the sun should be in the month of the new grain, there this celebration would find it, on account of the likeness of the sacrament of the renewing of life, concerning which we have discoursed sufficiently. But if even that region of the stars could be called Aries on account of some figure and fittingness, not even from this would the divine discourse fear to draw some likeness of a sacrament, as it does from other creatures, not only heavenly but also earthly, as from Orion or the Pleiades.
As from Mount Sinai, from Mount Zion, as from the rivers which are called Gihon, Pishon, Tigris, Euphrates, as from that river Jordan, so often ennobled in the holy mysteries, it drew mystical likenesses of things to be figuratively conveyed. But how great is the difference between observations of the stars accommodated to the qualities of the air, as farmers or sailors observe—
or observations for marking the quarters of the world and for directing a course to some place and from some place, which the steersmen of ships do, and those who go through sandy wildernesses into the interior regions of the south by no fixed path, or for signifying something figuratively in useful teaching, if some mention of certain stars is made—how great, then, is the difference between these useful things and the vanities of men who observe the stars for this end, that they may inquire neither into the qualities of the air, nor the roads of regions, nor merely the numbers of the seasons, nor the likenesses of spiritual things, but rather, as it were, the fated outcomes of things: who does not perceive it? But let us now henceforth see why this too is observed, when we celebrate the Pasch, that the Sabbath should fall in with it;
for this is proper to the Christian religion, for the Jews observe only the month of the new grain and the moon from the fourteenth up to the twenty-first. But because that Pasch of theirs, in which the Lord suffered, so fell out that between His death and His resurrection there was the intervening Sabbath day, our fathers judged it should be added, both that our festival might be distinguished from the festival of the Jews, and—since it must be believed not to have been done without purpose by Him who is before the ages and through whom the ages were made, and who came in the fullness of times, and who had the power to lay down His soul and to take it up again, and therefore awaited not a fated but an opportune hour for the sacrament which He had determined to commend—when He said:
My hour is not yet come, so that it might be preserved by posterity in the yearly celebration of His passion. For because now, as I said above, we sojourn in faith and hope, and, that we may attain to it, we strive with love, there is a certain rest from all labour of all troubles, holy and perpetual. Into it a passage is made for us out of this life, which passage our Lord Jesus Christ deigned by His passion to foreshow and to consecrate. But there is in that rest no slothful idleness, but a certain ineffable tranquillity of leisurely action. For rest is had from the works of this life at the end in such a way that there is rejoicing in the action of another life.
But because such action is carried on in the praise of God without labour of the limbs, without anguish of cares, the passage into it through quiet is not such that labour succeeds it—that is, action does not begin in such a way that rest ceases; for there is no returning to labours and cares, but there remains in action that which pertains to rest, neither to labour in work nor to fluctuate in thought. Because, therefore, through rest there is a return to the first life, whence the soul fell into sin, therefore by the Sabbath 'rest' is signified. But that first life, which is restored to those returning from pilgrimage and receiving the first robe, is figured by the first day of the week, which we call the Lord's Day. Seek the seven days, read Genesis:
you will find the seventh without evening, because it signifies rest without end. Therefore the first life was not everlasting for the one who sinned, but the last rest is everlasting; and by this the eighth also shall have everlasting blessedness, because that rest which is everlasting is taken up by the eighth, not extinguished; for otherwise it would not be everlasting. So then there shall be an eighth which is also the first, so that the first life may be restored, but eternal. Yet the Sabbath was commended to the former people to be celebrated bodily in cessation from labour, that it might be a figure of sanctification unto the rest of the Holy Spirit. For we never read in Genesis of sanctification through all the former days, but of the Sabbath alone it is said: And God sanctified the seventh day.
For both pious souls and wicked souls love rest; but by what way they may come to that which they love, most of them know not; nor do even the bodies themselves seek anything by their weights except what souls seek by their loves. For just as a body strives by its weight, whether downwards or upwards, until, coming to the place toward which it strives, it comes to rest—for the weight of oil, if it be let go in the air, strives downwards, but if under water, upwards—so souls strive toward the things they love, for this reason: that by arriving they may rest. And indeed many things through the body delight, but there is in them no eternal rest, nor even a lasting one; and therefore they rather defile the soul and rather weigh it down, so as to hinder its pure weight,
by which it is borne to things above. But when the soul is delighted with itself, it is not yet delighted with the unchangeable reality, and therefore it is still proud, because it holds itself as the highest, whereas God is higher. Nor is it left unpunished in such a sin, because God resists the proud, but to the humble He gives grace. But when it is delighted with God, there it finds true, certain, eternal rest, which it was seeking in other things and did not find. Accordingly it is admonished in the psalm: Delight in the Lord, and He will give you the petitions of your heart. Because, therefore, the charity of God has been poured abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, therefore sanctification was commemorated on the seventh day, where rest is commended.
But because we can neither work well except aided by His gift, as the Apostle says: For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for a good will, nor shall we be able to rest after all our good works which we do in this life, unless by His gift we are sanctified and perfected unto eternity, therefore it is said concerning God Himself that, when He had made all the works very good, on the seventh day He rested from all His works which He had made. For He was signifying the future rest which He was going to give to men after their good works. For just as, when we work well, He is said to work in us, by whose gift we work well, so, when we rest, He is said to rest, by whose granting we rest.
Hence it is that, even in the first three precepts of the decalogue, which pertain to God—for the other seven pertain to the neighbour, that is, to man, because in two precepts the whole law hangs—the third one there is set down concerning the observance of the Sabbath; so that in the first precept we understand the Father, where it is forbidden that any likeness of God should be worshipped in the figments of men—not because God has no image, but because no image of His ought to be worshipped except that which is also that which He Himself is, nor that image in His stead but with Him; and because the creature is changeable, and therefore it is said: Every creature is subjected to vanity, since the nature of the universe is shown even in a part—lest anyone should suppose the Son of God, the Word, through whom all things were made,
should be thought to be a creature; there follows another precept: You shall not take in vain the name of the Lord your God. But the Holy Spirit, in whom that rest is granted to us which we everywhere love, yet do not find except by loving God, since His charity is poured abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, because God sanctified the seventh day on which He rested, is intimated in the third precept of the law, which is written concerning the observance of the Sabbath: not that we should suppose we already rest in this present life, but that all things which we do well should have no intention except toward that future everlasting rest. For remember above all—which I have already mentioned above—that we are saved by hope;
but hope that is seen is not hope. And to the nourishing and, as it were, the fanning of that very fire of love, by which, as by a weight, we may be borne upward or inward to rest, all these things pertain which are figuratively intimated to us; for they move and kindle love more than if they were set forth naked, without any likenesses of the sacraments. The cause of this thing is difficult to state; but nevertheless it is so, that something intimated through allegorical signification moves more, delights more, and is more honoured than if it were most plainly stated in proper words. I believe it is because the movement of the soul itself, as long as it is still entangled in earthly things, is more sluggishly inflamed;
but if it is borne to bodily likenesses, and thence carried back to the spiritual things which are figured by those likenesses, by that very passage, as it were, it is quickened, and, like fire stirred in a torch, is kindled, and by a more ardent love is caught up to rest. And therefore, among all those ten precepts, it is only there—in what is set down concerning the Sabbath—that a figurative observance is prescribed; which figure we have received as one to be understood, not also to be celebrated by bodily leisure. For since by the Sabbath is signified a spiritual rest, concerning which it is said in the psalm: Be still and see that I am the Lord, and to which men are called by the Lord Himself saying: Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you;
take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls—yet the rest of the precepts there we observe properly, as they are precepts, without any figurative signification. For we have plainly learned both not to worship idols, and not to take in vain the name of the Lord our God, and to honour father and mother, and not to commit adultery, not to kill, not to steal, not to bear false witness, not to covet the neighbour's wife, not to covet any thing of the neighbour: these do not figuratively hold forth one thing and mystically signify another, but are observed just as they sound. Yet we are not commanded to observe the Sabbath day according to the letter, in terms of leisure from bodily work, as the Jews observe it;
and their very observance, because it was so commanded, is judged laughable unless it signify some other spiritual rest. Whence not unfittingly do we understand that all things which are said figuratively in the Scriptures avail to arouse that love by which we tend toward rest; since indeed that alone is prescribed figuratively in the decalogue where rest is commended, which is everywhere loved, but is found holy and certain in God alone. Yet the Lord's Day was declared, not to the Jews but to the Christians, by the resurrection of the Lord, and from that time it began to have its festivity. For the souls of all the saints, before the resurrection of the body, are indeed in rest, but they are not in that action by which bodies, once received, are quickened.
For the eighth day, which is also the first, signifies such an action, because it does not take away that rest, but glorifies it. For difficulty arising from the body does not return with the body, because neither does corruption: for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. Wherefore, before the resurrection of the Lord, although the sacrament of the eighth was by no means hidden from the holy fathers, full of the prophetic spirit, by which the resurrection was signified—for a psalm is written for the eighth, and infants were circumcised on the eighth day, and in Ecclesiastes, for the signification of the two Testaments, it is said:
Give a portion to those seven and to those eight—yet it was reserved and hidden, and the Sabbath alone was handed down to be celebrated, because before, there was a rest of the dead, but a resurrection of no one who, rising from the dead, would die no more and over whom death would no longer have dominion; so that, after such a resurrection had taken place in the body of the Lord, that it might go before in the Head of the Church, which resurrection the body of the Church hopes for in the end, then the Lord's Day, that is, the eighth, which is also the first, might begin to be celebrated.
That very reason also is understood, why the Pasch was to be observed—where they are commanded to slay and eat the lamb, since it most manifestly prefigures the Lord's passion—it was not commanded them in such a way that they should take heed for the Sabbath to fall in with it, and to concur with the month of the new grain in the third week of the moon, so that the Lord too might rather mark that same day by His passion, who was also to come to declare the Lord's Day, that is, the eighth, which is also the first. Attend, therefore, to the most sacred triduum of the Crucified, the Buried, the Raised. Of these three, what the cross signifies we accomplish in the present life; but what the burial and resurrection signify we carry on in faith and hope. For now it is said to a man: Take up your cross and follow me.
But the flesh is crucified when our members upon the earth are mortified—fornication, uncleanness, luxury, avarice, and other things of this kind—concerning which he says: For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. Hence also concerning this he says: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world; and in another place: Knowing this, he says, that our old man is crucified together with Him on the cross, that the body of sin may be destroyed, that we may no longer serve sin. Therefore, as long as our works do this—that the body of sin may be destroyed—as long as the outer man is corrupted, that the inner may be renewed from day to day, it is the time of the cross.