[How the Passover Ought to Be Celebrated.]

XVII. It is therefore your duty, brethren, who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, to observe the days of the passover exactly, with all care, after the vernal equinox, lest ye be obliged to keep the memorial of the one passion twice in a year. Keep it once only in a year for Him that died but once.

 Do not you yourselves compute, but keep it when your brethren of the circumcision do so: keep it together with them; and if they err in their computation, be not you concerned. Keep your nights of watching in the middle of the days of unleavened bread. And when the Jews are feasting, do you fast and wail over them, because an the day of their feast they crucified Christ;   and while they are lamenting and eating unleavened bread in bitterness, do you feast .  146  This italicized passage does not occur in the mss., but is taken from Epiphanius. It is believed to be genuine, in which case what follows must be regarded as the work of the interpolator. [See Epiphanius, tom. iv. p. 29, ed. Oehler, 1861.] This italicized passage does not occur in the mss., but is taken from Epiphanius. It is believed to be genuine, in which case what follows must be regarded as the work of the interpolator. [See Epiphanius, tom. iv. p. 29, ed. Oehler, 1861.] But no longer be careful to keep the feast with the Jews, for we have now no communion with them; for they have been led astray in regard to the calculation itself, which they think they accomplish perfectly, that they may be led astray on every hand, and be fenced off from the truth. But do you observe carefully the vernal equinox, which occurs on the twenty-second of the twelfth month, which is Dystros (March), observing carefully until the twenty-first of the moon, lest the fourteenth of the moon shall fall on another week, and an error being committed, you should through ignorance celebrate the passover twice in the year, or celebrate the day of the resurrection of our Lord on any other day than a Sunday.

[17] Δεῖ οὖν ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, τοὺς τῷ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐξηγορασμένους τιμίῳ αἵματι, τὰς ἡμέρας τοῦ πάσχα ἀκριβῶς ποιεῖσθαι μετὰ πάσης ἐπιμελείας μετὰ τροπὴν ἰσημερινήν, ὅπως μὴ δὶς τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἑνὸς παθήματος μνείαν ποιῆσθε, ἀλλὰ ἅπαξ τοῦ ἔτους τοῦ ἅπαξ ἀποθανόντος, μηκέτι παρατηρούμενοι μετὰ Ἰουδαίων ἑορτάζειν. Οὐδεμία γὰρ κοινωνία ἡμῖν νῦν πρὸς αὐτούς: πεπλάνηνται γὰρ καὶ αὐτὴν τὴν ψῆφον, ἣν νομίζουσιν ἐπιτελεῖν, ὅπως πανταχόθεν ὦσιν πεπλανημένοι καὶ τῆς ἀληθείας ἀπεσχοινισμένοι. Ὑμεῖς δὲ φυλάσσεσθε ἀκριβῶς τὴν ἰσημέριον τροπὴν τῆς ἐαρινῆς ὥρας, ἥτις γίνεται δευτέρᾳ καὶ εἰκάδι τοῦ δωδεκάτου μηνός, ὅς ἐστι Δύστρος: ἐπιτηροῦντες ἕως πρώτης καὶ εἰκάδος σελήνης, ὅπως μὴ ἐν ἑτέρᾳ ἑβδομάδι ἐμπέσοι ἡ τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτη τῆς σελήνης, καὶ πλάνης γενομένης ἀγνοίᾳ δὶς τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐπιτελέσωμεν τὸ πάσχα, ἢ ἐν ἄλλῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἑορτάσωμεν τὴν τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀναστάσιμον ἡμέραν, ἀλλ' ἐν κυριακῇ μόνῃ.