The Fourth Festal Letter, for Easter 332

He sent this letter from the emperor’s court by a soldier. I am writing to you, my beloved, late and past the usual time. Yet I trust you will forgive the delay, because of my long journey and because I have been tried by illness. I was held back by these two causes, and unusually severe storms came as well, so I put off writing to you. But for all my long journeys and my serious sickness, I have not forgotten to give you the festal notice, and in fulfillment of my duty I now announce the feast to you. For although this letter comes later than the usual time for this announcement, it should still be thought well timed, for our enemies have been put to shame and rebuked by the church, because they persecuted us without cause, and so we may now sing a festal song of praise, raising the hymn of triumph over Pharaoh: “We will sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously to be praised; the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.” [a]

It is good, my beloved, to go on from feast to feast. Again festal gatherings, again holy vigils rouse our minds and compel our understanding to keep watch in contemplating good things. Let us not spend these days like those who mourn. Instead, by enjoying spiritual food, let us seek to silence our fleshly lusts. For by these means we will have strength to overcome our adversaries, like the blessed Judith, who first trained herself in fasting and prayer, and then overcame the enemies and killed Holofernes. And the blessed Esther, when destruction was about to fall on her whole race and the nation of Israel was ready to perish, defeated the fury of the tyrant by no other means than fasting and prayer to God, and turned the ruin of her people into safety. Now, as those days are counted feasts for Israel, so too in the old days feasts were appointed when an enemy was slain, or a plot against the people was broken up, and Israel was delivered. That is why the blessed Moses long ago established the great feast of the Passover and our celebration of it: because Pharaoh was killed and the people were delivered from slavery. For in those times it was above all when those who had tyrannized over the people had been slain that feasts and holidays for a time were kept in Judea. [d]

But now that the devil, that tyrant against the whole world, has been slain, we do not come to a feast for a time, my beloved, but to one that is eternal and heavenly. We do not show it forth in shadows; we come to it in truth. For they kept the feast by filling themselves with the flesh of a speechless lamb, and after smearing their doorposts with its blood they begged for help against the destroyer. But now we eat the Word of the Father, and with the lintels of our hearts sealed with the blood of the new covenant, we acknowledge the grace given us by the Savior, who said, “See, I have given you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” For death no longer reigns. From now on there is life instead of death, since our Lord said, “I am the life.” So everything is filled with joy and gladness, as it is written, “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice.” For when death reigned, “sitting down by the rivers of Babylon, we wept” and mourned, because we felt the bitterness of captivity. But now that death and the kingdom of the devil have been abolished, everything is entirely filled with joy and gladness. And God is no longer known only in Judea, but in all the earth: “Their voice has gone out, and the knowledge of him has filled all the earth.” What follows, my beloved, is plain: we should come to such a feast not in filthy clothes, but with our minds dressed in pure garments. For in this we need to put on our Lord Jesus, so that we may be able to celebrate the feast with him. Now we are clothed with him when we love virtue and are enemies of wickedness; when we train ourselves in self-control and put lustfulness to death; when we love righteousness more than wrongdoing; when we honor contentment and have strength of mind; when we do not forget the poor, but open our doors to everyone; when we help humility along, but hate pride. [e]

By these things Israel of old first strove for the victory, as in a figure, and then came to the feast, for these things were then foreshadowed and pictured in types. But we, my beloved, now that the shadow has been fulfilled and the types accomplished, should no longer think of the feast as a type. Nor should we go up to the Jerusalem here below to sacrifice the Passover, following the out-of-season observance of the Jews, so that, when the season has passed, we are not seen to be acting out of season. Instead, as the apostles directed, let us go beyond the types and sing the new song of praise. For the apostles saw this, and gathered together with the Truth, they came to our Savior and said, “Where do you want us to prepare the Passover for you?” For the things that belonged to the Jerusalem below were no longer to be done. Nor was the feast to be celebrated there alone, but wherever God willed it. And he willed it to be in every place, so that “in every place incense and a sacrifice might be offered to him.” For in the historical account the feast of the Passover might be kept nowhere but in Jerusalem. Yet when the things of that time were fulfilled, and what belonged to the shadows had passed away, and the preaching of the gospel was about to reach everywhere, when indeed the disciples were spreading the feast into every place, they asked the Savior, “Where do you want us to prepare?” And the Savior, since he was exchanging what was a type for what is spiritual, promised them that they would no longer eat the flesh of a lamb, but his own, saying, “Take, eat and drink; this is my body and my blood.” When we are nourished by these things in this way, we too, my beloved, will truly keep the feast of the Passover. [f]

We begin on the 1st of Pharmuthi, the 27th of March, and rest on the 6th of the same month, the 1st of April, on the evening of the seventh day. And when the holy first day of the week has dawned on us, on the 7th of the same month Pharmuthi, the 2nd of April, let us too celebrate the days of holy Pentecost that follow it, showing forth through them the world to come, so that from then on we may be with Christ forever, praising God over all in Christ Jesus. And through him, with all the saints, we say to the Lord, Amen. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the brothers who are with me greet you. We have sent this letter from the court by the hand of an official in attendance, to whom it was given by Ablabius, the praetorian prefect, who truly fears God. For I am at the court, having been summoned by the emperor Constantine to see him. But the Melitians who were there were envious and sought our ruin before the emperor. Yet they were put to shame and driven away from there as slanderers, refuted on many points. Those who were driven away were Callinicus, Ision, Eudaemon, and Geloeus Hieracammon, who calls himself Eulogius because of the shame of his name. Here ends the fourth festal letter of holy Athanasius. [g]