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It has been suggested, and not without reason, that to this idea of the ancients, respecting the sacred character of the properties of the home juice, may be traced the "origin of the celebration of Jewish holy or paschal suppers and other eucharistic rites."
He had no idea of what was before them. "Not in Rome," said Jesus, "but rather in Jerusalem will we eat the Paschal lamb." Soon after they wandered forth and left the noisy seaport behind them. As the roads became more and more unsafe, they climbed the rocks and took the way across the mountains. The gods came down from high Olympus, the Law came down from Sinai, Light came down from Lebanon.
'This do in remembrance of Me, said at the table where the Paschal lamb had been eaten, sufficiently warrants John's allusion here.
Everything of importance that did not happen elsewhere in Rome seems to have happened in the Piazza del Popolo, and I may name as a few of its attractions for investors the facts that it was here Sulla's funeral pyre was kindled; that Nero was buried on the left side of it, and out of his tomb grew a huge walnut-tree, the haunt of demoniacal crows till the Madonna appeared to Paschal II. and bade him cut it down; that the arch-heretic Luther sojourned in the Augustinian convent here while in Rome; that the dignitaries of Church and State received Christina of Sweden here when, after her conversion, she visited the city; that Lucrezia Borgia celebrated her betrothal in one of the churches; that it used to be a favorite place for executing brigands, whose wives then became artists' models, and whose sons, if they were like Cardinal Antonelli, became princes of the Church.
When the time approached in which, according to the promise made to Abraham, his children would be redeemed, it was seen that they had no pious deeds to their credit for the sake of which they deserved release from bondage. God therefore gave them two commandments, one bidding them to sacrifice the paschal lamb and one to circumcise their sons.
Issachar felt the legend it conveyed, and with piety, not apostacy, he uttered: "O Paschal Lamb! O Waif of God! Die Thou for me this night, and give me to look upon the countenance of my son!" The Jew, intently gazing at the cross, passed into such a stupor or ecstasy that he had no knowledge of the flight of time.
In one of these is the Sacrifice of Abraham, in the second the Manna, and in the third the Hebrews eating the Paschal Lamb on their departure from Egypt; and the work was such that it gave an earnest of the success that he has since achieved.
The miscreant who sold him was one of his disciples; and had a short time before eaten the Paschal lamb with him; not for worlds would I have had to do with such an act; however guilty the Galilean may be, he has not at all events sold his friend for money; such an infamous character as this disciple is infinitely more deserving of death. Then, but too late, anguish, despair, and remorse took possession of the mind of Judas.
S. Jerome also speaks of it in his epistles; and Ennodius bishop of Pavia in 519 wrote two formulas, according to which it might be blessed. Cancellieri, at the end of his Funzioni della Settimana Santa, describes two blessings of the paschal candle contained in manuscripts of the 12th century.
This paschal lamb was a figure of our blessed Lord, for as its blood saved the Israelites from death, so Our Lord's blood saved and still saves us from eternal death in Hell. After that dreadful night Pharao allowed the people to depart with Moses; but when they had gone as far as the Red Sea, he was sorry he let them go, and set out with a great army to bring them back.
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