Letter 149. On the Jewish Festivals.

The theme of this letter is the abrogation of the Jewish festivals by the evangelical law (He explains the Jewish holidays, and teaches that they should by no means be observed after the Gospel). It has no claim to be considered a work of Jerome.

The below translation made by ChatGPT 3.5 from this Latin text.

1. We, compelled by the command of your charity, are about to speak of the festivals and sabbaths and new moons which the Lord ordained to be observed in the Law, and what must be spiritually observed rather than what is to be condemned according to the letter of Scripture. First, we are forced to answer the friends of the letter and the adversaries of truth; and since I may do so rightfully, I desire to address them in a kindly fashion and bring them to a recognition of the truth, so that, when they desire to chew upon the bitter rind of the roots, they may expel the fruit and marveling at the dust of gold, may despise the formed metals. Although they strive to observe everything according to the letter of the Law, yet they are not able to be enlightened by the light of the spirit of truth, with the veil placed over the face of Moses, [and] although they have not agreed to the truth, yet as emissaries in the manner of goats, [they are] prepared to satisfy with respect to faith which is in us, [and] ready to go to the wilderness of their own perdition, and afterwards to wash their clothes, lest they remain polluted by the contagion of heretical sensibility. However, we intend, following the example of Jeremiah at the beginning of this little work, first to uproot, then to destroy [and] afterwards to plant and to build.

2. Desiring to show concerning the Scriptures first, how these feast days of the Lord, which are commanded to be observed, are celebrated not in shadow, but in spiritual observance. And let those who wish to disregard our authority due to our weakness, listen to the Prophets, who, providing for these reprobations with wise protection, openly predicted during the time of the Gospel. Indeed, with the Lord speaking in them: "My soul hears your festival days, and new moons, and Sabbaths," and it is said that the Lord did not enjoin these, although it is plain that he did prescribe them in the Law. In these words, what else is shown, that when the end of the law came with Christ, it was not commanded to be kept according to the letter? But he speaks of sacrifices through another Prophet. I will not accuse you about your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are always before me, nor will I drink the blood of your goats, and the rest. With these words, the Apostle, filled with the same spirit, fittingly says: Let no one deceive you about food or drink, or about part of a festive day, or New Moon festivals, or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of future things and the rest. By these very words he most clearly declares that, whether in these days, which are temporal, or in the observance of carnal meats, nothing else can be found but the most vain shadow and the sedition of error; and the Lord Jesus Christ declared in the Gospel to loosen the Sabbath when he commanded the paralytic to take up his bed, which was, as is well known, forbidden by the law to be carried on the Sabbath. He also loosed the ceremony of the Feast of Tabernacles when he said, "I will not go up to this feast day", as if he had said, "In this observance of this festival of mine, my glory shall not ascend".

3. But concerning Easter as the greatest sacrament of our salvation, wishing to say something a little more extensive, although not to discuss everything of this time, I want to first show by what, or by how much reason the keeping of the Lord’s Passover is advised. It is commanded that in the first month, on the tenth day of the month, a one-year-old unblemished lamb is to be separated and kept up to the thirteenth and fourteenth day, and that it should be sacrificed by Moses himself, ordered by the Lord, away from the gathering of the children of Israel at dusk. When the true Lamb Himself was coming toward the evening of the Passover feast, willing that some reasons continue to be kept, and wanting that some not be preserved, He changed them. And He, as having deemed worthy to be sacrificed according to the decree of the law, in the first month, and on the thirteenth. He did not allow to anticipate his own time of suffering in any way. However, the Gospel recounts that he did something contrary to the norm, because when he was being handed over by Judas to the Jews, he was arrested on the eleventh day of the first month. And when He deigned to give sacraments of His own body and blood during His life, and to His disciples, this is shown to be contrary to the norm. Therefore, when that lamb, in the imitation of Christ, was commanded to be killed at Passover, roasted with fire with his head and feet, and was commanded to have his innards consumed by the people after his killing. But this, as it seems to me, the Lord did for two reasonable causes; that He might be known to have united sacrifice to the oblation of the Paschal supper with His disciples when He said, THIS IS MY BODY, as is related by Matthew at chapter 26 verse 26. That this union of sacrifice and oblation was thereafter to be observed is also believed. But the second cause, in my opinion, was this: that before His Passion they might see the Lord’s body whole and containing its own blood, and by this believe that they themselves would be spiritually refreshed through this body and that we also ought now to believe this. And we must also observe that Christ did not suffer on the fourteenth day, the typical day of the Passover. On the evening of that day, as the law requires, that lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, was sacrificed, and Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed (2 Cor. 5); but on the fifteenth day, on which it was clear that the Jewish festival day with its sacrifice had been dissolved by the Lord. But what should we understand in this, that at first he prefigures eating the flesh of the lamb and then Christ feeds our apostles with his own body as food, and afterwards Christ, the typical Passover of the Jews, was sacrificed? This, I think, was not so that the truth should prefigure the figure, but so that the figure should precede the truth, since first what was of the animal, then what was of the spiritual was chosen, and the universal Church, the beloved bride of Christ, anathematizes those who celebrate the fourteenth day of the Passover with the Jews. They determine to be celebrated, both Sabbaths, and the other observances of this shadowy institution, and He has deigned to observe only this, that the Lord, just before the feast in the first month after the fourteenth day of the Passover, has decided that a Sabbath, without any ambiguity, should be celebrated, even though the truth of the Church arose from it: some believing that it was sufficient not to celebrate the Passover with the Jews on the fourteenth day, while others observe this very cautiously, lest they should dare to celebrate the immolation of the true lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world before the fourteenth day according to that legal precept, which the Lord, coming to His passion, did not in the least despise, you shall observe it until the fourteenth (Exod. 13:6); which the Church now especially observes following the authority of the Apostolic See. But leaving these things, because it is not of this time to inquire into each one, we turn to the spiritual understanding, the sharpness of the mind, in which it is prescribed that on the fourteenth day of the new month of Easter we eat the flesh of the Lamb, so that, born to us the fruit of good works, when the words of the Decalogue are completed by us, consisting in the perfection of the Gospel in a number of four, we shall eat the flesh of our Lamb in the evening of the world, in which the end of the ages has come, not with darkened hearts, but with the Holy Spirit illuminating our night.

4. On the Sabbath and on the six days one is commanded to work, but on the seventh, the Sabbath, we are prohibited from all servile work. And through the number six, the perfection of works is designated, because the Lord made heaven and earth in six days. But on the Sabbath, all servile work, that is, sin, is prohibited, because whoever commits sin is a servant of sin (Jn. 8:34), so that when we have completed the perfection of our works in the present age, we may deserve to reach the true rest, which was denied to the disobedient. Thus, David says: "If they shall enter into my rest" (Ps. 49:11). About the fiftieth day from the seventh Sabbath day. We are commanded to count full weeks for ourselves until the second day of the completion of the seventh week, that is, the fiftieth day on which the first fruits are offered, which I think signifies a complete reckoning through the sevenfold number and fifty-five and ten times five, so that through the fifty (which contains remission within itself), through charity (which has been poured out into our hearts through the sevenfold spirit of grace), and through the five senses of our body subjected to God's law, we may have them. The words which contain the Ten Commandments within themselves, and through charity, as I have said, charity covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), and so we offer a new sacrifice to the Lord from all our dwelling places for the use of our Priest, giving our peaceful victims, if we make peace with the Lord, offering spiritual acceptable offerings to God through Jesus Christ, who, although he ate the fermented bread of the first fruits of our land, nevertheless consecrated it for himself as the High Priest who, by penetrating heaven, can share in our weaknesses and, when we have an advocate before the Father, with the works that have been fermented with the yeast of our weakness, offered by the hand of this Priest in prayer, they pass through the bowels of mercy, which offer an odor of sweetness to God, but demand more indulgence.

5. On Booths, and at the end of the solar year among the Hebrews the same in the seventh month, when fruits are gathered into barns, or into storage houses, then it is commanded by law to celebrate festivities, namely on the first day of Trumpets X. days from fulfillment ought to be celebrated Sabbaths, and XV. day through seven days, until they are finished, VIII. of the tabernacles, feasts are commanded. However, this perhaps can mean that, because we are consecrated to the sacrament of the triple invocation at the end of the age, preaching the faith of the Gospel and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, in whom true propitiation is found, we do not cease to speak, and by gathering the fruits of good works, we may merit to arrive at the number of the eighth beatitude, sustained by the grace of the sevenfold Spirit, free from all evil works through persecution. Yet this is without a doubt accomplished through the labor of fasting and prayer, because it is commanded that souls be afflicted by the law.

6. About the New Moon: On the New Moon, it is ordered to sound the trumpet, that is, the new moon, because whoever is illuminated by the light of knowledge must preach to others; as Paul did not despise observing the light of Christ's knowledge, preaching in synagogues. I decided to say a few things, which, since they contain in themselves a figure of the true Priest's offering, must also be offered spiritually to the Lord by us. For through the calf there is our labor, through the lamb there is innocence, through the goat there is the destruction of sinful pleasure, through the goat that is fed on high there is the life of contemplation, through the ram there is the preaching that generates the lambs for the good shepherd, through the virtue of chaste thoughts united with no one but Christ, through the dove there is the insight of the sacraments, through the bread there is the strength of commandments, through the flour there is the sincerity of life, through the wine and salt there is the truth of preaching, through the oil there is the promotion of charity. All these things, whether festivals or sacrifices are to be celebrated and offered in one place. The law commands this, because then all these things are beneficial, when they are carried out in the unity of the Church without any error of schism. Speaking briefly on many precepts of the law in the deep, I did not fear to offer this small sip to the rich poor, the stranger to the citizen. Perfect love drives out fear. Believing also in this, O venerable Pope, that obedience with faith is more powerful than the abilities of human genius. These words are requested by you and spoken by me for those who, although they appear to be Christians, do not hesitate to tear apart the body of Christ's Church with their schisms through a senseless Judaism. We have gone through these briefly, which if we were to treat in full, would demand a large volume, which this time's leisure cannot allow. Pray for me, venerable Pope.