[109] St Luke xix. 29 seqq.; St John xii. 1 seqq.
[110] Among the Fathers, St Ambrose, more especially, deals with the question of the day of the week and day of the month on which the Last Supper took place. Cf. Epist. 23, written in 386. He says the Last Supper was held on the 14th Nisan which was a Thursday, on the 15th, Christ was crucified, and, on the 17th, He rose again. The day of His death must be kept in sorrow and fasting. Therefore the two events cannot be commemorated on the same day, and Christ’s death cannot be commemorated on a Sunday. If the 15th Nisan falls on a Sunday, Easter must be postponed to the following week. When Johannes Philoponus, in the treatise De Paschate (ed. C. Walter, Leipzig, 1899) makes our Lord keep the Last Supper on the 13th Nisan and celebrate not the old, but a new mystical passover, and then says: Τῇ πρώτῃ τῶν ἀζύμων (St Mark xxvi. 17) means τῇ πρώτῃ πρὸ τῶν ἀζύμων.
Harnack and Shürer, Theol. Literaturztg., 1900, No. 4.
[111] Etymol., 6, 17, 10; Migne, Patr. Lat., lxxxii. 247.
[112] Euseb., Hist. Eccl., 4, 21; 5, 27.
[113] Twenty-first Festal Letter, for the year 349, in Larsow 33.
[114] Hist. Eccl., 5, 27.
[115] Adv. Hær., 70, c. 12: Μία γὰρ ἡμέρα παρ’ ἐκείνοις ζητεῖται, παρ’ ἡμῖν δὲ οὐ μία ἀλλὰ ἕξ, ἐβδομὰς πληρεστάτη, etc.
[116] loc. cit. c. 11.
[117] Ep. ad Januarium., 55, c. 1-3.