Friday, December 25, 2009

Origen on the Christian Festival of Unleavened Bread in Alexandria Within a Generation of Secret Mark

This is another proof that the first addition to Secret Mark reflects the existence of a Christian Festival of Unleavened Bread at Alexandria in the late second century.

It would be too long for us at present to show why we [Christians] are required by the law of God to keep its festivals by eating "the bread of affliction," or "unleavened with bitter herbs," or why it says, "Humble your souls," and such like. For it is impossible for man, who is a compound being, in which "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh," to keep the feast with his whole nature; for either he keeps the feast with his spirit and afflicts the body, which through the lust of the flesh is unfit to keep it along with the spirit, or else he keeps it with the body, and the spirit is unable to share in it. But we have for the present said enough on the subject of feasts. [Against Celsus viii.23]


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