PASSOYER. — In the NT we meet with two alternative names for the great Jewish festal season of the Passover — rd iraax"- and to. {it;vfia. These are the LXX equivalents for the corresponding Heb. terms in the OT, Tairxa being a rough translitera- tion of Heb. pesah (probably through the Aramaic form pasha ), and to. d^vfia a translation of Heb. hammazzoth (' the unleavened bread,' Ex 12"), a brief form of reference to hag hammazzSth ('the feast of the unleavened bread,' Ex 23'^). We have also one instance of the full phrase i) ioprri tCiv a^up.uiv in Lk 22'. Similarly t6 trdirxo. is an abbreviation for t; iopr^ tov iratsx"' (Lk 2"") ; ana this is parallel with the OT use of happesah {e.g. Jos 5'°) for the full hag happesah {e.g. Ex 34-''). In both cases the name of an essential feature of the feast (the lamb, the cakes) is used to denote the feast itself. The analogy of the use of the mazz6th (' cakes ') as a short name for the festi\'al suggests that pesah was originally the special name for the lamb and that it is not the name of the feast transferred to the lamb. 'Killing 'and ' eating ' rb iraaxa are just as often spoken of as ' keeping' Tbtraax":
It would be impossible for readers of the LXX, who were familiar only with Greek, to realize such word-play between ' passover ' and 'pass over' as is found in Ex 12 — word-play which is obvious alike in EVV and in Heb. ; e.g. Ex 12" : zebhah- pesah . . . Usher pa sah, 'passover-sacrifice (to the Lord) who passed over.' The LXX, which uses wdaxa invariably for pesah, reads in the same pas.sage, ' A sacrifice to the Lord is this pasch (tA Trdffxa), for He screened {ivKitraae) the houses of the people of Israel.'
The Vulg. handling of the term is very curious. At its first appearance in Ex 12" it is a sort of transliteration yielding the odd form Phase followed by an explanatory parenthesis, ' (id est, transitus) Domini.' So throughout the OT, except in Ezra and Ezekiel, Phase as an indeclinable substantive continues to be used, but some caprice is shown in using sometimes Phnse and sometimes /^Aai-e. In Ezr e'"- -" and Ezk 45°' the form Paschn appears : and in the NT this term is invariably used. It appears to be generally intended to mark the dis- tinction between the name as applied to the feast and as applied to the lamb by using Pascha in tlie former case ( ' facere, celebrare Pascha ') and pascha in the latter ('inimolare, comedere, manducare pascha'). Uncertainty, too, is shown as to the declension of the word, it being treated both as
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rASSOVEK
feminine and as neuter (e.7. Lk 2*', ' in die solemni Pa9cha> ' : 22", ' piuate nol)is pa<icha'). Similarly we have in Mk 14' ' Krat autem Pascha et Azyma,' and in Lk 22' ' anpropinquahat autem dies lestus Azynioium, qui aiiitur Pasclia.' In Ac 12' 20" is found 'dies Azvmorum.'
Whether weliave not here traces of two ancient Sprini; festivals, one pastoral (pcxrih) and one a^'ri- cultural (mnzMh), now nierj^ed into one and invested with a new si^'nilicance as a historical commemoration which almost wholly obliterates the primitive origins, is a question that lies beyond tlie scope of this article. This much, however, may be said. The real origin of the term pcsah (and so Traff^a) is, to say the least, obscure. The e.vplanation given in Ex 12 quite possibly indicates the well-known tendency tosupply a derivation for a term from itself, especially when it is to be adapted to new uses. Forirdirxo, we know, a con- nexion with Trdcrxa ('sutler'), was found as early as Irenwus (I'nd cent. A.D.), who saj's : 'A Moyse ostenditur Filius Dei, cuius el diem passionis non ignoravit, sed figuratim pronunciavit, eum pascha nominans' (llmr. iv. 10). Tert\illian and Chry- sostom repeated the error of connecting irdirxa with our Lord's Passion. Tliere must have been very many, familiar only with Greek, to whom the term itself was meaningless.
1. The feast. — The Passover was a hag, i.e. a pilgrim feast ch.aracterized by joyousness ; it was necessarily observed at the central sanctuary at Jerusalem. Josephus mentions more than once the large numbers that came up to the feast, and speaks of it as a particularly turbulent time when sedition was liable to break out on the slightest provocation (see Ant. XVII. ix. 3, XX. v. 3). He calculates that there were 2,700,'200 capable of cele- brating the Passover at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem (BJ VI. ix. 3; see also [for A.D. 65] BJ II. xiv. 3). Whatever exaggeration there may be in these numbers, it is clear that the concourse of people at the feast must have been great. According to the same authority, more than once in the unquiet years which preceded the fall of Jerusalem the Passover was made the occasion of massacre and bloodshed in which many perished.
With the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temjile, the Passover necessarily ceased to be a hag. It became simply a domestic festival, though of peculiar preciousness. Their downfall as a nation, their being scattered abroad through- out the world, could not lilot out for the Jews the memory of their redemption from Egyptian bond- age, which the festival commemorated, whilst it also kept alive hopes for the days to come. The scene of the celebration was the home, and those who kept the feast were the family circle or house- hold. But we are largely in the dark as to how the Jews observed the feast, say in A.D. 71, when it ■was no longer possible to go up to Jerusalem, and how exactly the celebration of the Pas.sover (as well as other matters) was adjusted to the new order of things. All we know is that out of a period of uncertainty and dimness the Passover feast emerges as one of the most distinctive features of Judaism, one that has been made the subject of a special tractate of the Mishna (Pesahim), and one that has continued to this day as a specially valued festival.