Letter 45

Athanasius of AlexandriaUnknown|c. 350 AD|athanasius alexandria

From Letter 45

(For 373.)

Let us all take up our sacrifices, observing distribution to the poor, and enter into the holy place, as it is written; 'whither also our forerunner Jesus is entered for us, having obtained eternal redemption. '...(From the same:)...And this is a great proof that, whereas we were strangers, we are called friends; from being formerly aliens, we have become fellow citizens with the saints, and are called children of the Jerusalem which is above, whereof that which Solomon built was a type. For if Moses made all things according to the pattern showed him in the mount, it is clear that the service performed in the tabernacle was a type of the heavenly mysteries, whereto the Lord, desirous that we should enter, prepared for us the new and abiding way. And as all the old things were a type of the new, so the festival that now is, is a type of the joy which is above, to which coming with psalms and spiritual songs, let us begin the fasts.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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