First Christian Voices: Practices of the Apostolic Fathers

Chapter 3: God the Son

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intestines with vinegar.” 5 Why? “Because to me, the one who offers my flesh for the sins of my new people, you are to give gall with vinegar to drink. You eat alone while the people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes.” 6 He says this that He might show what was necessary for Him to suffer for them. Give your attention to the command. “Take two goats with good features, similar to each other, and offer them. And let the priest take one as a burnt offering for sins” ( Lev 16:7–9 ). And what should they do with the other? “Accursed,” He says, “is this one.” Pay attention to the type of Jesus revealed. “And all of you spit upon it and pierce it and encircle its head with scarlet wool and let it be driven into the wilderness.” 7 And when all this has been done, he who bears the goat brings it into the desert and takes the wool from it and places that upon a shrub which is called Rachi. Of this shrub we are also accustomed to eat its fruits when we find them in the field. Of this kind of shrub alone the fruits are sweet. Why, again, is this then? Pay attention, “One placed on the altar and the other accursed.” And why is the one accursed crowned? Because they will see Him then in that day having a scarlet robe about his body down to his feet and they will say, “Is not this He whom we once despised and pierced and mocked and crucified? Truly this is He who then declared Himself to be the Son of God. For how alike is He to Him!” This is why the goats are to be of good features and similar, so that when they see

5 Unknown source. 6 Unknown source. 7 Unknown source.