The Weekly Festal Cycle
The Eighth Day
By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
The Eighth Day
By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
In the previous sermons of the Sundays of July and August, the weekly festal cycle was analyzed, that is, the meaning of the days of each week were analyzed and we saw what we celebrate every day of the week, consistently, apart from the feasts of Christ, the Most Holy Theotokos and the Saints. Thus, it was emphasized many times that the week consists of seven days, the first day for us Christians is Sunday, "the first of the Sabbaths" and the last day is the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week.
However, in the texts of Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, Sunday is characterized as the first day, "the first of the Sabbaths", but also as the eighth day, because it is the first day of the week and because it is the day after the Sabbath - the seventh day. Thus, it is characterized as first and eighth.
In the book of Leviticus it is written that God told Moses to convey to the Israelites the information about the Feast of Tabernacles that this feast should be seven days long. "The first day shall be chosen and holy, you shall do no customary work on it. For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. The eighth day shall be chosen and holy, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord" (Leviticus 23:23-34). This period of the feast moves between the first and the eighth day, which are both chosen and holy days.
Saint John of Damascus, in the canon he composed for the feast of Pascha, and indeed in the eighth ode, following God's command to Moses, writes: "This is the chosen and holy day, the first of the sabbaths, king and lord of days, the feast of feasts, the celebration of celebrations, in which we bless Christ forever and ever."
Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, interpreting this troparion, writes that "the glorious day of the Resurrection of the Lord" is called "by many high and glorious names and adjectives." "This is called chosen and holy by Moses according to two meanings; one, because it is the eighth day and type of the future age, and another, because it is the day of Pascha." And then he writes that the feasts of Pentecost and Tabernacles are also characterized in this way. And he concludes: "If the feast of the Passover type is called chosen and holy, how much more chosen and holy should the bright-bearing Sunday, the true and real Pascha of the resurrected Master Christ, be? Therefore, for these reasons, the Melodist called this bright-bearing Sunday of Pascha chosen and holy."
Thus, Sunday is characterized both as the first day of the week, the first of the Sabbaths for the Resurrection of Christ, and as the eighth day, as the day after the seventh-day Sabbath, which is a type of the future age.
In this matter, Saint Gregory Palamas teaches that "as Friday, the day of preparation, stands in relation to the Sabbath, so is the Sabbath in comparison with Sunday, which is obviously superior to it. As perfection and reality surpass beginning, pattern and shadow, so is Sunday more excellent and honorable, because on it the exceedingly blessed work was finished, and on it we await the General Resurrection of all, the perfect entry of the saints into the divine rest and dissolution of the world into its elements." In other words, Sunday surpasses Saturday as much as perfection and truth surpasses the beginning, which is type and shadow.
The Jews in the Old Testament, according to God's command to Moses, celebrated their feasts based on the number seven. Saturday was the seventh day. Every seven years they celebrated the Sabbatical year. And every seventh sabbatical year followed the Jubilee year, the 49th year, which was a year of absolution and holy. While there is talk of the 49th year being a year of rest, it is written that they should sanctify the fiftieth year and proclaim liberation in the country and it will be a year of release. They will not sow their fields then, but they will sow in the eighth year (Lev. 25:1-22).
Saint Gregory Palamas, bearing in mind what is written in Leviticus, teaches that when God praises the seventh day as a day of sabbath and rest, this mostly refers to the eighth day, that is, Sunday. The Jubilee year which is considered a year of release and is not counted in the legally numbered weeks of the years, but is after them, is called the eighth. This is also done in the days of the week of weeks. For us, however, Sunday is the eighth day. Even Moses honored the seventh, because it leads to the eighth, where honor really is.
And Saint Gregory Palamas continues by saying: "Sunday is not only the eighth day of those numbered before it, but also the first of those after it, so that it is by rotation the same, the new and the first of all days, which we alone call Sunday, and Moses called not 'first', but 'one', as superior to the others and as a prelude to the one eternal day of the future age."
Therefore, the day of Sunday as the day of Christ's Resurrection and as a day that reminds us of the day of the Kingdom of Heaven after the Second Coming of Christ is also characterized as "one" -first and "as the eighth day."
This means that if we consider that our entire present life is a week of seven days, then we consider that the future life is the eighth day, which we enjoy from now on Sunday, which is the day of Christ's Resurrection, the eternal Pascha. We celebrate this important event every Sunday.
In Psalm 6 of David there is the inscription: "For the End, a Psalm of David among the Hymns for the Eighth," and it begins with the phrase: "O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, neither chasten me in your wrath."
According to the interpretive analysis of Euthymios Zygabenos and Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, the phrase "for the end" prophesies the resurrection of people from the dead, and the phrase "for the eighth" indicates that the Prophet David praises and magnifies God "for the eighth day, that is, for the age to come; the present age is the seventh, because it is measured by the week and is repeated and ends with it; the future age is the eighth, because it comes after the week of this age."
Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite in a footnote to this inscription of David's psalm cites a text by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, according to which "the week of time ceases, the eighth day after the seventh day is observed, the eighth day is said to be after the seventh day." Also, he mentions that according to Athanasios the Great, Saint Cyril, Basil the Great and Saint Gregory the Theologian, "the eighth day is the day of the Lord's resurrection and the day of the age to come." Therefore, "the inscription (of the psalm) advises us not to look to the present weekly age, but to the future eighth day."
In all these sermons of the past two months (July-August) we analyzed the importance of the seven days of the week, the so-called "weekly festal cycle" and the importance it has for our preparation for the eighth day, the eighth age, eternal life. We can anticipate this eighth day from now on the resurrection day of Sunday. And we must pray that this day will be a continuation of the worthy celebration of the "weekly festal cycle" and anticipation of the upcoming eighth day.
We must, beloved brethren, be seekers of the eighth day!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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