Christ rose not on the sabbath

Christ rose not on the sabbath, but on the first day of the week (μία σαββάτων). The sabbath was the day of His rest, His ‘en-sabbathment’ in the tomb, the day which completed His task within the limits of the ‘old aeon.’ But the new life, the life which had begun to ‘shine out of the tomb,’ began on the first day of the week. This was the first day, the beginning of the risen life over which ‘death has no dominion.’ This day also became the day of the Eucharist as the ‘confession of His resurrection,’ the day of the communication to the Church of this risen life. And here it is quite remarkable that in early Christianity, up to and including the time of Basil the Great, this day was often called in fact ‘the eighth day.’ This means that the symbolism of Hebrew apocalypticism was adopted by Christians and became one of the theological ‘keys’ to their liturgical consciousness. There is no need to dwell especially on the first epistle of Peter, in which there seems to be a hint of the significance of the number eight (3:20-1). In the Gospel according to John, undoubtedly the most ‘liturgical’ of all the Gospels, the risen Christ appears after eight days (John 20:26). Later the ‘mystery’ of the eighth day is explained by Christian authors in application to the Eucharistic Day of the Lord, which points to a clear tradition. These numerous texts on the eighth day have been collected by J. Danielou. Their meaning is clear: Christ rose on the first day, i.e. on the day of the beginning of creation, because He restores creation after sin. But this day which concludes the history of salvation, the day of victory over the forces of evil, is also the eighth day, since it is the beginning of the New Aeon. ‘So the day which was first,’ writes St. Augustine, ‘will be also the eighth, so that the first life might not be done away, but rather made eternal.’ And even more clearly St. Basil the Great writes: ‘The Lord’s Day is great and glorious. The Scripture knows this day without evening, having no other day, a day without end; the psalmist called it the eighth day, since it is outside of time measured in weeks. Whether you call it a day or an age, it is all the same. If you call it an aeon, it is one, and not a part of a whole....’ In this way the eighth day ‘is defined in opposition to the week,’ writes J. Danielou. ‘The week is related to time. The eighth day is outside time. The week stands within the sequence of days, the eighth day has nothing coming after it, it is the ‘last one.’ The week involves multiplicity; the eighth day is one….