Letters of Athanasius, Festal Letters
From Letter XLV. (for 373.)

From Letter XLV. (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 redemption1 .' ...(From the same:) ...And this is a great proof that, whereas we were strangers, we are called friends; from being formerly aliens, we are 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 shewed 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 fasts2 .

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