John Chrysostom, on Exod 12:21

“And Moses called all the ancients of the children of Israel, and said to them: Go take a lamb by your families, and sacrifice the Phase.”

“What then did Moses do? "Sacrifice an unblemished lamb," he said, "and smear your doors with its blood." What do you mean? Can the blood of an irrational animal save one who expresses reason? "Yes," he says. "Not because it is blood but because it prefigures the Master's blood." Although statues of the emperor have neither life nor perception, they can save the men endowed with perception and life who flee to them for refuge, not because they are bronze but because they are images of the emperor. So too that blood which lacked life and perception saved the men who had life, not because it was blood but because it was an anticipatory type of the Master's blood.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.