The manner of celebrating the feast was minutely prescribed. Each householder, for example, had to choose a lamb without blemish of the first year, on the 10th of the first month, _i.e._ Nisan, as it came to be called later, or, if he had none in his own herd, he must procure one from elsewhere and keep it in readiness for the feast on the evening of the 14th Nisan. The lamb was to be killed, roasted, and eaten by the household, who remained standing, along with unleavened bread, and bitter herbs, nothing being allowed to remain over.[94] From this onwards to the 21st Nisan inclusive, unleavened bread was alone to be eaten, and hence the period from the 15th to the 21st Nisan was called the days of unleavened bread. The first and last days, the 15th and the 21st, were regarded as especially sacred, and servile work was forbidden on them.[95] During the whole week, holocausts, meat offerings, and sin offerings were offered daily in the Temple on behalf of the entire people, as well as offerings presented by individual believers on their own behalf. The 16th Nisan was marked by an offering of a special kind, that of the first-fruits of harvest, consisting of the presentation of a sheaf of ripe barley along with the offering of a yearling lamb.[96] This offering of the first ripe fruits served also to mark the time when the Passover was to be celebrated, for, owing to the fact that the Jewish year did not begin on a fixed date, this had to be in some way determined by a stated event in the order of nature. In Palestine the barley was already ripe by March. Several of the actions prescribed at the offering of this lamb pointed forward to the atoning death of the Messias, such as the sprinkling of the doorposts with its blood, in order that the destroying angel might pass over the house, and the direction that none of the lamb’s bones were to be broken. There were also several other small particulars which emphasised and completed the ideal connection between the sacrifice of the Passover and that of the Cross, as certain Fathers perceived at an early date.