Mysterium Paschale. The Mystery of Easter (German: Theologie der Drei Tage) is a 1970 book by the Swiss theologian and Catholic priest Hans Urs von Balthasar. It offers an account of the death and resurrection of Christ, and their significance for the Christian life. Balthasar discusses the "bodiliness" of the Resurrection from the "radical" death of Jesus, involving his descent into the place of the dead on Holy Saturday. Balthasar's willingness to assume the nature and the consequence of his sin makes him, as well as the reader, extrapolate that God can endure and conquer godlessness, abandonment, and death. In the "Preface to the Second Edition", Balthasar takes a cue from Revelation 13:8 (Vulgate: agni qui occisus est ab origine mundi, NIV: "the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world") to explore the idea that, from the "immanent Trinity" up to the "economic" One, "God is love" consists in an "eternal super-kenosis".
The 1970 original German edition was published by Benzinger Verlag, Einsiedeln. In 1983 it was reprinted by St. Benno-Verlag, Leipzig, including additions made to the second French edition Pâque le mystère, copyright 1981 by Les Edition du Cerf, Paris. The first English translation with an Introduction by Aidan Nichols, O.P., was published in 1990.