Quartodecimanism
Encyclopedia
Quartodecimanism refers to the custom of some early Christians celebrating Passover
beginning with the eve of the 14th day of Nisan
(or Aviv in the Hebrew Bible
calendar
), which at dusk is Biblically the "Lord's passover".
The modern Jewish Passover
and Feast of Unleavened Bread is seven days, starting with the sunset at the beginning of Nisan
15. Judaism
reckons the beginning of each day at sunset
, not at midnight
as is common in Western reckoning. The Biblical law
regarding Passover is said to be a "perpetual ordinance" , to some degree also applicable to Proselytes , but what it means to observe Biblical law in Christianity
is disputed.
According to some interpretations, the Gospel of John
(e.g., , ) implies that Nisan 14 was the day
that Jesus
was executed in Jerusalem
. The Synoptic Gospels
place the execution on the first day of Unleavened Bread , usually understood as Nisan 15 given a seven-day feast . On these interpretations, there is a contradiction (by one day) in the Gospel chronology
.
or Easter (called "Pascha
" in Greek and Latin) should be celebrated. Disputes of this kind came to be known as Paschal/Easter controversies.
The first recorded such controversy came to be known as the Quartodeciman controversy.
In the early period
, Easter was always held on a date near the middle of the Jewish month of Nisan
. In the mid–second century A.D.
, the practice in the Roman province of Asia was for the pre-Easter fast to end on the eve of the 14th day of Nisan, regulated by the full moon, the day on which the Passover sacrifice had been made when the Second Temple
stood, and "the day when the people put away the leaven" (such as Jews
, Jewish proselytes, and Jewish Christians
). Nisan 14 itself was commonly, if somewhat confusingly, also called Passover
; technically it is Preparation Day for the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread that begins on Nisan 15, now also called Passover. The Asian custom became known as "Quartodecimanism" among the Latins. Melito of Sardis
(d. c.180) was a notable Quartodeciman.
The practice elsewhere was to continue the fast until the eve of the Sunday following; the objection to the Quartodeciman practice was that the 14th of Nisan could fall on any day of the week. Outside of Roman Asia, Christians wished to associate Easter with Sunday, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead according to all the Gospels, and which had long been a Christian holy day, known as the Lord's Day
. According to the writings of Irenaeus
(d. c. 202), the Roman church had celebrated Easter on a Sunday at least since the time of Bishop Xystus (Sixtus I, 115–125).
Irenaeus, who followed the Sunday custom, also stated, however, that bishop Polycarp
(a disciple of John the Apostle
) of Smyrna (c.69-c.155) in Asia Minor, one of the Seven churches of Asia
, was Quartodeciman, celebrating on Nisan 14. Shortly after Anicetus
became bishop of Rome in about 155, Polycarp had visited Rome, and among the topics discussed was this divergence of custom. But, Irenaeus noted,
. Indeed, Irenaeus also noted that "Anicetus conceded to Polycarp in the Church the celebration of the Eucharist, by way of showing him respect"; Anicetus and Polycarp parted in peace leaving the question unsettled.
, made a compelling argument that the Quartodecimans preserved the original understanding and character of the Christian Easter/Passover celebration. He states that in Jewish tradition four major themes are associated with Passover, i.e., the creation of the world, the Akedah, or binding of Isaac, the redemption of Israel from Egypt
(both the passing over of the First-born during the Passover meal and Israel's passage through the Red Sea) and the coming of the Messiah
(announced by the Prophet Elijah. For Christians, the central events of the Paschal Mystery
of Christ, i.e., his passion, death and resurrection, also are obviously associated with Passover. Thus it was inevitable that the very earliest Christians also expected the imminent return of Christ
to also occur during their Passover celebrations. Jeremias, notes that the Quartodecimans, began their Christian Passover celebrations by reading the appropriate readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, i.e., the twelve readings from the Hebrew Scriptures that still are read at the Easter Vigil in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Armenian traditions. At midnight, when Christ had not reappeared to inaugurate the great eschatological banquet, the Christians would celebrate the Paschal Eucharist
in anticipation of that final act of the drama of the redemption of Christ. As this original eschatological fervor began to die down and as Christianity became an increasingly Gentile movement this original eschatological orientation of the Christian Passover celebration began to be lost and with the development of the practice of baptizing catechumens during the twelve readings in order for them to share the Eucharist for the first time with the Christian community at the conclusion of the Paschal Vigil, the baptismal themes came to dominate the celebrations of the Paschal Vigil, as they do again in those churches which have begun again to baptize its adult converts during the Easter Vigil. Major liturgical scholars such as Louis Bouyer
and Alexander Schmemann
concur with Jeremias' essential position and one has only to examine the Christian liturgical texts for Paschal Vigil to see evidence of this. E.g., the Eucharistic Preface for the Easter Vigil in the Roman, Lutheran and Anglican/Episcopalian traditions, which state: ". . . on this night when Christ became our Passover sacrifice" or the Eastern Orthodox Troparion for Great and Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which warns the Christian community "Behold the Bridegroom
comes in the middle of the night and blessed are those servants he shall find awake . . ." In short, no one knows when Christ will appear at the end of time, but given other central events of redemption which occurred during Passover, the earliest Christians assumed that Christ would probably appear during the Paschal Eucharist, just as he first appeared to his original disciples
during their meal on the first Easter Sunday.
wrote to Victor; Irenaeus reminding Victor of his predecessor Anicetus's more tolerant attitude, and Polycrates defending the Asian practice.
Polycrates (c. 190) emphatically notes that he was following the tradition passed down to him:
According to Eusebius, a number of synods were convened to deal with the controversy, which he regarded as all ruling in support of Easter on Sunday.
A Palestinian synod, under the direction of bishops Narcissus and Theophilus, issued "a lengthy review of the tradition about the Easter festival [beginning Sunday eve] which had come down to them without a break from the apostles", concluding:
Victor's excommunication of the Asians was apparently rescinded, and the two sides reconciled as a result of the intervention of Irenaeus and other bishops:
In the end, a uniform method of computing the date of Easter
was not formally addressed until the First Council of Nicaea
in 325.
, and harassed in unspecified ways by Nestorius
, both bishops of Constantinople. This indicates that the Nisan 14 practice, or a practice that was called by the same name, lingered into the 4th century.
Because this was the first-recorded Easter controversy
, it has had a strong influence on the minds of some subsequent generations. Wilfrid
, the 7th-century bishop of York
in Northumbria
, styled his opponents in the Easter controversy of his day "quartodecimans", though they celebrated Easter on Sunday. Many scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries thought that the dispute over Easter that was discussed at Nicaea was between the Nisan 14 practice and Sunday observance. According to one account: "A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the council at Nicaea in 325. At that time, the Syrians and Antiochenes were the solitary champions of the observance of the 14th day. The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and that 'none hereafter should follow the blindness of the Jews'". A new translation of Eusebius' Life of Constantine suggests that this view is no longer widely accepted; its view is that the dispute at Nicaea was between two schools of Sunday observance: those who followed the traditional practice of relying on Jewish informants to determine the lunar month in which Easter would fall, and those who wished to set it using Christian computations.
Passover (Christian holiday)
Christian Passover is a religious observance celebrated by some churches to keep faith with Old Testament teaching. It is often linked to the Christian holiday and festival of Easter. Often, only an abbreviated seder is celebrated to explain the meaning in a time-limited ceremony...
beginning with the eve of the 14th day of Nisan
Nisan
Nisan is the first month of the ecclesiastical year and the seventh month of the civil year, on the Hebrew calendar. The name of the month is Babylonian; in the Torah it is called the month of the Aviv, referring to the month in which barley was ripe. It is a spring month of 30 days...
(or Aviv in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
calendar
Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar , or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits , and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses...
), which at dusk is Biblically the "Lord's passover".
The modern Jewish Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
and Feast of Unleavened Bread is seven days, starting with the sunset at the beginning of Nisan
Nisan
Nisan is the first month of the ecclesiastical year and the seventh month of the civil year, on the Hebrew calendar. The name of the month is Babylonian; in the Torah it is called the month of the Aviv, referring to the month in which barley was ripe. It is a spring month of 30 days...
15. Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
reckons the beginning of each day at sunset
Sunset
Sunset or sundown is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon in the west as a result of Earth's rotation.The time of sunset is defined in astronomy as the moment the trailing edge of the Sun's disk disappears below the horizon in the west...
, not at midnight
Midnight
Midnight is the transition time period from one day to the next: the moment when the date changes. In the Roman time system, midnight was halfway between sunset and sunrise, varying according to the seasons....
as is common in Western reckoning. The Biblical law
Biblical law
Biblical law refers to the legal aspects of the Bible, the holy scriptures of Judaism and Christianity.-Judaism:* 613 Mitzvot, the 613 commandments contained in the Torah* Mitzvah, divine commandment, act of human kindness, a good deed...
regarding Passover is said to be a "perpetual ordinance" , to some degree also applicable to Proselytes , but what it means to observe Biblical law in Christianity
Biblical law in Christianity
Christian views of the Old Covenant have been central to Christian theology and practice since the circumcision controversy in Early Christianity. There are differing views about the applicability of the Old Covenant among Christian denominations...
is disputed.
According to some interpretations, the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
(e.g., , ) implies that Nisan 14 was the day
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...
that Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
was executed in Jerusalem
Jerusalem in Christianity
For Christians, Jerusalem's place in the ministry of Jesus and the Apostolic Age gives it great importance, in addition to its place in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.-Jerusalem in the New Testament and early Christianity:...
. The Synoptic Gospels
Synoptic Gospels
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...
place the execution on the first day of Unleavened Bread , usually understood as Nisan 15 given a seven-day feast . On these interpretations, there is a contradiction (by one day) in the Gospel chronology
Chronology of Jesus
The chronology of Jesus aims to establish a historical order for some of the events of the life of Jesus in the four canonical gospels. The Christian gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than historical chronicles and their authors showed little interest in an absolute...
.
Background
Very early in the life of the Church, disputes arose as to which date PaschPassover (Christian holiday)
Christian Passover is a religious observance celebrated by some churches to keep faith with Old Testament teaching. It is often linked to the Christian holiday and festival of Easter. Often, only an abbreviated seder is celebrated to explain the meaning in a time-limited ceremony...
or Easter (called "Pascha
Pascha
Pascha may refer to:*Easter, central religious feast in the Christian liturgical year*Paskha , an Easter dish served in several Slavic countries*Paska , an Easter bread served in Ukraine...
" in Greek and Latin) should be celebrated. Disputes of this kind came to be known as Paschal/Easter controversies.
Easter controversy
The Easter controversy is a series of controversies about the proper date to celebrate the Christian holiday of Easter. To date, there are four distinct historical phases of the dispute and the dispute has yet to be resolved...
The first recorded such controversy came to be known as the Quartodeciman controversy.
In the early period
Apostolic Age
The Apostolic Age of the history of Christianity is traditionally the period of the Twelve Apostles, dating from the Crucifixion of Jesus and the Great Commission in Jerusalem until the death of John the Apostle in Anatolia...
, Easter was always held on a date near the middle of the Jewish month of Nisan
Nisan
Nisan is the first month of the ecclesiastical year and the seventh month of the civil year, on the Hebrew calendar. The name of the month is Babylonian; in the Torah it is called the month of the Aviv, referring to the month in which barley was ripe. It is a spring month of 30 days...
. In the mid–second century A.D.
Christianity in the 2nd century
The 2nd century of Christianity was largely the time of the Apostolic Fathers who were the students of the apostles of Jesus, though there is some overlap as John the Apostle may have survived into the 2nd century and the early Apostolic Father Clement of Rome is said to have died at the end of the...
, the practice in the Roman province of Asia was for the pre-Easter fast to end on the eve of the 14th day of Nisan, regulated by the full moon, the day on which the Passover sacrifice had been made when the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
stood, and "the day when the people put away the leaven" (such as Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, Jewish proselytes, and Jewish Christians
Jewish Christians
Jewish Christians is a term which appears in historical texts contrasting Christians of Jewish origin with Gentile Christians, both in discussion of the New Testament church and the second and following centuries....
). Nisan 14 itself was commonly, if somewhat confusingly, also called Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
; technically it is Preparation Day for the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread that begins on Nisan 15, now also called Passover. The Asian custom became known as "Quartodecimanism" among the Latins. Melito of Sardis
Melito of Sardis
Melito of Sardis was the bishop of Sardis near Smyrna in western Anatolia, and a great authority in Early Christianity: Jerome, speaking of the Old Testament canon established by Melito, quotes Tertullian to the effect that he was esteemed a prophet by many of the faithful...
(d. c.180) was a notable Quartodeciman.
The practice elsewhere was to continue the fast until the eve of the Sunday following; the objection to the Quartodeciman practice was that the 14th of Nisan could fall on any day of the week. Outside of Roman Asia, Christians wished to associate Easter with Sunday, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead according to all the Gospels, and which had long been a Christian holy day, known as the Lord's Day
Lord's Day
Lord's Day is a Christian name for Sunday, the day of communal worship. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said in the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament to have been witnessed alive from the dead early on the first day of...
. According to the writings of Irenaeus
Irenaeus
Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...
(d. c. 202), the Roman church had celebrated Easter on a Sunday at least since the time of Bishop Xystus (Sixtus I, 115–125).
Irenaeus, who followed the Sunday custom, also stated, however, that bishop Polycarp
Polycarp
Saint Polycarp was a 2nd century Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to touch him...
(a disciple of John the Apostle
John the Apostle
John the Apostle, John the Apostle, John the Apostle, (Aramaic Yoħanna, (c. 6 - c. 100) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles...
) of Smyrna (c.69-c.155) in Asia Minor, one of the Seven churches of Asia
Seven churches of Asia
The Seven Churches of Revelation, also known as The Seven Churches of the Apocalypse and The Seven Churches of Asia , are seven major churches of Early Christianity, as mentioned in the New Testament Book of Revelation and written to by Ignatius of Antioch...
, was Quartodeciman, celebrating on Nisan 14. Shortly after Anicetus
Pope Anicetus
Pope Saint Anicetus was Pope of the Catholic Church from about 150 to about 167 . His name is Greek for unconquered...
became bishop of Rome in about 155, Polycarp had visited Rome, and among the topics discussed was this divergence of custom. But, Irenaeus noted,
Anicetus could not persuade Polycarp to forgo the [Quartodeciman] observance inasmuch as these things had been always observed by John the disciple of the Lord, and by other apostlesNeither Polycarp nor Anicetus was able to persuade the other to his position, but neither did they consider the matter of sufficient importance to justify a schismApostle (Christian)The term apostle is derived from Classical Greek ἀπόστολος , meaning one who is sent away, from στέλλω + από . The literal meaning in English is therefore an "emissary", from the Latin mitto + ex...
with whom he had been conversant; nor did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to keep it: Anicetus said that he must hold to the way of the eldersElder (Christianity)An elder in Christianity is a person valued for his wisdom who accordingly holds a particular position of responsibility in a Christian group. In some Christian traditions an elder is a clergy person who usually serves a local church or churches and who has been ordained to a ministry of Word,...
before him.
Schism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...
. Indeed, Irenaeus also noted that "Anicetus conceded to Polycarp in the Church the celebration of the Eucharist, by way of showing him respect"; Anicetus and Polycarp parted in peace leaving the question unsettled.
The Eschatological Character of the Quartodeciman Paschal celebration
In his study, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, the Lutheran scriptural scholar Joachim JeremiasJoachim Jeremias
Joachim Jeremias was a German Lutheran theologian, scholar of Near Eastern Studies and university professor for New Testament studies. He was abbot of Bursfelde, 1968–1971....
, made a compelling argument that the Quartodecimans preserved the original understanding and character of the Christian Easter/Passover celebration. He states that in Jewish tradition four major themes are associated with Passover, i.e., the creation of the world, the Akedah, or binding of Isaac, the redemption of Israel from Egypt
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
(both the passing over of the First-born during the Passover meal and Israel's passage through the Red Sea) and the coming of the Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
(announced by the Prophet Elijah. For Christians, the central events of the Paschal Mystery
Paschal Mystery
The Paschal Mystery refers to the suffering , death, Resurrection, and Glorification of Jesus Christ. People of Roman Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Christian faiths celebrate this mystery in the sacrament of the Eucharist. The center of the work the Father sent Jesus to do on earth is referred...
of Christ, i.e., his passion, death and resurrection, also are obviously associated with Passover. Thus it was inevitable that the very earliest Christians also expected the imminent return of Christ
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
to also occur during their Passover celebrations. Jeremias, notes that the Quartodecimans, began their Christian Passover celebrations by reading the appropriate readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, i.e., the twelve readings from the Hebrew Scriptures that still are read at the Easter Vigil in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Armenian traditions. At midnight, when Christ had not reappeared to inaugurate the great eschatological banquet, the Christians would celebrate the Paschal Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
in anticipation of that final act of the drama of the redemption of Christ. As this original eschatological fervor began to die down and as Christianity became an increasingly Gentile movement this original eschatological orientation of the Christian Passover celebration began to be lost and with the development of the practice of baptizing catechumens during the twelve readings in order for them to share the Eucharist for the first time with the Christian community at the conclusion of the Paschal Vigil, the baptismal themes came to dominate the celebrations of the Paschal Vigil, as they do again in those churches which have begun again to baptize its adult converts during the Easter Vigil. Major liturgical scholars such as Louis Bouyer
Louis Bouyer
Louis Bouyer was a French Lutheran minister who converted to Catholicism in 1939. During his religious career he was a scholar who was relied upon during the Second Vatican Council....
and Alexander Schmemann
Alexander Schmemann
Alexander Schmemann was a prominent 20th century Orthodox Christian priest, teacher, and writer.-Early life:...
concur with Jeremias' essential position and one has only to examine the Christian liturgical texts for Paschal Vigil to see evidence of this. E.g., the Eucharistic Preface for the Easter Vigil in the Roman, Lutheran and Anglican/Episcopalian traditions, which state: ". . . on this night when Christ became our Passover sacrifice" or the Eastern Orthodox Troparion for Great and Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which warns the Christian community "Behold the Bridegroom
Bridal theology
Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, bridal theology, also referred to as mystical marriage, is the New Testament portrayal of communion with Jesus as a marriage, and God's reign as a wedding banquet. This tradition in turn traces back to the Old Testament...
comes in the middle of the night and blessed are those servants he shall find awake . . ." In short, no one knows when Christ will appear at the end of time, but given other central events of redemption which occurred during Passover, the earliest Christians assumed that Christ would probably appear during the Paschal Eucharist, just as he first appeared to his original disciples
Disciple (Christianity)
In Christianity, the disciples were the students of Jesus during his ministry. While Jesus attracted a large following, the term disciple is commonly used to refer specifically to "the Twelve", an inner circle of men whose number perhaps represented the twelve tribes of Israel...
during their meal on the first Easter Sunday.
Late–second century controversy
The difference in practice was turned into an ecclesiastical controversy when bishop Victor of Rome attempted to declare the Nisan 14 practice heretical and excommunicate all who followed it. On this occasion Irenaeus and Polycrates of EphesusPolycrates of Ephesus
Polycrates of Ephesus was an Early Christian bishop who resided in Ephesus.Roberts and Donaldson noted that Polycrates "belonged to a family in which he was the eighth Christian bishop; and he presided over the church of Ephesus, in which the traditions of St. John were yet fresh in men's minds at...
wrote to Victor; Irenaeus reminding Victor of his predecessor Anicetus's more tolerant attitude, and Polycrates defending the Asian practice.
Polycrates (c. 190) emphatically notes that he was following the tradition passed down to him:
As for us, then, we scrupulously observe the exact day, neither adding nor taking away. For in Asia great luminaries have gone to their rest who will rise again on the day of the coming of the LordSecond ComingIn Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
.... These all kept the 14th day of the month as the beginning of the Paschal feast, in accordance with the Gospel .... Seven of my relatives were bishopBishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s, and I am the eighth, and my relatives always observed the day when the people put away the leaven.
According to Eusebius, a number of synods were convened to deal with the controversy, which he regarded as all ruling in support of Easter on Sunday.
Synods and conferences of bishops were convened, and without a dissenting voice, drew up a decree of the Church, in the form of letters addressed to Christians everywhere, that never on any day other than the Lord's DayLord's DayLord's Day is a Christian name for Sunday, the day of communal worship. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said in the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament to have been witnessed alive from the dead early on the first day of...
should the mystery of the Lord's resurrection from the dead be celebrated, and on that day alone we should observe the end of the Paschal fast.
A Palestinian synod, under the direction of bishops Narcissus and Theophilus, issued "a lengthy review of the tradition about the Easter festival [beginning Sunday eve] which had come down to them without a break from the apostles", concluding:
Endeavor also to send abroad copies of our epistle among all the churches, so that those who easily deceive their own souls may not be able to lay the blame on us. We would have you know, too, that in Alexandria also they observe the festival on the same day as ourselves. For the Paschal letters are sent from us to them, and from them to us — so that we observe the holy day in unison and together.
Victor's excommunication of the Asians was apparently rescinded, and the two sides reconciled as a result of the intervention of Irenaeus and other bishops:
Victor, head of the Roman church, attempted at one stroke to cut off from the common unity all the Asian dioceses .... But this was not to the taste of all the bishops: They replied with a request that he would turn his mind to the things that make for peace and for unity and love towards his neighbors. We still possess the words of these men, who very sternly rebuked Victor."
In the end, a uniform method of computing the date of Easter
Reform of the date of Easter
Reform of the date of Easter has been proposed several times because the current system for determining the date of Easter is seen as presenting two significant problems:...
was not formally addressed until the First Council of Nicaea
First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325...
in 325.
Legacy
It is not known how long the Nisan 14 practice lasted. The church historian Socrates knew of Quartodecimans who were deprived of their churches by John ChrysostomJohn Chrysostom
John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...
, and harassed in unspecified ways by Nestorius
Nestorius
Nestorius was Archbishop of Constantinople from 10 April 428 to 22 June 431.Drawing on his studies at the School of Antioch, his teachings, which included a rejection of the long-used title of Theotokos for the Virgin Mary, brought him into conflict with other prominent churchmen of the time,...
, both bishops of Constantinople. This indicates that the Nisan 14 practice, or a practice that was called by the same name, lingered into the 4th century.
Because this was the first-recorded Easter controversy
Easter controversy
The Easter controversy is a series of controversies about the proper date to celebrate the Christian holiday of Easter. To date, there are four distinct historical phases of the dispute and the dispute has yet to be resolved...
, it has had a strong influence on the minds of some subsequent generations. Wilfrid
Wilfrid
Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Gaul, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon...
, the 7th-century bishop of York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
in Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
, styled his opponents in the Easter controversy of his day "quartodecimans", though they celebrated Easter on Sunday. Many scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries thought that the dispute over Easter that was discussed at Nicaea was between the Nisan 14 practice and Sunday observance. According to one account: "A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the council at Nicaea in 325. At that time, the Syrians and Antiochenes were the solitary champions of the observance of the 14th day. The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and that 'none hereafter should follow the blindness of the Jews'". A new translation of Eusebius' Life of Constantine suggests that this view is no longer widely accepted; its view is that the dispute at Nicaea was between two schools of Sunday observance: those who followed the traditional practice of relying on Jewish informants to determine the lunar month in which Easter would fall, and those who wished to set it using Christian computations.
See also
- Easter controversyEaster controversyThe Easter controversy is a series of controversies about the proper date to celebrate the Christian holiday of Easter. To date, there are four distinct historical phases of the dispute and the dispute has yet to be resolved...
- Celtic ChristianityCeltic ChristianityCeltic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...
- Celtic RiteCeltic RiteThe term "Celtic Rite" is applied to the various liturgical rites used in Celtic Christianity in Great Britain, Ireland and Brittany, sporadically in Galicia and also in the monasteries founded by the Irish missions of St. Columbanus in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the early...
- Christian view of the Law
- Expounding of the LawExpounding of the LawThe Expounding of the Law is a highly structured part of the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament...
- New CovenantNew CovenantThe New Covenant is a concept originally derived from the Hebrew Bible. The term "New Covenant" is used in the Bible to refer to an epochal relationship of restoration and peace following a period of trial and judgment...
- Christian Torah-submission
External links
- http://www.kerux.com/documents/KeruxV4N1A1.aspMelito's Homily on Passover also known as Peri PaschaPeri PaschaPeri Pascha is a 2nd century document from Melito of Sardis that was assembled from surviving fragments in the 1930s, and translated into English in the 1940s....
] from Kerux: The Journal of Northwest Theological Seminary - Catholic Encyclopedia: Easter Controversy
- Sunday and the Quartodeciman
- The Paschal Canon of Anatolius of Alexandria