Easter controversy

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The controversy over the correct date for Easter began in Early Christianity; reforming the date remains a topic of debate today.

Quartodecimanism

See Main Article: Quartodecimanism

Some see this first phase as mainly concerned with whether Christians should follow Old Testament practices, see also Christian views on the Old Covenant and Judaizers. Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiii) wrote:

"A question of no small importance arose at that time [i.e. the time of Pope Victor I, about A.D. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia, according to an ancient tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon [of Nisan], on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch (epi tes tou soteriou Pascha heortes ἐπὶ ταῖς τοῦ σωτηρίου Πάσχα ἑορταῖς), contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they observed the practice, which from Apostolic tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of our Saviour."

Quartodecimanism, a word not used in Eusebius' account as he wrote in Greek, is derived from the Biblical Latin term for the practice of fixing the celebration of Passover for Christians on the fourteenth (Latin quarta decima) day of Nisan in the Old Testament's Hebrew Calendar (for example Leviticus 23:5). This was the original method of fixing the date of the Passover, which is to be a "perpetual ordinance".^[1] According to the Gospel of John (for example John 19:14), this was the day that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. (The Synoptic Gospels place the day on 15 Nisan, see also Chronology of Jesus.)

Irenaeus records the diversity of practice regarding Easter that had existed at least from the time of Pope Sixtus I (c. 120). He recorded Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, observing the fourteenth day of the moon, whatever day of the week that might be, following a tradition which he claimed to have derived from John the Apostle.

Around 195, Pope Victor I, attempted to excommunicate the Quartodecimans, turning the divergence of practice into a full-blown ecclesiastical controversy. According to Eusebius, synods were convened and letters were exchanged, but in the end, having overstepped his mark, Victor, the Bishop of Rome, was rebuked and had to back down.

Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiv) notes:

"But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor.

Among them was Irenæus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom."

First Council of Nicaea in 325

See Main Article: First Council of Nicaea#Separation of Easter computation from Jewish calendar

The First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) declared that Easter was always to be held on a Sunday, and was not to coincide with a particular phase of the moon, which might occur on any day of the week. However, a new dispute arose as to the determination of the Sunday itself, since Sundays can occur on any date of the month. Shortly before the Nicean Council, in 314, the Provincial Council of Arles in Gaul had maintained that the Lord's Pasch should be observed on the same day throughout the world and that each year the Bishop of Rome should send out letters setting the date of Easter.^[2]

The Syriac Christians always held their Easter festival on the Sunday after the Jews kept their Pesach. On the other hand, at Alexandria, and seemingly throughout the rest of the Roman Empire, the Christians calculated the time of Easter for themselves, paying no attention to the Jews. In this way the date of Easter as kept at Alexandria and Antioch did not always agree. The Jewish communities in some places, possibly including Antioch, used methods of fixing their month of Nisan that sometimes put the 14th day of Nisan before the spring equinox. The Alexandrians, on the other hand, accepted it as a first principle that the Sunday to be kept as Easter Day must necessarily occur after the equinox.

The Council of Nicaea ruled that all churches should follow a single rule for Easter, which should be computed independently of the Jewish calendar, as at Alexandria. However, it did not make any explicit ruling about the details of the computation, and it was several decades before the Alexandrine computations stabilized into their final form, and several centuries beyond that before they became normative throughout Christendom.

Synod of Whitby in 664

Modern calls for a reform of the date of Easter

After the Gregorian reform of the calendar by promulgation in 1582, the Catholic and Protestant churches of the West came to follow a different method of computing the date of Easter from the one that had been previously accepted. Eastern Orthodox churches continue the older practice of using the Julian calendar.

Several attempts have sought to achieve a common method for computing the date of Easter. In 1997 the World Council of Churches proposed a reform of the method of determining the date of Easter at a summit in Aleppo, Syria: Easter would be defined as the first Sunday following the first astronomical full moon following the astronomical vernal equinox, as determined from the meridian of Jerusalem. The reform would have been implemented starting in 2001, since in that year the Eastern and Western dates of Easter would coincide. This reform has not been implemented.

Notes

1. Exodus 12:14
2. Charles Jones, Bedae Opera de temporibus, (Cambridge, Mediaeval Academy of America), 1943, p. 25.
3. Bede, Church History of the English People, 2.2, in J.E. King, tr., Bede: Historical Works, Vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, Cambride, 1930, p. 205.
4. Columbanus, Letter to Pope Gregory, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume 13, p. 40.
5. David Ewing Duncan, "The Calendar", 1998, p.105.
6. McCarthy, Daniel, "Easter Principles and a Fifth-Century Lunar Cycle used in the British Isles", Journal for the History of Astronomy, 24, 204–224 (1993).
7. Cummian, Letter on the Easter Controversy, PL 87.969.
8. Bede, Church History, 3.25.
9. Bede, Church History, 5.22.
10. http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/easter.html

References

Jones, Charles W. Bedae Opera de Temporibus. Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1943. pp. 3–104.
Mosshammer, Alden A. The Easter Computus and the Origins of the Christian Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 0-19-954312-7.
Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí and Daniel McCarthy. "The 'Lost' Irish 84-year Easter Table Rediscovered", Peritia, 6–7(1987–88): 227–242.
Walsh, Maura and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín. Cummian's Letter De controversia paschali and the De ratione conputandi. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1988.
Wallis, Faith. Bede: The Reckoning of Time. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004. pp. xxxiv–lxiii.

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